A wedding doesn't always have to be a big, expensive, extravagant event. One of my brides, Marie, chose to do a small destination wedding and have a local reception a few months later. Her mother (who is a friend of my parents) contacted me last spring about making the invitations for the local reception. Of course I jumped at the chance!

Marie had sunflowers at her wedding, so I wanted to find a way to incorporate those into the design of the invitation without getting too 'theme-y'. Is that a word? It is now!

The mother of the bride and I settled on this design; bold and elegant, but simple and fun. I love it!

(Names and contact info have been changed on the invitation to insure privacy)

As you should know by now, I'm slightly obsessed with distress inks. I was so excited to be able to incorporate them into this project to create a soft watercolor look. I heat embossed the sunflower stamp with black embossing powder, then used the distress inks and a paintbrush to paint the sunflower with bright yellows and oranges.

A few things I learned from this project:

1) Watercolor paper is really the best thing to use with any technique that uses water. Unfortunately, I haven't found a watercolor paper that goes through the printer and shows the printing well, so I used a heavy cardstock. It worked well and they looked great, but I'd love to find a 'printable' watercolor paper.

2) Along those lines - don't overwork the colors. I had to be careful with my brush to avoid the paper from pilling with the amount of water I was using, which was good because the more I messed with the colors, the less I liked the outcome. Less is more!

3) If you are using black embossing powder, do yourself a HUGE favor and use an anti-static powder tool. For some reason, black embossing powder sticks to EVERYTHING!!! Another option is to use black ink and clear embossing powder.

4) If everything is not dry before you start to assemble, it will smear and you will have to do it over. Ask me how I know...

Congratulations to Marie and Matt on their wedding, their reception, and beginning their life together!

Happy Crafting!

I'm not very good about sending out cards.
Ironic, I know.
I've made a resolution to at least send cards when someone is sick, recovering from surgery, or experiences a loss. I think those are the times when a handmade card is most appreciated.

Several of my friends had surgeries this summer (I already talked about one here), and I made some cards to wish them a speedy recovery.

This card went to a co-worker who had knee surgery in June.
She is also a card maker, so I felt a little pressure while making this card. I'm very pleased at how it came out - I was experimenting with techniques and colors and it all came together! I love it when that happens!

I used my newest background stamp with white embossing powder to create the background, then I took out some distress inks to color it in. I wet the paper first, then used a brush to pick up some ink and drop it onto the paper. I let the color go where it wanted to, adding more color and water as I went. It looked muddy while I was making it, but it dried beautifully! I love distress inks!

The friend I made this card for is also a card-maker, so there was a little bit of pressure to make this card a good one. I know she appreciated it, but I always like to present my best work.

Have you sent out any cards this summer? If not, you should! It feels great to drop a card in the mail and know that you will soon brighten another person's day.

What? You don't have any cards on hand to send? You can grab some of mine at my Etsy shop! (Remember, if you are local, contact me for a code for free shipping - I will hand-deliver your order!)

Happy Crafting!

I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned it here or not, but I Jazzercise. It's so much fun, and an excellent form of exercise. I've made good friends and lost some lbs all while having a blast dancing and sweating away.

One of my Jazz friends had shoulder surgery recently, so I wanted to make her a get well card. I wasn't sure what colors she liked, but I know we have matching shoes at Jazzercise, so that's where I drew inspiration from when I made her card.

I love the bright, fun colors! I used the smooshing technique that I wrote about a few weeks ago, but instead of putting the ink colors down in a grid pattern, I put them down in blocks of color. The result was less busy looking that my normal smooshing backgrounds, which let the background stamp really show well. I also used 2 of the new sentiments on the card. "Thinking of You" on the outside, and "Get Well Soon" on the inside.

The geometric background and the sentiment are embossed with black embossing powder. The background is matted on black cardstock and mounted onto a black card base using foam adhesive. The sentiment flag is also mounded using foam adhesive.

I wish my Jazz friend a speedy recovery and hope she returns to full Jazz strength soon!

Happy Crafting!

A few weeks ago, I wrote about some thank you cards I made for my assistants and paras at school. Well, I finally made some more and got them up on Etsy! And the great thing is, I can make as many of any color as I want! Which means if you want 3 pinks, I can do that. 5 purples and a blue? Done! One of each color of the rainbow? Ready and waiting!

The colors I've put up on my Etsy store are: pink, red, orange, burnt orange, yellow, lime green, teal, light blue, blue, purple, and brown. However, if you have a color that you want that is not listed (magenta, forest green, light purple, etc), please let me know and I will make it for you right away!

I love these cards! The embossed thank you text is raised, so the texture is there when you feel it. And the inked background is so varied, it creates texture when you look at it. It's so dynamic, but so simple.

If you'd like to pick up one or two (or more!) of these cute little thank you cards to keep on hand for some special people in your life, please visit my Etsy store.

If you know me in real life and live near me, let me know before you buy and I'll give you a special code to use at checkout so you don't have to pay for shipping - I will deliver your order to you when I see you next!

Thanks for stopping by!
Happy Crafting!

Last week I saw a garage sale sign advertising a stamp and scrapbook sale that weekend. So of course I went! It turned out to be several Stampin' Up demonstrators selling parts of their collections. And there was a TON of stamps and other craft items there! I ended up buying a large geometric background stamp, a Christmas stamp set, and a set of sentiments.

I could not wait to get home and start experimenting with my new supplies! I have plans for the Christmas set to make my Christmas cards this year, so I wasn't ready to do anything with that one quite yet, but I wanted to try out the background stamp. I've only recently started using larger stamps like this, and they are still a bit intimidating to me.

I learned from watching card making videos on You Tube that the best way to stamp with these over-sized stamps in to put the paper down on top of the stamp instead of the stamp down on the paper. So I tried it and it worked really well.

I used watercolor paper and made 2 white embossed background and 2 black embossed backgrounds.

Then I pulled out my distress inks and started playing!

The two background above were made using the same colors (Picked Raspberry, Peacock Feathers, and Chipped Sapphire). They were both done using the smooshing technique I wrote about last week. The one on the right had the colors in grid formation, as I showed in last week's tutorial, and the one on the left had the colors in blocks/stripes. I think they are both very pretty, but the background stamp definitely shows up better on the left one. It's less busy.

I learned from the two multi-colored backgrounds and simplified the colors for these two backgrounds. The one on the right used 3 greens (Mowed Lawn, Pine Needles, Iced Spruce) and the smooshing technique.

The one on the right I used 3 blues (Tumbled Glass, Salty Ocean, and Chipped Sapphire) and tried out a different technique. I wet the paper before adding ink, then used a paintbrush to 'drop' color into different areas on the background. I love that some of the blues stayed in their box, but some bled out and mixed into other areas. I tried not to control it too much, just let the colors go where they wanted to. I also sprayed more water on as I worked to get the colors moving more. I was really skeptical while I was making it - it looked really muddy and messy - but when it dried, it looked great! That is always the case with distress inks - you'd think I'd know that by now!

I have plans for one of these backgrounds (I chose the colors for a specific reason), and I'll show that in the next couple weeks, but the rest of these backgrounds will be available for any cards I need to make. I can't wait to make them into something!

Happy Crafting!

I picked up some cute little notebooks the other day to stick in my bag when I'm out and about (without my planner!!!) this summer. They are Moleskine notebooks with a kraft cover, they come in packs of 3, and they measure 3.5 x 5.5.

They are perfect for throwing in my pocket or bag and jotting down any ideas or notes that come to mind.

But they are boring.

So of course, I started playing...

The first one I stamped on with a cute little hedgehog stamp using a rainbow of distress inks.

I liked how it turned out (because hedgehogs!), but it wasn't quite my style, so I kept going with the distress inks and came up with this one.

I added a cute saying and some washi tape and I love it!

Now I just need to figure out what to do with the third one.

Any ideas?

Happy Crafting!