Exciting News!!

I’ve decided to move, yep, I’m on my way over to a WordPress blog! And while I’m making big changes, I’ve decided to rebrand myself as well. So pop on over to My Crafts are Like a Box of Chocolates, You Never Know What I’m Going to Make! No one could ever spell my blog name anyway and the new name incorporates all the different styles of crafts I’d like to post.

Rest assured that I will continue to post lots of fun stamping and card designs. But this new blog makes me feel more comfortable adding calligraphy, jewelry, mixed media, home décor, mail art, ATCs, sewing and so much more!

I’m not sure yet what will happen if you are a subscriber but I promise to edit this post to let you know. I do hope you will follow me over there! I definitely will be importing my content to the WP site but I will also keep this blog open so any bookmarks or saved links on Pinterest will still work.

Please also pop on over to Instagram (link on sidebar) to see more of what I love to create. If the link isn’t working, I’m BecCreates1.

Thank you for your dedicated readership! I’m looking forward to engaging with you over at WP!

Fall Branches Bouquet

Welcome to another week at Crazy 4 Challenges! With it turning fall here in the Northern Hemisphere, we were asked to make a a fall-themed card. I’d forgotten what the challenge was but when I looked it up, I was like “YAY” as I had been working on a fall card anyway! Fun coincidence!

The stamps are from the September Hero Arts kit. I stamped them in Antique Linen Distress ink but added a few stampings to the upper part of the bouquet even though the stems didn’t reach. I just painted them in as I watercoloured the image. The antique linen is so light that it doesn’t interfere with the watercolour plus it also dissolves away with the water because it’s a water reactive ink. The painting of the leaves and berries isn’t that interesting  because they are too small to add much shading.

But the vase, there’s more to talk about. I used a very damp brush to add water to the image. Then I dropped in very concentrated colour on the top, left and bottom. I allowed the paint to move on it’s own with little interference. As it started to dry a bit, I added more and more colour to the left with my board tilted slightly downwards. I loved how the paint was moving so I allowed it to dry completely on it’s own which I rarely do. When I was done, I added stamping over the background, Antique Linen in the middle and a tiny bit of Vintage Photo applied with a foam blender to the sides only. Then I added sponging in the same way with the same colours. Last, I added a warm grey shadow under the vase. I normally would add some sequins or embellishments but I wasn’t sure how I was going to use the card. There’s a high likelihood that I’ll use it for a sympathy card and I don’t bling them up like I do with normal cards.

I hope you are inspired by my card and our challenge this week. The challenge is open until Friday midnight so I hope you will pop on by and play along!

Enjoy, Rebecca

Pastel Party!

When I saw the inspiration photo for the latest Card Concept Challenge, I knew exactly what stamps and dies to use. I’ve always loved pastels so I pulled out all of my pastel cardstock scraps and my Copics and went to work.

The stamps and dies are by Concord & 9th. They are some of my favourite stamps of all time. I used a Simon Says Stamp cloud stencil on the background with Tumbled Glass Distress Oxide ink. I made a small cloud-shaped shaker filled with white and clear sequins and confetti. I packed it fairly full so you always have a full window of sequins, many of which are iridescent so they reflect a rainbow of colours. But I left just enough room so they still shake around nicely.

The rainbow dies are unique in that they are individual arcs. This means that you don’t waste paper cutting the colours from the wrong colours as you would if the die was all one piece. I lined them up against a ruler so I’d have a nice straight bottom edge. But the arcs aren’t perfectly semi-circular so if you placed them kinda wonky-ways, they’d look fine that way too. In the top corner I added a Believe in Yourself sentiment.

The unicorn was coloured with Copics, I used cool greys for the body and a rainbow of pastels for the mane and tail. I have done each section in it’s own colour before but I prefer the blended look I achieved here. To finish the card I added some crystal hearts, clear sparkly sequins and added clear Wink of Stella to the rainbow arcs, the mane, tail and sentiment. You can see the sparkle in the closeup photos.

Thanks for stopping by!

Enjoy, Rebecca

Entered in:

The Card Concept #98

Numbers Celebrate

This week at Crazy 4 Challenges we were asked to make a birthday card with numbers on it. If you have been reading my blog for a while, you probably already know that I don’t celebrate birthdays so I made a basic celebration card instead.

The sketch is Sketch Saturday #531. It’s a great basic sketch that was easy to work with . I grabbed some older paper, sorry but I don’t remember the names of the packs. I used an Altenew set, Label Love, for the Celebrate sentiment. The twine I tied around the panel loops through the eyelet in one way for the first wrap and through the other way for the second wrap. I like how it balances out the tag so it doesn’t twist funny. I adhered it with some foam tape.

Thanks for joining me this week! You have 5 more days to play along with this challenge so pop on over to the C4C blog to join us!

Enjoy, Rebecca

Pumpkins and Sunflowers

No!! It can’t be fall already, can it? I don’t like fall much because it means winter is close by and I hate the cold. But these images are too fun to pass up!

Speaking of the images, the stamps are by Hero Arts from last year’s fall card kit. The images are all layered giving loads of colour to these simple shapes without any colouring. I researched sun flowers to come up with one that was non-traditional. There is a super pretty one that’s actually pink? They also come in a dark purple, a rich burgundy, white and yellow and the one I stamped, pink and yellow. It took me a while to come up with the perfect colour combos for both colours of the sunflowers and pumpkins but I love the final variety I was able to achieve.

I arranged my elements according to the sketch challenge for this week at Crazy 4 Challenges. My base was some woodgrain paper then adding a gold mirrored die cut from Spellbinders. I tucked some patterned paper and lace under the gold die cut for some rustic charm and to fulfill the vertical panel on the sketch. I love the combination of rustic elements, the lace, woodgrain and autumn images, alongside the elegance of the gold die cut and embossing.

I hope you can play along with us this week! I’m running a bit late this week so you only have one more day to play! It’s a great sketch because you can do so much with it!

Enjoy, Rebecca