Sandy’s Craft Bag

Recently, I’ve needed a couple of sympathy cards, unfortunately, so my stash is gone.  I made 2 of the same thing to save some time to replenish it.  I started with navy blue cardstock cut to 5.5”x4.25” and blended some Distress Oxide Black Soot around the outside to create a bit of shadow. I wiped the back with a baby wipe and ran them through my Cuttlebug using an Altenew Charming Mandala embossing folder. Next I used a brayer and some Hero Arts Unicorn ink lightly across the top to highlight the design. Afterwards I die cut them with an Altenew Mix and Match frame die.  Using some vellum I also die cut some leaves using Altenew's Flowing Foliage set. I used a sentiment from the Hero Arts Protea Flower set, stamping on some vellum with black archival ink and embossing with clear powder.  I used a white mat on a navy card base and attached the embossed background. Last I attached the vellum leaves and sentiment with a tape runner.  These turned out really well! I love all the text

  I decided to go with a theme of stars and to make my first shaker cards for the 4th. I found the small star shaker dies and the Paper Rose Star texture die and thought I could do something with them. This is what I came up with.  They look deceptively simple, but I cut 120 of the stars out which took a looonng time. The little stars inside came from Buttons and Things. Aren’t they cute? They sealed the idea for me.   I’ll be entering this in the  Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge - Simon Says: Something Beginning With ‘S’ , Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge - Simon Says: Clean And Simple , and the DRU Challenge #195 . Thanks for stopping by!

For Father’s Day this year I pretty much copied a card from   Norene Borys for Altenew . It involved some techniques I haven’t used before and I learned a lot. It actually took me 3 tries to get them to turn out good enough to send. Here’s mine: I haven’t done much with masking before, so this was a learning experience. It wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be.  I’m not much of an artist, so the extra leaves & the watercoloring aren’t as good as I’d like, and I didn’t add any sketching on the bird itself. It’s a cute stamp, and overall I’m happy with how it finally turned out.  I’ll be entering this in the  Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge - Simon Says: It’s Up In The Air , the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge - Simon Says: Little Critter s, and the Stamping Sensations June Challenge- ****Make it Masculine**** . Thanks for stopping by!