handmade cass

I wanted to send cards to a couple family members that visited recently, and the Hero Arts paper layering pineapple die was the perfect thing to get me started. To start, I outlined the die on watercolor paper and colored it in using ZIG Clean Color Real Brush pens (from the set of 36). When the watercolor was almost dry (because I am super impatient) I used the pineapple die, bent the layers back, and glued it onto a pre-made card. I also used a die cut sentiment from Avery Elle's Stay Fresh set, and adhered it to the interior of the card. This also happened to be the perfect project for the Simon Says "Anything Goes" challenge this week. Supplies: die cuts - Hero Arts (paper layering pineapple), Avery Elle (stay fresh) watercolor - ZIG Clean Color Real Brush Pens watercolor paper - Loew Cornell adhesive - Tombo Mono Multi liquid glue card base - Michael's

I received a set of Inktense pencils for Christmas and was so excited to try them. Why did I wait so long? The bright colors are so beautiful! I was working on a set of cards for my stamp club and started with the floral image top, left. By the time I was done (bottom, right) I was pretty happy with myself. Supplies: stamp - Stampin' Up (Birthday Blooms set) ink - Ranger Distress Ink watercolor pencils - Inktense water brush - Pentel watercolor paper - Canson

I originally started this blog in 2009 when I was just trying Tim Holtz Distress Inks for the first time . I always got so frustrated when I would get rectangle shaped dark ink spots that were impossible to blend out. I eventually got a bit better at the blending but never really enjoyed it. But all that has changed and I have a renewed love for these distress inks! The new mini ink blending tool from Ranger is so much easier to use. And how great is it that the blender pads fit into the bottom of the mini ink pads?! I'm most excited to start making some night sky and sunset backgrounds. But today I needed to make up a sign for our guest room because we have a summer full of visitors. This sign will have all of our Wifi info so they can stay connected during their vacation with us. Does anyone else have a crazy complicated password? I guess I could try to figure out how to change it but that would take time away from crafts. This project also forced me to do some heat embo...