Author: cristina

September Mixed Media Monthly at The Lilypad

| cristina

I am back home after a few weeks of travel, and slowly settling back into my routine. I was thrilled to play with the newest M3 collection from The Lilypad. The color scheme is just fantastic this month! Here’s what I made:

Supplies:
Many Splendored {Dressed Up} by Fiddle-dee-dee Designs
September ’18 Mixed Media Monthly from The Lilypad
M3 Sept 18: Bundle by Rachel Jefferies
Supplies:
September ’18 Mixed Media Monthly from The Lilypad
M3 Sept 18: Bundle by Rachel Jefferies

I also made an art journaling page with Tangie Baxter’s latest kit and I love how it turned out:

Supplies:
Excavations No. 1: The Mind (Kit & Mini-Workshop) by Tangie Baxter

Now if only this cold I brought back from my trip would leave me alone, so I can relax and craft this weekend!

Pinkfresh Studio Liquid Watercolors

| cristina

My cardmaking kick continues in full swing! I have been making mostly cards in the little craft time I have in between work trips. And I have been playing with new supplies too! I won a giveaway by Pinkfresh Studio and got the full set of their new liquid watercolors!! I’m so excited because I love art supplies – and these are just lovely!

The bottles are so pretty! There are 12 colors in the set. You can also purchase individual colors – the bubble gum and the aquamarine are my favorites!

If you are not used to liquid watercolors, it takes a little while to get the hang of them. The bottles come with an eyedropper, and I used a palette dish to put a couple drops of each color.  Liquid watercolors are super concentrated, so if you use them undiluted the color is very strong, and won’t warp the paper since you are not adding water. If you add water, you can get more diluted colors. They are super fun! Another bonus is that if your drops dry out in the palette, you can just add some water to use them again.

I swatches out the colors in the wheel – they were pretty much undiluted, so you can see how bright they are! Then on the wreath (which I gold embossed on plain cardstock) I added a little water to wash out the colors and get a softer look. In this photo you can also get a look at the box the set came in – it was packaged very securely.

I made another card with these pretty watercolors – this time on watercolor paper since I added more water. This uses the color scheme from this month’s Pinkfresh Studio challenge: yellow, pink, blue, gold and black.

I applied the Indian Gold embellishment mousse through a Dylusions stencil and I love the added texture! Here’s a closer look.

I will be sharing one more card soon on the blog – I have been experimenting with my (OK, let’s admit it….) huge stash of art supplies [trying to justify buying even more… ;)] and I’ve been having a blast!

Summer’s End

| cristina

It feels like summer is almost over… but I’m doing my best to squeeze as much out of it as I can! The designers at The Lilypad are on fire with some awesome new releases, so even though I was traveling most of the week I managed to squeeze in a few pages before I left.

 

 

Supplies:
Off The Grid: Bundle by Rachel Jefferies

I cannot take any credit for it, since it’s my husband who waters it, but our little garden is giving us lots of satisfaction this year!

Supplies:
Off The Grid: Bundle by Rachel Jefferies

Squash blossoms are the best!

Supplies:
Project Mouse (Wilderness): Papers, Project Mouse (Wilderness): Elements, Project Mouse (Wilderness): Journal Cards and Project Mouse (Wilderness): Word Art by Sahlin Studio and Britt-ish Designs

Supplies:
August 2018 Layout Templates, Blue Skies Papers and Blue Skies Elements by Sahin Designs

All these products are 20% off through the weekend. Have a great (almost) weekend!

August BYOC and New Designers at The Lilypad!

| cristina

Hello and happy (gulp!) August! Summer is just flying by, but the good news is that as of this week we have a new patio!! 😀 So we’ll be definitely enjoying the last few weeks of summer. 🙂

Today I have a few pages to share that I made with the August BYOC collection from The Lilypad – and there are some fabulous new designers joining the store! I made a project using products from each of them.

Supplies:
Inked: Layered Template 01, Newsworthy: Mixed Media Collages, Pearfect: Mixed Media Artistry, Pearfect: Pocket Art by Rachel Jefferies

First up, Rachel Jefferies – she used to design under the name Captivated Visions. Her style is quite different now, and I couldn’t love it more!!

Supplies:
Valencia paper pack and Valencia element pack by Lynn Grieveson
let’s go badges, let’s go art doodles by Emily Merritt
Farm Fresh Alpha by Pink Reptile Designs
Good Times word art by Lynne-Marie

Next up, I used some designs by Emily Merritt on this page. She was an old-time designer at the pad that retired a few years ago – I missed her and I’m thrilled that she is back!

Supplies:
Mermaid Dreams Papers, Mermaid Dreams Elements and Mermaid Dreams Pocket Cards by Sahin Designs
Stars from Valencia element pack by Lynn Grieveson

Finally, a new to me designer: Sahin Designs.

These are just 3 of the new designers, but more will be announced soon!! I can’t wait! 🙂

2018 weekly traveler’s notebook

| cristina

Since we are well past the halfway point of the year, I thought I’d do a quick recap of how I am doing my weekly documentation this year. This year, I am using a Hobonichi weeks notebook. The format is slightly smaller than the Midori notebook I was using last year (see below), but I got used to this format in no time at all.

I am using Hobonichi Irma weeks cover -it is pricey but I fell head over heels for it! (Pen is the fountain pen Pilot Metropolitan)

 

I am using the Red weeks notebook.

Here’s the very beginning of my notebook, and you can also see the size difference compared to the Midori weekly memo I used last year.

First week:

And this is what the notebook looked like at the midpoint of the year:

I don’t use watercolors because I can’t stand the warping on the Tomoe River paper, but this paper is so thin it warps anyway. It bothers me a bit, but I can live with it. I also journal daily in my Hobonichi cousin, which has the same kind of paper.

And here’s a look at a few random weeks.

Week 4 (pencil pouch from Foxy Fix – here’s a referral link for 10% off your first order):

Week 12:

Week 16:

Week 18:

Week 22:

Week 27:

As you can tell from this random sampling of my weekly spreads, the constant elements I use week after week are washi tape and stamps. More often than not I don’t add any photos.

I love, love, love documenting in this format! What about you? Are you a TN fan? Do you do some sort of daily/weekly documentation? Let me know in the comments!

Cardmaking Saturday

| cristina

Today I was in the mood for cardmaking, and ended up making five cards. It was fun!

I needed to mail a card to a friend, so I made two of the same design:

I had fun using distress inks to watercolor my stamp images and add some splatters (OK – a lot of splatters! :)).

And then I made a few cards for Pinkfresh Studio’s July challenge (rainbow).

Pinkkfresh Studio is definitely one of my favorite companies, and their stamps are fabulous! I’m excited about their latest releases too. For these cards I used the Playful Animal Friends 1 and 2 sets, which are designed by Lizzy Mackay – one of my very favorite designers!

This is a super clean and simple card. I used Distress Oxide inks, which I used on the next card too.

And finally, in this last card I used Dylusions ink sprays by Ranger for the background. I love those sprays – they blend magically!

I also added Nuvo drops to add a bit of sparkle.

Thanks for stopping by, and have a great weekend!

Feed Your Craft

| cristina

Hello! I have some fabulous news to share: I am a special guest for the Feed Your Craft Creative Team this month, and got to play with the July kit designed by In a Creative Bubble: Soak Up the Fun! I had a blast using the kit, which works great for traveler’s notebooks, scrapbooking, card making and Project Life.

I made an unboxing video for the kit. In addition to the physical products shown, you also get a digital version of the stamp set, and some printables (which I used in my projects below).

For my first project, I had fun with the 4″x6″ stamp (stamps always my favorite thing!).

I also used one of the journaling cards and added stamping to that. here’s a closer look:

For my second project, I also used some of the digital printables (the tag and the labels):

I added some stamping on the printables.

For my third project, I used another journaling card along with more stamping.

This stamp set is perfect for summer, but several of the stamps are great year-round. Here’s a closer look:

I was loving the stamp set so much, that I made a card to feature it.

I colored in the images with Copic markers. So fun!

 

Feed Your Craft Sneak Peeks

| cristina

Finally I can spill the beans… this month, I’m a guest Creative Team member for Feed Your Craft! Here are a couple of sneak peeks of the projects I made using the July kit:

 

The kit will be available for purchase on the 15th, and I’ll be sharing my projects then too, so hang tight!