Life is Awesome

Hey there, welcome back to my blog. The cold snap has FINALLY released it's grip this week and the sun in shining and I could even enjoy a short walk. How cold is a cold snap? -46 with a wind chill that brought us to -56 at one point. That is in Celsius for any of my American fans who may be reading this.
That translates to : "Holy Damn it's cold!" So with the weather moderately warming up, I don't need to be huddled for warmth with blankets and sweaters watching Netflix on my couch. I am back to my desk and creating. Despite the cold snap breaking, it's still winter. In Northern Alberta it'll be winter for another few months (you read that right). A few ways I like to boycott winter is to make spring and supper type foods (think grilled meat and salads) and creating with a LOT of bright colors and flowers. Makes my desk look all spring and summery.
Keeping with the mini card theme, I created this small set with the stamp and die set "Life is Awesome" and "Geo Frames" by Altenew. I silver embossed the frame and accented the flowers with pearls and Wink of Stella. I opted out of any sentiments as the recipient wanted something more all purpose. So these 3x3 cards can be used as gift tags or small note cards and she is free to use them for whatever the need is.
I matted these on some white woodgrain patterned paper with a hint of glitter paper behind. I also popped the largest flower on a dimensional so it created depth on such a small card.

I hope you enjoyed!

~Brandie~

Little Elephant Cards

Hey there! Welcome back to my blog! Today I am featuring an oldie-but-a-goodie stamp set: Adorable Elephants by My Favorite Things. And adorable they are. These are one of my go-to sets for anything new baby related. I know it's not really 'baby related' in the sense that most baby things I see are either kitties, puppies or teddy bears, but I love the look of these guys. Not only are they cute, but because they are in tones of grey I love using these for gender-neutral cards. Most of my customers request those for baby cards and I found some pretty yellow and grey plaid paper from Recollections by Michael's that work perfectly for these. Unfortunately, I didn't have enough of that paper to make these mini note cards, but I found some scraps from an old paper pad and that worked just as well- and I kept with that whole yellow and grey theme.
These cards measure 3x3 and using the mini pizza boxes and 3x3 envelopes by Stampin' Up! they can be boxed up in a cute gift for a mom to be. These mini sets come 5 in a set and one of my biggest sellers. I used a retired set from Stampin' Up! called "Welcome Baby" for all the sentiments, and the cards are blank on the inside.
I have a lot more of these types of cards to show you, condensing a larger card layout into an adorable mini-version that, once packaged up, are a perfect gift idea. So make sure to come back and thanks for stopping by.

~Brandie~

Classic Pinups

Welcome back! What a chaotic year 2019 was. It seems that everyone else was lamenting it and happy to see it go, whereas I had a bountiful year full of change.
I created a lot more. Did more craft shows and made my side hustle more of a priority. You can follow me on instagram @crafterseden to see current and in process projects.
I started fiction writing again. I wanted to be an author when I was younger. Unfortunately life gets in the way and sometimes your inner voice has this horrible way of squashing dreams. So 20 years after high school I wrote my first short story since and entered into our local contest. Though I didn't win, I did place and that was all I really wanted. So here I am, published. Another goal reached.
And I turned 40. The big Four-Oh. It didn't really bother me to be honest. I have been 'turning forty' for the past year and a half. And now it's here. I am anticipating good things for my fortieth year on the planet. Extending my goals. Writing more. Creating more. Growing more.

I hope that 2020 goes well for all of you as well. Big goals, big dreams- and just crush them all to pieces.

One of my goals this year is to try to use all my stamp sets - especially the batches of new sets I accumulated this past year. One of those sets were the Cheeky Girly Girls set by The Greeting Farm. They are a set of 8 individual pin-up style girls and a few cheeky sentiments. I stamped these before Christmas and then got around to coloring them this past week. It was fun to come up with color combos and make simple thinking of you cards to finish them off. The sentiments are from My Favorite Things.
 Here are four of them for you to check out. Because I enjoy making things match, I kept the same basic layout for each card, but adding different elements to mix it up. Plus using some Recollections Woodgrain paper brought the card set together in a cohesive manner without overpowering the cards. I love the woodgrain paper and I do use it often. It's very versatile in how you can stamp on it and use it as either a background or a focal point.
So I hope you enjoyed this four out of eight in the set. I'll catch you next time!

~Brandie~

Childhood Friends

Hello there!
As I have stated a few weeks back, I have come across Kindred Stamps and they have some great sets based in pop culture. I've already shown you Galactic Adventures (and more to come on those!) but today's set features Childhood Friends. I love the storybook feel of these characters and they would be perfect for any type of project. As I've shown before as well, I created these cute and simple card sets for a silent auction. 5 Simple cards, blank on the inside, with characters that people know and love (yet can't name- copyrite and all ;) )
They are, as I've mentioned, very simple to put together. I just stamped the characters on a simple 3x4 Whisper White cardstock, inking the edges with Tim Holtz Distressed inks. The plaid paper is from My Favorite Things. I did not add any dimmensionals as I wanted these to lay as flat as possible to fit in the Stampin' Up! 5x7 acetate boxes. I then layered them on self created blended backgrounds (again, with Distress Ink).
The tag for the package was a lot of fun to make as well, I used My Favorite Things circle blueprint tag builder and created it as a shaker (not a great photo though) and was able to use each character from the set. I finished off the set with cute epoxy hearts that I found at Michaels, the colors accenting the paper and coloring nicely.

I hope this inspired you all and that you have a great day!

~Brandie~

Pretty Little Fairies

It's no secret that I love any and all things fantasy and fae. And though I am no follower in it, I do enjoy the imagery and stories and art of it all. So when I found Whimsy Stamp Company and saw they had artwork from Sylvia Zee under Wee Stamps, I immediately fell in love. There are a few angels and fairies, and then just cute little characters, and I had to get as many as I could get my hands on. They don't have any dies and with the way the backgrounds are incorporated into the stamp, it would be very hard for me to try and fussy cut, so when I do use these sets, I tend to use a crisp piece of Whisper White cardstock cut into quarters and then I can stamp in the center and either cut it down to the size I need to mat and create a card front with, or die cut with some layering shaped dies.
Coloring these images are a lot of fun as well, but can be tiring. Hunched over with either my copics or my crayola pencils as there are so many delicate areas on these images. But trust me when I saw it's worth it. And, of course, to finish off these beautiful images, you don't need to over do it with embellishments, but you can without taking away from the beauty of the image. I like creating flowers using dies, either Spellbinders or Tim Holtz. Cutting then using my stylus to mold the floral shapes and then layering with Zots or liquid adhesive. Then, if you're like me, you add a bit of stickles bling and you're good to go!
Here are some examples to hopefully inspire you.

Hope you're inspired! Thanks for stopping by.

~Brandie~

In A Galaxy Far Away

As I have mentioned before, I come from a proud family full of nerds. One thing my husband especially loves is all things Star Wars. We have all the movies (obviously), a couple of calendars and memorabilia and he's even got himself the start of a Storm Troopers Costume.
So when Kindred Stamps came out with Galactic Adventures in 3 different sets, I needed to get each of them.
The cute-but-not-TOO-cute images are detailed and fun to color, and perfect for any age Galactic fan.
The background I created myself by looking up and studying how other crafters created their own galaxy backgrounds. It was easy, messy and fun using Tim Holtz distress oxide inks, blending Broken China, Wilted Violets, Worn Lipstick and Hickory Smoke together to look very sci-fy. The oxide inks are perfect to gently splatter water on it to create 'stars', and then flicking some white paint and dabbling silver stickles for more stars and sparkle.
The woman's resistance card was fun, I cut the background in a diagonal and then used some Stampin' Up! foam adhesive strips to create a shaker moat.

The next card was inspired by the recent Solo movie, and I had my husband encouraging me to use the quote.

 I got a little caught up creating galaxy backgrounds, if you couldn't tell :) Being as they company doesn't have actual dies, but they DO have cut files (which I have no idea how to use) and I REALLY didn't like the idea of fussy cutting, I just did basic stamp and matting for these sets.

I also used a certain father figure and a couple of lovely droids to create a couple of other cards. I used some Die Cuts With a View glitter paper packs in neutrals to help with the whole galaxy/metal/space theme.
These cards are simple in their design and structure, nothing complex as you can tell, but were still a lot of fun to put together.

I hope you enjoyed them and are inspired!

~Brandie~

Princess Storybook Card

I love my clients. I just need to say that. I mean, I get inspired on my own, and Pinterest is AMAZING, don't get me wrong, but when I get an order from a client (usually friends who love my work), then I get pushed out of the box and get to try something new. I loved seeing other artist's using ink (usually Tim Holtz distress and distress oxide inks as they blend really well!) to create backgrounds. I adore the whole 'storybook' feel to the blended backgrounds. It does remind me of the childhood fairy tale books. Being as I have a variety of princess and fairy and forest animal sets, this technique works so well with it. 

The top of the card was an idea I had. It didn't work as well as I wanted, but it worked for what I wanted. I don't think I would do this particular technique for cutting the top of the card as trying to line up the edges with my sandwich mats and trying to align it in my Big Shot. I started by cutting a piece of Whisper White Card stock into 8.5x5.5 and scored it into 3. As you can see, it doesn't score equally unless you try to adjust it and I just didn't want to do that, lol. I scored it at 4 inches and 7.75 inches. I then used the Sizzix Scalloped circles and threaded the left side on the corner with the die and ran it through. I did the same on the opposite side. That left the center panel 'open' to try and thread and line it up with the others. Don't ask me the details. There was a lot of frustration and a few curses thrown. I gotta figure out a better way lol. 

I then blended the sky with Stampin' Up Pool Party and Soft Sky and the grass I used Lemon Lime Twist and Pear Pizzazz. I found that they worked really well and blended nice. For the stamps, it's a mod podge of different sets from The Greeting Farm. I have the unicorns/ponies from the Be A Unicorn set and the princess from the retired Ever After bundle. Then the flowers and sentiment are from sets here and there that I can't remember where I nabbed from. They added just a bit of fun. Add some glitter and you've got yourself a wonderful storybook card for the princess in your life! 

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you're inspired!

~Brandie!