A New Ink on Life

The Spot #108 - Bird Ballad Mother's Day

Welcome back to another challenge at The Spot , your place for inspiration and weekly cardmaking challenges. This week we have a fun Theme challenge for you! I hope you can find the time to join us, we love seeing you wonderful creations.

Mother's Day in North America is less than two weeks away, so what better theme to have than a Mother's Day! Also this challenge can be creating a card for someone that is a mother like figure or a grandmother etc. 

There are so many amazing images and phrases that I could have used for this challenge, but in the end I decided to make the Bird Ballad Designer Series Paper be the star of the show and opted for the classic "Happy Mother's Day" from Itty Bitty Greetings.

I certainly have taken a liking to fussy cutting as of late. It really is not that hard, especially when you have the right tools. I could not get by without my trusty Paper Snips, these scissors truly are the best! TIP: When cutting out a detailed image more the paper as you are cutting so that as the scissor cut along the paper is rotating, making it easier to get nice fluid cuts. The base of the card is my go to Thick Whisper White Cardstock, I then layered on another piece that was embossed with the Scripty 3D Folder.

Here you can see up close details of the cut out images. I attached the bird and floral images to a die cut piece of cardstock. I really love this swirly stiched circle from The Painted Labels Dies set. The sentiment was stamped using Versamark ink then heat embossed with Stampin' Emboss Powder in White. even though the fussy cutting appears very detailed this card was actually a breeze to put together as there are no complecated techniques and the only stamping involved was the sentiment. This is one of the reasons I love SU! DSP so much, they have absolutely beautiful patterns that can shine shine on their own!

Now be sure to check out The Spot for some fabulous inspiration and we would love to see you join in on the challenge! Below you will find all the items I used for today's project and as always feel free to contact me with any questions!

 

The Spot #107 - Celebrating Birthdays with Bonanza Buddies

Welcome back to another challenge at The Spot , your place for inspiration and weekly cardmaking challenges. This week we have a fun Theme challenge for you! I hope you can find the time to join us, we love seeing you wonderful creations.

How is everyone holding up? I will admit, I am not cut out for homeschooling, lol. We are doing our best, but boy do I miss my children actually having a teacher that knows what they are doing! I am very grateful for all of the hard work the teachers are doing to help our children learn virtually though online resources. I am also so grateful to be part of a wonderful papercrafting community that is continuing to inspire and connect over the magic of the internet, during a time when we all are having to practice social distancing. It is what is keeping me sane while I am at home trying to juggle everything. Thank you for taking the time to visit my blog today.

In my opinion you can never have too many birthday cards on hand, so this challenge was perfect to add to my stash. I am not usually one for cutesy images, but I have seen so many awesome projects made with the Birthday Bonanza Suite of Products that I just had to get the Bonanza Buddies stamp and Die Bundle. 

I started with a Thick Whisper White Cardstock base. The next layer is a 3 3/4 x 5" piece of regular Whisper White. TIP: This Whisper White Cardstock is ultra smooth and is the perfect surface for ink blending and stamping on.

To create the multicoloured background I selected colours on the rainbow spectrum and using Sponge Daubers I blended each colour over the Polka Dot pattern from the Basic Pattern Decorative Masks. This created a fun colourful background for my card. The banners were die cut from the coordinating Birthday Bonanza Designer Series Paper and "tied" with Whisper White Twine bows.

The adorable little Koala was stamped using Smokey Slate Classic Ink and die cut, then layered on a piece of punched Vellum Cardstock. The sentiment was stamped using VersaMark on Basic Black Cardstock and heat Embossed with White Stampin' Emboss Powder. The result is a super cute and cheery birthday card, guaranteed to put a smile on the recipients face! 

Now be sure to check out The Spot for some fabulous inspiration and we would love to see you join in on the challenge! Below you will find all the items I used for today's project and as always feel free to contact me with any questions!

The Spot #106 - A Colour Challenge with Forever Blooms

Welcome back to another challenge at The Spot , your place for inspiration and weekly cardmaking challenges. This week we have a fun colour challenge for you! I hope you can find the time to join us, we love seeing you wonderful creations. I am so grateful to be part of a wonderful papercrafting community that is continuing to inspire and connect over the magic of the internet, during a time when we all are having to practice social distancing. Thank you for taking the time to visit my blog today.

Petal Pink is currently one of my go to colours so I was happy to see it featured in today's challenge. Pink and grey are always a great pairing so teaming it up with Gray Granite totally works and of course I decided to use Champagne Foil, the perfect subtle metallic.

 

I had yet to ink up the stunning Forever Blossoms Stamp Set and to me it was the obvious choice as the coordinating Parisians Blooms Designer Series Paper has beautiful Champagne Foil accents in some of the designs and features Petal Pink. I decided to create a card with a soft feminine feel and a little bit of a vintage vibe. The large layer was stamped tone on tone with Gray Granite Classic Ink, then I distressed the edges of the card stock, turning down and separating one of the corners. TIP: Use the edge of your PAper Snips Scissors to destrss by lightly dragging an open blade against the edges. The patterned paper layer was matted on top of torn Vellum Cardstock, adding a layer of delicacy.

For the main image I had a little water colouring fun! Super simple technique but I love the background effect. I started with a piece of Shimmery White Cardstock then lightly wet it with my Aqua Painter. Next I took my Petal Pink Ink Pad and pressed the pad into the closed lid so that ink is now on the lid top. I then added a little reinker to intensify the colour. Using the Aqua Painter I picked up the ink and swiped over the cardstock, then picked up some more colour and spread it around. TIP: To speed up drying and move the colour around use a Heat Tool. It helps dry it but also creates a cool pattern of varying colour. Then to add a "water drop" effect, lightly drop water from the Aqua painter onto the cardstock then dab dry with a paper towel. Once completely dry I stamped the floral image on top using Gray Granite Classic Ink.

Now be sure to check out The Spot for some fabulous inspiration and we would love to see you join in on the challenge! Below you will find all the items I used for today's project and as always feel free to contact me with any questions!

The Spot #105 - Getting Sketchy with Love You To Pieces

Welcome back to another challenge at The Spot , your place for inspiration and weekly cardmaking challenges. This week we have a wonderful sketch challenge! Sketches are a great way of jump starting your creative process and let's face it with everything going on right now, creating is a great way to decompress. I am sure like many of you, I am still trying to navigate this new normal of social distancing and staying at home. Not going to lie, there have been some tough days but I am grateful for the fact that I and my family are healthy and my husband is still employed. I am also grateful to have a wonderful papercrafting community continuing to inspire and connect over the magic of the internet:) Thank you for taking the time to visit my blog today.

Now here is this week's sketch:

Now, like with most sketches I tend to "interpret" them. Remember when working with a sketch it is a suggestion and you don't have to follow it exactly or you can, whatever works with your creative process!

I've been doing my best to work through my pile of products that have yet to be used. Today's focus was the Love You To Pieces Bundle and Country Club Designer Series Paper. The idea behind the card was to create one for my husband letting him know how much I appreciate him keeping things together, including me! Right now is the perfect opportunity to give handmade cards to spread some sunshine and let people know how much we appreciate them. The card itself was pretty simple to put together, although I won't lie, I struggled for a bit with getting the layout the way I wanted it. I also may have had a liquid glue mishap and an ink smudge that ended up being strategically covered. It happens to the best of us, right?! So in theory it is a simple layout, lol.

The card base is Thick Whisper White then layered with Night of Navy and another piece of white. The large Whisper White layer was embossed with the 3D Subtles Embossing Folder and stamped with Poppy Parade Classic Ink. Ribbons were layered on top and then it was time for the die cut puzzle pieces. TIP: To keep the heart shaped pieces together cut them out then glue them on to a piece of scrap paper. Use Paper Snips to cut around it, this will keep the pieces connected and create stability. I really wanted to use this sentiment but it is too big to fit in any of the die cut shapes, so I stamped it twice in different colours and then fussy cut it out. It worked perfectly!

 

Now be sure to check out The Spot for some fabulous inspiration and we would love to see you join in on the challenge! Below you will find all the items I used for today's project and as always feel free to contact me with any questions!