Jolly Ol' Santa ~ Holly Jolly Christmas!

Hello there! Today I thought I'd share a bit more of Christmas in July with this sweet Santa card. A couple of weeks ago I hopped with Friends of Unity sharing some Christmas cards... you can check those out here... I got a bit carried away and created this card too. 

I adore this Santa stamp! He's so cute! I thought I'd also use up some of my Christmas patterned paper from last year. I decided to use the Tim Holtz Christmas Paper Stash paper pad that I had to have last year, but never actually cut into. The layers on my card are both cut from the same pad of paper, but so is my sentiment. I cut each word out and layered it on white card stock and then popped each of the words up along with my Santa. How cute is that?!

Santa was colored using the following Copic Markers ~ R20, E000, E00, E21, E23, E25, R14, R29, R39, R89, G05, G14, C00, C1, C3, N4, N7. I also used some clear wink of stella on the white of his hat, mustache and beard. There's also just a bit of Sakura Gelly Roll Stardust gel pen on his hat and shirt buttons. I die cut the Santa image using the Papertrey Ink Shape Shifters: Oval 2 die. I popped the oval piece up on the card and then trimmed the edge.

I had so much fun making this card! I think I'll make a few more of this one using different papers.

What do you think?

Thanks so much for stopping by!

See ya next time.

~ Crystal

~ 3 Days of Halloween ~ Day 3 ~

Hello! It's my final day for my 3 Days of Halloween series! I know I already shared a card using this beautiful stamp... but I think Unity's Esmerelda Girl is my favorite so I just had to make another card!

For this card, I stamped Esmerelda on a piece of white card stock in Memento Tuxedo black ink and then colored her in with the following Copic markers: Dress/hat - V01, V05, V09; Hair - E02, E07, E08; Skin - E50, E51, E53; Broom - E55, E57; Ground/belts - N01, N02, N05. I die cut the piece using the largest rectangle in the In & Out Diagonal Stitched Rectangle Stax set from My Favorite Things. I then blended some Hickory Smoke and Black Soot distress inks around the edge. I stamped a few background stamps from Stampin' Up!'s Ghoulish Grunge set. I still had the Tim Holtz Cobweb thinlit die on my desk so I decided to cut out another True Black cobweb. I added some glittery goodness to it using a clear Wink of Stella pen. I decided to cut up some of the web so I could fit more of it on the card. I then decide to add some more purple to the card and mat the panel onto a scalloped rectangle of Blackberry Bliss card stock from Stampin' Up! I adhered the entire panel to a card base of Soft Stone card stock from Papertrey Ink. The finishing touch was a quick sentiment from the Simon Says Stamp set If The Hat Fits I used on yesterday's Halloween card. I stamped it in VersaMark ink and then heat embossed a fine white embossing powder. I fussy cut a banner and popped it up on the card using dimensionals. I just love how this card turned out! I sure hope you do, too!

If you missed Day 1 of my ~ 3 Days of Halloween ~ series... you can check it out here and Day 2 can be found... here.

I sure hope that you've enjoyed my ~ 3 Days of Halloween ~ series!!

Thanks for stopping by!

See ya next time.

~ Crystal

~ 3 Days of Halloween ~ Day 1 ~

Hello! I've always had a love for Halloween... I love all the fun decorations and the costumes! Even more than all that, I love all the fun Halloween stamps and papers that are released from all the different companies. They get more fun every year! I was starting to get bummed because I really hadn't had time to play with my Halloween stamps and get some Halloween cards made to mail out. So... I decided the housework could wait, and I got inky!! Yay!

I just had to ink up Unity's Esmerelda Girl... I love this stamp and how fun is she to paper piece?! I used some Papertrey Ink papers that I had bought during their big sale. I die cut the layers using a set of Edgers dies from Papertrey Ink. I added a little bit of purple with some washi tapes from my stash. I die cut the Tim Holtz Cobweb thinlit die from True Black card stock and then added some glittery goodness using a clear wink of stella pen. I adhered that to the layers on the card. Now the fun part, I stamped Esmerelda in Memento Tuxedo black ink on white card stock so I could color some of her using Copic markers. I also stamped her on the black and white star paper. I colored the parts of Esmerelda that I wanted and then fussy cut out her dress and hat and adhered those to the image. I then cut out the entire image and adhered her to the card. Now this sentiment is hilarious... I just had to have it when I saw it. It's from Simon Says Stamp, in their If the Hat Fits set. I stamped it and die cut it with My Favorite Things Jumbo Fishtail Banner Stax die. To finish off the card, I added a few drops of black Nuvo drops. Such a fun card to make! Hope you like it!

Be sure to come by tomorrow for Day 2 of my ~ 3 Days of Halloween ~ series!!

Thanks for stopping by!

See ya next time.

~ Crystal

Make It Monday #281 ~ Happy Mother's Day!

It has been a very long time since I have played along with Papertrey Ink's Make it Monday challenge. I used to play along but didn't have a blog to share and actually enter my creation. I'm excited to actually be able to enter my card.

My die cut window was made with just a regular stitched rectangle die cut. I used it on both the Soft Stone patterned paper and the kraft card stock. I also cut out the Floribunda Frame die in kraft card stock. I sponged Fresh Snow, Raspberry Fizz, Hibiscus Burst, and Harvest Gold on the flowers. I used Always Artichoke and Wild Wasabi markers to color the leaves. I added some white gel pen to the centers of the flowers to help make them pop and then added some sparkle with a clear Wink of Stella pen. I stamped the sentiment using Raspberry Fizz ink directly on the patterned paper. I adhered the Soft Stone die cut piece on a white card base. I popped up the kraft layer with dimensionals. I then cut tiny pieces of the dimensionals to pop up the center pieces of the Floribunda Frame die cut piece and glued down the outer portion using liquid glue. For a last little touch, I added some white gloss Nuvo Crystal drops.

Here's a close up of some of the sparkle. It was difficult to get a picture since it's cloudy here today, but you can see a bit of it.

Here are the products I used for this card:

Stamps: Cutaway Tags: Spring (PTI)

Card Stock: White, Kraft, Soft Stone patterned paper (PTI)

Inks: Fresh Snow, Raspberry Fizz, Hibiscus Burst, Harvest Gold (PTI), Always Artichoke, Wild Wasabi markers (SU!)

Tools: Stitched Rectangle Stacklet (TE), Floribunda Frame die (PTI), 

Miscellaneous: Clear Wink of Stella, White Gloss Nuvo Crystal Drops (SSS)

 Please leave a comment. I'd love to hear what you thought of my creation.

Thanks for stopping by!

See ya next time.

~ Crystal

CYCI149 - Yay... a Sketch!

Yay! It's time for a CYCI Sketch Challenge... I've missed them! Don't get me wrong... I've loved the color challenges, but there's a whole different challenge to a sketch challenge. We have a fun sketch from Rose this week! Let's get to it... 

I had mentioned before that I'm sending a card to my Mom each week. I realized this week that my stash was gone so I needed to make a card asap to send to her and I thought this sketch was perfect. I was reorganizing some of my stamps and found this stamp from Papertrey Ink called Botanical Blocks that was ideal for this sketch. I inked up the rose and the sunflower from this set, but decided to go with the rose for this card. I pulled out my watercolors and had some fun coloring this. I used some white gel pen on the flower that I softened up with my water pen. I had never tried that before but I like the soft white effect that it made. I also added some clear Wink of Stella here and there on the flower. I cut out the framed piece and started looking for a paper that coordinated well with it... that took a few minutes, but I ended up finding a piece that would work from a retired pack of Raspberry Tart Designer Series Paper. I used some crocheted 'ribbon' and a bauble from the retired Artisan Embellishment kit. I stamped the sentiment using Memento Tuxedo black ink. For a final touch, I added some broken black lines to kind of frame the whole card.

Here's a close up picture of the flower. You can see the softened white from the gel pen. It almost has a chalk like look to it. You can also see the shimmer from the Wink of Stella. It's really much prettier in person. :)

I can't wait to see what you create using this sketch as your inspiration!! Be sure to join our new Facebook group so that you can enter the challenge... Can You Case It? Challenge Group and go check out all the creations by the CYCI design team!

Here are the products I used for this card:

Stamps: Botanical Blocks (PTI)

Card Stock: white (PTI), Distress Watercolor (SSS), Raspberry Tart (retired SU!)

Inks: Memento Tuxedo Black (SU!), Ranger Archival Jet Black (SSS)

Adhesives: Stampin' Dimensionals, Tombow Mono Multipurpose (SU!)

Miscellaneous: Clear Wink of Stella (SU!), Artisan Embellishment kit (retired SU!), Sakura Gelly Roll Stardust, Kuretake Gansai Tambi watercolors (Amazon)

Thanks for stopping by!

See ya next time.

~ Crystal