More beautiful than you could imagine...

Friday is finally here, yippee!!!  I woke up on Wednesday thinking it was Friday, so it's kinda been a long week.  The babe is teething which means NO sleep but I think I'm getting used to it after so long and my crafting mojo has been on so I can't complain.

Had I known what a comedy of errors this card would turn out to be I would have taken photos along the way.  Originally it was a simple watercolor and when I stamped the sentiment it smeared a bit.  The OCD in me can't let it go so to fix that I painted over the background with a sunny yellow acrylic but instead it ended up looking day-glo yellow and clashed horribly.  I painted over that with layers of white gesso to tone it down and cover it up and messed Whitney Girl's skirt up in the process.  Time for a skirt re-do via paper-piecing.  Turns out I like the re-do skirt better and along the way I changed my mind about the original sentiment and used this one from Unity's Itty Bitty Faceless Beauty.  I added a sun from the May SMAK in Spiced Marmalade distress ink. 

Here is a close up of the background.

I'm happy that I kept playing with this and "fixing" what I didn't like.  Although I don't love the end result it was fun to play with and a great lesson in mixed media for me!

Entering in  Unity's Friends With Flair today.
Unity stamps used:  Whitney Girl, Faceless Beauty and May SMAK

Delight in the little things

Delight in the little things.  And new babies are certainly little and delightful and oh, so precious!!!

I have been having so much fun practicing with my watercolors this past week!  My favorite color combo has always been pinks, oranges and yellows or what I call sunset colors.  Could be sunrise too, I just don't like waking up that early to look.  :)
I was bringing a meal to a friend who had her baby girl last week and couldn't resist throwing together this quick card for her!

I am entering it into two challenges.

CAS-ual Fridays: Three thirds challenge. My three things are 3 pearls and 3 colors (I have always had a hard time accepting black and grey as colors).
Keep It Simple Challenge #39: watercolor

The stamp is an Itty Bitty from Unity Stamp Company

Trust in your potential...

I had a quick chance to craft today when all 3 kiddos napped at the same time.  I was browsing through some challenge blogs and saw 2 different photos to inspire this card.

 

This pretty flower at Inspired By challenges had me grabbing for my Unity Donna Poppy stamp set.

 



 

 

And the Curtain Call Inspiration Challenge: Pretty and Pink had me reaching for my pink and gold gelatos to color my stamp.

I stamped the outline stamp in blank ink and then colored the flower stamp with my gelatos, spritzed with water and stamped over the outline stamp.  I watercolored the stem freehand and then stamped the sentiment (an Itty Bitty by Unity Stamp Co).  It didn't look complete yet so I used some gold glimmer mist and sprayed 2 of the corners. 

It is FUN to craft in the afternoon while the sun is shining and the kids are sleeping!  I am entering this into both the Inspired By Challenge #113 and the Curtain Call Pink and Pretty challenge.

Happy Mom's Day!

I got Mother's Day cards done early this year thanks in part to inspiration from a new challenge blog over at Mountain Plains Crafters!  Check out their blog for great inspiration!  They are 3 ladies I've been following on Friends With Flair for some time and they are branching out to start their own crafty blog. 
Here is the inspiration photo I used to make my card.  Isn't it pretty!?!

I knew I wanted to watercolor and used this flower bouquet as a jumping off point. I used a flower stamp from Unity's Strength & Dignity KOTM and the sentiment is a Unity Itty Bitty.  I love pink, orange and yellow color combos and used some green and teal in the background.  Of course my cards usually have a mind of their own and so some dark blue got dabbled in as well.  :)
Here is my card, done in time to mail out to my mom!

 

I hope all you moms out there have a wonderful Mother's Day Weekend!  I wish I could spend mine with my mom but I will instead be loving on my little ones hopefully with a mimosa in hand and feet up (I can dream can't I?)!

Reach for the Stars

I have been loving the watercolor look for a while and have recently been very inspired to give it a go after watching Swarups amazing talent on video.  She makes it look SO effortless!  I found it a touch more challenging to get a look I liked.  This was my 4th try, the first few are only worthy of the garbage.  My 4yo daughter was watching Tinkerbell next to me while I colored and she loved this one so I turned it into a card just for her.

I love this Unity Phyllis Harris stamp, Reach for the Stars and you can get it for 56% off this weekend during Unity's Birthday Sale!  I'm linking it up to Friends With Flair and can't wait to check out all of the fantastic things you've been creating with your Unity stamps!

Pure Heart

I got all 3 of my little ones to nap at the same time today, it's a rainy Friday miracle!  Of course I just had to make a card after perusing all of the wonderful Unity creations by you FWF ladies!

I pulled out my perfect pearls after years of non-use and had some fun with Unity's Be Your Own Beautiful SMAK kit.  The sentiment is from Wings Of Hope (on sale this weekend!).  I stamped the wings and the pure heart background with versamark ink and brushed on gold and pink perfect pearls for a beautiful shimmery background and then stamped the sentiment on top for a quick card.  It needed a little something so I added the wood arrow.
Have a happy weekend!

Celebrating...

Friends with Flair, oh how I miss you!  And craft time, I miss you too.  Squeezing in a quick post today because it's been too long.
This card may seem strange, and it likely is, but it was for my FIL's 75th birthday and after so many years of making him cards I wanted something special but was simply out of ideas.  My hubby mentioned to our daughter that Poppy ate a banana EVERY day and I got the idea to mark his time in bananas.  Weird, yes, completely!
Stamps used are Unity's Celebrate The Good Times SMAK kit. 

I stamped the Celebrating and hand sketched the banner around it since I didn't have a banner stamp large enough.  I used the circle stamp in the kit for the background and used the number stamps to calculate bananas eaten.  I had some banana embellishments laying around from 3 years ago when I did my sons birth announcements and only used the monkey from the kit.
Celebrating 27,375
 and the inside reads: of bananas eaten in your lifetime!

Thankfully he thought it was funny and I was happy to see when we visited over the weekend that he had the card on display (his b-day was at the beginning of the month) and it was the only card he had on display too!

Happy weekend Unity friends!