Alex Syberia Designs "Sunkissed Memories" June Release Blog Hop and Giveaway

 

Hi Everyone! I'm super excited to be joining Alex Syberia Designs as a guest this month for the release of their Sunkissed Memories Collection.  Today is a blog hop to kick things off!

To go back to the beginning of the hop -->click here<--

Previous blog: Hannelie Bester

Next blog: Lien Leysen

Be sure to leave a comment to win - Alex Syberia Designs is giving away two £15 gift cards to the ASD store and one full release bundle, valued at £400 ($495) in total. 

Three winners will be picked from the comments left on each designer’s blog post in this hop before midnight BST on June 18th 2023. Winners will be announced on the ASD Release Blog Hop post on June 19th 2023.

I have two cards to share today which showcase one of the new die sets in action. It's called Garden Tweets. This set includes dies to create a sweet little bird and some whimsical florals.  

How cute are those flowers and bird? I've die cut those pieces from white card stock then added color with ink and blending brushes (ink colors used are listed at the end of this post).  The leaves and stems were die cut from solid green card stock in two different shades.  

For the polka dot background on the card below, I used a new stencil... Tiny Dots Stencil.  I stenciled first very lightly with red ink to get the pink dots.  Then I shifted the stencil to double up on the dots and used a heavier hand with the same ink to get the darker dots.  This created a two-toned dotted background. It's a great way to get more looks from one stencil.  

For the next card, I used a new cover plate to create the background... Meadow Magic Cover Die.  I just love the subtle texture it adds without distracting from the flowers and greeting.  

I used Altenew inks for the ink blending in the following colors:

• red/pink - Pink Pearl, Coral Bliss, Heart Beat
• blue - Iceberg, Eastern Sky, Ultramarine
• yellow - Sunray, Chamomile, Snapdragon

BLOG HOP LINEUP:

• Alex Syberia Designs 
• Bobbi Lemanski
• Bonnie Crane
• Brenda Noelke
• Colleen Balija
• Emelie Hessler
• Erica AB
• Hannelie Bester
• Leanne West***YOU ARE HERE***
• Lien Leysen
• Michelle Short
• Mindy Eggen
• Natasha Vacca
  
• Nicoletta Porcu
• Raquel Arribas
• Rebecca Keppel
• Sandhya Iyer
• Sandi Maciver
• Sylvie
• Vera Indarti

Fishing Card & Gift Box with Honey Bee Stamps

Hi again! I have more Adventure Awaits projects to share. Today's are more on the masculine side of things.  My husband is an avid fisherman so I was thrilled to see these new fishing stamps and dies from Honey Bee Stamps. I have made a card and little gift box for his birthday.  I plan to enclose a Bass Pro Shops gift card in the box. 

Below is a linked list of all the Honey Bee Stamps products used plus a little description of how they were used:

• Lovely Layers Lures Honey Cuts - to die cut fishing lures and hooks
• Hooked On You 6x6 stamp set - to stamp sentiments on card and box
• Lucky Lures 6x8 stamp set - to stamped images and decor on box
• Vintage Gift Card Box Honey Cuts - to create the gift box
• Adventure Awaits Paper Pad - layered panels on card
• Deckle Edge A2 Honey Cuts - to die cut patterned paper panels

I wanted a rustic feel for these so I have used kraft card stock for the card base, box, and die cut lures.  I did all the stamping in brown ink then colored the box images and the lures with Copic Markers.  I love how they turned out.  The results of Copic coloring on kraft is very different from what you get on white card stock.  The colors become faded or greyed when they soak in to the kraft card stock which is perfect if you're wanting a more masculine, rustic vibe.  

Copics used for coloring: 

blue - B97

teal - BG11, BG13

green - YG61, YG63, YG67

yellow - YR21, YR23

T6 to color hooks, eyes, and dot detail

W1, W3 to add darker shading in some areas

Honey Bee Stamps Lovely Layers Water Lily Cards

Hello! If you've come over from the Adventure Awaits Instagram Hop, I sure appreciate you stopping by! The two cards I'm sharing may not look simple but trust me when I say, they are very easy to make and not as time consuming as one might think.  I have used a few new items from Honey Bee Stamps Adventure Awaits Release to create these.  One item in particular really elevated this card design while saving me a lot of time in the creative process. 

Below is a linked list of all the Honey Bee Stamps products I used:

• Lovely Layers Water Lily Honey Cuts - flower and lily pad
• Be Still stamps & dies - sentiments
• Adventure Awaits paper pad - watercolored leaves patterned paper
• Outdoors Pinstripes & Polkadots paper pad
• Spring Vine Layering Frames Honey Cuts - blue frames
• Adventure Awaits Gem Stickers

The water colored foliage arranged in an oval is actually patterned paper from the Adventure Awaits 6x8 Paper Pad.  There's two of these oval foliage images on a sheet. I simply fussy cut around the foliage and then used it behind the water lilies. This saved me so much time versus water coloring my own foliage background and the bonus is, it looks authentic!

The water lily petals and pad were die cut from white card stock.  I used some distress oxides and blending brushes to color the petals. The yellow is Wild Honey and the pink is Saltwater Taffy. The lily pad leaf was watercolored.  I'm certainly not a water color expert. I just wing it when I'm watercoloring but I will say that the vein impressions the die leaves behind are helpful as guide for shading in those lines. 

The Spring Vine Frame was die cut from two different blue shades included in the Pinstripes & Polkadots paper pad.  I find these basic patterned paper pads indispensable in card making.  

One final thing to note about this card design, it is very versatile and could be used for many different occasions. I picked sentiments from the Be Still set to use.  This new stamp set has many to choose from with coordinating dies like all of Honey Bee's sentiment sets.  I love die cutting and popping up the sentiments to layer over other elements. I'm a layers girl.... the more the merrier :)

Honey Bee Stamps Adventure Awaits Release

Hi everyone! There's a fun new release available now over in the Honey Bee Stamps shop.  There are tons of outdoor adventure themed products including a fantastic layering stencil set which I'm showcasing on a card today.  

--->click here to see the Adventure Awaits collection<---

My card features a dreamy lakeside scene with a charming little cabin tucked away in the trees.  This idyllic scene was so easy to create with some of Adventure Awaits release items.  I'll list and link them below the photo.  

• Lakeside Scene Builder Honey Cuts
• At the Lake Set of 6 Layering Stencils
• Summer Cabins Honey Cuts
• Be Still 6x6 Stamp Set 

I used a variety of inks and blending brushes to stencil this pretty scene.  Since the scene has a lot of trees and grassy area, I picked a bunch of different shades of green that range from warm to cool.  I think that helped give some contrast between all the greens.  

The Lakeside Scene Builder Honey Cuts die cut the mountain and tree tops while impressing details into the card stock.  I used those impressions as a guide to add shading with Copics markers.  To get the tree reflections on the water, I simply turned the stencil upside down and very lightly stenciled those images in green right over the blue.

For little cabin, I die cut all the parts from white card stock and then used Copic markers to color.  I think this is the fastest and most efficient way to do it when working with tiny pieces.  

This entire scene came together so nicely with the help of these new products. I wish I could just jump right into this picture for a little R&R myself! :)

Papertrey Ink May Release Countdown

It's that time already! The May release countdown has begun over on the Papertrey Ink Blog. The release will be available on May 23rd at 10pm ET in the PTI shop.  

This month's release includes a mix of sweet baby themed things and a new Into the Blooms set. 

Click here to visit the PTI Blog

The first two cards I'm sharing feature the new Sweet Baby Bibs dies.  This set gives you many different options to create little paper bibs and embellishments for baby cards and tags. 

The uniquely shaped panel in the background was created with the new Cornered Fresh Cuts dies.  There's a few different corner options in the set.   I used the scalloped corner dies to create a fun panel to layer behind the bibs on these two cards.  As you can see I made one with more girly colors and one with boy colors.  However these bibs would look so cute in any colors you choose.  For the greeting, I've used a stamp from the Just Sentiments Welcome mini set. This stamp set has many sweet greetings perfect for baby cards. 

This next card showcases the new Psalm Reflections for May and Into the Blooms: Geraniums. 

My absolute favorite color of Geraniums are bright fuchsia. I plant some every year in the flower pots on my back patio.  So naturally I had to make my Geraniums that color for this card.

I die cut the petals and leaves from water color card stock and then added the color. I really wasn't too particular how I applied the water color.  It's rather messy and with lots of splatter detail.  The watercolor paint set I used for this card is a recent addition to my coloring arsenal.  I ordered them from Amazon on a whim and couldn't be happier with the quality and assortment of colors. Here's the link if you want to check them out..  PENTRISTA Watercolor Paint set

The leaf images adorning the top of the card are from a new stamp set called Corner Decor.  There's many different corner images in the set and they all have coordinating dies.