strawberry slush Archives

I made this card for a business associate who gave birth prematurely. Her daughter is doing fine but will be in NCIU a few more weeks. Even though Amelia came early, I know Ashley and her family are celebrating her birth and each milestone she accomoplishes as she gets closer to being able to go home.

Freshly Made Sketches #241 card sketch was a perfect sketch to stir my imagination. The hippo from SU! Fun Pun stamp set made an absolutely adorable card for such a sweet girl.

I started out with SU! Whisper White as the base of the card, but it seemed a little harsh; therefore, I switched the base to SU! Very Vanilla.
I matted the card with SU! card stock Perfect Plum, Strawberry Slush, and Pool Party. I accented the mats with the stitched rectangle dies from Dienamics (love that set of dies). and the Pool Party mat’s top edge was cut using Poppy Stamp die stitched landscapes. I cut a swirly circle out of Perfect Plum card stock from SU! Swirly Scribbles dies as a mat for the cute watercolored hippo. While these are not traditional baby colors, they are muted with just enough punch to make the happy hippo shine.

For the happy hippo, I stamped it with Memento Tuxedo Ink on SU! Whisper White card stock and cut it out with a SU! circle die. I wanted to use alcohol markers but when I tried a few out they were not subtle enough (I don’t have very many to choose from). So, I went with watercoloring.
As a base for the hippo, I put a wash of color from SU! Stampin Write Markers (Smokey Slate, Basic Gray). Then, I added SU! Wisteria Wonder and a very diluted touch of Elegant Eggplant for shadowing. Tip: I scribbled a little of each marker on a plastic surface and picked up the color with an Aqua Painter. You could also use re-inkers if you don’t have any markers. I added a girlie touch of Melon Mambo straight from the marker to the toe nails and bow and colored the balloon with Daffodil Delight. I added some Wink of Stella for a little glitter effect. I stamped the sentiment from a stamp set included in the SU! Watercolor Wishes card kit and accented with some SU! sequins. Voila!

As you enjoy this card, please say a prayer for Amelia to get stronger each and every day and to give her family strength as they walk through this time of healing.

Have a Great Day!

This week’s Pals Paper Arts Challenge is a color challenge:

On this challenge I wanted to do something a little different. Instead of stamping on Whisper White or Very Vanilla cardstock, I decided to stamp the sentiment from SU! Friendly Wishes onto a piece of So Saffron cardstock using Soft Suede ink and cut it out using the Labels Framelits dies. I had tried several different looks with the soft suede background mat. I started off just doing nothing to it. It just wasn’t quite right (if you know what I mean); then, I tried stamping the small dot lines from Friendly Wishes in soft suede onto the mat. Yuk! So, I decided to try something else and realized I had used the last piece of cardstock scrap in the size I needed and I didn’t have any full sheets of Soft Suede cardstock. What??? How did that happen? No problem I left the original mat on the card and cut two pieces of Soft Suede cardstock to the width of the card; embossed it with the Scallop embossing folder and adhered the pieces to the Yuk, Yuk piece of cardstock. From there, I stamped a piece of Strawberry Slush cardstock with the flower from the same stamp set using Strawberry Slush ink. The card still needed something, but I didn’t want to detract from the sentiment focal point so I cut two small strips of So Saffron and placed them behind the sentiment (I didn’t have any ribbon that worked with this color challenge). Last but not least, I colored in the heart with the Strawberry Slush Stampin’ Write marker. And, here it is: