Craftin Desert Divas June Release Wrap Up

Hey, everyone! I'm sad to say that this will be my last release as a Craftin Desert Divas design team member. It's been a great time and I will still continue to craft with CDD products! Here's a few of my favorite cards I made using the new Ice Cream Treat stamp set - a new favorite!!

This is one of my favorite cards I've made - EVER! I love it! It's so bright and cheerful! I love it so much I made my husband write a note in it and give it to me so I didn't have to give it away! Haha! I can hang it in my craft room forever! I used skinny masking tape to create a starburst pattern and used a rainbow of Distress inks to add color and added some flicks of water. I colored a few of my favorite images from the Ice Cream Treat stamp set with watercolors and added them with foam tape. I ended up diecutting my background panel with a stitched scallop die and added a black sentiment!

And this one might be my second favorite card ever made! Haha! It's no secret that I LOVE creating my own backgrounds with stamped images! This little panda cone is just the CUTEST! I needed a whole background of him! I stamped and watercolored my pandas and die cut a square for the sentiment. I added some Antique Linen ink around the edges to bring in the cream color and that finishes this card! Very simple, but I can't stop staring at it! Haha!

Thanks for joining me! Stay tuned for exciting things! They will be announced soon!

CDD Floral Mood Board Inspiration

Hello, crafty friends! I made a card inspired by the May mood board from Craftin Desert Divas! You still have a couple of days left to challenge yourself with this mood board! If you want to enter all you have to do is create a card inspired by the board using Craftin Desert Divas products! Click on the photo below to take you to the Facebook event where you can add a photo of your project!

I was inspired by all the floral images, so I used the new (and one of my new favorites!) stamp set Hello Beautiful.

I created an alcohol ink background with some blue, pink and brown inks and added some gold foil where the ink stayed sticky. I white heat embossed some florals and a sentiment from the Hello Beautiful stamp set. I die cut a frame from the Inside Scalloped Rectangle dies and I was going to leave it at that...but as I was adding my frame I thought this would make a great shaker card! I used CDD sequins in Shimmer, Mermaid Lagoon, and Citrus Bliss! I love how it turned out!

Craftin Desert Divas Throwback

Hello! I have a clean and simple card using a throwback stamp set - Ladybug Garden! It's one of my favorite older CDD stamp sets! So many super cute images! This card is also inspired by our May mood board! Check out the mood board photo below and click on the image to take you to our Facebook challenge page! There are prizes to be won and all you have to do is create a project using CDD products inspired by the mood board!

So let's start today's tutorial! It involves one of my favorite techniques - ink blending!

You could use any ink for this project, but I wanted the colors to show through each other and blend to create depth, so I chose Distress Ink in the colors Spun Sugar, Worn Lipstick, and Abandoned Coral!

This card relies heavily on masking - another favorite technique! My idea was to mask off parts of the card in rectangles and squares and build a whole background. I used some paper medical tape to mask off the first portion of my card in the shape of a square.

I started with Spun Sugar - my lightest color and filled in the large square and continued masking off different areas of my card and blending ink over the tape.

My second color was Worn Lipstick. You can see here that I tore my cardstock while I pulled off my tape. I got a little too rambunctious and peeled too quickly! You better believe I'm not scrapping this piece, though! I will find a way to cover it up!

I finished up my panel with a few areas of Abandoned Coral!

I stamped my sentiment from the Wishful Thoughts stamp set with black glitter embossing powder. Looking back, I wish I had used a plain black ink.

I positioned my image from the Ladybug Garden stamp set to cover up my torn cardstock. Originally I had planned to place my image more toward the center, but when things happen you just have to roll with it! I had my card ready to go...and at the last minute I decided to cut out my panel with a scallop rectangle from the Fancy Frames die set and pop it up on my card base! And that finishes my card! Thanks for joining me!

CDD Mermaid Tail and Seahorse Dies

Hello, everyone! It's release week for Craftin Desert Divas and their May release is AMAZING! I'm going to be sharing projects all week, but I want to start with my FAVORITE from this release...the dies! They are phenomenal! 

For this card I used the smaller die from the Mermaid Tail die set and cut out a whole bunch of the fish scales to create the illusion of a background die. I watercolored a background piece using some Nuvo Shimmer Powders and added the white die cuts on top. My sentiment is from the new Waving Hello stamp set. It fits perfectly!

I used the same idea for this card, but I used the new Seahorse die instead! I watercolored a panel with Nuvo Shimmer Powders and repeatedly die cut the seahorse shape. I love square cards and I honestly don't make them often enough! I added all of my seahorses to the card and again used a sentiment from the Waving Hello stamp set!

There you have it! Two clean and simple cards focusing on the AMAZING die cuts!

Craftin Desert Divas May Release Sneak Peek Day 4

Hi! I'm here to share another stamp set from the May Craftin Desert Divas release! It's called Away We Go and will be available TOMORROW at 3 pm EST!! This stamp set is perfect for summer vacations! Or even moving! I love when a stamp set can be used for multiple themes! 

Thanks for joining me for sneak week! Head to the Craftin Desert Divas shop tomorrow to shop the new release!

Craftin Desert Divas May Release Sneak Peek Day 2

 Hello! Today I'm sharing a little sneak peek using the new Mermaid Tail Die! This is such an awesome die! It doesn't actually cut out the tail, so it's perfect for making a shaker card! But it's also so easy to just fussy cut around the outside so you have the outline of the die for your card! I did that and also lined up the inner pieces of the die so I got 2 cards from one die cut!

I created a watercolor panel using Nuvo Shimmer Powders and then die cut my mermaid tail, added some sentiments from the new Waving Hello stamp set, and boom! Two cute summer cards! The whole release will be available in the Craftin Desert Divas store Friday at 3pm EST!

Craftin Desert Divas May Release Sneak Peek Day 1

Hello, everyone! Can you believe it's already time for another Craftin Desert Divas  release?! I say it every month...but really this one is fantastic! It's a great way to enter summer! There's so many truly AWESOME stamps, dies, and a stencil!

Today I will show you two cards I made using the Waving Hello stamps and Beach Scene stencil!

See what I mean!? You're going to need this release! It will hit the Craftin Desert Divas shop on Friday at 3pm EST!

Die Cut Spotlighting Technique

Hello! I'm sharing a die cutting spotlighting technique with you today! I used pinks in my cards inspired by the May Mood Board! Click the photo below to take you to our Facebook group so you can join in the fun! Just create a card using CDD products inspired by the mood board and upload it to the challenge group.

On to my cards!

I created the blue one first with pops of pink, but the blue turned out much brighter than I expected and I thought the pink got lost...so I created another one so you can't miss the pink!

I took a scallop frame die from the Fancy Frames Die Set and put it in my MISTI so I would know where I would be diecutting. You could also die cut first and then tape the pieces together on the back. I just wanted to make sure I had stamping overlapping both pieces.

Then I lined up my sentiment and all my stamps and started stamping them with Versafine Onyx Black ink.

Whenever I stamp I stamp at least 2 pieces (especially in the MISTI since it's so easy)! I'm pretty accident prone and I"m glad I stamped 2 this time! I did one on white for my colored pencils. I'm so new with pencils I didn't know how it would turn out...so I stamped one on watercolor cardstock as well (watercolor is my tried and true coloring technique!).

I die cut my scallop frame from the center and I'll color in just the center portion!

I started with the pops of pink and used Prismacolor pencils in the colors pink and peach...

The robots were colored with silver and a bit of black for shading...

And then what I thought was a teal color for the background. It turned out to be super blue and I didn't like it as much. I went over everything with gamsol to blend the color and make it smooth.

In the end I had to break out my Staedtler markers and do some watercoloring. I just wasn't happy with the pencils! Haha!

I added fun foam to the back of the scallop rectangles and popped them back in to place. The little bit of dimension adds some fun shadows and really highlights the spotlighting technique! Thanks for joining me!

Small Images For Backgrounds

Hey there, everyone! I have a card and tutorial using the new Mommy To Be stamp set! I love to create my own backgrounds, so I used some of the smaller images to create a stamped background!

I was inspired by the April mood board to make this card. See those babies popping out of the eggshells!? Too cute! Click the photo below to take you to the Mood Board Facebook event page! There are prizes to be won and all you have to do is use the mood board as inspiration, create a project using Craftin Desert Divas products, and upload it to the event!

I started by stamping the stork image twice - once with Versafine Onyx Black ink onto my card base along with the sentiment and once with Memento Tuxedo Black ink onto a piece of cardstock for Copic coloring.

I selected a few of the small images from the Mommy To Be stamp set and arranged them randomly on my card base.

I picked all of them up at once with my MISTI and stamped them in a light gray ink. I repeated this process until my whole card base was covered with the images.

It's okay that I overlapped my stork image in places. I only stamped it onto the card base so that I would know where I wanted the image to go.

I colored my stork image with Copics and cut it out with my scissors.

I popped up the image with foam squares and gave it a healthy dose of Wink of Stella!!

Thank you for joining me!!