Hydrangeas

Hello! Today I have a springy card for you.

I am very ready for warmer weather and to be outside more! This image is called J116 Hydrangeas and I used Faber Castell Polychromos pencils to color the image in with. I love the butterflies that are a part of the image.

I hope this inspires you to make something to beckon spring!

 Come and join our monthly challenge!  If you use a stamp from the Great Impressions online store, please link it up in our Customer Gallery, too! 

Autumn Squirrel

Just wanted to share my latest coloring with you. This is from the Johanna Basford Enchanted Forest. I used Faber Castell Polychromos pencils and Lyra Rembrandt Polycolor pencils. I really enjoyed this one! What do you think?

Winter Friends

Hello! Today we have one last stamp set to share with you from Inspired By Stamping called Winter Friends! It is such a sweet stamp set that can be used all year and for various occasions. Here's a look:

I started by stamping and coloring the adorable bunny and deer as I knew I wanted to have the bunny give the deer a present. I used Faber Castell Polychromos pencils for my coloring. I trimmed them out and added the tree as part of the scene. The bow and sentiment are from the new Festive Greetings set. I heat embossed the sentiment using Zing! silver glitter powder. I die cut the hills and added a bit more Versamark ink to the top of one of the hills to heat emboss some snow.

Here's a better look at all that shine! I dry embossed the background and added some sequins to finish it off. Be sure to hop on over to the IBS blog to see what the rest of the DT designed and be entered to win a prize :)

*Winter Friends

*Festive Greetings

Inspired By Stamping Release! Big Sympathy

Hello everyone! What a fun week we have in store for you with the new Inspired By Stamping release! Today we start with a beautiful sentiment set that is perfect for those hard to make sympathy cards. Here is a look at the set.

Here is my card:

I chose to pair the lovely sentiments with the Tulip Bouquet stamp set. I stamped the lovely flowers onto a die cut using Fancy Labels 2. I heat embossed the sentiment from Big Sympathy in white on a strip of black cardstock. The flowers I colored with Faber Castell Polychromos pencils. 

I added a bit of twine to the bow and a few sequins to finish it off. Be sure to hop around to the rest of the DT to see what other gorgeous creations they've made!

*Big Sympathy

*Tulip Bouquet

*Fancy Labels 2

Four Season's Toadstool

Hello! I wanted to share a recent coloring page from the Enchanted Forest book by Johanna Basford that I added hand drawn elements to and then colored. I am part of a wonderful FB group called Inky Obsession and they had a fun competition using this image with the theme being "seasons". I decided to go for all four :)

I was so surprised to discover that I was chosen as the winner of the competition! There were so many beautiful entries and I am so inspired by everyone's coloring on that group. I had a lot of fun with this and hope you like it too. Thanks for dropping by:)

Watercolor and Salt Background

Hello stamping friends! Today I have a fun and simple technique to share with you using watercolor and salt to make a pretty and unique background.I'll also be using Inspired By Stamping products. Let's get started!

You'll need some watercolors, a paint brush, clean water, salt and watercolor paper. You start by painting a background with colors of your choosing getting your watercolor paper fairly wet.

While your paper is  still wet you sprinkle on some salt. You can now either set it to the side to dry completely or speed up the process with a heat gun. Once your paper is dry gently rub off the salt. You will be left with a subtle stippling effect.

Here is a look at the neat texture the salt creates. The salt absorbs the water and the pigment leaving behind this pretty texture and effect. Now you choose some stamps and create a card!

For my card I chose to use the beautiful Seaside and Seaside Sentiments stamp sets. I stamped everything using Versafine Onyx Black ink. For my ground, lighthouse and light rays I used Faber Castell Polychromos pencils and blended with odorless mineral spirits (OMS).

I finished it with some machine stitching and the little banners cut from the large two ended banner from Fancy Labels 3.

I hope you'll give this technique a try if you haven't! It's simple but gives such pretty results that will be a little different each time. Thanks for joining me today!

Seaside

Seaside Sentiments

Fancy Labels 3 Dies

IBSIC #98

Hello! Today I have a card to share with you using the new IBSIC challenge for Inspired By Stamping. You can choose one, two or all of the inspirations photos for your project. I chose the sketch and a few sequins.

Here is my card:

I did a bit of masking to get my bird where I wanted it but I was happy with how it came out. I used lots of wonderful IBS stamps on this card! The hexagons are from the Hexagon stamp set and I used the polka dot on to fill in the outlines. The script comes from Basic Backgrounds III, the flowers are from Summer Baskets and the bird and sentiment are from Summer Warbler. 

After all my stamping was done I colored my birdy with Faber Castell Polychromos pencils and blended with OMS. I added my trimmed out flowers and a sequin for the middle of each, some twin and faux stitching. I hope you'll come join the challenge. Thanks for stopping by!

Hexagons

Summer Warbler

Background Basics III

Summer Baskets