Showing posts with label Blog Hop. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blog Hop. Show all posts

Saturday, December 5, 2020

A Little Sky Love - Blog Hop & Giveaway

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

Have you ever seen a sunset or sunrise in real life that was so amazing it didn't look real? I live in big sky country, so it happens a lot, and I've seen sunsets in New Mexico that if I painted them exactly as they are, you'd think I'd made it up. But nature outdoes us, always.

So this week I've been working on dramatic skies! Bold color combos and a little abstraction in a few mediums. Today is ink!

I grew up Lutheran, and one of my favorite things about our sort of spare, minimalist church was the seasonal color changes in the vestments and the pastor's stoles. It was so appealing to my visual little art brain. I especially loved the deep purple section of the liturgical calendar for Lent and the one pink candle that was lit on the third Sunday of Advent, amidst purple candles for the other weeks. I guess that's why this color combo came to mind this month, now that I think about it. 

My mom let us pick out the color combo of the bedroom I shared with my sister and pink and purple was the combo we chose for that too - with these adorable curtains she made for us out of this completely over the top, sort of cartoonish fabric we chose. It was the 70's and I make no apologies for my taste! But for all those reasons, it's a comfortable and familiar combo I put into my art a lot, like today. 

I created a very simple, pink, purple and yellow sky with this gorgeous sky scene stencil on a card front, alternating the colors in as non-regular a pattern as I could. I used Wilted Violet, Picked Raspberry and Mustard Seed Distress inks.

Another thing about the big, empty spaces in Texas is the hundreds of thousands of miles that have to be covered with power lines in the vast distances between towns, so this stamp set stole my prairie loving heart. It has beautiful silhouettes that you connect with different sized wires for an infinity design. The little clusters of birds are arranged so perfectly for the wire images too - amazing design work here. The sentiments are all calm and encouraging and I just could not love it more.


I thought that a very abstract sky would be fun too, so I used this gorgeous watercolor brush stroke stencil for a second background, overlapping Candied Apple, Spiced Marmalade and Mustard Seed inks for a bold, fun background for the same images. Does that one little bird facing the other way on the wire not squeeze your heart? This is such a familiar and appealing image to me. This brand new sentiment set is what I used - this is an all year, encouraging set.


On one of my Facebook Lives this week, I showed this ADORABLE stamp and stencil combo that is so ingenious! One stamp gives you everything you see that's in black here - the mouse and all the leaf veins. Then the incredibly well-designed three stencils in the combo - super easy to line up - create the rest of the image in seconds, giving you the illusion of masking with none of the work or planning! And that mouse!!! SO sweet.  



Now today, Waffle Flower is having a HUGE new release party of their Slimlines & Alphabets theme this month, including the stunning sentiment set I used above. Here's what the full set looks like - I absolutely love these thoughts - and it's an all year set, that can be used in any season for any occasion.



The combo of script and serif fonts - be still my heart!

And SQUEE! There's a Buffalo Plaid Stencil!!


There are also TONS of slimline, sentiment and alphabet dies and other stunning stencils - you can see the full release here.

Here are all the products I used today - and there are some giveaways below! 

Power Lines Stamp Set – WaffleFlower.com
[ WFF ]
Keeway's Sky Scene Stencil –...
[ WFF ]
Tender Thoughts Stamp Set –...
[ WFF ]
Stencil-n-Stamp: Fall for You –...
[ WFF ]
Paint Strokes Stencil – WaffleFlower.com
[ WFF ]
Buffalo Plaid Stencil – WaffleFlower.com
[ WFF ]
2020-12 – WaffleFlower.com
[ WFF ]
Stencils and Silhouettes Bundle 1 –...
[ WFF ]
Life Changing Blender Brushes: 4-Pack...
[ PFS ]
Wilted Violet, Ranger Distress Mini...
[ ELH | SSS ]
Tim Holtz Distress Mini Ink Pad...
[ SSS | ELH ]
Spiced Marmalade, Ranger Distress...
[ ELH | SSS ]
Picked Raspberry, Ranger Distress...
[ ELH | SSS ]
Candied Apple, Ranger Distress Ink...
[ ELH | SSS ]
Pre-Cut & Scored Cardstock
[ CTC ]
Art Anthology BIG CRAFT MAT 24x36 311473
[ SSS ]
MISTI Stamping Tool
[ MSP | HA | SSS | ELH | MFT | UNT ]
Rotatrim Professional Series Cutter -...
[ BLIC ]
Mudder 10 Pack White Buffer Sanding...
[ AMZUS ]
Teflon Bone Folder - Ellen Hutson LLC
[ ELH | SSS ]
Crafter's Companion GEMINI...
[ SSS ]
Scor-Pal MINI SCOR-BUDDY Scoring...
[ SSS ]
Essentials by Ellen Storage...
[ ELH ]
Die Storage - Clear Storage Pockets...
[ CHC ]
XL Stamp Storage Pockets
[ ELH ]
Mermaid tidy towel case and glue...
[ ETS ]
Lawn Fawn STAMP SHAMMY Cleaner LF1045
[ SSS | CST ]
Airtable: Organize your stamps & dies
[ ART ]
Slimlines & Alphabets Release Blog...
[ WFF ]
Fish & Chips Stamp Set –...
[ WFF ]
Last Chance – 25% off with code...
[ WFF ]





For today’s hop, Waffle Flower is giving away $25 gift certificate to THREE lucky winners. You can leave a comment on this blog and along the hop by 11:59pm EDT on Wednesday November 9th, 2020 for your chances to win. Winners will be chosen at random from the comments left on any of the posts in this blog hop and will be announced on the Waffle Flower Blog on 12/11/2020.

ALSO - From now till December 7th, 2020, all orders over $50 placed at waffleflower.com will receive a FREE set of Fish & Chips Stamp Set (No code required; Limited 1 per customer; While supplies last).

A kind reminder from Waffle Flower:"We appreciate every order we receive but we also recommend at this time of uncertainties, reserve your resources and use what you have first! Stay positive and healthy!" This is why I used a set from last month's release with the new sentiment set - because Nina always says this and I think it's so sweet, so I wanted to give you some ideas with a little old and a little new!

For those of you who are new to Waffle Flower, they have a Last Chance section on their website that lists many goodies for 25% off until they are gone! This would be a great place to start your collection! 



CURRENT COUPON CODES
15% off anything at Marker Universe or any of their other sites - Understandblue15.
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

Wednesday, August 26, 2020

Hero Arts Winter Catalog Blog Hop + Hurricane Laura

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

I was all ready for Christmas cards today until I saw our storm is now supposed to be a cat 4! What the heck? That escalated quickly! Never a dull moment in 2020! 

But I am in the mood for winter and Christmas cards. Based on Maddie's fur and what our birds are doing, I feel like we are in for an early and cold winter here. Maddie put on her undercoat earlier this month, which has never happened this early. Really strange. And we are expecting temperatures in the low 90s this week which is also quite odd for this time of year. So who knows - we may be hip deep in snow soon!

So pull a chair up to the fire because I have some pretty stuff for you to look at.

I've been waiting months to show you this first card because I'm constantly on the hunt for perfect Christmas angel stamps, and I have never had the perfect angel die before now. I cut out several of this - I started with white cardstock, but it had so much more impact in black on my crazy background. I created that with a credit card and Golden Open acrylics - just scraping it on white cardstock. One of my fave, simple mixed media techniques.

After I die cut the angel, I used my circle infinity dies to cut a circle of gold glitter paper out to put in the opening of her little aura. Then I used the same glitter paper to cut out the Joy ornament, and I snipped the sentiment out of it. This would be the PERFECT mass production holiday card - so simple - you could quickly create full sheets of the background and cut it down.



Dies just make holiday cards better. For the next one, I did a liquid watercolor background to put this beautiful wreath die on. Then I used a handheld punch and the same glitter paper to add glittery berries. The sentiment is from Comfort & Joy Messages.


For the next card, I thought I'd start with orange cardstock and do ink blending with a darker orange for the sky for something different. Then I paper pieced the village die cut with white and green - this is a cool die because you can make a layering tri-fold edge card with the town! So neat. 



Are you noticing a die theme? I TOLD you dies make quick work of Christmas cards - especially if you have a large UFO pile filled with backgrounds like I do. 

At the beginning of the pandemic I started doing daily lives, and one day I did Marabu ink backgrounds with their rainbow additive, which is sparkly and makes an iridescent rainbow, and Libby said - save that for winter cards - so I did! I used the snowflake die to cut an opening in my card front and put it over the background. The sentiment is from Gift Peek-a-boo Infinity Parts.


Last, but not least - I did a New Mexico Christmas card - I thought these Cozy Town dies looked like buildings in the desert so I added warm oranges and yellows and some Ombre Sunshine sequins. The sentiment is from the set that matches the dies



Trumpeting Angel Fancy Die
[ HA ]
Joy Ornament Fancy die
[ HA ]
Greenery Medallion Fancy Die
[ HA ]
Comfort and Joy Messages
[ HA ]
Tri-Fold Edge Village Fancy Die
[ HA ]
Snowflake Medallion Fancy Die
[ HA ]
Cozy Town
[ HA ]
Cozy Town Frame Cuts
[ HA ]
Gift Peek-A-Boo Infinity Parts
[ HA ]
Watercolor - Hero Arts
[ HA ]
Golden Open Acrylic Sets - BLICK art...
[ BLIC ]
Marabu Alcohol Inks - Set Of 14 June...
[ JGG ]
Neutrals Glitter Paper Pack - Concord...
[ C&9 ]
CH304 Ombré Sunshine Sequins
[ HA ]
My Sweet Petunia
[ MSP ]
Pre-Cut & Scored Cardstock
[ CTC ]
Sakura CLASSIC WHITE Fine Line 05...
[ SSS ]
Art Anthology BIG CRAFT MAT 24x36 311473
[ SSS ]
Heavy Base Weight Card Stock- White
[ GNK ]
MISTI Stamping Tool
[ MSP | HA | SSS | ELH | MFT | UNT ]
Rotatrim Professional Series Cutter -...
[ BLIC ]
LightView 2in1 LED Magnifier for...
[ BRG ]
Mudder 10 Pack White Buffer Sanding...
[ AMZUS ]
Xyron ADHESIVE ERASER 23675
[ SSS | ART | AMZUS ]
Teflon Bone Folder - Ellen Hutson LLC
[ ELH | SSS ]
Crafter's Companion GEMINI...
[ SSS ]
Scor-Pal MINI SCOR-BUDDY Scoring...
[ SSS ]
Essentials by Ellen Storage...
[ ELH ]
Die Storage - Clear Storage Pockets...
[ CHC ]
XL Stamp Storage Pockets
[ ELH ]
Mermaid tidy towel case and glue...
[ ETS ]
Lawn Fawn STAMP SHAMMY Cleaner LF1045
[ SSS | CST ]
Airtable: Organize your stamps & dies
[ ART ]



Want more inspiration from this beautiful catalog? Stop by and see my friends! And - if you leave me a comment you'll be entered in their giveaway of 3 $50 gift cards! Leave a comment by Sunday, September 6th, and it will be announced over HERE the following week.






Loveyameanitbye.



CURRENT COUPON CODES
15% off anything at Marker Universe or any of their other sites - Understandblue15.
10% off the whole store at A Colorful Life Designs - LydiaFan10
5% off at LBC here with code LYDIA5
10% off sitewide at Arteza here with code Understandblue6 through 7.31.2020
Phone stand for filming link below in the banner - 20% off sitewide with code UNDERSTANDBLUE
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