~ Friends of Unity October Blog Hop ~

Hello! Happy World Cardmaking Day!! I hope that you get to play on this day for us card making peeps! Speaking of... can you believe that it's October already?! Time is flying by so quickly. I do love the cooler temperatures and the gorgeous colors appearing in the trees. Speaking of trees... wink wink... our Cue for the Friends of Unity October Blog Hop is Leaves.

I LOVE Fall! I've mentioned this in other posts. I just can't help myself... the rich oranges, yellows, reds and even the browns! Sigh... I love love love them! Add to that an adorable fall themed stamp set and Oh My Goodness... again, I say Love!

Another thing that I love... is a good sketch! I found this sketch in my Sketch Journal and thought it would be perfect to showcase this adorable stamp from the Hoppy Fall stamp set. I started by stamping this sweet bunny and a few leaves using Gina K's Black Amalgam on white card stock AND on Canson XL watercolor paper. The card above was colored using the following Copic markers ~ Y000, Y02, Y06, Y11, YG0000, YG61, YG63, YR15, YR16, YR68, R14, R20, R27, N0, E000, E23, E25, E30, E31. I die cut the bunny with the Labels Three die from Spellbinders. I also die cut a piece of Kraft card stock that I cut in half and adhered just on the edges of the bottom and top portion of the main panel. Since the center portion wasn't adhered, I could slide my patterned paper in between the layers of the focal image. I adhered those pieces in place and then popped up the whole piece on the layers adhered to a Kraft card base.

For my second card, I flipped the sketch and also watercolored the image using ZIG Clean Color Real Brush pens with similar colors to the Copic colored version. I changed up the patterned papers a bit but I really love how these two cards turned out.

The inside of the first card. I added a piece of white card stock with a strip of patterned paper and stamped the entire sentiment with Memento tuxedo black ink.

The inside of the second card... just like the first, I added a piece of white card stock with a strip of patterned paper and stamped the entire sentiment with Memento tuxedo black ink.

Surprise!! I have another card!! Did you know that the beautifully colored part of the Poinsettia plant is actually colored bracts which are modified leaves?! A fun fact I've learned and one of the reasons I'm playing with the Poinsettia with Love sentiment kit for this hop. Let's check out the card I made...

I started with a pretty simple sketch idea with a diagonal cut of patterned paper mat on a piece of gold card stock, also cut diagonally. I wanted the words on the paper to stand out so I adhered the mat patterned paper to a white card base. I then stamped the gorgeous poinsettia on a piece of Canson XL watercolor paper (110 lb) using Amalgam black ink. I watercolored the image with ZIG Clean Color Real Brush pens and once it was dry, I fussy cut it out. I added some gold to the center of the flower using a gold gel pen and I also added some glossy accents to the red berries to give them some shine.

I popped up the fussy cut poinsettia on the card using dimensionals and that was it... I absolutely love how this card turned out! I originally wanted to add a sentiment near the top in the white portion of the card, but decided against it. I just love it how it is... so I'll add a sentiment inside or maybe I'll just leave it blank to hand write my holiday greetings to the recipient... who knows?!

Thank you friends for checking out my blog post! I sure hope that you like the cards I've shared today. There are a few giveaways this month so be sure to check out each of the blog posts and comment. We absolutely love all of your comments!

Now I think it's time to get hopping!

Kim

Robyn

Bobbie Sue

Crystal <--- you're here

up next ---> Eileen

Jeanie

Dawn

Joyce

See ya next time.

Inky Hugs!

~ Crystal