Valentine's Day 2024 | Forever Crackle Hearts

Working with Distress Crackle Paste in conjunction with Distress Embossing Glaze is such a satisfying process. I love watching embossing powders melt under the heat tool in general, but sprinkled over wet Crackle Paste... it elevates the melting to a whole new crackly level.

I started by taking a piece of Distress Watercolor Cardstock (smooth side) and placed it on my Waffle Flower 6x6 grid mat. I laid the Simon Says Stamp "Large Falling Hearts" stencil over it and proceeded to apply a thick layer of Distress Crackle Texture Paste over the stencil. I carefully removed the stencil and sprinkled some Distress Embossing Glaze in the colors Candied Apple and Picked Raspberry over the wet Crackle Paste. I set this panel aside to dry... and crackle. Once the panel was completely dry, I heat set the Embossing Glaze to reveal red, pink and white shiny, crackly hearts. Next, I placed the cardstock panel in the Splat Box and sprayed it with Distress Mica Stains in the colors Winterberry, Peppermint Stick, and Hocus Pocus. Before that could dry, I liberally sprayed the cardstock with water to get all the colors blending together and playing nicely. I set the panel aside to dry while I worked on my stamped images.

Using AALL & Creates "Forever" stamp set, I placed a piece of scrap white cardstock in my Misti and stamped two of the strung heart stamps and one each of the little girl and dog. I colored all the images with Copic markers and cut them out using my Brother Scan N Cut.

I trimmed the watercolor card front panel to measure 4" x 5-1/4" and placed thick foam strips to the back side to help flatten the panel and adhered it to a white A2, top folding card base.

I put thin foam squares onto the back of the banner, girl, and dog images and placed them onto the card front to get a visual idea of where I wanted to place the images and how much space I would have for my sentiment. For the sentiment, I used Studio Katia's "Lovely Words" dies and cut the sentiment twice from 110# cardstock that I glued together for dimension. I used Lumberjack Plaid Distress Ink for the heart in the middle of the sentiment and blended Black Soot Distress Ink over the other two words. To make the heart pop, I decided to add a layer of Ranger's Stickles in the Christmas Red color on top of the red inked heart. Lastly, I added a thin layer of Glossy Accents over the Black Soot portions of the sentiment.

I hope you enjoyed today's card! Until next time... Happy Making!

Valentine's Day 2024 | Adorable Hedgehog

Penny Black released the cutest hedgehog stamps this year titled "Adorable"... and yes, I too, think these little hedgehogs are exactly that.

I started by stamping both hedgehog stamps (since I didn't know which one I was going to use for this card) from this set onto Paul Rubens hot press watercolor paper using Lawn Farm's Jet Black premium ink pad. I allowed the ink to dry about fifteen minutes to ensure the ink wouldn't bleed once I began the watercoloring process.

Using the Derwent Pastel Shades Paint Pan Set, I mixed Storm Grey and Silver Blue to create the color for the quills on the hedgehogs and then mixed a little bit of Picket Fence Distress Watercolor Pencil with my quill color to create a lighter, creamier color to paint the belly, feet, and front paws. I added just a touch of the Derwent Pink Flamingo color to dot some blush onto the cheeks. For the hearts on each stamped image, I used Iuile Watercolors' Apple paint pan to create sparkly, metallic red accents. Lastly, I used a black Sakura Glaze pen for the eyes and a Sakura Micron 03 pen to enhance the nose and mouth and made little "flicks" throughout the quills with a white Uni-ball Signo gel pen to add some interest. Since I didn't own the dies for this stamp set, I used my Brother Scan N Cut to cut out the image.

I cut a white card panel to measure 4-1/4" x 5-1/2" and used the Tim Holtz/Sizzix die set called "True Love" to cut a partial heart out of the left side each of the panel. I selected a cute piece of patterned cardstock from the Echo Park 6x6 Paper Pad called "Love Notes" and cut it to measure 4-1/8" x 5-1/4". I chose the "Happy Valentine's Day" stamp from Simon Says Stamp's "Love Notes" stamp set and stamped the sentiment at the top, right corner of the white card front using Simon Says Stamp's Cherry Pawsitively Saturated Ink. Then I added foam tape to the back of the white card panel and adhered it to the patterned paper panel. After that, I added foam squares to the back the hedgehog and adhered it on the card front inside the heart cut-out. Using the Scrapbook.com die set "Mini Heart Balloons", I cut the heart from a scrap of red cardstock and the string from black and adhered that to the card front to look like the little hedgehog was holding it in her hand, then added Ranger Glossy Accents to the balloon to make it shiny (for the life of me I couldn't get rid of the bubbles in my Glossy Accents so, alas, they had to stay).

I adhered the card front to an A2 top folding white card base and added some Scarlet Clear Drops from Pinkfresh Studio cascading down the card front.

That wraps up my first 2024 Valentine's Day card. I hope you enjoyed it!

Until next time.... Happy Making!

Birthday Card 2024 | Big Happy Birthday!

I fell in love with this My Favorite Things die called "Big Happy Birthday" and knew this was going to be the focal point for a birthday card for a dear friend who is celebrating her big day this month.

For the background, I started by cutting a piece of Altenew masking paper that measured 4-1/2" x 5-3/4". I brought out the 8" x 8" Waffle Flower grip map and placed it onto my work surface, peeled off one side of the backer to the masking paper, and put it in the center of my Grip Mat.

I selected four different colors of cardstock (Your Paper Insider's pink glitter from box #6 and a few Spellbinder cardstocks - Pink Sand, Dahlia, and Lilac Blossom) and cut those into strips with Scrapbook.com's "Slim Strips" dies.

I began placing the cardstock strips onto the masking paper and did my best to try to avoid any gaps between the strips. Once the strips of cardstock covered the entire panel of masking paper, I burnished the cardstock strips to the masking paper using a teflon bone folder to ensure good adhesion. I then glued the panel to a lightweight piece of white cardstock to give the panel some additional stability. I used the second largest die from Waffle Flower's "A2 Layers Dies" to cut the panel down to size for my card front.

Next, I used the "Big Happy Birthday" die from My Favorite Things to die cut the card front panel and popped out the letters and their counters (don't lose those counters!). I also cut this die three more times from a piece of white Neenah cardstock to glue behind the individual letters for dimension. Then I glued the card front with the letters popped out to the front of a white, top folding, A2 card base.

I temporarily placed one of the white die cut letters into all the corresponding locations on the card front so that I could have the perfect location to glue all the counters from the striped cardstock letters to the card base. I glued all the letters together (the striped top ones stacked atop the white letters that I die cut for the dimension) and then adhered them to the card's front panel in their appropriate locations.

I thought the card needed just a little something else, so I started digging through my embellishments stash and found one I really liked for this card. The sequins I chose is from This Calls for Confetti and its called "Bring on the Bokeh - Pink"... perfect!

That's a wrap for today's card project. I hope you enjoyed the card and possibly even found some inspiration for your next card project. Until next time... Happy Making!