Monday, June 30, 2025

Another Card from the Weekend

 

Greetings friends. I wanted to share another card I made over my crafty weekend. This card was made using prompts from the Inspired By blog. The current inspo is S'Mores. Here are the two pictures they included:


 
The way their challenge works is that you get to decide what elements of their mood board inspires you. Is it the actual S'Mores? The colors? The layout? You can use as much or as little of the inspiration pieces as you choose.

I went for literal S'Mores on my card because I have really cute S'More dies and sentiments. However, I could have gone with another dessert or leaves in S'More colors, etc. I also chose to use the rectangles from the sketch part of the challenge.

To make the card, I die cut my S'More pieces and added a bit of shading using dye inks and a sponge. Here is a close up:

I then added my sentiment to the center with black ink. Bo the dies and the sentiment were by Impression Obsession.

Thank you so much for letting me share my weekend crafting with you.
 

Sunday, June 29, 2025

Cardmaking this Weekend

 

Greetings friends. I have been working on cards this weekend, and I thought I would share. I have a lot of things happening this week, and sometimes it is best to keep your mind distracted with a little crafting.

For my first card I am sharing, I used the sketch challenge from Freshly Made Sketches #692 The sketch looked like this:


 I went with a pretty literal interpretation of the theme. My mind immediately went to one of the first stamps I ever owned. It is a simple landscape sketch by Rubbermoon. It was designed by Dave Brethauer back before he started Memory Box. 

My first thought was to color the progression of a day. Instead, I just painted three interpretations of a day using metallic Twinkling H20 paints. I then cut them down into three squares that would fit onto my card and added a sentiment by Impression Obsession. Here is a close up of the squares:


 I think you can see the metallic paint a bit better in the close up. I do love a sparkly card.

I hope you are all doing well this weekend. Perhaps you had some crafty time as well.

 

Saturday, June 7, 2025

Sketch Challenge!

 Greetings friends. I want to share with you a card inspired by Sketch #689 from Freshly Made Sketches.  The sketch looked like this:

I knew that I didn't have to literally have leaves on the side of my card, but I really liked the look and wanted to recreate it for my card.

To cut out my butterflies, I sprinkled some Color Burst watercolor powders onto a mat, spritzed it with water and then placed a piece of photo paper into the colorful puddle. When I was done, I was left with a background piece of paper that looked like this:


 I then die cut a bunch of butterflies and added them to my card on top of an embossed piece of kraft cardstock. I then finished it with a Memory Box thank you label:


 

 Thanks so much for stopping by today!  

Friday, May 30, 2025

A New Technique

 


Greetings friends. I was inspired to try a new technique that I would like to share with you. I learned about it on Splitcoaststampers. If you haven't been there before, it is an online stamping community where people share ideas. I found inspiration in their Drywall Tape Texture technique. If you would like to see a video of the technique, you can view it on YouTube here.


To try this technique, you are going to need some self-adhesive mesh drywall tape. I bought mine at Walmart. In their demo, the tape they used had a square pattern in the mesh. Mine was more of a rectangle pattern. 



Stamp your image onto watercolor paper with black ink and let the ink dry. Cover the area you want with strips of the drywall tape. It is self-adhesive, so it is really easy to place where you want without it shifting or moving. I used two strips of tape because I wanted to cover more of the flower.
 

Next, I dabbed blue Peerless watercolor paint around my flower using a wet paintbrush. Any type of watercolor paint will work, but I used Peerless watercolors in the shade of Alice blue.

Let the paint dry and then remove the mesh from the card.

 

All that was left to do was paint my leaves and petals and add my sentiment. I absolutely loved this technique and will be using it again.


 Have a great weekend!


Monday, May 19, 2025

Freshly Made Sketch Challenge Interpretation

 

Greetings friends. Today I am sharing a card I made from the latest Freshly Made Sketches Challenge 686. The sketch looked like this:

I really liked the layout, so I felt compelled to use the design. In fact, one of the cards from my last post also had a similar layout.

To make the card, I cut out a flower and leaf from Memory Box and layered it on top of some older patterned paper from Impression Obsession. I cut the pieces of the flower and leaves out of colored cardstock and then sponged on some Distress Oxide ink for dimension. Once everything was cut, I added it behind a vellum pocket and added a Memory Box Happy Birthday sentiment.

I am always so happy to have extra birthday cards ready to go.

Thanks so much for stopping by today!

Friday, May 16, 2025

One Stamp- Three Cards

 


Greetings friends. Today I want to share some cards I made using the Memory Box Wildflower Field cling stamp. My goal was to stamp and color my image and then cut it up to make several cards.

I started by stamping the wildflowers onto watercolor paper using black Versafine ink:


I let the ink dry completely and then added a light blue wash of color on top using Peerless Watercolor paint:


 I let the blue wash dry and then colored the flowers and leaves using watercolor pencils and a blender pen:


All that was left was to cut up the colored image and make three cards out of the pieces:

 


Each of my cards also used the Memory Box Chrysanthemum Field embossing folder.

The first card used purple paper from the Memory Box Glimmering Gladiola 6" x 6" paper pack and some Lavender Bloom cardstock.


The second card added a strip of Powder Blue cardstock to the front.


 

The final card used patterned paper from the Memory Box Fuchsia Plaid 6" x 6" pack and some Cilantro cardstock.

Here are the final three cards together:


 

I was pleased with the finished cards. It was nice to color the image as a whole and then see how it looked when I cut it up into pieces. I purposely left sentiments off of the cards so that I have some generic blank cards to use in an emergency. Because they all come from the same stamp, they would also be nice to give as a card set.

Thanks so much for stopping by today!

Monday, May 12, 2025

Crabby Birthday

 

 

Greetings friends. I participated in other sketch challenge. It is the Freshly Made Sketches challenge 685. The sketch itself looked like this:

I had my brother's upcoming birthday in mind when I made this card. He is all about fish/ocean/nautical themed designs. He also is a big fan of hats on animals, so I might have to figure out how to add a birthday hat to the crab. Any ideas? Behind the eyeballs? On top of the eyeballs?

To make the card, I die cut an Impression Obsession crab and some netting and then sponged them both with Distress Inks. The background paper and sentiment are also by IO. I thought my blue notecard was a bit boring, so I used a polka dot one instead for a bit of texture.

Thanks so much for visiting today!

Sunday, May 4, 2025

Sketch Challenge

 

 
Greetings friends. I was in the mood to do a sketch challenge and decided to do the Freshly Made Sketches challenge of the week (number 684):
 
My original plan was to do a Cinco de Mayo card. However, as you can tell from the image and sentiment I chose, that plan went awry. The sentiment made me laugh, and I have plans to turn it into a birthday card for one of my friends.
 
To make the card, I chose three colors of cardstock and freehand cut some slits to look like pinata streamers/fringe. To match the sketch, I added a different paper element to the right. I thought about using patterned paper, but I didn't like the results as much as embossed white cardstock.
 
The maracas were colored with Copic markers and then popped up with some foam tape. The stamp set is by Impression Obsession, which is now discontinued, but the circle dies and embossing folder are both by Memory Box.
 
I am also posting this on Instragram. If you want to follow me there, my Instagram account is called Stampjournal. Thanks for stopping by today!
 
Laura



Friday, April 25, 2025

Hello Again

 

Greetings friends It had been a while. I wanted to share a card today that I designed for a crafty friend. Why is it for a crafty friend? It is because all of the floral die cuts are loosely placed in a vellum pocket so that the recipient can remove the die cuts and use them in their own crafty projects. I thought it was a fun idea and a way to share craft supplies with a friend.

To make the card, I die cut the Cherish Scalloped Frame from Memory Box out of light blue paper as well as vellum. I then trimmed the vellum piece down so that it could be a picket for the blue scalloped background and added a sentiment with black Staz On.

 For my flowers and leaves, I cut everything out of XPress It white cardstock and then colored pieces with a combination of Distress Inks and Copic markers:


You can see from the close up photo that the flowers are loose and not glued to the card. I thought it would be a fun way to send someone some crafty elements for them to use.

Thanks for stopping by today!

 

Wednesday, March 19, 2025

Playing along with a Challenge


 

Greetings friends. I felt like participating in a card challenge, so I thought I would share my design.

For my card today, I looked at the current challenges happening over on SplitcoastStampers. I saw there was a sketch challenge that just started (SC1054), so I used it for inspiration. I don't know if I'm allowed to post a picture of the sketch here, so I will link to the design instead. You can find it here.

Basically, the design is rectangle strip on the right as well as a square and circle element. For my interpretation of the sketch, I used one of the new Memory Box Peony dies. I thought the circle would provide a nice frame for my floral element.

To color my peony, I cut out the petals using light pink cardstock and then added Picked Raspberry Distress Ink using a sponge. I like that you can get a gradient of color by sponging hard on one side of the paper and then lightening your touch towards the other end of the petal:


 

I popped up some of the petals with foam tape so that there was extra dimension to my flower. To finish my card, I added some jewels and one of my favorite sentiments to use on cards.

Thanks so much for stopping by. Let me know of any of your favorite challenge sites or groups. I would love to try more.