Honey Bee Stamps - Bloom Where You Are Planted

I have 2 cards to share today using Honey Bee Stamps Stick with Me and Prickly Sentiments stamp sets.  For the first card I used all four of the tiny succulent images in Stick with Me to create a heart shaped arrangement.  I pulled out my Zig Clean Color real brush markers to water color the images in many different shades of green.  I had stamped the succulents in a light gray ink so as I colored the gray lines softened.  After the watercolors were completely dry,  I used a .05 mm black Copic multi liner to trace over the faint stamped lines giving the look of hand drawn images.  I fussy cut out all the succulents and then adhered with glue dots on to a large die cut heart.

I used a Stardust Glitter pen to add just a bit of sparkle to the succulents.  I stamped the sentiment in a dark green ink.  Lastly I added just a few light blue ink splatters and HBS Clear Iris sequins to finish it off. 

I loved how this card turned out so I decided to try the same watercolor and hand drawn line trick with all the cactus images too.  For both cards I really wasn't too worried about being very detailed or precise with the watercoloring.  I think this is called messy watercoloring - just scribble on little color from the Zigs and blend out with a water brush.  I wanted these designs to be more about the look as a whole than each individual image.  So I gave more attention to varying the shades and tones of the greens to create a little dimension and depth.  

For the Cactus card I used much brighter vibrant shades of green.  I fussy cut out all the images then started adhering each cactus one by one.  I wanted them tightly packed with no gaps to completely cover the bottom half of the card.  I used the HBS cloud stencil from the Outdoor Scene Builder stencil set and some Tumbled glass distress ink to give the top half of the card a nice airy sky above the cactus.  That was the perfect place to stamp the sentiment.  

Hello Bluebird - Tropical Vibes

I'm going tropical with today's cards!  The weather in the midwest right now is anything but tropical.  I'm dreaming of warm sunny places with lush foliage and colorful birds so I pulled out some new stamps and dies from Hello Bluebird to create tropical scenes on my cards.

All images for my cards today are from the Silly Birds stamp set.  It's such an awesome set that's packed with fun tropical birds, accessories, and sentiments to create some fun little scenes.  I also used the Tropical Foliage dies which coordinate so well with the Silly Birds stamps. 

I love the large palm leaf die from the foliage set and used four of them to create a frame around the toucan.  To color the leaves I used a simple and easy technique - ink smooching with Distress Oxides.  I just swipe the ink pad on a craft mat, spritz a little water over that, and then smoosh the card stock into the wet ink.  I dry the inked card stock with a heat tool and repeat the process several times.  I then can die cut the leaves out from any area of the inked card stock and get a different look each time.  

For this next card I used the palm leaves again but arranged them more randomly to ground the images and sentiment in the center of the card.  

I went with a much more feminine color scheme.  

I just love the way the palm leaves pop off the pink background!