Happy Friday!

Hello friends! Happy Friday! Feels like its been a LONG week but I ended it with some crafty time so all is good.

First up is a card inspired by this week's ColourQ challenge. These colors are happy and bright so a birthday card was in order.

I used a Tim Holtz flower stencil and placed it on an angle on white cardstock and sponged the various ink colors onto the flower areas. I cut it off and added it to an Aqua Mist card base. Finishing touch was one of the  Everyday Happiness dies and sentiment. So bright and cheerful and perfect for my aunt's birthday. 

I've also been watching the videos in the Heat Wave online class this week. So many great projects but I'm finding the tips each teacher gives in the videos are so valuable. 

This first card was inspired by Kristina Werner's Basics video for an partially embossed one layer card. I used my favorite go-to PTI Snowflake Flurries set to form a sunburst border in Aqua Mist, Dark Chocolate, and Hawaiian Shores. I embossed in gold some smaller and partial sunbursts as well as the sentiment. Love the look of regular inked images with the gold embossing. Forgot all about this design trick until I saw Kristina's video and sample project (which I can't seem to link here) which is so gorgeous and CAS. 

And since I'm on an embossing roll, I made another card inspired by Kathy Racoosin's embossed resist lesson and Laurie Willison's PTI release gorgeous project below. 

Unfortunately I've been using a few sympathy cards lately so I made another one to add to my stash. 

I didn't have the Outline stamp set she used so I heat embossed the frame from PTI Fillable Frames Additions 2 in white on watercolor paper. I wanted them to overlap a little for a more organic look to the background. I feel like purples are appropriate for sympathy cards so I added water to smears of Royal Velvet, Winter Wisteria, and Amethyst Allure on my craft mat and painted over the embossed watercolor paper. I added a layer butterfly to the center like Laurie's pineapple but didn't have a small diecut sentiment to use so I stamped it in one of the frames and added rainstones in a diagonal from the sentiment to butterfly and up - kinda like Laurie did. But in hindsight it might have looked better if the sentiment and rainstones were in the same direction as the paintstrokes. Didn't really think of it until now. Oh well. 

OK, that's it for me. I've got to pack as I am headed out for the weekend to meet up with my sister and her family at an amusement park. Hope you have a great weekend and stay cool. Thanks for popping in. 

Two for Thursday

Hello friends -

I was very intrigued by the new Pinterest Inspired Challenge this month. Love the colors and graphic feel of this inspiration photo:

I used the awesome 'Do You See What I See' stamp from Winnie and Walter and heat embossed it in black on white card stock. I applied several Tim Holtz distress inks (Weathered Wood, Squeezed Lemonade, Peacock Feathers, Crushed Olive, & Salty Ocean) to the embossed panel. Looks really cool in real life but I wasn't sure what to do with it as a whole piece. 

So I die cut several vases out of it to make this:

I clustered the three vases (PTI Mega Vases) on one side and heat embossed a simple sentiment from the PTI Keep It Simple line. I adhered one flat and then the other two with different thickness foam tape for dimension. 

Second card I'm sharing today uses the supercool Balloon Strings stamp from My Favorite Things which I stamped on half of the card. I scattered various hearts cut out of Bazzill card stock on the strings. Sentiment from Mama Elephant.  Colors inspired by the ColourQ challenge this week. Hardest part of this challenge was using the two different red tones. Think it worked out well here. 

Hope you are having a great week! Snow is almost all melted here and temps now in the 50s. But guess what's expected tonight....more snow! 

Thanks for popping in!