by Karen Endress | Oct 20, 2016 | Encouragement
Hello crafty friends! I finally had time to post this encouragement card I made a while ago. When my new crafty friend 🙂 came over to make cards with me, she chose this one to duplicate. I liked it so much myself that I ended up making another almost just like it.
The cardbase was (you guessed it!) Neenah Solar White 80 lb., covered with a nice gray followed by a slightly smaller panel of a light salmon, both linen textured from my stash of DCWV mat stacks. I continued layering with a panel of cheap white stock cut with one of the Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangles and a panel of patterned glitter paper (My Mind’s Eye Home Glitter Book) cut with a long deckled rectangle from this Spellbinders set.
The sentiment verse is from Impression Obsession stamped with VersaFine Onyx Black on Neenah Solar White cut with the same Spellbinders die set. I added trim from the Celebrate It Aria “Vintage Blush” assorted trim roll (Michaels) about 2/3 of the way down the sentiment panel and cut an assortment of leaves & blooms with the Essentials by Ellen Bold Blossom dies from white, vellum & a dotted silver foil paper (CraftSmith Silver Gift). Both the trim & die cuts were adhered with matte medium using the Fineline precision applicator bottle for all of those intricate areas.
As you can see from the photos, I used all the same elements but a different arrangement of the leaves & blossoms and a different trim from the same Celebrate It Aria pack. I also found a match in some flat back adhesive pearls from my stash. Serendipity!
Blessings! 
by Karen Endress | Sep 18, 2016 | Encouragement
Hello again! Thought you might like to see the card I made for my husband a few days ago. I knew the “believe” would be a perfect set up for the inside sentiment, which would mean absolutely nothing to anyone but him 🙂 He loved it!
The cardbase is my usual Neenah Solar White 80 lb. covered with royal blue glitter paper (DCWV mat stack), layered with patterned paper from DCWV’s Summer Dream Stack, another oldie but goodie. I wanted the dark coral strip to mimic the blue paper’s mottled pattern, so I ran a piece from the DCWV Brights Border punch strip stack through Tim Holtz/Sizzix Bubble embossing folder, then sanded the raised areas with an emery board.
For even more interest, I inked the sanded portions as well as all the panels’ edges with Distress inks in Chipped Sapphire and Abandoned Coral, then punched one edge with the Fiskars interchangeable border punch cartridge Up in the Clouds. I used the same punch on a scrap of the glitter paper and layered them onto the card.
The chipboard die cut is from this Recollections Color Splash collection embellishment pack I found in the 80% off clearance bin at Michaels. I’ve already used three of them (card posts to come 🙂 and have plans for the other two! That’s the kind of bargain I just love!!
My bargain embellishment pack–or what’s left of it 🙂
One of the embellishments after watercoloring!
I used my Zig Clean Color Real Brush markers in deep blue & Persian blue to try to get an ombre effect. They didn’t blend as well as I had hoped, either because the surface was of a lower quality or I just need more practice with these markers.
I didn’t care for the dot on the ‘i’ so I cut out a tiny heart from one of the elements of Lawn Fawn’s Stitched Journaling Card die set to finish off the card. Next post—where I used one of the other words from that embellishment pack 🙂
Hope you have a crafty week!
by Karen Endress | Aug 22, 2016 | Encouragement
I was re-organizing my stamps when I ran across this old stamp & die set from Hero Arts/Sizzix. I thought it would be fun to have the butterflies stamped inside the card so you could see them through the die cut openings. Apparently not as easy as it sounded, the first attempt was a fail. This one turned out much better 🙂
I used a Ranger ink blending tool to sponge on some Distress inks in Squeezed Lemonade and Peacock Feathers (my personal favorite) then added some water droplets. The butterflies made me think of flight and reminded me of an older wood-mount stamp in my stash from Prickley Pear. I do have a tendency to over-embellish, but after using the ¼ WRM Corner Chomper I wisely decided to leave it as is. Here’s a close up of the cut-outs.
Let me know if you decide to try one of those oldies from your stash! Thanks for stopping by!
