Hero Arts Dragonfly Die

I shared some of the dragonflies I made the other day here at Glitter in my Kitchen and today I'm up on the a2z Scrapbooking blog post with two cards I made with the dragonflies.

Here's a close-up of that first dragonfly. I really liked how the wings turned out. I used alcohol inks on acetate packaging and then trimmed them to fit the die. That Nuvo Glitter Paste is so fabulous too! You can stop by a2z to see all the links to the products and more about how I made these.

Happy Wednesday!

Chark

Graphic 45 for Christmas

I love the vintage images and feel of Graphic 45 papers and embellies. Which means I had to buy the Master Detective papers and the Midnight Masquerade, even though I had no real projects in mind for them. I just loved them and knew they needed to come live at my house.

But I did end up trying a couple of projects this month for the G45 Challenge, using those two collections and the Halloween in Wonderland (the checked paper). This is a little pizza box from Stampin' Up that I decorated with the Masquerade Ephemera Pack. I'm planning to use these boxes for cash/gift cards at Christmas. Did you see the little ladies I cut out and popped up? Love them! I think they're whispering to her like the evil and good parts of your conscience, like in the cartoons. 

The stars are from a die cut...Neat and Tangled I believe. The card below uses a lot of the Master Detective papers, and the Wonderland checkered paper along with Prima flowers from forever ago...I don't know the last time I bought flowers for my stash! I had a little gold frame and I added the Sherlock silhouette. 

For this card, I used all Master Detective and some Bo Bunny burgundy paper, a little gold washi to highlight the I'm Dying to See You sentiment from the paper.

So I ended up using the pretty papers I bought, and still have some left over. Win/win!

Happy Wednesday!

Chark

You're So LovelyStamps

Happy 2017!! Hope you had a good New Year's eve and day...I did. We ate appetizers for dinner and watched the ball drop and then slept in the next morning. That's always a favorite of mine :)

Today I'm on the a2z Scrapbooking blog with two cards using the Hero Arts You're So Lovely stamp set. Here's a peek at my cards, you can hop over to see them in full at the blog here.

I tried a scrapbook page with these stamps, but frankly, I didn't like it at all. I tried to be artsy but I kinda failed. Here it is but only as a "before" picture. I'm going to rework it this week and see if I can post an "after" pic after I'm happy with it. I used the flowers on the kraft paper in greens and blues, but it just feels messy and not artsy. I do, however, love the New Orleans stamp from Hero Arts, so I'll have to try to incorporate it in the next one too.

The photos are from a New Orleans trip to City Park, where the kids posed with the sculptures. Goofy kids, cool park.

If you like these stamps, you can go to the a2z Scrapbooking store and order them and use CHARK15 to get 15% off your order of $25 or more. 

Happy Monday,

Chark

Striped Christmas

I made two striped Christmas cards with the Paper Pumpkin trial kit from Stampin' Up. The card bases were these cool gray/brown striped cards with all the elements you'd need to make some shaker pennants for those cards. For these holiday cards, I used my own black and white stickers.

And my own red glitter paper on this one.

This is what you can make with the kit.

It was fun to get acrylic stamps, ink, acrylic block, card bases, envelopes, stickers, acetate pennants, twine and sequins in one kit...on the other hand, there are some things in there I probably wouldn't use. The gold stickers aren't the greatest as far as adhering well, but it was worth a shot.

And there's nothing so fun as a box of goodies and surprises that you can use to create fun stuff. It's partly why I've joined in the Laura Kelly kickstarter campaign. You get a lot of bang for your buck and I love her style. And in addition to the craft kit you get when you donate to the campaign, she's added a free T-shirt with every level. Here's the link if you're interested in that. You've probably seen her fun style on calendars and those little stick families for cars too.

Have you ever gotten a card kit? Used all the elements? I haven't used everything in mine yet, but I do love the fun of receiving the mail and also having a lot of goodies to choose from.

Happy Monday!

Chark

Seriously, Why Are Fridays The Best?

I love Fridays, even though I work at home, so it's not because I get a break from the commute, or deadlines and paperwork, or those crazy coworkers I can't stand. I think it's because there's less pressure for the kids to get homework finished Right Now, no one's up at the 0-dark-thirty for showers and breakfast, and maybe because Fridays mean a lot more time relaxing upcoming. I dunno...but I like them! See? Snoopy agrees with me.

Here's a card I made with the free flower image I found for you (and me) at Graphics Fairy in this post. I used pink and mulberry Prismacolor Pencils and just colored while I watched tv the other night. I added a touch of white pencil and used a green that was more pine than grass.

I also colored a larger rose image and went more for peach tones. The green I used had more yellow in it too, to match the yellow pink flowers. You can see my little green marks to try to find a good one for the leaves in the bottom right of the pic. I think I like this peach color combo more than the pink, but it won't fit a regular size card unless I cut off the edges...which might look fine. Not sure yet what I'll do with it, but I enjoyed the coloring!

This image has a lot of shading, so you don't have to do a lot of the work. Just use darker colors where the shading is darker and lighten up more in the white sections. I added a little "glow" outline of color around the flowers and leaves. I might use some ink or watercolor to make a blue background. I guess we'll see!

If you want to try out coloring on a smaller scale, a2z Scrapbooking Supplies has this Hero Arts/Basic Grey stamps with beautiful roses. And it's on sale—two of my favorite words—$8 for this clear set. But there are only two sets available, so snatch yours up soon!

 

If you use your Hero Arts goodies and some heat or dry embossing, you can enter (til the end of February) the monthly challenge here and try to win a $25 certificate to the store. That means FREE GOODIES, two more of my fave words.

Happy Friday! Enjoy the day!
Chark

Sprinkle On The Fun

I love cupcakes—real and drawn, keychain or dessert. So, of course I own the cupcake stamp set from my fave company, Hero Arts. I have a few birthdays this month for friends, so I made some cupcake cards with the Hero Arts sentiment below.

I used my Doodlebug Design cupcake stickers and tried my hand at shaker cards again. These went better than my previous attempts, but still not smoothly. One doesn't shake as loosely as I'd like (the sequins tend to get stuck) and one has marks where the foam tape is underneath. sigh. I swear to you, one day I will make an actual shaker card to be proud of. In the meantime, I have these. Luckily, the people I send them to won't be picky and judgmental :)

The green sticker corners are also Doodlebug Design. The papers, including the Oh Happy Day are from a 6x6 paper pad called Hello Sunshine by Lawn Fawn. 

Here's another that uses the same papers and stickers but isn't a shaker card and uses this adorable Washi Tape from Artsyville over at Etsy. I just ordered from there and got a surprise from the owner in my package. You've got to go over and see how adorable her products are!

Here's a delightful jumbo magnet from Artsyville. They make more than just washi!

Now that I've shared my cupcake cards, I think I need a cupcake from my favorite local bakery, Cake, Hope and Love. Here's one of their yummy cupcakes. If you're near Dayton, you gotta try them—they beat Gigi's by a mile!

And if you love cupcakes, you'll love this card set from Hero Arts, available here at a2z Scrapbooking. They might have them at Target, but you'll find them on sale at a2z! Plus you can use CHARK15 to get a 15% discount on your $25+ order. How yummy is that?! I love cards that are easy like this. I'd add my sentiment stamp and some Stickles to the frosting.

Happy Wednesday! Glad you stopped by!
Chark

Wait A Minute, Mr. Postman

Love this song by the Marvelettes—I'm a sucker for any Motown really—and it's the thing that popped into my head as I got this post ready. I made a Christmas card mailbox with Doodlebug Designs products. Love how cute their products are. I got the idea from their blog last year and pinned it for this year.

1. I started with a papier mache mailbox from the craft store, and then covered the main part with the gingerbread boy paper. It doesn't cover all the way, so I flipped the paper over to the green side and used a scallop punch for the bottom section on either side.

2. I used some white grosgrain ribbon for the edges and glued it into place. I added some glittery stickers for a little elf scene.

 

3. I used green cardstock for the end piece and added another sticker scene. 

4. I used red cardstock for the front of the mailbox and added more cute stickers. Mrs. Claus has a gingerbread cookie for Rudolph.

5. For the inside of the lid, I added the same red cardstock and some patterned paper from the same Doodlebug line. I fussy cut out the gingerbread boy and gave him a friend and a house.

6. I replaced the plain metal brad with a fancier one, covered the flag in washi tape and added my last sticker. Here's the mailbox with cards. 

It was a fun project that took about an hour, since I wasn't sure what I was doing! The flag took the longest because I was going to cover it in paper and then paint it and finally decided on washi. I used glue stick for the large paper bits because I thought it would be more economical to cover the whole thing than if I used tape runner.

Here's my inspiration over at Pinterest, if you're interested.

Happy Monday!
Chark

Products I used  
Santa Express 12x12 Paper
Santa 's Workshop stickers 
EK Success Edge Punch