Wooded and Healing Herbs

There are two brand new stamp sets on the block and they are BEEEAUUUUUTIFUL!!! 

Over at STAMPlorations we're releasing Wooded and Healing Herbs, designed by Deepti! 

 

These stamp sets are so versatile and you can build your own little scene with them. I got to play around with Wooded and couldn't wait to make these two cards. 

For my first design, I used these dainty little flower sprays and paired them with branches. I "watercolored" with Distress Markers and, since I stamped the branches with Distress Inks, I just applied a little bit of water over the top to make them less of a perfect impression and let the colors bleed onto my paper. Teeny little pearls finished off this pretty, girly design. 

I'm going to add this card to the Watercooler Wednesday - Feminine challenge and Creative Inspirations Spring Greens challenge.

For my next design, I went with something a little more clean and simple because I wanted to play along in the Cardz 4 Guys Challenge. This design is a whole lot of versatile and perfectly masculine and earthy.  

I repeat stamped the wood circle rings with Distress Oxde inks, then spritzed liberally with water so it would bleed. I splattered it with some white Distress Spray stains and added some fussy cut leaves.


Make sure to go check out this special release and leave a comment on the STAMPlorations blog because you could win a $20 gift code to the STAMPlorations store!

Funny Valentine's Day Card

You guys. It's January already. That means my annual goal of actually mailing out Christmas cards has waaaay passed and I've failed like usual and now there is only one hope for redemption: Valentine's Day. 

If you're no stranger to my blog, you'll already know that my love of all things heart-shaped, red, and glittery PAIRED with my love of all things punny make Valentine's cards the perfect outlet for my slightly twisted brain. 


Also - a whole new year means a whole new opportunity to rock the socks of the STAMPlorations Theme & Sketch challenge. Here's what we've got going on this month: 

I chose to work on with the sketch for my card and came up with a slightly snarky card. 

If you don't have any slightly silly, yet still kinda lovey dovey stamp sets in your collection, you NEED to go check out Funny Kinda Love. I promise you'll laugh and so will the recipients of your cards. 

I'm going to play along with Addicted to Stamps and More's Holiday challenge. 

I hope you'll come play along in the theme & sketch challenge this month because we've got some awesome prizes to give away! 

InkaGold Mixed Media Card for Guys

When I found out the latest challenge for Seize the Birthday was Circles... well my mind started spinning. 

You see... I'd been working on an art project a couple of months ago and had cut out an excessive amount of die cut circles. Like WAY more than I wound up needing. So now I have a bag full of a gazillion circles that make me mad every time I look at them because they were SO MUCH WORK. 

Well, they came in handy because I'm guest designing for Seize the Birthday through the end of the month. 

Their Toppings theme this time around is "Circles". You can really make any kind of birthday card you want and link it up to their challenge, but they give you an optional theme every time, too.

I created a shiny background using a wet paintbrush and some InkaGold. I'm definitely going to be making more backgrounds like this because, in the end, it looked like brushed copper. So pretty! 

I ran my painted background through my embossing machine, using an embossing folder with a clock print. 

The circles were cut out on white paper, then I used my fingers to slather some green, gold and copper InkaGolds all over. Looooove the textural look of the circles. 

I stamped a sentiment and old-fashioned car from a Unity kit to complete my design. 

I'm going to play along at:

More Mixed Media Challenge - Anything Goes (option of black)

I also used the color scheme from The Color Throwdown.

So. What's circling in your brain? Give the latest challenge over at Seize the Birthday a try!

Happy Birthday Artsy Masculine Card

Hi Friends!
It's a brand new month and that means a brand new challenge over at STAMPlorations Theme & Sketch.

I'm not usually a 1-layer card kind of girl, so when I saw this sketch, I was a little intimidated.

For this challenge, you can either use the theme OR the sketch OR both. It's really up to you. :)

I faced my fears head on and decided to tackle the sketch. I pulled out some funky little gear shapes from the Artsy Tribal Doodles set and stamped away using Distress Inks. 

Once I had the stamps alinged, I used some Distress Spray stains and dabbed them on, spritzing them with water so they bled onto my card. 

I added a sentiment using the CUTplorations Celebrate Word Die and some little Tim Holtz sticker sentiments to complete the look. 

If you want to check out any of the products I used, or wind up adding anything from the STAMPstore to a shopping cart, make sure to use code STAMPGIRLBECCA for 20% off your purchase. woot! 

I hope you'll go check out the Theme & Sketch challenge and play along this month. You could win some AWESOME prizes. 

SURPRISE Party Guest - Seize the Birthday

Awwwwww was I EVER flattered beyond belief when Nancy Leppeck of Scrapper@Heart reached out to me and asked me to be a surprise party guest for Seize the Birthday.

I've always admired Nancy's design aesthetic AND her incredibly lovely comments so of course my answer was a hearty HECK YES!

I don't know about you, but I'm always, always running out of birthday cards to send out. Playing along in Seize the Birthday's challenges on the regular keeps me in stock (mostly) with fancy-dancy birthday cards of all types.

 

Each week, they come up with new "Toppings" (challenge theme) to use for your designs. You don't necessarily have to use the toppings to play along though - any birthday card works. 

This week's toppings are BALLOONS and so I pulled out my trusty STAMPlorations A Snarky Birthday to You stamp set and inked up the balloons. 

I snagged the sketch from Just for Fun Rubber Stamps sketch challenge to inspire my design.

 

I hope you'll head on over to Seize the Birthday and check out the rest of the AMAZING inspiration!

Oh Deer! Growing in Unity + Prizes

WATERCOLOR ALL THE THINGSSSSS!!!

When I devised my Growing in Unity plan, the above statement was not a part of it. But then after two days of watercoloring with different mediums, I said "hey self! This could make a cool week-long exploratory series." My self agreed with my self and thus, the past week has been spent in splishy splashy bliss.

On the docket for today's watercolor medium: Ken Oliver Colorburst Crystals. 

If you want to talk about creating gorgeous, vibrant, unexpected backgrounds or watercolored images, these Colorburst crystals are INSANE! My bloggy friend Lauren Bergold's instagram feed is all full of Colorburst examples and I finally had to break down and buy all the colors. No Ragrats!

Also, I wanted to play along with The City Crafter's latest challenge, which is to mimic one of these splashes as a background on your card. 

Obviously, you can tell that I chose the green splatter for my design. 

Here's how I made this background.  

Step One: 

Use a wet paintbrush and apply water around your stamped image.
P.S. this deer comes from Unity's Woodland Deer stamp set.
Be careful not to get the water inside of your image.

Step 2
Add a teeeeny bit of Ken Oliver Colorburst Crystals.
Seriously. A teeeeny bit. A little of these babies goes a LONG way. 

Step 3
Cry a little bit, restamp your image and repeat steps one and two because you added too many crystals.

Step 4

Use a damp paintbrush to move around the color, carefully

Step 5:
Oooooh and aaah over your final creation.
So stunning without even trying! 

I love how this little card turned out. It's CAS but packs a wallop of intensity. I also really like that it's appropriate for the fellas because I have SUCH a hard time not going all frilly on things. 

If you're interested in getting some of your very own Color Burst Powders, Amazon has sets of them for a decent price. (ps - I use affiliate links to help support my blog)

 

I'm also going to enter this into
As You Like it - Flora or Fauna (I like fauna better because you never know what you should expect from animals)

Cardz 4 Guys - Something Beginning with "D" (Deer!)

Also - thank you to those of you who followed my blog yesterday! I'm just >>ONE<< measly follower short of my 300 goal. Can you help a girl out?!?!

Don't forget to leave a comment down below because Unity is giving two lucky commenters some pretty sweet swag!

New Big Grins by Becca Cruger Stamps + Giveaway!

Hello my wonderful bloggy friends! I'm so excited to share this post with you because I have three brand new stamp sets available at STAMPlorations under my Big Grins by Becca Cruger line!! And good news! You could win ALL of them. Just leave a comment on this blog and then hop over to STAMPlorations blog to leave a comment there, too!


You all know I love me a good snarky stamp set, and both Sweet and Sassy Dad & Snarky Cap and Gown deliver on those fronts. 

  

Sweet & Sassy Dad | Snarky Cap and Gown

I don't know about you, but I have a Papa who is the KING of dad jokes. You know the kind... knee-slapping groaners. This sentiment definitely "celebrates" those terrible puns. 

But never fear! I also brought on a plethora of sweet sentiments to go along with the snark.

I also drew some inspiration from Time Out Challenges and cased the layout of Cornelia's lovely card for my own design.
Cornelia's Card:


My Design 
 

Next up is a design for Snarky Cap & Gown. When I was going through grad season this year, I realized I didn't have one (not a single one) graduation set in my stash and it was really hard to find something that was exactly what I wanted. So I made one!

 Snarky Cap & Gown has some tame sentiments, like the one used above, but it also brings on a little bit of the sass.

Lastly, I want to show off Wonderful Life. It's filled with beautiful sentiments that are perfect all year round, but I love the summery potential this set has and can't wait to play around with it!

Wonderful Life

I watercolored up some of the sketchy rainbows and used the big ol' sentiment to create a bright and cheery design. When it was all done, I added a paper butterfly that came from my hoard of embellishments that were given to me by my grandma.

I'm going to let this card play along in the Cards Und More Holidays/Summertime Fun challenge. And the CAS Watercolor Challenge - Butterfly.

Perfection.

Pssssttttt... If you're thinking about it, now is TOTALLY the time to head on over to the STAMPlorations shop and use the code STAMPGIRLBECCA to snag them for 20% off the price.

Make sure to leave a comment on the STAMPlorations blog for double your chances to win! :)

Happy Birthday Monica - Blog Linky Party + Prizes

Ya'll! (I know I'm not even close to being Southern, but it really makes for a perfect interjection)

Ya'll! 

Monica Taylor of TaylorMade4U Cards is celebrating her 50th year on this earth and she's invited some bloggy friends to celebrate with her. Not only that - Monica is giving away some seriously awesome prizes - like lots of them! 

How do you win said prizes? Check out that uber lovely mood board, put together by Monica to inspire you! She wants you to create a card inspired by the mood board and the word "Journey" and link it up. 

I loved the old timey car and was drawn to the browns and the blues I saw in the picture, so here's what I made:

I used some BoBunny papers and Tim Holtz stamp sets and added in some metal gears to complete the look. 

I'm also going to play along at:
Southern Girls Challenge - About a Boy
Aud Sentiments - Stamp your Sentiment
The Corrosive Challenge - Anything Goes
Come and Get it - Make it Square

So we don't have any party fouls, here are Monica's party rules:

1.  Look at the mood board and find something that reminds you of a JOURNEY.

2. Create a project and link it up. This can be a card, canvas or anything that inspires you and in any style.

3.  Follow Monica's blog & like her Facebook page

4. Leave me a comment 

There are also some fun discount codes to use throughout her party!

1. I BRAKE FOR STAMPS - 10% off using coupon code SAVE10MONICA
2. STAMPLORATIONS - 20% off  in stamp store using coupon code STAMPGIRLBECCA
3. TAYLORMADECARDS4U - 10% off using coupon code BIRTHDAYBASH

Now for the prizes:

Prize - Memory Box Sponsored by Taylormadecards4u

Prize - $15 gift certificate to I Brake for Stamps (2 people)

Prize - T.H.E. Bag - Sponsored by Simply Charming Bags

Prize - Perfectly Posh gift set - Sponsored by Aimees Posh

Prize - Stamp Set by creator of Big Grins - Becca Cruger from Big Grins (2 people)

Prize - $15 Gift Certificate to Canvas Corp Brands

Prize - Umbrella Crafts Papercrafting Favorites Kit-  Sponsored by Scrapbook.com

Prize - The Ton - Stamp set of your choice

Prize - Celebrate Mini Digital Sentiment kit- Sponsored by Decosses Dynamite Doodles (3 people)

Prize - Set of Vintage Printables - Sponsored by VectoriaDesigns (3 people)

Prize - 7Gypsies Stash - Sponsored by Taylormadecards4u

Prize - One Paper Pack and one digital set of your choosing - Sponsored by MHKDesigns
 

What are you waiting for? Go play along already!