Father's Day at the Beach!

Being raised in the Pacific Northwest near the ocean, spending at day at the beach, means the ocean is definitely the scenery.  I thought I'd give my youngest son a day off to enjoy some ocean scenery; after all, he was the only one of the four children who never lived in Hawaii where ocean beaches were very much a part of everyday life!

I used the Stampin' Up Waves of Inspiration stamps and the coordinating Waves Dies with Balmy Blue, Pacific Point, and Night of Navy inks.  I brushed and ink-blended the white cardstock top panel with Balmy Blue giving it a filtered blue sky look (a light blue sky with wispy white clouds blended into the blue).   

My wave was next, which I built with the Balmy Blue, Pacific Point, and Night of Navy inks.  I stamped my colors in layers using these three inks one on top the other...over-stamping...but stamped-off with the two darker colors.  I kept adding over-stamping until I got the look I wanted. I used my Misti to aid me in this process. My last stamping was done by applying Night of Navy on the lower portion of the waves only by using a Stamp Write marker inked onto the bottom of the stamp surface.  After it was completely dry, I ink blended with Balmy Blue until I was satisfied with this lighter color mixed into my waves. 

Then, I had an accident...while trying to stamp my seagulls where I wanted them (before popping on the clouds), my stamp block got ink on its edge, which transferred to my card front next to two of my seagulls!  Whoa as me...not the first time I've had this problem with tiny stamped objects!  So not to lose all my carefully ink waves, which I thought turned out rather spectacular, I fussy-cut the wave off and after preparing a new card front with my Balmy Blue brushed ink blending, I glued my waves to the bottom of my new card front.

I decided not to re-stamp my seagulls, as I just didn't want to chance the same problem, so I practice a little of drawing my own seagulls with a fine mechanical pencil and then flicking over with Copic markers in T5, T4, T2.  It worked so well, and I could make them larger or smaller as desired! I found adding them with Copic markers works best for me! I die cut the clouds and cloud edges, which give the clouds more texture and dimension; I popped the clouds off the card surface; and overlapped two the smaller clouds and popped them off each other.

I originally started this card thinking to make a birthday card for my stash, as I never have enough birthday cards. I pulled out my Teeny Tiny Wishes stamp set (retired) and stamped with Night of Navy ink onto Balmy Blue cs and die-cut it with the narrow die that I knew would work well for sentiments.  I attached Linen Twine through the open ends to the sentiment strip and added it to the middle of the card.  Taking a look, I realized it would be a great masculine card, and I still needed another Father's Day card for our delayed family Father's Day get together, which would be taking place next week-end.  I didn't want to re-do the die-cut with the twine, so I carefully made a new sentiment on the computer that I could carefully cut and paste over the happy birthday stamping.  It worked perfect...take a look below:

(NOTE: When I say spatulated off, I used an OLD Cricut spatula, which is irreplaceable and works wonders when for this purpose because of its narrow, thin blade,  Unfortunately, Cricut re-designed their spatula over 10 years ago so these old ones are almost impossible to come by!!)

Ingredients:  Stampin' Up:  Night of Navy, Balmy Blue, Basic White cardstocks. Stamp/ Dies--Waves of Inspiration/ Wave Dies; Teeny Tiny Sentiments (retired). Inks--Night of Navy, Pacific Blue, Balmy Blue, *Basic Gray (seagulls). Linen Twine.  Other: Copic markers--T5, T4, T2 (*Handmade seagulls, rather than stamped). Fussy-cutting. Chatterbox sentiment/ verse. Size--4-3/4" x 6."

A Bohemian Chic Paper Weave!

 About four times a year, Splitcoaststampers hosts a Virtual Stamp Night challenge, which starts a month earlier than the official challenge date with three mini challenges.  When the official event happens, it starts on a Friday evening with four challenges, each on the hour, starting at 5:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. The second day starts at 1:00 p.m. and goes under 11:00 p.m., also with a challenge each hour.  My first goal was to at least get the mini challenge completed and at least six the next two days.  I was being realistic that I'd probably not get all challenges done in the time limit allotted for uploading the the gallery.  My fondest wish is that someday, maybe I'll actually complete all challenge and get them uploaded on time!

Well, this year, so far, I'm really random.  I may finish the minis, but I'm diving right into one of the later challenges, which I didn't really see myself completing, because I thought the challenge would be difficult to design a card for. But while browsing a few of the possible inspiration photos, I ran across one that really sparked my interest and reminded me of a collection of papers I recently bought, which motivated me to get started.  I also check for other challenges that might help me in my design, but I will have to add them later because of the short timeline to make and upload cards!

Take a peak at my completed card, which uses the bedroom color scheme and floral idea found in the paper:

Ingredients: Stampin' Up: Cardstocks--Crumb Cake, Calypso Coral, Basic White, Gold Foil. Patterned Paper--Symbols of Fortune DSP. Stamps-- Here's A Card (sentiment). Ink--Soft Succulent. Embellishments--Brushed Butterflies. Technique--Layered Strip Weaving. Other: Copics--Butterfly colors...R09 (orange), G29 (green), Y38 (Golden Yellow). Chatterbox inside verse. Size--4-3/4" x 6."

My Daughter Grows Beautiful Flowers

 In the middle of thinking about and making Father's Day cards, I realized I also needed to be thinking about my oldest daughter's birthday card! I attended a June card class where we learned to make two cards in one by die-cutting a lacey floral die out of white cardstock to use as a stencil on another white card front panel, creating a negative inked floral bouquet. We were to use our blender brushes to ink and colorize our blossoms with three lovely ink colors, but I decided to use four: Polished Pink, Orchid Oasis, Starry Night, and Parakeet Party for the leaves.  What gorgeous colors these are together.  Our white cardstock stencil ended up very prettily ink blended as well and became the focal die-cut for the second card.  This is the card I decided to finish for my daughter! 

I adhered four 1/2" black paper strips spaced 1/2" apart and horizontally across the white cardstock front panel, starting in the middle...find the card front middle before starting.  Next, adhere two 1/4" black strips at the top and bottom, but also leaving 1/2" of the white cardstock showing. I adhered this card front panel to a black mat layer with a narrow 1/8" border. I add two more base layers...the 4-3/4" x 6" black card base and a Gorgeous Grape cardstock cut to 4-3/8" x 5-5/8". I positioned the inked Artistic lacy flower die-cut where I liked it, allowing for my sentiment strip toward the bottom and offset to the left. 

To finish, I added a 1/4" x 1" tiny black strip to host three medium rhinestones colored with Copic markers to match the Parakeet Party ink and positioned the strip toward the upper right corner of the card front. I punch my white cardstock sentiment strip with the Lovely Label Pick-A-Punch and popped two rhinestones beside the stamped "Happy Birthday".  I also added two Glitter Enamel Gems to the flower centers, coloring them with Copics to accent the inked blooms.

I was super pleased with the look...black and white always dresses up any card...such a classic combination!  Take a peek below and my finished card and my inside Chatterbox verse:

Ingredients: Stampin' Up products: Cardstock--Basic White, Basic Black, Gorgeous Grape. Stamp/ Dies--Artistically Inked (sentiment)/ Artistic Dies (lacy floral). Inks--Polished Pink, Parakeet Party, Orchid Oasis, Starry Night. Punch--Lovely Labels Pick-A-Punch (sentiment label). Glitter Enamel Gems (flower centers). Basic Rhinestones--medium & small. Other: Copic marker (Rhinestone & Glitter Gems coloring). Blender Brushes. Chatterbox verse. Size: 4-3/4" x 6".

Flowers Bring Love & Hugs!

Birthday cards...I need birthday cards! I just can't make enough birthday cards. I also need a card with well wishes for retirement for early June. The SCS Virtual Stamp Night is asking for flowers for a Summer Flower Festival!! So, with that in mind, I've definitely decided my card will feature flowers with a belated birthday/ retirement theme, all rolled into one. I needed to further search other SCS challenges that my card might fulfill. This search provided me with a total of 14 fairly new and old challenges that my card would fit. In case you were wondering, SCS welcomes completing a challenge at any time not just the week the challenge is presented!

My card needed to be fairly simple to meet the one-hour time limit for making cards for the VSN challenges, but I'm really happy with the outcome...four layers and another for the Sweet Sorbet inked flower and sentiment, both of which I popped. Take a look at my card in its finished state:

 Ingredients:  Stampin' Up: Cardstock--Whisper white, Pretty Parakeet, and Orchid Oasis. Patterned dsp--6"x6" DSP Assortments--2022-2024 In-Colors. Stamps/ Dies--Sending Smiles/ Sending Dies. Dies--Basic Borders. Inks--Starry Night, Orchid Oasis, Parakeet Party, Sweet Sorbet. Markers (SU)(stamp coloring). Gems--2022-2024 In-Color Matte Decorative Dots.  Stampin' Up Markers. Other: Copic Markers (darkening gems).