No-Line in a New Way

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All of my plants are thriving ahead of the dog days. Lots of flowers, lots of tomatoes - I know it's fleeting - but it's so fun.

We've already had a pretty hot June, so I know things will be looking a bit scruffy in a few weeks, but I'm enjoying all the color so far.

Have you tried shading stencils? They are stencils that match a stamp set that you can quickly color a stamp image with. But I like using them on their own, without the matching stamp set, as I did with this three layer petunia stencil and Atelier ink. Such quick cards.

I added a bit of brown to the green ink on the foliage, and now I wish I had one that was all leaves, because that is such a pretty combo! You can see the matching stamp set here, but I left mine no line!

(1) My Sweet Petunia 4x6 Clear Stamp Set [ INK ] (1) My Sweet Petunia 3 Layer 6x6 Stencil [ INK ] Atelier Ink Pads [ INK ] Understand Blue MINI Slimline Folded... [ CTC ] Understand Blue Slimline Folded... [ CTC ] Understand Blue Card Making Bundle #3... [ CTC ] Understand Blue Card Making Bundle #1... [ CTC ] Understand Blue Card Making Bundle #2... [ CTC ] My Sweet Petunia [ MSP ] Rotatrim Professional Series Cutter -... [ BLIC ] Teflon Bone Folder - Ellen Hutson LLC [ ELH | SSS ] Crafter's Companion GEMINI... [ SSS ] Scor-Pal MINI SCOR-BUDDY Scoring... [ SSS ] Storage Envelopes, Medium 25pk,... [ ELH ] CheckOutStore Stamp & Die Clear... [ CHC ] Extra Large -50 pk, Avery Elle Stamp... [ ELH ] Airtable: Organize your stamps & dies [ ART ]

Are you coming to the Concord & 9th summer camp? If so, I'll see you for my class tomorrow! 

Loveyeameanitbye.

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VIDEO: Bright Vintage + A Warning About Cardboard

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Who says a vintage style card has to be brown? Not I! Today I'm bringing you one of my favorite design styles - collage + vintage - but in my favorite bright, holy trinity colors. No brown in sight! 

I used this gorgeous set with beautiful vintage script images from this new bundle (you can also buy everything separately) and Pumice Stone, Hickory Smoke and Peacock Feathers oxide inks to start building the background, and then progressed with Peacock Feathers Distress ink and the two grey oxide inks and silver gilding flakes. I deliberately chose Tombow Mono Multi for the adhesive for the flakes because it's designed to be tacky when dry and so it's my fave for that technique - regular glue in this case is much more difficult to work with. The dies are nesting postage dies from the bundle.

I repeated the same process with the stamps and dies from the bundle and this time, the only change was Mustard Seed Oxide and Distress ink. I tore strips of music paper for a vertical structure.

On one image, I left the Pumice Stone and Hickory Smoke background and didn't add a top color because it looks like marble to me. I used gold gilding flakes this time and added a sentiment from the bundle. The image of the woman is from this ephemera pack I bought on Etsy. 

So here is the video of the entire process of today's cards, with a bonus pink card! Come back for an important warning about cardboard!

I'm still working out a few things with the new feed, so to my email subscribers, if you see any issues with the emails you are getting, please email me. Thanks!

Now I have a little warning for you about cardboard.

I LOATHE cardboard. The second a box comes, I break it down and put it in the recycle bin. Cardboard is home to the eggs of a lot of insects like silverfish and roaches and god knows what. 

But we had been saving some boxes in the garage to use as weed control in our flower beds - it's much better than landscape fabric for really stopping weeds, and it eventually breaks completely down, so we were planning to put it down underneath some mulch. I was in charge of the box placement which meant I was holding the boxes between my arms and my body waiting for each bed to get weed-eated and then I laid them out. 

A few days later I woke up with a rash on both of my arms. It was a billion little spots and it went just up exactly to where my sleeve was. It didn't itch, but it took a REALLY long time to go away. At first I thought it was a contact allergy, because I'm allergic to everything, and cardboard does irritate my skin. But the longer it went on, the more it became clear that it was a mite. I figured it was from the garden, because I had also pulled weeds that day and trimmed little oak sprouts, and there are lots of oak tree mites. But there was something in my brain telling me that wasn't it because it was exactly on the exposed part of my arm where I was holding the boxes.

So I did a little research, and dad gum it if there's not A CARDBOARD MITE! 

It went away and all is well but I was so grossed out and hate cardboard even more now - so I thought I'd pass that along. If it got me, I'm sure it could get my pets too. So my no cardboard in the house rule has been doubled down, and if we use any more for landscape work, it will stay outside, not in the garage. 

So there's your PSA for the week!

Loveyameanitdontgetamitebye.

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IMPORTANT UPDATE from Understand Blue!

*Compensated affiliate links used where possible at zero cost to you. No posts are ever sponsored or paid.*

Hi friends - 

No card today - I've been hard at work moving my blog feed to a new service, as the existing one is being discontinued. 

If you are seeing this via email - you are all set - you are in no danger of receiving two emails and all is well. 

I will also be sending a brief email to all email subscribers in case they are NOT seeing this email soon. 

The new service lets you decide how you want to see my feed - you can see all the options for how to read my content HERE.

If you are also a blogger using Feedburner, I found the conversion to Follow.it very simple and am happy with the process so you may want to investigate that before Feedburner is decommissioned at the end of the month. 

Real people answer your questions, LOL. Refreshing.

So carry on - I'll be back with a fun video in the next few days. Please email me if you have questions or if something isn't working. 

Loveyameanitbye.

CURRENT COUPON CODES
15% off anything at Marker Universe or any of their other sites - Understandblue15.
10% off at Sweet Sentiment with code UNDERSTANDBLUE
10% off the whole store at A Colorful Life Designs - LydiaFan10
5% off at LBC here with code LYDIA5
Phone stand for filming link below in the banner - 20% off sitewide with code UNDERSTANDBLUE

VIDEO: A Day at the Pond

*Compensated affiliate links used where possible at zero cost to you. No posts are ever sponsored or paid.*

There was a pond down the street from my house in my very new neighborhood while I was growing up, and I spent 99% of my ample free tine there. We "fished" for crawdads, caught tadpoles, and did a million other peaceful, quiet, free range activities. 

At some point, much to my dismay, that was bulldozed and developed into something a lot less meaningful and peaceful. 

At least I can remember that pond life!

I had so much fun recreating that feeling in today's video. This supremely adorable frog set was what I had in mind for my background, which I will teach you to create with liquid watercolor!

I have a video on this SUPER fun background! Come back for more cards and one more video!

Next up in our pond exploration was critters. We had all sorts there - but none of the ones we have in Austin - no foxes or coyotes. That habitat was more snakey and less mammaly. I love our foxes, and there's a little pack that hangs around our neighborhood and has babies in my neighbor's yard. Somewhere there's a photo of one standing on the bench in my backyard. 

For this card, I stamped this beautiful tree image and then die cut a circle with masking paper and put it on top of the image and ink blended some nighttime with Rocky Slope and Sapphire inks, leaving a little diagonal ray. I stamped and die cut and colored the fox from this set, making a little moonglow with a blue Graphit marker (coupon at the end of this post) on one side.

I could only stay away from the frogs for a second! Now even though I shook this shaker card a million times so you could see the tiny clay frog faces in this shaker mix, I can't see any fully in the photo (there's one eye to the left of the F in Face), but they are so cute, and you can see them here. The sentiment is a combo of this fun new word topper die and the matching sentiment set. I chose the frog with the stripey prison pants. This cracks me up!

I love the beautiful new Scorpio girl - this whole series is so fun. I colored her with Graphit and then for the background I used a gel print, and put the Lilypad Stencil over it and applied gold paper Glaze. The greeting is from Fancy Sentiments. 

I saved CLARENCE for last! :) These tiny squirrels are amazing and so perfect for a week where Clarence's two babies came by for a visit. I have a video below on this background, but it was made with the brick wall stencil, orange and gold paper glazes. The die is the Hello Word Topper and the sentiment is from the matching set.

I have a video on this background as well!

Drop By To Say Croak [ PFS ] Fancy Sentiments – Picket Fence Studios [ PFS ] Listen For Joy [ PFS ] Scorpio Girl [ PFS ] Paper Glaze - Golden Rose – Picket... [ PFS ] Slim Line Lily Pad Stencil [ PFS ] I Love Your Face Word Topper [ PFS ] Word Topper Die Subtitles [ PFS ] Croak Shaker Mix [ PFS ] Forest Critters Stopping By To Say Hey [ PFS ] English Brick Wall 6x6 Stencil –... [ PFS ] Paper Glaze - Marigold Orange –... [ PFS ] Paper Glaze - Brown Dahlia – Picket... [ PFS ] PinkFresh Studio ROCKY SLOPE Dye Ink... [ SSS ] PinkFresh Studio SAPPHIRE Dye Ink Pad... [ SSS ] Graphit — Marker Universe [ MRK ] DecoArt Chalky Gesso White 16oz --... [ CRT ] PD116 Liquid Watercolor Moss - Hero Arts [ HA ] PD115 Liquid Watercolors Pine | Hero... [ HA ] PD114 Liquid Watercolors Indigo |... [ HA ] PD113 Liquid Watercolors Deep Ocean -... [ HA ] Understand Blue MINI Slimline Folded... [ CTC ] Understand Blue Slimline Folded... [ CTC ] Understand Blue Card Making Bundle #3... [ CTC ] Understand Blue Card Making Bundle #1... [ CTC ] Understand Blue Card Making Bundle #2... [ CTC ] My Sweet Petunia [ MSP ] Sakura CLASSIC WHITE Fine Line 05... [ SSS ] Art Anthology BIG CRAFT MAT 24x36 311473 [ SSS ] Rotatrim Professional Series Cutter -... [ BLIC ] Teflon Bone Folder - Ellen Hutson LLC [ ELH | SSS ] Crafter's Companion GEMINI... [ SSS ] Scor-Pal MINI SCOR-BUDDY Scoring... [ SSS ] Storage Envelopes, Medium 25pk,... [ ELH ] CheckOutStore Stamp & Die Clear... [ CHC ] Extra Large -50 pk, Avery Elle Stamp... [ ELH ] Mermaid tidy towel case and glue... [ ETS ] Lawn Fawn STAMP SHAMMY Cleaner LF1045 [ SSS | CST ] Airtable: Organize your stamps & dies [ ART ]

So much fun. I will be putting frogs on ALL THE THINGS.

I hope you had a great weekend and are ready for whatever 2021 throws at us this week.

Loveyameanitbye.

CURRENT COUPON CODES
15% off anything at Marker Universe or any of their other sites - Understandblue15.
10% off at Sweet Sentiment with code UNDERSTANDBLUE
10% off the whole store at A Colorful Life Designs - LydiaFan10
5% off at LBC here with code LYDIA5
Phone stand for filming link below in the banner - 20% off sitewide with code UNDERSTANDBLUE