Is it spring yet?

Hi friends,

I've been working on cards a little at a time, then took pictures last night. So it seems like I've been really busy, but have not - just doing a bit here and a bit there until each card was completed.

The first card uses the Stately Flowers 4 stamp set by Melanie Muenchinger for GKD. The salmon pink shimmer embossed layers are from Anna Griffin. She has such romantic colors and feminine creations that I simply LOVE :) It was a lot of fun and inspiration watching her on HSN this last Monday. Yup, I ordered some new products {sigh}.

The top left ribbon is an idea I saw on one of Anna Griffin's cards - she pulled ribbon down on both sides of the corner into the bow - had to CASE that part. Embossed image and sentiment in gold, colored with Copic markers. The rhinestones are a beautiful blush color IRL.

The next four cards are using Hula Riley which I think is really Sophie :D  The hula skirts are 3D, cut into thin shimmery slits and flared up a bit with my fingers. I painted the flowers and stems with Perfect Pearls and added Stickles whenever possible!

And finally a card made using the new StampTV kit by GKD. The stamp set is Warm Spring Wishes. I used white embossing powder, fussy cut the flowers and leaves out, tied some plain embroidery thread into a bow and added Sakura clear glitter pen to outline the embossed butterflies. I sprinkled some clear glitter around the pearl centers of the flowers. The inside of the card is the last picture for today.

The inside is stamped with Gina K. white pigment ink, clear glitter pen to highlight the flowers and butterfly.

Thank you very, very, VERY much for stopping by today!!!!

Spring Blocks

Aloha friends,

This card is for StampTV's challenge to use blocks of color hosted by Laurie Schmidin. You can see it HERE :)

Yesterday I watched a fairly easy technique by Darlene DeVries that you can watch by clicking this LINK. However, she used water based markers by Stampin' Up and I used Distress Inks. She sprinkled some water drops over her blocks and I spritzed Perfect Pearls and water all over mine. You can tell I LOVE LOVE LOVE shimmer LOL.

After measuring the focal image layer into four equal parts, stamp your images in VersaMark and heat emboss with black embossing powder. Then I took a small makeup sponge and loaded it with Distress ink. I used four blue or bluish colors of ink as I don't have a lot to pick from. Just stick with the same color group if you want a similar monotone finish. It's ok to overlap colors on the edges. When you're done coloring your four blocks, just sprinkle or spritz water all over it if you use water based color, or alcohol if you use alcohol based color. Easy, huh? Then I used a heat tool to hurry up the drying process, layered it, stamped the sentiment and added some punched butterflies and bling, rounded a couple corners. I did cover the butterflies with VersaMark and dipped into Perfect Pearls blues. Thank you so much for stopping by my place!

Stamp set: Summer Blooms mini set by Gina K. Designs
Black Rhinestone Flourishes: Recollections
Homemade Shimmer Spray: Mix about 2 tsp Perfect Pearls "pearl" with about 2 oz plain water and shake and spray :)

With aloha, and thank you for taking a peek!!!

Swim with Us :)

Ready to snorkel or dive? How about just swim in warm ocean, look down and see all the pretty colors of fishies?

These cards were very hard and challenging for me to make. They took a full two days.

Stamp Set:  Under the Sea by Theresa Momber for GKD
Inks: Gelatos (blues, greens, and yellows)
Shimmer: Perfect Pearl spray (background or ocean water) and Wink of Stella clear (over the fish).
Bubble bling: Robin's Nest blue and clear dew drops
Bling scattered on sand: Taylored Expressions Mini Mini crystals
Paper Punch: Photo Corners, Modern Label, Word Window by Stampin' Up
Cardstock: Flourishes Black, Georgia Pacific white 80#
Vellum: Grafix confetti
Paper piercer, copper brads by GKD, Aileen's Clear Tacky Glue, Mono adhesive
Memento marker in gray


The funnest part of the cards were 1) creating the backgrounds, and 2) coloring/fussy cutting the fish and turtles.

Briefly, I scribbled Gelatos all onto my craft sheet, then spritzed several times with Perfect Pearls mixed with water. Doing this gives me the option of not having to buy all the gelatos in metallics, which are a real temptation! Then I took the white card layers and placed them onto the wet gelatos, gently swirling to make sure I covered all the paper.

I stamped the fish and turtles with Memento Tuxedo Black, then colored them all with Copics. After I glued them to the 'water,' I brushed the Wink of Stella clear all over them to give them quite a shimmer.

I made up the sentiments on the laptop, then printed on vellum, cut and adhered to the card outside and inside. I used some fun fonts, so that's why the first letters look goofy. I drew in some swaying sea weed with the Memento Gray Marker. The yellows in the ocean kind of looks like that in real life when the sun filters through the shallow water :)

Card One

Card Two

Thank you dear friends for stopping by to take a look!!

Aloha ♥

And e komo mai! (welcome)

Isn't this little hula girl by My Favorite Things adorable? I thought so, too! The little stamp set is called "Aloha." I am still trying to build a stash of Island Style cards to provide to a local store :) hurray!

I love the gentle pattern paper and used Divine Swirls EF by Cuttlebug to emboss it. I tore a piece of paper, ran it through the corrugator and sponged it tan and gold. I covered it with glue, sprinkled Prisma Glitter all over to be a sandy hill.

I used Copic markers on the little girl, hand sketched a leaf around the sentiment, colored and cut out. Both are popped up with adhesive pop dots. I REALLY enjoyed using the pale blue silk ribbon and tied it into a double bow. Add very pink rhinestones and Wink of Stella clear micro glitter all over and ta da! Pau! (done in Hawai'ian). The inside and envelope are decorated but I forgot to take a picture of those, sorry!

Thank you dear friends for stopping by!!!!

A Burst of Spring! Watercoloring with Inktense Pencils

Hi friends!

Remember the pile of flowers and butterflies I made a few days back? Well, I stuck one onto a black and white card :) Yay! Let spring burst forward for all of you!!!!

The stamp set is Hello Sunshine by GKD. I stamped the flower with GKD black onyx ink. I have compared Gina's black ink against my usual Memento Tuxedo Black, and in my humble opinion, Gina's black ink is extremely, incredibly BEAUTIFULLY BLACK!!!! However, I will continue to stamp with Memento Tuxedo Black for Copic colorings {smile}.

Anyway, I added very black rhinestones to the centers of the flowers -- they're so dark, you can't see the light bounce off the facets in this picture, but they're shiny! I used Liquid Pearls to decorate the butterfly. I used 2 different Stampin' Up hand punches to put together the sentiment. Lastly, I twisted some black twine with some white twine, then tied it together on top of a large white button.

The interior has 3 several generation stamped flowers in a corner as does the back of the envelope.

Thank you everyone for stopping by and taking a look!!! :*

A Whiter Shade of Pale Pink - White Chalk on Craft Card

My venture into craft cardstock (GKD) and white inks. I used Gina K. Design's Premium Pigment White. That is some creamy dreamy ink!! It's very easy to stamp with. I heat set it just in case it wanted to smear (we'll have none of that).

After I was done stamping I felt the flowers needed something else. So I sponged in a tiny bit of pink ink to the centers, added rhinestones to highlight the sentiment, then the butterfly (from Shari in Canada - thank you).

Stamp Set: Hello Sunshine by GKD

Thank you dear friends for stopping by!!!

Ancient Voyages - Distressing Edges and Colors, a Masculine Card

I wanted to make a masculine card that felt like an Old World ocean log book entry. I used a stamp set from Stampin' Up called "The Open Sea." The large circle in the bottom left is a world map, but it didn't turn out too well. I distressed all the pieces and added some Delicata Gold inks to the muted colors of Memento inks. Four copper nail heads hold down the picture of the ship, a micro rhinestone in black centers the Compass Rose, and I used some Metallic Rub On pastes to tone down the bright golds of the Anchor hanging from the twine. The background was a dark wood grain, but after I got done with it, no one knows what it was LOL!!!!

Finally, I typed up a sentiment to appear like a log entry by Captain Cook :) who visited the Bay below where we live, Kealakekua on the Big Island of Hawai'i. Then I distressed it, rolled the edges to look more like a scroll.

Thank you for stopping by ♥

Thank you for stopping by - I appreciate you!

Beach Wishes, That You Were Here!

Here is another beach scene, but this one during the day. I used the same Flourishes Beach Life stamp set by Flourishes. This will be entered into the Flourishes Timeless Tuesdays Challenge #261 by Ally.

Masking: The landscape was masked so that I could create the sandy hill, sky and ocean.

This is the first time I used rain drops from The Robin's Nest and I am IN LOVE. Can't wait to try them in an underwater sea scene as bubbles!

I looked up some sea-going flags, and here in Hawai'i, I found one that has a cocktail drink on it LOL -- that's how I created this one and stuck it in the sand for the sentiment :)

I kept this card simple, and the products used are basically the same as last night's card on home page below this post. Very best wishes to all!

This is the inside and back of envelope

Thank you very much for stopping by!!!!

A Crescent Moon - Masking Techniques

Hi, friends,

Here is a sponged nighttime ocean scene with a crescent moon. It's made for Flourishes Timeless Tuesdays #261

First I cut a circle from Post It note, then reinserted it into the punch until only a slice of the circle would be cut out = crescent moon.

I also placed a mask from Post It over the ocean so that I could sponge the night sky. Then I removed the Post It that covered the ocean and placed it over the sky to keep the straight horizon line. I stamped and cut out the palm trees on paper, and held it into place as I sponged over the ocean. Then I removed the masked palm trees, and stamped those into the ocean. Finally I sponged the sand, added stars with a gel pen, then smoothed Wink of Stella over the whole sky, ocean, sand and palm tree... so yep, I covered the image with mini sparkles :D

I love the bullet nibs on Memento markers. I used them to add color and details to the palm trees, the sail boat that looks like a rock, and added some dots into the sand. I used the white gel pen to add highlights in the ocean and trees, then quickly smudged it off to blunt the vibrancy of its stark white color.

Stamp Set: "Beach Life" by Flourishes {Lauren Pope}
Inks and markers: Memento
Rhinestone flourishes: Recollections
Rhinestone tear drops and round: Want2Scrap
Cardstock: Gina K. Designs 120# Pure Luxury White
Layer: Bazzill navy, pattern paper was preprinted but I embossed with Argyle EF by Cuttlebug
Spellbinder Dies: Petite Ovals Large #5 (counting from center out) and Opulent Ovals, largest oval

The inside is also stamped with Flourishes beach stamps, gently sponged in light blues, sentiment by Victor Hugo.

Thank you so much for stopping by!

Embossing Flowers and Butterflies

Over the last couple of weeks, I've tried to emboss and color/paint some flowers and butterflies. I did a little at a time and now have a bit of a stash.

The flowers are embossed white onto vellum, then sponged with Memento chalk inks from the back. The smaller butterflies are done with the same method.

The larger butterflies were stamped with Staz On black ink, then I colored with Inktense watercolor pencils. Then I used a water brush and water to blend the colors together a little. The colors from Inktense pencils are vibrant and beautiful. After they dried, I used some Liquid Pearls to add some dimension to them. I am pretty certain this butterfly is by GKD but I forgot to write which one on the backs like I usually do. Sometimes there is quite a long delay between stamping and coloring for me, and I'm sorry I can't remember which stamp it is.

Thank you so much for coming by!!!

Mini 3x3 inch Thank You cards

Hi friends,

Here are some easy mini cards that come in handy for when you need a quick Thank You. Despite their size, they can still be decorated without being too overwhelming.

I used some scoring, piercing, pearls, rhinestones and baker's twine. The envelopes are lined and made using the Envelope Punch board. That is the easiest way for me to make envelopes. I have the regular score board with tool measurement as well as the Ultimate Crafter's Companion boards. By far the Envelope Punch board is the fastest and easiest for me to use.

The stamp set is a gift from Tina G. (thank you!) called Botanical Silhouettes by Papertrey Ink. The flower stamps and sentiments are small enough to use for these mini cards. The inks are Stampin' Up. I also used the Stampin' Up piercing template. All the bling is from Want2Scrap. Cardstock by Gina K. Designs and the pattern paper is by Colorbök. The embossed butterflies are from GKD Stately Flowers 4 by Melanie Muenchinger.

Aloha and thank you so much for stopping by :*

It's a very vellum day here :)

Yes, I have been in a vellum mood for a while now. Ever since I chose to face my fears (of the stuff) and go full force into vellum techniques. I have NOT broken out in hives, headaches, nausea (at least from this), nor had any type of panic type feelings. And I'm simply using Tombow Clear glue, tiny dots of the stuff, to adhere the vellum to the card. Sometimes with bling or brads to cover up, sometimes you just can't see it.

I am making a batch of Hawai'ian cards for the store keeper in a local tourist shop. I am waaaaay behind (add more waaaaays to that). But doing the best I can under the circumstances, just like all my stamping, painting, cardmaking-addicted friends, right? Right!

This card has a floral theme. I stamped images from GKD Stately Flowers 4 illustrated by Melanie Muenchinger. I used VersaMark on vellum, then poured white embossing powder over it, and heat embossed gently.  I turned the images over and using sponge daubers, gentle swirled chalk inks to the backs of the images (Memento inks).

{note: Copics were too vibrant of color for this project, Distress Inks being water based simply beaded up and didn't spread well on vellum, and so that is why I went with the chalks - spread easily and sticks well to the vellum}

The dry embossing is done with the Twig folder as well as the Cherry Blossom folder, both by Cuddlebug.

The layers were cut and I used a strip of pink card as a divider on the front, edged one panel with MS scalloped hole edger (added clear rhinestones as a design). Finally I used Stampin' Up Flourish tag punch for the sentiment "Hawai'i" on pink, as well as another punch from vellum for the top of the sentiment. I used small dots of adhesive to the corners of both layers, then covered the glued areas with pink pearls.

The butterfly (vellum) is colored a deep green on the inner wings, and a deep blue on the outer wings (hard to tell). I sketched in the antennae with a Memento gray bullet tip marker.

The hibiscus (vellum) is colored a dark pink to red and fades nearer to the edges. There is green sponged onto the small leaves.

I will enter this card into the following challenge:

 Art Impressions Vellum Challenge #130 Sheer Perfection Week 2

If you use images by AI, you will get EXTRA VOTES (but of course, I like to learn things the hardest ways possible, so did not know that part :)

Hope to see you play along with us!!!!

Bling: Want2Scrap

Embossing Powder: White by PSX

Sheer Ribbon bow: stash

White 120# card base by: Gina K. Designs

Pink cardstock: in a misc bag of colored cardstock I have

Adhesive: Tombow Mono Aqua

Thank you dear friends for stopping by, taking a peek y boo, and leaving any comments!

I appreciate each and every one of YOU, yes I DO! :*