Last sketch in May

It's been so fun keeping up with a Card a Day in May over at The Angel Company. Wow, what inspiration! I hope you've enjoyed my little creations as well.

This is the last sketch for the month and it is great for a quick card and some of those larger stamp images.



I used the Stamp of the Month, Sunflowers and embossed it in...WHITE!! Wow, what a different look that gives you. I love it for this image because it has a lot of detailed lines and sometimes that can be a bit overpowering in black. Perfect here for watercoloring with my Tombow markers.



I kept with the soft look of this card by stamping my sentiment on vellum...I just couldn't bare to cover up that pitcher! {grin}



Other challenges:

Stamp with Fun - in the garden
Make it Monday - anything goes

Catching up and a share

Another busy weekend here in the Franco home - how about you?!? I missed the Country Music Awards last night but with an almost 15 year old daughter in the house, I now know all the songs by Taylor Swift, Rascal Flats and Lady Antebellum - just to name a few! Speaking of country, The Angel Company has a special this month called: A Little Bit of Country! This special, Little Bit of Country, LBC is $19.95 (retails for $29.80!) and includes: Country Jar stamp set, Emma ribbon, Emma Soar with it Collection and a package of Birch cardstock.
Now on to my "share" (as the kindergartners would say!). During the Guest Designer for a Day blog hop event in February, some of the gals in my hostess club made cards to play along. I had fully planned to post these cards for them and then my computer crashed...with all of these goodies on it. I'm just getting back to up and running so with out further adieu...let me show you some more cards you missed!

Kristi's card using Delicate Florals and Lilly Anna SWIC

Rebecca's card using Delicate Florals and Penelope SWIC

Cheryl's card using Sunflowers and Cha Cha SWIC
Thanks ladies for playing along with the blog hop challenge. Join us tomorrow for Tune in Tuesday - featuring Pastels!

Mosaic Tiles

A while back there was a great tutorial on SCS for making your own mosaic tiles. They used a very large stamp but I think it worked pretty well on my sunflowers. I colored the image in with Copics and then chopped it apart...in one inch sections. After that, I covered each tile with Glossy Accents and let it dry. The next day I reassembled the image and glued it down well. I let it dry under a huge stack of magazines to press it flat - it looks buckled in the image but it worked well.



Card Materials: All stamps and paper from The Angel Company, Glossy Accents, button/black thread, Copics

Don't miss out on the fun going on over on the Savvy Projects Blog...it's Going Green month and the samples will leave you speechless! Hope you have a great week...I don't plan on disappearing so long this time, life just got in the way!!

Sunflowers...

Finally! Well, sorta...we bought a laptop this morning as our main computer is headed out to the depot to be overhauled, and that will take about 15 days. I convinced my darling husband that I could NOT live that long with out a computer.

I colored these sunflowers with Copics to match the Hemingway Soar with it Collection - which I also used on this card. I love how they turned out, especially the pitcher! I colored the pitcher and then went back in and added the same grey colors, but I dotted them on just the sides.

The distressing was inspired by Juliet. I watched her distress an image at my last hostess club get together. And, boy did she go at it, even peeling the paper layers apart which I did here. Then, because the white was a tad to bright, I dabbed a paper towel soaked in coffee around the edges and here and there over the main image. So much fun!

Well, be sure to check out the Savvy Projects Blog to see what you've missed while I was gone...amazing stuff I tell you!

Blessings! It's so good to be back!!! yay...

A little sunshine

...on a rainy day! I have been challenging myself to use my old favorite coloring methods now that I caved into the Copic marker craze! I never was a fan of dark, strong coloring and that's why I loved Prismacolored pencils with gamsol or watercoloring - but ironically, now they look dull to me. That's why I need to get back into them from time to time.

So here is a card with pencils (I went over it several times to get the depth of color!) misted with our Frost and Sparkle Sheer Shimmer. It's hard to find in our store online, but here is a direct link.

For a little extra detail I dry embossed the bottom of the cardstock and then lightly sanded it. I hope you like it!

Don't forget that it's double rewards during STAMP*PA*LOOZA over at The Angel Company and this may be a good time to do some Christmas shopping for someone special (including yourself!!).

Fall????

I don't even want to think about it quite yet...but somehow I managed to color my sunflowers in a very fallish color. And, The Angel Company has released some Spooky sets early from it's Fall Magalogue so you can get busy creating!

I was playing with my new Copics (Caboodle set A and G) and they were quite dark and I wasn't sure if I would "keep" them (the sunflowers that is!) I spritzed them with my new Sparkle Sheer Shimmer from The Angel Company and they had an ever so subtle little sparkle. Then I tried to lighten them by adding a light yellow copic but that managed to really soak the paper...and it tore. Did I throw it away? Nope! I crinkled it and crumpled it up even more, then flattened it out and glued it down to a fresh paper to hide the tears. So much effort into just a practice piece!

Card Materials:

Stamps: Sunflowers, Give Praise to Him

Accessories: DCWV Craft pad, nestablilites, border punch, Sheer Shimmer Spritz, Copics

What I found about many of the new sets this year, is they have a matching stamp that works perfectly for finishing off the inside of a card or the envelope. I know my inside isn't as fancy as what most folks do, but for me, I normally leave the inside of the card unfinished so this is really stepping it up! :)

My oval did not want to lay flat because of the slight layers and lace I had used. I found the normal pop dot size almost too high though so I remembered seeing that Mel (from Melstampz) had used fun foam before and I had lots of that left over from an old project. It worked perfectly and was easy to cut free hand and so that it would give me lots of support. NOTE: if you peek, you can see the pink under my oval so in the meantime I picked up a white sheet of fun foam for just 39 cents!

If you've made it this far, congratulations! Thanks for hanging in there with all of my ramblings...I have blog candy BELOW this post and it's open until August 12, plus I sponsored the Embellish Magazine challenge this week and you can still join in on the fun over there as well!

New Rubber!

I was so excited to receive my new stamps from The Angel Company. I can't tell you how much variety there is in the new catalog and if you like to color, wow, what a selection! I had a hard time narrowing down my wishlist for my first order and went through it several times - my second list is as long as the first one. Yikes!

Once I embossed this image, I sat in bed and watercolored it while I watched TV with my son. I used Tombow markers and an aquabrush - I think I'm happiest with the way the pitcher came out. That touch of blue I added at the end and it went crazy but I like the effect. That's the exciting part about watercoloring... and the colors were easy to match in my DCWV paper pack.



Card Materials: all stamps and papers from The Angel Company
Stamps: Sunflowers
Accessories: watercolor paper, DCWV paper, border punch, ribbon, Tombow markers and Niji aquabrush, Emboss ink and black embossing powder

Thanks for taking the time to visit me today!