Three for One

Hey stampers, Anni here!
Today I have not only one but three cards for you.

I wanted to create a colorful rainbow background with my favorite stencil Big Heart Polka. And while I had it out I decided to make two backgrounds: one with Distress Inks and one with Distress Oxide to compare the both type of inks. The third card came together just because I didn't want to waste the colour that was still on the stencil.





What I really love about the Oxide inks is that they blend so perfectly and that they work on coloured cardstock.

• After creating and die cutting all the backgrounds I stamped, coloured and fussy cut all the coffe cups.
• I decided to go with a similar sketc for all three cards and just changed the sentiment for a little bit of variety.
• I die cut a circle from vellum for the cup to sit on and added sequins and rhinestones to finish up the card.

The challenge for this month is Letters- play along.

      

New Girl, with presents for you

Hello lovelies!

I happy happy and sad news. Sad first: Michelle is currently dealing with health issues and won't be able to create new videos for you for a while. We wish her all the best and hope she'll be better soon. Please keep your fingers crossed and send her some warm thoughts :) Thank you!

Now for the good news. My friend Birka (that i had the pleasure to meet iin real life this summer) will be stepping in for Michelle. Today's her first post, she's super excited (and so am I!) I know you'll love her videos (and she's doing her voiceovers in German AND English - how fantastic is that!

Please give a warm welcome to Birka:

It's also Birka's birthday today - 

happy happy birthday Birka, 

wishing you all the best and hope this is a great start to a new year ;)

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Hi everybody.
Yes, I'm so very happy, that Christine asked me you fill in Michelles place in her Video-Team. Michelle needs some time for feeling better, and because of this it's not only a happy arangement for me. I wish Michelle all the best. But nevertheless I'm feel so happy about making videos for create a smile. I follow christines way since the first step and always loooved her prducts.
So, please forgive me my expandable englisch, and I hope, you have fun

Ok, I'm happy, lets go
   

Show me ANYBODY, who do not want so SEE what is inside his present :-)
So, I made it possible :-)

You can watch my video in ENGLISH or in GERMAN :-) as you like

HERE in Englisch




Here in German

Wrap it up

Ausflippen

If you think you are ready, pick up your gel-pen. Mostly it can brings some more little interests to your card

 

Did you missed to buy the lovely Pretty-Pink-Posh-sequins in our shop? Stay attentively on instagram and facebook, so you woun't miss the restock

Guest Designer Sonja Kerkhoffs Part 3

Hello everyone, happy thursday!

I'm here to say a huge thank you and a sad goodbye to our Guest Designer Sonja Kerkhoffs , who shared amazing projects with you this month. I highly recommend subscribing to her blog The Art of Stamping - I'm constantly falling in love with her creations. They are just amazing!

Let's see what she has for you today:

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Hi! It’s me again, Sonja. Today I’m sharing my last guest post with you here on the Create A Smile Stamps blog. I’m a bit sad that it’s already time to say good-bye but I hope you’ve had jus as much fun with my post as I had. Today’s project is a clean and simple card with a little twist. 

My daughter’s starting school shortly, and at her kindergarten’s farewell party she and her friends, who’ll also be off to school, gave a coupon from a local bookstore to each of their teachers. I was asked to accompany these little gifts with matching cards. As my daughter went to the “bear’s class” I thought it was a good idea to use the bear from the new “Poppin’ Over” set for my project. And to make it an even better match I created bookmark cards to go with the coupons.

 

When watercoloring think of using waterproof ink such as Archival or Versafine for your stamping so that the lines won’t smear when coloring. You can also heat emboss your image to prepare it for watercoloring.

Stamps: Poppin’ Over, Ausflippen
Inks: Archival Jet Black, Versafine Onyx Black
Coloring: Akashiya Sai Brush Pens
Paper: Canson XL Aquarell, white cardstock, blue mirror cardstock
Other: clear embossing powder

Thanks for stopping by! I had so much fun guest designing for Create A Smile Stamps - thanks, Christine, for having me - and I hope to meet you all again somewhere sometime on the Net. Sonja

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Thank you Sonja, for being our Guest! It was a pleasure to see your Create A Smile creations! Hope you'll be back some day :)

Bams!

Hi everyone! :) I've been wanting to get out of my comfort zone in terms of colour combination so I decided to use this bright blue as my inspiration for this card. I don't think I've ever used this blue in any of my projects before but there's always a first right? What colour combination would you try? 

I wanted to use a colour that I don't usually use as an inspiration but at the same time to make some boy-ish friendly card.

I wanted the no-line watercolouring look. My favourite what to do this is to use any of the lighter inks I have. This time I used the antique linen.

For the "sunlight", I coloured using distress ink markers directly on the paper. And then I used a very wet brush to pull the colours.

Create A Smile Stamps - Uplifting
Create A Smile Stamps - Ausflippen

Another good way to control where you watercolour go when you want to cover a large area is to paint clean water to the area and drop your paint to the wet area. 

Follow Create A Smile on Facebook keep yourself updates on all the happenings and if you're an Instagram addict like I am, you can follow Create A Smile using this name : @createasmilestamps ! :)

Thanks for stopping by,

Marina

Iridescent watercolor background

Hi! Francine here! 

I’m back with a new video tutorial featuring the Create A Smile stamp sets called Botanical Love and Ausflippen (German sentiment set). Here is my card:

In this video, I share another way to create a self-made background using silver embossing powder instead of the black or white we usually choose. It gives a fantastic metallic look! 

Sadly, the pictures don’t do justice to the card! In real life, the background is vibrant and shiny! 

You can see how I did my card in the video below!

Stamps: Botanical Love & Ausflippen (Create A Smile)

Inks & Co.: Peacock Feathers Distress Ink (Ranger), Finetec MICA Watercolor Iridescent Paint, Versamark
Paper: watercolor paper, black and white cardstock
Dies: Stitched Rectangles (Lil’Inker Designs)
Various: silver embossing powder, 3D foam pads, tape runner, heat gun, paint brushes, etc.

   

Use Distress inks combined with iridescent watercolors to create a metallic and shiny look.

Combine a silver embossed background with gold iridescent watercolor shades for more contrast.

   

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day!

Francine

Stretching Your Stamps : New + Old + Masking!

Hi all! Before I begin, I would like to remind you to join the Create A Smile first ever kit release party! Go over to this Facebook link and join :D You won't regret it, I promise.

Today, I'm so excited to share with another one of my Stretching Your Stamps posts! This card, I've used this "formula" New + Old + Masking! Read ahead to find out more...

The idea is to inspire you to combine your older stamp set with your new stamp set :) This way, you are extending the life of your older stamp set and I think that's pretty awesome. 

From my New stamp set, I choose to use this adooooorable octopus and stamped it on a watercolour paper as I will then use my watercolour to colour it. And I also stamped it on my post-it to create a mask.

I wanted the octopus to look playful so I chose this umbrella image from an Older stamp set. (List of supplies listed below). I masked of the octopus and the umbrella so that I can have an overlap stamping. Don't you just love this technique? :D 

To create my background, I took the patterned paper and cut it into like a broken-glass look instead of a piece of rectangle. I've added vellum paper to often the background and that's it!

    

Trust me, whenever you get a new stamp set and you're done playing with it just the way it is, look through your older sets, you'll be surprise at how well you can combine them :) 

Follow Create A Smile on Facebook keep yourself updates on all the happenings and if you're an Instagram addict like I am, you can follow Create A Smile using this name : @createasmilestamps ! :)

Thanks for stopping by,

Marina