15m Birthday

Today I'm doing a quick card share of a birthday card featuring Penny Black's Sweet And Cute stamp set and a sentiment from Avery Elle's Handwritten Notes. This particular card was a quick less-than-15-minutes creation I made when I caught a free moment during a busy work week.

Hopefully work will be less busy soon!
~Elle~

Stamp Trio: ME - Up and Away

It's time for another Stamp Trio Challenge!

Last time, I used Mama Elephant's Carried Away (see post here) to create 3 cards, and I also pulled out Mama Elephant's Up And Away to use for extra variety. Since I happened to stamp out some extra critters from Up and Away, I decided to go for a card trio with that set as well.

I started with a simple card using the first critter, which I turned into a fox, and the balloons. I colored the images with Copics and added some dots to the balloons as an extra texture. I think it makes them look like celebration balloons. For the rest of the card, I used peachy colors with a touch of black for contrast and a couple of teal enamel dots to tie in with the balloons.

For the second card, I used the critter again, but colored him a tawny brown color. I added the big balloon from Carried Away. I used a similar color scheme, replacing the bright aqua with a warm orange yellow. Like with the first card, I added some texture to the balloon by adding white dots with a gel pen. For embellishment, I added a few sequins in addition to the enamel dots.

Finally, the third card was a bit more complicated. I used the same warm orange/yellow as the previous card, but I replaced the critter with the bunny and the balloon with an umbrella. I also added a tiny bear from Carried Away. For the background, I die-cut a tag from watercolor paper and covered it with some minty watercolor. This created a nice and subtle texture. I added just sequins as embellishment.

For this particular card trio, I tried to build cards with unifying elements. So, there's a flow to the cards in terms of palettes, embellishments and the layout. Each card had something similar to the card before it, as well as an introduction of a new element. This left me with a small card set that goes well together, but isn't just one repeated design.

Bonus card- I had a few pieces left over, so I decided to try a completely different palette. It's much softer and more subtle than the rest, so it doesn't fit in as a set. But it does make a lovely stand-alone card.

Thanks for reading!
~Elle~

TGF- Let Your Light Shine

Today's card features a stamp from The Greeting Farm's Secret Stamp club. I paired it with some brilliant paper, sequins and a shining sentiment.

Thanks for reading,
~Elle~

P.S. Summer cold/flu/whatever is the worst. :(

Charmed- Thinking of You

A quick and simple card share today, using Mama Elephant's Charmed stamp and Simon Says Stamp Medium tag die (retired).

I'm feeling pretty ill at the moment - almost been going for a week now. Hopefully I'll be better soon, but I'll try to do some quick card shares as time allows over the next week.

Thanks for reading,
~Elle~

Color Monday: SOG Pixie Watercolor and Pencils

It's Monday, the beginning of the week, and it's time for another Color Monday card. With this card, I challenged myself to do something a little different - combine watercolor and my Prismacolor pencils to create a different look - maybe something inspired by a storybook.

I started by stamping the adorable pixie from Some Odd Girl's Pixie Dust stamp in light ink. I grabbed my Artist's Loft watercolors and quickly colored in the stamp. I used the cheap watercolor because I knew I would be enhancing it with colored pencils - so I really just needed something that had a good flat color range.

I also created a quick background and I let everything dry. Once the image was dry, I went in with my colored pencils and added some details. I mainly used the pencils for the outline and to add some light shading in a few spots.

I used a loaded paintbrush to add some splatters around the image and let everything dry completely (I actually left it overnight, just in case). I die-cut the image with a stitched rectangle die, and stamped the sentiment onto a banner die-cut. I chose to highlight the purple in the image, and grabbed a purple patterned paper. I adhered it to a standard A2 card base, then added the watercolor panel with foam squares.

Thanks for reading!
~Elle~

Card Trio: Carried Away

I'd like to share another card trio project with you today, this time using Mama Elephant's Carried Away stamp set. I have owned Mama Elephant's Up and Away stamp set for a while and really enjoyed using it, so when Carried Away was introduced as a companion set, I jumped at the chance and bought it straight away.

The first card I made uses one of the cute boys and his little bunny, along with an encouraging sentiment. I used the umbrella from Up and Away, and set the scene against a paper with fun patterned clouds. I embellished with some enamel dots and sequins.

For the second card, I kept the floating theme and added another boy from Carried Away with the balloons from Up and Away. I kept this card simpler by using a solid piece of paper and embellished with enamel dots and sequins.

For the last card, I went with a more grounded approach and gave the girl a happy mail letter instead. I used a lovely purple wood paper and just a couple of small enamel dots as embellishment.

Thanks for reading!
~Elle~

Stripes & Unicorn

Another busy day, so here's a quick card share featuring Sweet Stamp Shop's Unicorn stamp. This time, I went with a more neutral palette and added pops of color with embellishments.

Thanks for reading!
~Elle~

A Pinch of Thanks

Today's card is another quick-n-simple card featuring the adorable chef from Birdie Brown's Recipe For Happiness and the stitched die from Tag Builder Blueprints 3.

I paired the stamped image with a piece of patterned paper featuring a light wood, and added subtle color by wrapping some Washi tape around the front panel bottom. A few enamel dots and a painted wood veneer heart, and the simple card is complete.

Thanks for reading!
~Elle~

Bunny Tea Time x 3

One of the things I've been trying to challenge myself to do a lot more of lately is multiple cards with the same stamp set. Not only is this making good use of the set, but it helps me build up my card stash better - and leaves me with lots of cute cards I can gift to friends and family.

So, I'm bringing back my Stamp Trio Challenge and sharing 3 cards made with one stamp set.

Today's stamp set is Bunny Tea Time by Memory Box (you can find it here).

This is a smaller stamp set (which makes it very affordable), but it still has a great variety of images and sentiments to work with. I chose to stamp out my images in black hybrid ink, then color them in with Copics. I stamped and colored a lot more images than what I used for my three cards, which leaves me with cute images I can use in the future, as well.

For the first card, I used a lovely patterned paper from Shimelle's True Stories paper pad. I loved the brightly-colored cups, so I used them as inspiration for coloring the bunny. This card is a bit busier than usual, but I still like the bright colors.

For the second card, I went with a style that's a bit more subdued. I used My Favorite Things' Painted Prints: Citrus paper pad that had lovely painted blue stripes. To create some extra contrast, I added some orange/yellow and gold. For this card, I played with off-center placement, and I really like how it turned out. I also dug into my embellishment box and pulled out several different enamel dots and sequins.

The last card is probably my favorite. I used another paper from Painted Prints: Citrus, and I added a Project Life journaling card I'd matted with some cardstock. I set the card on an angle, then added a chipboard frame and the bunny + sentiment. I liked how the elements echoed off of each other (polka dot background/polka dot frame) even though nothing matched up perfectly or came from a single paper line.



I hope you enjoyed seeing Bunny Tea Time in use and that you're inspired to dig out a stamp set yourself and get creative!
~Elle~

Unicorn Castle

Today feels like a cute unicorn kind of day, so I'm sharing a unicorn card. I've used two stamp sets from Sweet Stamp Shop -- Royal Wish and Unicorn. Both of them are smaller and more affordable sets, and they work perfectly together.

I wanted to have a cute starry background, so I cut  a star sheet from Avery Elle's Everyday Collection 6x6 paper pad (if you don't have this paper pad, I really recommend getting it!). I matted it with a piece of light blue cardstock and adhered to a top-folding A2 base (4¼x5½").

For this card, I wanted to make a little scene, so I took out Lawn Fawn's Puffy Clouds Border die and die cut some white cardstock an dotty vellum cardstock. I arranged the layers together and adhered them to the bottom of my prepped card base.

I colored the castle and the unicorn with Copics, then fussy-cut them out with scissors. I adhered them to the card, using foam squares. I did the same with the sentiment.

As a last touch, I added 3 small enamel dots to tie in the bright colors.

Thanks for reading!
~Elle~