Hero Arts - Digital Petals Pop Art

Hello Friends,

Today is release day for the April My Monthly Hero Kit, which is choc full of slightly mod flower and some fab textures -- while waiting for my kit to arrive,  I played with images and sentiments from two of the digital sets, which release today.   Can you tell which artist I'm channeling? 

Card How To: 

1. I opened a google doc, copied my favorite bloom from the Patterned Petals Digital Kit, and dropped it four times onto the blank page in the square formation (the blooms line up pretty automatically.  
2. Printed it on very lightweight cardstock and colored the bloom in Copics--3 colors per flower (R32, R24, R26; Y00, Y06 Y17; B000, B02, B04; YG01, YG03, G14.) I did a drop shadow around the blooms using N0, N1, and N3. 
3. Cut the design with my Square Infinity dies, and framed it with Hero Arts Pitch Black cardstock (best black cardstock evah.). 
4. On the card base, I used a light gray ink and the Abstract Frames stencil to give my "wall" a little texture and mounted this picture using 3 squares of heavy cardstock to pop up the picture and a little ink line and a silver dot from my stash as my picture hanger.  
5. The sentiment (also matted in black and popped up with 3 additional layers of cardstock) is from the Flowers in Vases Printable--which has such cute images and great sentiments--and I love the happy look of this font.  

I'm trying to channel Andy Warhol here with the same image in four colors--I find the symmetry and bright color pretty pleasing to my tired eyes.  What do you think?

Thanks for stopping by,

Essie

Meaningful Wishes (but no Meerkat)

     I love that the Meaningful Meerkat stamp  from The Rabbit Hole Designs set has a "no meerkat" image and a useful, non-meerkat, get well sentiment.  I find that I do often need a get well card and try to always have one or two in my stash.  Well, the Meaningful Meerkat offered just that, courtesy of the bucket full of daffodils and the Get Well Wishes sentiment that are part of this 4X6 set.  

    My coloring technique for this card is no-line coloring using my colored pencils (I generally use Prismacolors).  No-line coloring is something I rarely do, but this bouquet is so lovely that I decided to give it a try so that these precious flowers wouldn't fight the black line of my usual stamping method.  I like how it turned out, and it was good to strrrrretch my crafty brain.  I even stamped the sentiment in navy ink, instead of black--again, my thinking was to not overwhelm the colored bouquet.  

    I diecut the main panel using the You've Been Framed die set backed with yellow card stock to peek out behind the diecut dots.  And speaking of dots, I decided that the white panel was a little too CAS for me, and so I added five enamel dots.  These are actually the Matte White Enamel Dots, but I used my Copic markers to mimic the colors in my daffodils.  (Gotta love that I can turn these white dots into any color!

    Finally, for extra fun, I used some blue patterned paper from my stash, as my background on the A2 card, and offset the main panel instead of just centering it.  I like the added interest created by that unexpected angle.

    And that's the card--I hope you enjoyed it!

    Thanks for stopping by!

    Essie  

Another Meerkat Mobster

 Hello Crafty friends,

Let's get another look at the I Really Dig You meerkat set from The Rabbit Hole Designs.  I've used the overall-covered meerkat farmer again, this time colored with Zig clean color markers, and this time I used masking paper in order to place the meerkat in front of a nice long picket fence and a cloudy blue sky.  The cloudy sky is stenciled using the new Torn Paper stencil.  A simple card, but with that meerkat, unexpectedly sweet.  

Now, you still have time for our fabulous giveaway!  Here's what you need to know--

To celebrate the April 2023 release, The Rabbit Hole Designs is giving away two savings vouchers; one to a lucky Instagram follower and one to a lucky Facebook Fan Page follower. The winner will be chosen at random from the comments left on the Instagram post, and tagging friends, and also from commenting on the Fan Page post. So make sure to head on over to Instagram and the Fanpage, look for the giveaway post. Must comment by 11:59 pm PST 3-30-2023

@therabbitholedesignsllc

and look for the post at

The Rabbit Hole Designs Fan Page

Winners will be contacted via DM for the Instagram winner and announced in the Facebook Fan Page for the Fan Page follower winner on 3-31-2023

Thanks for stopping by!

Essie

More of that Mob of Meerkats

Hello Crafty Friends!

I love to google the names of groups of animals--like "a kaleidoscope of butterflies," "a waddle of penguins, and so one.  And so, with the arrival of the meerkat stamps from The Rabbit Hole Designs, I got to look up the name for a group of meerkats and it is...yes!  A mob of meerkats!  I love it!

Today's little meerkat and sentiments come from  the Meaningful Meerkat set, illustrated by Agotapop, whose charming critters and fanciful florals made this card a breeze to color and put together.  I opted for a graphic design to contrast with the playfulness of this meerkat and flowers.  Copic colored images, because that is a bit of a go-to for me.  I made corners of the sentiments for my main panel and then expanded the panel's width with a couple of strips of colored cardstock to highlight the blue daisies....and that was the that.  A friendly little meerkat, dropping by with some springtime cheer.

Don't forget our new release hop and Giveaway--hope you'll play along!   Home base is: The Rabbit Hole Designs  

GIVEAWAYS:

To celebrate the April 2023 release, The Rabbit Hole Designs is giving away two savings vouchers; one to a lucky Instagram follower and one to a lucky Facebook Fan Page follower. The winner will be chosen at random from the comments left on the Instagram post, and tagging friends, and also from commenting on the Fan Page post. So make sure to head on over to Instagram and the Fanpage, look for the giveaway post. Must comment by 11:59 pm PST 3-30-2023

@therabbitholedesignsllc

and look for the post at

The Rabbit Hole Designs Fan Page

Winners will be contacted via DM for the Instagram winner and announced in the Facebook Fan Page for the Fan Page follower winner on 3-31-2023

Thanks for stopping by!

Essie

 

I really Dig You #1

 Hello Crafty Cardmaking Friends,

Who knew that meerkats were so stinking cute?  Me...I had no idea!  And wow, this new release from The Rabbit Hole Designs is full of great images and tools! 

Today's card uses the brand new I Really Dig You set and the so cool (and durable and perfectly sized and precut and taped for A2 cards) Shaker Acetate Sheets.  

The gardening tools in this stamp set really grabbed me--probably because I have spring fever and love to dig in the dirt--so I popped them onto an acrylic block, held my breath, and stamped them in rows until my background was filled.  I colored them and the meerkat with my Copics.  Used a Shaker Sheet (with its own perfect tape to stick them easily to your card base) to turn the background into a shaker, and that's about all that needs a little explaining.  

I love the cherry red, blue denim, and sap green colors--do you?  Feels like it's time to go to the Garden Center!  Hope you enjoyed this card--this little meerkat will be back later this week!

Of course we have a hop and a Giveaway--hope you'll play along!   Home base is: The Rabbit Hole Designs  

GIVEAWAYS:

To celebrate the April 2023 release, The Rabbit Hole Designs is giving away two savings vouchers; one to a lucky Instagram follower and one to a lucky Facebook Fan Page follower. The winner will be chosen at random from the comments left on the Instagram post, and tagging friends, and also from commenting on the Fan Page post. So make sure to head on over to Instagram and the Fanpage, look for the giveaway post. Must comment by 11:59 pm PST 3-30-2023

@therabbitholedesignsllc

and look for the post at

The Rabbit Hole Designs Fan Page

Winners will be contacted via DM for the Instagram winner and announced in the Facebook Fan Page for the Fan Page follower winner on 3-31-2023

Thanks for stopping by!

Essie

Celebrating Butterflies with Hero Arts

 There's something so magical about butterflies, don't you agree?  That whispering lightness, those colors, the fragility in flight, all seems too perfect, and too slight to be real.   And yet...they are quite real.  

I'm delighted to help the Hero Arts design team kick off a magical, butterfly-filled release by highlighting just one of the beautiful digital images available today at Hero Arts.  

The Papillions Digital Kit  has 16 images to play with of beautiful detailed butterflies that will make you think you are a botanical artist lost in paradise.  There are also two other butterfly printables:  Butterflies and Butterfly Gardens - both are so whimsical and sweet AND each has a handful of sentiments that match the images perfectly...I'll be creating with them, too and have added them to my digital collection.  

But these butterflies, with their "come see my antique etchings" vibe...I knew immediately how I wanted to use them!

Here's my how-to: 

1.  I opened a blank slide in my google drive and added the black and white version of ornithopter--which has these three butterflies as a single image.  I blew it up slightly so that the edges of the images would "fall off" and A2 card front, and printed the slide with my laser jet printer on lightweight cardstock.  I colored the blutterflies using my Copic markers in shades of light blue, blue green, and yellow and then added dots in the same colors to create a background, as well as a subtle shadow, heaviest on the left side, to make those butterflies seem to hover about the card and add a bit of dimension.  

2. With my coloring complete (although with Copics, I'm never really sure if I'm done), I cut the slide down to 4X5.25 inches using my Nesting Rectangles Infinity Dies. 

3.  I ran the card front through my Minc toner foiling machine (you can use a laminator, instead), using an iridescent light teal blue piece of toner foil from my stash--soooo pretty!!  The iridescence really catches the light.  

4.  I pulled a piece of light teal foil cardstock from my stash and die cut it with the largest (A2 sized -  4.25X5.5 inches) of the Nesting Rectangles Infinity Dies.  This is the mat for my image. 

5.  I die cut "celebrate" from the Celebrate Words Fancy Dies, once in white card stock and once in yellow, using my Hero Arts Compact Cutter, which is just perfect for these smaller cutting jobs.  I really like these sentiments--they're the perfect size to get my point across, but don't detract from this full card front image. 

6.  And that's almost the end--I just glued/taped everything onto a white card base working, as always, from the bottom layer (foil mat) to the main image, to the sentiment on top--the slightly offset yellow celebrate is slightly below and left of the white one--mirroring the shadowing angle of the butterflies.

Fast, fun, and easily repeatable with this image or the other butterflies.  And while I love the foiling (have you noticed that it's a favorite technique?), this image would be equally stunning in the pre-colored images in the Papillions kit, or just printed in black and white (or maybe gray and white!) and colored in whatever medium suits your fancy.

And there's a giveaway!!  I hope you'll hop along with the rest of the Hero Arts designers and guests and do leave comments since Hero Arts will give away a $50 gift card, drawn from the comments left across the hop. Enter by Sunday, February 12th at 11:59pm Pacific, and the winner will be announced on the Hero Arts blog the following week.

One last look: 

Thanks so much for joining me!

Essie

Big Hugs

     As we enter into the almost-Valentines/Galentines Days flurry of crafty activity, I've unearthed my Valentines cardmaking supplies...but this year some of my cards for the holiday of love, like, and friendship are NOT Red, pink, and full of hearts and flowers (don't get me wrong, I do those, too!).  I find myself moving toward friendship cards--like this one, featuring that sweet new puffin set from A Rabbit Hole Designs:  

I like that I can send this as a Valentines greeting for a friend, but that I can use it any other time of year, too.  

So--about the card:  This little puffin is so sweet and unexpected and has enough colors in his beak and balloons to tie in all the colors in my rainbow-hued scripty hugs stamp. 

And can we talk about that rainbow of hugs for a minute?  I'm not the best stamper, but my MISTI stamping took really took this project "to the bank." I used my new Catherine Pooler inks (y'all, they really are as good as everyone says!) and triple-stamped each hug to get completely solid images.  I can't believe how perfectly stamped each image is!  And this is particularly important, since I'd already stamped and colored the puffin using my Zig water color makers. Any mistakes would meant a major re-design of this single panel card.  Not the end of the world, and I make a ton of boo-boos while crafting, but I really wanted this design to turn out right.  

My question for the day:  Do you make cards with a pre-determined design in your head or on paper, or are a seat-of-the-pants (SOTP) maker?  I'm a SOTP maker, almost always--including this one, which started with the colored-in puffin, then had me sitting and starting at him for a while, and then the ah-ha! moment of big hugs and more hugs.  That's often how my "process" works:  I create a focal point/main image, and then stare at it, waiting for inspiration to club me over the head. This time, the clubbing came quickly and no re-work was required.  Winner!

Hope you enjoyed it!

Thanks for stopping by,

Essie