Floral Doodles? (Yes, Please!)

On Thursday, I posted my first card featuring Doodle Town, one of three new stamp sets from Wendy Vecchi this Ranger Release Week. Today I'm showing off super-luscious Floral Doodles, and tomorrow I'll be back with Doodle Celebration. I'm quite smitten with all three sets, but Floral Doodles features doodle-y blooms that are Hibiscus- and Plumeria-like, which immediately makes me think of Hawaii, which immediately makes any day even better!

Inspired by some of Wendy Vecchi's previous cards on Instagram, I stamped all of the flowers and leaves in Black Archival Ink onto Dina Wakley Stickyback Canvas Tape, then colored them using Detail Blending Tools and WV Signature Archivals in Pink Peony, Tea Rose, Sunflower, Prickly Pear, Leaf Green and English Ivy. I added a few highlights and shadows with colored pencils, and put Eyelet Outlet Pink Jewel Bling and a White Mini Round Brad into the centers of the three largest blooms.

When I made my Inky Birthday Bash Card, for this Ranger Blog Post, I created several inky backgrounds on various paper types, before settling on the boldest, glossiest one for that particular card. But... I saved the "rejected" panels for later use; and the soft pink/yellow/orange tones of this one went perfectly with my Floral Doodles. I placed it inside the scallop-y chipboard frame from Wendy's Bases and Frames Chippies set, affixed the blooms to the corners, and matted the whole thing on a panel made by covering a piece of plain white cardstock with neat strips of the widest yellowy-green tape from Wendy Vecchi's Washi Tape Assortment 1. I stamped "Thanks So Much" onto an offcut of the watercolor paper background, matted it, and adhered it to the center with Ranger Adhesive Foam Tape.

Be sure to check out the Ranger Ink and Wendy Vecchi Instagram feeds for loads more inspiration!

Skating Away

We're still celebrating Winter Fun at Jingle Belles and you're still invited to join us! This week I was sorting through my holiday dies, and as soon as I came to these gorgeous Tim Holtz Ice Skates from Sizzix I knew exactly what I wanted to make. I spend a little too much time at the chiropractor to be an avid ice skater at this point in my life, but as a kid and teen I did enjoy skating. I definitely never owned a pair of purple paisley skates, but the great thing about cardmaking is that you're only limited by your imagination and your paper stash, and in my case, BOTH are considerable!

The purple paisley paper and both background layers are from Blue Fern Studio's "Eclectic Charm" collection, which I absolutely adored a year or two ago. The silver metallic cardstock on the skate blades and as a super-skinny mat between layers of pattern is Idea-ology; and the Evergreen Branches are Tim Holtz's Holiday Greens Thinlits in both regular and mini size. The sparkly Gold Enamel Stars are from Eyelet Outlet and the skate laces are DMC floss #3834.

Head over to Jingle Belles to see Stephanie's inspiring card, then start thinking about how you'd portray some "Winter Fun" in card form!

NEW Wendy Vecchi Doodle Stamps!

It's Ranger Release Week and there are soooo many fabulous new products from Tim Holtz, Dina Wakley, Dyan Reaveley and Simon Hurley, but maybe my very verrrrry favorite of the new things are these three stamp sets from Wendy Vecchi's MAKE ART line: Doodle Town, Doodle Celebration and Floral Doodles.*

By now I think everyone knows how much I love both flowers and cake, so when it was time to make my first card, of course I started with... Doodle Town!!! I mean c'mon... who could possibly resist those adorable houses?!

My first idea was to stamp and color them in a traditional way, but having seen both Wendy Vecchi and Dina Wakley use Dina's awesome Typed Ledgers in some amazing creations, of course I had to have some in my last Ranger order. And if anything, they're even cooler than I imagined; they come in BIG sheets with a fab variety of fonts, quotes and paper shades. I stamped all three of the Doodle Town houses on multiple ledger sheets in Jet Black Archival, fussycut (and cut... and cut, lol...) then layered about a dozen of them onto Ranger Adhesive Foam Tape before adding the sunshine, some clouds and one of the sentiments from the set.

I cannot tell a lie, even if it's a bit immodest... I *LOVE* how this came out! I'd love to talk more, but I still have two more stamp sets to bust out, stay tuned for more Doodle Goodness!!! ♥

*they come as a Doodle Bundle, too! :)

HOPPY Birthday

Nothing makes for a more RIBBET-ing birthday card than Eyelet Outlet Frog Brads. As if the frogs themselves weren't already cute enough, the sets also come with cattails, plus purple and yellow waterlilies. So you basically have all the ingredients for an entire scene... (and inspiration for an appropriately punny sentiment!) ...in just ONE little pack of brads! 

You could make a wonderful card with just an inky background and some Wide Sky Washi Tape, but in this case, I stamped the pond edge from Sunny Studio's Country Scenes set, colored it with Tombow Dual Brush pens to match the brads, and added a sweet little Mini Butterfly, which is on sale. I hope you'll agree this card is TOAD-ily awesome!

SOS: Extra Special

This fortnight at Shopping Our Stash the challenge is called, "What a Difference You've Made in My Life" and the brief is to make a card for someone extra-special. With Mother's Day just around the corner, that might immediately spring to mind for you, as it did for me, but you can choose ANYONE in your life, just let us know who it is in your post!

Something which has slightly changed my Mother's Day cardmaking duties in the few years, is that my mom has also become an avid cardmaker! Which is really cool but... it does kind of add a little extra pressure because now she KNOWS how things are made, lol! She's also a very keen and expert gardener, so I thought a floral theme would be cool. To encompass the "Stash" requirement for SOS, I've chosen a favorite Hero Arts Tulip die from a few years ago that I haven't used in a bit. I diecut a bunch of flowers and leaves from heavy-duty watercolor paper, then used a waterbrush and a few shades of pink and green Tombow Dual Brush Pens to add layers of (sort of) realistic color.

Other ingredients, old and new: Hero Arts' super-cool Victorian Greenhouse die, which I bought in February of 2020 and somehow NEVER used until now (?!); Penny Black's "Bloom" die; an ancient Tim Holtz Movers and Shapers butterfly die; a scrap of vintage doily; some leftover Prima papers from the Pretty Pale collection; and a brand new frame element from some amazing Stamperia paper which just arrived at Paper Anthology. 

I hope you'll head over to Shopping Our Stash to see the amazing design team cards and then be inspired to make something extra-special to link up with us this time!

It's a Candy Mandala Monday?

Ok, technically there is NO actual candy in this post, but I did use my beloved set of Bright Zig Dot Markers, which always remind me of those candy dots, which came stuck to a narrow sheet of cash-register-like paper, that we had as children in the 1970's. For the record, I don't think I particularly enjoyed eating those candies... (they were basically just sugar and food coloring and didn't have much in the way of flavor) ...but they were so fun and pretty I always enjoyed having them anyway! I hope your week is off to a sweeeeeeeeeeeeet start!

Winter Fun!

This fortnight at Jingle Belles, we're making cards that feature ways to have FUN during the winter time. You might enjoy skiing, ice skating or sledding … or you might be more about sitting inside watching the snowfall from your favorite chair while drinking hot cocoa and reading a book. Whatever says winter fun for you, include it on your card & tell us why you enjoy it. 

Something Lovely Husband Jeff and I especially enjoy in December is driving around to see the Christmas lights and decorations. I've tried to encapsulate that in card form, using Lawn Fawn's adorable Car Critters and Christmas Add-On stamps from Paper Anthology, set in a simple patterned paper landscape, including snow and mats from LF's Sprinkle and Shine as well as their Let it Shine lines. I punched loads of colorful trees from scraps and computer-generated the perfect sentiment.

What constitutes Winter Fun for you? Think about it, make a card, and come link up with us at Jingle Belles! I'm entering also this card in the Lawn Fawnatics' current challenge to Create a Scene!