A man with a plan

This post is going to focus on the plan I made to challenge myself. I asked a few friends and family what kind of cards they would like to see more of and one of the answers I got back was that cards for guys. This seems to be a weak point for me and I wanted to make a plan to work on manly cards. So, here are some that I came up with I would really like some feed back from you the viewer what you like and what other things that would good to try too.

(This is more of a baby boy card)

Some of these are one layer wonders and some have layers and embossing. So, that was plan to for the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge to work on my skills for making guy cards now I have to decide which one that I want to post for the challenge, oh man. Hope you enjoyed and please remember to leave me some feedback. Thanks

Masculine rusty truck card

Today's card has a lot of die cutting for the Simon Says Stamp Work It Wednesaday Challenge and their die cutting theme. I started by doing some ink smooshing of distress ink on water color paper to create the look of an old truck that the paint had peeled off and it was starting to rust. I used Pumice stone, Iced spruce, and Rusty hinge. While that was drying die cut my wheels and tires and the window. To make the window look like glass the used a little bit of blue distress ink that was left on the blending tool. (Not really sure which one it was.) Then I added liquid glass over the top to give it shine like glass.

I  added the red balloon in the back of the truck for an element of fun.  The clouds were added with an ink blending tool, some tumbled glass distress ink and a cloud that was free handed out of some scrap paper.  Guy cards are some of the harder cards to do and I am going to challenge myself to come up with some more guy cards soon. This card is for a family friend in fact he is the person that introduced my husband to me. Him and my husband are always talking trucks so this was very fitting. I even found a sticker with a vintage V8 on it for the envelope.  Hope you enjoyed this card and the rest of your day.

"If tea cups could talk..." - Art Journal

My newest die cut that I have is my first steel rule die (I believe its is considered a steel rule die). The Tim Holtz Tea Time die; I have been eyeing this die since it came out and I finally purchased it. Part of the reason I held back from buying it was that I have a Cuttlebug machine and I did not want to have to buy a new Sizzix machine just so I could use this die. But I discovered through a You Tube video that I found on Pintrest that you can indeed use this type of die in a Cuttlebug. All you have to do is use the B plate and card stock with this die to cut out the tea cups. 

When I got this I had so much fun just cutting out the tea cup, saucer, and tea bag tag that I had to cut out more than one and play with different techniques on them. In this stack of cups I did the orange cup first. I used gelatos on it. I used two different oranges and blended it with an ink dauber (thanks, Nina and the Waffle Flower blog is where I learned how to do that) and then I shaded the edges with a red. After that I put stencil over it and removed the color a little with a baby wipe to create the dots. The blue cup was made with a light and dark blue gelato blending like the orange cup and then adding texture paste over it with the doily stencil (Tim Holtz again). The green saucer followed that same idea with the gelatos. The cup with the flower and the greenery were done using distress inks. The cup on the bottom of the stack was stamped lightly with cracked pistachio using the distress marker on the stamp then stamping and going over the stamped image with the marker to define the outline and veins. I added some antique linen with a water brush to add some shadow and age to the cup since these cups have chips and wear on them. The floral cup was painted with the antique linen and water brush first then stamped over with distress inks once it was dry.

I am entering this in the Work It Wednesday Challenge  on the Simon Says Stamp blog, their challenge theme is die cuts. I do believe that I had enjoyed myself with die cutting when I made this art journal layout. I hope that you like my project and that you consider coming back and visiting my blog again in the future. Have a wonderful day and be blessed. 

Colored pencil on black - Sparkle and Shine

This week the challenge on Simon Say Stamp Wednesday challenge blog is Sparkle and Shine. I wanted to see how colored pencil would do on black card stock with this card, I have seen it on kraft card stock before and thought I would give this a try.

(You will have to excuse my unedited photo, I couldn't  get it  work so I put it on as is. )

I stamped some succulents as flowers and greenery for my card in white heat embossing and then colored them with my colored pencil. After that I stamped my sentiment and popped it up on a circle of 

fun foam and matted it with Juniper card stock and adhered it to a white card base. For my finishing touches I have gold, yellow, and moonshine sequins.

Supplies: 

110lbs white card base

Black card stock (CTMH)

Juniper card stock (CTMH)

Hero Arts Stamp Your Own Succulents  Stamp

Lawn Fawn Stitched circle

Mama Elephant stitched frame

WPlus 9 Hand Lettered Thanks

Prismacolor  colored pencils

Sequins

White fun foam

Hero Arts white embossing powder

MFT Summer School - Primary colors

Summer school is in session again. We have been learning about colors and the color wheel in the latest sessions of summer school over at My Favorite Things blog. You learn in grade school that there are three colors that you have to have to mix and make other colors. Those are your primary colors. 

This simple water colored card today was made with the three primary colors. But in this case I used distress inks in Mermaid Lagoon, Abandon Coral, and Squeezed Lemonade. I embossed the balloons in white and wet the panel and dropped in my colors and let them blend and mix a bit. 

Then I trimmed my panel to size to go on a 3.5x 5 card and popped it up on fun foam and mounted it on Dove grey card stock. Hope you enjoyed my home work? 

Supplies:

Dove grey card stock WPlus9

140 lbs water color paper

2mm White Fun Foam

Lawn Fawn Year four stamp (balloon)

SSS Birthday messages (sentiment)

Distress Inks: Mermaid Lagoon, Abandon Coral, and Squeezed Lemonade

VersaFine Black Onyx ink 

Hero Arts white embossing powder

Hero Arts Ultra fine clear embossing powder

SSS moonshine sequins

Colored pencil on kraft - Simon Says shape challenge

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge  is "Get in Shape" as I don't have very many shape dies that are large enough to make a shaped card I went with a scalloped edge shape for my card today. It was a little bit of a challenge to get my 110 lb white card base through my cuttlebug to make this card but I did. We were suppose to try and use Lawn Fawn products too.  For all of my embossing I used Lawn Fawn stamps. 

Debbie Hughes had a card about week or so on her blog with color pencil on kraft card stock that also inspired my card. I masked off the area for my sentiment with some post it tape and stamped and heat embossed flowers and leaves from the Flutter By stamp. Then I colored them and die cut the stitched panel from Mama Elephant. Then I pulled off the masking tape and embossed the "Happy" with gold Hero Arts embossing powder. Then I die cut the Birthday from some white card stock and a Simon Says Stamp Happy Birthday die.  

So, this is my twist on the "Get In Shape" challenge, I hope that you enjoyed my work and that you come and visit my blog again soon to see what else I have created. 

This is where I was last night. My first ever pro baseball game. It was exciting and fun. I was blessed with some free tickets for donating blood at Community blood drive. It's kinda nice being able to donate blood to help some one else and receive an unexpected blessing in return.

Thanks - Happy Mail Animals

I got the Abandon Coral distress color set this week in the mail.  When you get new stuff you just have to play with it, you got to love mail that contains new supplies.  The thanks was die cut from a watercolor panel that was stained with abandon coral, mermaid lagoon, and cracked pistachio stain. The animals were stamped from the Happy Mail stamp set from Wplus 9, and colored with Copic markers. I have used the bear and the birds from the Happy Mail set but I hadn't really used the squirrels or rabbits yet on a project. 

I mounted it on a Dove grey card stock base and trimmed it with Coral lawn fawn trim. The white words on the black are from the Wplus 9 hand lettered Thanks. The challenge at Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge blog is things inspired by the letter "I" this card was inspired by the letter "I" for inlay. The stained piece was inlaid into the white panel with the forest animals. 

Hope you enjoyed my card and leave me some comments please. Thanks!