Growing in Unity {Day 5}

I have had so much fun this week with all of you! As all good things must come to an end, today is day 5 and my final post for GIU. I had so much fun creating the projects that I shared this week and it was so fun to get to know more about you in your responses to my posts. Thank you so much for sharing my week with me!

For today, I am sharing a few cards that I made using another one of my favorite Kit of the Months,"Lucky to Have You" 2/12 KOM. This one goes way back... but I have used these images from the kit many times over the years. I love the vintage look and that clock image is my all time favorite. 

For the first card, I blended Antique Linen distress oxide, Antique Linen distress ink {not oxide}, and Gathered Twigs distress Oxide over Newton's Nook Argyle Stencil. Then I heat embossed the clock image using Walnut Stain Distress Embossing Glaze. I really love how it turned out so you could imagine my utter sadness when I stamped the two vintage cars and realized the one on the right was not even close to straight. (why it is always good to check that on scrap paper first!) 

But, you know what....there are no mistakes in art, only embellishment opportunities! So I decided to get creative with the sentiment to try and hide this little bump in the road. Once, I adhered the sentiment, I decided I wanted to add some ink splotches to the card. I didn't want the sentiment to have splotches, so I covered them with Washi tape. To make the splotches, I smooshed Gathered Twigs distress ink on a stamp block and sprayed it with water. Then with a paint brush, I flicked the ink onto the card.

I attached it to brown cardstock with a white core that I distressed for an old look. and removed the Washi tape from the sentiment.

The next card was a fairly easy slimline. I smooshed Antique Linen distress oxide on watercolor paper and blended Gathered Twigs distress oxide around the edge.

I stamped the vintage car images spaced evenly (and straight) down the middle of the panel. Then attached it to brown cardstock that I distressed. Next, I stamped the sentiment, cut it in three and layered it on a strip of black cardstock. To finish this card, I popped the sentiment on foam tape and added it to the card front.

My last card, is also a slimline. I had to get creative with this one too. I ran out of the brown cardstock I used on the other two cards, so I needed to piece together the left over pieces to fit my slimline. I lined up the three pieces on the card base and distressed them. Then, to cover the two lines where the pieces connected, I added thin strips of black cardstock that I also distressed. Voila! You would never know that was not one long piece of brown cardstock! 

I blended Antique Linen distress oxide over the white panel and stamped the two sentiments down the whole panel. Next, I blended some Gathered Twigs distress oxide over a piece of vellum and stamped one of the vintage cars on it. I folded the edge of the vellum over the top and bottom of the white panel and adhered it on the back so you didn't see the glue. I also put a little glue behind the car image and at the bottom, under the big black enamel dot. To finish this card, I added twine and foam tape before adhering it to the card base. 

And I would be remiss if I neglected to mention that I finish off my cards with this awesome stamp from Nic! This is a fairly new stamp as we recently moved and I needed an updated stamp. Magnuson Custom Stamps made it exactly how I wanted it! 

Masculine cards are always hard for me to make. I feel like I tend to purchase more feminine or children oriented stamps. Do you have a type of card that is hard for you to make? Thank you again for stopping by this week. I really enjoyed sharing with you all!!!

Kimberly

Growing in Unity {Day 4}

I  cannot believe how fast this week is going. I am having so much fun sharing my Unity Stamp Company creations with all of you. For day 4, I would like to share these two cards featuring the "Spark" stamp set and a sentiment from the "Timing is Perfect"stamp set. 

Generally when I make ink smooshed backgrounds, I do not photograph them. I sometimes make them to use up ink on my glass mat. Sometimes, I am just playing and save them for a later time. I made these backgrounds specifically for these cards, but unfortunately, I did not take a picture of the process and it is real hard to replicate an ink smooshed background. 

If you have not tried ink smooshing, it is really fun, but it is really important to heat set the ink before switching to another color. Otherwise, you will just get mud. Once my backgrounds were dry, I added more ink with stencils. 

These were both made on watercolor paper. For the teal card, I used Peacock Feathers, Twisted Citron, and Mustard Seed distress ink. I also used the Mini Microbial stencil and Mini Moving Vines stencil from The Crafters Workshop. I blended Pumice Stone distress ink over the Mini Microbial stencil in various places on the background.

For the pink card, I used Picked Raspberry, Mustard Seed and Twisted Citron distress ink. I blended Ground Espresso distress ink over the Mini Specimens stencil and Pumice Stone distress oxide over the Mini Microbial stencil. 

To finish the background panel, I stamped the sentiments on them and die cut them using the Gina Marie Designs Labels 6 Cloud Like Edge Nested Die Set. I had some grey white core cardstock in my stash that I distressed with a sanding block and added the ink panel to. 

I stamped and fussy cut the images from the Spark set. Then, I colored them with Copic Markers. I popped them up on foam tape and adhered them to the cards. I hope you like these cards as much as I enjoyed making them! 

Thank you for stopping by! Do you have a favorite technique to use when making cards? 

Copics:

Teal Butterfly

BG10, BG11, BG13, BG23, YG01, YG21

Pink Butterfly

R20, R30, Y00, YR31

Caterpillar

Y00, YG01, YG21, R20, R30

Branch/leaves

E34, E35, E37, G20, YG01, YG21

Kimberly

Growing in Unity {Day 2}

Welcome to day 2 of Growing in Unity! I know most if not all of us have been impacted by someone in our family, friend group or even ourselves by cancer. For me, I have a Grandmother, Mother, Aunt, Mother-In-Law and a few friends who have all had or have breast cancer. Today's post is dedicated to them and to remind all of you (public service announcement) to make sure you get to your annual appointment. Next month is dedicated to remind people to get their checkup, but I thought I would get a head start....Get those TA~TAs checked!!!!

Not only do I love that Unity Stamp Company has so many amazing images, I have fallen in love with their sentiments. They are perfect for so many circumstances. My first two cards we made with many of the same steps so I am going to talk about them together.

I really love the little dots and doodles that usually accompany Angie Girls and some of the Fashionistas. My problem in the past was, when I would fussy cut the image out, do I keep the dots or do I cut them out. So what I did to solve the problem was, I would stamp the image on the panel I was going to adhere the fussy cut image to and then just omit the doodles and dots when I fussy cut it. That way I can keep them but cut close to the image. Here I used Karen Girl and Hope {Fashionista}. The Sentiments are from Here Today, Here Tomorrow and If It Weren't For Cancer.

I knew I wanted the cards all to match so I really didn't need to use watercolor paper for these two, but I used it for the third so I kept it consistent. I started out by stamping the image and sentiment on the main panel using watercolor cardstock and the image I was going to color on X-Press It cardstock. I have been told that if you use Copics on watercolor paper, it will just absorb the color into the paper and use up your ink quicker. That is why I generally use Neenah and X-Press It cardstock when coloring with Copics. 

Next, I blended Catherine Pooler "It's a Girl" ink on part of the panel for the Karen Girl card. Then, I put the stencil down and used the same ink to blend over it. You can see when I took the stencil off, that the stencil got on the image, but it doesn't matter because it will get covered up. (I like that it eliminates the step of masking the image)

I colored both images that I stamped on X-Press It cardstock with my Copics and fussy cut them out. I used foam tape on Karen Girl to pop her up on the card panel. I glued the Fashionista directly to the main panel. Both of these cards are mini slimline cards so, I cut the watercolor down to 6" x 3 1/4". The Karen Girl panel was then attached to a 6 1/2" x 3 1/2" piece of pink cardstock. Next, I planned how to add my sentiment to the Fashionista card. 

There are a couple of things I want to mention about vellum.  My first suggestion is, sometimes we have sentiments that are big and they will cover all the coloring we just did. I like to stamp the sentiment on vellum so you can still see the image under the sentiment. Which brings me to my second suggestion. I know we are always trying to find creative ways to attach vellum to cards without the adhesive showing. My tip here with the Fashionista card is, fold one side over (in this case the left side) behind the cardstock and glue it in the back. Then, on the front, I use clear glue and put a very tiny dot behind a couple of the letters from the sentiment before pressing it down. When it dries, you cannot see it. 

After I attached the sentiment, I added foam tape and attached the panel to a 6 1/2" x 3 1/2" piece of pink cardstock. To finish both cards, I attached them to a white 6 1/2" x 7" card base scored in half at 3 1/2" and added some bling.

For this card, I used the All Things Are Possible set. I started out by ink smooshing the "It's a Girl" ink on a panel of watercolor paper. After I dried it completely, I blended the the same ink over the stencil and cleaned the ink off the stencil. Then I lined it back up on the panel and spread Glossy texture paste over the stencil in some areas. I put that off to the side to dry and cleaned the paste from the stencil so it wouldn't dry on it. 

Next, I stamped the butterfly on X-Press It cardstock and colored it with copics. Because I only colored the outside of the butterfly with Copics, I wanted to add something to the inside. I stamped a mask of the butterfly and cut out the inside part of the butterfly.

Next, I lined up the mask over my colored butterfly, put the stencil over it and blended ink through the open part of the butterfly. 

That gave me cute little dots inside my wings. 

To finish up this card, I die cut the watercolor panel as well as the center of the panel. I added foam tape to pop it up on grey card base. Then, I popped the butterfly up on foam tape and stamped the sentiment on a strip of watercolor paper. I attached them to the card and added some bling. 

Copics used:

Karen Girl

Hair: E31, E25, E29

Skin: E000, E00

Top: R81, R83, R95

Pants: W00, W1

Shoes: T0, T2, T6

Hope {Fashionista}

Wrap and top: R81, R83, R85

Sweater and boots: W0, W1, W2, W4

Pants: T0, T2 

Skin: E000, E00

Butterfly: R81, R83, R85

Thank you so much for stopping by! I hope I might have given you a couple of tips that you can use!

Kimberly