Wawa Art Wednesday a little late!

 Somehow I forgot my Word Art Wednesday post!!  Here is my card made from Karen Murray's beautiful W ord Art!

I hope you are all having a wonderful day!!

Ginny M

A sweet birthday Release and paper piecing, using digitals.

I have several sweet cards to share with you today! 

As many of you know I very rarely do cute or sweet cards and when my DT assignment for Graciellie Designs came up for this card I kinda was stumped. But you know, after looking at it and thinking about the image of the sweet little girl I really started to love it!

This stamp set is the first hand-lettered stamp set, and it is a sneak peek of Gracie's  birthday celebration blog hop with a  completely new release coming on May 1st.

I love the hand lettered Sentiment.  

One of my favorite looks and something I can not do - so convenient to have a digital form I can use on many types of art!

I fussy cut and paper pieced this image.  you know all those yummy packs of designer paper you have, already color coordinated and just waiting to be used? printing and fussy cutting allow these types of card to work up fast.  This paper is from a G45 stack in my stash 

Using Best Glue Ever holds it all together, even the ribbon! Beautifully smooth and flat- so easy to get the adhesive in those itty bitty spots!

Here is an image I changed up a bit in my software - yes, you can do that with digitals!  Try doing that with Rubber!

I also used some of my "digital scrapping" stuff, if you are a Digi user, you probably have toms of stuff on file, I Loved how these elements worked with the Gracie Design!

These girls were fussy cut and added on to the printed images

Both of these cards will have no problem going through the postal system!

This sweet set comes with the little girl's apron in a solid ( remember you cand change this in your software to be a different monochrome color).  How nice would this look in Red?  Like traditional red work embroidery!

Vibrant Birthday Card and coloring tips

I needed a birthday card this week and I wanted to practice using my reds in alcohol marker.  Reds can be tricky to use and don't work well with removing color with blender pen.

Here is the card and read on for coloring details! 

  My first thought was to use a poppy so I picked this pretty Graciellie Design set for the poppies:

and this set for the sentiment:

I printed on my standby: Heavenly white #80 and used #120 for the base

I swatched out my colors for the blossoms using several brands - I liked the Spectrum the best, but they all worked fine together- Honestly I just don't see that much difference between brands:

with this picture, you can see what happens when you work with blending pen and reds - yuk.

To get around this, I used a base layer of a light red/peachy color, worked in lots of red shades and then went back in with the light color, this did give me some of the  highlights  I was looking for - but not 100% satisfactory results

Background papers next, then a little black glitter

The finished card and a few close ups

I was able to get some variations in the petal colors, but I think I need more practice

 am pleased with the card and I ho[pe the birthday girl will like it!

Thanks for stopping by!

Ginny M

Robins Quilt Block and a fun freebie!

My sister Robin is a master quilter, what she can do with needle and thread and with the speed she does it, is simply amazing!  Robin posted a picture of one of her quilt blocks on Facebook and of course, it went into my feed, and I thought wow,  I'd love to make her a card with the photo of the block!  So I grabbed a copy and "digitized" it.

Isn't this pretty?

working the scale on my Publisher program 

For my printing paper I used 80# White Diamond by Paper Temptress.  I choose this paper because it has a pearly luster similar to polished cotton and I know it will grab the ink and hold it with a perfect crispness - no ink bleeding!

Right now space in my craft room is at an all time premium and I have only one sewing machine available, thankfully is such a wonderful sewer and looks great too!  My vintage Singe 301A long bed, it is in almost mint condition and it  sews perfectly, a great quilting machine too!

I did a few test stitches  to check length and how it would work with the paper

If you haven't tried sewing  on your cards and other paper crafting - Try it!!

Using 24tex thread and a #11 needle, I sewed on the "seam" lines

you can see every detail of the fabric/photo.  This is printed on a cheapo $59.00 printer. Using really good paper makes a huge difference!

you can see just a bit of the pearl in this lower right corner

This was really very fun!

My finished card I mounted on Midnight Blue Classic   and used the same for a base.

Here it is!

I can't wait to get this card in the mail, my sister will be so surprised!

Thanks for stopping by and check out Paper Temptress for really stunning papers that are affordable!

Ginny M

and if you would like to try this card, I'm sure Robin won't mind sharing the digital form!

Reverse Coloring and Blog Hop!

Welcome to the Mid Month blog and inspiration hop for Graciellie Designs and special Sponsor Wescott products!  For the inspiration blog hop there will be a special prize:  Westcott is going to be sponsoring a prize for this inspiration blog hop!. Two pairs of precision scissors to one lucky winner!  

Just leave a comment on every stop of the hop!


Graciellie Design
Barbara 
Arjita
Gayatri 
Ginny ( you are here)
Maria 
Agnieszka 
Shyla Shree
Larissa

April Guest Designer:

Pamela Duncan 

Reverse coloring sounds a little catchy, I may have invented the term which is good if you all like doing it and if you don't I'll just deny authorship!!   For this card, I needed to make a wedding card for a couple I don't really know, we all send those, the child of a friend of a friends' cousin.  So I wanted it to be pretty and a blessing without pretending to be their best friend!  I know the Bride likes to garden so I thought this set from Graciellie; Beautiful Birthday Wishes would be perfect!

I created a color wash  on my card face template in Published

and then added my image and sentiment.

For this card, I am using  

Heavenly White 120# Ultrasmooth

From Paper Temptress, this is a recommended cardstock for alcohol maker coloring and one layer cards. I like the 12x12 sheets, I cut them to make a large 6" tall x 4.5 tent card to print on and for a base. my printer is a drop down and will print on this heavyweight, if yours can't go with the lighter papers.  #100 pound is great but I wouldn't go any lower than #80.

The reverse comes into play with this card because I have to color with white!

After printing on my 4.5x6 paper I begin to add white to the  wings and body of the bee 

Next,  I add in black lines - I printed the image in a cocoa color to keep the flower soft looking:

After that, Gold:

I work this until I feel I have enough black, white and gold.  I added Stickles Diamond and a few sequins. I also added yellow to the bubble body with a distress marker.

Next, I stipple on yellow for the bee and some veining into his wings

Now, trying to keep this CAS 9 (not succeeding)

Here is my finished card

For my Adhesive I used ''The Best Glue Ever" on the paper, bow,  and sequins - wonderful stuff! 

The finished card is 6" tall by 4.5 wide.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you give this a try, it is really fun!

Have a great day!

Ginny 

Word Art Wednesday and two freebies!

Happy Wednesday everyone!  It is time for a fresh Word Art Wednesday challenge! Today's verse is perfect for your last minute Easter Cards!  Click over to the blog for lots of lovely inspiration from Karen L's devotion and Karen M's beautiful bible verse!

Here is the verse:

My card today:

For the process, and the extra freebie, keep reading!

This is actually much simpler than it looks! 

Freebie frame image:

My color selections for coloring the frame Using Spectrum Noir pens

on Heavenly White # 80 for printing and #120 for base 

Paper selections 

I color then fussy cut

The added dimension on foam tape adds a little more "pop".  I also added Diamond Stickles to the frame

A tip on coloring.  When you color first and then fussy cut, you don't have to worry about being so perfectly precise, if you go over the line, you will only cut it off, and it makes "touch ups" less frequent! if you look closely, you can see many over the line spots - I did that on purpose to keep the image more harmonious.  there is also no way I could cut some of these very delicate flower stems!

Thank for stopping by and I hope you enter Word Art Wednesdays Challenge you might win a fabulous prize!  Plus sending that beautiful card will make someone very happy!!

Ginny M

Happy Monday - Sketch Challenge

My Sketch challenge for this Monday on my Facebook group  Christian Card Makers is a clean and simple design.  Really I need to make myself make a CAS cards,
Here is the card:

I love the way they look but it seems I have a tendency to have a lot of color and patterns in my cards.
Here is the sketch,  It is very simple:

I made this card to send to a sweet couple in our church that got engaged yesterday!

I used  the Fuschia from this Graciellie Design set: 

Printing on watercolor paper 130#

and the Love verse from this set:

I printed two images, I wanted to do this with a little dimension and I also wanted to have a backup in case I didn't like how the distress pens came out!

As it turned out I did like how the TH pens worked on the water color paper.  I colored the base layer first and added a little glitter to the stamen of the flowers.

Here is the finished card

I finished the flowers with a little 'Golden' clear leveling gel.

A sweet and simple card to say congratulations to a wonderful couple!

This week I am challenging myself to try a few different things, getting out the TH markers was #1 and they really were a pleasure to use!  I purchased a bottle of the distress refresher and a few of my pens that had dried up are now like new!! 

Next on the list :

This is a brand new set I bought 3 years ago right before I started with alcohol coloring!

Time to break them in!

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you have a great day!!

Ginny M