Saturday, June 22, 2019

Hero Arts Hop


Hello! I'm very excited to participate in Ellen Hutson's Hero Arts hop along side some very talented folks! You may have come from Libby Hickson, but if not please feel free to start at the beginning with Adelina Starace.


I was so darn excited to get the adorable Fly High Animals set from Hero Arts ... there's an airplane and a helicopter, as well as three different pilots you can have operating your craft! In addition to that, there are several punny sentiments (which I just love), and some extras like clouds and stars for your scene-building pleasure.


For this card I cut some cloud shapes from copy paper (two different shapes, and then turned the paper over to get an additional two cloud shapes) and blended ink on top of my homemade mask.


The plane and cat pilot were colored with copics and highlighted with a white gel pen.


I added a few sequins behind the plane to stand in for some puffs of exhaust from the plane (is that even a thing anymore?! hahaha). A very simple one layer card, which I haven't made in quite some time. But when the illustrations are as adorable as these, you really don't need much "fancy" going on. Just some good, old-fashioned card making!


SALE ALERT:
There's a 25% off sale on all Hero Arts items going on at Ellen Hutson now ... whoo hoo!!! What stamps, dies, sequins or inks have you had your eye on?


PRIZES:

You can win one of three $25 gift certificates to the Ellen Hutson shop! Winners will be drawn from commenters along the blog hop so make sure to comment at each stop before Friday, June 28th at 11:59pm PST. Winners will be notified by email.

Your next stop along this hop is the lovely Julee Tilman!

Thanks so much for stopping by!!
-Kelly


Supplies Used (affiliate links used, with my thanks, at no cost to you):




Fly High Animals, Hero Arts Clear Stamps

Something Borrowed, Catherine Pooler Ink Pad

Flirty Fuchsia, Catherine Pooler Ink Pad

Black Jack, Catherine Pooler Ink Pad

Uni-ball Impact Gel Pen, White

My Sweet Petunia Mini MISTI Laser Etched Stamping Tool (6-1/8 X 7)

Life Changing Blender Brush - 4 Piece Broad, Picket Fence Studios (LCB-4)

Neenah Cardstock, Neenah Heavyweight, Classic Crest Solar White 110 lb, 25 pk




Wednesday, June 19, 2019

Catherine Pooler Hello Sunshine Release



Hi Folks! Welcome to the Catherine Pooler Hello Sunshine Release! You may have come from Tracie's blog, but if not please feel free to start at the beginning with none other than Catherine Pooler's blog.


To make things a little more flexible, and to make sure you get exactly what you're looking for, the collection of products in the Hello Sunshine Release is divided into four different bundles for purchase: 

  1. I Scream You Scream Bundle
  2. Scatter Sunshine Bundle
  3. Sunshine Flowers Bundle
  4. Whimsy Bundle

The three cards I'm sharing today are from the Sunshine Flowers Bundle. 

My first card uses the Sunshine Flowers stamp and coordinating die set. I used the Tiki Torch and Tiara inks to watercolor the petals on these adorable sunflowers. To watercolor with the inks, I pick up a closed ink pad and squeeze the lid into the ink pad. When I open the ink pad, there's a nice amount of ink on the top inside of the lid that I can pick up with my paint brush and paint with.
 

There are two cute and fun sentiments included with this set. Aside from the actual message, I like that they are both tall so you can use them to fill space on a vertical card. The two sunflowers here represent two friends, like the sentiment mentions. I wanted stems for these two flowers/friends, so I hand cut them out.

Some blended blue on the top, and some gold spatters completes the card.



This is a very clean and simple card that takes a little bit of explaining. First, I cut a heart shape from copy paper, laid this stencil over my card base, and blended some ink through the heart. 


Then I made a stencil with the fun Throwing Confetti Cover Plate by die cutting some aqua adhesive backed vinyl.

With the heart stencil still on my card base, I layered the Throwing Confetti stencil on top and blended some ink through the dot confetti. These layered stencils make sure the dots are only on the heart. 




Finally, I die cut the You Are Loved Word Die and adhered that on top of the heart. 

 

This card uses a bit of everything from this bundle. The background has the wonderful Throwing Confetti dots stenciled in yellow.


The words in the You Are Loved die cut are colored separately for a slightly different look.


All of the folksy flowers and leaves are watercolored with various Catherine Pooler Inks. The panel is mounted on a card base with blended inks.



PRIZES
There will be a random winner chosen to receive a $25 gift certificate to the shop! To enter, please follow this blog, and leave a comment on this post. The winners will be announced on on Catherine Pooler's blog on July 1st.

Your next stop on this blog hop is the lovely and talented Jen Carter!

Thanks so much for stopping by!
-Kelly

Tuesday, June 18, 2019

Altenew June 2019 Stand-alone Die Release Blog Hop + Giveaway


June is a magical month in Altenew-land ... the Stamp/Die/Stencil release from a couple weeks ago was ridiculously good, and now there's a stand-alone die release that's right up there with it ... can it get any better?! Let's take a look at some pretty darn cool dies in action!
 
COLOR WHEEL DIE


First up is this fabulous Color Wheel Die that has a ton of possibilities!


For this card I went with a traditional look by using it as an actual color wheel. All the pieces are adhered onto a black card base to make them really pop.


For the colors I loaded up my paintbrush with as much watercolor as I could get from the Altenew Watercolor 36 Pan Set and colored the outer segment of the "pie." Then without loading more paint I covered each of the next sections until the watercolor ran out and I got to the center of the color wheel. For some colors I repeated this process twice. But I love the illusion of having lots of different colors, when it's really just a less intense version of the same color each time.


The sentiments are from my gloriously large collection of pre-made sentiments sitting front and center on my desk, from last week's Sentiment Strips set (SO NICE just picking a few out and putting them on the card!) 

I'd ask you to keep the stars in mind, as they're leftover from a card I made later in this post. Love using everything right away, and keeping things out of the garbage.

Speaking of using everything ... I still had the outline of the color wheel available, so I put that right to use on this quick but graphic card:


The heart is hand cut and layered behind the grid. I love how the center of the grid points to where "you're in my heart." Just like a bullseye!


Also love all that texture you get from the very finely die cut lines. 

Given the clean and graphic nature of this card, I think it's perfect for a masculine card.


Two cards with just one cut of the die!

DAINTY BLOOMS DIE

http://shrsl.com/1npyr

This Dainty Blooms Cover Die is pretty darn incredible. There's so much interest here, I turned one die cut into THREE different cards!


I knew I wanted to use all the pieces of the die to create a mosaic-type garden. I also wanted to leave some white space on my card so I elected to split the cover plate into two sections, the top third and the bottom two thirds, where each section has its own color scheme. After coloring, I used Jennifer McGuire's Glad Press 'N Seal trick to keep all the pieces in place.



Here's what I did with the top third ... adhered the pieces to the blended section of a card base.



The sentiment is from the BAF Japanese Mum set, and the stencil on the bottom is from my all-time favorite Feeling Dotty stencil.



I was happy to still have the bottom two thirds available for a second card, so this time I pulled out a gray card base so the pieces will really stand out.



With all this detail, all you really need to finish the card is a sentiment layered on top. 

So what's left for the third card?



You may have guessed, the outline of the cover plate die. I finished coloring the lines from when I was coloring the interior pieces.



Then I laid the cover plate over my card base and made pencil marks where the inside of each flower and leaf was. This gave me the help I needed to blend color in the right spot.


Finally I added some coarse, clear glitter, and then triple embossed the sentiment from the BAF Crocus set. Not gonna lie, there's a lot of shine and sparkle on this one!



And here they all are together ... all from one pass of the die!


http://shrsl.com/1nq17

This is the cousin to the amazing Pen Sketch Mandala stamp set from the last release.


Of course I had to cut it out in gold! So luxurious. The best thing about this card is that I only used a small portion of the die. I cut one wedge from the circle and wrapped it around the cone that's holding the flowers.


The detail in this die is really something else, and it really looks like a fabulous piece of jewelry on this card. I blended green ink on the bottom of the card so the white and gold cone would stand out more.


The flowers are from another recent release, the BAF Crocus set. Love that the layers are so quick to line up, stamp and die cut out!


http://shrsl.com/1nq1s

I was so curious to see what this set of dies would look like once they were layered together! Would you like to see?



This is a high school graduation card for a very special young woman who is going to do great things one day. Her list of accomplishments are many, and the fact that she excels while having a debilitating disability is even more impressive (Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, POTS, and many other associated conditions). So it was no surprise when she got admitted to Columbia University in NYC!

Even though there are only three dies, I was able to get four different colors on the stars, including the school color Columbia Blue.


Thought I'd share the inside of the card, and also show how the stars on the front are see-thru. I had a pile of the negative stars on my desk, so I used some for the inside of the card, some for the envelope underneath, and the remaining white stars ended up on the first card of this post (remember, the color wheel card on the black base?) Having the stars throughout your design gives it a more custom feel.



http://shrsl.com/1nq71

This die set looked very intriguing to me when I first got it ... what would it look like, and will I ever be able to figure it out?!


Turns out it looks AMAZING, and it wasn't hard at all to assemble!



Instead of solid colored cardstock, I used ink blended white cardstock so there would be slight variation in the colors. Since the shapes were finely detailed, however, I didn't want too much variation in color. 


They're just gorgeous! I love that there is a large flower and a smaller bud included with the set.



And a few different leaves (which would be good to add for any of the Altenew florals). Using a deep navy card base with gold spatters really highlights the florals and leaves, and even brings the black sentiment out slightly. I'm really enjoying making these tall cards. Two sets of these florals really fills out the tall card nicely.



Thanks so much for sticking with me through the parade of cards! It's been such an inspirational few weeks of releases for Altenew. I can't wait to see how they can top this!

http://shrsl.com/1nq7y

Here's the full June die release, bundled for extra savings.


Prizes:
To celebrate this release, Altenew is giving away a $50 gift certificate to 6 lucky winners! Please leave a comment on the Altenew Card Blog and/or Altenew Scrapbook Blog by 6/24/2019 for a chance to win.


We’ll also draw a winner to receive a $15 gift certificate from the comments left on each designer’s blog on the blog hop list below. All winners will be announced on the Altenew blogs on 6/27/2019.

I'm the final stop on this blog hop, which means you made it! You may have come from the wonderful Michelle Murray, but if not feel free to start at the beginning with the Altenew Card Blog. Sure hope you got some incredible inspiration from all the amazing artists on this hop! Now you just need to figure out what's on your shopping list, and what will make its way into your cart : )

Thanks so much for stopping by! 
-Kelly

If you like the cards in this post, feel free to follow my Instagram account so you don't miss out. I'd love to see you there!


Products Used (with affiliate links, which I appreciate, at no cost to you):

http://shrsl.com/1nq71
Vintage Roses 3D Dies
http://shrsl.com/1nq1s
Layered Stars Dies
http://shrsl.com/1nq17
Delicate Mandala Die
http://shrsl.com/1npyr
Dainty Blooms Cover Die

Color Wheel Die




























































Blog Hop Order:

Kelly Griglione <---You are here!