Enjoy the Special Moments with Winnie

Hello friends and welcome to this week's Design Team challenge with Polkadoodles! 

Our challenge for this week was to make a Summer card that was cheerful and had bright colors.  I think this digital stamp from the Winnie Starfish/Sandcastle collection called Float Away is just perfect for that challenge!

This cute digital image was printed on my Brother Laser Printer using the thickest paper setting and manual feed for I use Ranger Watercolor Paper for that nice bright white background.

The blue water is Winsor & Newton Artists' Water Colour Antwerp Blue. Love that deep indigo color.

I made 2 cards with the same images and here is the second one:

Products I used for both cards:

Polkadoodles - Winnie Starfish/Sand Castle Float Away

Polkadoodles - Quotes - Winnie Special Moments

Ranger Ink - Ranger Watercolor Paper

Blick Art - Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers

Blick Art - Winsor & Newton Artists' Water Colour Antwerp Blue

Blick Art - Silver Brushes - Black Velvet

Spellbinders - Nestabilities Hemstitch Rectangles Etched Dies

We R Memory Keepers - Crop-A-Dile Corner Chomper

Challenges entered:

NBUS #27 - New Digital Stamp for me

Paperbabe Stamps Challenge #147 - AG

Happy Little Stampers Watercolour Challenge - AG

613 Avenue Creates June 2021 - AG

Craft Catz #557  -AG optional twist Summer

Thank you for stopping by!

*Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive a small affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

CAS Watercolored Seahorse

Hi friends - welcome to the last the Card Concept Challenge, Long Summer Days, before our summer hiatus:

I was so inspired by the indigo blue seahorse on the plate in the center with it's clean and simple border design that I wanted to mimic it in a card.

The Sea Horse is a digital stamp from Polkadoodles.co.uk from their Winnie Starfish/Sandcastle Collection. You know I am a fan of digital stamps, but one of my favorite digi stamp features is resizing, turning and flipping anyway which way! Since I wanted my little guy in the corner, he had to be just the right size, not too big and not too small - just like goldilocks! Easy to do with a digital stamp.

I used Ranger Watercolor Paper, rough side up, for my digital print through my Brother Laser Printer, watercolored with Winsor Newton Artists Water Colour Antwerp Blue using my Silver Black Velvet Brush #6. Those brushes keep a perfect point to get into all tiny areas without an issue!

To keep the Clean and Simple look, but add a smidge of shine, I used my Spellbinders Glimmer Hot Foil System with Spellbinders Essential Glimmer Rectangles Hot Foil Plates:

The Glimmer Hot Foil Roll in Gold is just lovely! I should mention that I cut the foil to just cover the hot foil plate and not the image. A laser printed image can and will pick up the foiling. I didn't want it for this card.

I used this Gold Foil shown above on the border and the sentiment from Spellbinder's Glimmer Everyday Sentiments II Hot Foil Plates:

I made 2 cards using the same supplies:

The card on the right, I simply scored a few lines, just to give it a little detail, still keeping it CAS! The card bases I use most of the time are made from Hero Hues Premium Dove White Card Stock. It's 100 lb. weight and I find it easier to score and fold than the typical 120 lb. - 130 lb. card stock, yet holds water colored panels beautifully.

Thank you for joining me today and as I mentioned The Card Concept Challenges will be taking the summer off, but back in September with more inspirational fun!

*Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive a small affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

Smell of the Sea with Polkadoodles

Hello my friends and welcome to my first post for Polkadoodles! Look for me on the Digi Choosday Design Tuesday Challenge posts for I am now on this Design Team! Very exciting to be part of this amazing group of talented people beginning with Nikky and Kris Hall, founders of Polkadoodles Ltd.

We are given a Challenge Theme for creating a project and today's theme was the "Smell of the Sea". I created this 5" X 7" card with 3 digital stamps from the shop:

Winnie Starfish/Sandcastles - SeaShells

Winnie Starfish/Sandcastles - Quotes

Horace & Boo Paper Heaven 4

If you are new to stamping or on a budget, there couldn't be a better way to create than digital stamps. When you place your order and check out, you are immediately given a download of the image you purchased. No shipping costs, no late deliveries, no flawed stamps! You can resize up, down, flip, overlay, the sky's the limit with digi stamps!

How to begin? I was recently at a William Sonoma store and saw a display of beach themed items. They had a tablecloth of all shells and sea creatures in an indigo blue print with a linen background. It was paired with a red-bandana like print. This was my inspiration, jumping off point for my card. Look around when you are at stores. There is so much inspiration in design and color that can be used in your own way.

I worked up the background design and printed on copy paper to be sure I had the sizing the way I envisioned it. Once I was happy with the design, I printed it on Ranger Watercolor Paper, rough side up, using manual feed and the thick paper setting on my Brother Laser Printer. I also resized one of the shells so that I would have a focal image on the card. Both were on the same sheet of Ranger Paper - very economical.

To watercolor I adhered the printed design to an acrylic board with Yellow Artist Tape. Using Winsor & Newton Series 1A Antwerp Blue Artists' Water Colour I watercolored all the images using my favorite Silver Brushes, Black Velvet. I liked how the deep blue looked but wasn't happy with it on stark white. I decided a pretty cream color would offset the harshness and mixed a white and tan from Altenew's 24 Pan Artists Watercolor Set. Think of sand at the beach.

To finish the card, I cut it to size, fussy cut the large shell and printed the fun, quirky sentiment from the Winnie Starfish/Sandcastle Quote pack (sent-21) that says "Facebook Free zone". Perfect for a beach card! The pop of red is my ode to the red print I saw at William Sonoma. Yes, you can actually download and print paper - resize it, too! 

Thank you for joining me today for my first post and I hope that you'll take a look at the Polkadoodles Shop and give their high quality products a try! 

I am entering the following challenges:

NBUS - Challenge #27

Happy Little Stampers Watercolour Challenge - AG

Angie's Digital Stamps  - AG #53

Crafty Catz - AG #555

Creative Knockouts - AG #405

*Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive a small affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

Vacation Time with Hero Arts

It's Vacation Time at The Card Concept Challenge #157:

My inspiration came from the window to the Lake and the Lake itself. I am going to call this a Clean and Layered card. I used 2 silhouette Hero Arts stamps to create this card. The first one is called Color Layering Pier At the Lake:

The 2nd one is called Lake Time Fun:

I made about 8 cards with these 2 sets. I stamped all the images with Altenew's Obsidian Black Ink on Hero Hues Dove White Premium Card Stock 100# and ran them through my Big Shot with the Lake Time Fun coordinating die and Color Layering Pier at the Lake coordinating die.

One night as I watched TV with my husband I ink blended backgrounds with various Distress Ink blues. I like to do this so I have bases ready for quick cards. At this point I sell cards in 3 shops so I am always making multiples!

This card had a oval die cut which resembled a rope pattern from Spellbinders, called Elegant Twist Ovals. I layered the white A2 card base over a piece of kraft card stock cut only with the oval die and not the detail rope pattern.

The inside sentiment is from Pink & Main's Too Cool stamp set.

I hope you enjoyed my card making process to make multiple cards and can take time to join us at The Card Concept challenge. Just remember to let us know what inspired you and what style of card you designed. Fun!

*Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive a small affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

Colour of Love with Paper Funday Challenge

Hi friends and welcome to my first Design Team post for Paper Funday Challenges! This monthly challenge takes place the first Weds. of the month and runs until the Sunday before the next challenge begins. So you have a whole month to create and submit. The challenges are sponsored and prizes are awarded, too!

The Design Team is given an option of a free digi stamp from one of two sponsoring companies for that month or if they prefer they can create using the Optional Twist for the month. As long as it is made out of paper, anything goes! I choose a digi stamp from the Colour of Love Shop, Art by Heather Valentin. This shop was new to me and Heather is an amazing artist with an incredible bio.

I choose the digital stamp called Carnation. I had in mind an art journal page and I thought this digi stamp would be perfect - not too busy and I could easily resize to fit my page. I wanted to layer some of the image for dimension.

Since creating an art journal is a many layered process, I will simplify mine. I started with cutting my own art journal 8" X 8" page out of Strathmore Watercolor Paper. Using Distress Collage Medium Matte I place a layer of Tim Holtz's Idea-ology Tissue Wrap called, Melange (retired). This created an instant background. I have some Ranger Ink Dylusions' paint in my stash and brushed lightly in a random pattern, Bubblegum Pink and Squeezed Orange.

I resized the digi to fit the page and printed it twice onto Ranger's Distress Watercolor Paper with my Brother Laser printer. Next I ran it through my Brother Scan 'n Cut. One time it cut fine and one time it left the leaf on which the fairy was sitting. It's a work in process.

I watercolored the images with my Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers. I love their vibrancy. After that I continued to stencil, emboss, spray and splatter the background with various products. I adhered the image twice, fluffing up the wings of the fairy.

The sentiment is from Studio Light Art by Marlene called STICKERBM03. So many fun sticky quotes in this book in both Black & White. I cut out the word "Dream" and added a die cut in its place. 

Also added shading and Lawn Fawn Liquid Stardust. All fairies need sparkle!

I punched my page with the Happy Planner Punch:

Using this tool you can create any size Journal page you wish - 4" X 4", 6" X 6", etc. You need the Happy Planner Discs to hold the pages together.

I made a card with the same Colour of Love Carnation digi stamp re-sized and printed on Ranger Watercolor Paper. Also colored with Zigs.

More Lawn Fawn Liquid Stardust for her, too!

Thank you so much for staying to the end...If you have a chance come play along!

 

*Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive a small affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.