Happiness Fairy

This sentiment from Unity makes me smile! It's called Happy Dust and I paired it with the gorgeous fairy from Unity's November 2014 What Lies Within Us KOTM. It's going to make a wonderful birthday card for my bestie!

I used my Twinkling H20's to color her so the whole image sparkles. I also used a Heidi Swapp stencil and some gold ink for the stars.

I've also got another little something to share today. Do you decorate your envelopes too? I used to and then just got so busy that I'd find myself grabbing an envelope at the last minute and it was pretty boring.  I feel that the envelope should be just as happy of a treat when you open your mailbox, like getting an instant smile before you even open the contents! I've made it my goal to start decorating all of my outgoing mail to make it truly HAPPY MAIL!

Here is the envelope I decorated for this card using my Unity Stamps.

I used the Melody Ross Domestic Bliss set from Unity for the envelope as well as a couple of stamps from Unity's kit of the months and some washi tape. The awesome, amazing, hilarious stamps came with one of my Studio Calico project life kits.

What do you think, do you like the happy mail/mail art idea? Would it bring a smile to your face to open your box and see this?

It's Friday and Friends With Flair today at Unity so be sure to check out all of the amazing creations made by my Unity friends this week, always inspiring!!!
Thanks for visiting!

Crystal

Thank you flowers

I played with my Prismacolor pencils on kraft again for a little thank you note.

I masked a space off for the sentiment (Unity's Everything Wonderful), and stamped the flowers all over the card. The flowers are from Unity's December 2014 Warmth of Winter KOTM.

This took forever to color since I colored everything in cream first to make the colors pop more vibrantly. I think next time I may try stamping with white embossing powder to get a different look.

Thanks for visiting and happy crafting!

Crystal

Your wings exist...

I started making some tags this week to swap. This took me a few days of doing a little here and there and waiting for things to dry but all 5 of them are finally done so I'm linking them up to Friends with Flair since it's Friday and there is some Unity on here! I'm also linking up to the Mixed Media Monthly Challenge: Something New for the New Year.

 I tried a few new things here. The tag was sprayed with some Heidi Swapp Color Shine in teal, citron, and gold. It was my first time using them and they have a gorgeous color and shimmer! When that dried I stamped Unity's Woodgrain Script.
I then cut some hearts out of a natural fabric, used a bird stencil and painted them with gelatos. I have never used gelatos on a fabric before either and they blended so nicely.  When those finally dried I doodled some stitches around it and added it to the tag with a brad. The sentiment is from Unity's Your Wings Exist set, one of my favorite sentiments and sets! I fussy cut the sentiments out and sponged with some Mustard Stain distress ink and finished with some ribbon from the awesome 3 Girl Jam!

I don't make a lot of tags and still feel pretty new to the mixed media scene, this is also my first tag swap, yikes! I really hope the recipients like them. I would love to hear your feedback!

I'm linking this up to the Simon Says Stamp Have a Heart Challenge.

Thanks for visiting and have a wonderful weekend!

Hugs,
Crystal

Sunshine and dancing

Today for Unity's Friends With Flair, I have 2 more cards to share from my mojo-filled day last weekend where I cleaned up my junk/reject pile on my desk and created 6 new cards!

This Phyllis Harris girl from Unity's Face the Sunshine was one of my first attempts at watercoloring a while back and I messed her up in a few places and didn't have time/mojo to fix until now.

 After pondering for a short while I grabbed my Spellbinders dies and cut out the problem area (which also cut out half of my sentiment so I stamped the sentiment again, cut that too and watercolored with colors to match her dress). I added some glitter gel pen in her hair and around the large rectangle, popped the sentiment up to cover another mistake, googled how to tie a pretty bow and went upstairs to grab a fork and now I love my original mistake watercolor! The sentiment is also from Unity's Whitney Girl.

 My next card uses the sentiment from Face The Sunshine, a scrap die cut, a piece of old Sassafras Lass paper that was hidden in my reject pile and the girl is from Unity's June 2014 In Love With Love KOTM.

 I watercolored her on a scrap piece of watercolor paper, cut out and added her over the stamped image on the sun ray paper. I used some glitter glue around the die cut and added a button and twine to finish the card. The sentiment is a little hard to see in the picture but is easily read IRL.

It is a quote from Helen Keller: Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see a shadow.

Thanks for visiting and have a great day!

Crystal

Birthday Wishes a la happy

I had a mojo filled crafty day yesterday so you will be seeing lots of new cards on the blog soon, and I am sharing 2 with you today!

Do you save paper scraps? I have a little problem with craft room organization and find my desk often overflowing with scrap papers, half finished projects, reject projects that need some TLC and so on. Yesterday I decided to tackle that pile and I got 6 cards made, all very different and I love them all (which is saying a lot since most of them started from my reject/TLC pile).

First of all I was very inspired by this card by shared by Edna on Facebooks Unity Show and Tell and it was perfect for me to try to use up some of my thin strips of paper scraps! 

I used to paper weave as a kid, why have I never thought to do with my papercrafts!?!  That is why I love blogging and sharing on Unity's FWF and FB show and tell, so many awesome ideas out there to see and inspire.  Thanks for the inspiration for this Edna!

I used a bunch of coordinating scraps that were lying on my desk, even the birthday wishes came from the bottom strip of a patterned paper by Glitz Design.  The girl with balloons from Unity's May 2014 Hey Girl KOTM was stamped on the backside of a failed watercolor attempt and since watercolor paper is nice and thick it stamped and water-colored nicely on the other side!

 I used some gold Smooch ink and a glitter gel pen to add some sparkly details to the balloons and dress and popped the girl and one of the sentiments up on top of the paper-weaved kraft card.

This next card is also made from some reject projects. The happy was cut from my Cricut but at the wrong size for the project I was working on and sat on my desk forever until yesterday when I added some white doodling around it. The turquoise paper was also a reject with something stamped on the other side that just didn't work so I stamped some distressed stars from Unity's December 2014 Moments Like These SMAK kit in Peacock distress ink and used a glitter pen to trace around them. Quick and easy and I can use it for any happy occasion!

I am linking this card to The Crafting Cafe's Lots of Layers challenge (1st card).

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a mojo-filled week!

Crystal

Hello love

I have some shimmery, pretty valentine cards to share for Unity's Friends With Flair today! I was inspired by Shilo's pretty rose card on the Unity blog last week. I used stamps from December's Warmth of Winter KOTM, watercolored, and spritzed with a gold shimmer.

 The patterned paper also has a shimmer to it.

 I added some chevron washi and a little heart brad as well.

Thanks for visiting and have a wonderful and crafty weekend!

Oh, sorry, wine does that.

I am so excited to share this card with you today! It is a new to me technique of coloring with Prismacolor pencils on Kraft paper inspired by Tara Sell of Curl E Cue's blog post from Friends With Flair 2 weeks ago. Her project was so pretty and Prismacolor pencils were one of the very first craft related purchases I EVER made! Seriously, I was in college, not even started with scrapbooking or cardmaking yet but I needed to color something for an assignment and got a set of them and after that I started drawing handmade cards for my husband (we were only just dating at the time), and although they were what first got me started in the crafting world they have been severely neglected since then.

And so here is my card and I love it because although the colors didn't blend or turn out at all like I wanted them to at first I just kept adding colors and coloring on top of colors until eventually I was pleased with it. There are not a whole lot of coloring mediums you can do that with.

The stamps I used are all from Unity Stamp Company, Miranda Girl and Sorry, Wine Does That. I colored the twine by spraying two different colors of Dylusions ink onto my craft mat and soaking it around in it. The charm is also an oldy, bought when I very first got into scrapbooking.

I am entering this into the Unity {be inspired} color challenge.
                                                                           
I am linking this to Simon Says Stamp Something New challenge as a new technique.
I am also linking it to the Mixed Media Monthly Challenge #8: Something New for the New Year.

I hope this inspires you in some way to try something new!

Happy Crafting,

Crystal

I and my Annabel Lee

I love this sentiment from Unity Stamp Company, this was always my favorite poem by Poe.

 I stamped the sentiment and used a Heidi Swapp stencil and some Worn Lipstick distress ink for the hearts.  I even used some of my 3 Girl Jam ribbon I won a while back for the first time! The ribbon is awesome but I am horrible at tying bows. I fiddled with this one for nearly 30 minutes and finally just covered the center with a wooden heart. The whimsical cloud paper is by Crate Paper.

I am linking this up to Word Art Wednesday: Anything Goes challenge.
I am also linking up to Anya, Oddies, and Others with the color blue and a wooden embellishment.

Happy crafting,

Crystal

Only the brightest hues.

I have been waiting to play with my December Unity SMAK kit and just love the Moroccan tile background stamp in there so it was the first one I grabbed to ink up. I clear embossed it on watercolor paper and used some rainbow hues to color over it for a resist. It didn't turn out quite like I pictured and needed something else but I didn't want to cover it all up either so I stamped the butterfly from the November SMAK kit on some recycled clear packaging and cut it out and folded the wings up for a little dimension.

The sentiment is from Unity's She stamp set and the chevron paper is American Crafts/Amy Tangerine. I added an epoxy heart over the spot on the wing where the heart was supposed to be because it didn't stamp clearly due to a small slip on the acetate.

 

I made this card with no one in mind but when it was finished I knew it would be perfect for my daughter.  At 5 she loves rainbows!

 

We are back to school and back to reality this week after what feels like a very long winter break.  Hope you all have a great first week of the year!

 

Linking up to Unity's Friends With Flair.

 

 

Happy 2015!

Happy 2015 and the first Friends With Flair of the new year!

I don't really make resolutions. Usually I just make little daily changes to try to get where I want to be. One thing I would like to do more of this year though is craft (always want to do more of that) and blog on a more regular basis (nothing crazy, just once, maybe twice a week).

Here's my first creation of the new year using my most recent Unity KOTM (Warmth of Winter). I just love those cute foxes and my hubby and I have an anniversary coming up (in a few days we'll have been together for 16 years!) so I wanted to make him a card. I didn't want to make it too cutesy so I used these "wild" animals and the woods as a background. I watercolored the images and the sentiment is from Unity's Plenty of Pandas (which I've already used plenty of times).

It's hard to tell from the photos but I added some glitter "snow" around the foxes, on the ground and on a few tree branches.

I hope you all have a very happy, healthy, and creative new year!

Hugs,

Crystal