Concord & 9th Feature Friday - Favorite* Colors

Happy Friday to you, friends!  Have you gotten enough of Concord & 9th's fabulous new color collection?  No.  Me either!  Today we were asked to select two of our favorite colors in the collection and feature each on a card.  Some of you may have notice the asterisk in my heading.  Why did I put that?  Well, because these aren't just "favorite" colors of mine.  The two colors I chose were my favorite surprises.  They are the colors that I really liked when I saw them in the collection, but really loved when I actually had them in hand.  Originally I thought that I may have something similar in my cardstock stash, but it turns out that I really don't.  And I already feel like I can't live without them now.  (I promise I'm not being dramatic.)

Without further adieu, introducing my favorite color surprise - peacock and clover!  We were asked to make each color we chose the main focus of the card, but I decided to make them the only color focus on my cards.  I really like them that much.

The idea for this card came pretty immediately when I saw Fresh Cut Florals Dies Edition 1 (which FYI is my favorite of the floral dies released this month).  I adored the long berry and the leaves so much I knew they had to take center stage on a card.  I die cut four of each shape from clover cardstock and did a little trimming as I configured how I would place them on my card. 

Once I got the arrangement made, I stuck a big piece of press n' seal on top to hold it together.  I thought the card needed just a smidge of dimension, so I die cut all the pieces a second time and glued a white layer underneath.  Since it was all held together with the press n' seal wrap, it was easy to add that second layer.  The "love you" sentiment comes from the Hey Bestie Stamp Set (also part of the July release).

I kept the same arrangement for my peacock card, but just flipped it horizontally.  The "thank you" sentiment on this one comes from Concord & 9th's Blooms Fill-in Stamp Set. One last peek of them both together. :) 

Hope you have a wonderful weekend!  If you get a chance (and this is worth making time for), head over to the Concord & 9th Blog to see what the other designers chose as their favorites.  I always love see what people choose.  Plus, you are bound to be inspired by their amazing creations!  

Concord & 9th Feature Friday

Hello, friends!  Fridays are just more fun this month because I get to join Concord & 9th for another Feature Friday.  This time we are all sharing a favorite ink or paper technique using their fabulous new color collection.

I don't often do many "techniques" for two reasons.  First, time restraints, but second because I truly just really like simple stamped images.  So the technique I'm sharing today stays true to both of those things.  It is quick, easy, and the images remain pure.  It's also great if you aren't confident in your coloring abilities. ;)    

The beautiful floral image is from Hello, Lovely - an all time favorite stamp set of mine.   I also used Hello, Lovely coordinating dies and a die from Fabulous Phrases.  A MISTI will speed up the stamping process even more, but you can easily do this with a regular stamping block.  Just grab a few shades of ink and ink up your stamp in an ombre fashion. Concord & 9th's inks are so juicy that they give you extra time before you need to stamp.  I inked all four colors up and only stamped on

For my first card I used Concord & 9th's Aqua Sky, Oceanside, Peacock, and Midnight Inks.

My biggest piece of advice for this technique is to not ink in exactly straight lines.  I even overlap the colors as I'm inking so it blends a bit more naturally.  

For this red ombre card, I used Grapefruit, Sorbet, Poppy and Cranberry inks.

For my final card, I used just three inks: Sea Glass, Clover, and Evergreen.

One thing that I should point out, is that although the stamped image doesn't necessarily look "busy", it made a huge different to layer the die cut Fabulous Phrases "thinking of you", so that it didn't just get lost in the design. 

I layered it three times (two black + one white at the bottom).  Not sure why, but the white really helped the word stand out as opposed to three black die cuts layered together.   

And just to let you know how fantastic the coverage is with these inks, I stamped each image twice (once to die cut, once on the card base) and made 12 cards.  In 24 times of inking up and stamping, I only had to re-ink two times and that was simply because I missed inking up a portion of the image not because the ink didn't stamp clearly.  Amazing, right?

I'm so glad you visited today.  I hope you'll check out the Concord & 9th Blog next to see all the other fun techniques the others have used with this amazing color collection.  

Concord & 9th Feature Friday - Favorite Color Combos

Hello, friends!  Today I'm joining Concord & 9th for their Feature Friday and it's all about color!  No surprise there. ;) And today - right now even - you can hop over to Concord and 9th (click HERE) and pick up all your favorites in their brand new color collection. Run over and snag them and then come back...I'll wait. :D

Okay, so for today's Feature Friday we each got to choose a favorite color combo, and after much debate this summery combo won out for this (slightly late) graduation card.  I can't help but smile when I look at it...these colors are just so bright and cheery! 

The color combination I chose is honeysuckle + buttercup + clover + oceanside.  One thing that has been really cool to see with these inks is how the colors seem to change and adapt depending on what you pair them with.  Clover, for instance, looks really bright here, but then looks deeper and richer when paired with jewel tones.  

The colors begged to be on a rainbow, so I pulled out Concord & 9th's Rainbow Wishes stamp set.  Typically this set makes wider rainbows, but thanks to the pliability of photopolymer stamps, I was able to bend the stamps to make the arc narrower.  It also allowed me to bend the sentiment strips, so the words could replace one of the arcs (happy sigh).  This stamp set does come with coordinating dies, but since I had altered their shape I fussy cut them out and popped up each layer.

If you look reeeaally close you can see that I used my score tool to add 3 lines at the bottom of the card.  And there you have it!   Simple - just the way I like it. Thanks so much for visiting today!  Now go fill your day with color by visiting the Concord & 9th Blog to see lots more color combos and make sure to head to the C9 shop so you can pick up these fabulous new goodies.

Concord & 9th Creating in Color Insta Hop + Giveaway

Hello!!!  Oh, it makes me SO happy to be here today!  I am beyond excited to be joining the Instahop celebration of Concord & 9th's new color line.  Concord & 9th holds a permanent spot in my heart.  Besides loving their products, I love the people behind this company.  A few years ago I had the opportunity to visit Concord & 9th in Utah.  It was a dreamy afternoon!  Besides me oohing and ahhing over everything I saw, I had the opportunity to chat with the C9 team for a few hours.  One of the many things we talked about was ink and their dream of having their own color line of cardstock and ink.  Well friends, that dream is a reality and in two short days you can get your fingers on these fabulous products HERE.  

Okay, I'm a stamp and ink kind of gal, but I was totally blown away by the array of colors in Concord & 9th's cardstock.  I just had to use them, so today you get to see a completely stamp-less card.  This color line will take you through all the seasons (yay!) and honestly they fill in so many color gaps in my stash.  My card today features buttercup (a warm, sunshiny yellow) and parsley (a fabulous green that makes me feel like I'm out in my garden...happy sigh).  It also features three die sets releasing this month - Fresh Cut Florals Edition 1, Fresh Cut Florals Edition 2, and Hexagon Label Dies.

I started by die cutting a bunch of hexagons (16 to be exact) from the Hexagon Label Dies to create my background.  Now you may be wondering where this flower came from because I didn't exactly use the dies like you've seen in the peeks of these new sets.  But here's the deal.  I live in the eastern US and Black Eyed Susan is a very common flower here.  And when I looked at these dies, that is all I could think about, so I mixed and matched dies from Fresh Cut Florals 1 & 2 to create one.

The flower is simply both petal sizes from Fresh Cut Florals Edition 1 layered together.  To create the spiky cone center like you'd see on a Black Eyed Susan, I cut two of the flower centers from Fresh Cut Florals Edition 2, folded them in half, and stacked them.  It creates the most wonderful dimension and pokes up just like a coneflower!  I used the stem from Fresh Cut Florals 2, but trimmed off the leaves and replaced them with a couple leaves that I trimmed from the leaf die in Fresh Cut Florals 1.  Finally, I finished off the card with a multi-stacked "hi" die cut from the Hexagon Label Dies. 

 

Now for the really fun part.  Make sure to go to my Instagram account HERE because there is a GIVEAWAY on each stop (so many amazing designers participating!) and a grand prize giveaway on Concord & 9th's insta account.  Trust me...you are going to want to win this!  I've got all the details there, but go quick because the giveaway ends July 8th.  Happy hopping and happy shopping!  (You can find all these fabulous new products HERE.)  Thanks so much for visiting today!

For Sharron...

Hello, friends.  It’s been a while.  But I couldn’t miss the opportunity to honor a beautiful soul.  Today, my friends from the 12 Kits of Occasions are doing a special blog hop in tribute to Sharron Gregory, our sweet, sweet friend who passed away suddenly a few weeks ago.  Sharron was as kind as they come.  Always encouraging, uplifting, supporting.  She was quick to help and had a softness and sincerity about her that I much admired.  

How do you make a card fitting to honor such a wonderful lady?  As I try to always do when I make a card of such importance, I started with a prayer.  Next, I headed to Sharron’s blog, On Papillon Wings.  I chose to use her blog header (grey with orange butterflies) as my inspiration.  I used The Stamp Market’s Papillon stamp set as an added nod to the blog name.

While visiting her blog, I noticed that Sharron’s very last card she made (even when she wasn’t feeling great) was to lift a friend.  I think that perfectly shows her character, serving and loving others right to the very end.  And so I wanted to follow her example and made this card with a specific friend in mind.  

My last bit of inspiration came from one of Sharron’s past kits that she mailed to us.  I still had a few of the papers, so I pulled them out.  After all these years of many kits, I’ve never forgotten that these particular papers came from Sharron.  They were gentle, soft colors with music notes…perhaps the song of a bird because I know she enjoyed birds.  You can see them on the leaves tucked behind the butterfly.

If you have some time, please take a moment to visit my friends’ blogs (start HERE), to share in our memories and love for Sharron.  She is sorely missed.  Her family is still in my prayers, and I pray that peace may rest upon us all.  Have a blessed day!