Happy (b)Earth Day!

My friend Chris was born on Earth Day - the perfect excuse for using Lawn Fawn's Wish You Were Here set!

I started by stamping and die-cutting the globe, heart, and letters from Owen's ABCs. Once dry, I colored in the globe with watercolor pencils and used a waterbrush to watercolor the image. I wanted the end result to look like the speech bubble was coming out of the globe, so I used the die-cut globe to determine my placement for the speech bubble before die-cutting.

The Paper Source Superfine White folded card's top fold was cut with the speech bubble border, and a corresponding Paper Source Lake blue coverweight notecard was cut with the same border, and the negative space was mounted on the inside of the card. The negative space shows when the card is shut, too, as the speech bubble is now the only part of the card that opens (a technique I borrowed from the amazing Jennifer McGuire!)!

The sentiment was created first by stamping earth using quinn's ABCs with versamark ink and heat-embossing it with orange powder from Paper Source. I then added the other words from Let's Bokeh and the arrow from Wish You Were Here with Memento Tuxedo Black Ink on the outside and inside of the card, and drew in the parenthesis on the inside.

After adhering the blue negative space to the inside fold of the card and laying out my pieces where they would go, I felt like it needed something more, so I stamped with the Argyle Backdrops image in Versamark Ink. I then finished the card by adding all of my die-cut elements with foam squares.

Happy Earth Day, y'all (and Happy Birthday, Chris!)!

PS- Lawn Fawn is also celebrating Earth Day today with a 15% off sale on some Earth-themed items.

Watercolor Sugar Skull Birthday Card

I put together this Dia de los Muertos-inspired birthday card for my good friend KC, using two of my FAVORITE stamps from Paper Source: the sugar skull stamp  and the Marquee Happy Birthday stamp, and using the arrows from Lawn Fawn's Blue Skies stamp set and the frame from Sweater Weather. I used a watercolor technique with Tim Holtz Distress Inks to color in the stamped images, and also to get these vibrant background stripes, using washi tape to mask. I used Gelly Roll moonlight gel roller pens to fill in the 'lights' on the sentiment (one of my favorite tricks!), which added a neon kick to compliment the watercolor background lines.

I learned the fun masking watercolor technique from this fantastic video by Nicole on Lawn Fawn's blog!  I've really been enjoying watching these videos and picking up tips and tricks to enhance my paper-crafting skills!

Inside, I practiced my handlettering with le pens, and went over her name with a Gelly Roll Clear Star gel pen.

For the envelope, I used versamark ink with Quinn's lowercase letters for the sentiment, and added the Paper Source piñata stamp to finish it off.

I'm submitting this watercolor birthday card as an entry into this week's Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge: Watercolor on their blog!

Happy Birthday, KC! :)