Just a Simple Hello...or Two...

Happy Friday, all! After I finished a couple card projects (that you'll see here soon), I found my crafty-mojo had taken a bit of "unauthorized" vacation time! So when I started to craft the other night, I found myself sitting there with no ideas...not a happy feeling to a paper crafter who finds herself with time for crafting and no crafty ideas to fill it with! So, I decided to try my hand again at a couple clean-and-simple "hello" cards and hope for the best.

They're not my usual style at all, but they were fun to make...and went together a lot faster than my cards usually do...that part was fun, too! :)

First up is a square card made with kraft and bright white, with black accents...the kraft envelope with the polka dots was my inspiration for this color combo...

You'll notice, however, that I couldn't resist adding the lace and a small flower to the card...(baby steps, friends...one of these days I'll be able to make a "true" clean and simple card and resist the temptation to add layers...)

Supplies:

Maya Road Kraft Note Envelope

Decorative edge punch:   Martha Stewart Vintage Doily PATP

Stamps:   Winnie & Walter, "The Big The Bold The Happy" (hello);   BoBunny EtCetera (first class mail)

Lace:   local craft store          Flower:   Wild Orchid Crafts          Black rhinestones:   Kaisercraft

Next, I turned to my LOTV design-teammate Jen's bright and sassy card that was my inspiration to purchase the "hello" stamp set from Winnie & Walter in the first place. I used Jen's card as inspiration, and starting playing around with watercolors to give me the same bright, springtime feel, and here's how my "C.A.S.E." of Jen's card turned out...

No lace and flowers on this one...but a twine wrap and bow held by a black brad...

and a few golden yellow clear raindrops for accent...I'm getting closer to true clean-and-simple here...

Supplies:

Stamp:   Winnie & Walter "The Big The Bad The Happy"

Rain dots:   Fiskars          Miscellaneous:   watercolors, twine, brad

Thanks so much for visiting today...have a wonderful weekend!

LOTV - Annabel's in Town!...

Happy Friday, everyone! Lili of the Valley is introducing seven adorable new stamps featuring little Annabel, a very active little girl whose pigtails are always flying. :) The stamps will be available for purchase from the website at midday on Monday, March 24th.

Annabel's being featured in today's blog hop, and as the LOTV hops often have, there are prizes hidden among our participating blogs for *two* lucky commenters, who will each win the complete set of the 7 new Annabel stamps by random drawing of all the comments. So be sure to leave a comment on each participating blog to increase your chances of winning one of the two prizes!

Here's the linked list of the blogs participating to make it easy for you to find them all...

Ideas to Inspire

Anne

Becky

Dawny

Dena

Elise

Fleur

Gretha

Jen

Kathy (you're here!)
Lou

Mary J

Mindy

As you may know by now, my focus on the team is use of the gorgeous LOTV papers, and the sentiment and background stamps. So how do I make a card incorporating the fun spirit of Annabel without using her image? I decided, since Annabel is such a busy girl, and apparently not partial to lacy and frilly things, I'd make up a card that was "busy" with techniques and minimize the "frilly" details that I'm so fond of.  :)

The background patterned paper is from LOTV's Pressed in Time paper pad...the large heart in the center is covered with paper from the Beach Bliss pad. Then I added several LOTV background stamp images to the piece. The clock in the lower left corner, and the postmark and text in the lower right corner, are from LOTV's Grunge Elements stamp set. The wonderful corner stamp in the upper right is from LOTV's Grunge Corners stamp set. The sentiment from the Handwritten Phrases set was stamped onto a tattered banner diecut.

After the stamping, I gesso'd the center of the piece, using the gesso itself to "glue" pieces of cheesecloth on both sides. The next step was to spritz some Broken China Distress Ink diluted with distilled water over the center of the gesso'd area, including the cheesecloth, and while it was still wet, I tilted the piece back and forth to make the ink run, and give a watercolor effect. I used a Tim Holtz Splatters stencil and some Brushed Corduroy Distress Ink to give the look of "cup" marks on the piece.

After some "messy" stenciling with dark gray modeling paste and a chickenwire template (to get the "messy" look, I didn't tape the stencil down, letting some of the paste seep under some of the edges...Annabel's not big into perfectly neat...heehee) I sprinkled some Shabby Blue Frantage embossing powder randomly around the card and heat embossed it.

A canvas flower with a button center, a seam binding bow, and a small stamen cluster, were added over the heart in the center of the card front...

Here's a closeup of the grunge corner stamp that shows most of the techniques all in one photo...the gesso, splatter stencil, modeling paste chickenwire stencil, Frantage embossing powder, distressed edges, and machine stitching...

The final handmade accent is a small air-dry clay corner element, painted with acrylic paints in coordinating colors...

Supplies:

Patterned papers:   LOTV Pressed in Time and Beach Bliss paper pads

Stamps:   LOTV Set 66 Grunge Elements (clock, postmark, text);  Set 21 Grunge Corners; and Set 25 Handwritten Phrases

Dies:   Tim Holtz Tattered Banners;   Sizzix Flowers Branches & Leaves;   Xyron ShapeZ/Heart

Stencils:   Tim Holtz Splatters;   Crafters Workshop Chickenwire Reversed

Canvas flower:   Prima          Stamen cluster:   Wild Orchid Crafts          Clay corner:   Martha Stewart air dry clay and mold

Miscellaneous:   Hug Snug seam binding,  cheesecloth,  gesso,  Distress Inks,  Frantage embossing powder

Remember that we don't know who the "lucky blogs" belong to, so the more blogs you leave a comment on, the better your chances of winning a set of Annabel stamps in the random drawings. And don't forget to stop by the Ideas to Inspire blog on Monday morning to see if you're one of the lucky winners!

Thanks for stopping in for a visit today. Enjoy the hop, and good luck to you!

LOTV - I Do, I Do...

Hello, hello there! :)  As you may have seen, Lili of the Valley introduced five beautiful wedding stamp sets on Monday, March 10th. There are five very different designs - Simple, Traditional, Handwritten, Pretty, and Art Nouveau - each with 20 stamps in the set. We on the design team had a LOT of fun stepping outside our usual design "boxes" to create a whole range of different styles of stationery sets with these new stamps. The two sets I created are very different, not only from each other, but from my usual style.

The first set is made with cream cardstock, and purple accents...lots of die cutting and embossing for texture and dimension... the stamping was embossed with amethyst pearl embossing powder. The set includes a Save-the-Date card, a Wedding Invitation, and a Thank You card...and even with the die cutting and embossing, I was pleasantly surprised how easy it was to do this in assembly-line fashion.

This first group uses Wedding Set 70, Traditional.  Here's a group pic so you can get an idea of the sizes in respect to the other cards in the set...

 The save-the-date card:

and the details on the inside...

The invitation...

inside left...

and the details on the inside right...

and the thank-you card...

and on the inside...

Supplies:

Sentiment stamps:   LOTV Wedding Set 70, Traditional

Dies:   Spellbinders Adorning Squares, Classic Squares Small, Fancy Framed Tags Two;   

 Sizzix Flowers Branches & Leaves

Embossing folder:   Cuttlebug Polka Dots          Pearls:  Zva Creations and Recollections

Ribbon:   local craft store         Miscellaneous:   Stampendous PearLustre Amethyst embossing powder

For the second set, I used the new Wedding Set 82, Handwritten. Dena gave you all a sneak peek of this stamp set on her blog last week, where she used it on a gorgeous and formal set of stationery. My set is anything but formal, so it's a great example of how versatile these stamp sets can be. 

I used watercolors on cold pressed watercolor paper as my "patterned paper," and along with heavy paper edge tearing and edge distressing, ended up with a very distressed and relaxed feel to the set. Once again, there's a Save-the-Date, but this time it's a single-layer card that will fit into a 5x7 envelope for mailing, along with a 5x7 invitation, and a 4x6 thank you card...

Even though this save-the-date is a single-layer card, I backed it with plain white cardstock to cover the ribbon wrapped to the back and give it a more finished appearance...

The invitation, and the thank you card, are white textured cardstock, with the watercolor paper pieces adhered on top of the cardstock...

The 4x6 thank-you card mimics the design on the invitation...

The little distressed hearts on the fronts, and on the inside of the invitation, were made using crackle texture paste and a heart stencil...

Supplies:

Sentiment Stamps:   LOTV Wedding Set 82, Handwritten

Ribbons and small flowers:   local craft store

Studio 490 Crackle Texture Paste          Stampendous Tim Holtz Hearts stencil

Miscellaneous:   watercolors, cold pressed water color paper

Thanks so much for visiting today...I hope you having a great week!