You're a Star!

This card will be headed half way across the country to TX where my daughter is serving in the Army. I miss being able to wrap my arms around her and feel her, but am proud of the young strong woman she is becoming.

For this card, I used Sweet Berry cardstock as the base with a panel of whip cream cardstock. I squirted a little paint on my pallet and mixed gel medium with it, then spread it on the paper through the falling petals stencil. I then used the same paint to color a couple of the Wood Chips that I got for free because I bought more than $50 worth of merchandise by FSJ. That's a feature called Bloom Benefits that I love!  The Stamp I used was also a Bloom Benefit in 2015-2016.

Thank you for taking the time to look at my blog. All comments are greatly appreciated.

Ornamental Dreams

When I first saw the Ornamental Dreams stamp set in the catalog, I thought it was cool, but it didn't immediately jump onto my wish list. But then I saw this card by fellow Journey coach, Christy Bristow, and it magically appeared on my very next order.  Of course I did one similar to hers, but also wanted to do one that was quick enough to do in a make and take party.

This is the design I can't up with. Of course, for the party I used the new Amazing colors that were just released July 1, 2016. What you do is stamp this medallion multiple times, and then cut out the different layers based on how well the layers stamped. I would suggest cutting outside the squiggly lines, but you could cut on the inside too.  If you will notice by the next photo, some of the inner parts didn't stamp exactly right, but that doesn't matter because the next color will conver them up.

One item I do want to mention is that the fusion ink by Fun Stampers Journey does not bleed when you are coloring with Copics.  This is my case of the card that I loved.

The corner paisleys I stamped directly onto the card, but the center medallion I stamped onto another piece of cardstock and used the matching die to cut it out. Then it was easy to color such a perfect turquoise line outside the stamp.

Thank you for taking the time to look at my blog. All comments are greatly appreciated.

Gone fishing

This card is not one I designed, I saw one like it on Pinterest and loved it. Unfortunately, the person who originally pinned it only pinned the image and not the blog post it was pinned from.  If you know who made the original, please let me know! 

I actually debated about posting this since it's a case (card maker term for copy), but I really want to know who made the first one because I think they are a great card maker and I would love to see more of their work.  

My friend Denise and her husband love to fish and she got the Out Fishing stamp set and the Big Catch set, and she let me play with them. Thanks Denise!

I cut the base out of Beach ball card stock, and the jumping fish I did with sweet pear cardstock, stamped with  green olive fusion ink.  the patterned paper is from an old K&Company collection. I didn't have any Tangerine Fusion cardstock with me, so I used that ink on a piece of the whip cream cardstock. Inking with a blending tool is a great way to change the color or tone of a cardstock to get the color you need. The sun I cut out of summer days cardstock. The guys fishing were stamped with black licorice fusion ink.

The blue fish were stamped with Beach Ball fusion ink onto whip cream cardstock and two were fussy cut. The round one I was able to use the 1 3/4 circle punch with. The open mouth of the fish I colored in using just a tiny touch of Rich coral reinker using the blending brush. 

One thing I would have done differently now that I look back on it, I would have added journey glaze to the jumping fish to make them look wet.

Thank you for taking the time to look at my post. All comments are greatly appreciated.

Fun Stampers Journey June Blog Hop

Welcome to our Fun Stampers Journey "April Anything Goes" Blog Hop! I'm so happy you're hoppin' along! If you arrived here from Ruth Cooper's blog, you're on the right track. If not, that's ok too! Just continue the hop and you'll come full circle!

I decided to make a card with the very first FSJ stamp set I ever got.  After all, Hot Air Balloons go up, up, up.  So that fits with the "Anything Goes" theme.

For the background, I used the Marrakesh Texture- 3D with some thin colored metal.  The picture doesn't do it justice, it is so pretty!

I also did some multi colored inking on my stamps.  I simply put 2-3 colors on the stamp with ink pads and then stamped onto paper.

 Thanks for hopping to my blog. Please head over to  Crissy Salima Rivas   blog to see what he/she has to share.

April Showers Bring May Flowers.

Welcome to our Fun Stampers Journey "May Flowers & Growth" Blog Hop! I'm so happy you're hoppin' along! If you arrived here from Christine Pennington's blog, you're on the right track. If not, that's ok too! Just continue the hop and you'll come full circle!

On April 16th, I and several other Fun Stampers' Journey Coaches did a blog hope called April Showers.  There were many wonderful takes on that phrase, and interesting techniques shown.

I love it when I get a stamp set that's bundled with a die cut set.  But sometimes it gets a little frustrating getting the stamp or die exactly right.  But the MISTI helps me resolve this issue.

Step 1: Cut out the shape on a scrap piece of card stock.

Step 2: Place the scrap piece of paper in the MISTI and fit the stamp in to the space created by the die cut, and pick up the stamp with the door/lid of the MISTI.

Step 3: Cut the same shape out of the card stock wanted to stamp on.

Step 4: Place die cut in the space created by the die cut in the scrap piece of card stock

Step 5: Ink the stamp and place image on the die cut piece

Step 6: Admire how easy that really was.

Step 7: Using the Bloom tool, flip the flower over and drew circles with the ball tool

Step 8: Repeat steps 3-7 twice, add a little bling in the middle of the flowers, and place on card

Thanks for hopping to my blog. Please head over to Kim Lamos' blog to see what he/she has to share.

God's Promises

 Welcome to our Fun Stampers Journey "April Showers" Blog Hop! I'm so happy you're hoppin' along! If you arrived here from Ruth Cooper's blog, you're on the right track. If not, that's ok too! Just continue the hop and you'll come full circle!

After the flood hundreds of years ago, God promised Noah that He would never again destroy the whole earth with a flood.  To seal this promise, God created the rainbow to put in the sky for us to see after a rain shower.  Every time I see a rainbow, I'm reminded of the many promises such a loving God has for me.  I may not like all the promises (I believe that he also promises to reprimand us when we do not follow the directions he has given), but there are many many more promises of joy and blessings that happen when we do follow the directions he's given us in the Bible (Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth)

Here's the card that I I created for this hop:

I must confess that this is not original to me.  I saw it while spending a little time on pinterest.  Here's the link to the original.  As soon as I saw this, I knew that it would be very easy to recreate with the dies from Fun Stamper's Journey.  

First I used the Journey Rectangles Die cut and the Journey Circles die cut, and then selected threads from my stash of DMC floss.  I decided to stitch in every other hole so that the white would show.  

Here's a picture of the back.  When I got to the end of where I wanted one color to show, I simply tied it to the next color.

Thanks for hopping to my blog. Please head over to Sharon Venclauskas' blog to see what he/she has to share.

Dahlia Blooms.

Welcome to the March Journey Blog Hop!  I'm so happy you're hoppin' along!  If you arrived here from Ruth Cooper's blog, you're on the right track.  If not, that's ok too!  Just continue the hop and you'll come full circle!

Have you ever gotten a stamp set and then when you sat down to color it, you just didn't know what colors to use or which medium to color with?  Sometimes I get overwhelmed by the choices.  And sometimes I just long to go back to the basics before I had a room full of options.

I was very excited to get the Dahlia Burst stamp set from Fun Stamper's Journey.  And am anxiously awaiting the die set that allows me to layer without having to fussy cut a lot.

Of course, the first thing I did was google the stamp set, but didn't get as many options as I would have liked, so then I googled the real thing, which led me to Pinterest where I had to create y own Pinterest board, because the color combinations that God has created this flower in seem endless!

I pulled out my copics and colored a couple of cards

And then I pulled out the inexpensive Crayola colored pencils that my kids had used in school years ago and colored this one

But I didn't care for the pencil lines that the colored pencils make, so I used a Tortillion and Baby oil.  Most people use Gamilsol or Mineral Spirits to blend colored pencil drawings, but I didn't have those, and the store I went to last night for one or the other didn't have those, and I was able to get Baby Oil and it smells great :)   

Let me show you what the results are after coloring half the flower:

The oil breaks down the wax in the pencil and blends it all together.  It also deepens the color, so it appears darker after adding the oil, which is the opposite affect that I get when using watercolors.

Here's my final card:

Thanks for hopping to my blog.  Please head over to Crissy Salima Rivas' blog to see what he/she has to share.