Simon Says Stamp Postage Stamp Valentine....and Gelatos!

Welcome back to another Valentine's themed card for this year's video series!

This time I've used my Simon Says Stamp February card kit again. This is the first time I've ever used Gelatos....and I love them! In this video I'll show you how I used them on the card. I don't know if this is the correct way to go, but I just used the gold Gelato as if it was watercolor in a stick!

I started with the piece of watercolor paper that was included in the kit and stamped the sentiment in the bottom right hand corner with my embossing ink and covered it with the Simon Says Stamp clear embossing powder from the kit. After the powder was heat set, I used a paintbrush (from the kit) and regular water and covered the cardstock where I wanted the Gelato to show. Then I took my Gelato directly to the paper and smeared some color over the water. I used more water and my paintbrush to color the paper, but it wasn't giving me the look I wanted. So I tried again...but a little differently this time. I smeared more Gelato onto my paper, but this time I just used my finger to smooth out the color. The sentiment popped out a lot better with this technique!

It was hard to capture on camera, but the shimmer from the Gelato really is gorgeous!

I wanted to accent the left side of the card, so I used some of the patterned papers and a postage stamp die from Spellbinders. The cutouts are a little bigger than an actual postage stamp, but I thought they'd work! I stamped two of the pieces with hearts and the other two with tiny sentiments from the stamp set in embossing ink. I used Recollections gold fine detail embossing powder and adhered them with tape runner adhesive.

I was going to adhere the piece straight to the cardstock, but I thought instead I would trim off 1/8" from the top and left side of the watercolor piece and use foam squares to pop up the panel onto a top folding Neenah card.

Here's the video:

Only one more week until Valentine's Day! I hope you are all busy sending out your Valentine's! See you soon!

Sweet Stamp Shop Monster Valentines

Hello! I hope everyone had a fantastic Superbowl weekend! We are blanketed in snow here in NEPA, thankfully my husband was off from work, but I had to call off. But, what better time to bring you some super cute Valentine's Day cards?! Today's video features the Monster Mash stamp set from Sweet Stamp Shop. I just love this set! Cute for Halloween, birthdays, apology cards, or even Valentine's!! I use this set for any card occasion! I'll be making two cards at once, a blue/yellow combination and a pink one!

Here's a quick peek at both of the cards together. Both are very similar, just different color combos! First I started by stamping my monster images in Memento Tuxedo Black ink. I also stamped a few of the extra eyeballs from the stamp set. I used Spectrum Noir markers to color them in. This was my first time filming myself coloring, so let me know if there's anything you'd like to see differently. I tried to place the caps in the left corner of my mat so you could see the colors I used, but I realized I wasn't zoomed in enough to make a difference, so they are in white text on the left side of the video screen.

Okay, so let's start with coloring the pink monster. I used FS6, PP1, and PP3. I started by laying down a base of FS6 and then used PP3 to add shading where I thought things would be darkest. Basically, I followed the rule that if something is under something, it will be darker. So I colored along the flower, since her head would be under it, under her eyes, and at the bottom of her body. Then I used PP1 to blend out my darkest color and added more FS6 over the whole body. I did the same exact thing for my yellow monster, except I used CT2, CT3, and CT4.

I wanted to color in the eyes just a bit, so I used my lightest gray, IG1, and the colorless blender. I put a bit of color onto the top and bottom of the eye and then blended out the color using the blender pen. This took away a bit of the pigment and softened the edges. Then I could go back and add some color to make the monsters have green and blue eyes. I let my blender and gray colors dry and then just added color around the black part of each little eyeball.

My papers are from the Lucky in Love collection from Echo Park and Allison Kreft. I cut my background pieces to be 1/8 " smaller than my card base. The text paper is cut 2 " wide. I adhered the papers together and then arranged the monster and eyeballs where I wanted them to be. I used a black pen to draw lines connecting the eyeballs behind the monster. I wanted them to be like extra monster eyes!

I stamped the sentiments "be mine" and "xoxo" in Tuxedo Black ink onto scrap white cardstock. I used Milo's ABCs from Lawn Fawn to form the words. I trimmed out the pieces and cut the ends at an angle.

I wanted a little more .... something to the card, so I took some silver thread and looped it around my fingers a few times, pinched it in the middle and held it in place with a glue dot. I stuck it down onto my cards and popped up the monsters with foam squares.

I thought that the blue card was lacking some Valentine's Day oomph, so I stuck on some puffy hearts from K&Company. I picked these up at Target and I love them! There's different colors and sizes to the hearts, so they're perfect for any project. I thought I'd continue the heart theme and add some hearts to my pink card as well.

I finished off the inside of the cards with a strip of matching patterned papers and a Happy Valentine's Day sentiment.

Here's the video!

I hope you enjoy these cards! I have more Valentine's coming soon, so I'll see you next time!

SC Blog Challenge.

Hi, all! Today I was inspired by a blog post on the Studio Calico website. This week's challenge is to create a project based on something you've previously pinned on Pinterest. I love it! I went to my Pinterest account and started looking through some of the photos I've added to my boards. I came across this image of a super cute heel.

I love the pink and the gold color combination! It's very chic. I knew I could do something with it! 

I pulled out some of the paper from the "Best of Dear Lizzy" collection I just got from Michael's and fell in love with the mason jar paper. I paired it with some gold banners I had in my stash and I used some Zing! embossing glitter in gold to give the card some pizzazz. Here is my finished product! I hope you like it! Your comments are always welcome! Thanks for reading! 

Hope you were inspired! 

STUDIO CALICO CAMELOT!!

My new SC Card Kit came in the mail yesterday! WOO! I'm so excited about this month's kit! There are some super cute stamps, papers, and embellishments! Just look at this!

I had to go to work last night, but I played around with my new goodies as soon as I got home. I'll show you one of my projects that I created.

I used the stamp set from the main card kit as well as the gray cardstock to create my card base. The cake stand and rings are embossed in gold. The cake is embossed in white. For the banner, I first embossed the background in gold and then embossed the "congratulations" sentiment in white. I doodle-dashed around the edge of the card in a white gel pen to finish off the card.

If you want to see more, head over to Studio Calico and look up my gallery under my username, sparkliie. Also, if you have any questions about signing up for a monthly kit, let me know. I'd be more than happy to convince you to join!!