Laces and pearls

What could be more feminine than laces and pearls?!?! I just love adding pearls to cards – and I so not like adding them to myself! Left to myself all my cards would be loaded with pearls. So I was doing a happy dance when I figured that it was time to make an out and out girly card. That meant I could go crazy with my pearls! Like all CAS cards, this was a quickie to make but it took a long time to design it! I’m so happy with how it turned out!

I stamped the doilies in Camelia and Violet. Printed the sentiment using the computer – yes *after* stamping it Then added liquid pearls to center of red doilies and adhesive pearls to the center of violet doilies. That’s it – TA DA!

Oh and I’m deep down into making stuff for my holiday craft fairs. So I figured I wouldn’t be able to keep up with the rhythm of Simply Sketches. Instead for every card I post I’ll post the corresponding sketch.

• Stamps: Maya Road Doilies stamp set
• Paper: PTI white
• Others: Versamark Camelia and Violet, Liquid Pearls, Adhesive pearls.

P.S. – I’ll be updating the sketch book soon!

Simply Sketches #12

I really like the sketch for this week – it turned out to be so different! Here’s my sample:

I stamped the card base with Polka Dots stamp in black. Rounded two opposite corners of the card base. Cut a circle using nestabilities and stamped the sentiment on it. Stamped the flower twice each on Berry Sorbet and plum pudding. Colored them with Prismacolor pencils. Adhered the circle to the center of the card base and the flowers on top of the circle. Mounted two of the flowers on pop dots. Simple!

• Stamps: Hero Arts Blossom Arts, Hero Arts Framed messages, CHF Polka dots
• Paper: Papertrey Ink Lemon tart, Plum Pudding and Berry Sorbet
• Others: Prismacolor pencils, Brilliance Black ink, Corner Rounder.

Simply Sketches #11

Onto the next version of Simply Sketches!!

I think I’ve collected enough evidence to prove that the simpler the card the more time it takes for me to design it! For this card I knew the elements I wanted to use- a bird holding a note; I wanted it to be suitable for the men in our life and I wanted it to be as white as possible. Well I guess I put just too many restrictions on one little card! I think (gasp! after two days of designing it *all* I can say is think) I like the way it turned out…

I stamped the bird with brilliance black ink on white CS. Colored it with Prismacolor pencils. Filled up the gaps in black ink with a black marker – so that the black in the image was rich. Printed the sentiment on white CS using my computer. Cut it out and adhered to the card base. Popped up the bird on foam dots and glued the beak to the note so that it looked like the bird was carrying the note in its beak.

• Stamp: Inkadinkado Patterned birds and bugs
• Paper: Papertrey Ink White CS
• Others: Prismacolor pencils, foam dots

Simply Sketches #10

This week’s sketch is super simple and hope you love it as much as I do!

I realized that I neither have any manly card nor any general occasion like all the best, farewell, etc in my stash. Thus whenever a non-birthday occasion comes up and I want a card – there’s none! So I’m going to try make cards to fill those needs. It’s so so so hard to make a masculine card!!! I find it so much easier to make a girly one – coz I love to add glitter, pearls and flowers! You can imagine how hard my life’s going to be for the next few days/months/etc – however long it takes to add variety to my pile!

I was at a loss of ideas for manly cards so I decided to take some inspiration from a photo.

source: apartment therapy

Argyle is my favorite!! My DH says that I’m a walking advertisement for Argyle! And nothing says a man better than a nice argyle pattern! So there I’d my design! I *love* how my card turned out!!

I cut the diamonds using Cricut and SCAL. It’s probably not easily visible but the diamonds in between blue and green is cut from Soft Stone CS. Are you wondering how I made all those lines? I hand dotted that line! Yes, unbelievable but I did and it’s so totally worth it looking at the card. Maybe I could’ve made my work easier by drawing a solid line instead of a dotted one but you know what – I don’t think it would’ve been the same! Then I cut the happy using the vladimir script just like here and used the “for you” part of a sentiment from the “Cuckoo” Hero Arts stamp set on vellum. Attached the vellum to the card base using brads.

• Stamps: Hero Arts Cuckoo
• Paper: Papertrey Ink white, New Leaf, Enchanted Evening and Soft Stone
• Others: vellum, brads, brilliance in, black pen, cricut, scal

Simply Sketches #9

Winner of Simply Sketches #8 is Neha! Congratulations Neha! Your glitters will be on the way to you very soon!

Sketch for this week:

Why do simple cards take soooo long?!?!? It took me one ruined card and some more minutes to reach to this card! It looks so much better IRL. I especially like the way “you” came out. I looked for fonts and fonts and more fonts till I was satisfied with this! Since I’d seen the Papertrey dies for Wonderful words I ‘d been planning to try out something similar with my Cricut! Love how it turned out!

I embossed the circle using the Nestabilities Circle die. Masked the circle using a die-cut and stamped the polka dot background (had to use my new stamp !) with versamark. Using the negative mask I stamped the flowers and leaves. Cut out “you” on Cricut. I used the Vladimir font. Stamped the sentiment in black.

• Stamps: Hero Arts Blossom Art, Hero Arts Frames and messages
• Paper: Papertrey Spring Moss, Enchanted evening
• Others': Versacolor inks, Versamark, Cricut, SCAL

If you use the sketch to make a card, please leave me a link and I would love to see your creation!

Simply Sketches #8

First things first – the random number drawn of Simply Sketches #7 is

4. Neha

Congratulations Neha!! Please send me your address and I’ll have the glitter in the mail for you!

Coming to this week’s sketch:

and my sample:

The image is stamped in Brilliance black and colored with Prismacolor pencils and OMS. Adhered the trims to Lavender moon CS and stamped the sentiment in Brilliance black. Glued the image to the card base using pop dots and covered it with glitter! Easy-peasy!

The giveaway for this time: 3 vials of Martha Stewart Tinsel Glitter!

Rules for the giveaway:

1. Create a card using the sketch above and post it on your blog/gallery between July 18-30. Yes you have almost two weeks!
   
2. In your blog/gallery post, provide a link to this blog post.
   
3. Add a link to your post (not to your gallery/blog but the exact post) in Mr Linky.

Supplies used:

• Stamps: Inkadinkado baby animals, Flourishes Flourished Words
  
• Paper: Papertrey Ink Lavender moon, White
  
• Others: Prismacolor pencils, OMS, Diamond stickles, trim, Brilliance black ink.

Simply Sketches #7 + a giveaway!

Here’s the 7th sketch in the simply sketches series! I’m having a lot of fun designing these sketches – they prevent me from getting into a rut! Without these I’m sure I would be following the same sketch for weeks. It’s like that for me. Once I like a particular sketch or color combo I keep using that again and again and again… Anyway coming down to the sketch, here it is:

and my sample…

Apart from the change in sketches I’m also making myself use new colors. So I decided that come what may I’m going to use the green CS. Trust me it was SO hard to figure out what colors would go with it and how to make it alive.
I created the border template in SCAL and cut it with my cricut using Ocean Tides CS. Stamped the small doilies in palette black on it. Cut circles with SCAL and Cricut using Terracota tile CS. Stamped the medium doilies on it with Versamark and embossed in white embossing powder. Adhered them to the border using foam dots. Scored two lines towards the bottom of the card base and a little above. Stamped the flourish using Versamark. Adhered the border to the card base. Stamped the sentiment in Brilliance black. Adhered rhinestones to the center of the doilies.
Tips:

• I found that with detailed images like the small doilies palette black works better than Brilliance black. The latter being too juicy obscures the details.
• I didn’t have the matching rhinestones so I colored them using sharpies in orange and dark green and voila! I had matching rhinestones!

• Stamps: Maya Road doilies, Hero Arts Framed Messages (flourish), Studio G (Sentiment)
• Paper: Papertrey Ocean Tides, Terracotta Tile, Pine Feather
• Others: Cricut, SCAL, Rhinestones, Foam dots, Sharpies

Giveaway
Now for the giveaway , I’m giving away these 3 vials of Martha Stewart Tinsel Glitter. The colors are – crystal, garnet and fire opal.

To be entered into the giveaway, you have to:

1. Create a card using the sketch above and post it on your blog/gallery July 4-16. Yes you have almost two weeks!
2. In your blog/gallery post, provide a link to this blog post.
3. Add a link to your post (not to your gallery/blog but the exact post) in Mr Linky

The giveaway is open to all! So fire off your creativity!

Simply Sketches #6

This sketch came to me by total serendipity and my sample made me very happy!

To be honest I prepared the inner panel and was going to stick it parallel to the base. I simply laid the panel on top of the base diagonally while I prepared to glue them together and I realized that it looked better than in parallel!

I cut the burgundy CS 4.25 X 5.5 inches. Stamped the flowers in versamark. Embossed them with white embossing powder. Colored them with prismacolor pencils. Colored the centers with white gel pen. Adhered a pearl on the centers and embellised the petal with Stardust stickles. Put the burgundy CS on the base diagonally. Glued them and then cut off the burgundy CS that was sticking out.

• Stamps: Hero Arts Blossom Art
• Paper: Papertrey Orange, Burgundy
• Others: Prismacolor pencils, White gel pen, adhesive pearls, ribbon from Michaels, Starduct Stickles

Simply Sketches #4

I’m so glad that I started doing these sketches – it challenges me to think differently every time and come up with new layouts!

Here’s the new sketch – simple and sweet!

and my sample – it came out just like I’d envisioned, if not better! I love when that happens

I cut out 1.75 inches wide strips from Hawaiian Shores, Simply Chartreuse (unknowingly it turns out this is my go-to color!), Lemon tart and Summer Sunrise. Punched them using Doily lace punch. Glued them to the card base. Tied a ribbon on top of Hawaiian shores. Dotted the centers of the punched strips with liquid pearls. Stamped the sentiment in Brilliance black.

If you make a card using this sketch, I would love to see it! So please do leave me a comment with the link. Thank you!

• Stamps: Hero Arts Framed Messages
• Paper: PapetreyInk Hawaiian Shores, Simply Chartreuse, Lemon Tart, Summer Sunrise, Smokey Shadow
• Others: ribbon from Michaels, Liquid Pearls, Brilliance black.

Simply Sketches #3

Sorry for the delay in posting the next round of Simply Sketches. There were just too many things going on at my end.

Here’s the new sketch – simple!

It wasn’t as simple as this when it started. It took me almost an hour to figure out what stamp and layout I wanted to go with. Has it ever happened to you that the stamp that you pre-determined the stamp that you wanted to use but not a single layout nor the colors that come to your mind are suitable for that stamp?!?! They fit every other stamp except the one that you want! Exactly that happened to me and the tussle went on for an hour till I gave up and changed the stamp!

This is my sample:

I stamped the flower and the leaf with Versamark on Raspberry pink and Simply Chartreuse. Then heat embossed them in white. Cut them  out. Adhered them to the card. I cut out the center pink oval from the bottom pink flower – since it would anyway not be visible! Dotted the stamen with liquid pearls. Stamped the sentiment in versamark and embossed it with clear embossing powder.

• Stamps: Hero Arts Blossom Art, Studio G sentiment
• Paper: Papertrey Ink Raspberry pink, Simply Chartreuse, Chocolate brown
• Others: White embossing powder, clear embossing powder, liquid pearls.

Simply Sketches #2

Here I am with the second round of Simply Sketches!

For my sample I wanted this thick and thin stripes, I don’t know if there’s an official word for it. They’re so popular these days, I saw them on some outdoor cushions on the pottery barn website and several other places. To me they looked perfect for a masculine card!

I cut 4 stripes from Lemon Tart with width – 1”, 3/4”, 1/2” and 1/4”. Then glued them to the Enchanted Evening base. The good thing about this pattern is that you can place them randomly – no measurements required. I cut a frame from white CS using Cricut and SCAL. Printed the sentiment on it using computer and adhered it using foam dots. The printing didn’t come out really perfect.

You can download the SVG file for the frame here. As usual, do not sell the file.

• Paper: Papertrey Enchanted Evening, Lemon Tart, White
• Others: Cricut and SCAL.

Introducing Simply Sketches – Simply Sketches #1

I loved the sketches from WMS sketch challenges – they were so simple. Hence so conducive for CAS as well as non-CAS cards. However recently they changed their policy such that a challenge entry must have at least one WMS image. Unfortunately for me I don’t own any WMS stamps . I do love them but I haven’t gotten down to that part of my wish list yet. Thus I could no longer participate in them. Since there seemed to be no other sketch challenge which had simple sketches I decided to create my own sketches.

I thought that there might be others who were in the same boat as I am and could benefit from these sketches. So I would post every sketch I create along with my sample. The sketch would be posted every Monday. Let’s hope I can follow that schedule If you were inspired by my sketch and created a card I would love to see it. So please do leave me a comment with a link to your card. Your card doesn’t have to be CAS. You can use the same sketch in various ways:

1. Rotate the sketch.
2. Take it’s mirror image.
3. Stretch or shrink it’s elements. Try not to do that to an extent that the basic layout of the sketch is lost.
4. Any other way you can think of.

Here’s the first sketch and my sample:

I made a set of thank you cards using this sketch. This is also my entry to Hero Arts Fabulous Flowers contest.

I stamped the flower in versamark on vellum. Then embossed it in white embossing powder. Added some Diamond stickles to the petals and dotted the center with liquid pearls. The background was created by taking together some thank you sentiments and stamping them repeatedly using Versamark.

• Stamps: Hero Arts Blossom Art, Inkadinkado Thanks
• Paper: Papertrey Enchanted Evening, Berry Sorbet, Plum Pudding, Ripe Avocado, Orange zest
• Others: Vellum, white embossing powder, Diamond stickles, Liquid pearls.