Basteltraum's Challenge #84: Sky

Hello my friends

so this is the last challenge for this year over at bastel-traum's blog and it is - oh so appropriate right now - all about sky :-)

I  went for a simple card. First, I heat embossed the word "believe" onto a piece of white cardstock and then sponged distress oxides over it (blueprint sketch, wilted violet and black sooth), spritzed some water over the whole panel and added a few stars with a white acrylic paint marker. Then I diecut a tree silhoutte and added some white snow highlights on it. It's that simple :-) but I think it makes someone smile and feeling good receiving this card.

I hope you play along with us - maybe you find some crafting time between Christmas and New Year, I would love to see your projects!

Merry Christmas and a Happy new Year!

Hugs,

Basteltraum's Challenge #83 Winter and/or Christmas

Hello, my friends!

Christmas is coming in leaps and bounds! So what better than quick and simple cards! The new challgenge over at bastel-traum's blog is all about winter and/or Christmas themed cards and mine is super quick and super simple to do :-) You don't need more than 10-15 minutes making this one.

I only needed white and kraft cardstock, 2 dies (the deer and the HOHOHO die), a knife, glue and a red pompom :-) perfect for mass producing!! No coloring involved, very time saving.

I hope you got inspired for simple Christmas cards and you will play along with us!

Thank you for stopping by and happy crafting!

Basteltraum's Challenge #82: Favorite animal

Hello my friends!

A new challenge has started over at Bastel-Traum's blog and it is all about animals, maybe your favorite animal??

Actually I love all animals but I simply had to use this newer set by Mama Elephant. Aren't these winged bunnies just the cutest??

I made this card for a dear friend and her name starts with a "B". Originally the stamp was with an empty star at the end of the angling rod, but I wanted to have a heart on on it... So I wiped off the ink from the very end of the stamp and drew in a heart by hand and connected the line again - here we go with a very personalized card :-))

I used some watercolors for both bunnies and the background panel is sponged with pigment ink. the main panel is see-through, but I closed it with a piece of a laminating foil that I sprinkled with confettis and ran it through my laminator; Jennifer McGuire made a great tutorial about this technique in case you want to give this a try, too!

The cloudy background is sponged onto the inside of the card, where you actually write your message afterwards :-)

I hope you got inspired and will play along with us!

Thank you for stopping by and happy crafting!

Hugs,

Basteltraum's Challenge #81: Autumn

Hello my friend!

Not far away from the beginning season of fall, we have a new challenge for you over at Basteltraum's blog which is all about it this time!

I created a housewarming card which is actually for my brother and his family. We will have the party next Saturday (hopefully he won't spot the card before, hahaha :-) ) .  His house is yellow and has a grass green door. And his backyard has a GIANT oak tree that embraces almost the whole backyard. So I thought this would look pretty on a card, together with his house... :-) by opening the little door from the house, they will find a family photo of their own. I mostly try to personalize the cards I gift to someone - I think it makes a handmade card even more special and unique.

That pretty house is a die set of the latest release by Lawnfawn.

I diecut most parts of it with white cardstock; only the roof parts and the door are diecut of colored cardstock.

I inked up all the pieces, the leaves, the background etc. with Distress Oxides, the sentiment is heat embossed with white embossing powder.

I hope you got inspired and will play along with us over at Basteltraum's blog!

Happy crafting,

Basteltraum's Challenge #80: Sentiment

Hello my friend!

I am happy you stop by today, how are you? I am really enjoying the cooled down temperatures outside; I have so much more mojo for crafting when it's not too hot outside :-)

So we have a new challenge starting over at Bastel-Traum's blog with the theme "Sentiment". The card design just has to include a sentiment somewhere - whether it's big or small or like, in my case, balloon shaped! :-)

My example is actually pretty quickly made. I just brushed on a bit distress oxide ink on a card panel and went a second time over it with a stencil. The images (by Simon says Stamp, Party like a Panda) are colored with Copic markers. For the little extra something, I cut off the stamped strings from the balloons and replaced them with real twine. That panda is so adorable, isn't it?? :-))

So Iam excited to see your creations and I hope you will play along with us - see you there!

Crafty hugs,

Basteltraum's Challenge #79: Anything goes

Hello my friend!

How are you? Are you already in vacation or still in preparation? Well, although we are probably all more or less in summer/fun/bathing/dolce far niente mode, we still find a little time to craft, isn't it?! :-D

And this month's challenge theme from Bastel-Traum is "Anything goes"!! So whatever you are up to creating, you can enter it to the challenge!

I made a simple, pretty masculine birthday card. And, this time, even with a little tutorial movie - enjoy!

Crafty hugs,

Basteltraum's Challenge #78: Summer

Hello crafty friends

Can you believe it - a month has passed again and this time it is all about summer on the current Bastel-Traum-Challenge!

I created a little beach scene; the background is all sponged with Distress oxides and spritzed with a water bottle for some extra splashes :-)

The images are all colored with Copic markers and adhered with some foam tape for extra dimension.

I wish I could join the litlle foxy under its sunshade :-)

I hope you got inspired and set in the right summer mode for playing along with us!

Crafty hugs,

Basteltraum's Challenge #77: LAWNFAWN

Hello fellow crafters!

I am back with an other post for the latest challenge hosted by Bastel-Traum. This time, we dedicated the theme to one of my absolute favorite card making brand ever: Lawnfawn!!! Wohoooo!! The design team decided to use the "Happy Village" stamp set, but you can use whatever you have in your stash from Lawnfawn :-)

First, I sponged a little cloudy background by using a circle stencil and a cloud stencil. Then I diecut a circle out of green cardstock and cut off a small part for my ground. On top of that, I arranged my images from the Happy Village set which I all colored with my copic markers. A teeny tiny heart and a sentiment strip below finished off my design for this pretty much CAS style card (which are the hardest to create for me forever,  hahaha :-))  )

I really hope you will jump on the wagon in this round - Lawnfawn is always a pleasure to play with!

See you over there!

Crafty hugs,

Your Next Stamp Guest Designing - So mush fun!!!

Wow!!! This is already my last card for my guest designing with Your Next Stamp! I had so much fun playing around with these products! I want to say again a big thank you to YNS for having me!

So here it comes, my last card. I created it with an other, absolutely ADORABLE stamp set called "So Mush Fun"

I diecut the „wave panel die“ out of some mixed media paper by Canson - it is pretty thick (200g/120lbs) and has a super smooth surface, perfect for blending techniques. I let the frame plain white and just sponged different distress oxide ink onto every piece of the inlays (colors I used from the bottom up are lucky clover, mowed lawn, twisted citron, tumbled glass, broken china and faded jeans). Some spritzes of water gave the pieces a lot more texture. I glued first the frame onto a panel and glued back every inlay piece. It’s such a easy way to create stunning backgrounds, do you agree with me? :-) The sentiment is stamped with onyx black ink and for the extra touch I added a little diecut heart.

Then I stamped the images onto some Copic friendly paper (the one I use is the Mondi Color copy paper, 200g) and colored the images with my copics. I mostly add some shading details with colored pencils. If combined with Copics, I always use my Polychromos by Faber Castell. They are oil based and that means permanent and very lightfast. This way you can „seal“ your images and they barely won’t fade out anymore (I noticed that with images that I colored with Copic markers). Then I fussy cut everything by hand and adhered it with some double sided foam tape onto my panel. The distance on the panel make the images even more pop off the background. I love how this one turned out!

And now we need a drumroll and just one click - let's find out who won the Sea Friends stamp set over on YNS' blog, wohoooo!

Have a great day and see you soon, bye!!

Your Next Stamp Guest Designing - DAY 4

Phew!! Already day 4 and the last card from my guest designing series for Your Next Stamp that I dedicated to the "Sea Friends" stamp set!

Let's see what I created for today:

I used again the wave panel die and sponged the three pieces on the bottom part with distress oxide (only one color, salty ocean) and spritzed it with some water to achieve some splashes. Then I grabbed an extra piece of a card panel and sponged a cloudy background with distress oxide (spiced marmalade). Then I glued the wave grid onto that panel and glued in the three blue pieces - voilà my background has a sea and some lovely sunset clouds :-))

Then I decided where my sentiment (from the stamp set „sea friends“) has to go (I loooove this one so much!!) and heat embossed it with white embossing powder. Then I stamped and colored two lovely seals from the same stamp sets onto a piece of mixed media paper (mine is by Canson, very smooth surface and pretty thick, about 200g/120lbs) and colored those guys with my aqua marker pens. I adhered them onto my panel with some foam tape to get more depth for this little scene. A few Jewel Nuvo drops in blue finished off my design.

Just leave a comment on any of the Sea Friends posts (May 4th until May 7th) on the YNS blog or my blog by May 9th 2019 at midnight (EST) for the chance to win the Sea Friends stamp set. The winner will be announced on May 11th on the YNS blog.

Thank you so much for hanging around with me!

Hugs,

Your Next Stamp Guest Designing - DAY 3

Oh hello again, a new day and a new card for my guest designing row at Your Next Stamp! Today I made a "see-through" card with a porthole. I wanted to create an effect like you would peek out of a boat and then spot some dolphins (from the "Sea Friends" set)  swimming in the ocean... let's take a look!

For this card I diecut the porthole die (it's a part of the wave panel die)out of a piece of brown cardstock. Then I  embossed the whole panel with and inked up my embossing folder with brown distress ink (ground espresso) before running through my diecut machine to achieve an even more realistic look on the wood. then I glued a piece of acetate over that hole on the backside of my panel and glued in the porthole diecut piece that I diecut out of shiny silver cardstock. For hiding the acetate on the inside, I glued in an extra piece of paper as the same size as the panel itself - I think no one will notice the little cheat :-) So do you agree with me, this looks like the inside of a boat, right? My idea was like you would look out of the porthole and will discover the dolphins playing in the sea… and that part is inside the card :-)

I created a water background again with distress oxides; this time with salty ocean, blueprint sketch and cracked pistacio. Then I added some water spritzes to create some texture. But here it wasn’t enough texture for me and I drew in some bubbles with my Nuvo sparkle glitter brush pen. This lifted up the ink, too and the bubbles got so shiny and glittery this way! On this card I totally forgot to heat emboss the sentiment first, so I did it after my ink blending. This works as well; just make sure your panel is completely dry and that you used some antistatic powder. Otherwise, the embossing powder might stick everywhere ;-)

The dolphins are stamped onto mixed media paper (I used Canson mixed media paper again) and colored with aqua marker pens. The dot details are made with my edding pastel white chalk pen. Then I fussy cut the dolphins and glued them directly onto the panel. As this scene fills the whole panel, you still have enough space to write your birthday greetings on the left inside of the card. 

Here you can see how it looks while opening the card:

Just leave a comment on any of the Sea Friends posts (May 4th until May 7th) on the YNS blog or my blog by May 9th 2019 at midnight (EST) for the chance to win the Sea Friends stamp set. The winner will be announced on May 11th on the YNS blog.

Have a great day!!

Hugs,

Your Next Stamp Guest Designing - DAY 2

Hey there, I am back with my second card of my guest designing for Your Next Stamp! I created a "Get well" card with the "Sea Friends" set again. How adorable is that word pun??

I stamped the whale from the „sea friends“ set and colored it with aqua marker pens. The tiny dot details are made with an edding pen called „Pastel Pen-Soft white“ it is not that bright like for example a posca pen - it stays a bit transluscent, I really like that effect . I cut out some water fountains by hand from a piece of vellum and adhered it to the blowhole… I love adding details like that :-)

So my ocean on the background panel is made with distress oxides - this time I used blueprint sketch, cracked pistachio and wilted violet. But first I heat embossed the fun sentiment „get whale soon“ with white embossing powder. Maybe you are interested how I created those waves; so I made a step by step photos of the process. Beside the oxides you need a wave stencil, a water sprayer, white pigment ink, a permanent white pencil and that edding pastel pen I already used before for the whale. 

First I spritzed some water on the whole panel to create some splashes for more texture. Let this dry completely before you continue with the next step. Your heatgun might be helpful getting your panel completely dry very quickly. So here comes the waves. First, I stenciled some white pigment ink onto my panel. Then I used the white pencil to brighten up the area even more and make it kind of „sealed“. Because now I used the pastel pen marker to draw little dots along the wave shape and this one is wet again. if you use it without the white pencil in between, the white dots would absorb completely the color of the distress oxides; this can be pretty, but I wanted to stay them soft white. I hope this helps you to recreate that look.

So here comes the photo guide for this procedure:

Just leave a comment on any of the Sea Friends posts (May 4th until May 7th) on the YNS blog or my blog by May 9th 2019 at midnight (EST) for the chance to win the Sea Friends stamp set. The winner will be announced on May 11th on the YNS blog.

Thanks for stopping by and happy crafting!

Your next Stamp Guest Designing - DAY 1

I am tickled pink that I got asked being a guest designer for Your next Stamp! What an honor! So fasten your seat belts, there will be four posts in a row in the next couple of days and you can even win the adorable "Sea Friends" stamp set!

So how I did this card:

For this card I used the stamp set „Sea Friends“ and colored them with aqua marker pens. I grabed a piece of mixed media paper and heat embossed the sentiment (from an other stamp set called „so mush fun“) right in the middle of the panel.  Then I  sponged it with distress oxides (salty ocean and blueprint sketch for the sea and ripe persimmon and candied apple for the sky). A strip of painters tape helped me to separate the ocean from the sky . A few spritzes of water for some texture created more interest on my panel. Then I diecut a fun foam and a paper piece with the „so many squares panel“ die and cut off one stripe in the middle to create a little space for my sentiment. I glued a piece of acetate in between of those two diecuts since I wanted to create different little shaker windows. I filled every compartment with micro beads (blue ones on the sea part and orange ones on the sky part) and adhered the background panel onto it. After that, I just had to place my critters on top and pop the panel onto a card base and voilà, it was finished :-)

Just leave a comment on any of the Sea Friends posts (today's and the ones that will follow) on the YNS blog or my blog by May 9th 2019 at midnight (EST) for the chance to win the Sea Friends stamp set. The winner will be announced on May 11th on the YNS blog.

Thanks for hanging around with me today and happy crafting!

Basteltraum's Challenge #76: Flowers

Hello everyone

today's post is all about flowers, themed by the current basteltraum challenge. I used an older stamp set by Altenew called "Layered Lily". There is no coloring on this card, only a lot of layered stamping, no coloring at all :-) Down below you can find a layering guide for this stamp set which makes it super easy to align the stamps correctly on each other. Plus, I put together all inks I used (in correct order of use) for the lily and the leaves.

The sentiment is also from a sentiment stamp set by Altenew, stamped with the same dark blue ink like the center of the lily. There are matching dies for this stamp set, but I fussy cut everything with my scissors; sometimes I prefer cutting by hand because you can way closer cut to the lines of the image. I sponged the background with a touch of tumbled glass, just that the panel isn't bare white around the flower. A few nuvo drops finished off my pretty much CAS design on this card.

I hope you got inspired and will play along with us - see you over at the bastel-traum blog!

Happy crafting,

Caran d'Ache Supracolor Soft Color Chart

Hello my friend!

I am just poppin' in quickly because I want to share with you a coloring chart I made for the Caran d'Ache Supracolor Soft pencils. I couldn't find one online for coloring in my own swatches, so I created one by my own :-)

Feel free to download here and print for your own purposes!

Happy coloring!

Warm hugs,

Basteltraum's Challenge #75: Easter/Spring

Wohooo! Spring is almost here!!!

And so we dedicated our current Bastel-Traum's challenge to everything spring and/or Easter related :-)

I created a pop-up box card and decorated the outside with an allover stamping design. All stamps are from Lawn Fawn's latest release and this set is called "Butterfly Kisses". Isn't it adorable?!

For the middle parts, I used two dies from two other brandnew sets which are actually add-ons for the shadow box die set. I realized that the width of the grass border and the flower border is the exact same as the pop up box! Lawn Fawn is always creating so cleverly their dies! You can mix and match between the sets, that is simply genius!

for decorating the front panels, I used some blue cardstock from Lawn Fawn's "watercolor wishes petite paper pack" . The cloudy background is sponged with blue dye ink and a finger dauber. All stamped images are colored with my Copic markers, also the garland. I simply wrote the name of the newborn boy with acrylic paint over it and outlined them with a black fineliner pen.

And as this card was ordered by a company, I created a bigger card and popped the pop up box card with a paper bandage on it. This way, everyone in the company was able to sign the card :-) I also created a little pouch for the money they collected in the company.

I hope you got inspired and give this round a try at Bastel-Traum's blog! See ya there!

Crafty hugs,

Basteltraum's Challenge #74 Color Combo

Hello, crafty friends!

Are you ready for spring, too? Well, I am! I really am. I miss the beautiful colors of flowers and all the greenery... so that's why I have made a very spring like card as an inspiration for the latest challenge over on Basteltraum's blog. Theme this time is simply a color combo. At the very bottom of this post you will find it :-)

So let's see what I did... the cherry blossom branch is a complete die and I diecut it from plain white watercolor cardstock and colored everything with my regular watercolors in halfpans (I used the ones from Pébéo this time). The MEGA friend die is cut 4 times and stacked on top of each other. This way, you can achieve a gorgeous dimensional look. Then I added a little "HELLO" which is embossed with WOW embossing powder.The panel itself is sponged with some pigment ink by Mama Elephant. And to finish off my design I glued a teeny tiny rhinestone into the center of each blossom. By the way, those rhinestones are actually meant to be embellishments for nail art, but I like them more on a card, haha :-))

So I hope you will play along with us!

Happy crafting and warm hugs!