Just add water...color

I love creating cards with watercolors.   Usually, I head right for one of my flower stamps, but yesterday morning I picked up this airplane from Serendipity Stamps.  I misted and colored with watercolor pencils, stamped...and then added a little guy inside the cockpit with a dab of gray paint.

Using these new brassy brads I got a Hobby Lobby, I layered this on some old map patterned paper, die-cutting this "Thanks" from Little Yellow Bicycle from the leftover scraps.

I'm happy with it!

I'm entering this in the latest Serendipity Stamps Challenge.

Thanks for stopping by!

Background Stamping

Hollyhocks.  

I love hollyhocks.

I've always heard my great-grandmother Sarah Jane had hollyhocks and sweet pea, and it's made me want them even more.  We used to have hollyhocks growing abundantly in our east front yard--every color, growing as tall as I am--but over the years they faded out, and it's been a struggle to get new ones growing.  Sweet pea, I just planted out by the back fence this spring.  

I love this hollyhock stamp from Serendipity Stamps so much, I'm always looking for new ways to use it.  

This afternoon I made a card for the 

On a scrap of watercolor paper (leftover from a calligraphy project), I used an oval mask and inked up this big stamp from Inkadinkado with brown dye ink.  I lightly misted it with water before stamping, for a slightly mottled look.  

Removing the mask, it was time to color my hollyhock stamp with watercolor pencils, laying on thick color, misting and stamping.  The sentiment is from Flonz.

When dry, I layered this piece on a pre-folded kraft card and added a few wood sequins.

Oh, good.  It looks like rain, and I can hear thunder coming closer.  We need it!

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I love your comments!

Anything Goes?

First of all, I want to shout out a Happy 49th Birthday to my big brother, John.

Love you, John!

I've been saving this gorgeous paper from the DIY pad by Cratepaper.  

I love the watercolor look--perfect for a background.

I chose a spot with mainly pinks and yellows and cut it for my background, and then created a simple card with my Bluebells stamp from Serendipity Stamps and a bird die from Momenta.

Well,...I wanted simple, yes, but not blah.  And this looked downright blech!

After a bit of musing, I cut my card front in half.

With these two pieces, I created two cards.

For the first one, I framed and cut piece with a bit of blue from my scrap drawer.  I die cut another bird from a scrap of brown.  The sentiment is from my new stamp/die set from Sizzix, Hot Air Balloon.  When stamping the bluebells, I used blue and green markers, and then added a bit more color with a light blue chalk pencil.

I used the same supplies for this second card, using more of my brown paper scrap for the frame.  I almost think I like this one best of all.  I'm going to enter it in the latest Serendipity Stamps challenge:  

Thanks for stopping by!

Let me know what you think!

Snow Days

We got a beautiful snow here in Kansas yesterday.  It floated down in huge flakes for a while, but swept away easily from the sidewalks and driveway.  I had a bit of time to spare, so I created this card, using my new Winter Fenceline stamp from Serendipity Stamps.

I stamped Winter Fenceline in my favorite Rich Cocoa from Imagine Crafts/Tsukindeko and sponged the background with VersaMagic Turquoise Gem to match the stripes.

I'm entering this in the current Serendipity Stamps Challenge.

Thanks for visiting!  

I love your comments!

Stripes

Happy New Year!

Yes, of course we're well into the new year now.  Many of you may have all your Christmas things packed safely away.  Not me.  I still enjoy gazing at the lights on the Christmas tree, playing Christmas CDs while I work and all.  I try not to see the aisles of pink and red hearts taking over Hobby Lobby right now.  I'm not ready for all that.  

I know.  I'll regret that in about a month. 

These past couple of month, as the holidays caught me by surprise, I had to, one by one, drop seemingly important things from my growing to-do list.  One thing that had to go were the card challenges.  I felt only a little pang of regret.   I'd recently applied for two design team positions and missed out on both...though I did make round two on one of them.  So maybe I was due for a step back and a deep breath.

Now I'm ready to jump back into the fold.

One thing I really enjoyed last year (besides my precious time on the CardMaker Blog Team!)  was participating in the challenges on the Serendipity Stamps Challenge Blog.  

If you've never checked out Serendipity Stamps before, make that a New Year's resolution!

The first challenge this year calls for stripes.

I wanted to use my new airplane stamp for a one-layer card.  (I bought one of these for both me and my sister, in honor of our cousin Kenny and uncle Bud.)   I brushed a bit of brown pastel on the card, using a cotton ball.  After stamping the plane, I used a kneaded eraser to remove pastel from areas of the clouds, creating highlights.

Then I added these stripes from Hero Arts and the sentiment from Avery Elle.

Hmmmmm.  It looks okay, I guess, but it wasn't really what I had in mind, so I started again.  Looked to me like this design needed a square card.  (So many of them do!)

For this version, I sponged sky blue and pink pastel in the background.  (You may not be able to see it in the picture, but it shows up beautifully in real life.)  This time a stamped the plane in black and the stripes in sky blue.  (Okay, if they look a little muddy, it's because I got a bit impatient and probably didn't clean that stamp as well as I should have!)

I like this one a lot better.

What do you think?

Thanks for stopping by!

I wish you all the best in 2016!

Royal Blue

Browsing through other blogs lately, I've been seeing lots of Christmas cards, and it's got me in the mood.  Perfect timing.  I wanted to create something to enter the latest Serendipity Stamps Challenge. 

 This month's theme is What's New.   I have a couple of new paper pads, but neither of them seemed appropriate for the stamp scene I wanted to create.  I do, however, have these die cuts that I received for Christmas a couple of years ago.  The package was a bit sticky, so I took them out and put them in a little box...and forgot about them when last Christmas came around. 

 I also have this new set of pens to use.

I knew for sure I wanted to make something blue, in honor of our Kansas City Royals playing for the ALCS pennant.  I went through my paper pads and picked out this lovely snowflake blue.  The stamping looked great, but it DID NOT go with the die cut I had picked out, so I tried two more cards and finally came up with this one.

Supplies:  Winter Homestead stamp from Serendipitystamps.com; Branches stamp set from Inkadinkado; Cloud Blue stamp pad from Ranger

I'll share those other two creations another day.

Thanks for stopping by!

Autumn at Last

My second cousin Dick wrote from Washington over a month ago:   

The trees in the yard are starting to change color and we watch the geese getting ready for their trip south (some stay here all year).  It’s been a very hot summer here, (20 days over 90 degrees)  (2 months over 80) and we are glad to see fall come around.  It was a good year for the fruit trees in the back yard; cherries, pears, plums, apples and peaches all did well.  Also the raspberries and Logan berries.

I was so jealous, for it was still hot and sticky here in Kansas.  Now, however, autumn is beginning to show.  We traveled to Homecoming in Fredonia, Kansas, on Saturday. Along the roadside, the bright gold of wild sunflowers has given way to the deeper gold of ripening soybeans--fields and fields of them.  Some are even curling and brown, ready to harvest.  Here and there, a tall tree stood out, bright red among all the other greens.  It was even sweater weather.  Add to that the smell of pork sausages smoking on the town square.  

Yes, fall is here.

And so I tried another card for the Serendipity Stamps Challenge #47, which is all about creating your own background. 

When I first saw this stamp of geese, I knew I wanted to use it to create my oldest brother's birthday card. 

Here I added a background with chalks, blending the colors (blue and brown) with a cotton ball.  I stamped everything with brown dye ink from Tsukineko and added a touch of contrasting orange to those berries on the branches from Inkadinkado.

Happy Autumn, Everyone!

Backgrounds

I'd been searching for just the right background for this hollyhock (one of my newest favorite stamps from Serendipity Stamps)  I stamped with watercolor pencils, and today I decided to emboss a pink piece of cardstock and lightly distress it with sandpaper, sponge those edges with brown chalk ink and mount it all on a square celery card. 

I know this isn't an autumn card, but it's hard to think autumn when it's still so sunny and hot here!  Looks like the forecast might be changing pretty soon, though.  Hooray!

I'm entering this in the Serendipity Stamps Challenge #47, which is all about creating your own background.  

Thanks for visiting!

Come back soon!

another one for Susan

Planning this card for Susan, I had a dilemma.  I knew I wanted to use the Serendipity Stamps hollyhock, and I also wanted a fence image to go with it.  But...I wanted to keep this a clean, one-layered card. 

After much puzzling--and one ugly disaster!--I hit upon this solution. 

I die cut this fence from Spellbinders and used it as a mask, sponging around it with Sky Blue and Moss Green.  Then I stamped my hollyhock with watercolor pencils and added a bit of calligraphy.

I'm entering this in the Serendipity Stamps SSCB #46: Anything Goes

Thanks for stopping by!

Remember, I love it when you leave a comment!

Anything Goes

Can you tell I'm in love with bluebonnets this year?

A whole patch of them popped up by surprise this spring.  Then I couldn't resist a little container of Scottish bluebonnets at the grocery store greenhouse, and those are still blooming!

That's why I had to have this bluebonnet stamp, and I used it yet again to create a birthday card for my honorary fourth sister, my sister-in-law, Susan.

I stamped the bluebonnets with blue and green watercolor pencils.  I layered this on a card made from part of an old DCWV stack.  The birthday wish is from Flonz, the Sweetheart Birthday set.

I'm entering this in the Serendipity Stamps SSCB #46, "Anything Goes."

Thank you so much for stopping by!

I appreciate all comments.

Early Christmas: Part Two

Ever start on a design that went awry, but you just couldn't bear to waste it?

That's now this card began.  

I decided to just cover up my flaws, and it actually worked!

Again, I used Winter Homestead from Serendipity Stamps, and Vintage Pine Tree from Stampabilities; paper is Visions of Christmas stack from K & Company; brown dye ink from Imagine Crafts/Tsukineko

I didn't want to add any words to the front of this card, so it can be used as a birthday card if needed.  (We have plenty of winter birthdays around here!) 

I'm entering this in

SSCB #45 Challenge: Monochrome

Thanks for stopping by!

Early Christmas

It's hot and muggy here in Lawrence, Kansas, hardly the right time to be thinking about my Christmas card design. I'll get to that when we have our first cool snap!  It is, however, the right time to start stocking up my mother's Christmas stash.  

I made this one to enter the 

SSCB #45 Challenge: Monochrome

I'm using the SS Winter Homestead stamp, which looks like it came straight out of The Homecoming! Trees in the foreground are Vintage Pine Tree from Stampabilities; the sentiment is from an old set from Hobby Lobby.  I sponged all around the edges to give it a vintage feel.   

I'd love to be in this scene right now!!

Thanks for stopping by!

Blooming Hollyhocks

The hollyhocks in our yard are fading fast, especially with the temperatures nudging up near 100 day after day.  My hollyhock stamp from Serendipity Stamps, however, keeps on blooming.

I didn't mean to mess with cards today.  I meant to get back to work on a dress for my mother.  But I couldn't resist making these cards for her to use instead.

I used my watercolor pencils directly on the hollyhock stamp for both of these cards, using greys (with a touch of black here and there) on the first and pinks on the second.

Other supplies:  pre-folded watercolor card from Strathmore: Stitched Banner Duo die set and pink sequins from Pretty Pink Posh;  Cherish Yesterday stamp set from Hero Arts

I'm entering these cards in the Serendipity Stamps Challenge #45, Monochrome

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Bluebells

I've been playing with my new bluebell stamp from Serendipity Stamps.

For this one, I used an ivory card with layers of light blue, and stamped the bluebell in Sky Blue.

It shows up better in real life than here in my photo!

I'm entering this in the Serendipity Stamps Challenge #45, Monochrome

Other supplies:  Sky Blue pigment ink from Clearsnap; "Life is in Bloom" stamp from Printworks; brick embossing plate from The Paper Studio; Stitched Banner Duo from Pretty Pink Posh

This and That

It's time for some good news.

First thing this morning, I discovered I was the favorites winner at SSCB #44.

Hooray!

Brenda at Floral Fantasies is wanting new homes for a selection of pre-loved stamps and punches.  I see some tempting items there, don't you?!

Thanks for visiting!

I appreciate all your comments!

Taking Off

I first discovered Serendipity Stamps early this year, when I was searching for a good hollyhock stamp.  This line is based in Smithville, Missouri, and owned by Mary Dew Lee.  Her beautiful stamps...and great, personal customer service!...keep drawing me back.

I created this card yesterday, using the Geese 1230K stamp. 

Other supplies:  The Paper Studio Boho stack from Hobby Lobby; Fossil Leaves stamp set from Inkadinkado; Wicked Black dye ink from Clearsnap; and the Grand Nestabilities oval dies from Spellbinders

I'm entering this card in the SSCB #44 My Guy!

I ask your prayers for my mother as she goes into the hospital to get a new knee this afternoon.

Thank you, everyone, for stopping by and leaving your comments!