Fluttering By

I've been thinking about using this stamp set for quite some time now, I got the inspiration to color it from the Spring/Summer 2014 Idea Book. This is a very simple card, very quick and fairly easy to do. I just knocked my socks off coloring and experimenting on the new set of Tim Holtz distress markers I just got so I got a bit carried away.

A2 standard size card. The base is kraft using Recollections, and for the layer I used Neenah Natural White card stock, stamped the tree, butterflies and sentiment all from the A Tree stamp set. This has got to be one of the cutest stamp sets I've used. I really had so much fun coloring in the tree. I stamped the tree using Memento Rich Cocoa ink, and the butterflies are a mix of Gypsy, Buttercup, Sunset, Cotton Candy, Lagoon and Sweet Leaf inks. The designs inside the tree I colored using random Tim Holtz Distress Markers and Spectrum Noirs. I just wanted it to pop and be colorful

The grass was cut using Lawn Fawn dies. I believe it's called Grassy Borders. It was one of my 'steals' at the recent Scrapbook expo. Buy 3 get 1 free. So, I cut more than 1 grass border and layered them on top of each other to give it a more dimensional look. The paper I used for the grass is from Bazzill, not sure of the color since I'm using a stack of 6x6.

My last attempt to make the card pop was to add the Wink of Stella glitter. I saw the demo at the Scrapbook Expo and these Wink of Stella Glitter brushes looked so cool while I was being demo'd. The glitter effect really made the artwork pop. However, when I tried it here, I somehow got disappointed with the turnout. First of all I wanted to add glitter to some parts of the tree, so I brushed some clear glitter on it. Then I wanted to make the butterflies really pop with glitter so I was a bit more generous with it. Well this morning when I woke up and it had time to dry, I saw that it had sort of white-out my ink colors. As you can see, the butterflies now have a two-tone layer kind of look. Not so bad actually, especially since you can see the glitter up close, but it wasn't exactly the look I had originally in mind. Either way it turned out fine, but still a lesson learned for me. Either I brushed too much glitter on to it, or I should just but all these colored brushes. I just got the white one to try out, and at the time seemed more reasonable given it costs about $6-8 a pen. Luckly I was able to get my at Jo-Ann's for $3.89! By the way, side note, the lady who demo'd this product says if it starts to get a bit dry, just unscrew and put a couple of drops of water and shake, and voila! It'll be good as new!

My last addition to the card was to sponge a tiny bit of sky color to it using Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Peacock Feathers, and I mixed in a bit of CTMH Sky Ink. The Peacock Feather was a bit strong, so I added in the CTMH Sky to kind of even it out. I wasn't too generous as I didn't want it to take the look away from the colorful tree. Oh and I also rounded the top corners to finish off the card.

Hope you guys like it!

And here is the stamp set I used.

A1124 A Tree

Hello Wonderful..Happy Place

This month's stamp of the month is Happy Place. I just love this stamp set! Isn't it just adorable? Add to that I love coloring! I will be honest, it took awhile to color it, but maybe because I was coloring multiple images at the same time. I stamped different images and tried different colors until I found the one I liked.

I could have probably made 4 cards out of the images I stamped but for now, here are the 2 cards I made. Note that this is my first time to actually stitch on a card. I just got my stitch guide last week and I'm using it for the first time. Boy was it a challenge! Maybe I will get better if I do it more often. But it sure did take up as much time as it did coloring to get the stitches in, and it's not perfect. For that I apologize.

For my first card I used retired paper Claire on a Recollections tan cardstock. I stamped the Russian doll image and colored it using my Spectrum Noir markers. I used a mix of Pinks, Oranges, Turquoise and Tan markers. Sorry I can't name the specific marker numbers as I was winging it. I was trying to find the right combination of orange and turquoise so  I was experimenting as I color. The sentiment is from the stamp set  Hello Wonderful and is available on my site.

My second card also uses the Claire paper, this time I used the 3 tiny Russian doll images instead. The sentiment came from the same Happy Place stamp set and the whole thing is layered using a Recollections plain purple cardstock. The images were also colored using my Spectrum Noirs.

Don't you just love this stamp set? Especially if you love to color like I do. If you want to get your hands on this Stamp of the Month, all you need is to shop $50 worth of Close to My Heart goodies and this Happy Place stamp set can be yours for just $5! 

Take a look at what else you can do with it. I'm in love with this set and I can't wait to create other stuff with it. I have that journal box that's just sitting there in plain white waiting for me to dress it up!

S1403 March SOTM