STAMPlorations Inspiration

Happy Tuesday crafty friends! My explorations into kraft cards for the STAMPlorations Inspiration posts continues today with some white Calla Lilies this week. I started by stamping and heat embossing the In Bloom: Classic Calla Lilies in white on kraft card. I used my Polychromos colouring pencils to fill in a bit of colour and splattered a little bit of white acrylic paint. All that was needed was a beautiful sentiment from Lotus Love. That's all from me this week, short and sweet.

Stamps: STAMPlorations In Bloom: Classic Calla Lilies, Lotus Love
Ink and colouring: Tsukineko Versafine, Polychromos colouring pencils

STAMPlorations discount code: If you want to save 20% when shopping at the STAMPlorations store you can use the code STAMPGIRLKAROLA at checkout. The code cannot be combined with other discount codes. And if you use my code you also get to pick a freebie to the value of $7 (for details see the badge below).

Note that as a STAMPlorations affiliate, I get a small commission on any orders you place in the STAMPlorations store using the links in my blog post or my coupon code STAMPGIRLKAROLA. This is at no added cost to you. Thank you for your support to keep my craft addiction going :) 

STAMPlorations Inspiraton

 

Happy New Year! I hope the year has started well for you. We have had a few cold, but sunny days and we have managed to get some gardening done, well, it was more like fighting your way through the jungle but now the trees and shrubs are somewhat more in control.

After Christmas, there is always a need for Thank You cards so I thought it would be a good idea to make one for the first STAMPlorations Inspiration Post of the year. I started by stamping the beautiful In Bloom: Classic Calla Lilies in the bottom left-hand corner of my card and the inked yellow and green Distress Inks through the Petals 1 Stencil. I also used the Distress Inks with a bit of water to colour parts of the calla lilies. Last, I added a die cut sentiment in black using Everyday Sentiments Dies.

Stamps: STAMPlorations In Bloom: Classic Calla Lilies

Stencils: ARTplorations Petals 1 Stencil

Dies: CUTplorations Everyday Sentiments Dies

Ink and colouring: Tsukineko Memento Tuxedo Black, Distress Inks

STAMPlorations discount code: If you want to save 20% when shopping at the STAMPlorations store you can use the code STAMPGIRLKAROLA at checkout. The code cannot be combined with other discount codes. And if you use my code you also get to pick a freebie to the value of $7 (for details see the badge below).

Note that as a STAMPlorations affiliate, I get a small commission on any orders you place in the STAMPlorations store using the links in my blog post or my coupon code STAMPGIRLKAROLA. This is at no added cost to you. Thank you for your support to keep my craft addiction going :) 

STAMPlorations October CAS Challenge

Hi all, and welcome to a new season of the STAMPlorations CAS Challenge! I'm so excited to get going with the challenge again and to see your beautiful creations. If you have played along before you know how this works - the challenge is to create a CAS card and if you want to you can use the optional colour twist. For more details, see the challenge post over on the STAMPlorations blog. And of course, there will be prizes as well, the winner is picked each month by a Design Team member and will receive a $20 prize code to the STAMPlorations store. Three randomly drawn crafters will receive a $7 prize code to the STAMPlorations store. To be eligible for the prizes, players have to adhere to the challenge rules. 

As you can see, the first colour twist this season is grey and orange. I thought this was a perfect colour combo for the beautiful In Bloom: Classic Calla Lilies stamp, so I stamped it in the lower left-hand corner of my card and coloured using Copics. I also splattered some orange ink on the card to create a bit of a background in the large white space. I die cut the sentiment twice in orange and grey card using the Thinking of You Phrase Die and overlapped them when adhering them to the card. Quick, easy, clean and simple! I hope you feel inspired to play along with our challenge this month.

Stamps: STAMPlorations In Bloom: Classic Calla Lilies

Dies: CUTplorations Thinking of You Phrase Die

Ink and colouring: Tsukineko Memento Tuxedo Black, Copics

Don't forget to check the October offers in the STAMPlorations store. Also, you have a few more days (until October 6th) to take advantage of the National Coffee Day promo, where select coffee-themed products will be 20% off in the STAMPlorations store. You can get an extra 20% off when you use my DT coupon code STAMPGIRLKAROLA. 

Note that as a STAMPlorations affiliate, I get a small commission on any orders you place in the STAMPlorations store using the links in my blog post or my coupon code STAMPGIRLKAROLA. This is at no added cost to you. Thank you for your support to keep my craft addiction going :) 

Pink Calla Lilies

Today's card was inspired by several challenges. I was inspired by the "Up to one third" theme over at AAA Cards and I also went with the inlaid die cut twist. I'm also excited to play along with the new Perfectly CAS challenge where the theme is Flowers. I used the colours from this week's Just Add Ink challenge and I'm also linking up over at The Flower Challenge where anything goes.

I used the STAMPlorations In Bloom: Classic Calla Lilies stamp which I heat embossed with clear powder before watercolouring with Distress Oxides on watercolour paper. I added a few splatters of green ink to the white space. I die cut the sentiment using the CUTplorations Hello word die. Last, I matted the card front onto dark green card.

Stamps: STAMPlorations In Bloom: Classic Calla Lilies
Dies: CUTplorations Hello word die
Ink and colouring: Tsukineko Versamark, Distress Oxides Picked Raspberry, Wilted Violet, Lucky Clover

Colouring With Stamps

Happy Monday! Hope this will turn out to be a good week for you. I suffer from an issue that is surely troubling many of you - my day job keeps getting in the way of crafting... Anyhow, I'm blogging over on the STAMPlorations blog today showcasing a few cards I made using the "colouring with stamps" technique which Shery, the creative and talented owner of STAMPlorations has perfected to an art form. I thought I would try my hand at it, and hopefully, you will be inspired to try it too. It works best on images which don't have too many tiny and delicate details, although I love the look when the colour splotches extend a bit beyond the stamped image. If you like stamping, you will love this technique as you get to stamp a lot! If you don't have any suitable "splotchy" stamps, you can use the reverse of some small round-ish stamps, that works well too.

For my first card, I stamped the Radiant Roses in black and used stamps from Art Marks to colour in the roses using Distress Oxides. I also stamped some ink spots in the bottom part of the card, before adding the sentiment from Bold Sentiments: Hashtag Authentic.

For my second card, I stamped the French Marigold Large, and this time I used Distress Inks to colour the flower. I added a sentiment from Noteworthy 3 and splattered some green ink on the card front for added interest.

For my third card, I decided to go with pastel colours. I stamped the Classic Calla Lilies along the long side of the card, before again using the splotch stamps from Art Marks to colour the florals with Distress Inks. The sentiment is from Noteworthy 3.

Stamps: STAMPlorations Radiant Roses, Art Marks, Bold Sentiments: Hashtag Authentic, French Marigold Large, Noteworthy 3, Classic Calla Lilies
Inks: Tim Holtz Distress Oxides and Inks

There are some fantastic offers in the STAMPlorations store in August. Don't forget to check them out if you are looking to extend your crafty stash.
Clear Stickers are 30% off with code CLEAR30 Coloring Books are 25% off with code COLOR25 Clear Stamps* are 25% off with code STAMP25
*Excludes newly released stamps. Codes may be used multiple times per customer throughout promotion period. All 3 codes may be used together in one order. BYOCS/Stamp club subscribers: use your personal coupon code with the codes for 50% to 70% off on qualifying items + your free shipping code on your order of at least $30.

Calla Lily Congrats

I'm constantly amazed by this creativity thing. I can spend a whole day trying to create something specific and keep binning card after card as they just don't work. And then I get an idea which I don't think will even work, and then 10 or 15 minutes later I've created a card that I really like. Like the right two brain cells finally managed to meet up. Go figure!

Anyhow, today's card was inspired by the CAS on Friday challenge where the theme is Flowers, the inspiration image over at Time Out and the colours over at Color Throwdown. 

Card: Watercolour paper from my stash, scraps of kraft and black card

Stamps: STAMPlorations In Bloom: Classic Calla Lilies

Ink and colouring: Tsukineko Versafine Onyx Black, Gansai Tambi watercolours

Die: CUTplorations Congrats Word die

STAMPlorations discount code: If you want to save 20% when shopping at the STAMPlorations store you can use the code STAMPGIRLKAROLA at checkout. The discount applies to all normal priced and discounted stamps, stencils and dies. The code cannot be combined with other discount codes.

October STAMPlorations CAS Challenge - Anything Goes With Orange

Hello and welcome back to the first STAMPlorations CAS challenge after our summer break. It's so good to be back, and can't wait to see all your gorgeous creations in our gallery. I have to admit my crafty mojo clearly needs some routine and structure - during the summer my Mojo was a bit all over the place, but now I'm in gear again. Hope you are inspired to play along with us!

It's all very clean and simple really (see what I did there...) - we invite you to create a Clean and Simple (CAS) card and link it up to the gallery. You can use the optional colour twist if you want to. You are free to use any products you want to, but if you have any STAMPlorations goodies we would love to see how you use them! You can link up to 3 cards in each challenge. Don't forget to add our challenge graphic in your post, along with a link back to the challenge so others can also play along. The prizes are a $10 gift card for the winner and $5 gift cards to the top picks. Last but not least, if there are 50 or more entries: 1 random winner will get to pick a product of their choice (3x5 stamp set OR 2 standard size stencils OR 1 CUTplorations word/phrase die).

For my card, I used the gorgeous In Bloom: Classic Calla Lilies stamp. I stamped it in Versafine black ink, and coloured with Gansai Tambi watercolours using yellows and oranges giving it an autumnal vibe. Then I die cut the sentiment three times from yellow, orange and red card and stacked them on top of each other.

Card: 300 gsm Daler&Rowney watercolour paper, scraps of red, yellow and orange card

Stamps: STAMPlorations In Bloom: Classic Calla Lilies

Ink and colouring: Tsukineko Versafine Onyx Black, Gansai Tambi watercolours

Dies: CUTplorations Hello Word die

STAMPlorations discount code: If you want to save 20% when shopping at the STAMPlorations store you can use the code STAMPGIRLKAROLA at checkout. The discount applies to all normal priced and discounted stamps, stencils and dies. The code cannot be combined with other discount codes.