Sparkling Saturdays: Blessing of Longevity

Welcome to another Sparkling Saturday! As Chinese New Year/Valentines Day is coming up, I will be sharing with you a card that blesses the recipient with longevity. I used the traditional colors of luck, red and gold, for this card.

I started out with a 4.25" by 5.5" piece of white cardstock. Next, I stamped my own background with Versamark ink using Lawn Fawn Year 3 stamp set. After I was done stamping, I used Ranger Gold embossing powder to heat set my images.

In order to blend on a red background, I used my Molotow Liquid Masking pen on each image so the ink wouldn't transfer through. I used Festive Berries distress ink to blend on my background. After it was relatively dry, I used an adhesive eraser and my finger to rub off the masking fluid that was on top of the images. As you can tell, there are still little red specks on the images because I think my masking pen dried relatively quickly so I couldn't figure out how to solidly fill an image. Still, it worked pretty well, and the little specks didn't really bother me.

I stamped my Longevity greeting from The Old Island Stamp Company, onto a piece of vellum using Versamark, and heat embossed this in gold as well. I layered a piece of red cardstock that was cut slightly smaller than the vellum piece underneath it, and adhered it onto my background panel using foam tape.

To finish off my card, I trimmed my off a bit from the sides of my card and added a strip of gold foil paper to the left side. I adhered the whole panel onto an A2 white side folding card front and called it a day.

I hope you enjoyed! I will be entering this into the SSS Monday Challenge: Love is in the air as love can be described in many different ways, not only in the romantic sense ;)

Happy Crafting.

Sparkling Saturdays: Batman Birthday

Welcome to another Sparkling Saturday. Today I will be sharing with you a simple and fun card I made using my printer and foil. It is another post in my unofficial no-stamp card series.

For this card, I started with Google to find a Batman image that I would like. Next, I opened up the image in an image editor app and played around with it until I liked the proportions. I also added a little bit more splatter around the image and also typed in a happy birthday using a Batman Forever font that I downloaded here.

Next, I put in a piece of black cardstock into my feeder of my toner printer and printed out my image. I cut this image down to 4.24" by 5.5" so it would fit the front of my A2 top folding black card base. While I was preparing this card, I had heated up my laminator (still on the fence about getting the Mini Minc!) so that it would be nice and warmed up when I was done.

Using Minc gold foil by Heidi Swapp, I put the shiny side up on my image and ran it through my laminator using a piece of printer paper as my folder. After the piece came out, it was time for the reveal (my favorite part!). I peeled off the gold foil and the image revealed was better than I had hoped. For a finishing touch I decided to run my tombow mono multi glue across the top and bottom of my image (I waited until it was tacky), and then rubbed my left over gold foil across it to give it a more distressed look.

After I adhered this to my card base, I put a piece of 4" by 5.25" white cardstock to line the inside of my card so I could write a message.

Hope you enjoyed~
Happy Crafting.

Messy Mondays: Embossed Birthday Cards

Welcome to another Messy Monday! I was looking back at some pictures and realized I had never posted the finished cards I made from the sneak peek I showed you on Instagram back in Nov. With the start of my Christmas card series, I totally forgot about these until now (oops!).

For these birthday cards, I used the same design for both but switched up the colors, images, and the embossing folder I used. First, I started out by using some blueprint/cogs and gear embossing folders from Sizzix. After I dry embossed them, I lightly went over each embossed background with my distress inks using my blending tool to give it more dimension.  Next I stamped out my images, colored them (robot: Copics; bear: Zig Clean Color), and then fussy cut them out. I used the Beep Boop Birthday for the cute robot image, and the Party Animal set for the bear; both of which are from Lawn Fawn.

I matted both of the backgrounds on a piece of colored cardstock that matched the ink color, and then adhered these to an A2 side folding white card base. I used foam adhesive to stick the images onto the bottom left hand corner of the matted panel.

For the sentiment for robot card, I die cut Happy Birthday from the Simon Says Stamp die, and ran it through my Xyron sticker maker to make adhering it to the card easier. For my bear card, I stamped a greeting from the Chit Chat set from Lawn Fawn and foam adhered it to the card. To finish my robot card, I added an extra sprinkling of Pretty Pink Posh Sparkling Clear sequins.

Hope you enjoyed! I'll be entering the bear card into the Lawnscaping Challenge: Watercolor. Happy Crafting!

Sparkling Saturdays: Fuse Tool Birthday Shaker

Welcome to another Sparkling Saturday! I recently got a new craft tool to play with and I am addicted. The fuse tool by WRMK is so awesome and makes the cutest shaker cards, I don't know why I waited so long before caving in, but I am so glad I did!

For this birthday shaker, I started out by die cutting a small square from 110lb cardstock using Spellbinders Classic Squares set. Next, I used the Sentimental borders (the birthday one, of course!) to stamp a subtle pattern on the die cut panel. I used second generation stamping for this so it wouldn't distract from the main image.

For my main image, I Copic colored and fussy cut out the bunny and the cupcake from the Cupcake Carnival set from Mama Elephant. I love this set and definitely need to use it more! Cupcakes and cute animals, what could be better?

Now for the fun shaker portion! I used some clear page protectors and cut out a square that was slightly largely that my die cut piece. Next, I fused together 3 sides, creating a pocket. Inside the pocket, I put many different colored sequins and then fused the last side together. All you have to do now is adhere the pocket to the back of the die cut piece and you have yourself a cute and less bulky shaker card!

To finish off the card, I added a scattering of green sequins (Can you tell that the birthday girl's favorite color is green?) and stamped a sentiment from a Simon Says Stamp exclusive birthday greeting set. I added it to a white A2 side folding card base and this card is done!

Hope you enjoyed today's card! I had so much fun making this.
Happy Crafting.

Messy Mondays: The Sky's the Limit

Happy new year! I know it's a bit late, but getting back to routine after winter break is HARD and I've just started to get everything back on schedule. For my first post of 2016, I thought I'd share an encouragement card for all our new resolutions, goals, and dreams for this year.

First, I started out with a piece of white cardstock cut slightly smaller than my A2 card front. I used distress inks in wild honey, spiced marmalade, worn lipstick, and stormy sky to blend the sunrise for my background. Next, I used the 3 cloud dies from Lawn Fawn Spring Showers set to cut some clouds out using vellum and white cardstock. Using Simon Says Stamp A2 card curved edge die, I used different shades of green cardstock to cut out mini hills.

For my hot air balloon, I decided to paper piece by stamping it onto patterned paper and fussy cutting it out. The stamp is from Lawn Fawn Blue Skies. Using the Honey Bunny set by Mama Elephant, I stamped and copic colored them in and then fussy cut them out.

Now it's time to put together my card! I added some clouds onto my sunrise panel and then decided to mute it all down with a piece of vellum on top. Next, I adhered more clouds on top of the vellum, and foam mounted my hot air balloon image on to give the card more dimension and depth. For the bottom of my card, I adhered the hills on top of the vellum and then added the cute bunnies. To finish off this card, I heat embossed a sentiment from the same stamp set with Ranger Liquid Platinum embossing powder and rounded all the corners before adhering it to my pale blue A2 side folding card base.

Wishing all you a wonderful 2016 and a bit of encouragement for the new goals you have set for yourself.

Happy Crafting. I will be entering this into SSS Wednesday Challenge: Something New.