My Reason to Smile

Hi there!
Samantha here, and today I am sharing a happy and encouraging floral card!

     

I always have trouble making floral cards, but Create a Smile Stamps has the best, images and they're always calling to me!

Let's make this card together!

- first, I stamped colored all the images with Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers and then once they were all dry, I fussy cut them out!
- I also splattered some ink color and white acrylic ink on top of the images
- I used Distress Inks in Dried Marigold and Squeezed Lemonade along with the stencil to create the ombre stripes!

- I did more splattering, this time with white acrylic ink onto the background
- I stamped part of the sentiment directly onto the background, and heat embossed the other half and fussy cut it out!

- finally, I finished off the card with some clear sequins!

I went with complimentary colors for my card, but this would be just as beautiful with tone-on-tone colors, as well!

For the background, I used the super fun Wide Stripes Stencil. The sentiment is from Reason to Smile, and the beautiful flowers are from Doodle Flowers!

    

There is ALWAYS a fun challenge going on in the Create a Smile Stamp Facebook group page! It's fun and filled with prizes! I love seeing all of the incredible, unique and amazing inspiration!

 

~Samantha

We dare you to create a smile : July sketch

Hello eyerbody, today starts another wonderful challenge - this time we have an awesome sketch for you!

 If you want to play along you will get the chance to win a 25,-€ gift card for the Create a smile shop .

Fitting the current mood board our two guest designers made adorable cards, let´s have a closer look.

Liab.creations made - based on the card she´s won the last challenge with (what a wonderful idea by the way) - another beautiful koala pirates card using All hands on deck.

And Kati made this wonderful glowing underwater scene using Glowing seaside, Reason to smile, Stacked pierced banner dies (isn´t the idea with the doubled vellum banners gorgeous?) and the new Lemon alphas.

Thank you both for your gorgeous work, please be sure to check out the profiles of this talented ladies and leave them some love...


Are you now curios about the ideas the designteam came up with? So, lets go ahead! 

Candice made such a beautiful shiny rainbow card using Lights on! and Basic circle stencil to create this wonderful bokeh background.

Jeanne turned and compressed the sketch and made another gorgeous flower layout card using In bloom, Alles über Dich and Stacked pierced banners dies.

Joke made this wonderful flowery card with oh so clever kind of banner-windows... using Pure poppies and Doctor´s helpers. 

Kerstin made this adorable squirrel birthday card using Pulliwetter, Ausflippen, and Cloud pattern stencil. Have you recognized that she made her own pattern paper banners using Geometrics? 

Maaike created this gorgeous out-of-this-world DINlang card using Same frequency, Mini birthday and Stacked pierced banners die as well.

Nina made this cute creative rainbow robot card using Ähnlich programmiert, Sewing, an older Set "Weil Du toll bist" and the Stacked pierced banners die.

Tinne has used Same frequency for her card as well, but created with the beautiful pastel colors such a soft and sweet and totally different look, using Double stitched rectangles, Cherry uppercase dies and Tiny sentiments.

Vicki made this awesome blossom greenery card using Tender Tulips, Glowing seaside, Bubble circle stencil and Double stitched rectangles.

Even if some of us used same sets, all cards are looking totally different and are again such gorgeous inspiration, don´t you think? 

If you now want to participate yourself, please make sure to follow the challenge rules below.

Have an awesome day everybody ... and get crafty whenever you´re able to...
Nina

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Winners from July mood board challenge

Hello everybody!

It´s time to announce our winners - and to thank everyone who participate in the July moodboard challenge.

Just in case you didn´t already know :
By playing along our challenges you´ll get the chance to win a 25,-€ gift certificate for the Create a smile Shop and be guest designer for the upcoming challenge.

This time the winner of the 25,-€ gift certificate is ... drummroll and congrats to : Pepita Hasenkeks 

She´s created a gorgeous maritime explosion box, which is so wonderful decorated inside and out using Möwen Gang, Ahoi!, Dekorierte Grüße (bunte Erweiterung) and the Lemon Alpha dies for this great artwork.

Please send me an email to challengeteam@createasmilestamps.com to claim your prize - it´s so well deserved. 

And our featured artist of the July mood board challenge is Anisha. 

For her beautiful card she combined several Create a smile freebies in such a clever way and did an awesome no-line coloring for her circle card.

Again : congrats you both!
You can take the badge and display it on your blogs, if you want to...

And we would love to invite you both to be guest designers for our next challenge - please send an email to challengeteam@createasmilestamps.com and I will tell you all the details.

If you check out our blog regularly you´ll see the inspiration over here never stops ... and you won´t miss the new challenges of course!

Have a great day ... and get crafty whenever you get the chance to...

Nina

Quick and Colourful Card!

Hello friends and welcome back! It's Laurie with you today to share a super simple, quick and fun card with you today! I've been on a bit of a diecutting kick lately so there is no stamping on todays card!

I've really been enjoying playing with my Distress Inks lately. Lots of layering of bright, cheery colours to create fun backgrounds.  So this is where the card started:

This background was created using the "ink smooshing" technique. Simply press your ink pad onto a slick surface, spritz with some water and smoosh your cardstock into it! So easy! Make sure each layer is dry before proceeding to the next colour. 

I wanted to mute the background slightly so I decided to use a stencil and some white gesso.  I lined up the  Blossom Stencil to the right side of the panel and added a light layer of the gesso. 

You can see that this still lets the colour shine through while giving texture and pattern. Next I worked on the sentiment.  I decided to use the amazing new alphabet dies...Lemon Alphas Cool Cuts. I adore these dies. So cute and so versatile!

I kept it simple and used the word smile. I heat emboss a small scrap of cardstock with gold embossing powder and cute the letters out. The shadow part of the letters was cut out of plain, white cardstock and layered up 3 times for a little dimension.

To put the card together, I first started by trimming the colourful background to 5X3.5 inches and foam mounted it to a white A2 card base.  I added the "smile" die cuts towards the centre of the Blossom Stencil.

It was at this point I decided to add 2 circle die cuts from the Stitched Circle Dies. This seemed to ground the sentiment.  I then used the heart dies from the DIN Lang Postage Cool Cuts and cut them from the same gold embossed cardstock.

When using the ink smooshing technique it's always important to dry between each layer of colour! If you layer upon wet colour, you will end up with yucky colours!

Also, if you don't have gesso, white acrylic paint will work. Just make sure you use very little or you'll cover up too much of the background.

Don't be afraid to try new things! Play with colours! And incorporate some of your other crafty stash into your cardmaking!

Lemon Alpha Cool Cuts

Blossom Stencil

DIN Lang Postage

Stitched Circle Frames

Thank you so much for dropping by today!! Until next time :)

Laurie

 

We dare you to create a smile : July Mood board

Hello and welcome to the july mood board challenge - the first under new leadership.

As brand new challenge coordinator and I wanna thank Ale for doing such a wonderful job the past three years and I promise I´ll do my best to follow in their footsteps...

Let´s start and get creative with this awesome summery mood board :

If you want to play along you will get the chance to win a 25,-€ gift card for the Create a smile shop .

Fitting the current mood board our two guest designers made adorable cards, let´s have a closer look.

Liebes.Wolf created such a bright, glittery flower-card using Pure Poppies, Heute wird gut and DIN lang postage die.

Mimi Zitrone made this adorable beach card using only Saumäßig - one of the new realease sets.

Thank you both for your gorgeous work, please check out their profiles and leave them some love...


But now you´re certainly curios about the inspairations the designteam came up with, don´t you? 

Candice made this bright and wonderful poppy card using Pure poppies , Quill & Ink and Bubble circle stencil.

Jeanne did again a fablous layout using Geometrics, Friends like you and the new Cherry lowercase dies.

Joke used Pig out and created a wonderful watery no-line look.

Kerstin made this wonderful chilling sloth home card and used Mehr als Nickerchen, Vasen, Heute wird gut and Leafy Stencil.

Maaike used Unschlagbar for her cute fun beach scene card.

Nina created an ocean scene using Möwen-Gang, Ahoi and Tolles Team.

Tinne made her beautiful graphical flower card with In bloom, Cherry lowercase dies, Pocket tag die and the Double stiched rectangels.

Vicki made her colorful treasure card with All hands on deck, Glowing seaside and Double stiched rectangles.

Wow! Such gorgeous inspiration... don´t you think?
If you now want to participate please make sure to follow the challenge rules below.

Have an awesome day everybody and get crafty whenever you´re able to...
Nina

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter