Focus on Faith with Sara Furr: Misty Sunrise

 Blessings dear friends and welcome to my second edition of "Focus on Faith" for the month of August. 

Every morning I wake up and I thank God for the gift of a new day! New Blessings! The other day I woke up and came downstairs, and while I was walking around with my morning cuppa tea, I caught a glimpse of the beautiful misty sunrise, and had to run out to capture it.

This photo I took is the inspiration for my card today. I will be taking you through a step by step tutorial of my process.

Step 1- colored in my background grass and tree line with a green alcohol ink marker onto Canson XL Bristol Smooth cardstock. I created a small circle mask with a circle punch out of post it tape and applied it above the tree line to mask out my sun.

Step 2- ink blended in some blue sky and some yellow for sunrise, then removed the circle mask, and ink blended some white pigment ink in the tree line for the mist.

Step 3- stamped the barn from #5011- WC Truck mini set,  and colored barn with black alcohol ink marker.

Step 4- stamped in bushes from #4051- Foliage set and #5372-WC Mini Foliage Set with dark green inks.

Step 5- stamped in tree foliage with dark green ink.

Step 6- added in darker shades of grass line with alcohol ink marker.

Step 7- added white permanent ink marker to roof of barn.

Step 8- added foliage back in over the barn roof.

Step 9- stamped in sentiment from #5127- Build My Life set, with stamping tool, in blue ink.

When I was done, I went back in and added some sparkle pen to the sun and tree line to look like the mist. I wanted to male my sun even whiter, so I added some Ph Martin's Bleedproof white ink to the sun with a small paint brush. I trimmed my panel down just a bit and then matted it to a dark green cardstock  and then to a white panel. I popped that up over a panel of light green striped dsp from the #6072- Father's Day PP and a bow of green twine.

Here is my creation....

If you look close you can see the glitter pen I used for the mist.

So, here again is my photo...

AND here is my card...

I hope you are inspired to recreate of little bit of God's creation too.

God Bless, 

Sara Furr -The Crafty Farm Chick

Focus on Faith Bright Butterflies! by Sara Furr

 Blessings, my dear AI friends!

Welcome to the first edition of "Focus on Faith", for the month of May. 

Today, I have a bright and colorful creation using an alcohol ink background that I created like 2 years ago and never used, so I pulled it out and decided to have a play with it.

 I can't tell you what exact colors I used here, because it was so long ago, but I can tell you that I used Tim Holtz Alcohol inks in a Blue, yellow, and blue, and blending solution on Yupo paper. You just apply some blending solution to the Yupo paper here and there,  and then add drops of alcohol ink here and there,  and let it spread on its own, or you can use a blower tool to push the ink around,  or just keep turning your cardstock side to side to keep the ink moving until it dries. So much fun!

Once my alcohol ink blending was all dried, I applied alcohol lift ink through a stencil, and then wiped off the ink with a paper towel, and it lifts off the alcohol ink and leaves behind the stenciled image.

 I took that background, and I strategically placed the butterflies from the "Butterfly set" on the lighter areas of my background and then stamped out the butterflies and greeting with black Archival ink. I thought these butterflies were perfect for this because they are bold images.

I distressed the edges of the Yupo paper and then I die cut the pretty eyelet border rectangle from the Decorative Journal Page 1 die set and I cut it in half and used it on either side of my stamped panel to add a decorative border. I added some sequins to the panel and added foam tape to the back. I created a 6x6 card base from black cardstock and a matting frame also. I used the black to mat my piece of neutral dsp from the Father's Day Paper pack, and distressed the edges of both and adhered them together and popped them up on my card base with foam tape. To create my decorative strip, I used a piece of white scalloped edge lace and machine stitched a strip of the mint green stripe dsp, also from the Father's Day Paper pack to it, and adhered it to my matted dsp and then popped up my focal panel over top.

Have you ever played with alcohol inks? They are so much fun to play with, and they create something totally unique! If you don't have alcohol inks, you could try something similar with watercolors or dye inks on watercolor paper. You would just have to use bright or strong colors as your base, and make sure it is completely dry before trying to lift the ink through a stencil with a damp paper towel.

Please let me know if you like this technique. Thank you so much for stopping by and I hope you got inspired to have a play with your alcohol inks or if you don't, to try them.

Many blessings my dears, 

Sara Furr- The Crafty Farm Chick

These are all the supplies I used: Links to Ai products are below.

Art Impressions products:

#5200- Butterfly Set

#6072- Father's Day Paper pack

#5768- Decorative Journal Page 1 Die

4774-Stamp positioner

Archival black ink

Other products used:

-Alcohol inks in pink, blue, and yellow.

-blending solution 

-air blower

-Yupo paper

-stencil

-alcohol lift ink

-Paper towel

-scissors to Distress cardstock edges

-white scalloped lace

-sewing machine

-sequins

-die cutting machine

-foam tape, adhesive

Pretty Little Floral Shop by Reneé Matarese

Hello Ai fans!

Do you love the new add-on 6159 – Floral Shop Die Set as much as I do?
It's meant to pair with 6114 – Box Village Template Dies.

My little flower shop was created for the current Feeling Crafty challenge.

You get all of these incredible dies in this new set.

I took some liberties and extended my shingles above the roofline of the box because I wanted a taller shop. I also tipped the window upright.

I also noticed that everyone sees things differently.

I saw what I have since learned is the window valance and instantly saw "window box" in my mind. The piece that is meant to be the actual window box was turned into a wooden sign by me...lol! I'm not at all sad with how it turned out. I decided to score my "valence box" where each scallop was and then use a brown ink pad to add some wood lines.

On the side of my box I trimmed the tops of the pickets off of the fence and made a trellis for the flowers.

I hope you like my little flower shop.

I can't wait to see what's next in this fun series.

 

Spring Front Porch & Easel Card with Guest Designer Kristen Brown

 Hello Ai fans!

Today we have a special treat for you...

Guest Designer Kristen Brown.
She's filling in for Diane Mason who needed the day off.

She created two GORGEOUS Spring cards to inspire you.

Please enjoy...

I love using the front porch sets, they are so easy to use. I just stamp, color, die cut, arrange and then attach with any adhesive handy.  The stamp sets I used are 5486 and 5512 and the sentiment is from 6062. The Tombow pen colors I used are 177, 977, 969, 526, 703, 025 and 933. The brick paper is from the 6072 Father’s Day paper pack.

Very quick project using the mini scalloped frame die set #5902 and the hydrangea floral set #6062 for the daisies and sentiment. I used only three Tombow pen colors #177, #565 and #933 and the paper is from the Yellow paper pack #6012. Butterfly is from #6008.

Reeling in the BIG ONE! by Reneé Matarese

Hello Ai fans!

My Father-in-law turned 90 last week and he used to love to fish.

I knew he'd enjoy this card.
(He did. He emailed me.)

I used two fun stamp sets from Art Impressions along with a beautiful masculine paper pack.

Everything is linked below. This was a super simple card. I just stamped, colored and cut out

the images with the coordinating dies for the Hats Off set. 

The fish from the Reel Great Guys set are a little older and don't have dies but they 

were super simple to fussy cut. I love all of the fun sayings in this set.

Copics used:

B21, B45, E30, E74, YG05,

YG41, C1, T4, RV1, RV93 

January Snowman Tag by Janet

The Christmas season may be over but that doesn't mean I have to give up making adorable cards and tags with many of the snowman themed sets from Art Impressions!

I really adore this cheery snowman with his happy little grin. He's made with 5803 - Snowman Puppet Set. His body and the bird was stamped on watercolor paper and lightly painted with pink, orange, gray, and blue paints. 

His clothes were stamped on papers from 6072 - Father's Day Paper Pack. I cut them with the included dies and pieced them together. I purposely chose these papers because of the forest theme. I thought it was perfect for a January snowman. I also used white glitter on the trim of the hat for an additional touch of whimsy and texture.

I pieced the clothing on his body and prepared a premade cardstock tag with two snow hills at the base. Then I placed foam tape on the back of the snowman and staged him on snow hills. I added baker's twine for a hanger and a small blue bow to the top for a finishing touch. 

Thanks for joining me on the blog today. As always, find your favorite stamps, dies, papers, and accessories at the Ai Store!

Happy Crafting!

Janet - YouTube - Blog - Facebook - Instagram - Pinterest 

Birdie Betty ~Swingin' Through Retirement by Reneé Matarese

 Hello Ai fans!

I hope you're all enjoying our Sports and Leisure challenge!

For this challenge, I chose to use Birdie Betty.

She's one of the new Ai People that were released in July.

The designer paper is from 6072 – Father’s Day Paper Pack.

Her earrings and glasses were done with my Signo Pigment Ink Gel Pen – Gold.

The sentiments were stamped on 5726 – Nested Circle Dies and a banner from 5952 – Portfolio Template Die Set.

It was the Ai People (aka Golden Oldies back then) that first drew me to Art Impressions. I'm thrilled that Bonnie continues to add more of these fun characters all these years later.

Betty's card was cut using 5463 – Slimline Dies Set.

There are fun paper packs to coordinate with all of the new ladies.

Birdie Betty goes with this pack.

6101 – Golf Paper Pack

If you or someone you know is a fan of GOLF, check out this section.

Copics used:

C, N2, BG90, BG53, BG000, R81, E02, E43, E50, E7