CoronaCrafts - More Multiples

Yesterday I wrote about my Dangerous Business series as a way of playing with color combinations and background stamps.  Over the weekend, I made another set of cards using the Sketchbook Roses set from the Greetery that was released earlier this year.

I resisted this set at first because I was intimidated by it.   It was two things really.  First these big line drawings cry out for coloring - a thing I am not skilled at.  I mean, I play at it, but only in the most elementary way which occasionally does not look terrible.  And second, this lovely set has all of the stamps you need to add color without coloring, but it looked complicated for the likes of me.  But in the end, the scripty word "Beautiful" was too tempting, and I went for it.  Here's the card I made:

Yay!  I made four of them, actually.  My thought was that as long as I was stamping all of this out, aligning all of the layers, etc., I should use that moment to practice, try different color combinations, all the good stuff.  I ended up making four cards that were identical.  I was just so enthralled that I could stamp anything that looks like this that I didn't want to tempt fate by changing things or get out of the zone by stopping and changing color palettes mid-stream.

But I haven't put the stamp set away yet.  Now that I've gotten the first meeting over with and I know it's going to be okay, I want to try different colors and a different way of inking the stamps - now I'm ready for all of that.

And even though I thought my set of test stampings would never be made into cards, I liked them so much that I just went for it.  I dug through my stamps and found the greeting from A Muse Art Stamps (A Muse Studio now) from a million years ago that fit perfectly, and called it a day.  Or a card.  Or four.  I clearly need to step away from my computer screen.

Tomorrow:  Seasons Greetings

CoronaCrafts - 4 o'clock somewhere...

One of the silver linings I pretend there is with this being at home all of the time nonsense is that there is the potential for afternoon tea every day!  Now if only someone made me tea sandwiches every day, my joy would be complete, but in the absence of that, I can make cards featuring tea images. 

This is one of the cards that I started and set aside for a while, and finally put in the mail a couple of days ago.  I love tea time images and always want to find more excuses to use the Tea Time and the Celebrations sets from Altenew.  I stamped the images, clear heat embossed them, colored them with watercolor markers, and cut them out with the coordinating dies.

I have long wanted a stamp that says 'Surely it must be 4 o'clock somewhere,' but it's not to be found.  Someday I'll have it made into a stamp, but until then, I decided to take the radical approach of printing it onto card stock, and using that on my card.  Crazy, I know.  This led to the first delay in finishing the card (well, the second - the first was waiting for the watercolor to dry) because I had to find the perfect font, find the perfect size, decide on regular or bold text, etc.  Decisions finally made, then I had to decide how to arrange all of my elements (I almost just wrote arrange all of my elephants...), which always brings on a moment of panic, but I forged ahead.

I used an Impression Obsession Cover-a-Card stamp on a purple scrap, trimmed that to size, and used some corners from the Greetery's Cozy Cup Coaster Die for a table cloth.  In a perfect world, I would have printed the sentiment right on the card base, but I didn't trust myself to get the placement exactly right.  Instead I cut it out and mounted it on black so it would stand out.  Luckily, the tiered stand, teapot, and teacups fit perfectly across the card. 

There are a couple of things I'd change about the design next time, like shifting the table cloth pieces a bit to the left, but in general, I'm happy with how this came together.  Plus, purple!

Tomorrow:  a new look at layering...

Never enough thank you cards...

I got an unexpected holiday gift in the mail (because I was a good shopper!):  a little stamp set from Altenew!

(This picture is borrowed from Instagram)

And then Hero Arts released their January kit, leading to a flurry of posts:  Ilina Crouse on the left, and Jennifer McGuire on the right.

This design is right up my street!  I want to make a million of these!  Here's my first version:

Background stamp:  Elegant Script by Gina K Designs; Thank You by Altenew; Die cut:  Inside and Out Berry Branch by the Greetery; Frame die:  Nestabilities Hemstitch Rectangles by Spellbinders 

Thanks, Altenew!  #AltenewLove