A Little Gnome Told Me....

August 1st, 2018!!!

Can you believe it?

I don't know where the year has gone...

It sure doesn't feel like  it should be August already.

Well I thought I'd share the first of a little series of Gnome cards I've made for you all...

A little gnome told me that

Gnome is where the Heart is.

And here are 3 little guys to prove it! 

I had so much fun making this card using stamps from the Fairy Garden set. I started off by stamping the stump from the Budding Spring UM set, from there I stamped the 3 little Gnomes and went on from there. Everything was watercolored after I was satisfied with all of the little mushrooms, critters and such.  This is such a fun stamp set I don't know if I'll be able to wait to show you the other cards I made.

Supplies:

Rubber Stamp Tapestry - Fairy Garden, Whispers from the Garden, Budding Spring 
Imagine - VersaFine Clair

Kuretake Watercolors
Watercolor Paper

Cardstock

MFT - Stitched edge rectangle die

Spread Your Wings...

Hello Friends!  I hope you're all having a lovely week so far.  Today I wanted to share a piece that I made just for the heck of it.  A bit of Art Therapy if you will.  It's been a stressful couple of weeks and I just wanted to stamp and ink and futz around so that's just what I did.  I had no real plan so this took a few days to come together but I am so happy with how it turned out.....

Stamps - Lost Coast Designs - Butterflies, Butterfly Lady, Circles Background
Rinea - Oma's Postcard (writing)
Viva Las Vegas - artys elements (can't find the names on their web-site...too many stamps to sort through)

So I am playing with my Marabu Art Crayons again...

they are just too much fun!

A bit of scribbling, blending

water spritz - but as you'll note in the photo below, this was covered.

And here's how it turned out.
I should note that this is a piece of foam core board.

Before I added color I used a piece of tape to tear away a couple of the top layers of paper just to give it some character.  You can sort of see it in this photo.

Used a pretty stencil from Club Scrap to pick up some of the color off of the board.

This is what it looked like...

Now, here is where I really started getting into it and forgot to take photos of the process.

I added several layers of stamping using VersaFine Clair Morning Mist, Golden Meadow, Summertime (orange) and Tulip Red.

I then spritzed the left 2/3rds with Frost Shimmer Spritz.  I adds the shimmer of glitter without having to explain why there is glitter everywhere ;)  LOL!!

Next I spread some Creative Medium through a stencil and let it partially dry. I then sprinkled on metal leafing flakes and used a paint brush to gently brush away the excess.  

I then applied VersaMark ink around the edges and embossed using Seth Apter's Rocky Road Baked Texture EP.  LOVE this stuff!

I stamped the butterfly fairy, water colored her plus a few extra tiny butterflies.
She and the sentiment were the affixed to the panel.

A few more looks

You can see the Shimmer Spritz near the tiny butterfly and "wings" area.

Amazing texture from the Rocky Road huh?

Hope you enjoyed the journey...

Supplies:

Imagine - Shimmer Spritz; VersaMark; VersaFine Clair - Nocturne, Morning Mist, Summertime, Tulip Red, Golden Meadow, Creative Medium
Lost Coast Designs - Butterflies, Butterfly Lady, Circles Background
Rinea - Oma's Postcard Stamp
VivaLasVegasStamps - Art circle, Dots, BubbleWrap
Marabu - Art Crayons
Seth Apter - Rocky Road Embossing Powder
Club Scrap - Flower Stencil
Kuretake Watercolors
Prima Watercolor Confections
Stencil
Double Stick Tape 

Altered Trading Coins!

Have you heard about a fun new twist on Altered Trading Cards???  Turn them into a 2.5" circle and you have an Altered Trading Coin!!

Recently a friend posted a video she found on YouTube by Craftyhodges sharing her new Altered Trading Coin creations and it's pretty cool! It looked like so much fun I decided to give it a go.

Now I have to admit I keep all sorts of scraps, mistakes, experiments and other bits of paper because they might come in handy someday.  I am so glad I did because I've started putting them to use by making these coins.

These are cut from the DecoArt Acrylic Pouring Medium experiments that I either poured, swiped or dripped onto 110lb cardstock.

These are failed experiments or cards I wasn't satisfied with.

And these are just "clean up" tags or cardstock pieces that I either stamp off my stamps, pick up medium off of my craft mat, or use up extra medium from stencils and other projects. 

They were all cut into 2.5" circles and this is what I made....

My friends....

(Stamps - Lost Coast Designs)

He's a brave soul...the background is an experiment for a faux leather that I layered on a few different stamps, added the steampunk guy and stamped word.

(Stamps - Lost Coast Designs)

This background is a piece of cardstock that I poured using DecoArt Pouring Medium & Acrylic Paints. I added some sparkles with a bit of glitter.  Mona is stamped directly on the coin using VersaFine Clair ink.

(Stamps - Lost Coast Designs)

This background was pounced into a puddle of "run off" from an acrylic pouring session recently. The steampunk biker was stamped directly onto the panel then colored using a bit of alcohol markers and white gel pen.

Aren't these guys darling?  I won them from the Crafty Nomad's recently week long blog celebration. They are from Crafty Individuals and they are just so sweet. I love them and couldn't wait to use them.

(Stamps - Bunny - Crafty Individual; 

"Dream" - Lost Coast Designs)

The Dream ATC was made on a piece of cardstock that I used DecoArt Acrylic Pouring Medium and Paint which was swiped onto cardstock using a baby wipe. The bunny was stamped using VersaFine Clair then water colored using new paints from Kuretake.  Of course I added a bit of sparkle on his little crown. 

(Stamps - Background - Joy Clair; Bunny - Crafty Individuals

"Wisdom" - Lost Coast Designs)

And finally this background was a piece of cardstock I used to stamp off extra ink from a recent project. That's why there are several different images and lots of colors. It was just a mish-mash but it looks pretty good I think.  The bunny was water colored using the new Kuretake paints.

So, what do you think?  

Pretty cool huh? 

I'm thinkin' these little gems are a swap waiting to happen - LOL!!

Spring Flowers Challenge

Hello Friends!

I hope you're having a good day today. 

I wanted to share the new April challenge over on 

Just For Fun Rubber Stamps...Spring Flowers!

I wanted to share a few...o.k. several flower cards with you...

Hope you stop by and give it a try!

Supplies:

Just For Fun Rubber Stamps - all images n sentiments

Imagine - Memento Dye Inks, Memento Dual Tip Markers, VersaMark, Clear Embossing Powder, On Point Glue, irREISTible Pico Embellisher, Sponge Daubers

Kuretake Watercolor Paints 

Niji Watercolor Brush

Sweet Song of Spring...

Happy Friday!  Today I wanted to share some fun I had recently with Rubber Stamp Tapestry's new stamp set Sweet Song of Spring.  I was so inspired by this set of stamps that I decided to create little scenes by incorporating a bit of free-hand drawing and watercolor painting with the stamps...here's what I came up with...

My first card I made this little home for the Spring robin...I wanted to give him a nice secluded home in a secret garden to live. All of the flowers and foliage were stamped using VersaFine Clair then embossed with clear EP.  The bird was stamped using VersaFine ink and I drew the birdhouse and pole in free-hand.  The remainder of the image was watercolored using Kuretake Watercolor.  The sentiment is from Club Scrap.

This card is my attempt at a clean and simple watercolor card...not sure if it fits the "C&S" police term but it's pretty simple for me.  I started off by penciling in the mailbox to give myself a rough idea on where to add the foliage.  Next I stamped the greenery and added the flowers with VersaFine Clair inks.  I then went back and watercolored the mailbox and pole.  The final step was adding the sentiment (Club Scrap).   I messed up though - I wanted to sit the bird on top of the mailbox but my proportions were off and he looked like a giant next to the mailbox so I left him off ;)  LOL!!

Supplies:

Rubber Stamp Tapestry - Sweet Song of Spring
Imagine - VersaFine Clair
Kuretake Watercolors
Club Scrap - Sentiments

Build a Prickly Pear

Today I wanted to share some cards I made using the Build a Prickly Pear Cactus set from Rubber Stamp Tapestry...

I had fun with this card - stamped the cactus & weeds then watercolored all around. It was fun to work with the layers of color to get this look. 

Just because I could - LOL!!

This is my attempt at CAS cacti - I started off with just the cactus, then I had to add the branches and it still looked too bare so I added the flowers & sentiment....  Still not enough so I flicked on some blue watercolor speckles...  Still didn't look good then I added just a few black pen strokes on the sentiment and I was finally satisfied with it!  What do you think?

Supplies:

Rubber Stamp Tapestry - Build A Prickly Pear

Imagine - Memento Dye Ink; VersaMagic Ink, Kaleidacolor

Kuretake Gansai Tambi Watercolor Paint

Washi Tape