Wow, it’s hard to believe it’s over half way through the month of September!
I’m catching up of making some birthday cards for my stash and I thought I’d CASE Kymona’s card here from November 2016.
I printed this dragonfly from the “Winged Friends” Hero Arts Digital set and cut him out with my Scan n Cut, then colored him with Spectrum Noir markers. The wonderful is from Hero Arts Wonderful Stamp and Cut set. I used a Gina K Designs card base – love the thickness and high quality of it! I think this stamp and cut set is becoming one of my favorites ever because you can use it year round! Please see my list of supplies linked below.
Hope you will join us in this month’s challenge – CASE a Designer!
Here’s another view of my card:
Are you on social media? We are! Please join us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook? so you don’t miss any fun promotions or new challenge announcements!
Please join us in this months “CASE a Designer” challenge for your chance at a $25 gift card to the a2z store. Our current monthly challenge can always be found in the menu bar, and runs from the 1st to last day of the month.
The a2z scrapbooking store carries a wide variety of Hero Arts products! Get discounted new releases, sales, grab bags & more. Proceeds from our store benefit Celiac & Behcets disease foundations. Use my discount code Angie15 to get 15% off your purchase of $25 or more. If you’re looking for a Hero Arts product you don’t see in store, use the Request Custom Order button from within the shop.
Hello, hello! How is everyone doing? I hope those affected by storms, hurricanes and floods are safe and sound as well as on your way of getting your lives back on track, houses and yards cleaned up and craft rooms re-organised.
I have now been in a new house for about 3 weeks and slowly but surely getting it to feel like a home rather than just a building with our stuff in it. My craft room is another story… I can’t seem to get the flow right or getting furniture to fit ‘just right’ and it’s very frustrating. I feel a good flowing craft room is good for the mojo, if the room doesn’t inspire me I’m out of luck.. Luckily for me I made the cards I’m going to show you today before we moved, in anticipation of not getting into the swing of things very quickly perhaps. Also, sadly the Hero Arts CM131 Purr stamp set is sold out in the A2Z Scrapbooking Store but you can use the ‘Request Custom Order’ button to contact the store owner who will happily order it for you. The coordinating Hero Arts DI366 Frame Cuts to the stamp set is still available in the shop though.
Right, well, it’s probably time to get down to the crafty side of things, isn’t it? For these two cards, I’ve coloured the kitty cats with both Copic and Zig Clean Color markers, one card is clean and simple and the other one has a bit of everything going on!
For card no1 I started out by die cutting a piece of Strathmore Bristol Vellum watercolour card stock, using a Mama Elephant creative cut called Femme Frames. It gives a lovely scalloped border and adds a subtle bit of interest. I also cut out a few masks as I was planning on piling a few cushions on top of each other for one of the kitties to stretch out on. Using MFT hybrid ink in Black Licorice, I stamped up my images with a bit of help from my Mini MISTI and the masks I had cut out. Above the cat I also stamped up the heart image and the sentiment ‘lazy days are the best’. It just fit perfectly with my lazy cat! I coloured the panel with my Zig Clean Color markers and kept the colours quite intense, there is hardly any water added to the colouring at all.
Once it was dry, I adhered the panel to a white card base using a piece of foam sheet I had cut to size as well as added a few clear sparkly sequins with glossy accents. With that, the first card was done!
Onward to card no2! I coloured the cats with my Copic markers and used the coordinating frame cuts to cut them out. Setting these two aside, I got that Mama Elephant Femme Frame creative cut out again but this time I used pink card stock. My colour scheme for this card was going to be pink and grey, and the card base was cut out, scored and folded. I nearly added the pink card stock to it right away but thought it needed a little something to jazz it up. Grabbing an embossing folder with fish bones all over it, I ran the panel through my Big Shot with it and was happier with it. I still thought it needed a little something else though so with a mini ink blending tool I dabbed Distress Oxide ink in Picked Raspberry to highlight the fishbones.
In the same grey colour card stock as the card base, I cut out a fish tail banner using MFT Die-Namics Stitched Fishtail Flag. On this I again used the Distress Oxide inks and a homemade heart stencil to create a patterned paper. I also found a little stitched label in white card stock in my big pile of unused bits and bobs, it was the perfect size to stamp the sentiment ‘I’d spend all nine lives with you’ and I added one of the kitties to it using some foam tape. The other kitty was added directly to the heart stencilled banner, also with foam tape and this kitty responds with ‘I meow you’ which is cut out using the little speech bubble that comes with the coordinating frame cuts.
Well, with that I will leave you to enjoy your day and I hope I have inspired you to get crafty soon!
Happy crafting!
Are you on social media? We are! Please join us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook? so you don’t miss any fun promotions or new challenge announcements!
Please join us in this months “CASE a Designer” challenge for your chance at a $25 gift card to the a2z store. Our current monthly challenge can always be found in the menu bar, and runs from the 1st to last day of the month.
The a2z scrapbooking store carries a wide variety of Hero Arts products! Get discounted new releases, sales, grab bags & more. Proceeds from our store benefit Celiac & Behcets disease foundations. Use my discount code ERICA15to get 15% off your purchase of $25 or more. If you’re looking for a Hero Arts product you don’t see in store, use the Request Custom Order button from within the shop.
Hello, hello! Erica on the blog today, from our new house AND new country! Oh yes, we don’t do things by half around here. “Let’s move”, “Sure thing, hunny-buns, which country shall we go to this time??” is more like our MO. Right now, I’m sitting on the sofa in a half-unpacked house in POLAND, having only moved here from Denmark 8 days ago and got the keys to the house 6 days ago. The craft room is almost all sorted because ya know, #priorities. The bedroom and kitchen are nearly as they should be too. The rest of the house? Eh, that’s gonna be a work in progress for a while I think. Tidy, schmidy will be my motto for at least a few weeks!
Well, now that I’ve got that off my chest, shall we get down to some crafty business? I have two cards for you today, both made with the Hero Arts Woof stamp set and coordinating Woof Frame Cuts. These cards are quite different and I like being able to see different techniques being used with the same stamp set. If it seems really versatile, I’m more likely to buy it as it feels like more bang for the buck.
I did my usual thing here when I got this stamp set, I stamped up loads of adorable little doggies and coloured them in. I think one of the reasons I do this is to get a good feel for the stamps and to try out different looks without “committing” to making a card right away. I did a few with Zig Clean Colour markers and some with Copic markers but for the cards today, I only ended up using the ones done with Copics.
When I had a whole pack of puppies coloured in, it was time to start on the backgrounds. For these I used another couple of different techniques, both with lovely results if I may say so myself.
For my first one I got some of those delicious Distress Oxide inks out and using a homemade cloud stencil I blended some Broken China blue around the stencil to create a sky. I did the same thing to make a grassy ground for the pups to play on using Cracked Pistachio green Distress Oxide inks. The dies I used to create the stencils are both from My Favorite Things.
When it came to decide on a sentiment, I used one from the stamp set that says ‘You + Me Friends Forever’ and I picked a couple of the doggies that I had coloured in to look like my Cheeky Chicas (my two little rescue dogs, they are sisters and adopted from Spain hence the chica nickname and if you are curious to see them for yourself, here is a link to my Instagram where I post regular photos of their mischief) The sentiment I stamped in black ink on white card stock and then I used a Mama Elephant stitched cloud die to cut it out along with a plain white cloud and a bright yellow sun.
In the Hero Arts Woof stamp set there are lots of cute little accents to make your card or project perfectly doggie-licious and I have used several of them for these cards. For the first one I only stamped up a couple of hearts and used the coordinating Frame Cut to cut them out. Now I had all the bits I wanted for my first card and it was time to assemble! This took very little time as I had a picture in my mind of how I wanted it to look. Using foam tape to create dimension and layers I glued away until I was happy with the results. A few clear sequins snuck on it too.
For my second card I went in a more monochomatic style, even the doggies I used are grey/black-ish. The only colour splash are the little hearts and the ink blending on the word sentiment.
Whilst my first card turned out pretty much as I had planned, this one did the exact opposite! At first I thought I’d stamp this up as background paper and colour it in using bright colours but I ended up liking it so much without any colour (*gasp of shock* I know, I know… surprise twist or what?!) and that is how the little pink hearts got added because I felt a little bit of pink wouldn’t hurt. They were not part of my original plan at all. I stamped these using Worn Lipstick Distress Oxide ink.
As my little doggies were already coloured in, this card came together rather quickly once I decided to skip the colouring step. A stitched rectangle frame (good old Lawn Fawn to the rescue again) in black linen textured card stock, as well as the word die ‘Love’ which got an ombré pink effect with the help of the same Distress Oxide ink as the hearts are stamped, a white banner to stamp the sentiment on and some foam tape later, BAM! Done.
That’s it from me today, I hope you have enjoyed this post and that my cards have inspired you to get your colouring on. Don’t forget that there is a marvellous colouring challenge going on for the month of September, called The Daily Marker 30 Days or check out the hashtag #thedailymarker30day. The idea is to have some me-time every day and colour a little bit, even if it’s just 5-10 mins. There is no pressure or commitment, it’s just plain fun and we can all use a bit more of that these days, can’t we?
Anyway, with that, I’m off to organise, move some stuff around and attempt to learn some basic Polish… Or maybe I should just stick to crafting?
Are you on social media? We are! Please join us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook? so you don’t miss any fun promotions or new challenge announcements!
Please join us in this months “CASE a Designer” challenge for your chance at a $25 gift card to the a2z store. Our current monthly challenge can always be found in the menu bar, and runs from the 1st to last day of the month.
The a2z scrapbooking store carries a wide variety of Hero Arts products! Get discounted new releases, sales, grab bags & more. Proceeds from our store benefit Celiac & Behcets disease foundations. Use my discount code ERICA15to get 15% off your purchase of $25 or more. If you’re looking for a Hero Arts product you don’t see in store, use the Request Custom Order button from within the shop.
It’s Erica back on the blog today with another cat-i-licious card. I think it will be a safe bet to expect a few purrfect puns along the way, I ‘cat’ seem to help myself. The stamp set I’m talking about for todays card and post, is of course none other than the fur-tastic Hero Arts Purr.
For this card I wanted to make my own patterned paper and colour that with my Zig markers, which meant grabbing my Stathmore Bristol Vellum card stock and MFT hybrid ink in Black Licorice again. I selected the 🎶little balls of fur… sorry, yarn. Sheldon Cooper from Big Bang Theory managed to hack into my account and add his little feline twist. Right, anyway, the little ball of yarn and the cute mouse got selected, mounted on small acrylic blocks and then it was just a case of going crazy like a kitty with catnip!
When all the images were stamped on the card stock, I got a green, yellow, blue, red and pink Zig marker out and proceeded to colour in the balls of yarn. Instead of going random here, I kept each line the same colour. The little mice got coloured in with a warm grey marker for the bodies and a slight pink for those big ears.
The kitties I had already coloured and ready to be cut out using the coordinating frame cut , from my first post which you can find here, and I selected a couple of them that looked like they were curious because which can’t isn’t curious?? Well, the idea was to cut out a hole in the panel, mount it on a card base and then pop the kitties inside the hole, like they are peeking out and can’t believe their luck to see so much yarn and mice. Sounds like a pawesome cat paradise, huh?
The card base I chose for this card is a mid dark grey card stock and I thought it would create a nice contrast for the kitties without washing them out (The one I have used here is from Simon Say Stamp but you can find a similar colour in this pack .) Black was too harsh and white was too bland. I like these different greys as they give a much softer look than black card stock. Plus I thought it tied in nicely with the yarn.. sorry, mice!
The peek-a-boo hole I cut out using a die-namic from MFT, called (unsurprisingly) Peek A Boo. Before I mounted the front panel to the card base, I covered the whole back of it with double sided foam tape. If you don’t have foam tape (excuse me while I go freak ooooooout! I am obsessed with foam tape!) you don’t need, I just like it to add a little bit of interest and dimension to a card without adding anything that shows if that makes sense?
To make sure the kitties showed the way I wanted them I added them to the front panel’s foam tape and once it was on the card, I added a little bit of adhesive behind them to make sure they didn’t run off.
This card doesn’t have a human language sentiment on it, just a feline one. I stamped up the ‘meow’ speech bubble and cut that out with the coordinating frame cut before adding it to the card with some more foam tape. (Hi, my name is Erica and I’m addicted to foam tape!)
As one last little flourish, I added some clear droplets from Studio Katia, in two different sizes. I thought they fitted better, being spheres, rather than sequins. The patterned paper is probably enough if you aren’t an ‘use all the embellishments’-kind of crafter. If you prefer gemstones you can find some clear ones here.
Here is the full card. I hope you will leave feeling inspired to make your own patterned paper or a card using these cutie kitties.
See you all soon and happy crafting!
Are you on social media? We are! Please join us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook? so you don’t miss any fun promotions or new challenge announcements!
Please join us in this months “Bright & Beautiful” challenge for your chance at a $25 gift card to the a2z store. Our current monthly challenge can always be found in the menu bar, and runs from the 1st to last day of the month.
The a2z scrapbooking store carries a wide variety of Hero Arts products! Get discounted new releases, sales, grab bags & more. Proceeds from our store benefit Celiac & Behcets disease foundations. Use my discount code Erica15 to get 15% off your purchase of $25 or more. If you’re looking for a Hero Arts product you don’t see in store, use the Request Custom Order button from within the shop.
Hello all! I’m here with another card for our anything goes challenge. Today I used the color layering Peacock set, but only used one layer of the image. Was hoping to show another possible way to use the set for those who may not like to do all the layers. Just because they are all there doesn’t mean you have to use them all! 😉
I started by stamping the top layer of the peacock multiple times in a diagonal and the trimmed the edges. Then I grabbed some Distress Oxide inks to ink the areas that would show under my panel and spritzed it with water. While that dried for a bit I added some Wink of Stella to my peacocks. The sentiment is stamped and embossed on a scrap of black card stock that was trimmed down to a small strip. To add a little pizzazz to the strip I stamped and die cut a swirl from the set and added some Nuvo dots.
Here is a look at the shimmer on the peacocks!
Thanks for stopping by as always! have a great day.
Are you on social media? We are! Please join us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook? so you don’t miss any fun promotions or new challenge announcements!
Please join us in this months “Anything Goes” challenge for your chance at a $25 gift card to the a2z store. Our current monthly challenge can always be found in the menu bar, and runs from the 1st to last day of the month.
The a2z scrapbooking store carries a wide variety of Hero Arts products! Get discounted new releases, sales, grab bags & more. Proceeds from our store benefit Celiac & Behcets disease foundations. Use my discount code Monica15 to get 15% off your purchase of $25 or more. If you’re looking for a Hero Arts product you don’t see in store, use the Request Custom Order button from within the shop.
Erica back on the blog today with a “purrfect” card for cat lovers. I think almost of us know at least one ‘crazy cat lady’, don’t we? I know several myself and I had the most amazing cat when I was a kid. He was such a big softie with a huge personality and I still miss him today, some 17 years after loosing him. He used to walk me to the school bus and wait for me when I got home. Almost all my school peers knew him from seeing him hanging around the bus stop and walking off with me. He really was so special and lovely. Pets have this amazing ability to take up so much space in your heart and still, there is always room for more, isn’t there? I can’t see myself ever not having a pet now, although I have had doggies since 2004.
Right, enough sentimental babbling now (although I could talk about my fur babies all day long) and let’s get down to crafting business!
I got the Hero Arts Purr stamp set out and decided to use my Zig markers for colouring these. Which meant also getting some Strathmore Bristol Vellum water colour card stock and MFT hybrid ink in Black Licorice out. This is my favourite combination when I use Zig markers as the card stock is smooth, the markers blend well and the ink doesn’t bleed.
As I always do when I have a new stamp set I stamped up almost all of the images and coloured away, happy as a kid in a candy store minus the sugar high! I didn’t have a card design in mind right away, I tend to wing it a lot and try different things before settling on an idea. It’s probably fair to say I’m a bit willy-nilly in my design process at times. Or most of the times actually. It’s is not very often that my finished card looks anything like what I meant it to at the beginning. I’m not sure this is a strength or a flaw.
Well, anyway, after I had coloured all my little kitty cats I used the coordinating frame cuts to cut them out. At this point I had a small herd of cats in different colours and shapes, they are all so cute but I picked out one that looks a bit mischievous as I had this idea to use sting on the card and make him look like he was all tussled up in it. The card came together relatively quickly after deciding this. A purple linen textured card base got chosen and I also picked out a Lawn Fawn plaid card stock (I used Lollipop ) which had a lot of purple in it to tie in the colour scheme.
To incorporate the string I also cut out a scalloped border and a hole in the middle using a Mama Elephant creative cut called All Prettied Up. To add some height and dimension to the card I used the same creative cuts to cut out some double sided foam and then I layered these directly onto each other. The string, which is just from a local shop where I live, has a little bit of silver in it which adds a nice little touch. I wrapped this around and around the scalloped edges and the hole to make a mess for my kitty to get tangled up in.
The great, and also annoying thing about this double sided foam is that it sticks. And not alway to the thing you meant it to stick to.. or straight either… Luckily I managed to save this card before it was totally messed up but I have not always been so fortunate in the past. Well, nothing says handmade as a wonky card, eh?
Once the crisis was averted, I added the kitty to the middle of the tangled string mess with a bit of foam tape to make him look like he’s really wrapped up in it and hovering in the air. Which cat owner hasn’t found their cat hanging from either blinds, curtains or cables at least once, right??
For the sentiment I used the one that says ‘you & me are purrfect together’ and I stamped this in black ink on a small white, stitched label that I had die cut using a Pretty Pink Posh die. You can find similar tag dies here . A small bow was added to the label before being adhered to the card to look like it is also tangled up in the string mess. The last touch I added was a few purple sequins in different sizes to the card base what shows through the die cut hole. They are almost perfectly colour matched to the card stock so it’s quite subtle but just enough to add some interest. I resisted the urge to add more sequins, which is no small feat as I love them! They are without a doubt my go-to embellishment.
Well, that’s it from me today but I hope I have inspired you to have some fun with this stamp set. It really is the cat’s pajamas and purrfect for cat lovers!
Are you on social media? We are! Please join us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook? so you don’t miss any fun promotions or new challenge announcements!
Please join us in this months “Anything Goes” challenge for your chance at a $25 gift card to the a2z store. Our current monthly challenge can always be found in the menu bar, and runs from the 1st to last day of the month.
The a2z scrapbooking store carries a wide variety of Hero Arts products! Get discounted new releases, sales, grab bags & more. Proceeds from our store benefit Celiac & Behcets disease foundations. Use my discount code Erica15to get 15% off your purchase of $25 or more. If you’re looking for a Hero Arts product you don’t see in store, use the Request Custom Order button from within the shop.
Monica M here to share a card for this months Anything Goes Challenge. These challenges are always a fun favorite for those who love endless possibilities. I chose to use this fun layering parrot. Sad to say this was my first time using him, I just hate to admit it’s taken me this long to use him!
I used my mini Misti to line up each layer for stamping. I love that face! I then trimmed down the stamped panel and added my sentiments. I loosely measured where the panel would set on the card front and stamped the three leaf images in the set with different shades of green. I used some fun foam to pop the panel up off the card before adding Nuvo drops for accents in a few places.
Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!
Are you on social media? We are! Please join us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook? so you don’t miss any fun promotions or new challenge announcements!
Please join us in this months “Anything Goes” challenge for your chance at a $25 gift card to the a2z store. Our current monthly challenge can always be found in the menu bar, and runs from the 1st to last day of the month.
The a2z scrapbooking store carries a wide variety of Hero Arts products! Get discounted new releases, sales, grab bags & more. Proceeds from our store benefit Celiac & Behcets disease foundations. Use my discount code insert your code here to get 15% off your purchase of $25 or more. If you’re looking for a Hero Arts product you don’t see in store, use the Request Custom Order button from within the shop.
Hello all, it’s Monica and today I’m sharing a planner layout I made for #SharkWeek. I don’t know how many of you use planners, but I love decorating mine before I add all of my to do’s for the week. I wanted to use the Killer Message for something other than card making and thought it would be a perfect for Shark Week next month!
I don’t usually plan this far in advance, but I couldn’t resist.
I started by stamping the shells for a little decor behind the days of the week. I then found washi tape in the colors I wanted and stuck them down.
Then I just stamped my images and sentiment to complete the layout. When I get closer to the week I will fill out my details and add my to do lists. Looks like I’ll be posting another A2Z post that Thursday! 😉
As of writing this postI did notice the A2Z store is currently out of stock of Killer Messages. If you are interested in the images used you can always request a custom order on the A2Z site, by clicking the Request button on the left side of the shops screen.
Are you on social media? We are! Please join us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook?so you don’t miss any fun promotions or new challenge announcements!
Please join us in this months “Take Shape” challenge for your chance at a $25 gift card to our Hero Arts store. Our current monthly challenge can always be found in the menu bar, and runs from the 1st to last day of the month.
The a2z scrapbooking store carries a wide variety of Hero Arts products! Get discounted new releases, sales, grab bags & more. Proceeds from our store benefit Celiac & Behcets disease foundations. Use my discount code monica15 to get 15% off your purchase of $25 or more. If you’re looking for a Hero Arts product you don’t see in store, use the Request Custom Order button from within the shop.
Hello everyone Monica here today with another shark card. I loved Kristina’s card with her beautifully blended background and I agree the sentiments with this set are great! I went with a little added dimension with my shark, water and clouds.
I used some distress oxide ink to color the middle layer of water. Then I used an old wave border punch on the distressed cardstock and vellum. The top layer of vellum is cut slightly larger than the cardstock, so that I could wrap the edges around to adhere in the back. I stamped my shark twice colored one layer gray and used an Exacto blade to cut the mouth out. Then only colored the mouth of the second shark.
I started putting the card together by adhering the fist layer of vellum wave and the shark layer with only the mouth. The top layer of waves and shark were adhered with foam tape. I added some die cut clouds to the sky to finish the card.
It’s a little hard to see the depth in the card, but I think the 11 year old who will receive it will get a kick out of it. We hope he has a killer birthday!
Are you on social media? We are! Please join us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook? so you don’t miss any fun promotions or new challenge announcements!
Please join us in this months “Take Shape” challenge for your chance at a $25 gift card to our Hero Arts store. Our current monthly challenge can always be found in the menu bar, and runs from the 1st to last day of the month.
The a2z scrapbooking store carries a wide variety of Hero Arts products! Get discounted new releases, sales, grab bags & more. Proceeds from our store benefit Celiac & Behcets disease foundations. Use my discount code monica15 to get 15% off your purchase of $25 or more. If you’re looking for a Hero Arts product you don’t see in store, use the Request Custom Order button from within the shop.
Hello lovely crafters! Monica here to share a card I made for the Stencil challenge.
I started with stamping and die cutting the peacock image. I layed the stencil down and added some ink, then moved it slightly to ink with another color. To finish the card I stamped the sentiment, adhered my peacock, sequins and clear dots.
If you are in need of any items from the a2z Scrapbooking store you can use code Monica15 at checkout to receive 15% off your purchase of $25 or more. (before tax and shipping) And don’t forget that we are on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Follow us on these different social media outlets so you won’t miss out on any fun promotions!
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