Lets get this party started!

Every year at this time my heart gets just so happy - there is actually a World Card Making Day, a day for something that I enjoy so much.  

 Of course, I wanted to sit down ahead of time and create a couple cards to share.  I was playing with watercoloring techniques this week and created the background to this card.  I used two colors of watercolor paints.  The paint comes in little tubes, I squeezed out a tiny amount on a piece of acetate then used my waterbrush to dilute that paint and pick up some.  I just painted simple lines on my watercolor paper, spritzed it with water to help the inks run a little more and then walked away to let it dry.  I always love the surprise that comes as the inks dry on the paper.   I used a Happy Birthday stamp from Wplus9 Designs.  I seem to not make many birthday cards so I thought that was a good theme for this card.  

 The big flower is a stamp from PaperTrey, Inc.  I stamped it with black ink on white watercolor paper and then added color with three shades of Distress Stain.  I love how the Distress Stains are so easy to use and give a watercolor look.  I did add a few sprays of Heidi Swapp Gold Color Shine.  

 Be sure to check out the tons of fun planned for World Card Making Day.  You can also find lots of fun posts on Instagram.  So many companies are offering specials.

 Another card I wanted to share uses the Fusion Challenge for my inspiration.  I didn't use the colors in the challenge, but I did use the sketch and I also stayed with a big flower, mine is just black and white with some great bright green.  The background was created with a The Crafter's Workshop stencil. I love stencils and I love theirs.  I just gave it a spray with some black spray. 

 I gave that background some splotches of green Heidi Swapp Color Shine.  My flower is a stamp from PaperTrey, Inc.  I kept the coloring extremely simple so I could stay with my black and white color combination.  Can you see that little bit of neat sparkle?  I used a Wink of Stella pen to outline parts of the flower.  Some green Liquid Pearls finished it off along with a die cut word from Clearly Besotted.  

Here is the Fusion challenge.

This also fits the Addicted to CAS Stencil challenge.

Thanks for visiting and I sure hope you get to do some paper crafting today.

Linda (lbpost)

Hearts and Butterflies

First off, I wanted to play along with The Play Date Cafe challenge.

 I picked up my new little stamp set from PaperTrey, Inc.  The set includes the cutest little hearts plus that adorable little sentiment.

 I used some great stamp pads from Clearsnap that helped me use that great color scheme.

 Here is that Play Date Cafe combo.

 Next off, I used the current A Blog Named Hero challenge to use kraft.

 I knew I wanted to use one of my favorite stamp pads on my card. I pulled out a few Hero Arts stamps for my card.

 I love the color of the Clearsnap Fluid Chalk Creamy Brown, I think it looks like kraft.  The other brown for the woodgrain and the writing stamp is Chestnut Roan Fluid chalk. 
Gotta share a couple photos...

 We scheduled a stop at a water play park we had heard about. What a super fun outing on a HOT day.

Different fountains went off at different times, you can tell this was FUN!

Thanks for visiting, Linda (lbpost)