Happy Hippos Yay

 

I have a cute birthday card to share today.

As soon as I saw the current MFT colour challenge I just knew I wanted to give it a try with one of my favourite MFT stamp sets,  Happy Hippos.

This trio is adorable and I think almost everyone would love a card featuring them.

I coloured everything with Copics and fussy cut them out.

I adhered them to a scalloped circle die cut and stamped the sentiment which is from the MFT set Birthday Chicks.  I really love this sentiment and it worked out perfectly for this card.

I decided to make it a slimline card and I created the background by using Distress Oxide Inks through a Tim Holtz Gradient Circle stencil.  I was lucky enough to be given this stencil as a Christmas present and it's the first time I've used it.  I LOVE how it turned out!!!  I used Twisted Citron all over the stencil first and then put some Cracked Pistachio over the top of some of those circles also to create a totally new colour (similar to what was needed for the colour challenge).

Copics used :

W 00, 1, 3, 5

Y 000, 13, 15

R 30

BV 000, 00, 02, 04

I'd like to enter my card in the following challenges :

MFT colour challenge : 

Stamping Sensations - colour my world

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday - slimline card

Thanks so much for dropping by today :)

Kathy

Cute Chemist turns 18

I have another card made with the fabulous Cute Chemists set by MFT to share today.

I made this one for my daughter's 18th Birthday.
She is going to study Chemistry at Uni next year so I thought this little chemist would be perfect on her card.  She looks like her quite a bit too :)

I loved colouring this girl with copics and I personalised it by getting the hair colour right and using my daughter's favourite colour (purple) on the clipboard, shirt and beaker.

I created the background by stamping the beakers with versamark onto grey card and then colouring them lightly with pencils.  I also used a white gel pen on the bubbles to make them stand out a little more.

I decided to use MFT's Love You Die-namics but place the girl so that her face is the "O" in "YOU".

Then I added some little hearts from the MFT Tag Builder 5 die.  These are so cute and I originally had the idea to use 18 (for her 18th birthday) but I just thought it looked a bit much :(  

Looks won out over sentimentality and I just sprinkled on a few :)

My daughter loved her card. YAY!!! :)

I'd like to enter my card in the following challenges :

Love to scrap challenge : anything goes

Southern Girls challenge : anything goes

Simon Says Stamp : stamp it

TCP Challenge : layer up

Thanks for dropping by :)

Kathy

Cute Chemists Wedding

I have an unconventional Wedding card to share today.

My nephew, who is a science teacher, was getting married to another science teacher so I just had to make them a card using MFT's Cute Chemists :)

I really loved colouring these two to resemble the bride and groom.
I cut them out and placed them on top of an explosive background I made using alcohol inks.
I also used the Serious Chemistry sentiment from the set but I changed it up a little to suit.
The little hearts are from the MFT Tag Builder die.

Copics used :

W 00, 1, 3, 5, 7, 9

E 000, 00, 13, 21, 35, 39

Y 15

YR 14, 16, 18

BG 000, 02, 10, 11

B 00, 01, 02, 93, 95, 97

BV 00, 08

RV 00, 02, 21, 25

R 20, 22, 30

I would like to enter my card into the following challenges :

MFT - colour challenge 123
TCP challenge - clean and simple


Thanks for dropping by today :)
Kathy

Cute Chemists

I am a guest designer for Words 2 Craft By this month.
It is a wonderful challenge blog where each month they have a quote for inspiration.

This month's quote is The influence of a good teacher can never be erased
and it is so true.

I used a fabulous MFT set called Cute Chemists with a much-loved but retired CC Designs sentiment to make a card for my daughter's Chemistry teacher.

I coloured the teacher with copics and I love how she turned out!
Then I created a background using beaker stamps from the set.  I stamped them onto kraft card with versamark and then coloured some of them in with coloured pencils.  I've never tried a background like this before but I think it looks really effective.
I stamped the sentiment onto black card with versamark and embossed with white to create a blackboard. I added a few touches with white pencil and cut out a little piece of white card for the chalk too.
Then I cut a frame out of some pink wood paper from Doodlebug Designs.
The kraft square and blackboard frame were cut with dies from CC Designs.

Copics used ;

B 93, 95, 97

RV 00, 02, 17, 25, 55, 63

R 20, 22, 30

W 00, 1, 3, 5, 7

E 000, 00, 13, 21, 41, 42, 43, 44, 47, 53

I'd like to enter my card in the following challenges :

Simon Says Stamp - Stitches
Craft Stamper - anything goes

Thanks for dropping by today :)
Kathy

Otterly Love You

I have a card for Anna's Craft Cupboard to share today.

This one uses one of my favourite MFT stamps of all time, Otterly Love You.

I think anyone would find these otters cute, but as otters are my favourite animal, I really, really LOVE them and I just HAD to have this set!!!

This is the first time I've played with the gorgeous otters. and I had lots of fun!

It's an older stamp set but new to me :)

I coloured one of the otters from the set with copics and cut him out.

He looked very cute already but I decided to make him look like he was celebrating a birthday by borrowing some stamps from other sets.

I borrowed the cake from the MFT Happy Hippos stamp set and the balloon from the MFT Birthday Chicks set.

I coloured them with copics and cut them out too.

Then I cut along the fur line of the otters head and along the lines for the otters arm/paw.

This meant that I could tuck the cake and balloon in behind his paw as though he was holding them. Or that he is holding the balloon and the cake is resting on his tummy.

The cake hides where I have cut.

I made the panel with the waves using a few different blue Distress Inks.

I created a stencil for the waves from an old MFT die I have called Surf and Turf.

You could do something similar with a hill die too.

I simply used it on some card to create a template and then used different inks and the mini blending tool to create the waves.

For each wave, I alternated both the colours and the depth of the wave.

Then I flicked on some water droplets.

I stamped the sentiment from the Otter set onto the Kraft card base.

I drew some lines on a white matt with a black fineliner and attached the blue panel to it.

Then I flicked some Dylusions White Linen paint over everything.

I also added a few dots of Ranger white enamel accents and popped the party otter up with some dimensionals.

I am playing along with the challenge this month at Kraft Plus Challenge.

It is a recipe challenge with 4 ingredients :

Something Old - die to create waves

Something New - new stamp set

Something Borrowed - stamps from other sets

Something Blue - waves and balloon

I think this birthday otter made a great male card (and they can be tricky)!

My next challenge will be to make a cuter, more "girly" one.

There are some very cute and sweet sentiments in this set, so actually I don't think it will be much of a challenge at all.  

To be honest, I just want to play around with these otters some more :)

Thanks for dropping by today

Kathy

Happy Birthday Pirate

I have something for Anna's Craft Cupboard to share today :)

I needed a birthday card for a boy this week so I decided to use one of my most favourite MFT sets, Party Like a Pirate, again.

I truly love this set!!! There are so many great images in it but I decided to just use 2 of them and kept this card pretty clean and simple.

I also used the MFT Big Birthday die again on this card. 
I cut my white panel to be slightly smaller than the white base card and then die cut the Happy Birthday out of it.
I used a black fineliner pen to draw a border around the edge and attached it to a piece of Doodlebug Fun in the Sun paper.
Then I glued on the inside letter bits that were cut out, like the centres of the "P's" for example.

So instead of cutting the letters out and placing them on top of the card, this is more like a stencil.

I distressed around the edge of the piece to roughen it up a bit and also added some Walnut Stain Distress Ink.

I attached it to the card base, popped the pirate up on some foam tape and added some Black Tie Ranger Enamel Accents.

I'd like to enter my card in the following challenges :

Love to scrap - anything goes
Time Out Challenges - birthday quote


This pirate set is so fabulous and fun!
I don't think it would be possible to make a dud card with it!  :)

Thanks for dropping by today :)

Kathy

Birthday Chicks

I have another card for Anna's Craft Cupboard to share today.

This one uses the super-cute MFT stamp Birthday Chicks.
They are adorable aren't they?!

I also used a new MFT die called Big Birthday which I really love!

I started off by colouring the chicks with Copics (which was fun) and then I made a background for them using Tim Holtz Distress Inks.

I used some repositional tape to create a straight line for the grass and sponged on some Mowed Lawn and Evergreen Bough with the Tim Holtz mini foam ink blending tool.

I used the tool again to apply Peacock Feathers for the sky and then I splashed on a little water.

I cut the die out using orange cardstock and used a glue pen to adhere it to the background.

The best and easiest way to get your letters straight and even is to use the outside of the diecut as a kind of template.

I cut a rectangle around the "Happy Birthday" from the die-cut and adhered it to the background with the same tape I used when I sponged the distressed grass.  It held the template in place while I glued the back of each letter and adhered it back into the stencil.  When you've glued them all in you just remove the tape and the outer piece (the template)  and the letters are positioned perfectly!  :)

I popped the chicks up on some foam tape and added some stars from the Jillibean Soup Shaker Card and Sequin Pack Watercolour with Shapes .  These are lovely!  They are clear but have a hint of orange.  I attached them with Tim Holtz Glossy Accents.

I'd like to enter my card into the following challenges :

Love to scrap challenge : anything goes

Penny Black and more challenge : feature a creature

Word art Wednesday : sentiment

Fashionable Stamping Challenges : One for the girls

Thanks for dropping by today :)

Kathy

Our Story Bookmark

I have another MFT card for Anna's Craft Cupboard to share today.

I wanted to send someone a gift card to a book shop and I thought it would be nice to make a little bookmark to go with it too :)

I obviously wanted to use the MFT set called Our Story to make the bookmark.  I LOVE this set!!!

And I used the MFT Bold Stripes Cover Up die to hold it and the gift card in place on the front of the card, for something a little different :)

I cut the die from grey card and then cut an extra piece to adhere to the bottom.

I then decorated it using papers from Photoplay's  beautiful Vintage Girl collection.

I used glue to adhere the die to the base layer but I only glued around the very outside edge. 

So that I was free to insert the gift card and bookmark through the stripes/slats.

I was happy with how this turned out.  The die held everything in place really well.

I think this would also be a great way to send someone a photo or tickets to a show, for example.

I'm sure the recipient would get a lovely surprise when they took this card out of the envelope :)

Thanks for dropping by today

Kathy

Floral Birds

I have a card to share for Anna's Craft Cupboard today.

I used a stamp set from the American Crafts, Vicki Boutin All the Good Things collection called Floral Birds.

It has these beautiful butterflies and pretty flowers, plus some other goodies I'll use another time.
I loved colouring them!

I used Copics to colour and I took my inspiration from this gorgeous paper in the 7 Dots Paint Chip collection. 

I added a few drops of Tonic Studios Nuvo Crystal Drops - Morning Dew to the flower petals to try to mimic dew drops.  

I also added some accents to the large butterfly with a white gel pen.

The set also comes with some dies, which I used for the flowers. 

I cut the butterflies out myself, which was easy enough to do.

I used a white card base and cut the 7 Dots paper the same size. Then I lightly distressed the edge of it before adhering.

The paper is thick and card-like and it left a nice white edge after distressing which I liked.

I used the MFT Bold Stripes Cover Up Die over the top of the paper.  This is such a versatile die and looks great with these flowers and butterflies!

I stamped a sentiment from the MFT New Best Friend set onto one of the stripes of the diecut.

The stamp actually says "Pets make life sweeter" but I masked off the first word to change the sentiment :)

The "YOU" is from the MFT Love You die.  

I cut it out of black card and trimmed around the YOU to fit in between the stripes of the cover up die.  Then I cut it out again, this time from white card.  I inlaid the white letters into the negative space and glued it all down.

I'd like to enter my card in the following challenges :

Stamping Sensations : Flowers

Fashionable stamping challenge : One for the girls

I hope you find some time to be creative this week and thanks for stopping by :)

Kathy

Wild About You Art Journal

I have something other than a card to share for Anna's Craft Cupboard today.

For Christmas, I bought myself and my girls Art Journals and we've had lots of fun creating together.

I must admit I've only done 2 pages so far but I've really enjoyed it.
The first was purely just experimenting with how paints and pens etc looked on the page.
Then I created this one and I was really happy with how it turned out :)

Firstly, I used Dylusions Paint and some Tim Holtz stencils to create a fun background.

I decided to do blocks of 3 different colours and then used an alphabet stencil over the top in the same colour paint.  I love this effect with Dylusions Paints!  The yellow didn't stand out as much as the other colours though and so I went over it with distress ink instead.

I also added some white and black dylusions paint to the background through some circle and arrow stencils.

I am hoping to use favourite quotes, lyrics and sentiments that mean something to me in my art journal.  And I love this sentiment from the MFT Wild About You set and decided to use it with the animals from the set too.

I stamped and coloured the animals with Copics to match the colours of the paint  and cut them out.

I then stamped this sentiment and used the Love You Die-namic from MFT with it as well.

I glued the elements down flat but they look as if they have a lot of depth and dimension because I drew around them with a charcoal pencil.  

I then drew a border around my page added a few details with a white gel pen and finally called it done :)

I love that I can use my stamps and dies and other crafty supplies in my journal.

While it's great making and sending cards to people, this is artwork that I actually get to keep.

And it doesn't have to be perfect, I can experiment and make mistakes and that's okay.

This journal is about me and is for me :)


I  really recommend giving art journalling a try if you haven't already :)

Kathy

New Best Friend Gift

I have something other than a card for Anna's Craft Cupboard to share today.

I made a little post-it note holder and decorated it with the cute girl and kitten from the MFT
New Best Friend set.

They are both so gorgeously cute!
I coloured her to match this very beautiful paper from the Photoplay Vintage Girl - tiny prints collection.
I am really loving these papers and I think they work perfectly with these sweet little girls from My Favorite Things :)

Post-it note holders are great little gifts to give people of any age and for any occasion.

They are very quick and easy to make too!

I cut a piece of black card 7.5" x 3.25"
Scored at 9, 10 and 11 cm.
(Yes. I know!  I mix up the way I measure to make it easier :) )
Fold it in half at the 10cm score line and cut two times to the next score line.  This makes the little pen holder bit.
Put glue between the 9 and 10 cm score lines, missing out the pen holder.
Push forward the pen holder part but glue down the rest.
Glue a post-it note to the inside and you're done :)


Actually the hardest thing about making this holder was trying to find post-its that weren't fluoro!
I looked in so many places and had almost given up when I finally found a pretty pink set which was just the right colour.  You can see it poking out a little in the bottom photo.

The pen was a pretty good match too.  I had bought a set of these small pens in lots of different colours a while ago, just so that I would have one at the ready when I needed to make a little post-it note gift for someone special :)

I don't think anyone could resist this little girl and kitten on this beautiful floral background!
Unless perhaps they have a thing against pink I guess :)

I'd like to enter my project into the following challenges :

Love to Scrap - anything goes
Tuesday Throwdown - anything goes


I hope you can use your stamps to create a gift for someone this week.

Thanks for dropping by today :)

Kathy

Our Story

I have another My Favorite Things card to share for Anna's Craft Cupboard today :)

It's an older set called Our Story.
I've wanted it for a very long time because it's super cute and I love all the different little elements in it to make an inside scene.  As well as the lamp and table I used in this card there is also a ceiling light, book shelf, vase of flowers, pile of books, cup, cat and boy.
It is also full of punny sentiments which are great :)

I also love that it's book themed because I love to give books or bookshop gift cards for birthdays and christmas.

I coloured the stamps with Copics but I also did a little bit of paper piecing again.
This time it was much easier though :)

I used the Vintage Girl - Tiny Prints Collection Pack by Photoplay again to help create a lounge room.  I just cut a strip of the green paper for "carpet" and after glueing it down I cut a thin strip from white card and attached it over the edge for the skirting board.

The lounge chair is also paper pieced.  After colouring the girl, I cut her out, close to the line and then stamped again onto the pink paper and also cut the chair out close to the line.  I then glued the girl onto the chair but attached the chair to the background piece with x-press it foam mounting squares to give it more dimension.

This set is a lot fun to play with and it has just so many possibilities!

I'd like to enter my card in the following challenges :

Love to Scrap - anything goes
Word Art Wednesday - anything goes with sentiment
The Cat's Pajamas - make a scene


Thanks for dropping by today :)

Kathy

New Best Friend Cat

I've had a lot of fun colouring and creating with the fabulous MFT set New Best Friend for Anna's Craft Cupboard :)

This time I've used the adorable girl and cat image.
Aren't they so sweet!!!

I decided to do some paper piecing on this card.

Well to be honest, I only "decided" to do it because I made a mistake.
I had used copics to colour the girl and the cat and I was very happy with it except that I hated how her dress looked so I decided to try to "fix" it :)

By paper piecing the dress, it meant that I really needed to think of this project as a little paper tole really. 
I had to colour and cut out certain areas of the stamp again to position them correctly.
Her arm is on top of the dress and then the sleeve on top of that and the cats head and paws are cut out and are above the other arm, for example.
There are raised areas as in a paper tole, except that I stuck the pieces down flat with glue rather than raising them up. 

Usually when I paper piece, it's with a much simpler image than this one. 
This was a little tricky, but I love how it turned out and all that fussy cutting was worth it I think :)

I also used the beautiful Vintage Girl - Tiny Prints Collection Pack by Photoplay again.
I really love these papers!
Even the sentiment is cut from one of the sheets in the pack.


Sometimes a mistake can actually lead to something better than what you first envisaged.
I hope you have fun crafting this week and embrace your mistakes :)

I'd like to enter my card in the following challenges :
Love to Scrap challenge - anything goes
Penny Black and More challenge - Something New
Tuesday Throwdown - Layer it up
Word Art Wednesday - Anything goes with a sentiment

Thanks for dropping by today :)

Kathy

New Best Friend

I was lucky enough to get a fabulous stamp set from Anna's Craft Cupboard to play with :)
It's by My Favorite Things and is called New Best Friend .

I had lots of fun colouring it and I took my inspiration from the current Colour Challenge at Anna's.
The challenge uses gorgeous shades of blue and green contrasted by grey, black and white.
It was a combination I couldn't resist!
So I coloured the girl and dog using Copics in similar shades and found some papers to match too :)

All the papers I used are from the Vintage Girl Tiny Prints Collection by Photoplay.
This is a fabulous collection!  I can honestly say that I love every single sheet (both back and front)!
And that never happens!

It is 12" paper but the designs are on a smaller scale, so the paper works equally well for card making and scrapping.

I edged all the papers and card with Black Soot Distress Ink and white embossed the fun sentiment from the set onto black card.
The little banner is from the MFT Up In The Air set. I just stamped it onto the same green paper as the background and fussy cut it.
I also stamped a little paw print  from the New Best Friend set in the bottom right corner.

I love this stamp, it is just so sweet!
There is also a cute girl holding a cat in the set that I can't wait to use :)

The colour challenge at Anna's is a great one!
I hope you can play along with us :)



More information about the challenge can be found here.

Thanks for dropping by today :)

Kathy

Happy Pawlidays and Striped Ombre Background

I have a new post for Anna's Craft Cupboard featuring My Favorite Things to share with you today.

I wanted to make some more Christmas cards for family and friends as I still don't have enough!
So I decided to use the cute Happy Pawlidays set again and combine it with the Santa's Elves stamp set.
I love how the MFT sets all work so well together!
The possibilities are endless really :)

I also decided to use a new (to me) MFT die-namics Die called Bold Stripes Cover Up with these stamps and talk a little about how I created these Christmas cards.

This first card was very simple and pretty quick too!

I coloured the image with copics and used a circle die to cut it out.
I used one of the sentiments from the Happy Pawlidays set but masked off the the bottom of the sentiment so that it just says "Santa Paws".  On the inside of the card I have stamped the "is coming to town" part of the sentiment.
I used the MFT Blueprints 5 Tag Builder Die to cut the sentiment out.

I used the Bold Stripes cover up to cut out the white background piece.
It will leave you with lots of white rectangular pieces, but don't throw these out!
They are perfect to save for later to use for sentiment strips :)

Then I used the die again to cut the coloured stripes from Lawn Fawn Watercolor Wishes papers.
I used 7 different colours to create a rainbow look.
If you were going to make a set of 7 backgrounds the same, for a set of cards, you could just use the whole die to cut the paper and you would have made 7 cards very quickly.
But I was just making 1 so I just used the die on the end of the paper so that I didn't waste any and only cut 1 stripe out.

I cut a piece of kraft card the same length as the die but slightly wider.
I glued the white die panel to the kraft card and then glued each coloured piece of paper into the die cut space.
I then attached this piece to the card base.

I think this made a lovely background and you could use it for so many occasions.
A rainbow pattern isn't even "Christmassy" but I thought it worked and looks cute too :)

For my second card I decided to use the die as a stencil and create an ombre background with Distress Inks. You could also use Distress Oxides for this.

I used the die to cut out a piece of card for the stencil.
I then put Tombow Mono Multi Liquid glue on the back of it and waited for it to "set" so that it would be repositional.

When ready, I attached it to the smooth side of some watercolour paper.

I then used Distress Inks and the Tim Holtz Mini Foam Ink Blending Tool to create an ombre background.

I started with the darker colours at the top and worked my way down to light.
I started sponging the ink in a circular manner which is the usual way of applying distress ink but I ended up kind of just swiping across the lines.
I put more ink on each side and kept the centre lighter.

At the very top it is a mix of the darkest blue I had with the purple.  And it made a great colour :)
Most of the background is done by doing 2 rows using the same ink colour but making one of the rows darker.
I did this by adding a little of the darker ink (from the row above it) to the new colour.

After I was satisfied with the look, I removed the stencil and I had my background piece.  It did look gorgeous with the dark stripe over the top but it just wouldn't have worked for the card I had in mind.
I will have to do it again that way another time :)

I then splashed some water on it and used paper towel to remove wetness.
I also added a few little splashes of  Dylusions white paint to the background.

I trimmed this piece to attach to some kraft card and then attached this to a Kaisercraft Square white card. I then rounded the corners of this.

On this card I used the dog and present from the Happy Pawlidays set and the tree and sentiment are from Santa's Elves.

I made a happy discovery when doing the sentiment :)
I realised I could use the Bold Stripes Cover Up die to cut it out.  Yay!
So I stamped it and cut it out using the smaller rectangular opening on the die.
And then I used the larger rectangular opening to cut a piece of black card for a perfect mat for it!!!

I will be using this all the time now for any narrower sentiments that I want to use :)

You can use this die in so many interesting ways

The stamps were coloured with copics and I added some glitter glue to the star on the tree for a little sparkle.
I also used the tag die again and some antique linen and walnut stain distress ink around the card's edge.



I love this die and both of these stamp sets from MFT!

You still have time to make some more Christmas cards too!
I would love to see what you create :)

Thanks for dropping by today

Kathy

Happy Pawlidays

I have a cute Christmas card for Anna's Craft Cupboard to share today.

I absolutely fell in love with this set called Happy Pawlidays from MFT!

How cute is this puppy?!!!

There are 3 other dogs in the set and a lot of punny canine Christmas greetings as well :)

I love the cute sentiments in this set almost as much as the puppies!

And I just HAD to have it!!!

So I was looking through all the pretty papers Anna's has in store when I spied this one.
Could it be, that I'd found the perfect doggy Christmas paper?

It really reminded me of Christmas paper with it's traditional colours of red, green and gold.
And at first I thought they were red and gold circles too (that could be Christmas baubles perhaps) but no, even better, they were tennis balls! AND the background pattern was made up of dog bones!
Exactly what every puppy would want for Christmas :)

This Go Fetch paper from the Cooper and Friends Collection by Photoplay probably isn't meant to be doggy Christmas paper but I think it is pawsitively perfect anyway:)

I'd like to enter my card in the following challenges :

Send a Smile for Kids - Happy Holidays

Mod Squad Challenge - Cut it out (no white)

Thanks for dropping by today :)

Kathy

Santa's Elves and Dylusions

I have had lots of fun this month, creating Christmas cards for Anna's Craft Cupboard :)

I have loved colouring the gorgeous elves in the MFT  Santa's Elves set and I have also loved creating backgrounds for them using Dylusions Paints.

I thought I would do a little tutorial on how I created my card.

I used the smooth side of some watercolour paper for the painted panel.
You can also use other types of heavyweight card.

I had done a little reading about using these paints and found that some people use baby wipes to spread it on to the card and to blend it.
It was actually one of the reasons I got the courage to buy the paint, as I'm not a painter.  It just seemed so easy, less messy and there were no brushes etc required either.
But after having tried it, I must say I'm not a fan of this technique.
Although the colours are lovely, it just doesn't have the depth and richness I want.

I used my Tim Holtz Mini Foam Ink Blending Tool to apply the paint instead and I was much happier with it.

This photo shows the difference between using a baby wipe (left) and blending tool (right).
I might try the baby wipe again, perhaps I just need more practice :)

You can also see in the photos that I don't own a craft mat :(
I guess I'll buy one someday, but in the meantime I just use a plastic bag as a work surface.
I use my blending tool to get a small amount of paint out of the lid of the paint pot.
You really only need a tiny amount!
Then I swirl it onto the plastic bag, which blends it into the foam and then it blends onto the card more evenly. You just use the plastic bag as a kind of paint palette!

To the smooth side of some watercolour paper I added circles of Dylusions Vibrant Turquoise paint.
I usually apply 3 areas of a colour to start with.

Then I applied Dylusions London Blue paint.

Then I applied Dylusions Crushed Grape paint.
You can see how the colours blend together to create new, deeper colours.

I then added more London Blue and Vibrant Turquoise over the top of these circles of colour.
I still applied it with the blending tool, but I also got messy.
I used my fingers to blend the paint out.  I didn't really think I would like doing this but it was actually fun!!! :)
This blending was just done randomly over the top of the paint circles.  And I mostly blended with my fingers, moving the paint out in all directions.
So that was like a topcoat of paint and the undercoat can still be seen through it.
This adds depth to the background.

There is no right or wrong way of applying this paint.
You can just keep applying more over the top until you're happy with it.

And if you're like me, this takes a while and you'll get pretty messy.
Make sure you have lots of baby wipes at the ready to clean your hands!!!

After I had created the painted background I applied some Tombow Mono Multi Glue to the back and waited for it to set so that it would be repositional.

I then applied it to a piece of black card.
(You'll notice this is longer than my watercolour piece. I used a smaller piece of watercolour paper that I had because I knew I would be covering up the bottom of it anyway).

I sponged Dylusions White Linen paint onto the Kaisercraft Ornamental Template.
I didn't use the entire design, but chose certain areas to sponge.  Placing some on the black card as well as the painted panel.

I used some of the white linen paint again on a wet paint brush and flicked the paint over the card in a diagonal direction.

When this had dried, I removed the panel and added a white mat behind it.
Then I glued it to the card, lining up the snowflakes again.

I stamped the sentiment onto white cardstock and tore the top to resemble a snow mound.
And I added a couple of small strips of white card to either side of the panel before attaching the sentiment so that it would sit flatter.

Then I attached the elf to the snow with X-Press It Foam Mounting Squares and adhered the whole piece to a white card base.

Using these paints is so much fun and each background you create is unique and beautiful.
I hope you give them a try too :)

Thanks for dropping by today :)

Kathy

Santa's Elves

I have a card to share for Anna's Craft Cupboard today.

I was lucky enough to get this MFT stamp called Santa's Elves!
Yippee!!! I was so excited because I have wanted this one for so long.

He was so much fun to colour in and he's absolutely adorable isn't he?!

As well as colouring fun, I also had some "messy" fun with this card :)

I used some Dylusions paints for the first time.
I fell in love with their colours and decided to take a chance and buy a few in the hope that I could create some beautiful backgrounds.

I used London Blue, Vibrant Turquoise, Crushed Grape and White Linen.
I love this colour combination and I think it works well for a Christmas card.

I used 2 stencils for the painted background.
A Kaisercraft template called Ornamental
and a Crafter's Workshop one called Confetti for the white elements on top.

I painted onto the smooth side of some watercolour paper.

The panel was then mounted onto a Kaisercraft C6 white card.

And I popped the elf up on some x-press it foam mounting squares for some added dimension.

I decided to use some Doodlebug Designs Candy Shoppe alpha stickers for the sentiment.
It is a bit hard to see in the photo, but this is sparkly and looks so good against the painted background without drawing too much attention away from the elf.
After all, that elf deserves all of it ! :)

Copics used :

BG 0000, 01,02,05,09,10,11, 13, 15, 49

B04

BV 02, 04, 13

C1

E 000, 00, 04, 11, 21

R30

I love making Christmas cards!
I hope you get some crafty time to make some too :)

Thanks for dropping by today

Kathy