Shades of Pink

I let the color challenge at The Paper Players guide the card I want to share.

 I picked up a stencil by DecoArt so of course I had to use it, mixing it with a variety of pink inks from Distress Stamp Pads on watercolor paper.  After the inks were applied with a blending sponge, I gave them a spritz of water so the inks would slightly run.  

 I gave my stenciled image some extra accents with dots using Liquid Pearls.  To have my card match the CAS(e) this Sketch I added the die cut word from Mama Elephant, "hello" cut from silver glitter paper and other layers of pink cardstock.  

 Here is The Paper Players color challenge.

And here is the CAS(e) this sketch.

Thanks for visiting, Linda (lbpost)

Hello Beautiful

Who wouldn't want to receive a card with this sentiment!

 I wanted to play along with the CAS(e) this sketch for this week and so I created this card.  I buy my watercolor paper in a tablet that I tear the sheets out of and so there is always this edge that gets cut off when I cut my paper to the sizes I want. I love to use it, especially with the tears in it.  I had cut out the word "hello" from from Lawn Fawn outof this piece of paper and it was just sitting on my desk so I decided to play with it and some Distress Stains.  It just seemed right to become part of a card, I cut the bottom edge with a die from Mama Elephant.  The perfect accent seemed to be this word "beautiful" cut from metallic gold paper.  That die is by Paper Smooches.  

 I decided sewing it onto my card would be a fun look so here is a closeup of my sewing lines and the strings I left hanging off the card.  A tiny little flower completes the look.

Here is the CAS(e) this sketch.
Thanks for visiting, Linda (lbpost)

A new AAA Cards challenge

 This AAA Cards challenge is a favorite for me, embossing paste and/or stencils.  

 I had to use both! I colored a piece of watercolor paper with Distress Stains to create a background.  I then used a stencil and some silver Studio 490 Wendy Veechi embossing paste.  That flower is from a set by Tim Holtz and Stampers Anonymous and the leaves are from a set by Altenew.  After I stamped them with black ink, I added color with Distress Stains. My "hello" is a die from Mama Elephant and that was also colored with Distress Stains. 

I wanted to try to show off that amazing shine in that silver embossing paste.  What a fun way to add some serious bling.

Be sure to check out the other cards at AAA Cards and to also play along this week.

This also fits the Friday Mashup challenge to use stencils.

Thanks for visiting, Linda (lbpost)

Shades of Green

Another reason to use some Distress Stains. 

 I found two online challenges to use an Ombre color combo, Virginia's View and The Friday Mashup.  Of course, I reached for my Distress Stains to create my look. 

 I stamped this amazing doily image from Mama Elephant using white ink and white embossing powder on watercolor paper.  After I spritzed this lightly with water, I started with the lightest shade of green Distress Stain and then added the medium shade and then the darker shade.  The water helped these shades of ink to flow together a little bit.  That middle small doily design was stamped the same way and colored with the darkest green.  I punched that out with a circle and added it to my card with foam tape.  

 This fits the current Virginia's View Challenge for Ombre.

The Friday Mashup challenge is also about Ombre.
Thanks for visiting, Linda (lbpost)

Embossing Paste Goodness

I love playing with embossing paste.

 It can make for such a dramatic background.  I used this piece to create a card around the Freshly Made sketch.  

 I started out with a piece of watercolor paper.  I sprayed it with some Tattered Angels Chalkboard spray in Valencia.  That is such a neat color because it has a metallic gold undertone.  I didn't cover the entire paper.  When that was dry, I added white embossing paste through a Tim Hotlz stencil.  The "hello" is a die from Mama Elephant and the butterfly is by Recollections/Michaels.  

Here is the Freshly Made Sketch.

Plus it fits the Time Out challenge.

Thanks for visiting, Linda (lbpost)

A Little Love

I am so in love with this particular flower stamp set from Alternew.

 I also love finding more ways to use it.  For this card, the style is pretty casual as far as not really defining each flower, just making all the flowers and leaves and colors just flow together.  I also made it fit the Sketch Saturday since I also love my banner dies from My Favorite Things.  

 I just stamped the outline of the flowers and the leaves on watercolor paper with black ink, embossed them with clear embossing powder.  I like to emboss the black stamped images because it adds definition to the black and makes the ink stable for adding more colors.  I then added color with Distress Stains.  Nothing was exact, I just let the inks and colors flow.  

 Here is the Sketch Saturday.

It also fits the Simon Says Wednesday Challenge because it is Anything Goes.

Thanks for visiting, Linda (lbpost)

A little bit of this - A little bit of that

I love to play and experiment and this finished card is a good example of that.

 I started out adding some Distress Stains to watercolor paper.  When this paper is spritzed with some water first, the inks run and create the best, unexpected look.  When this was dry, I added some embossing ink over the color and sprinkled some clear Ultra Thick embossing powder over it.  I heated that layer and then added some more of the thick clear powder.  

 When this was cooled, I gently made this thick embossed area crack.  It ended up as a great big distressed background.  The butterfly stamp and matching die is from Clearly Besotted and the die cut word is from Mama Elephant.  Both the butterfly and the word are colored with Distress Stains.  

This fits the Addicted to CAS Distress challenge.

Thanks for visiting, Linda (lbpost)

Winter Snowflakes

Yeah, I want to share my after Christmas clearance find...

 On a Michael's trip, I picked up a large snowflake stamp from Hero Arts. I just had to come home and create with it.  I wanted a look that would fit the cold of January. I loved the aqua and red combination on the background along with a simple and sweet sentiment from Mama Elephant.

I embossed the stamped image with Platinum embossing powder over a background I had created with Distress Stains ans a Tim Holtz sweater stencil.  I then cut another snowflake with a Hero Arts die, cutting it from a vellum type paper.  

Thanks for visiting, Linda (lbpost)

The next AAA Cards challenge

It's Sunday again and time for the next AAA Cards challenge.

 This week, we were to use a team members card for inspiration. 

 Since I am so wanting summer to stay around for awhile longer, the sunburst design on Julia's card was a fun inspiration piece.  For my card, I started out with a favorite stamp from Neat and Tangled.  It is a large, distressed looking circle.  I inked it with two colors of Distress Stain, gave it a spritz of water and then stamped it.  Since I am loving playing with watercolor looks, I loved how this one turned out.  

 I then took a starburst stencil from The Crafter's Workshop and inked some of the rays with a yellow stamp pad.  I tried to be irregular in the length of the different rays while sponging on the ink.  The sentiment is from Mama Elephant and I added some black enamel dots to give it the finishing touches.  

Plus my card loosely follows the Freshly Made Sketch for this week. I love taking a piece of inspiration and making it my own.

And, I have to share some photos...

 We just returned from a magical time in Maui.  I don't know anything more to say then it was wonderful.  I tried to get lots of beach photos since there are so many different kinds of beaches there and it seemed that every day brought more amazing cloud formations.  

 On a beach walk, we came across a sand castle someone had built.  The waves had already taken part of it away, but I just loved the crumbling results, especially with more cloud formations in the background.  

One of our sightseeing trips was to the Iao Valley Monument.  It is a gorgeous garden-like area with great historical significance.  This is just one glimpse of that area. 
I sure hope you can get a chance this week to play along with the AAA Cards challenge.

Thanks for visiting, Linda (lbpost)

Sunny turquoise and yellow

I got to play along on a new-to-me challenge blog, Keep It Simple, it's all about turquoise.

 I get going and I seem to forget about the "simple" part! Oh well, I had fun and this really was a fast little creation.  Mostly because I started out stamping the large medallion images with gray ink and then used Distress Stains here and there to add my color.  Because I used watercolor paper, a little spritz of water made the colors run a bit giving it a nice effect.  

 The smaller, yellow images were inked with Distress Stain and stamped directly to the paper.  I stamped one extra smaller image and punched that out in a circle for some added interest. LOVE these stamps from Mama Elephant.  That neat word bubble is also from Mama Elephant.  

 Here is the Keep it Simple challenge.
And for a couple photos...

 This star hangs in my backyard, thought I should take a picture of it for the Fourth!

Love these flowering succulents.  These things grow like weeds! Just pretty weeds!

Thanks for visiting, Linda (lbpost)

This was a fun one!

Another online challenge to play with, the Color Throwdown challenge.

 I so loved the soft shades of the pretty colors.  As I set out to use the colors, I started out making a background with Distress Stains, Distress Stamp pads and watercolor.  I then set this aside to dry. This is always fun because some really neat character comes out with the watercolors when it all dries. This also had a great Mama Elephant sentiment and a Memory Box butterfly die. 

 I took my stencil and added some pink inks to the stencil with Distress Stain and then placed that on my card.  Next I took some white embossing paste and used a palette knife to spread the paste over a portion of the stencil. The pink inks on the stencil added an irregular color to the paste so that I then had my two shades of the pinks. The butterfly has an underneath layer in that same pink. I also used some pink Liquid Pearls for accent.

Here is the Color Throwdown combo.
Thanks for visiting, Linda (lbpost)

Color Combination

I used the Less Is More challenge to create a card with the colors in your bedroom.  

I used brown, hunter green and red.  The brown and green are dark so they don't show up well.  My creation fit the Less Is More challenge for me because it was so quick and easy to put together but I ended up with not a whole lot of white space showing!!! The longest part of making the card was waiting for my inks to dry!

 I am so in love with this flower from Altenew so it was fun to use it again.  I added water to my watercolor paper and then added Distress Stain. I had puddles of the color so I inked the flower stamp with those puddles and stamped it here and there on my paper. I also stamped one single flower and cut that out. The "hello" is a die cut from Mama Elephant.

Here is the Less Is More challenge.
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)