April Showers May Flowers and Chalk N Stock Challenge

April showers bring May flowers at least here in Texas with all the rain we've had. We went from a severe drought to too much rain in some parts and just enough to get lake levels back up to where they're suppose to be in other parts. This also means an abundance of wildflowers in every color of the rainbow which gave me inspiration for these three cards.

All three digital stamps come from Bugaboo Stamps. I like the design of each stamp and had fun finding different ways to color each one to make thank you cards. Today I'll be going over what I used to color the digital stamps. 

This first card I used Pebbles Cream Chalks to color the flowers and regular chalk to add a touch of color to the background. The background color is very light and that's why it doesn't really show up in this picture. 

I like using chalks because they give a soft color to your stamps and are easy to add shadows. I find cream chalks are darker than regular chalks so regular chalks were nicely for background coloring.

This flower and background I colored using color pencils. I like using colored pencils over alcohol markers because I have better control of blending. The biggest thing with alcohol markers and colored pencils is getting the proper paper to blend on. There are special papers out there for both but you can use regular card stock. You'll notice the colors will have a different appearance depending on what paper type you use. I would search the web for the proper paper types and where to get the best prices if you want to go that way. I just use regular white card stock for mine.

Finally, I used shimmer watercolors. Yes, they do make watercolors that have shimmer or very fine glitter added to them. This makes the whole card shimmer like you've added a glimmer mist but the nice thing is that you get to add the gimmer in the color you want to just the areas you want. The downside is that it's hard to get those shadow effects that are popular in chalk, colored pencil, and alcohol coloring. I picked up the shimmer watercolors at Michaels a year or so ago so I can't remember how much they were but I know not that much and I probably had a coupon to make them even cheaper or I wouldn't have gotten them to try.

I hope I have inspired you to try something new with your stamping and coloring and if you use chalk or decide to use chalk this month, please enter the May challenge at Chalk N Stock.

If you have any comments, I would love to hear them. 

Thanks for stopping by today.

Shadow Box for SVG Attics

Good Morning,

I've been out of the loop of creating lately due to school. Once you have children, your life becomes theirs with all the school and after school activities so it's hard to find time to craft but I have found a little here and there and with that created this.

I made this beautiful shadow box using some of the files from SVG Attic.

I used the Celtic Knot and flowers from various sets.

I love the way this turned out and I love making shadow boxes. They make great bridal shower, wedding and anniversary gifts.

Mod Podge flowers

Good Friday evening. I've been missing in action most of the week due to a sick child and another in afternoon summer camp. Whole day summercamp is a mother's dream but a half day leaves you no time to do much of anything except shop. If you know me, you know I LOVE to shop especially for scrap booking stuff but I had so much to do at home that it was a little of a pain and now the boy wants to go back again next week for half days.  We'll see????

I wanted a layout for our anniversary a year ago (It's taken me that long to scrap the pictures.) that was feminine yet mescaline. I was going to use hearts but thought that was too feminine so I tried the flowers and just kept working with them.

I discovered the other night that when you paint Mod Podge on fabric designed paper, it makes the paper look like real fabric up close. It was hard to get a good picture to prove it but take my word for it, it does.

I used Stickle's glitter glue to outline each flower. I maybe could have added a brad instead of more of the glitter but that great idea came to me after I had put the glitter in the middle and piled it on so it was tough to jam a brad through. Yes, I have a crop-a-dile but that's back in Tucson. It's hard crafting in two different places. haha

I stated earlier that I didn't want it to look too feminine so I added some paper strips I cut up and layered next to my husband's picture. My husband even liked the layout and that's good since he could care less about my passion for scrapbooking. Now if it was computers.....

 I couldn't think of anything romantic to say for my journaling so it is something plain. That's what happens when you wait a year to scrap your photos. The letters are cut out with my Cricut.

 Have a great weekend and I'll see you on the29 again blog hop on Monday. : )Lorby