Christmas Card-BRI Moodboard and Always Fun Challenges

My life lately has been insane. We are trying to move, but we've been trying to rent our house out rather than sell it, and guess what, no one wants to move right before Christmas. Shocking, right? So, I packed up my crafty stuff early on in our move because I figured, "Non-essentials" should be packed first and I thought the longest I'd be without them was 2 weeks. Well, here we are a month later and I have cursed myself over and over for being so proactive! 

 I finally pulled out a few of my top essentials and favorite sets so I could make this card for the Always Fun Challenges blog, since the theme this week is Santa. It's still going on now, so if you have a Santa card you should link it up!

I used the Butterfly Reflections, Ink mood board for my color scheme and I seriously couldn't love it more! The colors are so fun! I'll admit, I spent WAAAYYY too long on this card, but it turned out so fun, I can't feel bad about it. Hello Bluebird makes such ADORABLE Christmas sets. I combined the sets "O Christmas Tree" and North Pole Littles for this card.

 Ooohh...I also got the chance to use my new slimline dies from Trinity Stamps and they are SO AWESOME! If you like slimline cards, these are a MUST!

Heres a peak of it in progress :)

You Color My World-Crayon Card

Hello cute crafters!

This card was simple and super fun to make! I keep thinking I should make a bunch like it to give to teachers for the end of the school year. I just can’t get enough of these cute little Lawn Fawn crayons!

1.     I started by stamping my crayon image from the Lawn Fawn “Color My World” set, 8 times onto white cardstock, and coloring the crayons with Copic markers.

2.     Then, I cut them out with the coordinating die. It’s so nice to only have one die to keep track of!!!

3.     Next, I cut a piece of Lawn Fawn’s “Really Rainbow” petite paper pack to a standard A2 size. If you enjoy making anything rainbow, you NEED these papers! I also cut a plain piece of white cardstock slightly smaller than the rainbow paper for my base.

4.     I arranged my crayons around the edges of my white cardstock, hanging some off the edges for fun. Then, I trimmed the edges that hung off with my scissors. I also added a few white details to the crayons using my Signo Uni Ball white gel pen.

5.     I stamped the “You Color My World” sentiment onto the white space on the bottom left corner, using several different Distress Oxide Ink colors, so it would be colorful.

6.     Finally, I finished it off with some Crystal Nuvo drops in different colors. Here’s a fun trick for you. I didn’t have Nuvo drops in purple, so I just colored a few purple spots with a purple Copic marker, then covered them with Nuvo drops in Morning Dew, which dries clear. It worked out so great!

Have I mentioned how much I love stamp sets that can stretch so far? It’s so great to have one tiny stamp set that can do so much!

Thanks so much-Lawn Fawn Shark Card

I wanted to make a card that was similar to this card, by the amazingly talented Leanne! But, of course I didn't want to copy it, so I decided to go with a masculine card theme. I had a jumbo Thanks stamp, (I have no clue where it's from, I bought it FOREVER ago) and I thought it would work well. I stamped the Thanks sentiment multiple times with different Distress Oxide Ink blues. 

Of course, I had to add some fun Lawn Fawn Stamps from their "Duh-Nuh" set. I love mini stamp sets. They are so affordable and you can get so much fun out of them!!!

I inked the background of my card using a Gina K Stripes stencil and black soot Distress Oxide ink. I used my Crystal Nuvo Drops is Duck Egg Blue to add bubbles above the fish and shark.

Always Fun Challenges-Snowmen

Do you wanna build a snowman?

I was so happy when Waleska told me this week's challenge was Snowmen, because I have a fun (older) stamp set that I rarely get to play with and it was so fun to break it out! This stamp set is from Close To My Heart and it's called "Snow Friends". I'm sure you could track it down on ebay or possibly on FB Marketplace. It's so adorable and the sentiments that go along with it are some of my favorites. I'm super happy with the color scheme of this card. It seems sweet and wintery to me. 

 We'd love to have you join us on the Always Fun Challenges Blog! Come link up your snowman cards!

 I had to include a few close ups of the snowmen. They are so much fun! This little guy with the bird is my favorite!

BRI Mood Board Mountain Thanks Card

When I saw the Butterfly Reflections Ink Mood Board for November, my eyes were immediately drawn to one image on the board. It was a gorgeous mountain and sky scene and I knew at once I wanted to try to recreate it with some of my dies. I never make cards without any stamps, so this was a huge departure for me, but I love how it turned out. 

 I used Hello Bluebird's Glacier Peaks dies to cut out several sets of mountains. Then I cut them all with my circle dies. I used one of my smallest circle dies to mask off the moon in the background, then I inked up the background circle with Distress Oxide inks in peacock feathers, black soot and a little bit of chipped sapphire.

 I used my Versamark ink to ink up two sets of the mountains and I added gold embossing powder to one and white glitter to another. I inked up the final mountain in black soot Distress Oxide Ink. Finally, I cut out the word, "thanks" from Hello Bluebird and added it to the front of my circles. I used my Ranger Multi Matte Medium adhesive to adhere it all together, then attached to to a square, white card base.

Lawn Fawn Taco Birthday Card-Masculine Cards Challenge

I got this mini stamp set from Lawn Fawn a while back, but hadn't found time to use it yet. So, when they announced their latest lawnfawnatics challenge, "Masculine Cards" I was so super excited to pull it out and ink it up! 

My hubby and I have a couple that are our best friends and we usually go out with them every Saturday. They introduced us to this wonderful street taco place in our town and now I crave them constantly! So so good! Anyway, onto the card. I wanted a birthday card, but I didn't want to use a sentiment stamp, so I used some patterned paper that coordinated with my colors. The black paper says "Happy Birthday to You" and the sprinkles remind you of sprinkles and of taco toppings!

Enjoy! And go get yourself some taco's!

Always Fun Challenges-Watercolor Card

I'm so excited to be sharing my first card as a member of the Always Fun Challenges Blog! When Waleska told me the first challenge would be "watercolor", I kinda panicked! I don't paint and watercolor cards terrify me! In fact, I only own paintbrushes so I can spatter my card backgrounds. But, I remembered a video from the amazing Jennifer McGuire that I watched a while back where she used distress inks to watercolor and thought I could give it a try. 

 In her video, she uses dark papers, like navy blue and craft cardstock to watercolor her images on and I loved the way it turned out. I loved doing this! My paintbrushes are garbage, but it still worked out so well! The colors are so beautiful and you get such cool changes in color with only one ink!

 I used my one and only floral stamp from WPlus9. It's their Beautiful Ranunculus stamp. I had so much fun using this technique that I will definitely be buying more of their floral stamps! I stamped the flowers with my Versa Mark ink pad, then used gold embossing powder. The sentiment is one of my favorites, from a set called Compliments Volume 2 from Ink Road Stamps (they have the BEST sentiments!).

 Here are some behind the scenes pictures of my painting the cards. I don't have a Tonic Studios Glass Mat yet (saving up for that one), so I use a piece of white paper that I've laminated. I use it for projects like this all the time and it works great! Plus, I can replace it for super cheap whenever I want to.