Crafty Friends: Picket Fence Studios

Hey guys!
It's been such a long time since I've been here to share anything pretty with you. Life has been wild and this week I've been in Phoenix at Creativation. It's my second time to Creativation and this time I"m here working with Tonic Studios. I've been doing demos for all of the Nuvo products  and it's really been a great time. I'm glad to be back here today hopping along with my crafty friends and showcasing Picket Fence Studios.

Now, Picket Fence has so many amazing products and I really wanted to make so many things... but I've only been getting a few hours of sleep a night and at some point I need to admit that I can't do anymore. So today instead of a full card I've got some coloring to share with you because that is literally all I can pull off right now. I used the Dani Girl stamp set and colored with both copies and colored pencils.

I love this stamp set so much? I saw it for the first time last year at Creativation and here I am one whole year later working with it. Ok, guys. I am wicked tired and I need to go to bed. Thank you so much for stopping by today and I'm so sorry I didn't have more to share with you... good new, though. today's blog post is part of a monthly hop that I do with my Crafty Friends. Follow along the hop and enjoy projects from the rest of my friends. Bye guys!

Maria

BLOG ROLL:

Maria Willis: You are Here.

Becky Roberts 

Sandi MacIver

Sara Sherlock

Lydia Fiedler

Jen Timko

Jenny Hall

Tanya Boser

Ilina Crouse

Magical Winter Scene with Nuvo Aquaflow pens and Glimmer Paste

Hi Everybody! I am so glad to be here today because I've got a fun card to share with you.

This snowman family from Tonic Studio's Snowman Snuggles stamp set is so adorable and I hadn't used it yet so I decided it would be the focus of my card. Nuvo Aquaflow pens were the perfect medium to watercolor the image.

I used Moonstone shimmer paste to stencil some small snowflakes onto the background. Then, I was able to highlight the snowmen in the center of the card by ink blending Royal Plum and Siren Blue at the edges of the card. I ink blended right on top of the glimmer paste which gave it a cool effect.

 I finished the card off by adding splatters of white gesso, Dream Drops in Cloud Nine and accents of Glitter Gloss. 

I'm so happy to have one more Christmas card finished as I am so far behind on mine. Are any of you as far behind as I am? Let me know in the comments below if you're done with your holiday cards or still working on them.

Have an awesome day you all!

Maria

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Snowy or Snarky? A Crafty Christmas Blog Hop!

Hi everybody! I hope you had a great week and are planning to have a little fun this weekend! I'm hoping that some of my crafty friends and I can help get your weekend off to a great start. Some of us have decided to come together to bring you the Crafty Festival of Christmas Blog Hop. We will feature holiday projects every Friday from now until Christmas. Of course, each week we will be working off of a theme and this week's theme is: Snowy or Snarky!

I decided to go with "snowy" since I've been dying to play with this adorable Rooftop Reindeer set I just got from Hello Bluebird. I started by stamping the reindeer in Black Shadow Hybrid ink from Tonic Studios. I love this ink because it is a bold black and works well with both water and alcohol based medium. Next, I stamped the chimney and extended the roof line on either side so that it filled the width of the card.

I colored the entire scene with my Copic Markers. Then I heat embossed the snowflakes onto the background using Hero Arts Sparkle Embossing Powder. I added a little extra color to the background with my blending brushes and some Distress Oxide ink in Salty Ocean.

To finish off the card I added a bunch of fun details and a lot of sparkle! I added a glossy nose on the reindeer, gave him white spots with a gel pen, and added gold to his bells. I added Nuvo Dream Drops in Cloud 9 to the sky for extra snow and texture. Finally, and this is what makes the card stand out in real life... I added Nuvo Glimmer Paste in Moonstone to the snow on the chimney and rooftop to make the snow look glittery. It picks up on the blue and violet ink tones that I had used to color the snow.

This stamp set has three other adorable deer in it as well as some really sweet sentiments. I'm looking forward to using it again and making something completely different.

Ok, that is it for today unless you all have some questions? If so, please feel free to leave me a comment below and I will get back to you as soon as I can. Now you can head over to my talented friend Jenny Hall to see what she has cooked up for you today. If you want to check out the whole list of talented crafters participating in today's hop please see the list I've added below. I'm also adding a list of products that I've used today just in case you'd like to check  them out.

Have a great weekend!

Maria

BLOG ROLL:

Tania Cordie

Linda Van Wely

Tanya Boser 

Marcia Caradinta

Lynnea Hollendonner

Charlet Mallett

MariaWillis: You are Here.

Jenny Hall: Next

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Sparkly Background and Christmas Magic with Tonic Studios

Hey everybody! I'm swinging by to share a quick and easy card with you today. I've been busy lately. I'm talking getting four hours of sleep a night for a little too long, kind of busy. So, when I sat down to make this card I knew that I needed to be quick, and so, I decided to stencil a fun background and put a brightly colored Christmas cutie in front of it.

• I ink blended using Laguna Bay and Siren Blue inks.
• If you need a circle stencil you can create one using your Tonic Circle Dies.
• Next I used the Winter Wonderland Stencil and Moonstone Glimmer Paste over the ink.
• I love that the Moonstone paste picks up the color of the ink below.

• I colored the reindeer from Celebrate Success with my Nuvo Alcohol Markers.
• Next, I gave him a holiday sweater from the recent free downloadable stamp set.
• I popped the reindeer up on top of the heat embossed sentiment and adhered it with foam adhesive.
• I added sequins, a blue card base, and called it a night!

Thank you for stopping by. If you're interested in checking out the products I've used on today's post I've got them listed down below.
Have an awesome day!
Maria

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Ellen Hutson Release: Naked Ladies!

Hey everybody! I am so excited to have you stopping by today because for the first time I am joining the crew at Ellen Hutson for their new Essentials By Ellen Release! I paired a new sentiment set called, Tis the Season with the recently released Mondo Amaryllis for an out of the box Christmas card.

I grew up in the woods, in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by gorgeous redwood trees. Surprisingly, our driveway was lined with beautiful, pink Amaryllis... Of course, we didn't call them Amaryllis. We went with their street name: Naked Ladies. I grew up with Naked Ladies everywhere and not only were they gorgeous but they even smelled good too. I just learned that Naked Ladies come in a variety of different colors but since I've only ever seen pink ones, and they were a big part of my childhood, that's what color I decided to go with.

I started by heat embossing the flower in white onto Arches cold press water color paper. Then I used my Daniel Smith watercolors to paint it. I used only one color of pink paint for these (Opera Pink). To add a little depth and shadow to the two flowers in back I added a little bit of purple mixed with the pink paint.

I ink blended the background with Distress Oxides in Tumbled Glass, Broken China, and Peacock Feathers. I splattered the background with water and picked up the excess with a paper towel. If you look closely at the background you can actually see that my paper towel left behind a cool pattern in the ink. To finish the background off I splattered the whole thing with White Metallic Ink from Hero Arts. The whole background is shimmery!

After adhering the floral image to my card face I stamped the sentiment in black onto Hero Arts Mist cardstock. I used foam adhesive to pop it up over the bottom of the stem. Then I added some rhinestones and Nuvo Dream Drops for a little extra magic.

That's it for today you guys. Thanks so much for stopping by and I'll see you back here soon!

Have an awesome day!

Maria

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My Monthly Hero Arts Release, Stamping in the Dark, and a Giveaway!

Hi Everybody! Thanks for stopping by today and I am so glad you did because today is launch day for the November My Monthly Hero kit from Hero Arts. This kit has a classic, traditional Christmas look to it and contains so many sweet elements. From a classy staircase and gorgeous Christmas tree, to adorable cats and dogs, to a gorgeous die that cuts a brick house with a door that opens and closes... This kit has it all! The kit is valued at $81.50 and can be picked up for $34.99 while supplies last. So, if you are not a subscriber and you want this kit go snatch up quickly before it sells out! There are also add-ons that coordinate with the kit that are sold separately. 

Now, there's a funny background story to the card I'm sharing today... I live in California. The winds here have been insane and the fire danger has been high. This combination resulted in the electric company shutting down power grids across the state in order to try to decrease the risk of fire from fallen power lines. This has happened a couple of times and last week when we were shut down we lost power for three days. We have a generator so we are lucky to be able to plug our fridge in. We are also on a well... that means that without electricity our well doesn't pump and we don't have running water. Anyhow, our power was out, we knew it would be days before it came back on and I had cards that weren't going to make themselves. I work during the day and craft at night so I decided to try to craft by lantern and flashlight light so that I could get some cards made. 

I decided I needed to make a simple card so I picked some of my favorite stamps from the kit and colored them by lamplight. Have you ever tried to color by lamplight? It is really hard to see what you are doing! Lol! Anyhow, I did my best to color the Christmas tree and the puppy dog with my Copic Markers and some colored pencils. 

I used some of Hero Art's new colored enamel dots in different sizes to decorate the Christmas tree. I love the dimension and color they add to the tree. I cut the tree and dog out and then used a black sharpie to color the edges of the images so that there wouldn't be a white halo around them. There are coordinating dies of course, but, since I planned to make these the focus of my card I wanted to hand cut them.

I ink blended a background using Splash, Blue Hawaii and Grape Slush reactive inks. Then, I splattered the ink with water droplets and quickly picked them up using a paper towel. This left a snowy, distressed look to my background. Next, I used Hero Art's white iridescent shimmer spray to spray the ink blended background. I let it set for a minute so that most of it dried. Then, I used the paper towel again to lift any wet spots. You can't see it in the picture but the whole background sparkles and shimmers! 

I used the new-ish Hero Arts Intens-ified Black Ink to stamp my sentiment. This ink is rad! It's SO black and it works with both alcohol markers and water based products (you never have to worry about running ink again!). Then I used foam tape to adhere my tree and pup up on the card front. The final touch was to add some clear enamel dots to the card. Can you tell that they have a subtle blue hue to them? Hot Tip: You can use your alcohol markers to color directly onto these clear dots and make them any color that you want!

That's it for my card today but I want to let you know that Hero Arts is generously giving away a $50 gift certificate to one lucky winner! The winner will be chosen from the blog comments on this hop so be sure to leave me a comment below as your chance to enter. The winner will be announced next week on the Hero Arts blog.

Thanks so much for stopping by today. You can keep hopping along with us by heading over to Mariana's Blog, or, by following along with the list below. If you're interested in checking out the products I've used today, as well as the kit and kit add-ons, I will add them below.

Have an awesome day!

Maria

BLOG ROLL:

The Hero Arts Blog

Amy Kolling

Caly Person

Channin Pelletier

Daniel West

Debi Adams

Emily Midgett

Ilina Crouse

Jessica Frost-Ballas

Julee Tilman

Laurie Willison

Lydia Fiedler

Maria Willis: You are Here.

Mariana Grigsby: Next.

Nichol Spohr

Seeka

Yana Smakula

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Most Adorable Flower Teddy- Watercoloring with Arteza Brush Pens

Hey folks! I hope you're having a great day today! I got the chance to watercolor this adorable little bear from Penny Black. This stamp set is called Flower Teddy and I've had it for a while but haven't had time to ink it up. I'm so glad I finally made the time because it is so darn cute!

I watercolored on Arches Cold Press watercolor paper using my Arteza water brush pens. I like to scribble with the pens onto my glass mat, mix the colors there, and use that as my palette. Then I use a paintbrush and water to paint the colors onto my image. 

For this card I worked in layers laying down a light coat of color and letting it dry before going back in and adding more color. 

After I was done watercoloring I added a little shading to the paper flower wrapping with some colored pencils. Then I used a light blue marker to splatter some ink onto the background.

When I was done I used my Deckled Edge dies from Honey Bee Stamps cut out my image piece. I used foam adhesive to pop it up on brown cardstock that I had speckled with brown ink.

The sentiment was from a different set... maybe an Altenew set but I can't remember which one and now I've gone and put away all of the stamps that I've used so... we may never know which set it was perfect for what I wanted. 

Do you all have stamp sets that you love but you never seem to use them because it's hard to find the time? I'm so glad that I finally found the time for this one. It's been a while since I've been able to play along with a Simon Says Stamp Challenge so I'm entering this card in this week's Wednesday challenge of Anything Goes. You can head over to check out the challenge by clicking HERE.

Ok, I'm outta here for now but I will be back tomorrow for the Hero Arts release so I will see you soon! Have an amazing day!

Maria

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The Daily Marker 30 Day Coloring Challenge: Days 1 & 2

Hi Everybody! I'm popping by with a quick share today. I'm participating in The Daily Marker 30 Coloring Challenge hosted the fabulous Kathy Racoosin. If you haven't heard of this challenge I urge you to go check it out and participate if you can. The idea is to try to get a little coloring in every day for 30 days. You don't have to finish a project or even color an entire image... just sit down and take ten minutes for yourself each day. Here's a link to Kathy's blog where you can read about the challenge and participate if you want. She has some great giveaways and a team of encouraging people helping her out.

Kathy's Day One Post for The Daily Marker 30 Day Coloring Challenge (click here).

I decided that when I can (meaning I have time to both color and blog) I will share some of my coloring challenge posts. Today I am sharing both my day one and day 2 coloring. I used a gorgeous stamp set from Gina K. Designs called Majestic Peony. I colored the floral image with my Copic Markers in yellows, oranges, reds, pinks and greens. It had been a long time since I've last colored with my Copic markers and I felt really rusty. It took a little while to find my groove. If you look closely you can see that on the upper floral images I tried to add some depth and extra shading with my pencils. I was not thrilled with how it was looking. By the time I got to the largest flower I was feeling a little bit smoother and instead of grabbing pencils for shading I grabbed a brown marker and that helped a lot with the depth and contrast. I ditched the pencils on the larger floral and was happier with the look.

For day two of the coloring challenge I decided to try to keep working on the same piece and take it up a notch. I added a blue background with deeper shading behind the flowers. Then I grabbed my cool grays and added even more shading with drop shadows to try to pop the image forward. The last thing I did was to grab a sharpie and add some extra depth and some extra detail to the image. It worked much more easily on the large flower than it did on the upper ones. Can you guess why? Yup, the pencil shading I had laid down created a barrier which meant that the paper wasn't taking the ink the way I wanted it to. Live and learn. I do love adding pencil shading on top of my coloring in a lot of situations but with this image it didn't turn out the way I had hoped.

Looking at this coloring piece I have some things that I'd like to work on and improve at... and, that's what this coloring challenge can be all about! Using our coloring to just relax or to improve our skills...Whatever works for each of us!

Alright guys, that's all I've got for today. I'm sure you'll see this image on a finished card at some point soon. Let me know if you're participating in the coloring challenge this time around. I also want to know if any of you have have successfully finished a coloring challenge? Truth be told I've never completed all thirty days even though I've tried. 

Ok, bye! Have an awesome day/night and I hope you find a little time to color!

Maria

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Crafty Friends Blog Hop: Ellen Hutson and a Discount!

Hi Everybody! It's the 20th of the month and you know what that means right? Yep, blog hop with My Crafty friends and a 20% discount to today's star of the show: Ellen Hutson! I'll have details for the discount at the bottom of my post.

Also, a quick apology... I had intended to have a video to share with you how I watercolored this card. Unfortunately, things got a bit hectic around here (my son was in a car accident-he's ok, phew!) and I was not able to finish editing the video for today's hop. I do plan to get the video done within the week so if you're interested please keep an eye out for it on my YouTube channel (Click Here for my YT Channel).

Ok, let's get on to the card! Today I decided to use the gorgeous Mondo Wildflowers set. This set features a beautiful bouquet of flowers that I couldn't wait to watercolor!

I heat embossed the stamp multiple times in silver onto Arches cold press water color paper. This is my favorite watercolor paper. Using the right paper really does make a difference in how your watercolor turns out. I watercolored using my Daniel Smith watercolor paints. I don't use these paints enough and I really should pull them out more often.

I finished up my card by heat embossing the sentiment in black. Then I splattered the card with white acrylic paint and some black ink. Last, I added some fun embellishments in different colors. 

In case you didn't know it, Ellen Hutson has a fantastic line of "Mondo" flowers. This Mondo Wildflower set is so beautiful but of course I have another favorite... the Mondo Sakura! I've used the Mondo Sakura set a couple of times before so I thought I'd share a quick look at two of those cards...

This card was also watercolored with Daniel Smith watercolors. If you'd like to see more details for this card please CLICK HERE.

This card was made with the Mondo Sakura set too but for this card I took a completely different take on it. The florals in this stamp set are so lovely that they can even be colored in gray scale and still pop off of the card. For this card I colored the flowers with my Copic Markers in cool grays. Then I ink blended the background and popped the flowers up on top. If you'd like to see more information about this card, please CLICK HERE.

I haven't mentioned it yet but all of these Mondo sets come with coordinating dies. I didn't need them on the first two cards that I've shared but I did use them on the last card. 

Ok! Now that I've shared these cards with you, you might be wondering about the discount that Ellen Hutson was so generous to allow us Crafty Friends to offer to you. This 20% Discount is good on all Essentials by Ellen line products. There is such a wide variety of amazing stamps in the Essentials by Ellen line that there is really something for everybody. 

To check out the ESSENTIALS BY ELLEN line just click here. 

To get your 20% discount just add the code CRAFTYFRIENDS20 to your cart at checkout. I hope this discount means you get to pick out something special for yourself or someone you want to send a crafty gift too. 

That is it for today you all! Thanks for stopping by and you can keep hopping along with us by heading to my talented friend Becky's blog! 

Have an awesome day you all!

Maria Willis

CRAFTY FRIENDS BLOG ROLL:
Tanya Boser
Ilina Crouse
Maria Willis: You are here.
Becky Roberts: Next.
Sandi MacIver
Sue Plote
Sara Sherlock
Lydia Fiedler
Jill Hilliards
Jen Timko
Amy Kolling
Jenny Hall

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Getting the Most out of your Holiday Stamps!

Hi Everybody! It's Maria here from Cardbomb. I hope you are all having a great day! Before I forget, I've got a 10% Discount for you all on your entire purchases at either Tonic Studios UK or USA!

TONIC UK 10% OFF
TONIC USA 10%OFF
And, that even  includes new releases like the new Tim Holtz Travel Media Mat!! In case you haven't seen it yet here's a quick look. It's got all the goodness of the original Media Mat but in a convenient travel size and it comes with neoprene case to protect when you're on the move!

Today I wanted to share with you a way to stretch your stamps to get the most out of them. Whenever I buy a stamp set I love to look at all of the individual stamps and sentiments with a critical eye to see if I can use them for more than just the intended purpose. If I can use my stamps in a variety of ways than they are instantly more valuable to me. I'm happy to tell you that the Warm Cocoa Wishes stamp set from Tonic's recent release passes the test with flying colors!

This set has so many kind and loving sentiments in it and I knew I could make a really fun non-holiday card with them. I started out by arranging many of the sentiments linearly on my stamping platform. Then I inked them up in rainbow colors (Tonic Hybrid inks) and stamped repeatedly until I had rainbow background full of "love" and "cuddles." Tonic keeps expanding their color range for these hybrid inks and they truly are vibrant and gorgeous. Even better, you can use every color with both water and alcohol based products and they won't smear!

Next, I stamped the adorable little mouse holding a mug of something steamy and comforting. I colored him in using my Nuvo alcohol markers. I used a knife to cut the mouse's hands free. Then, I stamped a bunch of hearts and colored them with Nuvo alcohol markers. I gave them a coat of Nuvo Crystal Glaze to give them some thick, glossy, shine. I also Crystal Glazed the mouse's glasses.

After that I heat embossed the sentiments in white on black cardstock and assembled the card. The final touch was adding some white gel pen to the mouse and his heart.

R

I had a ton of fun making this card and I hope it might inspire you to take a second look at some of your stamp sets to see how you can stretch them to get even more out of them.

Have an awesome day you all!
Maria

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