Paper Sunshine Project: A Good Day

As I was looking at the Incredible Like You stamp set, I was noticing all of the little blob type stamps and thought they might make a cute background or maybe even a cute base for a water-colored background - so that's what I did - I decided to give it a try!

~Enjoy

I started with 2 watercolor card bases, one I was intentionally going to water-color & the other I was going to leave just stamped and also to use as a reference in case the water color was a success, so I could replicate it.

With the large background flower, I stamped almost all over the card using Lemon Lime Twist and Coastal Cabana. Then I filled in some of the holes with the dot stamp and Pear Pizzazz and Balmy Blue. Lastly I added a few of the 3 small dots stamp in Tranquil Tide and Blueberry Bushel.

I started spritzing water to one of the backgrounds. I actually overdid it and the colors started to get muddy, so I toweled off the paper & started over. The next time, I applied water a little at a time to see when it would start to run and blend. I waited about 30 seconds between each spritz and finally got the look I was going for.

I decided to build the same card with each of the backgrounds to see what would happen. Since the colors slightly shifted I had to adjust each of the cards a little with different colors to get the right color combos.

For the non-water-colored one, I dyed white bakers twine by adding the Tranquil Tide ink pad directly to my craft mat, adding water & dredging my twine through it. It dried lighter than I really wanted it to. I added gold metallic thread to a double twine bow and backed it with some 5/8" Flax Ribbon. The sentiment is from the Abstract Impressions set, the deer is from A Good Day stamp set and the Congrats is cut from Tranquil Tide and the Sunshine Wishes Thinlits dies. The banner is hand cut, edge sponged with Lemon Lime Twist and backed with Old Olive. A few rhinestones in the corners and a little highlighting Congrats with a white gel pen added the finishing touches! That deer is so stinking cute!!!

This is the water-colored version. I dyed white bakers twine by applying the Coastal Cabana ink pad directly to my craft mat, adding water & dredging my twine through it. It dried lighter than I really wanted it to. I added gold metallic thread to a double twine bow and backed it with some 5/8" Flax Ribbon. The sentiment is from the Abstract Impressions set, the deer from A Good Day stamp set and the Congrats is cut from Bermuda Bay and the Sunshine Wishes Thinlits dies. The banner is hand cut, edge sponged with Garden Green and backed with Night of Navy. A few rhinestones in the corners and a little highlighting Congrats with a white gel pen added the finishing touches!

Here is what they ended up looking like - side by side. I think overall I like the non water-colored one better, but it is fun to get inky once in a while!

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Woo hoo - having so much fun altering the Gingham Gala 6x6 paper pack that we all received free at the 30th Stampin' Up! Convention this year! This pack comes with 5 different colors and 2 styles of plaids, a large and a small gingham check.

I recently altered the plaid with a broad stoke black line but wanted to see what others creative ways I could come up with to alter the plaids - here is what I did!

~Enjoy

For the first example - I really wanted to see what this would look like as a not so cute grunge technique. I used the new Home to Roost set for the wheat and stamped the small Grapefruit Grove gingham with Cajun Craze (one of my favorite colors), then sponged edged the gingham with Crumb Cake. The horse is also Cajun Craze and stamped with the Country Road set on Very Vanilla cardstock. The sentiment is from the new Humming Along set and the border from Labels to Love in Crushed Curry and punched with the everyday label punch. I corrugated a piece of Crushed Curry & sponged inked the label, the horse & the corrugated piece as well. I additionally scissor edged the horse and the background Cajun Craze piece. Tying to all together is a piece of 3/16" Braided Linen Trim.

I knew I wanted to try one of the samples with a floral overlay & wanted it to be an open flower - well the new Hello Cupcake set came with the perfect little flower. I made sure to not line up the flowers and tried to create a more random pattern for those trying to duplicate this. I stamped Mango Melody on the Daffodil Delight small gingham and paired that with last weeks large gingham alternative of a thin line added to the large plaid. Using the Color Coach - I picked out the combo of Daffodil Delight, Mango Melody and Poppy Parade (not my favorite - but going to run with it). The bouquet is from Beautiful Bouquet with the flower from Hello Cupcake to tie in the background. Birthday Wishes is from Itty Bitty Birthdays set. Topping it off with a little organdy ribbon from Sale-a-Bration and some rhinestone flower centers!

As I was playing with the card above - it started out with a cupcake made out of flowers, but didn't love it so I switched to the bouquet above. But I did like the idea so I thought I would try it with a new color combo. I love Navy and Gray together, so using the techniques above, I applied them to the Balmy Blue gingham paper. I carefully stamped the cupcake paper from the Hello Cupcake set without the trailing shadow. Added a mound of little icing flowers and filled in the blanks with some rhinestones. I added some Silver Glimmer Paper to add some more sparkle - it is for a birthday!!!! Itty Bitty Birthday sentiment and the Navy Gingham check ribbon were the perfect finishing touches.

I knew I wanted more of an allover pattern to the gingham and purple is great for Easter - so I pulled out the Hold on to Hope set & stamped the Heather Highland small gingham with Heather Highland ink & the spray from Hold on to Hope. The cross background is cut from silver glimmer paper & the cross itself is die cut from Blackberry Bliss (even though this picture looks like Elegant Eggplant). The Bunny & sentiment is also stamped with Blackberry Bliss. The bunny from A Good Day set is hand fussy cut and the ears are shaded with a little pink and the purple bow colored with Stampin' Write markers. The background is embossed with Pinewood Planks. Everything is popped up and the cross has a little bow made with the 1/8" Sheer Ribbon.

I really struggled with the background of this card because I knew I wanted to go even more allover. I started with the new Crackle stamp, but it was too much, I had pulled out Handwritten and Marbled, but they weren't singing to me. Then I found the Post Script set - and I love this stamp but have never see a great way to use it & decided to go for it. The result of stamping Lemon Lime Twist on the Lemon Lime gingham was not so overly apparent - it kind of disappears, but decided to plow forward.

Since this was now "postmarked", I decided to make it an across the miles type of card. I found the perfect sentiment in the Abstract Impressions set which now meant I needed flowers on the card. I played with several flower versions from Abstract Impressions but the more I worked with the card, the more I thought of my friend Kim in Seattle (where I just moved from) who loves Green & it is now the beginning of Tulip season, so I started custom creating this for her.

The tulips are from the Beautiful Bouquet set and the little heart in one of the bouquets is from Coffee Cafe. Tulips are stamped with Lemon Lime Twist, Garden Green and Crumb Cake. The little heart is done in Granny Apple Green. The mats are in Soft Suede and the ribbon is the 3/8" Classic Weave Ribbon. The background is sponge inked with Lemon Lime Twist and also edged with Garden Green and then everything is popped up with Dimensionals.

PS - I am not retiring Lemon Lime Twist at the end of the SU year - it will be in my arsenal forever! We need to petition SU to bring it back for another 2 years as a 2019-2021 In Color!

Here is the collection of cards made with the altered small gingham check from the Gingham Gala 6x6 paper pack. Ha - I just noticed the top 3 cards all have titled elements and the bottom ones are straight!