CardMaker Magazine and May Arts Blog Hop

The CardMaker Magazine blog team and May Arts Ribbon team are combining to host a blog hop.  It's a great way to share some fun cards and to feature all of the fun that is involved with May Arts ribbons.  If you are following the hop,  you might have come here from Latrice Murphy's blog.

Find all of the details on either the CardMaker Magazine blog or the May Arts Ribbon blog because there are prizes to be won.

 I started out with a simple background by embossing a design with a Lil' Inker cover up die into a piece of watercolor paper.  

 Next, to let a couple of the ribbons shine that I was given to play with, I tied a bow that included the pink ribbon and the cute white lace ribbon.  The sentiment is a die from Lawn Fawn cut from red glitter paper.  

 I just had to create another card because I completely fell in love with this banner ribbon.  Let me tell you this stuff is genius.  It is SELF ADHESIVE!!!! In no time at all you have it attached to your card or project.  

The background is another embossed piece by using a dot embossing folder.  It is finished off with some snowflake dies, the biggest one is from Simon Says Stamp.  

From my blog hop on over to Lori Williams blog.

Thanks for visiting, Linda (lbpost)

Snowflake time

Well, we won't really get any snowflakes where I live but I sure love using snowflakes for winter anyway.

I first of all I used a snowflake plate from Lil' Inker and embossed the entire piece using watercolor paper.  Next I took one of my Zig Clear Color pens and added some color.  I then used a watercolor brush to "paint" each embossed snowflake.  I loved the resulting soft look.  The sentiment from Simon Says Stamp was stamped on vellum.  I like that I could add the sentiment is a subtle way.  

 I also cut out snowflakes from this set of Lil' Inker dies, I love the stitching marks that are in the dies.  I sprayed the cut out snowflakes with Brushed Pewter Distress Spray.  I placed the die cut snowflakes over some of the embossed snowflakes.  

 The card fits the Inkspirational FLAKE challenge.

 The colors fit the Sunday Stamps challenge.

Plus it fits the Simon Says Wednesday Die Cut challenge.
Thanks for visiting, Linda (lbpost)

A different watercolor look

I took a workshop using the Zig Clean Color Real Brush and so I needed to give them a try.  Using the CAS(e) this Sketch was good inspiration.

 The sketch is so simple and I thought this set of Paper Smooches stamps was good for the pens and the sketch. 

 There wasn't much to add color to but it was fun.  The keep with the sketch I added dots to the card with a Tim Holtz stencil and some Distress Stain.  I couldn't leave all of that white space so I added some design with an embossing folder.  

Here is the CAS(e) this Sketch.

Thanks for visiting, Linda (lbpost)

Puppy Dog Friends

I found a few online challenges I wanted to play along with so here is my resulting card. 

 I thought the color combination at the Color Throwdown was pretty fun and then I found that the Happy Little Stampers were having a spray or mist challenge.  Those were combined with the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge about Friends.  Where else would I turn to work with that challenge but these super cute little doggy stamps and dies from Reverse Confetti.  

 I reached for my Heidi Swapp Color Shine in Citron, it seemed just right for the color challenge.  I sprayed it on a stencil but it is pretty hard to see the resulting design since I then decided to emboss the finished background with a tiny square die from Tessler Crafts.  I added the gray color to the background and the tan color to the doggies with Distress Stains.  I also stamped the heart with a Distress Ink.  My coloring on the dogs is messy because I just tapped the color on with the tops of the dabber on the Stains.  I love how fast it is to color an image that way.  

 Here is the Simon Says Wednesday Challenge about Friends. 

 Here is the Happy Little Stampers Sprays or Mists challenge.

And here is the Color Throwdown challenge.
Thanks for visiting, Linda (lbpost)

Your Special Day

I wanted to play along with the first sketch challenge at MFT Card Challenge (My Favorite Things) so here is my card.

 It of course meant a really good excuse to pull out some of my My Favorite Things toys.  First off, I colored a piece of watercolor paper with some Distress Stains and then left that to dry.  Next I used this background die and embossed the pattern into the colored paper.  

 I love the irregular coloring with the watercolor look.  Next I used a piece of watercolor paper that I had previously colored with some purple shades of Distress Stain and cut the butterfly.  That banner is a stamp with a matching die. I love that the banners in this set stamp black.  They really stand out as a neat accent.  I used Liquid Pearls to add some little bit of glam to the embossed background.

 Here is the MFT sketch.

This also fits the Friday Mashup challenge to use shapes.  I love the shapes in the embossed background.

This also fits the Happy Little Stampers challenge.

Thanks for visiting, Linda (lbpost)

AAA Cards challenge - Shaker cards

The AAA Cards challenge for this week is to create a shaker style card.

 This is so not a technique that I usually try, but can I say I had fun! Hope you will play along too. Plus there is a very nice prize available.

 For my card, I went with a brand new set of dies from Spellbinders.  When I saw these cute clouds and the sun dies, I knew I had to have them.  Not to mention there is a piece that allows you to emboss a design or not.  The sentiment is from Printworks.

 I knew that a cut out cloud would be the perfect start to my shaker card.  I only wish I had put more little sequins in it, but that is part of the learning as you go kind of thing.

 Notice that I also just embossed one of the clouds with the little pattern piece in it.  

And for a photo...

We visited a park this week with the best Koi pond.  I could take tons of pictures of these beauties.

Thanks for visiting, Linda (lbpost)

Watercoloring

I have started playing around with watercolor techniques and "I CAN'T STOP"!!! Don't want to either!

 I sat down just to play with the Colour Me Monochromatic challenge.  My entire card base uses watercolor paper. See below for my most recent find that I LOVE! The first thing I did was to emboss the front of the card with a die cut from My Favorite Things.  I just used an embossing pad so that it would emboss and not cut. I sprayed the front with water and started adding some color along the bottom portion of the card front with some Distress Stain in Broken China and Distress Stamp pad in Peacock Feathers.  I kept adding water because I wanted this to move up the card with more color at the bottom. 

 While this ink was puddled because of all of the water, I stamped the flower stamp into the water and ink mixture and started stamping it randomly on the front of the card.  The result is faint images in the same blues. I also splattered some Heidi Swapp gold spray. 

 Next I stamped two flowers using a set of stamps from Altenew.  WOW are these layered flowers fun. On their web site they offer a cheat sheet of how to use the layers and that sure helped. The sentiment is from Mama Elephant. 

 Here is the Colour Me challenge.

Here is my new find in Watercolor paper. I picked mine up at Michaels.  The sheets in this pad are 9 1/2" x 11" so I can cut an entire card from one sheet. This is heavier then the Tim Holtz watercolor paper that I do love but this heavier paper seem to warp less and I like that I can cut the size I want.

Thanks for visiting, Linda (lbpost)

New Challenge Blog!!!

This makes me so happy, a new challenge blog!

 I, of course, hurried to play along with AAA Cards.  The challenge this week is to use two layers and glitter.  I went right to my glitter cardstock stash and cut the leaf sprig using a Paper Smooches die.  

 This cute notebook shape is also a die from Paper Smooches.  I cut it from a piece of paper that I had played with color on for a watercolor look.  

Here is the AAA challenge.

I also wanted to enter this card to the Paper Smooches Sparks Anything Goes challenge.

Thanks for visiting, Linda (lbpost)

Easter week part 3

One fun thing about the card that I am sharing today is that it doesn't really have to only be for Easter.   Just saying "hi" to someone works here. 

 Love the sunny yellow and this adorable little chick from the same Reverse Confetti Spring set that I have been using for the last few days cards.

I embossed a piece of white cardstock and then cut out the tag which is also from Reverse Confetti.  Once that was cut, I punched out a circle for my "window".  The paper behind the chick was colored with ink from a stencil.  I added the tag with foam tape for some dimension.

This card from I'm in Haven's blog was my inspiration, fun stuff!

Thanks for visiting, Linda (lbpost)

Distress Inks and a Watercolor look

For the current Lawnscaping challenge you are supposed to try a new technique. I so love techniques and playing around with them that it was hard for me to think of something I had not tried.  

 I did manage to come up with something a little bit different for my resulting card.  I purchased a set of four mini Distress Stains.  I wanted to see what would happen if I pressed each pad onto a piece of watercolor paper, spritzing it with water.  I ended up creating a colorful border.  I loved the way the colors ran together and ran out on this great paper.  

 I could see it being the perfect piece to stamp an image onto it.  I stamped two leaf sprigs from Lawn Fawn.  I also stamped the little flower and cut that out and added a little sentiment.  I added it to a card base that has some embossing on the top and the bottom edge.  I also added on a few sequins that are the exact same color as the card. 

Here is the Lawnscaping challenge.
Thanks for visiting, Linda (lbpost)

Some Paper Smooches Fun!

I picked the Paper Smooches Anything Goes challenge for this week to help me create my card! Great excuse to play with stamps. 

 I picked my color combo based on the Color Throwdown combo, it was great to have these colors to focus on. 

 That neat lattice piece is actually a small background stamp from Paper Smooches, I just stamped it twice on some Tim Holtz watercolor paper. I have said this before but I will repeat it, I LOVE THIS PAPER!!! After I stamped the image and embossed it with white, I spritzed the paper and gave a few swipes with some Distress Stain. I love the resulting watercolor look.  The flowers and leaf sprig are stamps with matching dies.  I colored the stamps with Distress Stains before stamping them.  I also gave the yellow flowers a coating of Distress Glitter before cutting them out.  Notice my partial embossing with a Cuttlebug embossing folder.

 Here is the Paper Smooches Anything Goes challenge.

Here is the Color Throwdown challenge.

Thanks for visiting, Linda (lbpost)

Wish Big

A fun card to share using the color combo at Colour Q.  They always have such fun challenges.

I cut out the fleur de lis design with my Cricut. It has two layers that allowed me to use two of the blues in the combo.  

 The background is embossed and I finished with the accents of a tiny tag that has a PaperTrey, Inc sentiment and some sequins, rhinestones, buttons and twine. 

Here is the Colour Q combo.
Thanks for visiting, Linda (lbpost)