Lovely Peonies

    Hello crafty friends! Lieschen here with a fun card featuring the Peony Cluster stamps & the Delightfully Delicate stencil.

    Peonies are such beautiful flowers, don't you think? I had a lot of fun coloring them with my Prismacolor pencils. After I colored them, I used my Brother Scan & Cut to cut the flowers.

     For my background, I used the Delightfully Delicate stencil with some iridescent glitter gel to give some shine in the background. To finish the card I added a sentiment from the Peony Cluster stamp set and some embellishments.

I hope this has given you some inspiration to do something creative today. Until next time!

Mixed Media, 3 Different Ways

Hello Friends! 

Today seemed like a good day to try something a bit different.  There were lots of bits and pieces on my desk- colored images, monoprints, and various other backgrounds.  I thought it would be fun to put some of these items to use and create mixed media cards.
 I think a lot of us have a certain idea of what mixed media is in our heads- lots of texture, layers, and lots and lots of products- sprays, pastes, metal items, tissue paper, pencils, crayons, gel mediums to name a few.  However, in the card making world, many consider a mixed media card to be two or more mediums on a card. 
So, here we go.  I have 3 different cards, varying in complexity and using different mediums. 
The first is super CAS!

The two mediums are watercolor and acrylic paint. 
Here is the how to~
The background panels are from a single monoprint using acrylic paint and a stencil.  If you are not familiar with monoprinting, it involves using a gel plate like the ones here.  Acrylic paint was dropped on and rolled out with a Printing Brayer.  The leaf panel is two stamps- the leaf is from the Autumn Splendor Stamp Set and the doodled square is from the Just Be Stamp Set. I stamped and masked the leaf onto water color paper, then stamped the square.  The image was then watercolored with Ken Oliver Color Bursts and fussy cut out. I doodled lines around my background panels using a Sakura Pigma Micron Pen.  Some acrylic paint splatters finish off the leaf image. 
The next card has a bit more going on~

The flower, which is from the Mason Jar Bouquet Stamp Set, was stamped with Versafine Onyx Black Ink on water color paper, painted with Ken Oliver Color Bursts and fussy cut out.  The background is stamped multiple times with the floral branch from the Birds and Blooms Stamp Set and colored with Prismacolor pencils.  I added dies cuts from a new die I was trying out and heat embossed a sentiment from the Singing Praises Stamp Set.   
This third card is what you may consider to be a more traditional mixed media project.  It was inspired by our own Julee Tilman! 

I had another flower laying around, wanting to be used on a card.  It was stamped on watercolor paper with Versafine Onyx Black Ink , water colored with Ken Oliver Color Bursts and then fussy cut out.  My mixed media panel was one I made when trying to replicate something that Julee had made.  Well, mine fell really short!  I was going to toss it, but, when placed next to the color orange, it suddenly came to life.  I also had a piece of patterned paper that had been spritzed with a couple of different shimmery sprays; the colors worked perfectly with the orange rose and the teal panel.  The sentiment is from the new, Sentimental Mash Up Stamp Set.  This card uses water colors, sprays, embossing paste and distress oxides. 

There you have it, 3 mixed media cards, all with very different looks.  Which do you like best? 
I hope I have inspired you to get messy today!

Thanks for stopping by and have a blessed week! 
Lee Ann 

Follow Jesus

Hello everyone! Today I want to show you a card that's pretty simple to create. All you need is some nice patterned paper, a stamp set, ink and some embellishments.

I stamped the bike on a light colored card stock, colored it with colored pencils and die cut the frame around it. I stamped the banner on the same card stock and cut it out. I had the bold pattern for some time and I loved the green touches in it so I decided to die cut a piece of green card stock too to add some interest to the card. I colored the edges of every frame I have on this card with the same green ink so that the pieces fit together better. I adhered everything on the card and added a little wooden leaf and some sequins to finish it.

That's everything you need to do for this card :). I used the stamp set 'Go Gods Way' for the bike and the message.

- Lucinde

Merry Christmas - Botanicals

Hello everyone! I'm still working on my Christmas cards, I hope I'll finish before Christmas haha. I wanted to try some coloring on dark cardstock for a while and I thought the Christmas Botanicals were a perfect fit for this technique.

I stamped the flower and sentiment on black paper with embossing ink. I embossed it with gold embossing powder. This made it easier to color and I love the golden details on a Christmas card. I used Derwent Coloursoft pencils to color the image. I used two reds and two greens, that's all.
I added a red border behind the black cardstock to give the card a brighter look and feel. I used black patterned paper for the background and adhered everything together. I added a couple of sequins to finish the card.

- Lucinde

Color Pencils and Mason Jar Bouquet Flowers

Hello it's Gracie Chavez from Graciellie Design. Coloring mediums have been all I've thought about this year, from Zig markers to watercolors... But today I'm trying out Prismacolor pencils for the first time! It is a different medium, slower to begin with, but it is -oh so totally- worth it!

I decided to use Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps Mason Jar Bouquet flowers to try out my Prismacolors for the first time. I didn't use any solution to blend the colors, I simple did it the classic way... Layering. Layering requires patience and if you have some form of arthritis you'll feel uncomforable at some point but if you don't press the pencil too hard, apply the color with small circular strokes you will achieve a neat transition.

The flowers turned out so delicate and pretty that I decided to create a very intricate lace card base for them using Anna Griffin's Elegant Embellishments 2 cartridge on my new Cricut Explore Air 2. This card has so many delicate layers and it makes the images look even more classic and elegant. I decided to add a sentiment from my clear stamp set Floral Greetings released by Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps early this year. And I think nothing says classic like ribbon so I tied a matching pink bow around the card front and embellished it with a gold button.  

If you want to take a closer look at these stamps visit SNSS shop here. There are many, many more beautiful stamp sets to choose from and even 2 more clear stamp sets I designed myself. That is all for now. I hope you give this coloring medium a try one of these days too! Until next time.