Unity Stamp Company ~ Soul Searching ~ Happy Birthday

Hello there! Today, I'm sharing a pretty happy birthday card that I created using Unity Stamp Company's Soul Searching stamp set from their Layers of Life membership.

I stamped the beautiful floral image on Canson XL watercolor paper using Ranger Archival jet black ink. I then heat set it with my heat tool and then pulled out my ZIG Clean Color Real Brush watercolor pens. So, you may notice that the consistency of the watercoloring is a little off... well, I started coloring and then walked away. I didn't get back to it until the next day. For some reason, I just wasn't able to color the remaining flowers in the same way. Does that ever happen to you?! I know this happens to me, so I tend to color an image in one sitting. Especially when it's something like this with all the same kind of flowers. If it was a mix of flowers, it would have been fine. I would have colored the 'roses' and saved the 'daisies' for next time. But that didn't work for this image. Oh well... I still love the gorgeous flowers!

I finished watercoloring the image and decided to die cut it out using the Pleated Lace Rectangle dies from Gina Marie Designs. I wanted to have some white space between the floral image and the sentiment... so I stamped the sentiment from the Abundant Blessings using VersaMark watermark ink and heat embossed a fine black embossing powder. I adhered the watercolored panel to a black card base. A very simple design... but still a lovely birthday card! I hope the recipient likes it!

Thank you friends for checking out my blog post!

See ya next time.

Inky Hugs!

Crystal

The Greeting Farm ~ Lovable Anya ~ HB2U

Hello there! Today, I'm sharing a card I made for my niece's birthday. The whole design and paper choices for this card are because of a challenge my friend, Bobbie Sue, shared and that was a challenge to use up those papers you have sitting around. Well, at first, I didn't like the idea! I am a paper hoarder! I love me some pretty papers! But after packing some of my papers for our move, I realized just how much paper I have and oh my goodness... it's time to let some go! So, I have been working this month, while I still have most of my craft space available, to use up papers in at least two different paper pads. It's really just a tiny bit in the whole scope of my paper hoard, but it's a start! So, I'm feeling pretty good about it!

With all that being said, the papers on my card base are from the Echo Park Everyday Eclectic paper pad. I also used the same cute papers to paper piece Lovable Anya from The Greeting Farm. Isn't she just too cute!?! She reminded me of my niece so I just had to ink her up! I had fun paper piecing all the cute papers to put her outfit together. For the focal image, I started by stamping Lovable Anya on a piece of white card stock and then masked her and stamped the HB2U sentiment from the HB2U Anya stamp set using Berry Sorbet ink from Papertrey Ink. I removed the mask and sadly discovered that the ink seeped through the mask... so plan B... I stamped Lovable Anya again on a scrap piece of white card stock and colored her (and the slice of cake) with the following Copic markers:

Skin ~ E000, E00, R20

Hair ~ E49, E57, E59

Cake ~ W00, W1, W2, R00, R05, R32

Cake Plate ~ G82, Colorless Blender

Once I had Lovable Anya colored and adhered all the paper pieces for her outfit, I fussy cut her out and adhered her to the background piece, along with the cake that I had also fussy cut. I wanted to frame the image so I die cut it twice. First, I had die cut the HB2U background piece before adhering Anya using the Pleated Lace Rectangle die by Gina Marie Designs. I then die cut another one from white card stock and die cut a rectangle out of the middle using a stitched rectangle die. Setting that piece aside for another future project. I adhered the framed piece onto the HB2U background piece using a liquid glue. I popped up the focal image onto the prepared card base. I was going to add an additional sentiment to the front of the card but decided against it since I didn't want to cover the focal image, so I left it as is. I love how this sweet card turned out! What do you think? Let me know below in the comments... I'd love to hear from you.

Thank you friends for checking out my blog post!

See ya next time.

Inky Hugs!

Crystal

Unity Stamp Company ~ Crafty Supplies {Border Backgrounds} ~ Crafty Birthday!

Hello there! I have a quick birthday card to share today using Unity Stamp Company's Crafty Supplies {border backgrounds} along with the cute sentiment from the Martha Girl stamp kit.

I used my Tim Holtz Stamp Platform for this card since I knew I was going to use different distress oxide inks to ink up the background. I started by inking up the stamp with Mustard Seed. I cleaned off the stamp and inked it up with Peacock Feathers. I cleaned it off again and inked it up with Worn Lipstick. While inking up each of these different colors, I tried to just ink up a little portion of the stamp so the colors didn't overlap too much. Once the background was inked up, I die cut it using My Favorite Things Blueprint #20 dies... I love the combination of the scalloped rectangle and the stitched rectangle dies in the set.

I dried my background with my heat tool since I knew I was going to heat emboss the sentiment with black embossing powder and I didn't want the embossing powder to stick to the background image. I did use the Ranger anti-static pouch, as well. Since I wanted this to be a birthday card for a crafty friend I added the Happy Birthday from the 3 Tiered Birthday stamp by masking the bottom portion of the stamp and inking it up with VersaMark watermark ink onto black card stock and then heat embossing a fine white embossing powder. I trimmed the sentiment and popped it up on the background. I adhered the background to a slightly larger mat of black card stock and then adhered those layers to the turquoise scalloped layer. I then adhered the entire thing onto a white card base. I love how easy this card was to make and I hope my crafty friends... yes, I made extras!... love it, too!

Thank you friends for checking out my blog post!

See ya next time.

Inky Hugs!

Crystal

Unity Stamp Company ~ Cuddlebug Owl ~ Sweet Birthday Card

Hello there! Today, I am sharing a sweet birthday card that I made for my niece. Isn't this adorable Cuddlebug Owl from Unity Stamp Company just the cutest you've ever seen!! I love it so much!

I have had this stamp on my desk for a long time just waiting for inspiration.

And finally inspiration came when I resolved to finish a paper pad I had laying around my desk. I thought this pretty pink star paper would pair nicely with the kraft paper in the paper pad and both of those would look very nice with a pink and purple owl. I trimmed the papers to fit on a top fold 4-1/4 x 5-1/2" white card base. I adhered the papers with mono multi purpose liquid glue 

and set the card aside.

I stamped the Cuddlebug Owl using Memento tuxedo black ink and started coloring using the following Copic markers ~ RV10, RV21, V0000, V04, V12, YR15, YR16, YR21, YR27. I die cut the owl with the Pleated Lace Rectangle die from Gina Marie Designs. I popped the die cut image up on the card using stampin' dimensionals. I then stamped the sentiment from the Hugs, Kisses & Birthday Wishes sentiment kit using VersaMark watermark ink and heat embossed a fine white embossing powder. I trimmed the sentiment into a banner and adhered it to the card with a combination of stampin' dimensionals and liquid glue. My final touch for this card was some Sprinkled Sugar Stickles that I applied to the little heart on the owl. Aww... love how this turned out!

Thank you friends for checking out my blog post!

See ya next time.

Inky Hugs!

Crystal

~ Friends of Unity March Blog Hop ~

Hello there! It's time for another fabulous hop with Friends of Unity!! Our cue for this month's hop is Creativity... at first I thought I would make a card focusing on one of the cute crafty stamps that Unity carries, but I decided to go another direction for this hop. 

For last month's hop, I tried out some new watercolor markers and mentioned that I wanted to use them in different ways to see how well they work. Well, that's exactly what I did for this hop! So let's get to it!

So these are my cards using the Staedtler Marsgraphic Duo Double-ended watercolor markers -

two ways! I just had to ink up the gorgeous and surprisingly huge Blooming Peonies! I love these beautiful flowers!

For my first card, I used the watercolor markers directly on the Canson XL watercolor paper. I started with the darkest color near the bottom of the petals and then using a lighter color I tried to blend the colors out. This didn't work very well... and the paper ended up pilling! Not cool! Once I realized this was going to be an issue, I didn't try to blend the colors out as much. I went over the areas just twice with two colors and it seemed to be working okay. I continued with this method throughout my coloring and then decided that I would only do two colors for the leaves so they would blend easily and I wouldn't have the same issue. That actually worked out really well. So, I'm thinking blending two colors is okay as long as you don't go over the same area more than a couple times.

For my second card, I used the same method I used on my card last month. I scribbled the markers onto my acrylic block and then picked up the color using my watercolor pen and painted away. With this technique the colors painted beautifully and blended well. I did notice the color was much lighter and took more applications to achieve a darker color... But I didn't have any pilling of the paper. So... what have I learned? Well, first of all... the tips on these are really like a marker, not at all like the brush tip on the ZIGs. That is a huge difference in the direct to paper watercoloring in these two products. Secondly, they watercolor beautifully when applied with a watercolor pen and I do really love the assortment of colors in the pack of markers. So, if you are looking for watercolor markers that are reasonably priced, these are great when applied with a watercolor pen or brush.

I couldn't help but stamp this gorgeous bloom again inside the cards. I colored the inside with Prismacolor pencils. I blended the colors with the pencils and the colorless blender pencil. I tried to use similar colors to the front of the card... and I think I did pretty well. I love how it brings some of the pretty on the front of the card to the inside of the card!

One more look here with both cards... the direct-to-paper watercolor on the left and the watercolor pen watercolor on the right. The sentiment for these cards is found in one of my favorite sentiment kits called Abundant Blessings. I hope you found this post inspiring, informative, 

and, of course, creative!

Now, let's get to the hop!

A few of my friends are having giveaways so be sure to hop and comment on each stop for your chance to win a fabulous prize! 

Crystal <--- you're here

up next ---> Joyce

Eileen

Jeanie

Bobbie Sue

Kim

Robyn

Dawn

Thank you friends for checking out my blog post!

See ya next time.

Inky Hugs!

Crystal