~ Friends of Unity January 2020 Blog Hop ~

Hello there crafty friends!!

It's my favorite time of the month... time for the Friends of Unity Blog Hop!!

This month we are creating with our Favorite Unity Stamp of 2019!! I was so excited to have this as our cue, but it was very hard to narrow down the choices... there's really so many that I consider to be my favorites from the last year.

Now, coffee stamps are my jam... I love them!! AND the border backgrounds stamps are one of my most favorite stamp lines that Unity offers. So naturally I had to use my most favorite border backgrounds stamp called Hot Mess {border backgrounds}, but I wanted to use a metallic embossing powder. I chose the fun Penny Ultra Fine Embossing Powder from Brutus Monroe... love this stuff!!!

And then using the backside of a piece of Tim Holtz Distress Watercolor paper, I smooshed some watered down Peacock Feathers, Vintage Photo, and Ground Espresso Distress Oxide inks. I dried the paper in between layers... I really love the dimension the different layers of colors gives to the panel. I dried the panel with my Ranger heat tool to ensure that it was completely dry before adhering it to a piece of Really Rust card stock that I cut just slightly larger than the panel. I then mat it with a 4-1/4 x 5-1/2" piece of Taken with Teal card stock and then adhered the entire panel to a white card base.

Another favorite stamp set from 2019 is the A Little Warmth kit... this kit has a beautiful Angie Girl along with a bunch of sentiments. I originally wanted to use the girl from the kit, but I decided not to cover up the background. So, I went with one of the sentiments from the kit instead. I stamped it on a scrap piece of Really Rust card stock with VersaMark watermark ink and heat embossed it with the same Penny metallic embossing powder that I used on the background. I trimmed the sentiment and cut it to fit within the Really Rust card stock layer on the card. I just love how this turned out!

While I was working on the background for my first card, I happened to notice the fabulous colors resembled a rusty kind of color and thought that they would be fantastic with one of my new favorite truck stamps in the kit by Tierra Jackson called Ol' Fashion Holiday Love. So for this card I've decided to use some of my new favorite kits that I haven't had a chance to ink up yet... lol! I have just been itching to get these kits inked up... so glad I finally did!

I considered paper piecing the truck to make it look slightly more realistic but I just couldn't cut into it. I really love how it turned out. I made a very similar background to the last one using the same distress oxides only this time I used the textured side of the distress watercolor paper. I love the texture it gives this truck!! A total happy accident because my plan was to copy the other background as much as possible! I fussy cut the truck and added some glossy accents and then set it aside to dry. The background was easy peasy and I absolutely love how it turned out! I stamped the gorgeous Alpine Wonderland stamp onto a card front of kraft card stock measuring 4-1/4 x 5-1/2" with VersaMark watermark ink and then heat embossed Alabaster embossing powder by Brutus Monroe that is available at Unity! I love Brutus Monroe embossing powders!! So glad that Unity carries them in their shop! Once the background was heat set, I decided to add a bit of color to the background... the clean kraft just wasn't quite right. I added a bit of Pine Needles distress ink to the ground and the trees, and Stormy Sky distress ink to the sky. I wiped off the white embossed background with a paper towel to get the colored inks off. It buffed the embossed background a bit too much so I reheated the background to get the pretty glossy shine back. 

You can see some of the discoloration in the white embossed background in this picture, but in person it's really not as visible. I trimmed the background and distressed the edges. I adhered it to a 4-1/8 x 5-3/8" piece of Lost Lagoon card stock and then adhered it to a white card base that I trimmed just tiny bit to fit the slightly smaller card front.

To finish off the card, I stamped the fun sentiment from the November 2019 KOM called Wonder. It took me a bit of searching to find just the right sentiment, but I think this one really works with the design of my card. That's it for me this month! I can't wait to see what my friends have made to share with us this month!! 

Before we get to the hop list, I'm having another giveaway this month... I have a fabulous brand new Say It Big May 2019 Sentiment Kit to share with one lucky winner!! I'll announce the winner during next month's hop. A few of my friends are also having giveaways so be sure to check out all the fabulous creations along the hop and comment on each blog for a chance to win!! 

Thank you all so much for your continued support of our little hop... and for all of your lovely comments! I really, truly do appreciate each and every one of your sweet comments. 

Let's get to the hopping...

Crystal <--- you're here

up next ---> Kim

Eileen

Bobbie Sue

Dawn B.

Amber

Joyce

Alaine

Robyn

Dawn F.

Thanks so much for checking out my blog post!

See ya next time.

Inky Hugs,

Crystal

~ Friends of Unity May Blog Hop ~

Hello crafty peeps!!

Can you believe that it's time for another Friends of Unity blog hop?! I cannot!! 

Time just zips on by!! It's so crazy... well, this month we have another fun cue... 

Isn't that a fun cue?! I love it!

I thought I'd stick within the citrus fruit family and play with some lemon stamps but... with a twist because I want my card to also work for the fabulous Spring / Summer Coffee Lovers Blog Hop so here's what I came up with... 

My favorite drink, any time that we go out to eat, is an Arnold Palmer... a yummy mix of iced tea and lemonade!! It's a great way to have iced tea without having to add sugar or sweetener... LOL! I know some of you are thinking I'm crazy.... iced tea HAS to have sugar! I'm cutting back on that stuff sooo... anywho, I thought it would be fun to combine the sweet jar from the new May 2019 KOM called Sweetness, Miracles and Wishes from Unity Stamp Company with the beautiful lemons from the July 2018 KOM called Stand Tall. 

I stamped my images onto Canson XL watercolor paper and colored them in with my ZIGs.

I trimmed my layers and adhered them to a white card base. I fussy cut the jar and popped it up on the card. I couldn't find the right yellow to back the sentiment so I just used the yellow ZIG markers to color the edges... easy peasy!

So I'm not only playing along with the Spring / Summer Coffee Lovers Blog hop... 

I used the Freshly Made Sketches #386 for my card...

AND... I'm also going to enter my card in the Three Amigos Blog Hop Challenge... 

Do you ever play along with challenges?! I think they are a great way to get inspired!

So, I think it's about time to get hopping... but before we do that. It has been a

good long time since I've done a giveaway for our Friends of Unity hops... I think we're a bit overdue! I'm not sure how it happened but I accidentally bought two of the brand new Cuddlebug Fawn stamp kits for my latest order with Unity Stamp Company so

I'll be giving away one of those kits to one lucky winner!!

All you have to do is hop along with us and comment on each of our blogs! 

I'll use Random.org to choose one lucky winner that I'll announce next month during our June hop!! 

Thank you all again for your lovely comments and support!! 

Happy Hopping!

Crystal <--- you're here

up next ---> Robyn

Kim

Bobbie Sue

Dawn

Jeanie

Eileen

Thank you friends for checking out my blog post!

See ya next time.

Inky Hugs,

Crystal

~ Friends of Unity April Blog Hop ~

Hello there! It's time for another hop with Friends of Unity and I can't wait to see all the fabulous inspiration for this month's hop. Why?! Well, because our cue for this month is Rainy Days and I absolutely love the rain!! So, my stamp pick for this hop was super easy... Rain or Shine. 

Perfect, right?!

I adore this stamp and I thought it would be so fun to create a scene using some paper that I've been trying to finish off  *GASP*… I know, I know! This paper hoarder is trying to finish off a paper pad, but really it's all thanks to my friend and fellow Friends of Unity hopper Bobbie Sue!! She put out a little challenge to use up those papers and I've been really trying to. I focused on just a couple paper pads to start and I'm doing pretty well. Anywho… enough about that, let's get back to the card I created. Shall we?

To create the background scene, I used the Lawn Fawn Stitched Hillside Borders to create the hills. I then adhered the cloud paper and the hills to a piece of thin white card stock. I was then able to die cut the entire panel with a stitched rectangle die. I adhered the background scene to a pink piece of paper from the paper pad and then I adhered the entire panel to a white card base.

Now for the fun part! I stamped the cute image on white card stock and then stamped the different parts of the image (umbrella, dress, pants, etc) on the scraps of paper I had set aside to paper piece this image. I then fussy cut all the pieces and colored the edges of the cut pieces with my Memento tuxedo black marker so the edges would look nice and clean. I colored some parts of the image with the following Copic markers:

Guy's shirt ~ BG01, BG15

Ribs of Umbrella ~ G82

Girl's Legs ~ E000, E00

Guy's shoes ~ E55, E57, E59

And then I adhered all the paper pieced items to the image. I even colored directly on the patterned paper of the umbrella to add some dimension to the ribs of the umbrella. All that was left was fussy cutting the entire image out. I decided to leave a little bit of a white border around the image to help it pop off the card. I used a Fiskars Fingertip Craft Knife to cut out the white pieces between the guy and the girl. Talk about scary! I was so worried my hand would jerk and I'd cut into the image. Phew! But, alas, nothing bad happened. 

Once it was all trimmed down I popped it up on the card and got to work on the sentiment. I went back and forth on where to place it and how... do I cut it into a banner? No. I just decided to go simple... I stamped it on white card stock and mat it with the same pink paper from the Echo Park Everyday Eclectic paper pad that I mat the scene with and then I adhered it to the card. I didn't even pop it up! I wanted the main focus to be on the sweet image of the couple. That's it! This card was a great way to use up some of those papers!

I sure hope that you've enjoyed my card!

There's a few giveaways throughout our hop, as usual, so be sure to hop along and comment on each blog for your chance to win some fabulous Unity Stamps!

On to the hopping... 

~ Blog Hop List ~

Crystal <--- you're here

Eileen

Jeanie

Bobbie Sue

Dawn

Joyce

Kim

Robyn

Thank you friends for checking out my blog post!

See ya next time.

Inky Hugs,

Crystal

~ Friends of Unity December Blog Hop ~

Hello! It's the first of December AND it's the first Saturday of December... you know what that means!! It's time for another Friends of Unity blog hop... but this month's hop marks one whole year of Friends of Unity sharing our love of Unity Stamp Company with you! Wow! A whole year!! I can't believe it! Time sure does fly on by! Thank you all so much for commenting and supporting our little hop! We truly appreciate it! 

To show my appreciation for your support, I'm having a giveaway! Oh boy... do I have something up my sleeve... but you have to read down to the bottom of my post! No skipping either... lol... check out my card below and I've tried to keep the chatter to a minimum. :) So let's get to it!

 I know a lot of us cardmakers are still working on our Christmas projects. Some of us just started on them... Yikes! Some of the more disciplined of us, are done with our Christmas projects... Yay! So I thought it would be a great time to share a Thank You card with a wintry theme. Our cue for this month's hop is ~ Thank You! 

A lot of the focus this time of the year tends to be about giving and getting... I wish there was more thanking! We're all so thankful during Thanksgiving... it's the thing to do, right?! But it seems to go away when Christmas is coming near. I try to be thankful all year long... but it's easy to get caught in the tide of the seasons. This year, though, I thought it would be nice to make thank you cards for the friends and family that send us cards and gifts during the Christmas season. 

I wanted to keep my card simple for two reasons... I wanted it easy to duplicate so I had enough on hand to send out and I wanted it relatively flat so it wouldn't need the extra non-machinable postage to mail it. I did end up putting those wood elements on... I couldn't help myself! They work so well with the snowflakes in the stamp so this card will be hand delivered... BUT... I could easily change this up with some die cut snowflakes or punched out snowflakes... whatever works!

Now, to the details for my card... I stamped the Burst of Flakes {Border Backgrounds} using VersaMark watermark ink onto two 5-1/2 x 4-1/4" pieces of Kraft card stock. I then heat embossed some ultra fine white embossing powder on both pieces. I also stamped the sentiment from the Like a Snowflake sentiment kit on one of the pieces with VersaMark watermark ink and heat embossed the same white embossing powder. I trimmed the one piece without the sentiment down to 5-1/4 x 4" and adhered it to a Kraft card base. I then die cut the other piece with the sentiment using a stitched rectangle die that measures 4-7/8 x 3-5/8" and popped it up on the card.

I colored one side of the snowflake wood element using a white prismacolor pencil. It gives the wood a subtle white color that I think compliments the kraft and white on the card.

Here's one more look at the card as a whole. I just love how simple but beautiful this card turned out!

I hope I've inspired you to pull out some of your Christmas or Holiday stamps to make some thank you cards.

So... did you read through the post or did you just skip down here to check out my crazy giveaway?!

Are you ready?! 

Well, I was thinking ~ how do we celebrate one whole year of hopping with Unity Stamp Company's fabulous stamps?!?! The obvious answer is we give away Unity Stamps! But I really want to celebrate... so I'm giving away 2 prizes! 

The first prize is a Brand New Winter Beauty SMAK kit <--- click there to check out this kit! It's gorgeous!! And perfect for a Winter giveaway!

The second prize is a bundle of Brand New stamps... December Girl, Jolly Ol' Santa, and Stay Cozy!! You can click on each of those to check them out! Oh... I love these fabulous stamps! 

What do you think?! Crazy awesome prizes, right?! Now, all you have to do to enter is to check out our hop and comment on each of the blogs. I'll use Random.org to choose two lucky winners and share them with you next month for our January hop!! Thank you all again for your support and Happy Hopping!

~ Blog Hop List ~

Crystal <--- you're here

up next ---> Eileen

Robyn

Kim

Bobbie Sue

Dawn

Joyce

Jeanie

Thank you friends for checking out my blog post! 

See ya next time.

Inky Hugs!

~ Crystal

~ Friends of Unity November Blog Hop ~

Hello! It's one of my favorite times of the month... it's time for another Friends of Unity blog hop!! This month Dawn had a fabulous suggestion for November cue ~ Strength... in particular the Strength of women. We kept the cue simple but I have to say this one was a challenge. 

Unity Stamp Company has over 100 Angie Girls to work with and several of them have empowering words and even different variations of the word Strength... but I still struggled. What finally 'clicked' for me was thinking of the Strong women in my life. I've had many strong, inspirational women to look up to and so many of them were the strongest women I'm proud to have known that have inspired me to be the woman I am becoming. Some are no longer with us, but they have left an impression of Strength that will be with me for the rest of my life. So enough of my chit chatter...  let's have a look at the cards I created.

Along with keeping our cue simple, I decided to keep my cards simple and let the image and sentiment be the focus. Last month I made two cards using the same Hoppy Fall  set but using Copic markers to color one and ZIG watercolor pens for the other. So, I thought... let's see how coloring on kraft with Prismacolor pencils looks compared to Copic markers.

 For my first card I stamped Stronger than Anyone ~ Jessica Girl and the sentiment with Amalgam black ink and then colored in the image. I absolutely love the sentiment in this kit! Every time I read it, I instantly think of one person and I think I'm going to send this to her to let her know that I think she's an amazing, strong woman that I am honored to know! 

I added some patterned paper from Carta Bella... called Christmas {yup, Christmas paper and it's not even a Christmas card! Ha!} I loved the black plaid to compliment the red plaid on her shirt. I die cut the edge of the patterned paper with a scalloped edge die from My Favorite Things. I adhered that to the kraft card stock. I die cut the piece with a stitched rectangle die and then I mat the kraft piece on black card stock and wrapped it a few times with white baker's twine tying a small bow. I popped up the panel onto a kraft card base and there you have card number one.

Here's a close up of the coloring on her jeans and purse. When I'm coloring with Prismacolor pencils, once I've blended the colors using a colorless blender pencil, I sometimes like to use my Prismacolor Scholar eraser to clean up the lines of the ink where the pencil has gone over the black lines. With this card though, I also rubbed the eraser on the jeans to give it a bit of worn texture. I really love the way that it roughed up the jeans a bit. I also used the silver Prismacolor pencil to add some touches on this image... her watch face, jean's button, and some accents on her purse. I love the bit of shine that it gives to the card, even though it's subtle.

Now, my second card... I considered stamping and coloring the same image for a more accurate comparison, but... I really wanted to ink up Dream Girl. I'm embarrassed to admit that Dream Girl was a stamp that I purchased for my first order with Unity Stamp Company {along with my absolute favorite ~ Dream of Being} and this is the very first time I've inked her up! It's been almost 3 years!! Can you believe that?! Shameful!! Well, anywho... I inked up Dream Girl using Memento tuxedo black ink. {I could have used the Amalgam black ink again, I just grabbed the Memento... really no rhyme or reason.} Dream Girl reminds me of my beautiful niece and so I just had to try to color her hair similar to my niece's hair. This turned out lighter, which was hard to gauge until it actually dried because while the Copic alcohol ink was wet on the kraft it was darker. I used E09, E15, E97, R89 for the hair and E0000, E000, E00, E01, E04, E51 for the face, neck, and shoulder. Just like the first card, I added a strip of patterned paper and then die cut the piece with a stitched rectangle die. I mat it on a coordinating piece of card stock and wrapped it with a natural twine. I then popped the whole panel up on the kraft card base.

Here's a close up of the Copic coloring on Dream Girl. I really love how she turned out!

As far as a comparison, I think these turned out really nice, but the medium is definitely different. The texture with the Prismacolor pencils is very different from the softness of the blended Copic markers. I love them both really... couldn't choose a favorite, but it sure was fun to play and compare them. I sure hope you enjoyed my cards 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!

Crystal <--- you're here

up next ---> Kim

Bobbie Sue

Eileen

Wynne

Robyn

Dawn

Joyce

Jeanie

Thank you friends for checking out my blog post! 

See ya next time.

Inky Hugs!

~ Crystal

~ 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

~ Friends of Unity September Blog Hop ~

Hello! It's time for another Friends of Unity Blog Hop!! Woohoo! I love hopping with my friends!

Before I get any further into my post, we have two new friends hopping with us and I want to officially welcome Kim Klinkovsky and Bobbie Sue McConathy to our hop! Kim has been a sweet supporter of our little hop since we started. She is a fellow lover... AKA... addict of Unity stamps, she has a fabulous blog filled with inspiration - including some really awesome jewelry! And Bobbie Sue has also been a huge supporter of our hop. She just recently started her blog and I was just waiting for an opportunity to invite her to join us. She's a sweet soul and a fabulous cardmaker with so much talent! We are super happy to have both of these wonderful friends join our team!

So please give Kim and Bobbie Sue a huge welcome!

Now let's get back to it... our cue for this month's Friends of Unity blog hop is Wings. We kept the cue simple because it can be used with so many different images... angels, butterflies, birds, dragonflies, etc... that way we had a larger scope of stamps to use which sometimes can make it hard to decide what exactly you want to do. LOL! So instead of just choosing one stamp set to play with, I chose two different sets.

The first set I chose to work with was an easy pick, I bought this Suzi Blu set called Serenity Angel a while back wanting to use it for a card for my niece but the idea, and sadly, the set got pushed aside for other things. So I was really happy to finally get to use this set for this card.

I recently got my hands on some new alcohol inks and I thought it would be fun to work with a rainbow theme. I had already made a background using Wild Plum, Raspberry, Turquoise, and Stream alcohol inks on Yupo white heavystock and I thought it would be perfect for the angel's wings. I stamped the angel on the Yupo and fussy cut the wings out. I stamped her again on white card stock with Amalgam ink and colored her in with Copic markers (listed below). I used my Scan n Cut to cut the angel image out and adhered the wings to the image. I added touches of silver gel pen on the wings and on her outfit. And I also added some clear wink of stella to her hair and the bottom portion of her dress (behind the flowers). I set the angel aside and created my background piece using Poppyfield, Valencia, Sunshine Yellow, and Limeade alcohol inks on Yupo white cardstock. Using the Tim Holtz Rays Stencil, I rubbed some Alcohol Lift Ink over that stencil and rubbed it with a paper towel to get the sun rays on the background. I am loving the new Alcohol Lift Ink!!! So fun to play with! I die cut the piece using the Double Stitch Scalloped Rectangle Frames die from Poppy Stamps. I also die cut a piece of True Black card stock using the same die. I adhered the black and rainbow pieces to a scrap piece of white cardstock because I planned to pop the whole piece up on the Amethyst Allure card base.

{Copic markers used on this card ~ BV000, BV04, BV11, E0000, E00, E21, R000, R17, R20, N5, N7, YR01, YR68, Y06, Y17, Y35, YG03, YG23, B00}

Once I had that part done... I thought the background needed something else. I pulled out my Tim Holtz Mixed Media #2 dies... now at first I thought I would use the die with the flowers, but then I saw the negative pieces of the die sitting on my desk and thought they would be cool on the background and so that's what I did. That was no easy task because there were a lot of small pieces but I placed the die cut wrong side up on a piece of Press n Seal (that stuff in your kitchen to cover your leftovers - it's sticky and perfect for this!) and put all the little pieces on there like I was doing a puzzle. Once I had it filled back in, I added liquid glue to the pieces I wanted on my background and flipped it over and adhered them. Some didn't stick but it was easy to use the die cut as my guide to get the pieces in there. Then I popped up the angel on the card with dimensionals, added a few Peacock Feather jewels from Little Things from Lucy's Cards, and stamped and adhered the sentiment from the set.

Here's a closer look at the angel... I tried to capture some of the glitter in her hair. Not easy to do! But take my word for it... it's there!!

On to my second card... so you remember the black die cut from the first card... well, it was just sitting on my desk next to the left over scallop rainbow piece and they wanted to play too. So... I decided to make a Leftover card! Do you ever do that? It can be a bit of a challenge to use up those leftover pieces but this card came together pretty quickly and I have to say... I Love It!!

I masked off my white card base using microfiber tape. You could use washi or purple tape... even post it notes. Anyhow, I masked it off with about a 1/4" border. I knew I wanted to blend some red and yellow ink behind the die cut so I grabbed my brand new Ripe Persimmon and Mustard Seed Distress Oxide inks... so excited to have these in my collection... and blended them in that bottom right corner. I blended a little and then placed the die cut there to see that I was in the right spot and then I'd blend some more. Once I had that section done, I grabbed the Tumbled Glass and Stormy Sky Distress Oxide inks and blended the rest of the masked off area. Using the Ranger Anti-Static Pouch, I covered the distress oxide background and then stamped the sentiment with VersaMark watermark ink and then heat embossed ultra fine white embossing powder. I pulled off the microfiber tape and adhered my scalloped frame to the black die cut piece and then adhered them to the white card base.

I set that aside and got to work on my dragonfly. Do you recognize those wings?!?! I stamped the dragonfly from the Dreams Take You itty bitty set with Ranger Jet Black Archival ink onto my background that was leftover from the angels wings. I stamped the dragonfly again on white card stock, adhered the fussy cut wings, and fussy cut the whole dragonfly out. I bent the wings up a bit for dimension on the card and adhered just the head and thorax of the dragonfly. And then I spotted the Peacock Feather jewels that were still on my desk and decided this dragonfly needed some bling!! This might just be my favorite Leftover card ever!! 

 One or two of our friends are having giveaways on their blogs for this month's hop so be sure to hop and comment on each of our blogs so you'll be entered into this giveaway. We sure appreciate and love all of your fun comments! 

Now let's get hopping!

Crystal <--- you're here

up next ---> Joyce

Eileen

Robyn

Kim

Dawn

Jeanie

Bobbie Sue

Thanks for stopping by!

See ya next time.

~ Crystal