I know I’m a day late, but I’m just popping in to say that I hope you all had a wonderful and very merry Christmas!
And cheers to a happy and healthy 2019!
Happy Holidays!
Tag: wplus9
Aquene
I’ve been experimenting with making cards that highlight indigenous words for a while now. You might remember that I’ve made a few Nipmuc language thank you cards in recent months. As I’ve written before, the making of these cards is my way of highlighting Native language reclamation efforts. Many tribes, not only in Massachusetts but also throughout New England and North America in general, are working to revive languages that were lost for years (hundreds of years in some cases) because of colonization and Native assimilation processes that have taken place for centuries. This week I’m sharing a very basic language card that features the word aquene.
Aquene means peace in the language of my ancestors.
And nothing too complicated here. I die cut the letters in black from this die set, and mounted them to a craft card base. I used a stamp from this Wplus9 holiday stamp set to provide the English translation. I’m thinking this would make a good sympathy card, though I’m hoping I won’t need another one anytime soon.
Aquene,
Autumn Leaves
With the crazy weather we’ve been having here in New England (in the 70s three days ago and today we are barely in the 30s), it feels like the Fall has been pretty fleeting. Not much color on the trees, and some trees didn’t have much of a chance to put on a show before all the rain we’ve been having wiped out all of their leaves too soon! But, some of the Fall themed cards I’ve been making have at least helped me get into the spirit of Autumn, my favorite season.
This little card is inspired by the first card (by Dawn of Wplus9) in this post, and these cards made by Kara over at K and R Designs. I loved how both ladies mixed outline stamps with solid images, and I also loved their choice of color scheme, so I played around with that a bit myself. I used similar ink colors and images from both the Wplus9 Autumn Leaves stamp set and the Botanical Bunch stamp set.
I should also mention that I was inspired to purchase this stamp set because of the amazing things Natalia Valkovskaya creates with it! You can find a post of some beautiful cards she made here, but she also has a great instagram page.
The sentiment comes from the Brush Stroke Messages stamp set, and I added some detail around the edge of the panel by running the edges through my ink pad (which I believe was Lava Rock). Then, a few sequins to finish it off after mounting it to a smaller-than-4bar card base.
Have a great day!
Autumn Leaves Card Set
I recently purchased the Autumn Leaves stamp set from Wplus9 (I’ve been swooning over it for quite a while) and now I want to make ALL THE FALL THEMED CARDS.
These three are a good start. :)
I started by stamping several of the outline leaf images on watercolor paper, and painting them in yellow and orange tones. I added several layers of watercolor to each image.
While the leaves were drying, I cut some panels out and masked them off so that narrow strips were showing, and sprayed the open areas with some gold color shine spray. The gold is really pretty and metallic but unfortunately does not show up well in these photographs.
When everything was dry, I started stamping some sentiments in Sepia VersaFine ink. The sentiments come from two different stamp sets: Doodle Buds and Handwritten Floral Greetings. Then, I mounted the panels to a 4bar card base, and added my leaves using foam tape.
Best part? These are available for purchase in the Freshwater Studio Shop!
Short & Sweet // Thank You Card
Hi! Sharing a quick card I made several weeks ago, using emboss resist, this background stamp, watercolors, Journaling Alpha dies and a sub sentiment from this Wplus9 set. Simple cards with pretty watercolor washes make my heart happy!
Negative Die Cut Thank You Cards
I’ve been focusing a lot of energy on my Etsy shop lately, and things seem to be going well there which means I’ve been making a lot of quick thank you cards that I slip into orders. I made these two recently, and I thought I’d share them here.
Both cards came together pretty quickly. And the best part was that I was able to use up some “scraps” to put them together. I started by die-cutting the word thanks into a panel (one rectangular and one round) using Journaling Alphas dies. I then put a scrap piece of already-painted watercolor paper (I have a lot of practice panels lying around) behind the cut outs, propping the die cut panel up with some foam tape before adhering the two pieces together.
I then found a scrap of black cardstock (lots of that lying around, too) and stamped out sub-sentiment from the Hand Lettered Thanks stamp set, heat embossed in white.Then I added everything to a card base.
The process was much the same for the circular card.
You can see that with the second card I didn’t bother with adhering that little center portion of the “A” because I learned after the first card that ain’t nobody got time for that… :)
Oh! I also added a bit of Wink of Stella glitter to the watercolor panel pieces before adding them behind the die-cut panels. The glitter doesn’t show up well in the photos, but it added a little bit of shimmer to the card, which was nice.
That’s it!
Sweet and Simple Note Cards
Well, summer has finally arrived here in New England! After weeks of some very uncooperative whether (hot, cold, rain, cold, warm, hot…etc., etc.) my flowers are all blooming and my vegetable garden is in full swing! And (!) I’m headed to the beach this weekend to celebrate my birthday, which is this Saturday. :)
These cards represent that nice summer-y feeling to me. I put them together pretty quickly, cutting some panels to about 4″ x 5″ and stamping an antique rose onto the bottom left corner of each card in various colors (Hot Mama, High Dive and Onyx Black). Then I cut each panel a bit smaller with a stitched rectangle die and stamped a greeting in a coordinating color.
The sentiments all come from my Doodle Buds stamp set (if you’ve been here a while, you know it’s one of my favorites!), and I thought the font matched the floral image nicely.
I mounted each stamped panel onto a white 4bar-sized card base. I kept these nice and simple – no sequins and just one layer. I really love how they turned out!
Some of these guys will be available in the shop soon!
Have a wonderful day, everyone!
