May You Find Comfort

Time for more sympathy.  It's always hard to come up with so many sympathy cards each month.  I am happy to do it for the nursing home to give out but the reason why is difficult.  I have been putting it off all week and now the deadline is up. 

Here is what I finally came up with today.

I ended up making 5 of these sympathy sunset cards.  

To make this card, I used 4 different stamp sets.  A Stampin Up set "High Tide",  a Stampendous Set "Seaside Chair",  Sheena Douglas set "A Little Bit Scenic" and another set from long long ago that I do not know the name of.  The Misti really helps getting several cards of the same done in record time.  I did my usual to get the sunset look...sponged the ink on.  

With the cards delivered, I can now go back to getting birthday cards done.

Thank you for visiting!

Manetta

Lighthouse

Two stamping sets.

Two versions. 

Two different reasons.

One day of inky fingers and fun!

Hope you are enjoying your day with a little crafting time!

Netta

Dies That Traveled Far

I got several dies on Amazon that traveled from China... dirt cheap and free shipping.  They arrived several weeks ago and I had not tried them out yet.  Yesterday, I decided to sit down and use some of them.  

I must admit, they cut excellent and I rarely had to poke any pieces out after.  Most of them fell right out.  If you are like me...I dislike dies that are time consuming.  

Here are some of the dies.  I have a few more which I hope to use soon!

Celebrate card has two new dies used.  The stitched square and green leaves. 

 I used the butterfly square for the Birthday Wishes card.  It was a scrap piece of paper I had experimented on with water colors. 

 I think this palm tree with the person laying in a hammock is my favorite die out of the bunch (so far).  Again for this card I used a background that went wrong.  I was able to salvage it by cutting it down for this card.  You see the birds?  That is a die that came with the hammock die.  I almost threw it away thinking it was a piece of left over metal!  It is so tiny so if you buy this one...watch out for the little guy!

 This peacock card also used up some scraps.  I glued the peacock onto some sparkly cardstock.  I fussy cut all around the peacock so the feathers showed the sparkly purple.

To be able to play again is so much fun!  I missed it!

Thank you for stopping by and have a wonderful craft day.

Netta

Sympathy Sunset

One of my favorite stamps from Impression Obsession is called Trees and Lake.  I have used it for birthday cards before and this time it is a sympathy card.  The tree stamp was inked with Stampin Up Basic Black.  I used distress inks and sponges to create the sunset.

These two cards were easy but one of them was also the hardest.   One of the cards will go to a very close family friend, Jeff.   Jeff lost one of his sons a couple of years ago and on Friday, he lost his last remaining son to a car crash.  Both sons were very young and both were lost suddenly.  To top it all off, on Saturday his wife had a heart attack and is in the hospital.  I can't imagine the stress and what they are going through right now.  My heart goes out to them both. 

Manetta

Sunset Birthday

I am not sure why I have not used the Tim Holtz Distress inks much but after creating this sunset birthday card, I will!  The colors are so vivid and bright!  I used the colors Barn Door, Faded Jeans and Wild honey to create this card.  

Popping this card into the mail for a special someone today!

Today is my crafting day so back to more fun.

See you soon!

Sparkling Winter Night Sky

Time to make a Christmas Card for "Only Christmas Card".   Last weekend I went to a craft yard sale and picked up the Stampin' Up "To You and Yours Too".  I made this card using two of the stamps from it.  It's always a challenge for me to get a snowy sky until I discovered this technique. 

To make the snowy sky, drop a few drops of liquid glue (I used the multi mono liquid glue) onto a plastic lid.  Add a couple of drops of water into it and mix it up with a paint brush.  Now using your finger, tap the brush against it so the glue will splatter all over the paper.  If it does not splatter well, add more water to your glue.  Careful not to strike your paint brush against Your finger too hard as that will cause too much glue to splatter.  Also, I did not hold my finger directly over the top of the image so when I tapped the paintbrush against it, the glue went out and forward onto the image.  Protect your area around the image and also cover your image if you do not want snow on it  because it will also splatter all around!  *S*

I tried to get a picture of what I was doing so you get the idea.  Do you know how hard it is to hold a camera and take a photo when you need both hands in the picture?  lol  I finally figured out I could use my ipad to take the photo for you!

 After you get enough glue splatters and your happy, sprinkle fine glitter over the top and knock off the extra by tapping on the back of the cardstock.  You will see you now have the prettiest sparkling snow falling scenery.  

This was my first attempt at it and I could see a couple of globs on it but it was an easy fix by putting the banner across it with the sentiment stamped on it.  I will get better with more practise.  

If you have a Misti and you are doing a black image like my card has...USE IT!!!  Complete black images are hard to get a nice solid black image on the first attempt.  Many use a black marker after but I have tried that.  It will work but for me...I still say you can see the difference.  I used the misti because you can just ink your image back up and re-stamp over.   That tiny deer has antlers....without a Misti...that is going to be hard to match back up and re-stamp otherwise.  

To see more how to make the card...head over to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21Q7e4oQ6aA

I am submitting this to:

Only Christmas Card Week # 19 Challenge

F & M Challenge Color Wheel Challenge

Thank you for stopping by.  It is time for me to head out and enjoy the Florida sun and the pool!  Until later.....

 

*Update*

Nominated for Outlaws Twisted Thursday 5/28/2016

Feather and Negative Space Scene

Another sympathy card done.  

I used a die called Feathers on the Wind by Spellbinders to cut a negative space in the white cardstock.  The piece I cut out and one other feather was sprayed with blue Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist.  While that was drying I also sprayed a mat with same color and along the edge of the negative space background.  

 One of the stamps from Crafter's Companion Luscious Landscapes, was stamped on a piece of white cardstock.  I just swiped with sponge across the image with Stampin Up ink colors So Saffron, Pumpkin Pie and Tempting Turquoise.  I glued the part of the scene that I wanted behind the negative space and cut the rest off.  Everything was glued down together.

Thank you for stopping by!  I am off to create some more!  Have a good crafty day.

Spotlight Sunset

Many of you probably remember the technique called Spotlighting.  It is a great card technique when time is short and you need a special card.   It is also a perfect way to color an image where the details are too tiny on the image.

One way is to stamp the image on your cardstock.  Cut out a frame and place it down on top of your image, coloring only inside the frame.  It's fun if you place the frame at different angles.  Make sure you glue the frame down first before you color!

The other way is to stamp the image twice.  Once on the card itself and the other image is on a white cardstock.  You can use a nestability to cut out what part you want to color on the image.  You color the piece you cut out and glue it down on top of the image or pop it up with pop dots.  Now cut a frame out of coordinating cardstock and glue that down over the section you colored.  This is the way that I did my cards except I did not pop them up.

These make great masculine cards!  
Enjoy....
Netta

May the Wind Always Be At Your Back...

My brother loves to ride and does so at every moment.  I knew I needed to make him a birthday card about riding.  I found a free digital image online and it was perfect although I had no idea what the rest of the card would be! 

It took me a couple of quick image prints to get the correct size for the A2 size card I wanted to make.  I got a photo of him by his bike for all the colors and colored the image with my touch markers.  After I was done, I cut the image out.  The image had hair but I hand cut out a bandana  & glued it down on the head like he wears it.  I also put his initials on the pocket of the jacket. With my favorite white pen, I created the beard he has in the picture.  With pop dots stuck to the back of the image and I set it off to the side.  

Not sure why I could not get a good picture but the brown on the bike is actual silver and the grayish is actually black!

I grabbed a couple of stamps, sponges, ink and scrap paper to create the background.  

If you look at the photos, you can see where I even made reflection of the weeds in the water.  To make the reflection, I stamped with the blue on the back of a piece of plastic.  Because the plastic is so slippery, I pressed the image down very carefully onto the water but opposite of the weeds. 

The cardstock was folded to form an A2 Easel Card.  I matted the background on black and glued it down onto the Easel card.  The biker was stuck down on the background.  

 It looked funny with a biker standing in front of water, so I sponged black along the bottom to look like dirt.  To continue the land out from the water edge, I made the rest look like a highway and a great scenery for a biker to stop and rest!

 I had some yellow tape that I layered on black paper to make a road.  The words were printed out with my Cricut and sponged with ink to look the background.

I had one issue....Somehow, even with measuring, I stamped the Happy Birthday too low, but I still think it came out well!  

I know he will enjoy receiving the card just as much I enjoyed making it for him.  

*Happy Birthday Big Brother*

*S*

Netta

So Sorry Sunsets

 *SIGH*  Some cards are difficult to make.  I love to create...don't get me wrong!  It is the reason for the card that gets to me.  

These cards are to go to the local nursing home that I donate too.   Seems more sympathy cards are needed to send to the family members when they lose someone at the nursing home.  =(

At least my cards them feel a little bit better as it is combined with a personal note.

I used a circle Nestabilty taped down onto my cardstock so that I could sponge the ink in a perfect circle.  

(shhhhhh.....don't say anything but I always use the painters blue tape which I stole from my husbands workbench LOL.)  

 I love it as it holds very well yet is not too sticky to make it hard to remove after.  Also, I can use it several times before I have to throw it away.  

After I was done inking, I removed the circle, stamped the image and the "So Sorry" with black Momento ink.  Each card was basically done the same way but different..if that makes sense lol.

I hope you take time to look around.  You never know!  You might find something interesting!  

thank you

Netta

So Serene

I discovered if I used Core'dinations Black Magic Collection cardstock and an embossing folder with my cuttlebug, the color on the backside popped through the front.  It is the cardstock that you can sand or tear it and the secondary color will show through but this way I did not have to sand it. The Stamping Up Elegant Lines Textured Impressions Embossing folder is what I used is to create my background. I used three colors with a sponge to create the sunset and a rubber stamp from the Stamping Up set Inspired by Nature for the cattails.  To make the cattails, I used a punch (I believe has been retired from Stamping Up) to punch out the cattails and glued them down. 

A nice serene card!

Manetta 

Stamping on Sunset Photos!

Easy...Pretty...Quick

I love it!  

To review how to stamp on photos...please go to this post Photo Stamping

*S*

Manetta

Sunset Postcards

I was able to create 7 of this A2 size postcards in one evening. They were to be attached to the top of 7 baskets of cookies to hand out for a business. 

I used a piece of scrap cardstock to protect the sky area while I sponged on the water section. I flipped the scrap cardstock over to protect the water section and sponged on the sky.  After I just stamped the Impression Obsession boat scene on top with black ink.

I may make more and use them on top of a regular card!

Manetta

More Sympathy...coming up...

Two more for my husband! They were actually backgrounds I made and didn't like. But like all mistakes....I throw them into a container knowing some day I might find a use for them.

Typically I end up liking them!

Thank you for stopping by

Manetta

More Photo Stamping

Wanted to share a couple more photo cards that I did. These required 5 stamps each.

thank you for looking!

Netta

Photo Stamping

This is a very easy technique but one I have wanted to try for a long time. I recently read an article at Stampers Quest and it gave me the inspiration to give it a try.

Stamping on Photos

I love taking photos of scenery so this techinque is right up my ally!

Find a nice sunset...find a nice stamp...stamp and voila! Your done the hard part!

In the photo above...I wanted to show you how you can actually turn a photo upside down and get a different view. I was able to stamp and get two cards out of one picture using the same stamp.

  Play around....and have fun! thanks for stopping by.. Netta

Sympathy Flowers in Sunset

Sympathy card done the Michelle Zindorf way........sort of

The rubber stamps of flowers and the background grass that I used is a Stamping Up set called Inspire by Nature. I used Stamping Up markers to color the flowers-Yoyo Yellow and Chocolate Chip. After stamping the flowers on Stamping Up whisper white cardstock, I re-colored over the images with a VersaMarker and embossed them with clear fine detail embossing powder.

For the sunset..I tried once again to brayer the background. No matter what I do...I cannot get the brayering method that Michelle uses down correctly so I end up sponging all my colors on the cardstock for the sunset. Before I used the darker colors, I temporarily glued down a circle mask for the sun. After all the sunset colors were done, I stamped the grass with brown and wiped it off the flowers. I did not have cardstock to match the ink colors in the sunset so I used brayer on white cardstock in the two colors that I needed to mat the sunset on.

Sunset Ink colors: Stamping Up Apricot Appeal,Pumpkinie,Real Red, Barely Banana, Really Rust & Black

For the green background I had some left over green paper that I used up. The sentiment came from the set Sympathy Sentiments. I stamped another set of flowers and cut one out for an additional flower.

Sunset Fairy

This card was an experiment which I think turned out ok. I stamped and embossed the trees and fairy with clear embossing powder after coloring them with SU markers. Used a circle mask to make the moon while I used sponges to sponge the sunset. I used part of a stamp to make the whispy grass and sponged brown to make the ground. Supplies *All SU ink *Ribbon unknown *Cardstock unknown * Fairy Art Stamps: Natasha *Trees unknown