CAS(E) This Sketch #262

Posted in Cards, Uncategorized by My Empty Nest Creations

I haven’t participated in a card challenge for a very long time, so I thought I would give the latest CAS(E) This Sketch sketch a try.

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Here’s what I came up with…

My Empty Nest Creations Bright Floral Card using W Plus 9 Happy Wishes stamp set I have been dying to use some of the heat resistant acetate sheets that I just purchased. I wanted to heat emboss my image and back it with an ink blended background, so I pulled out my W Plus 9 Happy Wishes stamp set and got to work.

First, I stamped the flower images and a set of leaves all over a piece of 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 inch Bristol paper using my favorite Distress Oxides, Wilted Violet, Salty Ocean, Peacock Feathers and Twisted Citron. The flower centers were stamped with Fossilized Amber and Spiced Marmalade. After the inks were dry, I cut my Bristol piece apart leaving a gap of about 1 1/2 inches to make space for my embossed acetate piece.

Using a piece of scrap white card stock, I ink blended from left to right using Peacock Feathers, Salty Ocean and Wilted Violet. While letting that ink dry, I heat embossed the same flower/leaves images onto the acetate. To adhere the acetate to the ink blended piece, I put liquid glue behind the embossed flowers and leaves so that the glue wouldn’t show through.

Once that was all completely dry, it was time to put the card together. I adhered the inked flower panels with foam tape for some dimension. After fiddling with the layout a bit, I realized that the window part of the card needed a little bit of balance. I simply glued some very thin strips of black card stock on the edges. I white heat embossed one of the sentiments from Avery Elle’s Simply Said: You stamp set on a piece of black card stock and cut the left edge at an angle to give it a little bit of interest. Because of the addition of the black pieces, I felt that the card front needed a little more black, so I added the black flower centers all around the colorful flowers. That seemed to balance everything out.

Thanks for stopping by 🙂

Computer Signature

4Feb2018

A Card for a Friend

Posted in Cards by My Empty Nest Creations

Unity Stamp Company is one of my favorite cling stamp companies. Their stamp images range from adorable to incredibly elegant and everything in between. I’m convinced that anyone would find something that they liked in their stamp inventory. Best of all, their stamp quality is hard to beat. The images stamp beautifully and clean up is a breeze.

My Empty Nest Creations Unity Stamp Lil Bloomin Owl over Watercolor Background I had a leftover piece from some watercolor playing, so I decided to use it for the base of my latest card. I diecut it using Avery Elle’s Wonky Stitches die to give it that cute loose stitching along the edges. Unity’s Lil’ Bloomin Owl has been sitting on my desk waiting to make an appearance, so I thought he’d be the perfect star for my card. I stamped him with Memento ink onto Copic Blend It Paper, and colored him with Copic markers. As you can see, I need a lot of practice using my Copics, but I think he turned out okay. After fussy cutting him out, I used foam tape to pop him up. My greeting is from another Unity stamp set, Lil Bunny Peeps. I white heat embossed it onto black card stock and adhered it with my tape runner.

To mat my card front, I chose a color that I definitely don’t use very often, green, but I think it coordinated perfectly with the watercolor background. I chose a kraft colored cardbase rather than a white one because my watercolor paper isn’t truly white.

I hope you like it!

Computer Signature

8Dec2017

Loving the “Loose” Watercolor Look

Posted in Cards by My Empty Nest Creations

I see so many beautiful watercolor cards on Instagram, and I’m in awe of these card makers’ talents. I’m just not one of those free flowing card makers. I tend to stay within my comfort box. I love the look, but I struggle to achieve it. Kristina Werner’s blog post today gave me some inspiration—watercolor smooshing. I can handle that. All you do is put some color (I used Distress Inks) on a piece of acetate, wet it and flip it over onto a piece of watercolor paper and smoosh it around. It leaves you with a very free flowing colored background.

Here’s my finished card using Mermaid Lagoon and Tumbled Glass Distress Inks on a piece of Tim Holtz watercolor paper. I white heat embossed some snowflakes from Hampton Arts Snowflakes stamp set, and using Avery Elle’s Peace, Love & Joy die set, I cut the words out of Colorbok’s white glitter paper (I love it when I can use something that’s been in my stash for many, many years 🙂 I decided on only using peace & joy from my die cuts. After gluing them onto my watercolor base, I knew that I needed to balance the glitter out a bit, so I backed my base with a piece of the white glitter paper (unfortunately, the photos don’t really show it well). All that was left was to attached it to a Neenah Solar White 110# A2 card base…easy, peasy.

I really loved trying this “new to me” technique. Maybe this is just what I needed to get me to move out of my comfort box and give some other techniques a try, too. I’m off to check out Instagram, Pinterest and You Tube to get some more inspiration. Thanks for stopping by!

12Jun2017

Using Altenew’s Bamboo Rose Stamp Set

Posted in Cards by My Empty Nest Creations

I have had this stamp set for quite a while now and have hardly used it. Not that I have a ton of stamp sets, but many of them end up in a pile and get forgotten. I came across this set while cleaning a bit, so I decided to put it to some use.

I started by cutting a panel from purple card stock (I know it looks a little blue in the photo, but trust me, it’s purple). I then stamped multiple images with Versamark ink and heat embossed them with clear embossing powder. I die cut the panel using the largest stitched rectangle from Memory Box and put the panel aside.

I clear heat embossed a few of the images onto Bristol paper and colored them with some Zig Clean Color Brush Markers. I’m still getting the hang of these markers. I need to practice some more. Since I don’t have the matching dies for this Altenew set, I fussy cut them out. Because the images aren’t that detailed, it was fairly easy. I embossed a strip of velum using a Cuttlebug checked embossing folder.

Then, it was just a matter of putting it all together. Since the purple panel was significantly smaller than the white card base, I mounted it with a piece of Bazzill Alpaca card stock. I decided where I was placing the flowers in order to find the right spot for the velum. I adhered the velum with some glue behind where the flowers were going to go. I glued the flowers in place using some fun foam behind a few to give it dimension. I chose Avery Elle’s Simply Said: You set for the sentiment and silver heat embossed it onto a strip of black card stock. For some additional dimension, I glued the entire panel onto the white card base using fun foam.

That’s it. Thanks for stopping by.

3Jan2017

My First Valentine of 2017

Posted in Cards by My Empty Nest Creations

Edited to Add A Slight Modification…

As you can see, I made some slight changes to my original version of this card. The only thing that I changed is the size of the dashed flight path lines. In the original version, I felt that they kind of overshadowed the background a little too much. That’s the beauty of this creative outlet…I can make any change that I think improves the card by just making a new one!

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything, and I’m going to use the typical excuse…the holidays got in the way of my creating. Because I’ve had so little crafting time, I’ve kind of lost my mojo. It’s been a little difficult getting back to it, but I did have fun creating this cutie.

As soon as I saw the stamp and die set Fly By from Avery Elle, I knew I had to get it. The airplane and little puff formations are so adorable!

This card is pretty simple, and I have to admit that I’m still struggling with trying to add a little more something to it. My daughter convinced me to post it just like it is. Sometimes simple is truly best.

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The base is Neenah Solar White 110#. I used a small cloud Silhouette cut file to create the sky background by placing a few clouds over white card stock and ink blending the background with Mermaid Lagoon Distress Ink. I stamped the airplane and several heart shaped puffs and cut them out with the coordinating dies. I drew a curvy path in light pencil and used a black marker to highlight the path. The airplane was colored with Copic markers, and mounted with foam dots. The heart shaped puffs were mounted with the same foam dots.

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For the inside, I drew another curvy path and connected it to the “love you” stamp. I placed a few cut out heart puffs along the path, too.

I hope you like it. Thanks for stopping by!