clair087

I've been loving making my own patterns lately. It's such an easy thing to reach for - a pad, some watercolors, maybe a stamp...Late at night when my creativity is not particularly thriving, or if I'm having one of those days, I can still whip up something fun, with little to no effort. And it's wonderful to be able to use these bits later in my cards. Today I'm sharing three cards created with the stamped and colored paper I made recently (shown below). This little card made the journey to a faraway place recently, and I hope it brought lots of sunshine and happy vibes to our dear friends, who bring so much of that to our lives. To start this card, I watercolored a soft aqua center, followed by stamped triangles from PTI's Southwestern Style stamps in  Green Parakeet ink . I used PTI's Scene It: Celebration die to cut out the circle banner frame. Of course, I kept the negatives, which made for a couple more fun cards (below). To the top of the card, I adde...

Good morning everyone! Today, I'm sharing a quick little tutorial on my favorite ways to add color to cards. Here we go! This little number sort of marries all the fun ways I like to infuse color into cards, so I'll share my handy list along with how I made the card. STAMPING Of course, my favorite, and such an easy way to incorporate different patterns, colors, and even textures (with embossing powders and other mediums). For this card, I added stamped details in the form of thread spool labels, in a rainbow of colors! I used shades of Pure Poppy, Hibiscus Burst, Summer Sunrise, Orange Zest, Bright Buttercup, Green Parakeet, New Leaf, Hawaiian Shores, and Berry Sorbet. DIY RIBBON I love making DIY embellies, and ribbon is at the top of my list! It's so easy to grab any old white ribbon you have laying around, and add a spritz of color with a mister , or add stripes of watercolor, or marker strokes, like I did here. I used my Spectrum Noir markers for this delicious color ...

Very excited to share another His and Hers installment today. And so far, it seems this tradition is keeping up, so I'll be sharing for as long as I can. Or should I better say, as long as he still doesn't mind dipping into art supplies with me? :) Today's cards are a colorful take on us both playing with some markers. We spent a little bit of time the other day coloring and just doodling. What do you all think?! To make both cards, we used Spectrum Noir markers. All of sets are particularly lovely, but this is a well-rounded one in terms of soft, muted colors, to which I've added a variety of other bolder shades. It helps having a variety of colors to extend out my rainbow. I thought it might be helpful to quickly add in our two-cents about these markers with a mini review! SPECTRUM NOIR MARKER REVIEW If you're wondering about the quality of these markers,  or if you're looking to compare them to other alcohol markers, here are the top 4 things we found: - We ...

Hi Friends! Today I have a fun and colorful card featuring my favorite new favorite Pinkfresh stamps - Fleur 1 . I featured them on Monday Favorites just last week, and it's been such a blast playing with this super gorgeous set. I hope I'm not boring you all - but when there are sooo many possibilities with such a prettily designed set, it's hard to put it away! For this card, I really wanted to play up the delicate nature of the sweet floral designs in the set. I've loved stamping them and coloring them, but something about white on vellum seems just so perfect to me with this beautiful style of flowers. They are so dainty and detailed, and I really think they look like the sweetest, finest lace.  I also wanted to make the background colorful and modern, so as to gjve the white details a bit more pop - kind of loving the contrast of bold and colorful against soft and sweet. I blended a few PTI ink colors with some Distress ink colors to achieve the rainbow effect on ...

Hi Friends!  Today, I'm sharing a sneak peek into my next Monday Favorites feature. I'll be showcasing a few of my recent favorite stamps, including the beautiful Floral Frame stamp set from Aletenew. It's stolen my heart. Big time!  To start this card, I used the sweet rose clusters from the stamp set to make an oval frame. It took only a stamp on each corner to get it to look this intricate! Love it when stamps make it easy like that.  I stamped the images with PTI's Soft Stone ink so that I could do a little bit of no-line watercoloring.   To color the flowers, I used a variety of watercolors, starting with one of my favorite inexpensive palettes , followed by a bit of intense color added with my Zig markers . I really like the mix of these two types of colors - it gives the image such a nice depth.  At the center of my card, I added a gold puffy sticker wreath, with a few dashes of white paint and some silver rhinestones.  At the center I stamped...

I'm back with yet another floral card inspired by Pinkfresh Studio.  On Monday, I shared my Monday Favorites, and this set is definitely at the very tippy top of the list, so I thought I'd pop in and show another take on these pretty florals.  For today's card I was inspired by some beautiful floral fabrics I've been spotting lately.  I wanted to infuse a floral look that was fresh, modern and fun, without being too stuffy, so that I could do a little bit of beadwork for the focal piece.  I'm so in love with how this turned out - and it reminds me so much of a really pretty floral dress I love and wear all the time. It's so fun being inspired by everyday items and working that style into papercrafting :) To start the card, I stamped a flower on each corner of the card, followed by the branch design on each side, to make the pretty leaves touch in the middle. I believe this whole design took 10 impressions to make! So quick and simple.  After stamping the flower...

Morning! Today I have a very glittery, shimmery card to share.  I've been dipping into a few different mediums lately, and glitter has been at the top of my list! I was on the lookout for an ultra versatile sparkle that could work with a lot of different colors, and after heaps of searching, I found one I absolutely love. Today's card features sparkly bits with this new fave as well as favorite stamps from  Wplus9  and  Pinkfresh . To start this card, I used Wplus9's Southern Summer Florals 1 . I've seen piles and piles of gorgeous cards created with this lovely set - check out a few here . But I wanted to try something a little different, so I stamped a floral cluster onto my cardstock base, with PTI's water-based inks, using colors of Pinefeather, Hawaiian Shores, Tropical Teal, Hibiscus Burst, Raspberry Fizz, Lovely Lady, Blueberry Sky and Enchanted Evening.  And stamping all the bits, I used a water brush to gently go over all the designs, to give them a mut...

Hey friends! Double the fun today! It's my birthday, and it's also time for another installment of Monday Favorites!  So excited to share because for my Birthday, I received a shower of stamps from my sweet hunny! I've played with a few of these already so they've been on my list for a while, and I was sooo excited to open my bday gift and see these! I tell ya - feeling pretty spoiled. I don't even know how he pulled this off - because I was tracking these goodies in my cart. No note, no dropping hints...nada! Ok maybe just on the blog...:) Sneaky, sneaky, he is. But oh-so-incredibly-thoughtful!  Obvs these are current favorites so I'm sharing them with you all!  Here they are. Altenew - Bamboo Rose Pinkfresh Sweet Treats stamps   And  dies . You can see a card made with this set  here  and  here . Pinkfresh - Fleur 1 . I am itching to ink these up and play with a bit of watercolor. You can see newer cards I've made with these here , here , and he...