Growing in Unity Gal - Guest Designer

The first time I ever laid eyes on a Unity stamp, I fell in love with the sketchy, pretty designs. My aunt is a Unityaholic and she let me use some of her stamps while I was slowly growing my own collection. 

It seems like Unity is always having one sale or another and my wallet complains to me every time I go check out their deals (but my heart rejoices... so suck it, wallet!) 

This week, I get the opportunity to be a guest designer for Unity *happy dances* and I'll be sharing a new design every day this week! 

I haven't played much with my Distress Inks lately - gasp! - so I remedied that but doing some Distress Ink watercoloring. 

I stamped a floral arrangement from the First Friend, Best Friend, Forever set. Next, I smooshed three different colors of pinks onto my craft mat, then used a wet paintbrush to pick up the ink.

This is why I love Distress Inks - you can stamp with them, but you can also do so many different techniques like watercoloring. 

I also used some Distress blues and greens to color in the leaves and water. 

 

Since I had a lot of color left over on my craft mat after I was done watercoloring my image, I used the Distress Ink double dipping technique to marble a piece of paper. 

 I layered my focal image with black, white, and bits of gold, adding in a strip of my marbled panel. I finished it off by stamping a sentiment from the For the Guys stamp set. 

This whole design was inspired by the latest challenge at If you Give a Crafter a Cookie. 

I loved the combo of patterns and colors going on and HAD to try to replicate that on a card

I'm also going to enter my card over at Seize the Birthday. I'm not using the Aqua/Green optional toppings, but I wanted to play along anyhow. 

Also, if you're feeling like leaving some extra bloggy love today go check out my fellow GIU gal for the week - Rebecca Wong Pui Yee. Who doesn't love a Rebecca?! 

And make sure you leave a comment on my blog!! Unity is giving away two stamp sets to those of you who are kind enough to drop some lines below! 

Splatters & Distress Ink Watercolor

I don't know if you know this, but I love sparkles. And glitter. And anything shiny. So the card I made for today made my shimmer-loving heart oh-so-happy. 

Just look at that shimmer! 

I designed this card inspired by the latest Fusion Challenge. 

If you haven't played along at Fusion before, you can use either the sketch or the inspiration image, ooooooor you can mash 'em up and create a Fusion. 

 

I used an embossing folder on some shimmer pearl cardstock. Then I pressed some Cracked Pistachio and Abandoned Coral Distress Inks onto my craft mat and picked it up with a wet paint brush. 

I also wanted to play along in Seize the Birthday's latest Splatter challenge. 

I rubbed some InkaGold onto a craft mat and then added some water. I used it to create a shimmery splatter all over the card.

I used the CUTplorations Celebrate Word Die to cut a sentiment out of some gold foiled paper to complete my look. 

Taaaadaaaa! Can I just say that it was a BEAR to photograph this? Shiny things are nice in real life, but the camera hates them!

I'm baaaaack - and so is Card Concept

I'm baaaack from my rolling vacation on the high seas. After a short-lived career as a pirate, I've retired my eyepatch and have gotten back to work in my craft room. 

And no hard task it was - especially with the the beeeautiful new inspiration image up at the Card Concept. 

Check it:

Next to purple and teal, pink and orange is one of my fave color combos so I was totally stoked to soak in this image. 

Here's how I transformed it into card form:

At Card Concept, we celebrate all sorts of cardmaking styles. I chose to work in the Mixed Media style and created a background by making some orange watercolor swirls (a la the pillow in the inspiration photo). 

For my focal image, I masked and stamped a bouquet of tulips using Winnie & Walter's In Bloom: Addie's Garden. I colored them in with Distress Inks and a wet paintbrush, then I stamped a sentiment from Verve's Poppy Birthday set. 

I hope you'll come play along at The Card Concept using whatever style you like best!  

Pretty in Pink - Watercolor Painting with Distress Inks

Happy Friday! I'm finally beginning to bounce back from a week that has been a one-woman-homage to Kleenex. Stupid colds! I was running out of time to complete STAMPlorations's latest sketch challenge. I find sketch challenges to be the trickiest, especially if they don't involve a place for large images - which are my go-to. So when I saw the sketch, I was hesitant to take it on.

I pulled out STAMPlorations's Bloom Sketches set and began to play around with the daisy and some Distress Ink handpainting.

• Step 1: Emboss your image. I used a sparkly clear embossing powder.
• Step 2: Swipe Distress Inks on a craft mat and spritz with water. I started with Worn Lipstick and layered with Victorian Velvet. I did the centers with Mustard Seed.
• Step 3: Paint your image and layer with different colors. 

I was going to top my creation using some patterned paper, but wound up loving it so much that I wanted to show it off. Instead, I used some pink vellum and cut out the sketch parts using an Xacto knife. Haha! I solved my problem by using the reverse of the sketch!

All in all, the vellum added a delightful softness and the bright bursts peeking through the cutouts was a great counterpoint. I added some sheer ribbon to keep the card's delicate feel and finished it with a cheerful saying from the same STAMPlorations set.

Since I was able to try a new technique, I'm going to enter this into Simon Says Stamp's Monday Challenge Blog - Rock the Technique. I also incorporated vellum into my challenge, which makes a great card for The Friday Mashup challenge!