Puppy Love

February brings all things "hearts" to mind.  

Now add in an adorable little puppy and we're good.  The background here starts with a mix of some Distress Stain with a watercolor look and then it's embossed with a design.  

To get the watercolor look inks on the hearts, I first added more Distress Stains to a piece of watercolor paper and then cut out the hearts with a die once the inks were dry.  

This cute puppy is a stamp from Reverse Confetti.  He is also cut from a piece of paper that had some Distress Stain on it.  You can tell from this card how much I love inks with a watercolor look.

 My card with several heart shapes fits The Card Concept challenge.

It also fits the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge the Color of Love.
Thanks for visiting, Linda (lbpost)

CardMaker Magazine and Clearsnap blog hop

I don't need any excuse to play with inks and stamps and making cards, etc. but a blog hop using some wonderful Clearsnap products makes playing even more fun.  The blog team for CardMaker Magazine and for Clearsnap are joining in to show off specifically the ColorBox Fluid Chalk stamp pads.  I have loved these inks for years.  The results are so beautiful and interesting and I created two very different cards to try to show off what they inks are about.  You should be coming here from Kim's blog.

 One of my absolute favorite ways to use the Chalk inks is to add color to my surface.  The resulting look and feel is like velvet.  I stamped the flowers and leaves first using some Altenew stamps. I used a white ColorBox pigment stamp pad to stamp the images and then use white embossing powder.  The pigment inks stay wet long enough to add the embossing powder.  Once the images are heat embossed, I then took the Chalk stamp pad in the color Cheeky and rubbed it directly over the entire surface of my paper.  It covers so nicely.  The embossed lines of the images resist the ink.  I added in a little bit of color to portions of the flower and leaves with a Copic marker just to add dimension in the colors.  

 I then used a stencil that I placed on my pink card front.  I used the white Chalk stamp pad and added that ink directly over the stencil.  I loved the soft design that resulted.  

I also wanted to show how these inks stamp, especially with a solid image.  I did use a watercolor paper.  You would get a different result from a smooth finish paper.  I again used a set of stamps from Altenew.  First of all I stamped the outline image of the flower randomly around my card front.  I used a simple black Clearsnap for that.  I used the Splash color ink for the solid flower image and then used the Chive color for the leaves.  I added a little contrast of color by rubbing the Cheeky color pad directly along the edges of my card front.  These pads are just perfect for this and I liked adding that surprise of color.  

I did accent the middles of each flower with some Glossy Accents and the black tag with the white words was stamped with the ColorBox white pigment pad and embossed with Clearsnap white embossing powder on black cardstock.  

From here complete the hop by stopping by the Clearsnap blog to see what they are up to plus there are prizes to be won.

Thanks for visiting, Linda (lbpost)

lll

Love White Pumpkins

As I sat down to play with the Card Concept challenge, I knew this would give me to chance to use some white pumpkins.  

 I pulled out a set of stamps with matching dies from My Favorite Things for my two pumpkins.  There were stamped in white and embossed with white on watercolor paper.  I gave these shapes a little bit of color with Tea Dye Distress Stains so they would be defined a little bit.  

 To go along with the Card Concept photo inspiration piece, I created a distressed background with a honeycomb stencil and more Distress Stains.  The wreath is a stamp and die from Simon Says Stamp, again stamped with white and embossed with white.  I colored this piece with blue Distress Stains so it fits the photo inspiration.  The layout of the entire card was inspired with the Freshly Made sketch for this week.  

 Here is the Freshly Made sketch.

 Here is the Card Concept photo inspiration.

This also fits the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge of Thanks or Thanksgiving.

Thanks for visiting, Linda (lbpost)

With a blue flower

I used the CAS(e) this sketch for my card mostly because I just plain loved it.  

 I stamped the word "congratulations" four times on my watercolor paper.  I used white ink and embossed that with white embossing powder because I knew that the embossed words would then resist the Distress Stains that I used.  I spritzed the paper first with a small amount of water and then added the Distress Stains directly to the paper.  When that ink is then spritzed again, it runs.  You then need to just set it aside for the ink to dry.  I love how irregular it dries.  The word is from a set by Avery Elle.  I simply love that font.  

 That wonderful flower and the leaf sprig are stamps from Altenew.  The leaf was colored with Copic markers and the flower was simply colored by adding Distress Stains to it.  Again the white embossed lines resisted the ink. 

Here is the CAS(e) this sketch.
Thanks for visiting, Linda (lbpost)