Membership Monday ~ Color Burst Backgrounds ~ November 2022 Kit of the Month ~ Unity Stamp Co.

 Hello there crafty friend!

I'm back for Membership Monday with inspiration for the November 2022 Kit of the Month! Today I’m sharing fun watercolored cards using Color Burst which is a fine concentrated powder colorant to be used with water on porous surfaces. A wonderful and quick way to make a great background to showcase any stamp!

For my first card, I stamped Santa with VersaFine Onyx Black ink on Canson XL Watercolor paper. I used ZIG Clean Color Real Brush markers to watercolor Santa. Fussy cut him and set him aside.

Santa's background was created with Terre Verte and Chartreuse Color Bursts. I love the texture that the bursts of color give to the card!

The trimmed background was mat with a green card stock measuring 4 x 5-1/4". It was then adhered to a red card front measuring 4-1/4 x 5-1/2" that was adhered to a white A2 top fold card base.

My second card and I have to say I really love the pop of colors on this one! Same steps as the first card, I stamped it with VersaFine Onyx Black ink on Canson XL Watercolor paper and used ZIGs to watercolor it.

The background was created with Ultramarine Blue and Violet Color Bursts. I used a heat tool to help the drying process on both of the backgrounds. 

This panel was trimmed to 4 x 5-1/4" and adhered to a purple card front measuring 4-1/4 x 5-1/2". I adhered it to a white A2 top fold card base, as well. You can check out my video sharing this technique here… Quick Color Burst Backgrounds | November 2022 Kit of the Month | Unity Stamp Co.

Here’s a look at the whole Kit of the Month for November!! Isn't it awesome?! I couldn't wait for this KOM to get to my mailbox!

Hope you've been inspired to get inky with your November Kit of the Month and if you haven't received yours yet, why not try this technique with stamps from a past KOM! I just love this technique. I hope you'll give it a try.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

See ya next time.

Inky Hugs,

Crystal

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~ Friends of Unity November 2022 Blog Hop ~

 Hello there crafty friend!

It's one of my favorite times of the month... time for the Friends of Unity Blog Hop!! Our cue this month is a new one. I don't think we've done this one before. I have to admit I'm rusty and tossed aside a couple things I started but I still have a few cards to share that turned out ok. I'm excited to see the creations our friends have to share with us though so let's get to the cue...

... Watercolor! Not a medium that I've played with in quite awhile actually. I tend to copic color, ink smoosh or ink blend. Those are pretty much my go-to techniques. So this one was a challenge for me. I hope you like what I ended up keeping. LOL!

October was a very busy month and I didn't get to play with my October Whit Kit so I thought I'd make a couple cards using the kit. I've been itching to play with the beautiful pumpkin stamp from the kit. The pumpkins were stamped with Versafine Onyx Black ink and watercolored using a few ZIG Clean Color Real Brush Markers. 

My card design was inspired by the latest sketch I've shared in my Tawny Owl Paperie Inky Inspiration Facebook group. A fun CAS sketch with a bit of watercolor wash or ink smooshing in the background and then a focal image over that. Pretty easy peasy.

I decided to play with my very neglected Ken Oliver Color Bursts... I used Yellow Ochre and Pthalo Green over a piece of Canson XL Watercolor Paper. Once I was happy with my background, I ran it through my big shot in the pretty Plaid Embossing folder that was included in the October Whit Kit. I love the subtle texture it gives to the card. 

I stamped the sentiment with white pigment ink and heat embossed some white embossing powder. I die cut just a portion of the focal image with a square die from the newly released Scallops & Squares {nesting dies}. I popped it up on the card with foam tape. This didn't quite turn out how I envisioned it but I still like it.

My second card using the October 2022 Whit Kit... for this one I stamped the image with Black Amalgam ink and heat embossed clear embossing powder. No specific reason why I chose this ink. It's just what I grabbed. I think I need to reink the ink pad though... it did not take the embossing powder very well. 

I watercolored this one with my ZIGs again. It was fun playing with these markers again. It's been way too long since I've used them. I die cut the image with an oval die. The pretty orange paper is from the Enrich the Soul {paper pack} that was included in the kit. The linen bows from the kit are just too cute so I had to add one to the card. They look really nice with the jute ribbon I have so I added a piece of that under the focal piece. I adhered it to the card with some tear tape.

I popped up the focal piece with lots of foam tape and adhered the card front to a white A2 top fold card base that I turned on the side. I like the pumpkins as my focus so I decided not to put a sentiment on the front of the card.

I stamped one of the sentiments from the Enrich the Soul stamps inside the card. I just love this one! The October Whit Kit is no longer available but you can get the paper pack and the stamps individually now.  

And my third card... I thought it would be fun to watercolor on Kraft. I used my ZIGs again and boy did they do great on this Kraft card stock from Papertrey Ink. So happy with the result! I stamped the beautiful Twig of Merry stamp with white pigment ink and heat embossed some white embossing powder. In person the white embossing isn't quite as bright. 

I die cut the watercolored panel with one of the Postage Stamp {nesting dies}. I trimmed a piece of red card stock just slightly larger than the die cut. I adhered the layers together and then popped them up on a Kraft A2 top fold card base.

I also heat embossed the sentiment which is from the Ornamental Season {Itty Bitty}. This is a long sentiment so I had to mask portions of it and stamp them separately to get the sentiment how I wanted. I love how this card turned out!

Now before we get to the hopping, I chose a lucky winner from the comments on last month's hop to win a fun prize package and that lucky winner is...

... Teri Kellum!! Congratulations, Teri!!

Please email me at crystalominkler@gmail.com to claim your prize. 

Prize must be claimed within two weeks. 

Well, that's it for me this time! I had so much fun! Please hop along and enjoy some more inspiration from the Friends of Unity... I can't wait to see all the different projects being shared! I'm sure that some of my friends are having a giveaway so be sure to comment as you hop along. And as you hop along and comment, I wanted to recommend using Google Chrome as your browser. We've been having issues for awhile now with hoppers only being able to comment as Anonymous and if you use Google Chrome you'll be able to log in and comment as you hop. I hope this helps some of you. I know that it's been very frustrating!

Let's get to the hopping...

Crystal <--- you're here

up next ---> Amber

Alaine 

Bobbie Sue 

Kim

April

Gaylynn

Dawn B.

Dawn F.

Joyce

Rachel

Thanks so very much for supporting our little hop!

We appreciate you!!

See ya next time.

Inky Hugs,

Crystal

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Get Kids Crafty ~ December Blog Hop ~ Fun with S'mores!

Hello! Happy Saturday to you! 

Today, I am getting crafty with my kiddos and joining the December Blog Hop with Get Kids Crafty! When I asked the kids if they'd like to join for this month's theme, they got super excited! We have a couple of things to share with you. Be warned though, there are a lot of pictures! I hope you have some fun seeing the crafts that we made because I know my kids had a blast making them!

~ S'mores Ornament ~

The first craft that we decided to do was a S'mores Ornament. This ornament is made out of popsicle or craft sticks.  We started out with 8 craft sticks that the kids painted with acrylic paints.

They painted 3 sticks white for the marshmallow, 1 stick dark brown for the chocolate, and 4 sticks a light brown for the graham crackers.

 We talked about the importance of having scrap paper under our project so that we didn't get paint on the table (I'll admit, I was a little nervous... the kids usually paint with washable paints).

We also talked about keeping the paint to our projects and not on our clothes. Once our sticks were painted, we set them aside to dry. Sadly, I am missing a few pictures for the next couple of steps. I think they were deleted by little fingers. Anywho, the kids and I wrapped a little twine around a couple craft sticks that we had cut down to be support pieces to back the ornament. I then used a hot glue gun to secure the twine to the support pieces. We laid down our support sticks and I added hot glue to each piece while the kids built their s'more. In this step, we decided to just use 2 craft sticks for our 'graham crackers'.

Once we had the s'more built we set it aside so the glue could cure. Which was a great time to learn what the term cure means when you're referring to glue. The kids thought it was funny, like the glue was sick. They learned something new. 

The next day, we were ready to add googly eyes and our smiles. We used googly eyes that I got from Fun Stampers Journey during last Halloween. The kids thought it was funny to give their ornaments more than two eyes... so I guess we have S'mores Monster ornaments. Ha! I was hoping to share a picture of the ornaments on the tree, but... our tree isn't up yet so... yeah.

~ Watercolor Handprint Campfire Art ~

Our next project was a fun little art project combining a couple of different ideas we saw online. 

This time it was epic fail for Mom because I forgot about taking pictures when Saydee was adding Color Burst pigment to the watercolor paper. Oops... but we did get pictures after. She really loves to watercolor so she was super excited to use Mom's 'little bottles' - as she called them. I think her watercolor turned out so pretty!

I did approach this part of the project with the kids separately. It was just a better way to control the mess for this OCD mama! In any case, Sym also had fun doing this part of the project. The pigment powder didn't cooperate with him so he ended up whacking the bottle. He sprayed a lot more water on his paper and got a totally different look from Saydee's. We let our watercolors dry overnight and then we traced and cut out our paper hands. We were able to get 3 hands from each paper.

The kids picked some green and blue paper for the background of their campfire and we cut up 'logs' from some brown paper.

Now it was time to glue everything. We used plain old glue sticks for this.... and managed to get glue everywhere so that was fun. We did discover that the glue stick was not strong enough to hold down the watercolor paper. So we used some Mono Multipurpose glue to make sure our paper hands stuck.

Our Watercolor Handprint Campfire Masterpieces!

We sure hope that you've enjoyed seeing our projects for the Get Kids Crafty December Blog Hop! We had so much fun making them!

~ Hop List ~

The Frolicking Fairy

Crystal O. Minkler

Acute Angle

Faith Dream Create

Fanciful Spaces

Phineas and Mae

Mad Crafter’s Tea Party

Thanks for stopping by!

See ya next time.

~ Crystal

Growing in Unity ~ Day 5 ~ Seasonal Fun!

Hello! I can't believe that today is the last day for my Growing in Unity week. 

I've had a blast sharing with you all. I am a self proclaimed Unity addict so you can be sure that I'll be blogging more Unity love... hope you'll come by again to check it out.

I am loving the look of the Eclipse cards that I've been seeing so I thought this fabulous background I made would work beautifully with this technique. First, I made the background using the leaves from the September 2016 Moments Between Moments KOM. I stamped them all over a piece of watercolor paper with VersaMark ink and then I heat embossed them with a fine white embossing powder. I then added some color burst pigment and spritzed. I dabbed a lot of the color to keep it soft. Around the leaves I blended in some more yellows and oranges to help the white leaves pop. I die cut the word 'fall' and adhered the pieces back in place, but to give them the Eclipse look I popped up the letters. I then stamped the 'happy birthday' stamp from the Hugs, Kisses & Birthday Wishes sentiment kit masking the birthday portion of the stamp. I used VersaMark and Autumn Rose ink and then heat embossed it with fine clear embossing powder. I adhered it to a layer of Autumn Rose card stock and then adhered the entire piece to a Canyon Clay card base. The last touch to this card was a few drops of Ripened Pumpkin Nuvo crystal drops.

Here's a side view that shows the Eclipse technique a bit better. The effect is so much better in person. I sure had fun making this one!

I've had the layout and design for this card in my mind for so long, I think I've even dreamed about it. Ha! I love Esmerelda Girl!! I knew when I saw this web stencil from Tim Holtz that finally my vision for this card would come to be. I stamped Esmerelda with Memento Tuxedo black ink and colored her in using copic markers. Black copic coloring is a challenge... I think the key is less is more. I didn't even use a black copic on this image. The darkest color I used was N10. Anywho, I got her all colored and set her aside. Now it was time for the background. I did a light blending of the purples and some grey, and then I laid the stencil on top and blended in more purples, grey, and black. I kept the black blending mostly to the edges. Once I was done blending, I went over the web with a clear wink of stella pen. I'm so bummed you can't see it in this picture. 

It was also very hard to get a picture that showed any of the glitter, but you can see a bit of it in the center here. In person, the glitter can be seen throughout the web and I even added some to Esmerelda's belt, hat, and hair. To finish off the card, I layered some fun Halloween papers and the web panel onto a black card base. I then stamped the sentiment with VersaMark and heat embossed some fine silver embossing powder and then I die cut the sentiment out and popped it up on the panel. I also popped up Esmerelda. I absolutely love how this turned out... it's a great feeling when your idea turns out the way you envisioned.

So, I made a Fall card and a Halloween card... now it's time for a pretty Christmas card. I stamped the image and the sentiment from Poinsettia Wishes on watercolor paper using VersaMark ink and heat embossed it with a fine black embossing powder. I watercolored the image using ZIG Clean Color Real Brush pens and my water pen. I die cut the image using the stitched oval die and then mat it on a die cut stitched black oval. I set that aside and searched through my stash of embossing folders... I finally decided the Holly folder would look pretty so I grabbed a piece of white card stock and ran that through my big shot. I lightly sponged on some Festive Berries and Shabby Shutters distress inks. I layered that piece on a black mat and then tied a bow with some black organdy ribbon. I adhered that to the white card base and then popped up the oval piece. Love!! I just love how pretty this one turned out.

 I had so much fun making all of these cards to share with you all. I sure hope you've enjoyed them!

Be sure to check out Berina Febin's post today as well, she's another Growing in Unity girl this week. You can check out her blog ---> here!

Now, don't forget to leave a comment on this post to be entered into a drawing to 

win a grab bag from Unity. I'll be drawing names for 2 lucky winners!!

Thanks for stopping by!!

See ya next time.

~ Crystal