Sale a bration Kick Off 2023!

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Hello friends! I hope you had an amazing holiday season and I am so excited to be back again after a little crafting hiatus. I mean, I did craft, I just didn’t share as much on social! The theme of my post today is Sale a Bration—or the happiest time of year! Who doesn’t LOVE to get FREE stuff. I mean if you are spending money anyway…might as well get some free goodies!

Isn’t this little owl the cutest? He is actual one of three owls found in the new 2023 Sale a Bration stamp set Adorable Owls. And he truly is! I wanted to create a card that depicted an owl flying high in the sky and I think this turned out pretty close to my vision!

I started with a base of Basic White card stock and I used Balmy Blue ink and a Blending Brush to add the first layer of blue. I then added some Tranquil Tide in the corners. I feel like these two colors did a great job created dimension for the sky. I then took my Water Painted and flicked some water over top. Water acts like an eraser giving the illusion of moisture in the air.

 

The cute stitched clouds are die cut from the Give it a Whirl Die set in the annual catalogue. I love that you get 3 sizes of clouds to help design a scene!

I added a strip of DSP from the In Color DSP stack along the bottom to help ground the sentiment. And a little Linen Thread behind the sentiment (stamped in Tahitian Tide) with a little scallop border just makes it pop.

My flying owl is colored with a mix of Stampin’ Blends from the Neutral Tones collection plus some Crumb Cake and Tahitian Tide. I really feel that this owl has a lot of dimension and I really enjoy coloring with our Blends. I couldn’t resist adding some of the new Pastel Adhesive-Backed Sequins too. They might be my favorite new embellishment!

 

You can shop the Sale a bration catalogue, choosing a free item with your $60 CAN purchase by clicking on any image. This should direct you straight to my online store.

Look at all these fun choices you get during Sale a bration 2023! I love the Adorable Owls set, I think it has alot of potential to color with Stampin’ Blends, Watercolor Pencils, or lazy watercoloring!

Color Fusers--January 2023

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Hello friends and welcome back to another year of the Color Fusers Blog Hop! We are so happy to have you here and we have some new friends joining us from around the world. So make sure to go all the way through the hop!

I was very excited about this color combo of Fresh Freesia, Rich Razzleberry and Granny Apple Green, however…I did cheat, I added in a fourth color because I really needed it to bring my card vision alive! I hope my fellow teammates can give me a pass for creative inspiration!

My card features a fourth color—Coastal Cabana! I had a summer sunset over the mountains in my mind and I really needed it to bring my card background to life.

This card reminds me of my recent trip I took w one of my besties—we drove through the rocky mountains, down through washington, idaho and montana. it was beautiful!

I started with a card base and first layer of Fresh Freesia. I then used our Watercolor Paper to create my background. I started by spritzing the paper with water and then I added in Coastal Cabana with a Water Painter to the top half of the watercolor paper. I then blasted it with my heat tool.

Next I added another spritz of water to the mid section of the card and added some Rich Razzleberry ink with a Water Painter. I made sure that these two colors ran together to create a ridge line. I wanted my mountain range to look like it was fading into the background. I stamped a few little stars from the Greatest Journey set on the sky part of the card.

I then spritzed the bottom half of the watercolor paper again and added my Granny Apple Green color to the bottom.

look at my well loved ink pads! I think i need to a magic eraser to them!

I used two stamp sets to complete this card—the ever fabulous and will never leave my stash stamp set, Mountain Air! I stamped the tree line in Rich Razzleberry ink. The mountains are stamped in Fresh Freesia and then I took a finger dauber in Rich Razzleberry to the tops and filled in a bit of the white space. The mountains were then die cut using the Majestic Mountain Dies.

The trees in forefront are stamped in Granny Apple Green—two full strength and one set stamped off. They were stamped using the new Greatest Journey stamp set and die cut with the coordinating dies.

The sentiment is from the same stamp set and I inked it up in Fresh Freesia and then took my Rich Razzleberry marker over top of the ‘Mountains of’ portion of the stamp to get that two-tone look. The sentiment is cut using the new Something Fancy Dies. I flicked my Rich Razzleberry marker over the sentiment and added a bit of white bakers twine behind.

I wanted some embellishments on my card so I used my Parakeet Party and Rich Razzleberry Stampin’ Blends to color some of the vanilla Classic Matte Dots so they would coordinate.

I LOVE how this card turned out and its really one of a kind, because as you all know with watercoloring, you can rarely repeat the same thing twice! Or I cannot at least! I had a lot of fun making it and my hands were a complete mess. But really, if your hands are inky, did you even really craft? Hahaha!

 

Don’t you love how many uses we have for our Stampin’ Blends? I love that we can create so many custom things such as the Classic Matte Dots, or color over our many ribbons, or on Window Sheets (a tip I shared for one of my Artisan assignments last year), we can use them for flicking/spritzing, highlighting words, doodling and so much more!

I can’t wait to see what Bonnie O’Neill creates so make sure to hop over to her NEXT or you can be a rebel and go PREVIOUS to see what Sue Vine has designed. Either way, I know you will be impressed so make sure to visit everyone on the hop to see what they have made this month! And thank you again for checking in to see what crafty projects I have been up to!

 

Happy New Year 2023

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Hello to all of my friends and family! Wishing you the very best as we kick off a NEW YEAR! I am always excited for a new year and all the NEW that it can represent—new opportunities to try new things (maybe a Facebook live….), go new places (can’t wait for the Norway Incentive Trip with Shepard in May), read new books (did you see my post yesterday with all the new book recommendations), stamping with NEW STUFF (can’t wait for the Occasions Catty to go live in a few days) and meeting new friends! The world is full of so many interesting people, I can’t wait to meet some of them in 2023 (I have a whole new bunch of Artisan Design Team friends to get to know!)

Here is a little fun card for some creative inspiration. I was inspired by a card that Cindy Schuster shared recently on Stampin’ Fancy Friday and since I didn’t give out too many Christmas cards, I thought it would be fun to make some for a few crafty friends!

Petal Pink is my favorite color as of late, and if you check through the new DSP coming out in the Occasions Catalogue, you will see its a popular color with the concept artists over at Stampin’ Up! too.

The stars in the background are from an ancient stamp set called Perpetual Birthday Calendar and the main sentiment ‘Hooray’ is from a current set called Big Hooray in the Annual Catalogue. The sentiment ‘to the new year’ is trimmed from a stamp in another retired set called Cheers to That. So this card is really a mix of everything!

The main sentiment is ombre with Coastal Cabana, Bermuda Bay, Mint Macaron and Pool Party ink—literally all my favorite colors on this card!

I am really excited about the new Alphabet A la Mode dies in the Occasions Catalogue and I used them with the Foam Adhesive Sheets and all my scrap pieces of gold or goldish toned paper…this projects was such a good way to use up scraps and bits that I seem to hang on to. I also went over the ‘Hooray’ with my Wink of Stella pen so it had a bit of sparkle too.

I used a mash up of embellishments—new Pastel Adhesive Backed Gems, Polished Dots and some Elegant Gems.

 

I hope you have a creative 2023 and I invite you along on my journey! I can’t wait to see what this year has in store and I am starting a new hashtag #goodstuff2023 to manifest all the good stuff to come my way and yours!

12 Days of Christmas--Day 11

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Fun Fact—I actually designed this card in JULY! And I have not shared it anywhere, I don’t know what I was waiting for but this feels like as good a time as any! This is my 11th project share over our 12 Days of Christmas Hop between myself and @melsinkyfingers! I hope you have been enjoying everything so far!

I actually really love this card and am so glad I came across it on my camera roll again so I can share it with you! Hopefully it will inspire you to recreate it, especially if you still have a few holiday cards left to stamp for the holidays.

I used the Spruced Up Bundle to create this fun and whimsical holiday card. The color combo of Garden Green, Sweet Sorbet, Pool Party and Coastal Cabana has probably been my 2022 holiday card favorite! I am sure if I scroll my Instagram @stampwithbrenda I will see a lot of variations of this color combo!

For this card, I used Garden Green as the base and the first layer was also run through the Timber 3D folder. One of my favorite folders!

 

I stamped out the two different tree shapes in two colors and die cut one tree that I stamped little stars on top. I love the mix of stamped and die cut trees and baby stars on this page.

I love stars, they are my favorite shape of all time so I couldn’t resist these two options that are included in the die set.

The sentiment is a mix of 2 individual stamps and is die cut with the label from the Stylish Shapes dies (another craft room must have). I added some rhinestones and Sweet Sorbet Bakers Twine for a couple embellishment touches. I am pretty sure the rhinestones are from the retired Holiday Rhinestones but you can always color our Basic Rhinestones with a Stampin’ Blend to create any color of bling you want! Isn’t that fun?

Please make sure to click the link to Melanie’s blog today to see what she has created for Day 11 of 12 Days of Christmas!

 
 

12 Days of Christmas--Day 9

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Welcome to day 9 of 12 Days of Christmas! This also means we are over a week into December! Have you started mailing out holiday cards yet? I am happy to say that I have! Many more to hit the mail box, hand deliver, or add into my stampin’ friends product bags! So today I wanted to share a holiday card inspired by the Holiday Catty!

Isn’t this little penguin the cutest? I have loved stamping and creating with the Penguin Place stamp set for the last couple of holiday seasons. And I thought this card project of him floating on a block of ice was just too cute not to recreate!

I love how the Diorama Dies help create the illusion of floating ice. These dies are so fun and can be used in such unique ways. I still had a ton of the Sunshine & Rainbow Sale a bration DSP left so I used that as a layer between the die cuts.

I ran the ‘block’ of ice through the Painted Texture 3D folder to add the look of ice.

 

I added a little bit of snowflake stamping to the background and I stamped the sentiment out twice in two colors—Pool Party and Real Red. I then dissected it change the orientation of the stamp to fit the card design.

I love how the penguin is a mix of stamped and punched images too and the Adhesive Backed Stars were a perfect embellishment to add.

I am excited to see what Melanie is sharing today and I hope you have been enjoying our projects so far!

Make sure to check back for the last 3 days of our 12 Days of Christmas Hop!