More Monogram Card Sets

The monogram card project is done!  These little beauties are the final version of the monogram card sets I am making for my son (and now other members of my family).

Making 50 cards that are all pretty much the same can get a bit monotonous, especially when you have other projects you want to work on.  So, I may have taken a few shortcuts on these last few, but all in all I am pleased with my efforts.

I am once again so happy to have used items from my stash!

Have a great day and stay safe!

Another Mother's Day Card - Simple with Beautiful Greetery Florals

I so loved The Greetery stamps and dies that I have purchased.  I had mentioned on Instagram that I had a massive stamping session with multiples of these floral and Alphabuds beauties.  So they are sitting there staring at me and I couldn't help but put them together as a card.  Simple and lovely, the images on this card are from the Alphabuds stamps and dies and the Sealed with a Kiss stamps and dies.  The background "fence" is an old Heartfelt Creations die which created the best backdrop for my floral pretties.

Better Together - A Mix and Match Challenge Week 3 by Andie

During this time of quarantine, Brandy and I miss crafting together.  It isn't that we did so often - we didn't see each other every week sometimes.  It's more that we can't see each other.  So I had an idea to create a challenge each week - one just for Brandy and she could create one just for me.  Brandy has to amp the idea up and came up with our official title.  This is our third week of challenges.  I present to you Week Three of the Better Together - A Mix and Match Challenge.

Brandy's challenge started with options:

This week Brandy is offering Andie a gambler's choice: 

1. Mello Yellow or
2. Card for a Fellow

Both have specific completion elements so pick carefully. Once you decide I will send instructions for completion. 

I debated the options.  I was so excited.  I just couldn't decide.  I knew I was not afraid of yellow, but what did "Mello" mean?  Card for a fellow might be very good as I have an anniversary and a husband birthday in the next eight weeks.  Always practical, I chose Card for a Fellow and received this challenge.

Making a card for a fellow comes with these inspirational photos and instructions: We know making a general masculine card is a bit tougher than making one for a woman (as evidenced by the hundreds of flowers stamps in the stash compared to the three fishing ones).  So, the idea here is to make a card for a fellow that is just because, I love you, encouragement, thank you, and celebrates them for being men and what they bring to our lives.  So, this card needs to be uber masculine. Use metals, wood, tools, leather, cars, etc. vintage or modern it is up to you. The more depth/interest the better.

The color pallet provided is a recommended, but you are welcome to make adjustments. The size is up to you as well.

Here's my answer to the challenge:

 You can see I was inspired by the patterns, color scheme and the clocks in the inspiration photo.  The sentiment was stamped onto inked paper to create a common color scheme using my Concord and 9th Bold and Brushy Upper and Lowercase letter stamps in black in and heat embossed with clear embossing powder. 

I struggled a bit with this challenge.  The masculine, as expressed in the challenge, can be a bit more difficult that pretty flowers.  I knew that I had the chevron stencil and some Close To My Heart inks in the right palette. Still, my inks weren't quite as dark as they should have been to reach the inspiration palette.  After I got the background together (can you see where the stencil stuck to my paper and accidentally created texture?  At first "failure!" and then resignation that the style kinda works.

Next I tried to get the feel of leather by finding my kraft glassine paper and make the clocks using my Heartfelt Creations Numeral Clocks stamps and dies.  That felt like a failure as well, though I did like the card in the end.  I couldn't stop trying to achieve the design that I could see in my head so I made a second card with a bit of a twist.

 This card had many of the same elements, thought I added crumpled kraft glassine paper that got a little closure to the look/feel of leather.  I just don't know if I like the tan in the color scheme.  Not a bad card and I will use this for my nephew, who graduates high school this month. 

I had made duplicates of the backgrounds in the previous two cards just to make sure I didn't have a complete disaster.  I'm loathe to throw away pieces once I started and I was thinking it might work to add a bit of gold heat embossing so I made this Father's Day card.  I like how it turned out. 

The last card was a whim.  I found the clocks and the sentiment in an ephemera pack.  I decided to keep it simple and inked the edges of the die cut, raising them up with some foam squares. 

This took me quite a bit of time this week.  Definitely a challenge, but in the best way ever.  I didn't buy a thing, I used quite a few supplies that I had in the stash and now I have some cards for the men in my life.  Hooray Brandy, and thank you for the challenge.

Better Together - A Mix and Match Challenge Week 3 by Brandy

During this time of quarantine, Brandy and I miss crafting together.  It isn't that we did so often - we didn't see each other every week sometimes.  It's more that we can't see each other.  So I had an idea to create a challenge each week - one just for Brandy and she could create one just for me.  Brandy has to amp the idea up and came up with our official title.  This is our third week of challenges.  I present to you Week Three of the Better Together - A Mix and Match Challenge.

For your Better Together Challenge, Andie selected for you a choice in layout sketch, an inspirational theme, a color scheme.  This is truly a mix and match challenge, mix up the elements of the sketch, match them to the inspirational theme and/or challenge yourself to really amp up the color scheme. Keep it simple or make it complex. Whatever you do, mix and match the challenge.

I loved the color palette of this challenge and immediately thought roses; which is what I should have done. I over thought it and landed on roses would be too predictable. So, I decided to try and focus on the sketches, saying, and color scheme for the first card.  Once I got started, it really just messed with me a bit. I knew I wanted to make an easel card, but the size of the circle threw me. I probably shouldn't have used the actual feathers, but they were glued down before I figured that out.  Anyway, card #1 is my official response.

The card base is made from WPlus9 Dove Gray cardstock, but the gray doesn't come through that well in photos.  The circle base is from honey Bee Deckled Circles, birdhouse from Tuesday Morning die (don't recall the name), birds are from MFT, and the red flowers are from my Oasis Crafts stash.

I tried to stamp sheet music on the cardbase, but I don't think it shows well.  I chose a thank you sentiment from Simon Says Stamp because it fit nicely on the square.

The second card doesn't have a sentiment yet, I am not sure what it will be used for.  It just didn't go where my creative mind wanted it to.

I used Tim Holtz Sewing Room Bigz die, the green overlay is from an old Heartfelt Creations die that I don't remember the name of, and the butterflies are from Spellbinders January 2019 card kit.

The same Dove Gray cardstock is used, but I stamped a background on it and the dress form base.

I did have to alter the stand on the dress for to get it to fit on the base.

My favorite part of this challenge was definitely the color palette.  It gave me so many ideas and I had fun trying to execute them.

I'm Over the Moon

Ever has stamp or die envy?  I will admit that there are times where I am a tiny bit jealous of a stamp or die set that Brandy has.  Usually I resist giving in to this petty thinking and either request a few stamped images and/or satisfy the "itch" by making something pretty with what I have.  When Waffle Flower offered grab bags of products Brandy and I each purchased a set and one set had the Waffle Flower Moon and Star die set.  I was ecstatic because this is one of the sets I had some die envy over.  It took me a little while to get some other projects out of the way, but I'm sharing today my first sets using this die.  First are a pair of Welcome Baby cards for the stash.

I just love the sentiment on this yellow one from the Simon Says Stamps Tiny Words Faith stamp set.

One last card that could be an all occasion and/or birthday card.  The soft pastels were made using my Brusho watercolor crystals.

More Painted Flowers Experiments

I previously mentioned that I had made this card for my bestie's birthday and because I loved it so much, I took one of the fails from that card making adventure and used it as a template for mass producing card fronts.  I used my Altenew Painted Flowers stamp set and soft colored Distress Ink colors.  I am back today to share cards made with that stamping session, but in a slightly different design to show off the stamping.  These are A7 sized cards - a nice departure as I usually create A2 sized cards.

I think these turned out delightful, if slightly less delightful than the card I made for Brandy.  Guess sometimes your first try is the best...

I'm entering these into the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge Flower Power.

Leftovers From This Week's Better Together Card Making Challenge

I had mentioned earlier this week that I had some extra backgrounds from my Better Together - A Mix and Match Challenge trials.  I watercolored these backgrounds and then added to them with a mixture of Art Anthology Dimensional Medium in gold, white acrylic paint, spray stains and stencils.  Some of these effects are very faint, but they are there.  The color scheme's came from the challenge Brandy made to me and so the colors are bright and cheery.  The challenge theme was Whimsical Nature.
  

The floral and greenery is stamped on Bristol cardstock and colored with my Zig Clean Color Real Brush markers using my three sets of Simon Says Stamp Spring Flowers, More Spring Flowers and Even More Spring Flowers stamps and dies.  The sentiment is from a Papertrey Ink Congratulations mini-stamp and die set.  They work perfectly with the colorful parts of the background.

This last card is my favorite.  I really love the color green and the offset from the green leaves with the blue makes my heart sing.

I'm so glad Brandy inspires me to step out of my comfort zone.  If these don't exactly match the theme, they are a close fit and I really had fun making these cards and those from the challenge.

I'm entering these into the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge Flower Power.

Better Together - A Mix and Match Challenge Week 2 by Brandy

For your Better Together Challenge, Andie has selected for you an inspirational theme, a color scheme and request that you use a minimum of three layers on your project.  Layers can mean layers of paper, layers of die cuts, layers of stamping, layers of pattern.  Just use lots of layers.  Card size is your preference, A2, A7, slimline… take your pick.

Here it is, my response to your challenge.  I am not sure how you are counting layers, but there is 1. Card base. 2. Panel. 3. Layer of embossing paste/distress crayon. 3. Four layer butterfly. 4. 3 layer sentiment.

I finally used my Distress Crayons!  I tried both of the techniques from Creative Chemistry 103, the one in the photo below is the Fresco and the one I used I can't remember the name.  I used The Greetery Berry Branch stencil for the background. The Butterfly is from Spellbinders January 2019 Large Die of the month. I die cut it from an alcohol ink sheet I did.  Not at all sure where the die came from.

I am planning to make something with the Fresco panel, not sure what though.

Better Together - A Mix and Match Challenge Week 2 by Andie

During this time of quarantine, Brandy and I miss crafting together.  It isn't that we did so often - we didn't see each other every week sometimes.  It's more that we can't see each other.  So I had an idea to create a challenge each week - one just for Brandy and she could create one just for me.  Brandy has to amp the idea up and came up with our official title.  We began last week and this is our second week of challenges.  I present to you Week Two of the Better Together - A Mix and Match Challenge.

The theme for your Better Together challenge is Whimsical Nature.  Brandy is looking for you to go outside of the box with a  mixed media concept. Over-the-top, needs to have elements of nature in it trees flowers, animals, etc. You can use stamps or dies. Not that there is a prize, but extra points for free hand design or painting.

The color pallet is bright and abundant, the more colors used the better.

Sentiment type and card size are up to you.

HAVE FUN WITH THIS!

Inspiration Photo

My take on the challenge was largely inspired by the theme and the color palette.  I started on my creative journey being slightly intimidated by the suggestion that I free hand paint.  I'm not comfortable with the idea and Brandy was right to challenge that discomfort.  I settled down when I decided I didn't have to get extra points (can you say overachiever?!?!).  I decided to watercolor the background in an imitation of the color palette inspiration.  This took several layers of wet on wet painting to get the backgrounds to be a close approximation.  A bit of a challenge to me, but the best kind that stretched my talent and my patience and my willingness to go outside my comfort zone.  Brandy was right, it was fun!

After watercoloring the base layer, I knew I knew I needed to work in the mixed media aspects.  So I started by spritzing with green and aqua watercolor spray stains through a stencil.  You can kind see the pattern in this card, though not so much in some of the others.  There was likely too light of spray stain and too bright of watercolor layers underneath.  Next, I spattered some white acrylic paint and when that wasn't a bold enough addition, I used the paint brush from the splatters to brush white across the pattern, keeping the movement of my background flowing.  It still wasn't enough so I used some Art Anthology Mud Texture paste and a stencil to make the circular pattern in the background.  The paste dries white and was too stark, so I spritzed some of the green spray stain across the texture paste once dry.  The spray resulted in a a greenish yellow that I think was just the right combination of contrast and unity that it feels a lot like the inspiration photo to me.  A bit of gold Art Anthology Dimensional Media and ahhh, now I'm feeling both comfortable and satisfied, but how to embellish my "nature" part of the challenge?

The last bit was the addition of the floral sprigs and the flowers.  I knew I didn't want clunky paper flowers and I was stretching to figure a solution when I remembered I had some coffee filters and had previously watercolored the filters for the effect on these flowers for a wrapped package.  The pictures just don't do these cards justice as those floral elements are decidedly ethereal - light and see through and delicate.  Just the right touch to finish on my Whimsical Nature challenge with heavy overtones of mixed media.  I'm delighted with the finish and I definitely had fun with the process.

I'm so enjoying this challenge process I am already dreaming of Brandy's challenge for next week.... and she mentioned she's doing the same.  Just our part to bring a bit of enjoyment to each other when we can't craft together.  I made a few bonus cards with some back-up backgrounds made during this process.  I still need to edit those photos and will look to post those tomorrow, if not sooner.

Up next, Brandy's challenge and response.