Thinking Inking

Easter Blessings: One Stamp, Two Styles

A lovely Easter morning to you: He is Risen!

I have two cards to share using the same stamp in two different styles--one my beloved shabby, and the other cleaner and more graphic. I started with Verve Visual's Everlasting Life set and my Copic markers (pictured with the cards below).

For the first card, I paired the flower with some Cosmo Cricket Honey Pie papers (Clementine and Megan) and a tiny tag from PaperTrey Ink's Mixed Messages set. A bit of punching, snipping, sewing, Stickling, and bow-tying later, I had my slightly shabby card. The Copic markers that I used are shown on the left.

On the second card, I used the same stamp set, Everlasting Life, for both the flower and sentiment, and colored the flower with the Copics shown below. 

For the background, I used a Stampin' Up texture plate; its swirls reminded me of the leaves in the flower image. Cardstock is PaperTrey Ink's Raspberry Fizz and True Black. (The cardstock isn't really fluorescent; I'm just Raspberry-Fizz-photo-challenged.) Ink is Memento Tuxedo Black and Raspberry Fizz.

I hope you have a wonderful day. Thank you for visiting!

A Pure Heart

I've told you before how much I love Julee Tilman's Verve Visual Plain Jane stamps, right?  They are the handiest little stamps, invariably saying something that I could really use. Right after I got back from South Carolina, I received an envelope of Verve-a-liciousness--what a sweet surprise! So tonight I wanted to use one of the new Plain Janes, Psalm 51:10. I think that this card might just have to sit out on my desk as a good reminder.

I also wanted to show you some pretty new papers that I ran across at last CHA and loved, Graphic45. The ones that I've used here are from the Playtimes Past Collection, and they have a whimsical antique look that reminds me of my very first hardback Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes book--perhaps some of you may have had the same one, the one with the black and white checkerboard cover. I had used this paper line today for the first time when I was working on a card for Ellen's newsletter, and I loved how that card came out. Since it won't be posted on my blog, I thought I'd better use some of my scraps and make something that I could share here!

I used an SU die to cut the long bracket and chipboard base for it, and a Coluzzle circle template to get a large circle to fit in on corner. I cut it with the same die, trimming along those little perforated edges and stitching it down to the ivory/paisley layer. Ribbon is the 1" wide silk from StarLitStudio, and buttons are from my stash (red ones) and PTI (black ones).  I stamped the sentiment in SU's Brilliant Blue ink and die cut it with  Spellbinders Label die.

If you get a chance, check Nichole's, Becky's, Lauren's, Lisa's, and Maggie's PaperTrey Ink Sneak Peeks--there's some amazing work waiting for you.

Thank you for visiting, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Beauty for Ashes

I've been playing with one of those beautiful little Verve Visual Plain Janes again! Tonight's card uses the Isaiah 61:3 stamp combined with a Spellbinders Labels 1 die, some Copic airbrushing, and some Blue Hill (Crate Papers) patterned paper.

Although I loved that little peacock  and didn't want to cover him up, any layout I tried seemed to cover him up. Finally it occurred to me to use a craft knife to slice carefully along his underside so that I could insert the edge of the focal image in and let the peacock serve as a photo corner element. He's coated in some clear Spica glitter pen as well; you can see the shimmer better in the close-up picture.

I wanted to add a splash of the tangerine color to the focal image, but I didn't have the right color of pearls or rhinestones--not a problem. I airbrushed some small pale yellow pearls with a Copic YR09. (I had already airbrushed the background , leaving the Labels 1 die in place to serve as a mask, with a Copic BG13 marker.) Inks were Versamagic Aquatic Splash, Turquoise Gem, and Tea Leaves.

This was a fun little card to make! Thank you for visiting.

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Andrea at Crafty Engineering has a friend with a very sick newborn in NICU. She is collecting cards, as well as offering some blog candy. Andrea's address is on her blog on this post, if you'd like to be a blessing to the parents.