Double Slider Mermaid Card

Hey y'all! It's been a while, and I am so sorry for that! Things have been super busy here in our house. My oldest daughter started school this year. And let me tell you.....I am one tired mama! I forgot what the beginning of the school year feels like. We have been running around like crazy. I haven't really had the opportunity to get in the craft room like I've wanted. But I reckon there will be times like that, right? 

I've had so many ideas swirling around in my head, and I'm finally glad to get to share one! My niece's birthday party is today, so I created this mermaid double slider surprise card for her. She loves mermaids, so I knew that the Mermaid For You stamp set from Lawn Fawn was the perfect choice to pair with the Double Slider Surprise dies. I've been dying to use this die set since I got it. 

I knew that I wanted an underwater ocean scene on the front of the slider pocket as well as the inserts that pulled out; but I wasn't sure what I wanted the actual card base to look like. So, I just started with the slider portion. I die cut all of those pieces from white cardstock, cutting one extra of the pocket piece and the insert. This slider pocket was actually really easy to put together after I watched the video on the Lawn Fawn YouTube channel. If you're interested, you can find that video here. There are many wonderful tips, tricks, and ideas in it! I inked up one of the front pocket pieces and 2 of the insert pieces using Salty Ocean Distress Oxide ink. Then I inked up the other pocket piece and extra insert piece using Vintage Photo Distress Oxide ink. I sprayed all the pieces with a distress sprayer and blotted them dry with a paper towel, then set them aside to dry. 

Next, I stamped, colored, and die cut the images to make my scene. I used a few of the ocean/water themed stamp sets from Lawn Fawn: Fintastic Friends, You Are Sublime, and Mermaid For You. I also used the coordinating dies for each of those sets. I wanted to have a pretty full scene, so I stamped LOTS of things from those stamp sets; sometimes stamping multiples of images I thought I might use more than one of. I stamped them with my favorite Copic friendly ink-Lawn Fawn Jet Black. Then I colored them using the following Copic markers:

Mermaids: E21, E53, B37, B39, E25, E27, RV02, RV04, BG10, BG13, V15, V17, R20, R24, B000, B00, Y11, Y17

Mermaid Crown: YR12, YR15

Eel: BG02, BG05, BG07, YG21, YG25

Fishes: V15, V17, Y19, YR16, YR18, V01, V04, YG21, YG25, RV52, RV55, YR12, YR15

Lobster and Hermit Crab: R24, R29, W0, W2

Underwater Plants/Seaweeds: Y13, Y15, YG21, YG25, RV13, RV14, BG02, BG05, G03, G14

Rocks and Seashells: YR02, YR04, R00, R20, BG02, BG05

Next, I cut the ocean floor from the brown inked pieces that I had using the Stitched Hillside Borders dies. I adhered them to the bottom of the ocean pieces I had inked. I stamped the sentiment in the top corner of the front of the pocket panel. I used sentiments from the Happy, Happy, Happy set and the Happy, Happy, Happy Add-On: Family set. I stamped this in Versafine Onyx Black ink. Then I adhered all of my underwater elements onto the pieces. Then it was time to assemble the slider. I used the video as a guide and put it together according to those directions. After it was assembled, I die cut 2 pull tabs with one of the dies that came in the Double Slider Surprise set. I stamped the "Pull Here" from the Push Here stamp set (also from Lawn Fawn) using Salty Ocean Distress Oxide ink. Once they were dry, I attached them my inserts. 

Now, it was time to work on the card base. If I'm being completely honest, I had a very hard time figuring this part of the card out. I just wasn't sure what type of background I wanted. But once I saw the bubbles from the You Are Sublime stamp set, I knew they would be perfect. I cut a panel to 4 1/4" by 5 1/2" and prepped it with an anti-static powder bag. I stamped the bubbles all over it using Versamark ink. Then I added some white embossing powder to the bubbles and heat set it. Then I inked over the whole panel using Blueprint Sketch and Salty Ocean Distress Oxide inks. Then I used a paper towel to get the inks off of the embossing. 

Once I had done that, I adhered that panel to a white side folding A2 card base. Then I attached my slider to the card using some foam tape. And, that was it. My card was finished. I am absolutely in love with the Double Slider Surprise dies! There are tons of ways to decorate them. They could be used for just about any occasion you could think of.

If you have any questions or comments, please leave them below. I'd love to hear from you! I hope that y'all have a great weekend! I'm so thankful that you stopped by today. I hope that you'll come back and visit me again soon!

"Wild" Birthday Card

Hey y'all! I've got a new card to share with you today that I created for the current Simon Says Stamp Monday challenge. This week's challenge is "Wild Things". For more information on the challenge and to see all the other entries, click here.

As soon as I saw the guidelines for this challenge, the first thing that came to mind was of course something jungle or animal related. So, I decided to use this completely adorable stamp set from Waffle Flower. It is their Jungle B-Day set. It's so sweet! 

I started this card by working on the background first. I cut a piece of white cardstock to fit an A2 sized card. I used two of the leaf images and one of the vine images from the set and just stamped them multiple times to fill the entire panel. I alternated the vines and the leaves until I had the background covered. I stamped the images with Simon Says Stamp Jellybean ink.

Next, I stamped the images that I thought I might use onto some white cardstock making sure to use Copic friendly ink. In this case, I used Lawn Fawn's Jet Black. It's my favorite Copic marker friendly ink. I stamped and colored many more images than I actually used on this card, but I wasn't quite sure what I had in mind for the scene for this card at the time, so I just wanted to make sure that I had enough. I colored the images with my Copics using the following combinations:

Vines and Leaves: G03 and G07

Gifts: BG11, V01, V04, B91, B93, and R29

Cake: R20, R24, R27, R29, Y11, Y13, E51, E53, YR02, YR04, C1, and 0

Elephant: C2, C4, C6, BG11, BG13, and Y19

Toucan: Y15, Y17, FB2, W7, W8, and C1

Tiger: YR04, YR07, R20, R29, B91, and B93

Bananas: Y11 and Y13

Monkeys: E25, E27, E21, and R20

After I had them all colored, I cut them out with their coordinating dies. These stamps/dies are just so adorable! I cut out a circle from black cardstock using the Small Stitched Circle Stackables Dies from Lawn Fawn. I adhered it to my stamped background panel in the upper center of the card. I played around with the arrangement of the die cut images until I found a great placement for them. Then I adhered them to the card panel. 

To finish the card front, I die cut the word "celebrate" using the Celebrate Border Die from Lawn Fawn. I trimmed off some of the edges to get it to fit nicely on the card. Then, I ran it through the Xyron sticker maker. This made it so much easier to attach it to the front of my card. I attached the whole panel to a white top folding A2 card base. 

On the inside of the card, I stamped a sentiment from the Reveal Wheel Sentiments Stamp set by Lawn Fawn using the same Jet Black ink as before. I put one of the other monkeys that I had already die cut above it just to make the inside of the card as cute as the outside. 

Lastly, I wanted a bit of sparkle on the card somewhere. So, I put some Nuvo drops in White Blizzard over the celebrate die cut. That finishes up my card for today. I hope that you like it!

If you have any questions or comments, I would love to hear from you! Have a wonderful Sunday! See you again soon!

Flamingo Birthday Card

Happy Saturday friends! I've got a fun new card to share with you that I created. My aunt's birthday is coming up and I wanted to make her a fun summery card. And Lawn Fawn's flamingos were the perfect thing for that! 

I started this card by first making the main scene. I stamped the flamingos from Flamingo Together stamp set. I used Lawn Fawn's Jet Black ink (since it's Copic marker friendly). Then I colored them using the following colors: RV13, RV14, YR04, and YR09. They were super fast and easy images to color.  Next I stamped the palm trees from the same set. I used Lawn Fawn Walnut ink and Simon Says Stamp Jelly Bean ink. Then I cut all the images out with the coordinating dies. 

I knew that I wanted to have a beach scene, so I cut out a circle from white cardstock using the next to largest stitched circle die in the Large Stitched Circle Stackables die set. I then die cut this white cardstock circle several times. First, I wanted to make the sand; so I used a die from the Stitched Hillside Border dies to cut the bottom portion of the circle. Next, was going to be the waves. I cut a little more of the circle from the bottom portion using the Ocean Waves Border dies. Next, I needed to cut a sun in the sky. To do this, I arranged the smallest circle from the Large Stitched Circle Stackables die set on the bottom of the portion of the circle that was left. I didn't want it to cut a complete circle, but rather just half to look as though it was the sun setting on the horizon; so I left the die hanging off the paper some when I ran it through my die cutting machine. 

Now that I had all of my background pieces for my scene, I went ahead and inked them up using Distress Inks. For the sky I used Tumbled Glass. The sun was inked with Spiced Marmalade. Salty Ocean was the perfect color for the waves. And lastly I used a combination of Tea Dye and Brushed Corduroy for the sandy beach. To assemble the beach scene, I cut out a circle from black cardstock using the largest circle in the Small Stitched Circle Stackables set. I adhered all of the inked pieces back together onto that black circle. Then I layered the flamingos and palm trees onto it as well. 

For the background panel I wanted something kind of whimsical to match the fun scene. I love polka dots and thought that would be the perfect thing for the background. I looked through the stamps that I have, and saw the corner image in the Let's Bokeh stamp set. I love that stamp set so much! I stamped it all over a piece of white cardstock cut to 4 1/4" by 5 1/2", rotating the block as I stamped. I used the perfect shade of pink ink too--Plastic Flamingo from Lawn Fawn (was there any other choice? 😉). After I had the background stamped, I ran it through my die cut machine again using the largest rectangle from the Large Stitched Rectangle Stackables set to get that great stitching detail around the card. I attached the circle scene to the top center of the panel. Next, I found a birthday sentiment that worked well with my scene to stamp on the bottom of the panel. I used the Happy Birthday from Happy, Happy, Happy stamp set. I stamped the sentiment using the MISTI so I could stamp it multiple times. I really wanted a dark, crisp stamped sentiment. I used Versafine Onyx Black ink for this. To finish up my card, I adhered the completed panel to a white side-folding A2 card base.

I hope that you like this card and that it makes you think of the all the fun that summer brings. I really appreciate you stopping by to see me today! I hope that you have an amazing weekend with all the ones you love! See you next week!

Fairy Garden Fun Fold Card

Hey y'all! Happy Monday! I hope that you all had a great weekend. I'm back today to share a card with you that I created for the Lawn Fawnatics Fun Fold Challenge. (Click here to see the challenge announcement and the other entries for it. They are great!)

I knew as soon as I saw this challenge what I wanted to do. I knew that I wanted a tall card that had panels that opened to reveal a full scene, but also had a scene when it was closed. I played around with a couple of different things and finally settled on this version, which I really love. 

To start the card, I took an 8.5" by 11" piece of white cardstock and trimmed off half an inch from the 11 inch side. The resulting measurements were now 8.5" by 10.5". I scored it at the 3.5 and 7 inch mark on the long side. I folded it to make a kind of "z" fold. Next, I determined how tall I wanted my front and middle portions to be. After some trial and error, I ended up with the front panel measuring 4 3/8" tall and the middle panel was 6 1/4" tall. To get them the right size, I just measured up the side of the panels and used a ruler and an Xacto knife to cut a straight line horizontally to the next panel. Then I just used my scissors to trim down the fold to my cut line. When the card was laid flat open, it kind of looked like stair-steps. 

Next, I started inking my sky and grass panels. I cut 5 pieces of white cardstock to 3.5" by 8.5". I used my card base as a guide when trying to see how much of the green grass I needed on each panel. Using Mowed Lawn Distress Ink, I inked each of them. After they had been inked, I sprayed them with water from a Distress Sprayer and blotted them dry with a paper towel. Next, I ran each panel through my die cut machine using Lawn Fawn's Grassy Border die, making sure that each one was just a little taller than the panel it would be covering; with the exception of the last panel for the inside of the card. I made sure it was taller than the second panel, but short enough to leave space for the sky. I should also mention that I cut 2 for the front portion of the card and 2 for the middle portion of the card, so I made sure that each of those were the same size respectively. After die cutting the grass into the tops, I inked up the back side with the same green ink so that there wouldn't be any white grass showing on the backs of the panels. Then I inked my sky. I used Tumbled Glass Distress Ink on the top of the back panel of my card base. I also sprayed it with a Distress Sprayer.

Next, I stamped all my images. I actually stamped way more than I needed. But I wanted to make sure that I had plenty to use. I really wanted a full card. And these images are so cute, you can never really have too many. I used quite a few stamp sets from Lawn Fawn: Elphie Selfie, Year Two, To A Fungi, Little Fireflies, Gnome Sweet Gnome, and Fairy Friends. These sets are some of my very favorites. I stamped them with the MISTI using Lawn Fawn Jet Black ink. This is my favorite black ink to use. It's a nice, crisp black ink that's Copic Marker friendly. 

After I had stamped all those adorable images, I was ready to get coloring. I used the following Copic Markers:

Flowers: G03, G14, RV10, RV13, V01, V04, BG11, BG13, Y13, Y15, E55, and E57

Mushrooms: V01, V04, BG11, BG13, YG21, YG25, RV55, E53, E55, B34, B37, B39, W7, RV00, RV02, FB2, B63, B66, and YR04

Mushroom Houses: R24, R29, E53, E55, YR30, YR31, E79, B000, 0, B63, B66, YR02, YR04, and E57

Birds: B000, and B00

Bees: Y15, Y17, W4, W7, BG10, and 0

Turtles: G21, G24, and W2

Mouse: E55 and E57

Fireflies: E11, E13, Y17, BG10, and 0

Fairies: RV11, RV13, V01, V04, YG21, YG25, E00, E21, YR31, Y17, E55, E27, BG10, 0, and E57

Fairy House: RV00, RV02, B63, B66, C4, C5, G03, G14, B000, and 0

Gnome: W2, W4, YR15, YR16, W8, B99, E00 and E21

After I had colored all the images, I die cut them if I had the coordinating set or fussy cut them if I didn't. I used the Elphie Selfie dies, Year Two dies, Little Fireflies dies, Gnome Sweet Gnome dies, and Fairy Friends dies. 

Next, I adhered my grassy panels to the corresponding portion on the card base. Once I had them in place, I arranged my die cut images all over my card base until I had the perfect placement for each. Once I had them all arranged, I glued them in place. 

Lastly, I stamped my sentiments on the first and last panels. I used sentiments from the Year Two and Fairy Friends stamp sets using Versafine Onyx Black ink. Now my card was completed. I really enjoyed making this fun card! I really can't ever have too many fairy cards. They make my heart so happy!

I hope that you enjoyed my take on this challenge. If you have any questions or comments, I'd love to hear from you! I do so appreciate you stopping by and visiting with me today. I hope that you have a wonderful week! See you again soon!

Ahoy, Matey!

Hey friends! Happy Wednesday! I can not believe how close it is to August already! This summer has just flown by. I'm trying my best to savor these last weeks of summer. I'm one of those moms who enjoys the kids being out of school, and I'm just not quite ready for it to be over yet. So, today I thought I'd share with y'all a nice summer-y card. 

I created this card for a special young man's 4th birthday. I wanted to make something fun and playful for him and thought this stamp and die set would be perfect. To start my card I made the background panel first. I started by inking some white cardstock with Brushed Corduroy distress ink to use for the sandy beach. Then I inked more white cardstock for the sky and ocean waves. For the ocean, I used Salty Ocean distress ink and the sky was inked using Tumbled Glass distress ink. After all pieces were inked, I sprayed them with a Distress sprayer and blotted them dry with a paper towel. 

I cut two pieces to use as the ocean waves using Lawn Fawn's Ocean Wave Border Dies. After I had die cut them, I added a bit of Blueprint Sketch distress ink to the tops of the waves, Then I cut the sand using Lawn Fawn's Stitched Hillside Border Dies. Once all of my background pieces were cut, I adhered them to a side folding white A2 card base. 

Next, I was ready to stamp. I used the Ahoy, Matey stamps from Lawn Fawn. I stamped the little pirates, a ship, a couple of trees, parrot, and treasure chest using Lawn Fawn Jet Black ink. I made sure to use an ink that was suitable for Copic markers. After all images were stamped, I colored them using the marker combinations that follow. For the boots of the pirates I used W7 and W8. The pirate girl's hat and dress I used R29, R27, C1, B41, and B45. For her hair I used E55 and E57. The skintones I used on both pirates were E00 and E11. For the little boy pirate's clothes I used R27, R29, W4, W7, W0, B41, and B45. For his peg leg I used E79 and E57. I colored his hair using  E55 and E53. For the treasure chest I used E25, E27, R27, R29, Y15, and Y19. The parrot was colored in shades of green using YG21, YG25, and YR16 for it's beak. On the pirate ship I used E25, E27,W7, W8, R37, and R39. Lastly I used E57, E79, E55, G03, and G07 for the trees. After all the images were colored, I die cut them with the coordinating dies and arranged them on the front of my card. To complete the card, I stamped the "Ahoy, Matey" sentiment at the top right of the card. 

I hope you enjoyed today's card creation! This card was super fun to make! If you have any questions or comments feel free to leave them below. I'd love to hear from you! I hope that you have a wonderful Wednesday! Come back and see me soon! 

MFT's Summer School Day 1

Hey y'all! I'm back to share with you the card that I created for My Favorite Things Summer School Day 1. The topic for day 1 of school was white space. I really enjoyed creating this card. It was quite simple to put together, but I absolutely love the end result. It is perfect to give to someone who will be celebrating a birthday, young or young at heart.

 I simply started with a white cardstock panel that was cut slightly smaller than my card base. It measured 4" x 5 1/4". I stamped the candles from the Make a Wish stamp set with a deep purple ink. I used my Misti tool just incase I needed to stamp the image twice. Next, I stamped the candle flames with a rich yellow ink. Lastly, I stamped the celebrate sentiment from the set with black ink. I kept my image in the top center of the card.

After everything had been stamped, I went over the candles and flames with a Wink of Stella glitter brush pen to add some sparkle. Who doesn't love a little sparkle? To finish my card off I added some craft foam to the back of my panel and added it to a white side fold A2 card base.

If you are interested in participating in summer school I encourage you to visit the MFT blog here at Summer School Day 1. I am so thankful that you stopped by to  see me today! If you have any questions or comments leave them for me below. See you at school!