STAMPlorations 7th Birthday Bash - Day 2

It's day 2 of STAMPlorations Belated Birthday Bash and I'm popping in for a quick share! 

I'm always looking for quick and simple Christmas cards because it seems like you have to make a kajillion. This one is extra good, too because it's flat! (or mostly flat if you ignore the sequins, which your mailman will). 

I used the brand new Holly ARTplorations stencil by Sanna Lippert Designs and outlined everything using a white gel pen on black paper. Then I painted in the berries using red Perfect Pearls and added some little red embellies to some of them. I added a strip of washi tape for the sentiment and viola!

Make sure you go join in the fun this week up at the STAMPlorations blog! There are over $150 in prizes being given away!!! Also, if you buy anything from the stamp store, be sure to use code STAMPGIRLBECCA for 20% off your order! 

STAMPlorations 7th Birthday Bash - Day 1

 You guuuuuuuyyyyyysssss! It's time for a celebration!!!

My favorite stamp company turned 7 years old in July and we're having a very belated birthday celebration. We put things a little bit on hold due to the old corona impacting literally everything - including ship times. 

There are literally $160 worth of prizes available during the celebration so you're going to want to play along. Check out the three fun ways you can party along. 

ALSO!!! If you want to buy something in the STAMPstore during the celebration, not only can you cash in on some pretty sweet sales, but you can also get an additional 20% off using STAMPGIRLBECCA. 

And now, for the first of five cards I made to celebrate! 

When I was thinking about the type of image I wanted to use for my celebration card, I thought right away of a butterfly. I remember the first blog post I ever made and... boy oh boy... have things erupted from an ugly ol' cocoon. My photography skills, my cardmaking techniques, my crafty friendships... I'm so thankful for this online world. 

STAMPlorations has been a big part of my blogging journey. I fell in love with Shery Russ's designs right away. And then I fell in love with her as a generous, lovely human being. Little did I know that I'd wind up making cards featuring her products and eventually wind up designing a whole line of stamps for the company. 

I embossed the butterfly from the Blossom Like a Buttefly set in gold and watercolored it using my grandma's vintage watercolor paints. I bet these are probably 20 years old, but I sure love the way they shimmer. 

The background is beautifully textured with a brand new die released TODAY! It's the Wonky Stitched Grid Texture plate. I splattered some pink and gold Distress Inks in the background because it was a little too much white. I nested my butterfly in some gold fibers from an old gold rope (I'm not a hoarder, you're a hoarder). 

Thanks for popping by. Now GO JOIN THE PARTY!! Leave some comments or link up a card and be entered for some AMAZING crafty prizes! 

Oh! And I almost forgot to mention - if you do use my STAMPGIRLBECCA 20% discount code in the STAMPstore, you'll also get this not-even-yet-released Just Plaid stencil for FREE! Boom. That's pretty neat. 

As for this card, I'm going to play along with Creations in Pink Challenge: Anything Goes - mostly pink.

Beary Belated Birthday Card

 I am a terrible procrastinator when it comes to mailing out anything... which I know is very weird for a cardmaker. Is it just me? Or do you all have lots of fun making cards and then never can seem to pop them in the mail in a timely manner? 

This card was designed for my uber talented cardmaking friend, Kevin Bray. Seriously, go check out his blog, you'll be amazed by his creativity. He also has a rockin' Insta account. For the most part, I'd say Kevin and I have pretty opposite styles of cardmaking - he's an amazing colorist with a knack for getting cute, clean cards absolutely perfect. I'm a mixed media card artist who colors up a white spot with a single brush of a finger.

Anyhow, I wanted to send him a card for his birthday... which was in July I think... (I know, I already disclosed how terrible I am as a human being).

But I didn't want to design any ordinary card, I wanted to design an uber cute card and try to be as clean as I'm capable of. 

I pulled out all my sunny Faber Castell gelato colors and cut out a bunch of hexagons, because I was using this adorable little bear and bee stamp set, so I thought it fit the brief.

I die cut the hexes and smudged them with different color gelatos then layered them all together in the background of the card.

I created an even bigger hex for my focal panel and colored this adooooooorable bear from the Studio Katia Kobi the Birthday Bear stamp set. Then I stamped little bees all around and glittered up the wings (photos suck for glitter). 

In the end, it's probably not clean, but it IS super cute so *brushes shoulders*. I hope it made someone very happy three months after their birthday. 

I am so rude. 

 

I'm going to link this up to Cute Card Thursday's Dies and Punches challenge and NBUS challenge because this whole stamp set has never been used.

Thanks for stopping by!

Stenciled Backgrounds & Paper Pieced Flowers

Today, I'm up on the STAMPlorations Blog with a little tutorial on how to make this card.  

The tutorial has some super fun ways to use up leftovers by creating your own artsy patterned paper with stencils and Distress Oxide inks. 

Vibrant & fun! I would be remiss if I didn't mention where the inspiration from my card came from. The moment I laid eyes on the inspiration image for The Card Concept, I just knew I needed to dream up something. 

Thanks for popping by and go take a peek over at STAMPlorations! 

Making a Mess

Over at Shopping Our Stash they have a challenge going entitled “Make a Mess”. Basically I feel like that’s every single card I ever make. All I have to do is look sideways at a white space on a card and boom! an only smudge appears. It’s like being King Midas, but sadly nothing turns to gold- only to smudge. 

But this card upped the mess ante even for me! In my last blog post I shared a card using the dregs of a cleanup from a pretty horrendous spill of a brand spanking new bottle of Crackling Campfire Distress Oxide Spray Stain. I was going a splatter effect on a card so unscrewed the cap. Enter elbow and a giant spill. *facepalm*

What is a girl to do besides frantically mop up the mess? However, even if my card doesn’t win the competition, I’ve already won by creating some gorgeous backgrounds and a well-earned red stain on my craft table. 

But I didn’t want to rest on my accidental mess laurels for this challenge. Au contraire! I decided to pull out my messiest products and up the ante. 

For my  next act, I pulled out some Dreamweaver metallic gold embossing paste and slopped that through the STAMPlorations Dots All Over stencil. 

The texture! In case you’re wondering about the added colors, they are Mermaid Lagoon Distress Oxide and a gold shimmer by Heidi Swapp. 

Next up on the messy agenda, I scribbled some brown gelatos along the edges of the pieces I was going to use and smudged them to soften the lines with my fingers. 

Also, you can see I stamped an image over the background and used Distress Glaze. 

So let me talk about my focal bird. I’m ashamed to say I’ve probably had this Tim Holtz stamp set for close to 10 years and never used it. >insert head hanging here<  I knew I had to get messy with the bird, too, so he wouldn’t take a backseat to my background. We had a little messy experimental play together. 

I sprayed some Oxides and stains and dried them on a paper. Then I stamped a blue layer and brown layer of Distress Inks, and while the ink was still wet from stamping, I applied Distress Glaze over it. It gave it an antique glassy feel. 

I adore the way this card turned out and I think I’ve sufficiently risen to the Make a Mess challenge. To finish off my card, I mounted it to some Hambly patterned acetate. 

I’m also going link this up to the NBUS challenge, as I finally gave this 10-year-old bird some wings AND tried out Distress Glaze for the first time. 

This one is also going over to Creative Artiste’s Anything Mixed Media goes. 

Handmade Card for the Most Beautiful Person in the World

 Do you ever have that one friend who is basically the best? Who shows up for you? Who lends you all of her vast array of tools because you don't have a handy bone in your body? Who won't cry with you because she's too busy grabbing the tissues and a bottle of wine? 

Now. Do you have have a friend like that who ALSO has an amazing husband who commissions a birthday card for said friend? 

It's at that point you KNOW you have to pull out all the stops. I'll apologize in advance because I got completely swept up in the crafty process and did not stop to take photos along the way, but I'll explain what I've done. 

BACKGROUND: 
Created with the new Tim Holtz Cracked Campfire Distress Oxides. Process? Spill it all over your desk and then frantically mop it up (more about that in a blog post to come) This was the dregs of the dregs of the dregs of the cleanup process. Next, I stamped the flowers from STAMPlorations Dee's Artsy Impressions Wooded stamp set in the corners using the Tea Dye Distress Ink. I painted the flowers in with gesso to give them an antiqued feel and then painted around the edges of the flowers with Tea Dye for a shadowed effect.

FOCAL PANEL: 
Die cut the panel using the Spellbinders Labels 41 die set. Then I stamped the flowers using Tea Dye Distress Ink and watercolored them by smooshing some Cracked Campfire (blossoms) and Peeled Paint (Leaves) onto a pad then picking it up with a wet brush. The centers of the flowers have Antique Bronze Perfect Pearls, as well as seed beeds. I cut some of them out for dimension. The sentiment is from the STAMPlorations Big Grins by Becca Cruger Strong Women stamp set. 

P.S. - STAMPlorations clear stamps are all 25% off right now so... beeline for the store if you want to snag either of these sets. 

I love this sentiment. A) because I love books (even though I think Fitzgerald is the worst - fight me.) and B) because it's just the epitome of everything I wanted my friend to know, and I'm sure that her amazing husband feels about her. She truly is beautiful, so I'm chuffed with how this card came out. 

I'm linking this up to the following challenges:

Little Red Wagon: Nature, flora or fauna

Crafty Gals Corner: Fall Colors

Aud Sentiments: Anything Goes + a Sentiment

Cupcakes and Sprinkles!

What is the haze like in your neck of the woods? I am smack dab in the middle of the country, but our sun is a bright orange, veiled by a gray smoke. If it's this bad here, I can't imagine what it's like where the wildfires are raging. My heart goes out to those of you who are impacted and on the west coast. 

Whilst living in the cover of darkness, I thought it would be the perfect time to spend a moment in my craft room. I'm popping in quickly to share my make. 

My stash of birthday cards is running quite low and so I thought I'd stock up my stash this weekend. Seize the Birthday is running a die cut challenge, so I looked at my magnetic wall and found a fun die I haven't used in a bit. 

I don't craft with die cuts very often as a main focal point, but what better way to stretch your crafty muscles than to try something out of your comfort zone? I found some lovely patterned papers and used the Cupcake Builder #1 set from STAMPlorations to get to work building layers. 

I find mixing and matching patterns both relaxing and challenging, but I loved the way all these patterns wound up. To finish off my card, I added some beads for "sprinkles". 

Thanks for stopping by!