March 2020 Coloring Challenge

Stamp set: Mermazing Coffee by Pink & Main
Nuvo Alcohol Markers purchased from Maymaymadeit.com
Card stock: 110# Core’Dinations (JoAnn Fabrics)

Making time to play with my stamps from Pink & Main for the March 2020 coloring challenge. If your in Athens GA or nearby be sure to stop in and see what’s happening and the goodies in their store in the Athens Mall.

I scored this Mermazing stamp set and it’s matching dies for $10 in store! My grand daughter and I will get a lot of mileage out of this stamp set. She like Chai Tea lattes and I like coffee!

Stamp, allow alcohol friendly ink to sink into your paper.Don’t rock the stamp and then pick it up. I use a Misti stamping tool and I love it! Use what you have though and don’t push your stamps down to hard as you can smudge the ink. I use a thumbnails pressure and let it sit on my paper for about 30 seconds for the ink to transfer to my card stock.

This was Day 1 for the challenge but I will have to catch up as we are traveling. I hope you will challenge yourself to color this month! Don’t worry about how many you do, just enjoy when you get to do it!

Blessings & His Peace!

Donna Lee

Gnome for Thanksgiving!

Today I am playing with the cover sheet (seen just below) for Photo Play’s Gnome For Thanksgiving Collection Pack.

Today’s card is an A2 (4.5INX5.5IN finished size) card base from my stash and used a Stitched Rectangle Die from Pink and Main to die cut the rest of the cover paper that has the sampling of all the card stock in the collection. The happy thanksgiving banner from the cover sheet adds the perfect greeting. Both the stitched rectangle and the banner were popped up on foam squares. You can also use foam sheets to pop up your mats and embellishments.

Happy Thanksgiving

The inside of the card was matted with some scrap card stock and a smaller mat that was cut with the same stitched die from Pink & Main. I used a strip cut from the cover sheet to anchor the Gnome holding the turkey platter who is from the cover sheet & popped up using foam squares.

It’s easy to create cards when you have great paper collections. Thanks for stopping by my Blog today. I’ll have a few more cards to share with you using more items from the cover sheet and some of the cut a-parts in the collection that are perfect for crafting quick cards.

Blessings and His Peace,

Donna Lee

Gnome For The Holiday’s

Photo Play has some of the best Collection Packs for paper crafters! The Gnome For The Holidays – Thanksgiving is so fun! The next few post will be projects I made using this collection.

I am blessed to have a ScanNCut2 in my craft arsenal. I love using it and I am still learning. It’s one of my favorite investments to date. What do I use it for mainly? Let me show you in the short video below.

This is why I purchased my ScanNCut2

As you can see in the video above I was able to take the cover sheet in the Collection pack and cut all the individual images so I could use them on my projects. I love being able to do this and eliminate the time I would spend fussy cutting all these great images out.

I cut a piece of 12X12 cream card stock in half. This size will easily accommodate a 6X6 card. My reason for this size card is I wanted to use the sampling of all the gorgeous card stocks that are included in the collection for my background. I trimmed that piece using my paper trimmer & ended up trimming down my card base to make a finished card just slightly smaller than a 6X6 inches.

Gnome For The Holidays – Thanksgiving Paper Collection

I used the flower and the pie toting Gnome from the front cover sheet that the ScanNCut cut perfectly! I used a foam makeup brush to apply a little vintage photo distress inks to the edges & popped them up using some foam tape & squares. You can also glue the images to cards stock and let the ScanNCut2 cut them out with an edge to make them more sturdy.

This was a quick and easy card that is ready to share with a friend. I’ll be back with another card in a few days from this same Photo Play paper collection.

Blessings & His Peace,

Donna Lee

Fall – Standing Slimline Card

There are so many lovely fall stamp sets in my stash and today’s project highlights a few of them. I saw a Simon Says Stamp slimline card on social media recently with some on their new Fall stamps and decided to see what I could do with what stamps and Fall paper packs I had in my stash.

Happy Fall Y’All Slimline Card

For my background I used Distressed Inks & Distress Oxide inks with some personal cloud shapes made in Design Space using basic shapes and cut out on my Joy using my scraps of photo paper. I love how it turned out!

The stamp set I used is from Maymay Made It and it’s appropriately named Happy Fall Y’all. I enjoy using this stamp set! It’s in my top 10. The wagon, flowers and leaves can be used all year long. I used a white gel pen make a white pumpkin.

The paper is from an older Carta Bella Paper Co set called Fall Break. I fussy cut some of the trees and popped them up on foam squares. The sentiment is from another Maymay Made It stamp set Memory Lane.

The back of my card is a very simple wreath using the branch stamp from Happy Fall Y’all and my left over fussy cut images that were colored with TRI- BLEND alcohol markers from Spectrum Noir. Close To My Heart also sells these markers in a set and individually.

Happy Fall Y’All & Memory Lane

I made a simple stand using heavy weight card stock to allow my slimline card to stand at a slight angle.

Enjoy all your seasons! Blessings.

Donna Lee

SICK AS A DOG?

It’s Fall Y’all! My favorite time of year. That said it’s also one of my more challenging times with seasonal allergies. Allergies and tissues go hand in hand. It made me go looking in my stash of card swaps for a card I received that had a tissue box pop up inside.

Using Cricut Design Space to design my cards & other craft projects is the way to go! As an Access Member you have access to thousands of images and fonts at no additional cost.

Using a Cricut gel pen to write part of my sentiment in black & draw the images allows me to emboss it using clear embossing powder with my heat tool. This makes it easier to color them in using alcohol markers or even watercolor!

For this set of cards I used Spectrum Noir Tri-Blend Markers. I really love coloring with these markers & just ordered a few more colors from my friend Glenda to add to my collection. If you want to try alcohol markers these are a fabulous place to start! Coloring these puppies was so much fun and very relaxing! Does anyone get super relaxed while coloring or painting?

The tissue box is easy enough to make. This cards tissue box is 5X2.25 inch rectangle of double sided card stock that is scored every 1.25 inches on the short edge. I fold the score marks using a bone folder to get a crisp fold. The two part sentiment is from a favorite MayMay Made It stamp set. I cut a small slit in the area that will be the top of my tissue box to hold a folded piece of tissue. Using my Misti allows me to get the perfect stamped image. My favorite adhesive is Art Glitter Glue for most of my craft projects. The tissue box is glued to the bottom and back of my card base. It opens easily.

This cards tissue box is measured at 2.5 IN by 4.25 IN. It’s scored at every inch. It’s easily adjusted to make it the perfect size for your cards. I like using scraps of my favorite papers to add that extra something inside the card. I can adjust the size of my images and text box in Cricut Design Space easily to match the size of the papers I have used.

Blessings and His Peace,

Donna Lee

Hey There Pumpkin!

It’s finally Fall! May favorite season of all. Pumpkins are not only delicious and very versatile on our family table, but now you can pick them up in retail stores in every color and pattern to use in for home decor for this precious season we call fall/autumn. The October 2020 Maymay Made It Stamp of the Month Club stamp set, Howdy Pumpkin is so cute, has gorgeous pumpkins that can quickly be colored in any color you want! Not to mention the beautiful fruit stand & so many great sentiments for use all year long.. Check it out right here.

Hey There Pumpkin by Donna Lee

This beautiful paper is Cozy Evening by Mintay Papers. I have the 6X6 paper pad. You can see the 12X12 pad right here. I love the hues of color in this pack, the adorable puppies, birds, florals, and beautiful creatures.

As Maymay often encourages, I let the paper work for me, and stamped the three pumpkins, the fruit stand & sign onto a scrap from Cozy Evening. I fussy cut them and used Green Turquoise Blend, Spectrum Noir Tri Blend alcohol marker to shade the pumpkins.

The wagon, smaller pumpkins & fall flora are from Maymay’s Happy Fall stamp set. It’s an oldie, but a goodie in my opinion! I had the most relaxing time coloring these stamped images with my Tri Blend markers. You can pick up a set or just individual markers here on my friend Glenda’s website.

Have a blessed week. Enjoy where you are and take some time to do what you love doing. For me thats creating cards or other gifts for people I love.

Blessings & His Peace,

Donna Lee

FLOWERS & BUTTERFLIES OH MY!

Recently, while shopping I found this gorgeous Ken Oliver Butterfly Daisy Mandala stamp! I was lucky enough to find the matching die set online and I am glad I did!

I cut 4 of the detail die out of black card stock and glued them together with Art Glitter glue. I cut one more out of Strathmore Mixed Media paper & painted it with Brutus Monroe Aqua Pigments. These were fun to play with too! I die cut it using the detail die & glued it to the top of the stacked black die cuts. I adhered it to a 6X6 card base & choose a mat to compliment the colors of the aqua pigments.

I left my sentiment for the inside of the card. A simple Thinking of You which makes the card useable for multiple occasions.

This stamp and the dies make it great for cards and other crafts. I am looking forward to playing with it again,

Blessings and His Peace,

Donna Lee

Ho Ho Ho

Have you ever missed out on an item that you really wanted because your favorite store sold out of them? It’s happened to me a few times, since the Covid-19 situation slowing down shipments and availability of products to my favorite online stores. When you really like something you find a way to make your craft happen! Here is a link I found TODAY where you can get this card kit that I missed out on.

When you really like something you find a way to make your craft happen! I was able to purchase a Kringle & Co sticker sheet here on a recent order. On another order I was able to get a matching paper pack that is available today on Amazon. I used some embossing folders and stamp sets to create these cute Christmas cards for my husband to give to his co-workers.

I have always liked Gnomes and I’m glad they are popular again! They make me smile and I’m pretty sure my husbands co-workers will smile to. On the above card I used a pre-scored card base in my stash and a swirl embossing folder to emboss a piece of the cardstock. I layered a few strips of the other patterned card stock to the bottom. I really appreciate double sided card stock! The stickers are from the sticker sheet. I used some twine I had in my stash by Lawn Fawn & dimensional foam tape to pop them up after I removed the sticky on the back using an embossing pillow. Such fun to use what you can get and make a card that’s unique to you & what you DO have!

There are more cards to come in the next few days using these products I was able to get & what I have in my stash! The best part is, is that I have few more stickers & 2.75 sheets of this adorable card stock pack left to make some gifts tag or a few more cards.

Follow me to see them all & more.

@ottersln on Instagram & Twitter

https://www.facebook.com/stampinnscrapin.donnalee

https://www.facebook.com/donnaleechalkcouture

Coloring With Spectrum Noir Tri-Blend Markers

I am enjoying learning how to use these Spectrum Noir Tri-Blend Markers! Each marker has a light, mid and dark colorThey are super easy to use and all you need is 24 markers. There is a blender and black marker that are available as well.

These adorable elephants are from Maymay Made It Tons of Love stamp set. I stamped and colored these images on 110# card stock and cut them with a small border using my ScanNCut .

I colored each section of my image with a light color. Next I used the dark color to highlight the shadow. Then I used the mid color to blend the dark out. Then I went back to the light color and used it to blend the mid color into the light color area for a nice gradient blend.

I have other alcohol markers, but it’s getting more difficult to get the colors I want, so I found this set of 24 and I adore them!

I enjoy the size of the bibs on these markers. They are great for detail and larger areas. If you haven’t tried these, you should!

You’ll

I used a white Jelly Roll pen to accent these adorable elephants.

More coloring to come! Stay tuned.

Blessings and the Lords Peace!

Donna Lee

March 2020 Coloring Challenge Day 2

Stamp & Dies: Mermazing Coffee from Pink & Main
Inked With Memento Black ink
Colored With: Nuvo Alcohol Markers

This image is colored in likeness to my high school friend, Linda Rogers. I have to tell you I am enjoying this coloring challenge and this Mermazing Coffee stamp set from Pink & Main.

I like coloring with my Nuvo Alcohol markers, but the tip is not fine and that can cause some challenges with these more detailed images. So I may try some other alcohol markers that offer a finer tip. Any suggestions?

Our hearts are heavy tonight. Today we read some awful news about my high school friends great nephew who was hit by a car and the driver didn’t stop even after having to turn around on a dead end road and drive past him and his Mother who were both hit. The sad news is that Elijah Rogers who was 5 years young lost his life. His Mom didn’t suffer life threatening injuries. Distracted drivers and drunk or drugged drivers are too common in our world. I

n memory of little Elijah Rogers, please take note for yourself and all the drivers you know and put your phones down, don’t drink or drug and drive. Get your traffic apps set, your radio or podcast going and your coffee at hands reach before you leave home. People die daily because of this social issue.

We are traveling this weekend so my post will be spread out as I am able to color and post. Join me in coloring and if you want to share post your coloring in the comments! Grab your coffee or tea or lemon water and color something!

In His peace,

Donna Lee