Oops, I'm late!

Hi there!
Samantha here, sharing a fun belated birthday card!

     

I just love that little snail image, and I had the idea to use the clock as the snail's shell! Ha!! 

Let's get down to it!
- stamp and color your images (I used Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers!)
- once dry, fussy cut out, and attach the large clock image to the snail's shell! 
- using embossing paste and a stencil, add some texture to your white cardbase 

- heat emboss the sentiments onto two different strips of black cardstock
- use the die cut to die cut part of the sentiment!
- pop up the strips of sentiment with foam tape

A few color choice changes on the background and for the reindeer's shirt, and you could customize this card design to anyone, male or female! :)

The sentiment was created by combining phrases from the Happy Days stamp set, Time Flies stamp set and the Birthday Triple cool cuts die! I also used the Waves of Stars stencil to add some texture to the background of the white card base! The cute snail head is from the Lovely Critters set! 

    

Did you know that Create a Smile stamps creates all their clear stamp sets in both German AND English?! Love that about this amazing company! :)

~Samantha

     

    

Guest Designer Keeway Tsao #1

Hello everyonwe happy friday!

I am here with youtoday to share something AMAZING. When we had out last Guest Designer Call I was happy to see Keeway Tsao apply - I had followed her INstagram for a while and each and every creation she makes it outstanding, unique, clever, perfecly executed and cheerful.

More than that I found out that Keeway is a super sweet person, too <3

Please give her a warm welcome and more than that - hop over to her Blog Kiwi Koncepts - take time  to look at all her amazing designs and sign up for her creations - you are sure going to love them!

Here's what Keeway has for you today {puffa heart love!}:

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When I see beautiful products, I like to let it inspire me to create scenes that I can imagine myself in. In today's card, the wave of stars stencil is what caught my attention and when I imagine a beautiful sky sprinkled with stars, I would want to spend it with someone special.

- Mask off approximately an inch of the top and bottom of your A2 white cardstock with post-it tape.

- Use your blender tool to create a gradient night sky, starting with your lightest color. In this card, I used Distress Inks and started with the Tumbled Glass from bottom up, then Chipped Sapphire from top to bottom, and then a touch of Hickory Smoke on the top. Blend until the colors gradually transition into each other.

- Create two mixtures of embossing paste, one yellow and one orange. I used Distress Inks Squeezed Lemonade and Spiced Marmalade.

- Place the Wave or Stars Stencil where the stars to be, and spread the yellow embossing paste right to left. Then spread the orange embossing paste left to right. The colors will mix somewhere in the middle. Let it dry.

- Stamp the meerkat from the Friends and Couples set once on cardstock, and another time on a separate piece of paper to create a mask. After you mask the first meerkat, you can stamp the second one beside it. Color in with copics. You can also add a hint of color pencil to create additional texture and shading. Then, cut out.

- To create an extra sparkle on your stars, add a hint of gold glitter. I used a Q-tip to help me add a thin and scattered layer of clear glue to add some gold glitter to my stars. I also went over the embossed stars more with my Wink of Stella pen.

- Stamp your sentiment in the top right corner of the card.

- And lastly, use foam tape to adhere the meerkats underneath the stars.

Be patient. When playing with embossing paste, it can take awhile to dry, but if you are able to set your project aside and come back to it next day, you'll have beautiful results and less chance of messing up your work. I have to remind myself that all the time.

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Don't you just LOVE Keeway's card? The colors - the texture - the allover design - it's just swoonworthy - like all of her project. (Yes, you can call me a fan-girl - hehe ;) )

You'll get to see more of her creations this week-end - so make sure to check back!

Guest Designer Wiebke Zander - Part 1

Hello friends,

what a crazy time - so so many people are posting pictures and videos from CHA, from warm weather and palm trees in California and from all the lovely people they meet.
Let me tell you - I am envious to the max. Warm weather would be great of course, but meeting all those super lovely crafters from all around the world? Meet my team mates? EXCUSE ME? I wanna go there.  But don't know if I will ever have the chance to ;)

This was kind of off-topic, I just had to let you know. Just had to.

I am here to introduce our January Guest Designer to you - woohoo! (By the way, we have an open call for the February Guest Designer going on now. You have until Friday to apply ;)

Our January guest designer is a lovely young lady from Germany whom I "found" on instagram (wiwicard) a while back - her cards are amazeballs - Wiebke Zander!

Wiebke creates fun cute cards, uses different techniques and walks a line between clean and simple and artsy-cute. She has a great sense of humour and inspires me to out of my comfort cas-zone now and then :)

Soooo, let's see what Wiebke created for you:

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I intended to create a card with the beautiful snowflake stencil, some embossingpaste and just a few light colors.

 

• I mixed a Distress Ink color with the embossingpaste and put it on the stencil
• While the background dried, I colored the moose plus accesoires with Copic Markers
• I stamped out the sentiments and grounded them on some black cardstock.
• I add a few clear sequins for the finishing touch

I intended the card to turn out very soft and light colored. The "Made of snow" friends are perfect to do so, because snow isn’t a bright color! Just a few splashes of color are enough to add interest and a finishing touch to your card.

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Isn't that a lovely card? What a great way to incorporate our Wave of Snow Stencil!

 Make sure to check out Wiebke's blog - there are so many cards to love!

 

Thanks for stippon' by - have a great day!

Christine

We've moved......

Hello, did you already notice that we are having our first anniversary over at create a smile?!!!!!!!!!!
This is so, so awesome please celebrate with us......

For today I would like to share a card with the adorable Poppin'over stampset.

Those images are so, so cute don't you think so. I love that you can place them on almost everything. For this card I wanted to create a wall and have the elephant poppin'over it.



I started with stamping the brickline from the poppin'over stampset repeadetly. After stamping I colored the wall with copics. Stamped the elephant and colored it. I stamped the head and the paws on a scrap of paper, colored it and fuzzy cut it. Adhered the head and the paws with foamtape to get some dimension and depth. I took the stencil wave of stars and traced the stars with a black marker. I colored the stars with copics in a Rainbow. Gave the stars some extra interest with a white gelpen. For the background I used a light blue copic. To finish of my card I stamps the sentiment and the we've moved phrase in watermark ink and white heat embossed it. Finally rounded the corners of the card, easy peasy.



Stamps;

Poppin'over



Stencil;

Wave of stars






As I mentioned before please join in the fun in celebrating with us our first anniversary.



Have a great week.

Anja

Coffee Lovers Summer Blog Hop - Be Happy

Welcome to the Summer Coffee Lovers Blog Hop!

As a sponsor we're giving away the Coffee First stamp set :)

General blog hop details:
•    prizes:  eligibility is based on link up.  Newly created spring-y themed coffee, tea &/or cocoa project to be part of the random draw. (No back linking)
•    Some blogs, as part of the hop will be giving away separate prizes, please make note of their own details regarding eligibility.
•    Turn OFF Word Verification...PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE!
•    Super Sponsor prizes will be picked via random.org based on the hop inlinkz. 
•    FLASH Sponsor prizes will be picked via random.org based on the hop inlinkz.
•    All Winners will be posted on the Coffee Loving Cardmakers blog on Sunday, March 8th.


Today, I (Samantha) am sharing a summer-y and warm coffee card for this special occasion!

I kept thinking...coffee...summer...warmth...all of those words were spinning in my head, so I decided to put them on paper and see what happened!

This card came together quickly! And it was SO much fun!

- mist the card base with gold spray
- when dry, create the 'steam' with the stencil and some embossing paste
- watercolor the cute coffee cup image with Distress Markers in a rainbow pattern!
- fussy cut and pop  up on the card base
- stamp the greeting and pop the entire panel up over some high contrasting washi tape!

That cute coffee cup is from Coffee First stamp set! I just LOVE that set! The greeting is from the super beautiful Botanical Love stamp set! And the stars are from the Wave of Stars stencil!

I wanted this card to feel like a big warm cup of sunshine! Mmm, sunshine tastes great! Ha!
You could (of course!) color the cup anyway you want, and make a cute little set of cards to give as a gift! 

There are prizes to be had!! Be sure to hop along for your chance to win! You can also link up a card for a chance to win!

We can't wait to see what you make!

Be sure to head over to the Coffee Lovers Blog to read all of the details! 

~Samantha

 

A Monstrous Birthday

Hello!
Samantha here today, and I have a super fun birthday card to share with you! :)

It's super fun and super easy to create for a fun little one in your life!

This card really came together super easy! And there is no fun story, or technique behind it...it just came to fruition because I had fun playing with that cute little monster!

So, settle in, and let's create this card together, shall we?

- on the white card front, spray with a gold/yellow mist
- once dry, add white embossing paste over the stencil, set aside to dry
- stamp and color the balloons and monster with copicsS
(this is the fun part!)

- i added some glitter with my wink of stella pen and then added glossy accents over the balloons
- i popped up both colored images and the banner for the sentiment
- oh yeah! the banner - i heat embossed that sentiment in white and hand cut the banner!
- lastly, add a think strip of washi to ground the whole scene!

That hysterical monster (i just LOOOOVE his expression, ha ha!!) is from Big Time. The sentiment and balloons are from Monster Party, and the awesome starry background was created with the Waves of Stars stencil!

This card was super easy! You could easily create a set of these and give THEM as the birthday gift! win-win! I love the idea of coloring the background and monster in different colors (wouldn't a pink mist behind the stars look awesome!?).

   

Show us what you got!! Link up your Create a Smile projects for the chance to be a July Guest Designer!! Yay!! You can find all the details and the linky here!

Thanks again for stopping by!
~Samantha