Magical Life

Nothing beats a magical card, especially when things are uncertain.

Thanks for reading!
~Elle~

Sending Christmas Cheer

We are far from Christmas, but I thought I would get a little head start and make a card here and there for my stash. Hopefully, this will make the holiday season less demanding/stressful.

Thanks for reading!
~Elle~

Lucky Star

With how busy life is in the summer, I am finding myself with very little time to get crafty. I still feel that creative itch to make a card or twenty, but I only have brief moments to put things together. While I've got a few work-in-progress cards on my crafty desk, I also need to make sure I've got a few ready-to-go sets just in case.

This very simple card uses a die and a gorgeous font sentiment stamp. I've been trying to mix and match my supplies lately, and I really like how much it expands the usefulness of my stash.

Thanks for reading!
~Elle~

Woodland Hello

For quite some time, I've been wanting a forest/flower/tree cutout die to use with some scenes. I think it creates such a lovely look and it's going to work perfectly with the many woodland creature stamps I own. One of the things that made me hesitate, though, was the size. The window needed to be big enough to show a background and to tuck details under, but not so big to take up the complete card front.

I finally settled on this die from Memory Box, and I'm so pleased with it! I think the size is perfect and the detail is great without being too overwhelming. I'm excited to see all the lovely ways I'll be using it in the months to come.

Thanks for reading!
~Elle~

Curious Green

I don't use green very often- particularly this medium shade of green. I guess it's partly because I haven't made too many flower cards lately. I thought it's about time to try to use up some of those green tones sitting in my stash, so I made a quick card with a curious little raccoon.

Thanks for reading,
~Elle~

Pink and Blue Day

Today's card is yet another card that was a bit challenging to photograph as it features very soft and subtle colors. Adding a simple doily gave this card a precious felling and I think it would be perfect for a baby card. I'll have to play around with these elements again.

Thanks for taking a look!
~Elle~

Curious Day

I found a vellum panel I'd cut out for a card that never quite made it onto a card, so I decided to use it for today's creation. One of the challenging parts of using vellum on cards is adhering them, so I had to use a design that covered at least a part of the front panel. I chose a simple rectangle and added a scalloped element to the bottom. Overall it's a bit different from what I was thinking originally, but I do like the layered aspect.

Thanks for reading.
~Elle~

Curious Thanks

This card was really hard to photograph, as there are parts of it that are very subtle - such as the little heart border and the sentiment. Nonetheless, it turned out sweet and I'm happy with the overall feeling of the card.

Thanks for taking a look!
~Elle~

Roses friend

WPlus9 - Coming Up Roses stamp, Mama Elephant - Friend Script die

You may recall me gushing about how much I loved this card, so I thought I'd try to recreate that grey and pink color combination on a new card. I think I did pretty well, but I'll definitely have to play with the color combo again.

Thanks for reading!
~Elle~

Keeping it Simple: Full Heart

As you might know, I like to challenge myself to make something different. For today's card, I decided to try and make something without using any coloring - no Copics, no watercolors, no pencils. Just a simple 2-color palette and some interesting die-cut pieces.

The sentiment is from Mama Elephant's Many Thanks stamp set, and it's certainly a unique way to say thank you. I paired it with a die-cut heart and made a panel with WPlus9's Sunshine Layers die. I popped up a few pieces on foam tape and adhered the rest flat. I set everything against a simple polka-dot patterned paper and a light pink card base.

Thanks for reading!
~Elle~

Stash Kit - Sea and Cats

Today, I'm sharing the stamps that I'm using in my Sea and Cats stash kit (read about my stash kit project here). I've named this kit Sea and Cats because it includes some nautical elements and a kitty stamp set. I don't think I'll be combining the two ideas necessarily (though the idea of a seafaring kitten does sound fun), but I will be using elements from all sets to create birthday cards.

Here are the stamps that I'll be using in this kit:

Lawn Fawn Lovable Legends

My Favorite Things - Cat-itude

WPlus9 Dockside (large set from 2013, now retired)

Papertrey Ink - Keep It Simple: Birthday II Mini Stamp Set

I have also selected various patterned papers from my stash, with a combination of darker (muted) blues/teals/greens and a few bright pieces for the kitten cards.

Lastly, I'm using up some enamel dots:

Thanks for reading!

~Elle~

Stash Kit: January 2017

Since it's a new year, I thought I'd start with a fresh new kit for January -- and take the opportunity to incorporate some of the recently-purchased supplies I got in the holiday sales. I've added extra stamps for January, as I intend to carry some of them over to the months that follow.

As with previous months, I will be adding a variety of cardstock, dies and coloring mediums such as Copics, Prismacolor pencils or watercolor. 

Without further ado...

Little Darlings - Rainy Night

Reverse Confetti - Lift Me Up

Pinkfresh Studio - Happy Days

Ellen Hutson LLC - All Inside

Neat & Tangled - Giving Tree

Simon Says Stamp - What's Brewing

WPlus9 - Garden Buddies

Pinkfresh Studio - Felicity 6x6

Pinkfresh Studio - Felicity Word Stickers

Webster's Pages - #Happy phrase stickers

Gossamer Blue - Gramercy Road enamel dots

Thanks for reading!
~Elle~

Fall Birthday

One of the card techniques I truly admire is a multi-layer clean card. It's the kind of card you may see Kay Miller execute with perfection, but my own attempts are a lot less grand. I'm not sure what it is, really, but I feel like my tries end up either too busy or not busy enough - the sweet spot of just right is so elusive!

Skills don't get good by just wishing we could do them - we get better with practice. So, I decided to throw caution to the wind and practice some layered cards. Since we're finally in the season of autumn, I thought I'd do an autumn birthday card.

I used My Favorite Things' Fall Folliage stamp (now retired) as it had some lovely leaves, acorns and branches that I could just stamp. I didn't want to focus on coloring, just color itself. 

 I started with the bright warm orange-yellow, using WPlus9's Wild Mango ink. I stamped a couple of leaves, then moved onto Simon Says Stamp's Khaki ink. For the acorn and dark branch, I used Lawn Fawn's Walnut ink - I loved the crisp edges and the even coverage. Lastly, I added a touch of red with WPlus9's Gala Red ink.

Once everything was stamped and dry, I fussy-cut the leaves and layered them together in a bundle. I adhered some with regular adhesive and used foam tape for other parts. I added the whole piece onto a rounded top die-cut, then layered it over another die-cut. Lastly, I used Gina K.'s Sweet Corn cardstock as my card base.

I added a simple sentiment on top and embellished with a few pearls and enamel dots.
Thanks for reading!
~Elle~

Dream Big

Since I mentioned WPlus9 in my last post, I thought I'd share a card created with some goodies from WPlus9. One of the things I appreciate about my collection of goodies from WPlus9 is that they're all very unique and different, which I really appreciate. Sometimes I want to take a step back from my usual familiar style and it's awesome to have a collection of supplies that give me a different look while still matching up with my basics like cardstock and patterned paper.

For my card, I used Dream Believer - which is a stamp set I had my eye on for a while. It's a little more expensive than the usual set, but it's also quite a bit larger and offering a lot more stamps. Aside from a ton of elements for building a dream-catcher, there are several sentiments in a scripty font that will be useful for quite a few future cards.

I also chose to go with WPlus9 inks - Warm Wool, Hayride, Miami Spice and Gala Apple. For embellishment, I reached in my sequins storage and grabbed a few sequins that matched up in color - along with the enamel dots, of course.

Thanks for reading!
~Elle~

Hello Yellow

Copics: W2. W4, W6, W8, R32, Y11, Y15, Y35, Y38, YR14

 I'm sharing a card today featuring WPlus9's Unforgettable stamp set and some no-line Copic coloring.

I started by stamping the elephant in medium grey dye ink. Now, normally, you wouldn't use dye ink for Copic coloring because it would bleed. But that turned out to be perfect for my technique, because it turned the ink practically invisible. If you're interested, Dawn has a guest video on this technique that shows it off perfectly.

I used a similar technique with the balloon and then I used the coordinating dies to cut out my images. For the background, I went with a layer of striped patterned paper, a plain white panel and a cute chipboard frame. Since the frame had a sentiment, I didn't think it needed anything else.

Thanks for reading!
~Elle~

Watercolor Birthday

 

 

As you can probably tell by my card line-up, I love coloring and I reach for my Copics on pretty much a daily basis. I'm comfortable with them and I can get really cool results - like the elephant from WPlus9's Unforgettable set that you spy on my card. But I really want to get better at other forms of coloring - like with my Prismacolor pencils or with one of the many forms of watercolor I've got sitting in my stash.

Watercolor's kind of scary, though. It's gorgeously fluid and dreamy, but you don't have that level of control you get with Copics. This is both good as it creates very unique pieces that engage my creativity, and bad, as it takes a lot of coaxing to get myself to try it.

In thinking about it, I realized that it was unfair to compare my brief dip into watercolor with years-worth of experience with Copics. I'm sure my early Copic attempts were just as clumsy and odd as my early watercolor attempts. And, at the end of it, I just need practice.

So, I pulled out my Peerless watercolors and dove into making a background. I used a combination of minty teal and purple, and I just randomly plopped color over a wet page. It was far from perfect and I think I did it slightly wrong. But the end result is an interesting background I could use for a simple card.

I paired the background with the elephant from WPlus9 that I'd Copic-colored and a sentiment strip from the same set. To embellish, I stamped a few of the stars from the same set and added some enamel dots and heart.

Thanks for reading!

~Elle~

Holiday Hugs

As you may have noticed, I did not post anything last week. I was away on vacation, visiting family for Thanksgiving and I spent all of my time thoroughly enjoying family activities and being away from my computer. I hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving (if you celebrate) or a lovely week (if you don't)!

Today's card is another one in my series of Christmas cards for the year. This time, I'm featuring a super cute stamp set from WPlus9 called Holiday Hugs. The image in this set is so sweet with a fabulous style, and the sentiment matches just perfectly.

I decided to go for a combination of geometric (stripes) and random (splatters) for my background. I knocked things up a notch by adding some gold glitter cardstock and a few enamel dots.

For the main image, I colored the girl in shades of blue-green and black, keeping her hat and gloves white. In contrast, I used dusty pinks to shade the bear, which brought a lot of diversity to the colors and tied in with the bright red scarf.

Thanks for reading!
~Elle~

Weekly Round-Up (OHC) 2

It is Saturday, and it's time for another weekly round-up of the cards I created for my OHC challenge!

As you may have noticed, I did not post too many cards this week. In part, it was because the majority of my cards were OHC and I wanted to save them for my round-up. The rest was split between having some guest designer projects (really awesome things coming from Some Odd Girl!) and work keeping me very busy. I've managed to (barely) find enough time for my daily creative hour, but not enough to take photos and make fun posts about it.

The next couple of weeks are likely to be the same, but as the OHC to-make list starts to dwindle, I anticipate a lot more cards being shared.

Now, onto the cards~

OHC 17 - Dream

 The Greeting Farm- Cuddly Thanks, Clearly Besotted- Say It In Style, Copics

OHC 85 - Mint

Mama Elephant- Ella and Friends, Mama Elephant- Photobomb (sentiment), My Mind's Eye On Trend 6x6 paper, Copics

Note: The patterned paper is mint, even though it doesn't fully look like it in the picture.

OHC 34 - Summer

Stamping Bella- IDA Lulu (retired), Prismacolor pencils, Papertrey Ink Wet Paint Cuts Die (hello)

OHC 96 - Thanks

Simon Says Stamp- Sailing (July 2015 Card Kit), My Favorite Things Blueprints 1 die, Copics

OHC 14 - Alone

WPlus9- Happy Mail, Copics

OHC 21 - Velocity

Avery Elle- Roll With It (retired?), Lawn Fawn- Let's Polka flair

OHC 80- Country

Dare 2B Artzy- Lemonade, Pink Paisley- Citrus Bliss 6x6, Copics

OHC 67 - Vintage

Today, I'm sharing another card for my One Hundred Cards challenge (read more about it here). I'm using a super cute set from WPlus9 called Pick of the Litter. This set is smaller (and more affordable!), and it features sweet vintage-style images.

I started by stamping the girl and the kitten in brown ink onto some Copic marker paper. I used brown because it's softer and gives a slightly faded look. I colored my images as I usually do, using the B41 and B45 for the dress because they were a little less bright than my other blues. I trimmed the image down to a small size. I used the chisel tip of a YR82 (Mellow Peach) for the background. I simply covered the whole background, then switched to E84 to add in some subtle lines.

Then came the fun part! Making the image look older. I grabbed my trusty mini-blending tool and the Antique Linen distress ink, and went over any parts of the image that were very pale/white -- the girl's stockings, kitten, and a bit on her arms and face. I then blended in just a bit of that same antique linen ink into her dress - taking care with this one so it just looked aged, rather than turning her dress green.

I then switched to Vintage Photo and deepened the edges of the image.

I found some fun papers in my paper stash that weren't labeled vintage, but I think they still worked. The small flower print was a very popular motif in vintage, so a small pretty print from a card kit was perfect. And just to add a bit of contrast, I layered the image panel with some striped black and white paper.

As a last touch, I adhered a piece of flair from a Studio Calico's Darling Deer flair pack I found in my stash.

Thanks so much for reading!
~Elle~

OHC - 18 - Purple

Today's card is another card in the One Hundred Cards challenge (read more about the challenge here). When I pulled the theme "Purple", I knew I wanted to make something soft and airy, while at the same time keeping it from becoming too monotone.

I used WPus9's Fanciful Feathers, which is a lovely feather set you might be familiar with from this card. For the feathers, I used two of WPlus9 dye inks - Cockleshell and Bloomsberry. I also used a sugarplum note-card from Avery Elle -- these note-cards are quickly becoming my favorite go-to for card bases.

I paired this card with  piece of warm gray polkadot paper. I chose to go with a warm gray background for two reasons. The first is because it's a great neutral that really makes the soft purples of the feathers pop. And the second is because I brought in some gold embossing to one of the feathers, and the warmth of the gray really tied in. I blended in some purple distress ink around the edges to add softness.

And that's pretty much it for this card. I kept it super simple, but the distressed edges and gold embossing add a little something special.

Thanks for reading!
~Elle~