Grow Love With Kindess hop

Polka Dot Orchard is having a Grow Love With Kindness hop over on Instagram today!  I wanted to share on my blog as well for those of you who don't do Instagram plus I can share all the details.  I am using the Blessed Lives set which you can pick up HERE in the Polka Dot Orchard store.

Alright, let's talk cards.  I recently watched a video from Jennifer McGuire.  She is such a constant source of inspiration!  I was intrigued by the Split Card technique.  Basically you work with one image, cut it down the center and it gives you two cards!  I always love getting two-for-one!

I started by printing out the main image and the two sentiments onto a piece of Copic friendly cardstock.  I colored it with Copic markers.  I went for a vintage color palette.  The pinks are RV11, RV32 and RV34.  The greens are BG93, BG96 and BG99.  That's it.  Six colors.

Once I was done with the coloring, I found the center of my image and cut it.  I know, I just colored it and then I cut right through it.  I promise it will be okay!

I went around the outer edge of the cut panel with a black sharpie to give it a heavy black line.  I then grabbed a ruler and a fine tip black marker to create a thin frame.  I felt like this step added a lot of visual dimension to the panel without adding actual dimension.

I adhered them both to some gorgeous paper from Basic Grey (out of print) and then onto a top folding card base.  To add just a little something extra I used Love Potion Nuvo Dream Drops.  Here are both of the completed cards.

Here they are next to each other.

And here they are apart.

This technique was a lot of fun and I can't wait to try it again.  As a reminder, this is actually a part of an Instagram hop.  You can find me there @ruok or you can start the hop from the Polka Dot Orchard Instagram account @polkadotorchard.  The next person on the IG hop is @vonmariedesigns

Toodles!

~Kristina

Penelope cat gets her coffee

Another one of my favorite times of year has arrived at last.  The Fall/Winter Coffee Lovers blog hop!!!  The chance for me to ink up some of the coffee themed stamp sets I have been shamelessly collecting.  It totally justifies their purchase, right??  Anywho, I'm hoping to complete several cards for this round so wish me luck.

Here is my first card to share!

I used this adorable digital stamp from 2 Cute Ink called Penelope Cat.  You can purchase her right HERE.  I printed her out onto Cryogen White Copic safe cardstock.  I had already pre-picked the main piece of patterned paper I wanted to use so I went through my Copics looking for colors that would match.  Here is the list of colors used.

Cat T1, T3, T5

Cheeks & inner ears R00

Table E71, E74, E77, E79

Coffee E23, E27

Mug & Flowers YG61, YG63, YG67

Scarf RV63, RV66, RV69

Once she was all done I moved on to the rest of the pieces.  I cut her out with a Wonky Rectangle die from MFT Stamps.  I handcut a thin green layer out of a coordinating solid green cardstock from Stampin' Up.  Now, can we talk about this background??  The base aqua coffee patterned paper is from an older paper pad.  It is called Winter Wonderland from Pebbles.  I also pulled the pinkish patterned paper from the same paper pad.  Now came some more fun.  I cut it with a plaid die!  My crafty heart goes a little mushy when I get to use this die.  It is the Diagonal Plaid die from Lil' Inker Designs.  It's awesome.

I glued the coffee print paper to a pink cardbase.  Next came the plaid pinkish paper, the green layer and the cat layer.  For the final touch I added some different sizes of sparkling clear sequins from Pretty Pink Posh.  And that's it.  It's a pretty simple card even with the Copic coloring.  I encourage you to check out the 2 Cute Ink Esty store here.  I also want to encourage you to play along with the Coffee Lovers blog hop.

You can link up your creations HERE.  Be sure to use #fallwinter2018clh!

 Happy Crafting!
~Kristina