CAS Card – Birthday Blooms Meets Wink Of Stella

Anna’ Stampin’ Cave – CAS Card – Birthday Blooms Meets Wink Of Stella

Birthday Blooms 3

Today I’ve got for you beautiful, clean and simple (CAS) birthday card. I am so happy that Birthday Blooms stamp set staying with us for another year. I love this set for it’s stunning, bold flower image.

For the base, I took a piece of  Whisper White cardstock that measures 5-7/8″x 8-2/8″ and fold it in half at 4-1/8″. Next, I cut a strip of this beautiful, embossed Color Me Irresistible DSP in Basic Black and adhere it to my base. The strip measures 2″ x 5-7/8″.

Birthday Blooms

I stamped the flower image in Basic Black Archival ink and watercolour it. For the petals, I’ve used Watermelon Wonder and Rose Red. Center of the flower is Crushed Curry – I fell in love with this shade of yellow just recently. And leaves are a mix of Old Olive with a gentle touch of Always Artichoke.  First, I added my colours and shadings with blender pens. Next, I used my Aqua Painter to blend it nicely and to add more colour or shading if required.

I let my flower dry completely and then fussy cut it. I should probably mention that as I knew I will fussy cut it, I’ve used regular Whisper White cardstock for the flower. Because my hands are quite numb and I find it hard to do more intricate things, I cut off tiny leaves from the flower. Really wasn’t able to fussy cut them. However I’m pretty chuffed with myself that I managed to fussy cut the little buds, it took me a while, though.

Birthday Blooms 3

While the flower was drying I stamped the sentiment, from the same stamp set, in Versamark and heat embossed it with silver embossing powder. I really like this curly font. I assembled the flower using dimensionals and added some Silver Metallic Baker’s Twine underneath.

Birthday Blooms 2

I stamped the inside of my card too. I used the single flower from the set, but this time, I colour it only with blender pen so it doesn’t bleed through. I also added a strip of the same DSP (5-7/8″ x 1/2″), to match the card front.

The last touch was to add some shimmer to my beautiful flower, using Clear Wink Of Stella Glitter Brush Pen. I love this stuff!

Birthday Blooms 5

I love how this card turned out! I have to admit that CAS cards are growing on me but I still have a tendency to overthink and overcomplicate them. I’m a grungy-distress at heart, you know haha

I’m adding my card to Crazy 4 Challenges #C4C333 – April Showers bring May flowers!

Now I would love to hear from you. Do you like my today’s card?

Thank you for stopping by! Have a blessed day,

Watercolour Wash With Summer Silhouettes Stamp Set

Today I wanted to show you a watercolour wash technique, using Summer Silhouettes Stamp Set from Stampin’ Up! These were SWAPS I created for fellow stampers.

swaps 5

Stampers love to swap! Swapping lets us share our creativity, enjoy the creativity of other stampers, and gather and collect ideas. A swap is usually a card front (unless someone would like to do something extra). It can spotlight a particular technique or stamp set and can be as simple or as complex as you wish. For my swaps, I decided to highlight one of my favourite techniques – watercolour wash.

I had so much fun creating my watercolour panels! At the end of the day my hands were just as colourful hahaha, but it was an easy part.

Next step was really time-consuming: heat embossing and lots and glueing lots of sequins.

After ombre stamping 58 card fronts, heat embossing 58 watercolour panels and 58 strips of vellum, and adding over 350 sequins (!!!) my swaps were finished!

I really hope these swaps will bring some inspiration – not only to those who swapped with me but to you also.

Thank you for stopping by and have a blessed day,

Embossing Resist Technique With Corner Garden Background Stamp By Stampin’ Up!

Embossing Resist Technique With Corner Garden Background Stamp By Stampin’ Up!

Corner Garden Easter Card 4

While Easter is just around the corner, today I’ve got for you beautiful Easter card using embossing resist technique. I love this technique as it has a real WOW factor to it! I love how the colours just POP on the card when sponged or water coloured over the heat embossing.

But first thing first – I wanted to apologise for being absent on the blog for a long time. I didn’t mean to neglect anyone of you but I’ve been struggling with a very nasty bacterial chest infection, which knocked me down, literally. I wasn’t able to do anything around the house, or even myself (not to mention crafting). So blessed to have a wonderful husband who took care of the house and our family, cooking, cleaning, etc and most of all – me.

The project I share today was made for our team swap at the end of February. But since the infection kicked in I wasn’t able to share it with you at all.

Corner Garden Easter Card

To create my card I stamped a beautiful image from Corner Garden background stamp in Versamark on the piece of regular Whisper White. Remember to always use an antistatic tool on your card before stamping your image if you want to heat emboss it, as it will take all the static from your card, and embossing powder will stick only to your stamped image. The sentiment is stamped in Versamak too. Both: flowers and sentiment are heat embossed in white.

Now the fun part starts – water colouring! You may think: oh no! You should use a watercolour paper. But to be honest, if you don’t plan to soak your cardstock in water, use your aqua painters gently, and your layer will be mounted on the base – you can add your water colouring on regular cardstock without any problem. Just like I did. Believe me or not, I coloured all my flowers and leaves using aqua painter. As they say, the devil is in the detail. You can’t allow aqua paint brush to carry lots of water, it needs to be slightly wet. You only use it to pick the colour from the lid of your ink pad ( to have some ink on your lid you have to squeeze you ink pad gently when it’s closed). And you pick more colour with every stroke or two. You can’t paint with water only as it will damage your paper if using regular Whisper White.

Corner Garden Easter Card 2

When all the colouring was done I sponged the background using Pear Pizzazz, Wild Wasabi and Pool Party. Any place of the background that I thought was too dark, I lightened with Whisper White Craft ink pad. I also lightened the look of some flowers, especially the Melon Mambo one, the large at the bottom of my card. I also added some Clear Wink of Stella to my flowers for a shimmer.

Corner Garden Easter Card 3

To embellish my card I cut a narrow strip of Burlap Ribbon, added Venetian Crochet Trim at the top and add it at the bottom of my layer. Next, I mount it on my Crumb Cake base.

I love that slight rustic feel to my card, even though there’s lots of shimmer on the flowers from Wink of Stella. It may not be your traditional Easter card but I love it! And you can always change a sentiment and make it into the birthday card, get well or congratulations card maybe? Possibilities are endless. If it comes to Easter I personally prefer cards with the strong message like this one I’ve made last year:

he is risen 6

Now I would love to hear from you! Do you prefer more traditional Easter cards? Or maybe you’re a fan of fun and cheeky ones (I’ve seen lots of these lately)? Let me know in the comments below.

Have a blessed day,

Pootlers Spring / Summer Celebration Blog Hop

pootler's blog hop

Thank you for joining us on another Pootlers Blog Hop! We’re showcasing lots of gorgeous projects using products from the new Stampin’ Up!® Spring/Summer Catalogue. Simply use the buttons at the end of each post to keep hopping!

If you have arrived here from Jerim Dickins, a big welcome to you. To continue your journey simply use the buttons at the end of each post to keep hopping!

I hope you had a chance to look through our Spring/Summer catalogue and you’ve got your favourites already. I have chosen to use Rose Wonder Bundle from page 18.

Rose Wonder Bundle Watercolour

I know I said that many times but I will say it again: I love everything about this bundle. I’ve played with this stamp set many times, but in today’s project, I incorporated watercolour with inlaid die-cutting. And yes, I’ve used these two techniques with this bundle already in this project.

This time I stamped my image straight onto watercolour paper with Versamark and heat embossed it in white. I’ve added water to the rose petals first and used Calypso Coral and Blushing Bride as my watercolours.

Rose Wonder Bundle Watercolour 4

I let the flower dry completely before I moved to the leaves. And again I added water first. For the leaves, I choose Pear Pizzazz, Wild Wasabi and just a hint of Old Olive.

Rose Wonder Bundle Watercolour 3.jpg

When my rose and leaves were dry I added water to the background. I didn’t want it to be as intense as last time so I mixed Lost Lagoon with Mint Macaron. I love how these two colours complement each other.

When my background was dry I gave it a little spray with water, and “lifted” those water droplets with a paper towel. As you can see it lifted some colour from background too – beautiful effect.

When my card was dry I’ve used Rose Garden Thinlits Dies to die-cut rose straight from my watercolour piece.

Rose Wonder Watercolour 4.jpg

I separated the “frame” and put all these “inside” tiny pieces aside. I dabbed the frame in Versamark, added Heat & Stick powder and heat embossed it for a second. Enough to melt the powder. When it was nice and sticky I cover it with Gold Stampin’ Glitter and heat set it again.

My base is Whisper White. I trimmed the watercolour piece to be slightly smaller than the base. I added Gold Glitter to the bottom of my WW base so this gold will peek a little from underneath the panel.

Now I could assemble the card. I added background panel first, then the frame and all the little die-cuts at the end. I have to say it was really time-consuming but well worth the effect.

Rose Wonder Watercolour bundle 5

For the sentiment, I choose “What a  beautiful blessing you are to me” but decided to use only part of the sentiment. I heat embossed it in gold on a strip of Whisper White and finish it with a piece of a doily.

I truly hope you enjoyed coming to my blog and see my card. Now, be sure to hop along and see more inspiring projects. Below is the list of all the participants but you can also use the buttons to keep hopping. Your next stop is lovely Kathleen Rintoul-Waite  go and see what she has made using the new products.

Thank you for stopping by and have a blessed day!

next pootler blog

previous pootler blog

Full blog line up:

 Sam Hammond

Mandy Barton

Sandra Ronald

Camille Moriaty

Heidi Smith

Hannah McCurley

Louise Thomas

Karen Taylor

Jerim Dickins

Anna Krol –> you are here

Kathleen Rintoul-Waite

Angelina Clark

Ink Smooshing With Bloomin’ Hearts Thinlits Dies – Using Die-cut Negatives

Hello guys! I’m back today with ink smooshing technique again. But this time I’ve used die-cut negatives I’ve saved from my previous project.

bloomin love

For these cards, I decided to choose different colours: shades of red, green and purple. The base of my cards is again a watercolour paper as it’s perfect for watercolour techniques. I explained ink smooshing technique in my post here.

To add some more detail to the die-cut pieces I run them through my big shot with Happy Heart Embossing Folder. I love how they stand out from busy backgrounds.

bloomin love green

To stamp main sentiments I have used my die-cut as a guide to make sure I stamp it exactly in the middle of my card. I stamped it in Versamark and heat embossed in gold. Before adhering the panels I’ve made few “splotches” using Gold Wink Of Stella Glitter Brush.

To finish off my cards I took a strip of black cardstock and heat embossed “love you” sentiment in gold. My husband’s friend came over at the weekend and “nicked” one card for his girlfriend straight away haha Hope she will like it.

If you like my project or got any questions please let me know in the comments below.

Thank you for stopping by. Have a blessed day,