Purples and Blues.....

Hello everyone: Well, the sun is finally out up here in NW Indiana, still a bit chilly, not the kind of weather we like but at least it's not freezing cold.

The beautiful blue skies and sunshine made me think of flowers so here's a card I made with one of my favorite bundles from SU, "Climbing Roses".

I stamped the roses on a piece of watercolor paper with Versafine black ink, clear heat embossed it and colored it with Sakura Koi watercolors. The little butterfly is from an old Stampendous set. The pattern paper and ribbon are from my stash and the sentiment from a Power Poppy set called Short Stacks.

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This is how the INSIDE of my card looks like.

The border is from a SU set called "Delicate Details" (retired), the sentiment from Power Poppy.

I'm playing along with the following challenges.

The Paper Players

{Cupcake Inspirations}

Die Cutting Divas

Try it on Tuesday

Say it with Flowers.

Thank you for stopping by, your comments always make my day.

Hugs.

Maria.

Some Tic Tac Toe Fun.....

Hi, there blogging friends: My teammates and I over at RETRO RUBBER have a new and fun challenge for you to play with this time around, it's the ever so popular Tic Tac Toe grid in which you have some awesome combinations to try. 

Here's my card and I  hope it inspires you to come and join us in the gallery.

To create this card I used the diagonal with the "Punches or Dies, Leaves and Ribbon or Twine" 

I just added a few flowers but mostly there are leaves from two different SU sets. The "Botanical Builder" die set (2016) and the "Peaceful Petals" (2014 Occasions Mini), I added just 3 flowers to complete my decoration, a little piece of yellow Gingham paper behind my die cut panel and the sentiment from another retired SU set called "Happiness Shared" (2010-2011 Idea Book).

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This is how the INSIDE of my card looks like.

The sentiment and the leaf are from another retired SU set called "Painted Harvest" (2017 Holiday Catalog)

I hope you come and play along with us over at RETRO RUBBER, please remember that at least one of your stamps MUST be at least one year old or more, if you can provide us with the date that would be awesome.

Please stop by the blog to check out my teammates' beautiful creations.

Thank you for stopping by, your comments always make my day.

XO

Maria.

Another First For Me.....ATC cards.....

Hello everyone: Until very recently, I've never heard of ATC cards so, I asked my teammates at SHOPPING OUR STASH about them and also, Google'd and searched on Pinterest and found a whole bunch of ideas on how to go about it so, here are my very first ATC cards, hope you like them.

I'm sure most of you have heard of these cards, you can really decorate them in any which way you want, you can put any image, colors, etc., the only rule is that they must be 2.5"x3.5", the rest is up to you.

I can see these cards on a card, with some pattern paper and other embellishments.

I used several stamp sets to create these cards. The first and second card have images from Power Poppy, the image on the third one I think is from Impression Obsession, the fourth one with the snowman is from Inkakinkado and the fifth one's image is from SU "Zoo Review" (retired).

I just cut my panels out of watercolor paper, sponged them with Distress Inks, stamped my images and added some other colors with Prismacolor pencils.

So there you have them, hope you get inspired to come along to the SHOPPING OUR STASH blog, check out my teammates' creations and join us in the gallery.

Thank you for stopping by, your comments always make my day.

XO

Maria.

Just TRI.....

Hello everyone: Each time there is a sketch or a theme where you are asked to do 3 of something, my mind immediately gets flooded with images of the sport I love, TRIATHLON so, it's no surprise that when I saw the challenge theme over at "Less is More" I jumped in with this card.

Triathlon season is starting soon and the granddaughter of one of my Tri friends is doing her first. It's one of the smaller races but it's the perfect way to build confidence, strength, endurance, courage and the mental fortitude to participate in this fabulous sport. This card will be mailed to Debbie a couple of weeks before her race in June, wish I could be there to cheer her on but she lives in Spokane, WA.  So I went looking for a logo I could easily sketch and this one jumped at me, I love the fact the three disciplines are enclosed in a circle, to me, it means the incredible connection between all of them.

With this logo on my screen I used a pencil to lightly sketch the images, they are very simple as you can see, the trick was to create the lines for separating the three spaces so I took a piece of Vellum and traced the lines then, transferred them onto my paper. I sponged a bit of distress inks and filled the images with a black marker.

The word "Just" is from a Power Poppy set called "Everything's Even Rosier", I masked the other word and stamped it.  The word TRI is stamped using the MISTI and a set of letters from Avery Elle.

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This is how the INSIDE of my card looks like.

The sentiment is from a Power Poppy set called "Orchids Rock" and the stars and word a the bottom from a graduation set from Fiskars.

I'm playing along with the following challenges.

"Less is More"

2 Sisters on the Blog "Make it CAS"

Happy Little Stampers 

First Triathlon for the granddaughter

of one of my Tri friends.

Just For Fun Challenge

Love To Craft

Thank you for stopping by, your comments always make my day.

XO
Maria.

C'mon, Eat Your Veggies.....

Hello everyone: I'm here today with a fresh and delicious card made with the image of one of my favorite veggies.....CAULIFLOWER!! Love this beautiful "bouquets" of creamy goodness that taste amazing whether in soups, salads or grilled, my goodness, my mouth is watering, can't wait for the grilling to start.

Here's my card and I will play with it on a few challenges at the end of this post.

This card is a CASE from This Card by Narelle Farrugia I saw on Pinterest, I just changed the direction of the design making the card vertical. Thank you Narelle.

A simple card, really. Just grabbed some scraps of card stock and Gingham paper from my stash and using an old Friskars punch I decorated the white strip.  The image is from a Power Poppy set called Farmers Market, colored it with my Prismacolor pencils.

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This is how the INSIDE of my card looks like.

 I often use several stamp sets in order to create my cards, especially to add the sentiments.  This inside panel was created with some green scraps for decoration, the sentiment is from a Power Poppy set called Sage Advice and the two little plants are from an Altenew set called Garden Grow.

I'm playing along with the following challenges.

Double D Challenges

GINGHAM

Addicted to CAS

Ellibelle's Corner Crafty Wednesday

"Think Spring or add some Green.

Thank you for stopping by, your comments always make my day.

XO

Maria.

Vellum again.....This time a Rose.....

Hi there, blogging friends: I'm really loving watercoloring on Vellum after I heat emboss the image, there is still a bit of warping but I think, somehow, the melted embossing powder keeps the image nice and almost flat. 

So here's this card that I will enter in a few challenges.

This image and the sentiment are from a Power Poppy set called Everything's Even Rosier, the embossed design is from a Cuttle Bug EF.

I stamped the rose on Vellum with Versafine black ink and heat embossed with clear embossing powder then, colored it with SU markers and a damp brush, the butterfly is from a retired SU set called "Papillon Potpourri", I added a bit of gold paint to the leaves and the butterfly I borrowed from my granddaughter Vanessa and then, fussy cut the rose.

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This is how the INSIDE of my card looks like.

The border is from a SU retired set called "Delicate Details", the sentiment is from the same Power Poppy set.

I would like to play with the following challenges.

CAS Watercolor Card Challenge

Crazy for CAS 

Challenge #15 "Watercolor"

Dragonfly Dreams

"For a Special Female"

Thank you for stopping by, your comments always make my day.

XO

Maria.

Stain Glass Jar.....

Hello everyone: I was doing some sprucing up in my craft room over the weekend and I came across this pretty die from Elizabeth Craft called "Ginger Jar", unfortunately, it's sold out but not discontinued so I hope they bring it back, it's really beautiful and you can really do all kinds of combinations with the pieces of this flower and curvy lines. 

I die cut the jar out of gold foil paper and glued it to a piece of watercolor paper, after it dried completely, I colored it with Sakura Koi watercolors.  I left it to dry again and then I filled each section with Glossy Accents to give it that stain glass look. The branches are die cut with a Memory Box die called "Grove Branch", the little flowers are from an Altenew set called Moments in Time, this little flower was so hard to stamp, I don't have a block that small so I grabbed my glue pen and put a mini glue dot on the lid and then, I attached the flower stamp, it worked really well.  The sentiment is from a SU set called "By The Bay".

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Here's a close up of the jar so hopefully, you can see the wells filled up with the Glossy Accents.

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This is how the INSIDE of my card looks like.

The border is stamped with a retired SU set called "Delicate Details", the sentiment is from an Altenew set called Recollections and the little branch from the Moments in Time set.

I'm playing along with the following challenges.

CAS Mix Up Challenge

My choice was die cutting.

AAA Cards

                   

Addicted to Stamps

Challenge #172 "SPRING"

This is the Ginger Jar die set I used, I looked for it but I think it's discontinued, so sad, it's really beautiful.

 

Thank you for stopping by, your comments always make my day.

XO
Maria.

HELLO, I DON'T HAVE THE WORD VERIFICATION OPTION ON, IT'S TURNED OFF LIKE IT'S ALWAYS BEEN.  I DON'T KNOW WHY I'M GETTING THOSE VERIFICATION PICTURES SO, IF YOU'RE GETTING THEM TOO, I APOLOGIZE.  I HOPE YOU STILL LEAVE ME YOUR LOVELY COMMENTS.
THANK YOU.