Pretty Monochrome Greens Spotlight look - freebies and boo-boo's

Hello, friends! Today I'm playing in some challenges with a stamp set I've long coveted. Some friends picked it up for me at a local show last summer (thank you, Ana and Katrina!).

Because I'm trying to think outside my "normal style" creative box lately, today's card is a bit different for me. It's a spotlight technique in artsy style, using squared corners, a pretty image and philosophical sentiment.

Colored with Copic Markers in a variety of green hues, the image was heat set with clear detail embossing powder, and then surrounded by white Prismacolor Pencil for a halo effect. 

Due to the pearlescent coating on the green cardstock, the shine still seeps through the Copic Markers and allows for the un-spot-lighted areas to still remain semi-transparent, and have color show through.

The sentiment was heat embossed with white detail embossing powder, and die cut using Taylored Expressions Banner Stacklets #1 using only the "fish tail" portion. 

Two extra flowers were fussy cut after being embossed and colored, to be popped up for dimension.

I really, REALLY enjoyed working with this set, and can hardly wait to use it again, with "real" coloring. It's an inspiring set to work with. Finished card is 5.25 x 5.25 inches.

My card uses two freebies on the interior (see below).

Boo Boo Time:

So I placed a frame around the white rectangle, and used the two pop-up flowers to hide the areas where the card did not match up:

Products: Stamps: The Ton Transformation Stamp Set - Papers Bazzil Pearlized Green Textured, Xpress-it White, Inks: VersaFine Clair Green Oasis (main image), VersaMark (sentiment), MISC: White Prismacolor Pencil (for halo around butterfly), Taylored Expressions Banner Stacklets 1 die set, White Detail embossing powder, clear detail embossing powder, Wink of Stella on 3 flowers, Copic Markers

A Gift For You

Use them separately, together or as "innie's and outie's".

Please do not sell these Sentiments. Use on any of your projects, including projects involving any design teams you might be on.

Click on the image to bring it to full size. Because of the changes Google Made with Blogger (June 2020), your image will appear to be solid black. Don’t panic. Right click and do a SAVE AS PNG. Once it is saved on your hard drive, you can open it and it will have a transparent background. I create PNGs instead of JPGs so they can be placed anywhere on a scene or project, and so backgrounds can be made using them. Please let me know if you have any problems. I hope they serve you well!

Enjoy!

I would like to play in the following challenges please:

1. A Perfect Time to Craft Open Challenge #3 AG 4/1 (UE)
2. Classic Design Challenge #3 AG 4/1 (UE)
3. Sisterhood of Crafters (March 8) theme is GREEN 3/19
4. Try It on Tuesday (March 7) GO GREEN 3/21
5. Crafty Gals Corner Challenges #241 Make It GREEN 4/7
6. Inspiration Station (March) Use mood board 3/31 (check 4/3) (Pretty Nature scene "morphing" from one season to another - just like my green flowers and butterfly - both have morphed into their new season).

 

   7. Colorful Options (March) colors of green 3/28

8. Double D Challenges (March 1) theme is GREEN mood board 3/12

9 . *New Challenge* Triple B (Birds, Blooms, Butterflies) (March) Using Green Tones for Spring and hints of change in the butterfly and flowers - thanks for a fun, new challenge! 4/6

Stamping Hugs,

A Little Rain Does Us Good - Jan's Digi Stamps

Hello, friends! I hope this finds you well, and enjoying some crafting time.

Today's card is for March's mid-month reminder at the Anything Goes Challenge at Jan's Digi Stamps!  If you use a JDS image in your card, please mention it. There is a 2nd draw specifically for those who use one of Jan's fun images.

Jan's newest sets are 25% off, and this month's Spring Flowers Sale, 

including 24 sets, are also 25% off.

To create my card, three sets were used (just click on them to enlarge):

Rain Dance 4070 *NEW* with 12 images & sentiments.
On sale this month for $3 

April Showers 920 April Showers Promise.
I used several of the sentiments inside and out.
This set contains 25 images and sentiments.

Wild Flower Blossoms 3310 for the single flower

I punched out the turquoise background, adhered to white card stock, and adhered organza ribbon to break up the horizontal lines. 

 

I still mourn the day Martha Stewart ceased production of her quality punch-around-the-page products! 

The top two layers are die cut with SB Labels Four and Grand Labels Four (for a 5x7 card). 

Jan's pre-colored raindrops were used (such little lines to stay in!).

The rest is colored with Copic Markers and Distress Inks.

For a quick and easy card interior:

Four sentiments and two images were used from: April Showers 920

Looking forward to seeing your creation in the Anything Goes Challenge at Jan's Digi Stamps!

Products Used: Jan's Digi Images: Rain Dance 4070, Wild Flower Blossoms 3310, April Showers 920, Broken China and Shabby Shutters DI, colored with Copic Markers, SB Grand Labels 4 and Labels 4, Martha Stewart punch

Playing in the following challenges:

1. Pammie's Inky Pinkies #2309 AG 3/13
2. Krafty Chicks #653 Week 1 Stamp Act (use a digi or rubber stamp) 3/9 (tab on top)
3. CD Sunday Plus Challenge #105 AG (1 of 3) (each sentiment was copy and pasted into the background and made 66% transparent. The rain images and umbrella were put on a tilt so they would appear vertically straight. The flower was from a different set, and placed at different angles to make it appear they were raining down. Lastly the "April Showers" sentiment was layered digitally to make our minds think of the rest of the saying, "bring may flowers". However the interior does give the full verse) 3/19
4. Worldwide Crafters and Colorists Challenge #2 AG  (3 of 3) 3/12
5. Crafts Galore Encore #109 AG (1 of 3) 4/1
6. A Perfect Time to Craft Open Challenge #3 AG 4/1 (UE)
7. The Outlawz Challenges Twisted Thursday (March 2-April 5) Use at least 2 items from your stash that are over a year old.  Then tell us, in your post, what items you used and the approximate ages of the items!  Love this Challenge! (1) Offray Ribbon is at least 15 years old from a big box store, (2) Martha Stewart Punch Around the Page border & corner punch. These were very popular before die cutting became important and was purchased at big box store about 13 years ago, Spellbinders dies (Grand set - 10 years old - and A2 set older than that), Set 920 is 5 years old, Set 3310 is 3 years old (distress inks over 3 years old). (4/5)
8. Classic Design Challenge #3 AG 4/1 (UE)
9. Ally's Angels #67 AG 3/9 (2 of 3)

Stamping Hugs,

It's Not Always Black and White AND a boo-boo - Jan's Digi Stamps

 Hello, friends! I hope this finds you well, and enjoying some crafting time.

Today's card is for Febuary's mid-month reminder at the Anything Goes Challenge at Jan's Digi Stamps!  If you use a JDS image in your card, please mention it. There is a 2nd draw specifically for those who use one of Jan's fun images.

Jan's newest sets are 25% off, and this month's Easter Sale, including all 12 sets, are also 25% off.

To create my cards, two sets were used (just click on them to enlarge):

Wild Flower Blossom $5

Peony Bloom **NEW** $4 on sale this month for $3

Inspired by design teamie Karen C's elegant Christmas Card back in November, but ignorant as to how to use a dropper, I enlisted help from friend Anne Temple who uses Photoshop, in order to create this out-of-my-comfort-zone, black and white card:

The background is not black with white poke-a-dots. It is black glitter paper. I've also used white glitter paper and silver glitter paper - hanging head in shame for using cheater glitter cardstock rather than loose glitter (smile)

None of the flowers is at the same angle, and many are flipped horizontally, then tilted. Black "shapes" and "frames" were used behind and around the flower columns. Anne, thank you for making the black flower with white lines so I could experiment without having to learn how to manipulate the app on my computer!

The sentiment is a separate "band" that floats across the front of the card and adheres on the back of the printed panel. The leaves of the middle white flower have been cut with a craft knife for more dimension:

Donna Walls of Duncan Street Designs and I were discussing colors recently, and decided to challenge each other by using hues we would not normally use. The first challenge color we discussed is ORANGE. 

Do you use ORANGE shades very often in your crafting?

Can you see my boo-boos?

I dropped the dark orange marker and needed to use a stencil to help cover it up:

Dimensional tape was applied to the backs of the two flowers:

Looking forward to seeing your creation in the Anything Goes Challenge at Jan's Digi Stamps!

Products: Jan's Digi Images: Peony Bloom 4055J, Wild Flower Blossoms 3310J (orange sentiment),    Inks: Black Soot Oxide, Pearlescent Orange Brilliance, Paper: X-Press It White (even for the printed black and white card), (I cheated and used black, silver and white glitter papers in the background) MS curved scallop border punch.

I'd like to play in the following fine challenges please:

1. Worldwide Crafters and Colorists Challenge #2 AG 3/12
2. A Perfect Time to Craft Open Challenge #2 AG 3/1
3. Classic Design Challenge #2 AG 3/1
4. CD Sunday PLUS #104 AG Downloaded 3/5 (1) (in this case, I arranged three individual digital flowers around the downloaded sentiment. The sentiment was given an oval frame. I also digitally applied two lines on the left & bottom for more design.(two digital sets were used to create this card)
5. Crafty Catz Weekly Challenges (Feb 17) AG 2/23 (leave comment on entry before mine)
6. The Corrosive Challenge #2 (Feb 11) Anything goes 3/6
7. The Paper Shelter #541 Lace and/or Flowers 2/21
8. The Paper Funday Challenges #50 AG with with lots of layers (my black card contains 6 layers) 2/27
9. We Love Stamping  (Feb 5) AG with stamp and stencil 2/28 (I used a swirly "ocean waves" stencil to bring about a "swirling" sunshine, as though the wind is bringing out the wind's beauty)
10. Inspiration Station #46 Inspiration Photo 2/28 The orange and golden hues of Nature's sunset bring out the peaceful scene of flowers that mimmic the same fantastic hues found in the sky:

Stamping Hugs,

Inspiration Time at Beautiful Blossoms Challenge

Welcome, Blogging Friends! I'm so happy you are here! It was ALMOST more fun WRITING today's post, than it was to make the card - but I really laughed a lot through the makings of this project, and I hope you will laugh through the post.  YOU WILL UNDERSTAND WHY MY BLOG IS CALLED CREATIVE SMILES.

First things first: let me tell you about our new challenge blog:

 Last month we kicked off a Brand New Challenge called Beautiful Blossoms . 

It is a fun "mood-board-inspired" monthly challenge which features Flowers as the main focus. 

The Mood Board is a starting point, and your artwork is where your imagination takes you! You do not have to follow the theme of the Mood Board, but you do need to use it as inspiration.

Details are on the blog. Hope to see you there! 

I was inspired by the petals, pinks, and blue background in this mood board.

Have you ever had one of those projects where not one single thing works out as anticipated, yet STILL, you plug along, expecting the next step to cover up the problem, but then THE NEXT STEP becomes a problem, too? Until your whole project is one blunder after another?

Well, THAT is this card. NOTHING happened the way it was supposed to, AND that was after throwing away two-partially-colored and/or cut out items for this card! SIGH - and yet, I really did have fun making a  mess and playing with just about everything in my craft room. (What a mess to clean up afterward!)

I couldn't even take photos as I went along because it was one boo-boo after another, including:

1.  throwing away two backgrounds
2.  ruining the embossing powder, 
3.  refilling the Copic marker with the incorrect color reinker, 
4. restarting from scratch, 
5. NOT ruining the EP the 2nd time, 
6. NOT using Copics the 2nd time, 
7. dropping the markers repeatedly on the card front, 
8. warping my cardstock by spilling water on it (the SAME water I was using for cleaning my brush, so it WASN'T EVEN CLEAN WATER), 
9. dropping the card several times and TWICE rolling over the card front with my chair, 
10. having the super-duper adhesive stick my card front to the guillotine cutter because I had forgotten that I die cut a small hole in the back..
11. and WHY would I do that? Because I had run out of pink cardstock for the sentiment.
12. Picking a brad that would cover a mistake. Using a Copic on said brad to change the color, only to have my hand spasm and the color ended up on the sentiment. Went to look for a larger brad, and found one - it gaudies up my sentiment satisfactorily. LOL

DARE I GO ON? 

Speaking of boo-boo's:

OKAY, OKAY -- Those are a few of my boo-boo's. I figured, at this point, no matter what I tried to do, blunders were GOING to occur, so I pressed on... 

Jack came in and asked, "Is there anything I can do?" All I could do was laugh at that point, because he could see all the little piles in my room where I had each small boo-boo isolated to fix the mistakes. 

At the VERY END, I almost glued the completed topper onto the card UPSIDE DOWN.

BUT I PERSEVERED AND WON!

sorta...

               kinda...

After ALL THAT, 

wanna see what I made?  (giggle)

Products used: Beccy's Place Cherry Blossoms clear stamp set, Sue Wilson Lattice Arched Adornment die, Tutti-680 Stitched Rectangles, Spellbinders Decorative Labels Eight, assorted distress inks, Zig markers, Tombow markers, pink EP.

Challenges I would like to play in please:

1. Ally's Angels #67 AG 3/9 (1 of 3)
2. Beccy's Challenges (February) Beccy, I hope I followed your directions - please forgive me if I misunderstood. 3/1
3. Creations in Pink #54 AG in Mainly Pink
4. Colorful Options (Feb 2) Celebrate Pink 2/28 (sep post)
5. A Perfect Time to Craft Open Challenge #2 AG 3/1 (winners on 3-28)
6. Worldwide Crafters and Colorists Challenge #2 AG 3/12 (1 of 3)
7. Pammie's Inky Pinkies #2306 AG 2/20
8. The Paper Funday Challenge #50 AG with lots of layers 3/1

Thanks for popping by today!