Thanks

Hello! It's Keeway here and I am sharing a clean and simple thank you card with just some dies and some paint!

Watercolor has really become one of my favorite mediums to work with when cardmaking. You can create so much just with a simple stroke, literally!

1. Use watercolor (or even acrylic would work!) to create the paint stroke across the area you want to use your sentiment. Choose a darker color if you want to create strong contrast to help your sentiment stand out. Using a brush with hard bristles can help create the scatchy look.
2. Add a touch of splatter
3. After the paint dries, stamp and heat emboss your sentiment in white.
4. Die cut 4 branches of leaves out of black cardstock.
5. Arrange leaves above and below the sentiment and glue directly onto your card.

You can always add more dimension by using foam tape on the leaves and use the die cut version of the thanks instead of heat embossing. Easily create a set of these cards with a variety of paint color!

The Challenge of the Month is still going on!  Link up your projects here and one lucky winner will receive a 15€ gift card.

Also, our Create a Smile Friends and Family Facebook group is the perfect place for inspiration, ideas and also more challenges (with prizes). Come join us!

Thinking Of You

Hello there! It's Keeway and I'm sharing loose, watercolor stamped card today.

I've been a tad addicted to watercolor stamping as of late, and I thought the clustered leaves were a perfect candidate to do it!

1.  Stamp clustered leaves in variation of distress inks and spray water onto the stamp before stamping. Then stamp onto watercolor paper.
2. Watercolor around the leaves to add to the loose feel and help the leaves stand out even more.
3.  Add paint splatter around the leaves.
4. Die cut stitched rectangle frames with 3 of the largest rectangles. This will give you 2 frames and 1 rectangle.
5. Stamp sentiment in black in the inner rectangle.
6. Adhere the outer border and inner rectangle directly onto your base card. Adhere the center frame with foam tape so that it creates a visual dimension to your card.

The Challenge of the Month is still going on!  Link up your projects here and one lucky winner will receive a 15€ gift card.

Also, our Create a Smile Friends and Family Facebook group is the perfect place for inspiration, ideas and also more challenges (with prizes). Come join us!

The Ocean is Calling

Hello, it's Keeway here and I'm sharing a colorful, underwater card today with some of the new July products. Don't you just love all the new products in the release? So many ideas to share!

Stencil patterns make great backgrounds and add wonderful textures when building scenes.

1. Lay down the stencil on your card base and blend ink in. Be sure to secure your stencil either with removable tape, such as washi tape, or use an repositional adhesive spray.
2. With a lighter hand, blend the same or lighter ink colors onto the same area to mute the sharpness of our stenciled images and to add color to the rest of the background. The pattern will soften, but still retain its interesting pattern.
3. Stamp and color in the jellyfish images. I used copic sketch markers. When blending 2 different colors, make sure to leave a little room for overlap so that your transitions are more gradual.
4. Lastly, I fussy cut out the jellyfish. Since the tentacles are pretty thin to cut, they actually started curling as I cut them. I thought this was a fun accidental effect!
5. I stamped the sentiment directly to my background in black ink.
6. I die cut my background piece with some wonky stitches for a subtle interest and then adhered my jellyfish with foam tape.

      

The Challenge of the Month is still going on!  Link up your projects here and one lucky winner will receive a 15€ gift card.

Also, our Create a Smile Friends and Family Facebook group is the perfect place for inspiration, ideas and also more challenges (with prizes). Come join us!

More release inspiration

Hello everyone,

it's time for the another big batch of release inspiration :)

Check out THIS post  to take a closer look at all the new products.

Look at this cute card by Keeway! She used one of the Koalas from All Hands on Deck / Alle Mann an Bord and created a wonderful bold frame for her focal point. I love her soft clouds for the background, just perfect!

Samantha made two cards for you:

On the first one she created a great underwater scene with the vampire squid from Glowing Seaside / Strahlende Küste and used LED to lighten up the card. Vampire squids actually are bioluminescent (that's why that guy is included in the set) and Sams lit up card is simply amazing!

On her other card she tried something new (to me) - she used embossing paste over tissue paper - and look at the soft and fluffy look she created! The barrel floating in light turquoise water - I am in love!

I also have some cards to share with you:

On my first cards i used the Clustered Leaves Cling stamps to created completely different cards:
I stampes them in with green inks, cut them into pieces and created a summery wreath (but this could also work for spring or Christmas). Enamel shares create berries and flowers:

On the second card I white embossed the leaves and added inkblending with a sentiment (and more enamel stickers). The sentiment says "thanks for everything"

I made LOTS of cards with the new Mandala  cling stamp and this one may be one of my favorites. I  white embossed it, added some inkblending and cute it out to create a colorful background panel for my bold black sentiment:

For the following card I used the starry night cling stamps because I thought it would create the perfect background for the genie from Message in a bottle.  I first added Dylusion Ink sprays to my background, added drops of water to create lots of texture and then stamped the starry night with white pigment ink.  The Dyluision were reactivated by the white ink, so the stars are pretty subtile - I love that effect!

And here's another card using All hands on deck! / Alle Mann an Bord! - I made this a long card to have enought space for ma scene with lots of inkblending. I also used the palm tree die from the Beach Party Kit for more interest.

Thanks for stopping by, we hope this post tickled your mojo and sparks your creativity!
We're glad you're here with us!

Smiles

Thanks For Everything

Hello crafty friends! Keeway here, and I have a clean and simple card thank you card to share with you.

I wanted to create a card with just sentiments by stamping simple and clean repetitive patterns, and add a touch of color.

• Draw straight lines in pencil on the card where you will be stamping the repeated sentiments
• Leave a small space between your stamped sentiments and draw in a small dot with a black marker
• Use post it tape to mask of your stamped areas to prep the area for ink blending.
• Blend each color with some overlap to create a smooth ombre transition
• Be sure to let all ink dry before erasing your pencil lines to prevent any ink from smearing
• Because the thanks is delicate, I put down double sided tape on white cardstock before die cutting.
• Adhere your thanks die in the center of the rainbow ink blend to the center
• Add pattern paper or washi tape to the vertical edges of the base card for interest
• Trim the vertical edges of the stamped panel to to let the patterns behind it show

A new Challenge of the Month just started!  Link up your projects here and one lucky winner will receive a 15€ gift card.

Also, our Create a Smile Friends and Family Facebook group is the perfect place for inspiration, ideas and also challenges (with prizes). Come join us!