I'm Seeing Stars

I've been meaning to make a card for this month's Creating Pretty Cards sketch challenge, but it just kept slipping to the bottom of my list for various reasons. Last night I finally had a chance to go into my craft room just to play for a few minutes and used some scraps on my table to whip up this easy and sweet birthday card. 

• Island Indigo cardstock 4-1/4" x 11", scored at 5-1/2"
• Perfectly Artistic DSP 4" x 5-1/4"
• Go Wild DSP 1-1/2" x 4"
• Basic Black cardstock 1/4" x 4"
• Whisper White cardstock 1/2" x 1-1/8"
• Stamps: Happy Birthday Everyone (Hostess)
• Ink: Jet Black Stazon, Lost Lagoon
• Accessories: Stampin' Dimensionals, Itty Bitty Accents Punch Pack, Dazzling Diamonds Glimmer Paper, Multipurpose Liquid Glue, 2-Way Glue Pen

I started off by folding the Island Indigo cardstock on the score line. Next I used some glue stick to adhere the striped Go Wild DSP onto the Perfectly Artistic DSP. Then I stamped the greeting onto the DSP in Jet Black Stazon ink.

Next I used glue stick to adhere this layer onto the card front. Then I stuck down the 1/4" wide Basic Black cardstock strip with 2-Way Glue Pen. I used the star punch from the Itty Bitty Accents Punch Pack to punch seven stars from Dazzling Diamonds Glimmer Paper. Each star was glued in place with a small dot of Multipurpose Liquid Glue. 

Lastly I stamped the small greeting onto the piece of Whisper White cardstock and stuck it onto the card front with a couple Stampin' Dimensionals. 

This was a super fast and super fun birthday card to make. It's always nice to get a few minutes just to play around for fun.

Simple Spring Canvas

Whenever I'm in my craft room painting I always find myself working on at least three different projects at once. I will work on one and get to a point where I have to let the paint dry so I will start on another and get to a point where the paint has to dry, and it goes on. Sometimes I clean or sort or organize during this drying time, but other times I end up with my craft island covered in paint projects all in various stages of progress. I guess I'm just impatient and don't like having to wait...

This last weekend I was finishing up some projects to post to DecoArt's projects page and while those were drying I worked on this fun little spring canvas. Since it was Easter weekend I wanted to embrace the vibrant colors and some fun flowers for spring. 

This is not a sponsored post, however, I have received paint products from DecoArt for previous projects that I used to create this project. I also absolutely love working with DecoArt paints and choose to use them exclusively for my decorative painting projects regardless of whether or not I buy them or DecoArt sends them to me. 

I started off with a 5 x 7 canvas board that I painted with streaks of Citron Green, Snow White , and Purple Pizzaz Americana Acrylic paint with a 1/2" flat brush. To get these streaks of color to blend you want to work quickly while the paint is still wet. 

After the streak of vibrant color dried completely I used DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics in Titanium White and Medium Grey Value 6 with a round brush to paint the daisy petals. I painted the petals first in just Titamium White and then went back with a mix of Titanium White and Medium Grey Value 6 to add very light grey shadows onto the petals. Then this was allowed to dry while I worked on another project. 

For the flower centers I used a 3/4" circle paper punch on a scrap of cardstock to use as a stencil. Then I used a stipple brush with Hansa Yellow Light to fill in the center of the flower. For the shadows around the edges of the flower center I stippled Transparent Yellow Iron Oxide and Burnt Sienna just around the edges of the circle stencil. Then the flower stems were added with a combination of Green Gold and Viridian Green Hue for the shadows. 

Once the paint was dry I sealed the canvas with a coat of Satin Varnish. I used my Silhouette to cut a bunny from some Silver Glimmer Paper and glued it onto the canvas then gave the canvas another coat of Satin Varnish to seal in all the glitter. 

Finally I needed a way to hang the canvas so I used my Crop-A-Dile to punch two holes in the top corners which I threaded some white lace ribbon through and tied it into a bow. 

This simple and sweet little canvas ended up making a lovely Easter gift for my best friend.

What do you like to do while you're waiting for paint to dry?