Fly away with me

Hello again my friends!  Summer sure has been flying by.  My daughter (a Sophomore this year!) started on August 3rd and my son (8th grade) started on August 22nd.  While I am somewhat sad that summer is coming to and end, I must say that autumn is my most favorite season.  And not just because my birthday is this month!  The fall colors, the crisp scents in the air, apples in plenty, new coffee flavors at Starbucks...just SO many things to look forward to!  Not to mention I'm a sucker for fall themed stamps!  BUT...it's not fall yet so I have a bright, summer type card for you.

My Zig Clean Color markers have been feeling so much love lately that I thought I better bring out my Copics for awhile.  Let's just say I had to do some practicing as the techniques are quite a bit different with the different mediums.  They both look awesome!  After I colored the bunny, I went in with my colorless blender and added a bunch of dots.  I wanted to give her a little bit of a texture and loved how it looked!  For the balloon I used three different shades of blue and went over it a few times until I got the blend I liked.  After it dried I went over it with my Wink of Stella.  I sure do love sparkle!  I added a few white dots to the bird, some highlights on the bunny and the white dots on the balloon.  For the clouds I went around the inside with a very thin line of blue and blended it out with the colorless blender.  I colored the entire background with BG11 and BG10.

Then I was left with trying to figure out how to get a sentiment on the card!  I hate to cover anything up!  So I dug around and found the cloud die in the Skys the Limit die set.  I cut it out using vellum and lightly went around the edge with a blue copic.  I heat embossed the sentiment from Say it Big using platinum embossing powder.  We all know how hard it is to adhere vellum without it showing but I remembered I had some of that Kooltak clear foam tape.  I am in love!  I strategically placed it behind some of the bigger letters and it worked perfect!  You might be seeing a lot more vellum in the future!

Thanks for visiting!

Supplies used:

Bunny Heart Balloon

Say It Big

Sky Is The Limit Dies

Watercolor Linky Party

Hi everyone!  Today I'm joining in the Craftin Desert Divas Linky Party on the CDD blog!

The theme for this Linky Party at Craftin Desert Divas is "Watercolor"! We sure would love to see your projects that fit this theme! So go ahead and craft it and link it up on the Craftin Desert Diva's Blog.

Every other Monday will mark the beginning of a new semi-weekly Linky Party over 

at the CDD blog. We hope you will share your projects with us! And don't forget 

about  the prizes! Every Linky Party will have a winner and a Top 3! 

Our Sponsors for this Linky Party are:

One 4 x 6 Stamp set

One digi stamp of choice

With no further delay...here is my project!

I simply adore this birthday dragon!  I chose to use my Inktense pencils for my watercolor medium. They are perfect to use when I'm looking for a little more control, especially in in smaller areas.  I adore how vibrant the colors are and how easy they are to use!  After he was dry, I went back in and added a little detail to his hat and in some of the shadow areas with a white pen.  

For the background I grabbed one of my many stencils and went to town with distress inks.  I pulled out the ones that went with the coloring on the dragon.  I used Salty Ocean, Twisted Citron and squeezed lemonade.  I spritz it lightly with water to add a little bit of texture.  I just have so much fun with distress ink, don't you?  I cut the dragon piece out with the largest die from Fancy frames and hand cut the black layer.  The green patterned piece is from the Hip Hip Hooray pad.

I didn't want my banner pieces to be white so I shaded it with the Salty Ocean and twistes citron. Then I ran it through my die cut machine.  I wanted a sentiment of some kind but the flags are pretty small and I didn't want to cover up the dragon.  I found "Wish Big" in the Simply Said stamp set.  With a bit of masking, I was able to stamp the letters individually from the "wish" portion of the stamp.  It was a perfect fit!  Sometimes you've got to be extra creative to work with what you have!  And would my card be complete without sequins?  Heck no!!  I found the Skyfall sequins were the perfect color!  

I hope you like him and are inspired to link up with the linky party!

Supplies used:

Birthday Dragon digital stamp

Party Dies

Simply Said

Fancy Frame dies

Skyfall sequins

Hip Hip Hooray paper pad

Delightful Daisy

Hello one and all!  I'm back with another Digi DT project for Craftin Desert Divas!   I'll admit, I'm a huge fan of watercolor.  When I found out the CDD FB group challenge was going to be to use watercolor of some sort I practically jumped for joy!

I have to share a secret.  This project actually came about from a printer mishap.  I was printing my images on watercolor paper and my printer decided to misbehave.  The images got all streaky and gross.  I almost threw it away!  Then I had a thought, what if I traced it using a light color watercolor pencil?  I taped it to the nearest sunny window and...kablam!  An image ready to try no line watercoloring!

You probably all know by know that I love my Zig Real brush markers by now.  So this time I decided I should use my Mission gold watercolors.  I kinda love these guys too!  I first colored the flower and the stem and let it dry.  Then went back to add a little more color and contrast.  After it was fully dry, I went around the whole thing with a very pal gray.  I blotted it off a bit with a paper towel because I didn't want it to be super dark.  As an extra side-effect, I got this really cool pattern that was left behind from the paper towel!  BONUS!!!  While it was drying, I cut a solid green layer and the larger patterned paper (Doodlebug Hip Hip Hooray).  I adhered them all to the card base.  I stamped and embossed the sentiment on the yellow banner piece and popped it up with foam tape. And yes, I had to add some lovely sequins!

I hope you like it!  Don't forget to check out the August digi Challenge on the Craftin Desert Divas Facebook group page.  Free digital stamp just for playing along!!

Supplies used

Delightful Daisy

Flag Banner dies

Wishful Thoughts

Wishful Thoughts dies

Citrus Bliss

Couture

Hip Hip Hooray

You are Rawr-some!

Hi there fellow crafters!  Today I bring you this super cute Tryannosaurus that called out to me to be colored.  I actually colored him while taking party in color challenge last month but I just couldn't put him away.  He NEEDED to be made into a card.  

I started by printing the image out on Bristol paper.  I knew that I wanted to try using my Zig Real Brush Clean Color markers.  I chose a dark green that I blended out a little with a lighter green.  I blended it out the rest of the way with water using a brush pen.  Doing it this way seemed to give a lot of texture to the image.  Which I felt was perfect to imitate dinosaur skin!

Next I used the smaller banner die to cut out this paper from the super fun, Fun in the Sun Doodlebug paper pad.  I had a hard time deciding on a color to put next as it felt like too much of a contrast.  I whipped out a stencil and sponged on Broken China distress ink.  Ahh, much better!  I used foam tape to pop the dino onto the banner piece.  All other layers were mounted flat.  The bottom layer that you can barely see is kraft.

I cut the "Awesome" from the Greeting Word dies 3 times and glued them all together.  The top layer I generously coated with Wink of Stella.  The "You are" came from the Tiny Sentiments set.  And because I just can't resist, sequins!  The sequins are from Comet and Skyfall.

Now I want to collect the rest of the dinosuars!  They would be perfect to used in the current Watercolor challenge on the Craftin Desert Divas Facebook group.  Remember, everyone gets a free digital stamp just to play along!

Kristina

Supplies:

Tyrannosaurus

Greeting Word dies

Banner dies

Tiny Sentiments

Fun in the sun

Skyfall sequins

Comet sequins

Crab-tastic!

Hello again!  Did I mention I really love the crabs from my post two weeks ago?  Well, I do.  So much so that I had to have another go at them!  The good news is you too can play with them too. AND there is still plenty of time to enter them in the July Digi Challenge on the Facebook Craftin Desert Divas group.  A free digi stamp just for entering!  I highly encourage you to give it a try.

This time I reached for my Copic markers.  I admit that I have a hard time creating "scene" cards but I just adore how this turned out!  I don't think I've ever colored absolutely everything on the card with Copics before!  After I colored all the images, I went back with my colorless blender and added dots, dots and more dots to the sand.   I wanted to give the appearance of sand texture.  I added it onto a very thin green layer and then the white card base.  No extra embellishments needed on this one.

I appreciate you stopping in to take a look!

Supplies used:

Beach Crab

Summer Days

Yummy for your tummy!

Hi gang!  I'm back with another Design Team project for Craftin Desert Divas Digi team!  Sometimes it's so very hard to choose which image I want to use.  My wishlist is huge!  I thank Tara at CDD for offering such a wide variety of digi stamps to choose from and they keep on coming!

Today I wanted to give a go at watercoloring using my Zig Real Brush markers and a water brush.  I chose this awesome hippo holding one of my favorite things...ice cream!  Especially on these hot summer days.

I printed out my image using my laser printer.  I simply cut down the watercolor paper to 8 1/2 x 11 and used the bypass tray.  Worked like a charm!  I picked out several bright colors because summer just seems to need bright colors!  I find for me, I have better luck using a water brush with the Zigs on watercolor paper.  I feel like I have better control than when using a regular brush.  You just have to be careful that you don't reactive another color if you are working right next to it!

I stamped the sentiment on one of the tag stamps using watercolor paper.  I then hand trimmed it and sponged it with Squeezed Lemonade and Twisted Citron.  I flicked some water on and blotted off with a paper towel to add some more texture.  I cut the main panel out using the largest die from Fancy Frames (love this set!).  I adhered it to a pink layer then used foam adhesive to attach it to the printed background.  Then all of that onto a white card base.  And since I have a total addiction to Doodlebug Sprinkles, I added a few from the Summer Glitter set.  I also snuck in some small, clear sequins from the Fairy Dust sequins.

Hope you give watercoloring a try!

Supplies used:

Hippo Ice Cream

Short & Sweet Tags

Take Note paper pad

Summer Glitter Sprinkles

Fairy Dust sequins

Fancy Frames dies

Beach party!

Hello again!  I'm sorry for my long abscence.  We just returned from my very first vacation to Mexico!  We had planned way back in February.  It was certainly much needed!  Now I'm back and catching up at home and work.  So without further ado, here's my Craftin Desert Digi DT card!

I simply adore these crabs!  They look like they are ready for a fun time at the beach!   I colored everything with Prismacolor pencils.  The crabs I used odorless mineral spirits on to make the colors blend together more.  I intentionally made the back ground lighter as I wanted the crabs to take the spotlight!  I added a very narrow red border to make them pop out and attached to a white card base.  I even found ther perfect sequins to add a little more pizzaz!

This month's digi challenge is "Beach".  It's certainly a perfect theme for this time of the year.  Not to mention everyone gets a free digi stamp just for playing along.  Give it a go!  Craftin Desert Diva's  has some great summer and beach digi's to choose from.  

Here are the supplies I used:

Beach Crab

Comet Sequins

Freedom Sequins