Need Creative MoJo?

Posted in Cards by My Empty Nest Creations

CAS(E) this sketch #211 To The Rescue

Here’s their newest sketch…

This sketch is perfect for so many beautiful floral stamps out there. Because I just received my first Unity Stamp Company order, I was excited to use one of them. I chose their Steps of Courage set for my floral image.

Here’s my card…

I started with a 4.25 x 5.5 inch piece of Bristol paper. I white heat embossed my floral image on the bottom right corner. I knew that I wanted a soft look, so I pulled out my Zig Clean Color markers and used a water brush to apply the color. After coloring the flowers, leaves and stems, I applied a very light wash of light blue around the image. I drew a rough square around the card making sure to leave a space where the flowers met the bottom.

It took me a while to decide on where to place my greeting. I knew the sketch had the sentiment closer to the bottom, but I felt it detracted from the pretty flowers. I decided to place it higher on the card. I white heat embossed a greeting from Technique Tuesday’s Beautiful Bouquet stamp set on to black card stock. I felt it was a little plain, so I added a slight lavender mat around the fishtail greeting. I then adhered it with fun foam to add dimension.

For some final touches, I glued a few sequins (2 black and 1 iridescent) near the flowers. To soften the brightness of the card, I sprayed some black watercolor over the whole thing to get those small black flecks. I attached the card front to a top folding gray card base.

I hope you like it! Thanks for stopping by 🙂

Supplies Used: Unity Stamp Company “Steps of Courage” stamp set, Technique Tuesday Beautiful Bouquet stamp set, Recollections snow embossing powder, Versamark ink, Zig Clean Color markers, Craft Medley sequins, Bazzill Alpaca card stock, Bristol paper

24Jan2017

CAS(E) this Sketch #205

Posted in Cards by My Empty Nest Creations

Another one of my favorite card sketch challenge sites is CAS(E) this Sketch. Their sketches always challenge me to try and think outside the box (which is a pretty difficult thing for me).

Here is their latest sketch…

and here’s what I came up with…

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I started off with my favorite size card base–A2 4.25″ x 5.5″ made from kraft card stock. I then cut my patterned paper from 2 different 6×6 My Mind’s Eye paper pads by eyeballing it. I have to get better at being more precise when it comes to cutting paper 🙂

Using the Pierced Heart Stax dies from My Favorite Things, I cut the hearts out of the top kraft layer, the blue layer and the yellow layer, leaving the red layer alone. I adhered all of the layers so that the hearts lined up.

After seeing it all put together, I thought it looked a little dull, so I added the black strips along the outside cut edge because I knew that my greeting was going to be black. I triple cut the love greeting from the Simon Says Stamp Love die set and glued them together to give a little dimension to the greeting. Even after that, it still looked a little plain, so I pulled out my newly acquired black Nuvo drops and added those above the heart and below the greeting. I also added the small kraft heart in the center from the Pierced Heart Stax smallest die.

I hope you like it!

21Jan2017

Freshly Made Sketches #271

Posted in Cards by My Empty Nest Creations

Once again, I’m enjoying the sketches from Freshly Made Sketches. I just love how they are simple, but allow for a lot of interpretation. It truly is a great site. Be sure to check them out!

Here is the most recent sketch…

and here is my interpretation…

I used two different stamp sets for the floral piece—Altenew’s Adore You and Stampendous’ Fronds. I stamped them in Versafine Black (my favorite crisp black ink), and did just a little Copic coloring. I didn’t intend to do such a large gray outline with my Copic marker until it decided to just leak on my image. I’m not sure why that happened, but it has definitely happened before. Oh well…I think I camouflaged it pretty well.

I then cut my piece apart to allow for my greeting. I knew I wanted a white embossed greeting on black, so I played around with various greetings until I decided on this one from My Favorite Things Delicate Pretty Poppies. I cut my black mat and then cut a little more off of my floral image in order to fit the greeting. Using my powder tool to help define the area, I stamped with Versamark ink and embossed with white embossing powder.

You can’t tell from the picture, but I adhered the white floral image sections with foam tape to raise them up from the black greeting area. For final touches, I added some white dashed lines to help define the greeting and some Nuvo Crystal Drops in Red Berry. The card base is a light gray to compliment the gray floral outline.

I hope you like it!

15Jan2017

Trying Out My Colored Pencils

Posted in Cards by My Empty Nest Creations

I was one of the lucky ones to get the complete Primacolor Pencil Set for Christmas. It was such an incredible deal on Amazon, that I couldn’t (or should I say my husband) couldn’t pass it up 🙂

I’ve been putting off coloring with pencils for a long time now because frankly, it looks kind of daunting. I have to admit that I’m a little “type A” in that I struggle with something that doesn’t give complete coverage (I love my Copics). I’m working on it, but it’s a slow process. I decided to be brave and give my shiny new pencils a try.

I thought it would be best to ease into it a little bit, so I chose a pretty small image to color. It’s an adorable image called Bunny Love from From the Heart Stamps. You really should check out Faith’s site. She truly does incredible work.

1_14_17-valentine-bunny-img_0796 I just used a few colors for the bunny and the heart. I have to admit that blending and shadowing with colored pencils is really going to take some practice, but I think I’m up for the challenge. The greeting is also from the Bunny Love digital set.

Since the card base is kraft, and the bunny is a little muted, I knew that I needed to brighten it up a bit. I added a strip of patterned paper (sorry I don’t know the manufacturer because it’s at least 10 years old!). To balance the black greeting, I adhered a small strip of black to the left side, too. Since I just got some Nuvo Crystal Drops in red berry, I thought a few dots would finish it off.

I almost forgot…because I wasn’t incredibly careful about coloring over the bunny lines, I outlined him with my Copic black liner.

I hope you like it!

8Jan2017

Freshly Made Sketches #269

Posted in Cards by My Empty Nest Creations

It’s been a little while since I’ve participated in a card challenge. I love the simplicity of Freshly Made Sketches, so I thought I’d give it a go today. Here is the latest sketch…

When I saw this sketch, I immediately thought of those oh so popular birch trees. Unfortunately, I don’t own any birch tree stamps or digital files, so I went to Etsy to see what I could find. Lo and behold, I found a lovely set of PNG and vector files from Amanda Ilkov’s Etsy shop. Using my Silhouette Cameo, I created a few cut files for this card (the birch trees and the cardinal).

Here’s what I came up with…

After cutting my files, I used Mermaid Lagoon (my new favorite) Distress Ink to ink blend the background. I didn’t go with complete coverage because I wanted to mimic the sky. I used a Copic marker to give some gray shading to the tree trunks. I glued the trees to the base and used some dimensional glue dots to adhere the cardinal. I black heat embossed the sentiment from the Hero Arts Stamp and Cut Yes set. To balance the black greeting, I added a thin black strip down the left side of the card. I sprayed some shimmer spray to give it a little extra (even though you can’t see it in the photo)! I settled on a light gray card base and attached the panel.

I hope you like it!

6Jan2017

You Color My World

Posted in Cards by My Empty Nest Creations

I found this adorable chameleon digital file on the Little Scraps of Heaven Digi Designs website and just knew that he would be perfect for a cute valentine.

I started by printing my chameleon on regular white card stock and proceeded to color him with Copic markers. I then fussy cut him and added some clear Wink of Stella to give him some pizzaz. He needed a little bit more something, so I used my white gel pen to give him a few details. 1_6_17-chameleo-valentine-img_0779

For the background, I ink blended (Abandoned Coral, Fossilized Amber, Cracked Pistachio and Mermaid Lagoon Distress Inks) using the Simon Says Stamp Large Falling Hearts stencil–I just love that thing 🙂

I mounted Mr. Chameleon with foam tape and punched a heart with my Marvy Uchida heart punch. I gave the heart a few details, and mounted it with foam tape so that it looks like the chameleon is holding it.

I gave it a couple of mats and attached it to an A2 Neenah Solar White #110 card base.

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For the inside, I stamped “You Color My World” from the W Plus 9 Color My World stamp set. I used a few Copic markers to color in the word Color, too.

I hope you like it!

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!

8Nov2016

CAS(E) Sketch #197

Posted in Cards by My Empty Nest Creations

I’m so happy that I’ve gotten involved in a few card sketch challenges. It has really sparked my creative juices.

Here’s the latest sketch from the CAS(E) This Sketch Challenge…

I have to admit, I struggled with this sketch initially. It took a couple of “trial and error” cards to figure out what I really wanted to do. I think where I kept getting stuck was the uphill slant on the design.

Here’s what I decided on…

I started with an A2 white card stock base. I roughly masked off the bottom portion and stamped the Hero Arts Tiny Star background stamp with Versamark ink. I heat embossed with Recollections gold embossing powder. Then I did some ink blending for the sky using Chipped Sapphire and Blueprint Sketch Distress Inks. I was careful to be light handed near the bottom portion to give the idea of a slight glow from the lighted windows. I then die cut the houses using the Tim Holtz Townscape On the Edge die. I cut the houses apart and backed 5 of them with light yellow card stock. I glued them on the diagonal to represent a hill and then covered them with a basket weave embossed (We R Memory Keepers embossing folder) kraft piece. In order to match the greeting to the sky, I ink blended a piece of white card stock. After making sure it was completely dry, I stamped the words from the Waffle Flower Merry stamp set in Versamark and heat embossed with the gold embossing powder. As a final touch, I used my clear Wink of Stella marker on each of the windows.

I hope you like it!

28Oct2016

My First Card Challenge

Posted in Cards by My Empty Nest Creations

I’ve been wanting to get involved in card challenges for a while now. It seems like the perfect way to help me grow as a card maker. I tend to create cards that are simple in design, so I thought that the CAS(E) Sketch Challenge would be a great one to start with.

Here’s this week’s sketch…

This week’s challenge has a little different twist. They are asking for pet themed cards to send to a shelter in Minnesota. Be sure to check out the CAS(E) blog for more details.

I’ve had a collection of digital stamps that I’ve been wanting to use for a while. This was my chance.

Here’s my take on the card sketch…

It really was a fun card to make. I printed out my dog image from Bugaboo Stamps and colored it with Copic Markers. I die cut the puppy just off the edge with my Spellbinders Pierced Circles dies. I took the paw prints from the image and printed them on a piece of 4.25×5.5 inch white 80# card stock and colored them with Copics, too. The background was a little too white for me, so I did some ink blending with Tumbled Glass Distress Ink on the top portion of the card. I stamped the “thank you” greeting (Fiskars Thank You Blooms) with Versafine Onyx Black ink. I mounted my pierced circle with fun foam to give it a little dimension. When I started to put my card together on the black card base, I realized that there needed to be some anchor on the left side of the card, so I trimmed my card front by .25 inches to give me that black border on the left side. I printed off an insert for the inside of the card (since the card base is black) with small paw prints.

I hope you like it 🙂

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