Sending Love

I almost didn't have anything to share today for Friends With Flair because I haven't had any crafty time in nearly 2 weeks! :( I was having severe withdrawl so instead of going to bed last night when I should have (my toddler has currently been waking me up for the day at 4am), I forced myself to go to my craft table for at least 10 minutes and try to make something. I spent a little longer than that because this card started coming together by itself pretty quickly!

The flower stamps are from Unity's Feb 2015 SMAK kit Life is What You Make It. The leaves are Dylusions Around The Edge and the sentiment is from Hero Arts. I created the background using Worn Lipstick and Broken China distress inks sponged on and then spritzed lightly with water. While that dried I stamped the flowers and leaves onto watercolor paper, colored with ink for the flower and Dylusions for the leaves and cut out. When my background was dry I stamped the flowers and leaves onto it and colored the leaves with a paintbrush dipped into my Dylusions spray ink. I also spritzed the cut out flowers with a clear glimmer mist and popped them up onto the card.

I am linking this up to Unity's FWF linky party and look forward to seeing everyone elses lovely Unity creations from this week!

Happy Friday,

Crystal

Happy spring!!!

I just love the 1st day of spring, probably one of my favorite days of the year!

I have a little card to share today using Unity's latest Kit of the Month, Always Begin Again and an oldie but goody sentiment kit called Inside & Out, which I'm not sure they make anymore because I couldn't find it on their website. They should make it because it was awesome! A whole sheet of red rubber filled with great sentiments for the inside and outside of your cards! I didn't take a pic but the sentiment inside from the same kit says, Thanks for being you.

I stamped the sentiment, masked it and then stamped the beautiful you flowers all around and watercolored them. There are a few gems in the centers of some of the flowers but its kind of hard to see in the pics.

I'm linking up with Unity's Friends with Flair today and can't wait to hop through all of the wonderful link-ups this weekend to see what  everyone's been creating with their Unity stamps!

I am also linking up to the Anything Goes March challenge at Anya, Oddies, and Others.

Have a beautiful weekend!

Crystal

Growing In Unity Day 1

Hello and welcome! I am so excited to be your Growing In Unity gal this week! I have been a huge Unity Stamp fan from the beginning and it's been so exciting to see how much they've grown and expanded both their little company and their stamp lines. They just reached 60K followers on Facebook and are having their biggest discount sale ever which ends today (so go shop if you haven't)!

For my first project I wanted to showcase one of the beautiful sentiments from the newest Kit of the Month, Happiness Looks Gorgeous.

 I wanted the sentiment to stand out and I was inspired by Swarups beautiful watercoloring to try to stamp a beautiful flower border around the sentiment. Now the bouquet I used is actually the "hair" from the Let Your Inner Beauty Shine set. It had just the right sized flowers for what I wanted so I just inked up the top portion of the stamp with some Distress Markers in Spun Sugar, Picked Raspberry, Mustard Seed, and Mowed Lawn. I spritzed it with water and after re-coloring the stamp each time around the card I took a paintbrush and moved some of the color around to make it look painted.

I colored in a few bits of the sentiment, used a glitter gel pen on the stars, inked the edges with charcoal ink and popped it up on white cardstock.

GIVEAWAY:

I will be posting a new project each day this week (Monday-Friday) on my blog using Unity stamps and when the week is over I get to pick 2 winners from all of the comments during the week who will each get a grab bag of 25 Unity Stamps! I will also be having a small giveaway of my own with 2 winners so there will be 4 winners total!!! I will post the winners on Monday, March 2nd.

Stop by every day this week to see what else I've been working on and remember to leave a comment on each post this week for a chance to win some Unity Stamp grab bags!

Happy crafting,

Crystal

My Favorite Weather

It was -10 outside this morning and I could still hear the birds chirping. I just love that they don't let anything stop them from singing and living their lives!

Here is a tag/bookmark I made yesterday for a birds/bees theme swap.

 I used an old Kaleidacolor ink pad in Riviera and applied it directly to my watercolor paper tag and quickly spritzed with a light gold glimmer mist to lightly blend the colors and add some sparkle. When that dried I stamped Unity's Worn Script background in grape. I used some woodgrain patterned paper on the bottom and as a little tab at the top of the tag. I inked up the bird from Unity's Just Be You kit with Marvy markers and fussy cut it before adding it to the tag. I used some small letters from Cosmo Cricket for the sentiment and finished it with a little wood veneer heart and some blue ribbon and a twine bow.

 Here is a close-up showing the hint of shimmer.

 And of course I have another decorated envelope to share with you as well! Since it was a birds and bees swap I went with a bee theme for the envelope and used the queen bee from Unity's One Precious Live as well as some sentiments from Unity's Just Be You kit and the Tattered Chickenwire background stamp.

 The queen bee on the back of the envelope and the Yes, I'm the Queen sentiment are stamps from Catslife Press that I've had forever. They just crack me up everytime I use them!

I hope you are all having a wonderful Friday and enjoying the Friends With Flair hop inspiration!

I am also linking to Anya, Oddies, and Others: March Anything Goes challenge.
and DL. Art Thankful Thursday Challenge #150 Blue

Happy crafting!

Crystal

Mixed Media Monday & Creative Blog Hop

A couple of weeks ago my talented friend Cari, from Creative Paper Crafting had asked me if I'd like to take part in a creative blog hop, answer 4 questions, and post on a certain day. Well today is that certain day so I will share a project and a few other things with you today!

Here are my 4 questions and the answers.

What are you working on?  I am a paper crafter so I love working with paper! I started out as a scrapbooker and cardmaker over 10 years ago, started doing Project Life about 5 years ago when my first child was born and in the past year have started playing with some mixed media techniques. Currently I have become obsessed with mail art and although I have always loved sending out cards and happy mail I have really been loving taking it to the next level and decorating my envelopes too.

How does your work differ from others in your genre?  I love art because I think everyone brings something different to the table. Past experiences, personal likes, dislikes, everything that is you goes into your creative outlet, whatever form that may take. I wouldn't say any one thing makes my work different but for the fact that I create what makes me happy and others create what makes them happy.

Why do you create what you do?  Simple, I love it! Creating is like breathing to me, something I need to do on an almost daily basis. Even if it's just a simple little note for my daughter that I put in her lunchbox each day or something of a mixed media nature that I have to come back to over and over and keep adding to and waiting for things to dry, I am making something almost daily.

How does your creative process work?  I get ideas for things everywhere. Sometimes the most ideas come at night when I'm trying to fall asleep and something will pop into my head. I try to keep a pen and paper handy for times like that when I need to write something down to remember it. Other times I just head down to my craft space and play with whatever catches my eye first (my craft table isn't neat so there is often a lot of stuff to choose from!).

I think it's about time to show you all what I've been working on this past week!

I made a postcard this week! It's not traditional in any way but it was fun to make and my very first one ever!  I got my acrylic paints out and swiped them around on a piece of recycled cardboard with an old credit card to mix them up and spread the paint evenly. I stamped that glamorous gal from Unity Stamp Company's February 2015 KOTM and highlighted a few areas with a white gel pen. I sketched the sentiment out, filled in the lady with yellow paint and used a black pitt pen around the paint. I stamped the flowers from the same Unity kit in white and then again in black slightly off and highlighted with the white gel pen again. The flower was fussy cut from a piece of patterned paper, it's sparkly with glitter. The feathery, fancy ribbon at the bottom is from Webster's Pages.

I also made a tag on watercolor paper. I watercolored the background first and then stamped the flowers and sentiment from Unity's Have A Little Faith. I colored in the hearts with a white gel pen. I used gelatos to stamp the butterflies (from Unity's January 2014 KOTM Be Your Own Kind of Beautiful), fussy cut them and added some black gems to the yellow one. I added a little black tab that I cut out on the top of the tag, punched a hole through the layers (there's cardboard on the back to keep the watercolor paper from curling), and added some pretty ribbons and a bow.

I'm linking this up to the Mixed Media Monthly Challenge #9: Think Pink for all of the pink in the postcard.

Also be sure to go back to Cari's post to check out her great creation from last week!

Thanks for stopping by today and have a wonderful week!

Crystal

Floral notecards

I never seem to have certain cards on hand when I need them, you know what I mean? Thank yous, sympathy, birthday, are the usual ones I am scrambling to make at the last minute and I don't usually have the time to sit down and create as needed either. The other day I decided to fix this and make up some quick notecards for those "Oops, I need a card for this NOW!" occasions.

 I cut my watercolor paper down to size and stamped the flower from Unity's Imperfection Is Beauty and sentiments from Everything Wonderful and then later I grabbed my watercolors and brush and painted them at the kitchen table while the kids did arts and crafts. I love pre-stamping images on watercolor paper for that reason because it doesn't take up much space and is a pretty portable project for my busy life.

 Here are some closer looks.

I made 2 sets before I ran out of watercolor paper, one of which I'll be shipping to a friend in Australia! For hers I stamped some of the wonderful botanicals from the gorgeous Wildflowers and Wings SMAK kit by Unity onto the envelopes.

Happy Friday and Friends with Flair at Unity! I wish you all an amazing and crafty weekend!

I am also entering this into the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge: All things bright and beautiful.

p.s. If any of you are on Instagram I finally just got around to starting an IG account and would love it if you would come by and follow my crafty endeavors. There is a giveaway in the works that I'll hopefully have organized by next Friday! Here is the link to my page: http://instagram.com/crystalamariscreations/

Hugs,

Crystal

Mixed Media Monday!!!

I'm going to try something new and attempt to post a mixed media project every Monday. Hopefully that will help me to create more mixed media projects and play in my art journal more which I love! Here are two pages I made over the weekend.

The first page I made around a wine label I really liked. I glued it down in the middle of the page and then used some Twinkling H2Os to paint around it. I added a few Unity stamps (Age & Wine and Let's Uncork), used a Crafters Workshop stencil  and some distress ink for the blue arrows and then added another Unity stamp (from the Magic of Beginnings KOTM) for the vine-like border.

 The next page was kind of a weird experiment. I made the background using my Dylusions spray inks and added lots of water to blend it around. When that dried I added the sun rays in the top corner with some acrylic paint and a Tim Holtz stencil. Doodled around it when it dried and really didn't like it. I stamped the couple under an umbrella from Unity's January 2015 KOTM Magic of Beginnings, added some torn paper, stamped the hearts (Unity's Dec 2014 SMAK Moments Like These) in gesso, and finally added some stenciled arrows with Peacock Feathers distress ink and the sentiment from Unity's December 2012 KOTM. This one took a while because most of the steps needed drying time in between.

Hope you enjoyed my first Mixed Media Monday and I hope to bring you many more as I learn the ropes and play around with new techniques.

Happy crafting!

Crystal

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

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!

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

Aged to Perfection

It's Friday, it's Friends With Flair and it's a beautiful day (even if the weather isn't reflecting that)!
Some Unity stamps, watercolors, a stencil, and pastels and you've got a quick and easy birthday card for a friend!

P.S.  The same is true for chocolate wrappers, they should never be counted!

Happy Friday everyone! I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year ahead!!!

Best friend therapy

Every month I mean to play along with Unity's {be inspired} Challenge and this month I actually got a chance to!  I used the pretty colors from the challenge in some cards I made for a swap and used stamps from the newest Kit of the Month, Warmth of Winter.
                                    
Here is my card:

There is still lots of time to play along!

GIU Blog Hop!

If you are hopping along with the Growing In Unity Blog Hop then you are in the right place.  If you are coming in at the middle of the hop you can start here: Unity Stamp Blog. I was lucky enough to get a GIU spot over the summer and it was so much fun to blog my Unity creations for a week and now I get to hop along with the other talented GIU girls, super fun!

We are showcasing the newest Stamp of the Week by Unity Stamp Co, a super deal at just $5.79/week you get a great new stamp in your mailbox every week!

I was so happy to see the little package in my mailbox and ripped it open ASAP to see what the newest stamp was and what a beauty it is! It is called Winter Forest and was created by the talented Joslyn Nielson (I just love her stamp designs).

I didn't get a chance to get crafty with it as soon as I would've liked and then one of my little ones came down with a nasty cough that turned out to be croup so I've had my hands full disinfecting the house and trying to keep everyone happy and healthy. I was afraid that I wouldn't get anything made for the hop! Thankfully I was able to get a little time right before the post was supposed to go live to play and here is what I came up with.

I embossed the image on kraft paper with black embossing powder, colored it in with some sparkly, pearlescent watercolors from US Art Quest, cut it out and popped it up on another kraft panel where I also black embossed the winter wishes sentiment. It looked kinda plain so I tried to doodle around the edge (does anyone else doodle with a pencil first or is that just an OCD tendency of mine?), and I mounted it onto a dark blue cardstock that reminded me of a night sky.

Next up on the hop is the talented Angela, you can see what she created here at angelascraftyspot.BlogSpot.com.

Thanks for hopping with us today! One lucky commenter in the hop will win a week of Stamp of the Week, how awesome is that!?!

I also have a personal giveaway going on right now. You can check out this post here, Happy Birthday, for details!

Happy crafting,

Crystal