If this card looks familiar it’s because it is a carefully made CASE of a card posted by the uber talented Martin Stone of @martinmayhem on February 4. His blog post on it is here. Instagram post is here.

You’ve probably had it happen to you where you see something and HAVE TO make it. I went so far as to get the retired stamp and die set, called Happiness Abounds, off eBay (very reasonable price, thank goodness) in order to make this card. Since then I have made other cards with the stamps and dies. I think if I were stuck on a deserted island with my craft supplies I'd take this stamp and die set with me, it's so good. 

One game-changing idea I learned from Martin’s Mayhem is how to alter a diecut to better match the color of your card. When you stamp an image on white cardstock, color it, and die cut it, you end up with a white outline around the image. Sometimes it works with your design and sometimes the white is just too stark. On this card, Martin colored the white outline with alcohol ink markers to fit in better with his card. Now I've started doing that (I used watercolor here) and I'm loving the results.

I stamped the flowers from Happiness Abounds (retired) on watercolor cardstock with black Distress Archival Ink and watercolored the inside of the images with Zig Clean Color Real Brush markers (I know Dull Blue was one of the colors). I used a waterbrush with Fossilized Amber Distress Ink to color the leaves, and then with Misty Moonlight ink to color the outside edge of the images, just before I die cut them. After this, I splattered the image with white ink. Specifically, I used Dr. Ph. Martin's Pen-White ink. I am splatter-impaired and both the black and white ink from Dr. Ph. Martin's allows me to use a small paintbrush to make tiny splatters with NO giant blobs falling on my paper. It dries super fast and I think I am "cured" from my impairment. 

I stamped the sentiment from another amazing SU stamp set called Good Feelings with black Memento ink onto 80lb white cardstock, and used one of the dies in the Happiness Abounds stamp set to get the spiral notebook edge at the top.

I assembled it to copy his card as best I could, adding lots of different bling when I was done. I was very happy with the results. Thanks, Martin. 

What I've used here :

Cardstock: Watercolor paper, 80lb Hammermill Premium Color Copy Cover, Stampin’ Up! Misty Moonlight

Stamps: Happiness Abounds (plus matching dies), Good Feelings, both by Stampin' Up!

Ink: Distress Archival Ink in Black Soot, Memento Black Tuxedo Ink, Distress Ink Fossilized Amber

Other: Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers, Dr. Ph. Martin's Pen-White ink for white splatter.

My last September dog card celebrating the season of Halloween and trick-or-treaters.

Here are all the supplies I used for the three cards:

Cardstock: Neenah Classic Crest Solar White 110lb cover stock, Stampin’ Up! Basic Black, Soft Suede (retired), Hello Honey (r), Pumpkin Pie.

Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black

Stamps: Stamps by Judith & Heather - Scruffy Pup, Trick-or-Treat Pumpkin, all tiny “stubby” stamps; Sentiments - Happy Halloween from SU’s And Many More, Autumn Greetings from Autumn Wreath set by Pretty Pink Posh

Patterned Paper: All from My Favorite Things

Die: Mini Slimline Stitched Layers by Popsiclesticks (Etsy store)

Markers: Mostly Copic, a few are Spectrum Noir.

Embellishment: Tim Holtz Tiny Attacher, black gel pen to add movement lines

These were fun to make, except for the fussy cutting it took to make itty bitty leaf and candy corn masks.

I am entering all three cards in the Sept 11 Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge featuring Four Legged Friends, the Tic Tac Toe 256 Challenge, and the As You Like It Challenge. 

My second Halloween Doggy Card is featured here. 

Here are all the supplies I used:

Cardstock: Neenah Classic Crest Solar White 110lb cover stock, Stampin’ Up! Basic Black, Soft Suede (retired), Hello Honey (r), Pumpkin Pie.

Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black

Stamps: Stamps by Judith & Heather - Scruffy Pup, Trick-or-Treat Pumpkin, all tiny “stubby” stamps; Sentiments - Happy Halloween from SU’s And Many More, Autumn Greetings from Autumn Wreath set by Pretty Pink Posh

Patterned Paper: All from My Favorite Things

Die: Mini Slimline Stitched Layers by Popsiclesticks (Etsy store)

Markers: Mostly Copic, a few are Spectrum Noir.

Embellishment: Tim Holtz Tiny Attacher, black gel pen to add movement lines

These were fun to make, except for the fussy cutting it took to make itty bitty leaf and candy corn masks.

I am entering all three cards in the Sept 11 Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge featuring Four Legged Friends, and the Tic Tac Toe C256 Challenge and the As You Like It Challenge. 

I am back with not one, but three cards all for Autumn and Halloween. In between working on birthday and Christmas cards, I’ve continued to play with my Stamps by Judith & Heather. I enjoy adding layers to even a flat design as I just love the dimension and "shadow" it adds to a card. 

Here are all the supplies I used:

Cardstock: Neenah Classic Crest Solar White 110lb cover stock, Stampin’ Up! Basic Black, Soft Suede (retired), Hello Honey (r), Pumpkin Pie.

Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black

Stamps: Stamps by Judith & Heather - Scruffy Pup, Trick-or-Treat Pumpkin, all tiny “stubby” stamps; Sentiments - Happy Halloween from SU’s And Many More, Autumn Greetings from Autumn Wreath set by Pretty Pink Posh

Patterned Paper: All from My Favorite Things

Die: Mini Slimline Stitched Layers by Popsiclesticks (Etsy store)

Markers: Mostly Copic, a few are Spectrum Noir.

Embellishment: Tim Holtz Tiny Attacher, black gel pen to add movement lines

These were fun to make, except for the fussy cutting it took to make itty bitty leaf and candy corn masks.

I am entering all three cards in the Sept 11 Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge featuring Four Legged Friends, and the Tic Tac Toe C256 Challenge. I am also entering the autumn themed card in the Sept 5 As You Like It Challenge. 

Whew, June has been a whirlwind. My family was in Denver on June 1 for my niece's lovely wedding. I've attended a scrapbooking convention in Denton, TX and had a fun four days with some dear friends from high school, most recently. 

A little family-run stamp company (at least 35 years old) called Stamps by Judith & Heather is always at these conventions. They make hand-drawn stamps that are all meant for scene building. Many of their stamps are woodblock, especially the small ones that are mounted on the end of a wooden dowel - you know, peg stamps, also known as "stubbies." The fact that you can mix and match hundreds of different images (lots of florals, animals, cute containers, insects, scenery and more) is what makes their stamps so unique and fun. 

You can find some of their videos on Facebook and some older ones on YouTube. The stamping goes FAST, which is fun. Heather does ALL her coloring on 22lb copy paper (later glued to cardstock) and then colors with Tombow water-based markers and a blender pen. 

I used a scruffy dog, grass, a tin bucket, leaves, mushrooms, a small green plant, a pumpkin and a little heart to build my scene. I used Post-It masking with the bucket, dog, pumpkins and mushrooms to make them appear layered like I wanted. I colored with Copics, Spectrum Noir markers and Dick Blick alcohol ink markers. I added the dots line at the end and added a Simon Says Stamp sentiment strip along with a tiny strip of Stampin' Up's Poppy Parade CS, with a Tiny Attacher by Tim Holtz in the left top corner. 

Cardstock was Neenah Solar White Classic Crest 110lb, plus Stampin' Up's Mossy Meadow. I die cut the card front panels with mini slimline dies by Popsicle Sticks from Etsy. Rest assured, I'll be using more and more of these stamps on my cards. 

I am entering this card at Addicted to Stamps & More #471, The Outlawz Challenges, and Double Trouble.