Bright bloom card with Gina K Designs and giveaway winner announced!

Hello, hello!

I’m back in my craft room after having been away from it for over a week. Six of those days were spent travelling and being in Sweden, where lots of shenanigans and cake eating took place, as well as being part of a childhood friend’s wedding. Instead of doing that the other guest did when it came to giving the bridal couple a wedding present or even contributing money towards their honeymoon, I gave the gift of wedding flowers! It was so special to be able to be part of their big day like this and make my gift so personal, I loved that. When it came to the actual flowers, all the bride told me was that she wanted orange and lavender in the bouquet, other than that I had free rein with it and this is how it turned out.

It seem appropriate that today’s card is made with a Gina K Designs stamp as I’m also announcing the winner of the giveaway from Rubeena’s Crafting Anniversary blog post. The prize is a $25 gift voucher to the Gina K Designs shop, where you can find the gorgeous Through Thick and Thin stamp that I have used for this card. It has a very sweet friendship sentiment in it too and we can’t ever have too many of those, can we??

I stamped the flower on masking tape and cut it out, and then stamped it again on water colour paper with red distress ink in Candied Apple.

To colour in the flowers I also used Festive Berries, Abandoned Coral and a bit of Black Soot for depth and details. For a progress photo, click HERE, which will take you to my Instagram feed.

The leaves are stamped in Moved Lawn and then water coloured with that ink as well as Twisted Citron and Bundled Sage. For another progress photo, go back to my Instagram post HERE.

When I was happy with the colouring, I used a Creative Cuts from Mama Elephant called Basic Set, to cut it out of the panel as well as adding some interest to it by using the two rectangular dies in the set.

On the back of the diecut piece, I added foam tape to create a sturdy layer and stop the panel from drooping. To bring in the green from the leaves, I added the whole shebang to a green card base. I’m fairly certain it’s Lawn Fawn card stock in Cilantro.

The sentiment ‘You’ve been my friend through thick and thin’ I stamped in black in on a banner, this is cut out from the same Mama Elephant diecut Basic Set. With the help of a thin strip of foam tape (it wasn’t quite thick enough to make the banner level but oh well, you live and learn) it got added to the card as well.

And that was it! I know a few of you are starting to get seriously worried about the lack of sequins but fear not, I have a few sequin-tastic projects coming up that will surely allay any fears that my love of sequins is diminishing. Because it really isn’t. I love the bling and I can not lie! (on cards that is, in real life not so much)

Anyway, I did promise you a winner from the recent giveaway too. Thanks for waiting patiently for the announcement! Without further ado and a big drum roll the winner is

 

Cherie, CONGRATULATIONS!! Please email me by Thursday the 13th of September, the using the Contact page, so I can get your prize to you!

Thank you all so much for stopping by today, I know it’s been a while but life happens and I have had such a lovely time recently, it’s been totally worth being away from the craft room.

See you all soon again!

 

Dog Crazy Lady gone doggone mad over Mama Elephant’s The Dog’s Woof

Hello fellow dog and craft lovers!

Today I’m going to completely unleash my inner dog crazy lady on you. In fairness, I don’t usually leash her very much and I make sure to let her out to play regularly, or she goes bonkers and chews someone up. See what I did there? Lol, I can feel lots of dog related puns and jokes coming up!

I’ve long been a fan of Mama Elephant and their cute stamps and diecuts but my fan girl status went straight ‘I adore them’ to ‘stalking the website on a daily basis’ when they announced they were going to do a dog stamp like The Cat’s Mieow and So Many Snowmen! I went so far as marking the date in my calendar and setting a reminder. As soon as The Dog’s Woof was available, I was there clicking like a mad-woman on a mission and bam! Purchased! Then I nearly made the postman mad by giving him the evils every day he drove past the house without stopping….! LOL, it’s an understatement to say I was excited and once they finally arrived, I shared my excitement in a little video on my Instagram. If you watch it, you might want to turn the volume down towards the end. There might be a high-pitched squeal or two…

I couldn’t wait to ink that stamp up! Out came all my Copics, some chocolate, other yummies and Sam Cooke playlist. It was colouring time!

It didn’t take long and my craft desk was as absolute mess again. I had tidied it just the day before! Oh well, a little craftermath hasn’t hurt anyone. So far anyway..

I think I ended up using practically all my E, W and C coloured Copics for this. I tried mixing and matching but still making sure that each dog was quite unique and I had such a great time colouring this one, I went ahead and did another four! Oh yes. Once the steam train that is Erica with colouring gets going, there is little chance of stopping it. Like a dog with a bone or a mole hill!

My first card came together really quickly once the colouring was done (I also added some detailing with a white gel pen) I simply used the coordinating diecut to cut the doggies out, got a dark grey card base out, heat embossed ‘woof woof’ on it with Altenew Antique Gold Embossing Powder and added them to it using foam tape.

To finish off the sentiment, which I thought was a pawsome idea if I may say so myself, I added the ‘Hooray’ diecut from Neat & Tangled to finish off the sentiment. Woof, woof, hooray. If that isn’t doggone funny, I don’t know what is. Big paw anyone?

The Hooray bit is cut out of MFT Brushed Gold card stock for the word bit and the shadow bit is vellum, to frame it nicely on the dark grey background. I adhered it to the card base with foam tape cut out with the word part of the diecut to raise it up. I added just a few clear sequins to the card with Glossy Accents and then stepped away.

I really like the dotted look on the doggies and decided to do one with just that technique and it came out super adorable! The background I decided on for this one was a bit more busy. I got Simon Say Stamp Paws Background print stencil and some Distress Oxide inks out; Black Soot, Walnut Stain and Vintage Photo. I blended them all over the card base using the different colours to make a patterned paper and then also stamped the little bone and the ‘woof’ sentiment in-between the paw prints. These are in the stamp set.

I managed to spill water on this, as I am a big klutz, but I mopped it up quickly and despite the fact it messed up my card base a bit I decided to use it anyway.

It kind of reminded me of how our floor looks more often than not, with muddy paw prints all over it. Life with a dog is not always a walk in the park but muddy paw prints are not the end of the world.

On a little speech bubble diecut, I used one from Altenew’s Speech Bubbles Die Set, I stamped the sentiment ‘Friends make everything so much better’ from Mama Elephant’s Ella & Friends in Walnut Stain.

The doggies got cut out with the coordinating diecut and added to the card base using foam tape, as did the speech bubble with the sentiment. I also decided to add little details to the doggies using Glossy Accent, on their eyes and noses to make them stand out a bit more.

My third card is kind of a mix of the first two. There are some solid dogs and some dotty ones. I had some feedback from my crafty friends that the mix was the best look but you know, I like all three to be honest. It is fun that you can mix and match and get so many different looks.

The background is stamped but not as busily as the second card, it’s also a lighter grey the the first card. I added some extra doggies to this one using the ‘loose’ dog head in the stamp set. These I piled up so it looks like a giant puppy pile. I am a crazy dog lady after all, there can never be enough dogs, lol!

Sentiment wise I kept it rather simple by heat embossing the words ‘You are Pawsome!’ in Altenew Platinum embossing powder on as off-white strip of card stock. This sentient comes from a Simon Says Stamps set called Paws-itivity.

I added this to the card using foam tape as usual and the big dog image was added using my thickest foam tape, and the loose dog head were added using various other thicknesses.

The last card I made is a really fun one! I did another one of the dotted dogs in party colours for The Man’s birthday card but I have already blogged it though so I’m not going to bore you with all the details again, I merely wanted to show it because I do adore how it came out. You can have a look at that blog post right here if you haven’t seen it already.

I am almost all done but I do need to let you guys know that I have used some compensated affiliate link in this blog post. If you end up buying something after clicking on these links, I get a small commission from the company directly, at no extra cost to you. So it’s a win-win really! Thank you in advance if you choose to support my little blog and I this way, I really do appreciate it a lot! Now as I mentioned, some of the links are affiliate link but not all of them, for transparency reasons it’s Altenew, MFT Stamps and Neat & Tangled. Anything that isn’t from them, is not an affiliate link, I have added the links for your convenience in case you want to purchase any of the stuff I have used for these cards.

Right, with that I’m all done. I hope you have enjoyed this post and if you did manage to hang in there to the end, well done!! You definitely deserve a little something-something so go treat yo’self!

Thanks for stopping by! Lots of love and happy crafting from Erica

 

 

Happy Birthday to The Man!

Hello!

Today is no ordinary day, oh no. Today is the birthday of The Man, the love and light of my life! Sometimes long-suffering husband of This One but most of the time, an adored man with a soft spot for doggies. It was inconceivable to make him a birthday card that didn’t have doggies on it so out came Mama Elephant’s The Dog’s Woof. This is my current FAVOURITE doggie stamp. I must have stamped up and coloured in about 5 of these by now.. the force is strong with this one for sure.

Righty-o: On Neenah Classic Crest #110 card stock I stamped the doggies up with Memento Tuxedo Black ink and rolled over my Raskog cart, that holds all my Copics, to my craft table. Reaching for the usual browns, greys and beige colours I had an epiphany! Rather than colouring these woofsters in as actual dogs, I threw caution to the wind and swapped out all the markers for yellows, oranges, purples, pinks, blues, turquoise and greens! You might think I’m mad but I had a picture in my head and whilst I could try and explain what it was, we all know it tends to confuse everyone so I’m skipping right to the ‘let’s show you instead’ bit!

I got three shades of each colour out: one really pale, one just a tad darker and the darkest one was only about mid-range on the darkness scale. Makes sense?

Starting with the lightest one, I started ‘shading’ the doggie with it by adding dots of various sizes almost all over it. Moving on to the next shade, I added more dots, also of different sizes on top of the light dots as well as outside. With the darkest shade, I added more and more dots (mostly smallish ones) where it would usually be shaded to create that 3D look. Alternating colours to make sure it’s all very colourful and not the same colour doggies next to each other, I continued with this process until they were all ready to party!

The next step was to add some fun embellishments to them, like party hats, balloons and those little pinwheels. You can’t have a party without decorations, right??

For the background I stamped a pattern using the dog’s bone directly on the card base. The card base is also made with the Neenah card stock which makes it nice and sturdy. These bones I coloured in using the same colours I had used on the doggies to keep the look cohesive, but I only used two for each one to add some shading but alternated ligher and darker bones. They are rather small after all so two was enough.

Once it was time to put it together, I got my trusted foam sheets out and cut out enough to keep all those roaring party animals in place as well as raised up from the card base. All the party bits were added with either glossy accents or foam tape.

At first I thought I might skip a sentiment as it’s pretty obvious it’s a celebration card but when do I ever stop at ‘just enough’? Hardly ever, right? So out came some dienamics from My Favorite Things that say ‘happy birthday’ and I cut this out in both linen textured black card stock and 1mm thick foam sheet. These bits I layered up quickly and then added to the card at a diagonal and just like that, the card was finished!

As The Man is not keen on lots of people (which in fairness I am not either most days) we stayed in and celebrated his birthday with pizza, a movie, cuddles and the odd piece of chocolate. He is so low-maintenance that I almost feel guilty for not making a fuss over him, other than this card! Oh, there would be hell to pay if I did make a fuss for those who wonder.

Well, that’s it from me today but this won’t be the last time you see a card made with this stamp set, that’s for sure!

Have a great week, happy crafting and lots of love from Erica

For full disclosure, I use affiliate links where possible. This means that if you click on a link of something I’ve used, and you end up purchasing it, I get a small commission at no extra cost to you whatsoever. Thank you in advance if you do this. As they say, every little helps and any money I make helps keep my blog and hobby going.