Mother's Day 2016

This is the card I made for my mom for Mother's Day this year. I was inspired by the Vintage Watercolor tutorial on Splitcoaststampers.com. I am completely loving the color scheme here.

The birdhouse was stamped in Vintage Photo Distress ink and the lines softened with a water brush. I used an English Red Marvy marker, scribbled on an acrylic block and picked up with the water brush, to add the red on the roof. I also added some touches of Sepia Marvy, using the fine point end directly on the paper, for some color variation. The tutorial on Splitcoast uses an Elegant Writer pen for these darker bits, but I don't have one of those. I really like the effect the sepia gave.

For the flowers, I inked the small flowers that come in the birdhouse set with the English Red marker, and then tapped it on the Vintage Photo pad to tone it down a bit. There might have been a bit of sepia in there too. The leaves were done with a combo of the Vintage Photo and Sepia. The little twiggy bits are just plain Sepia.

It's amazing to me how dark the Sepia twigs looks against the Vintage Photo birdhouse. I've always considered the Sepia to be a medium brown when I've used it in my other watercolor cards. This combo makes it look so dark!


I finished off the image with a bit of Clear Wink of Stella on just the flowers. I would never have thought to add the wink of Stella until I saw Bonnie Krebbs (the owner and designer, and all around awesome person!) do it at the Adventures in Stamping show in Akron, OH a few weeks ago. It is the perfect finishing touch!

The rest of the card was put together by die cutting a double stitched circle (from Our Daily Bread Designs- but there are lots of companies who make them!) from some kraft cardstock. I then used a couple of Cover-a-Card background stamps from Impression Obsession (Grunge on the kraft and Ticking and the red/burgundy) to add some "texture" to the card. I also used the three inks from the main image to dye a bit of cream seam binding for the bow and corner wrap. I was hoping for something a bit more variegated, but it still works.


Overall, I am very pleased with how this card turned out. I am sure there will be more cards with this vintage color scheme in my future. Thanks for stopping by to see my cards and feel free to leave a comment so I know you were here!

Creative Critters

The current challenge at the Art Impressions blog is "Creative Critters" in honor of their new mini spinner sets. I happened to pick up one of the new sets at the Adventures in Stamping show a few weeks ago, but I happened to choose the one that doesn't include a critter! No worries though- I discovered that the party hat in the Mini Cake Spinner set fit perfectly on Little Whoot!

 

The cake, hat, and Little Hoot were all stamped in Memento Tuxedo Black ink and colored with my Spectrum Noir alcohol markers. I tried to get some shading/blending but I'm still learning with those. It took a bit of creative masking and the help of my MISTI to squeeze an extra "o" into the greeting (It originally said "who's" with one o), but with that cute owl it HAD to be done!

 

The rest of the layers were various bits of card stock and pattered paper, die cut with an array of circles, scalloped circles, stitched circles, and rectangles.

I even included another Little Hoot on the inside of the card along with a fun message (from a Stampin Up! set that is probably long retired)

The best part of this card is the spinning action. You wind up the little cake and then close the card and tuck it in the envelope. When the recipient opens it, the cake spins. Check out the little video below to see the cake in action (it's my first attempt at uploading video, so I hope it works!)

My husband tried to convince me that I should let him have the completed card because he needs to give someone a birthday card soon. Of course, that "someone" is ME! (I told him no! He's still got a month to find his own card.)

Thank you for checking out my card! Please leave me a comment if you stopped by- I'd love to know who's peeking at my creations!