sunny studio Archives - Cricketleg Creative

“Food and/or Drink” Challenge

November 27, 2020 Challenge Cards, Handcrafted Cards

The most recent Monday challenge from Simon Says Stamp has the Food and/or Drink theme.

Well, hi!

Hey, it’s a non-holiday challenge this time. Whaaaaat??

And, it’s one that I had to stretch a little for. Don’t have a ton of food related stamps. Luckily, I pulled it off! Five entries for the Food and/or Drink Challenge await you below!

Burger and Fries

I like this simple card. I think sometimes I overcomplicate a card, or maybe it’s just that I like to do more complicated techniques. But a clean and simple card (CAS) is pretty satisfying when it’s done well.

And I think this one is.

I used stamps from this Sunny Studio set (the same one I used to make this card). To make the plate, I used circle dies. Some patterned paper and a stamped sentiment, and we done, y’all!

You’re The Zest

While perusing Pinterest the other day, I saw a similar card and thought I would recreate it using what I happen to have on hand.

The orange stamp is from a Stampin’ Up! set from way back. You’ll see most of the set in a card further down in this post. I stamped it in a warm gray color but stamped it once in black and colored that in with Copic markers. I used a blue marker to color in the negative space. There’s no gradation in that blue background. It’s just the weird lighting!

I made a sentiment on Canva and printed it out onto cardstock.

Breakfast

This card features another Sunny Studio stamp set that I used to make this card as well. It comes with lots of fun sentiments that can be mixed and matched, but because of the size of this slimline card, I made my own sentiment on Canva and printed it out onto cardstock.

The foods are stamped in black, colored in with Copics, and fussy cut out. I mounted them onto patterned paper and mounted the sentiment above.

And whoever I give this to better believe that sentiment….if I say this to you, I freakin’ love you cuz I love me some breakfast foods!

Fruits

Here’s that old Stampin’ Up! fruit stamp set I mentioned above. There are a couple more stamps in that set than what you see in this card, but these are the big ones!

Just stamped in black, colored with Copics, and filled in the negative space with Copics as well. I did some very subtle shading around the outside edge of each fruit. But it’s still blue on blue. Loving this…I mean, it almost looks like it’s just patterned paper and it came this way!

The scripture is printed out using Canva.

Cookie Sheet

I think this one is my favorite because I had fun making the cookie sheet. I tried to make it look like my cookie sheets….kinda hammered and discolored. But I don’t know that the look translates well on camera.

I cut out some metallic paper and made a score line near the top edge to simulate the slanted edge of a cookie sheet. Using a mini hole punch, I made the hole (I’ve never used that hole on a cookie sheet IRL!). Using brown, rust, and golden stamp pads and sponge daubers I tried to layer some color to give the look of age to the paper.

Now, I don’t have any suitable sized gingerbread men or cookie stamps so I bought some digital stamps on Etsy. I bought a couple of sets….this one and this one. Digital stamps are kind of fun because they can be resized or tweaked before you print them out. I colored them and fussy cut them out and then glued them to the cookie sheet.

Leftover cookies got glued to the, yes, Canva-made sentiment. All items then were adhered to patterned paper on the card front.

You can kind of see the “aging” coloring on the edges in this pic. My cookie sheets are way more, um, aged than this one.

So. The Food and/or Drink Challenge entries are done! What is your favorite one? And if you can’t answer that….what’s your favorite food and/or drink? 😉

Y’all take care!

“Christmas” Challenge

November 24, 2020 Challenge Cards, Handcrafted Cards, Holiday Cards

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge entries for the “Christmas” theme

Well, hi!

Another Wednesday happens, another Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge! Y’all I don’t know what I’m gonna do once the holidays are over because making Christmas cards is my literal favorite. And the challenges have been lining up pretty well with that lately!

But enough about the holiday obsession, let’s get on with this challenge’s entries, shall we?

Popcorn Strings

I used a popcorn stamp, stamped it with white pigment ink, and also used white embossing powder. Then I used what I think is probably a blueberry stamp for the cranberry! I added some shading around the edges.

The sentiment is an old Printworks (now defunct) stamp. I trimmed the cut-out sentiment with metallic red tape. The whole thing is mounted onto kraft cardstock.

Winter Stencil

Recently I purchased this Carta Bella Winter stencil and have been itching to use it. Initially I figured I would use red, green, or blue ink onto white cardstock but at the last second I opted for white pigment ink on red cardstock. Oh what fun!! I love it. And it kind of has a pinkish hue.

On top of that background I mounted three layers of a Merry Christmas Wreath die cut from Sissix. I have to admit that it looks better in person; looks a little busy in the photo.

Christmas Bell

When I saw this stamp set in action I was amazed at how realistic the bell stamps! I mean, it totally looks metallic! This is due to stamp layering. This bell is stamped using three layering stamps and three ink colors. The results are so much fun!

This is a simple card; I really wanted the bell to be the focus. All the images you see are from this stamp set by Sunny Studios.

Forest Snowman

This card features another stencil that I recently acquired, but this one is from Crafters Workshop. I’ve been in search of an inexpensive Aspen tree stencil or stamp or die to use. I see so many amazing cards that have these beautiful trees and I just wanted to make that look a reality in my cards.

So I used a pink, a purple, and a blue ink pad along with these amazing blending brushes to create a lovely winter sky behind the trees. Then I stamped this Stampin’ Up! snowman (from 1997, y’all!), colored him with Copic markers, and fussy cut him out. He’s mounted just in front of the trees, which I also die cut using a Waffle Flower stitched rectangle die.

The sentiment was made using my computer!

Christmas Beach

Can I go here for Christmas? I mean, we don’t get white Christmases here anyway so I might as well just go to a tropical island right?

Okay, well, anyway….this is my favorite of my Christmas Challenge entries. The water and Hello! stamps are from a Hero Arts stamp set (the water is made using three layering stamps in three different colors) and the palm trees are from some random stamp I bought many moons ago.

I used a white pen to add the foam to the water and sand. The sky was made using ink blending. The Christmas lights? Well, those took a little more thinking. There are no string lights in my stamp collection, sadly. So I drew a string line between the palm trees with a black felt tip pen and used a super fine brush to apply little dabs of acrylic craft paint for the bulbs.

Gosh, I love a good tropical Christmas scene!

Here’s a close up of the sea foam:

So, there they are…all my Christmas Challenge entries! I hope that one of these will win the random drawing or the a designer spotlight! Did I tell you that I won one of the random drawings the other day? Yep. And I love me some free merch!

Y’all take care!

“Thinking of You” Challenge

November 10, 2020 Challenge Cards, Handcrafted Cards

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge last week is the theme of Thinking of You.

Well, hi!

Here’s a new batch of challenge cards from the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge blog. The theme from the most recent posting is “Thinking of You.”

I don’t have a ton of stamps that imply that sentiment. In fact, I believe you are seeing all of them in the image above. The one on the truck is printed from my computer.

All of this challenge’s cards are pretty simple, and that was by design. I wanted to focus more on the sentiment so I kept everything else pretty clean.

I’ll list a close up image of each of the cards below, going from least to most favorite.

Thinking of You at Christmas

Using a greenery stamp from Sunny Studio and an ornament stamp from Stampin’ Up!, I created a simple layout. However, there was so much white space that seemed very empty. So I used an ink blending tool to create shading around the edges of the card. The sentiment stamp is also from Stampin’ Up!

Fall Tree

Four stamps make up this design and are all from the same Stampin’ Up! set (I have lots of Stampin’ Up! as I used to be a demonstrator). Patterned paper and metallic tape complete the design.

Fall Tree with Baker’s Twine

Same tree, stamped with darker leaves. And I added more patterned paper behind. The very simple design is completed with brown and white baker’s twine.

Pick Up Truck

This stamp comes from an inexpensive stamp set I bought on Amazon. It comes with various items that can go in the back. I figured the class blue truck with pumpkins would look nice. I used ink blending to create a ground of grass, and also added light blue shading for a hint of sky.

As stated previously, I printed this sentiment from my computer.

Watercolor Flowers

Another Stampin’ Up! stamp set and the sentiment is from them as well (although from a different set). I stamped the flowers using Memento Tuxedo Black ink onto watercolor paper. I then used a very loose watercolor technique to color in the flowers and leaves.

This is my favorite of all the cards because the technique itself is so liberating. I love painting outside the lines and allowing the paintbrush to go…just….wherever. It’s a thoroughly enjoyable process for me!

Okay, there you go! A few more cards to add to my collection, ready to be sent to a friend or loved one who needs a little boost!

Make sure you check out my other challenge cards. I try to post entries twice a week on the blog, so keep checking back.

Y’all take care!

Holiday Ice Skates Card

November 5, 2020 Handcrafted Cards, Holiday Cards

Lovely ice skates bordered by snowy greenery for a beautiful holiday card!

My favorite cards to make are holiday cards, specifically Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. But my all-time favorite is Christmas. I’ve loved Christmas since I was a small child! Creating a whole mood with a Christmas card is just so satisfying!

When I thought up the design for this card, I got so excited to make it! I’m not an ice skater, but I love ice skating. In fact, one of my very favorite Christmas movies, The Bishop’s Wife, features an ice skating scene that I just adore! (I just tried to find a link to that scene, but no luck…sorry.)

Anyway, I love the look of ice skates hanging with greenery. So cozy and vintage feeling. So I was very excited to shoot a video featuring that on this card. Other than the tiny laces and berries, everything went together very quickly.

Another beautiful look for this card would be to switch the card base to kraft paper and the ice skates to white cardstock. That would be beautiful and the snowy splatter would show up even more. Hmmm….I think I have something to go do right now.

Enjoy the video, and please leave me a comment and let me know your favorite Christmas movie!

Check out some of my other Christmas cards here and here.

Y’all take care!

“Have A Sweet Day” Slider Card

November 2, 2020 Handcrafted Cards

This interactive “Have a Sweet Day” Slider Card is an easy way to add a fun element to an already cute card.

Well, hi!

Welcome to my second interactive card video posted to the blog! Interestingly enough, my first interactive card video uses stamps from the same company! You can view that card video here.

I finally got my hands on the Lawn Fawn slider dies! I definitely will be using the curvy one in the future. But for now, I just used the straight die which works perfectly for this cute donut truck.

Lawn Fawn has many interactive dies from simple to complex in nature. These are the simplest and can be used with a variety of images. I chose to use an adorable food truck.

The Cruisin’ Cuisine stamp set (and coordinating die set) has been burning a hole in my stamp supplies just waiting to be used for a cute card! Remembering that I have a good friend who is a donut fanatic, I thought a donut truck card would be fitting.

I first found this stamp set through Sandy Allnock, who is an artist and paper crafter on YouTube. Amazing videos! Go check her out! Her truck is an ice cream truck and she hand draws her background with Copic markers. I opted for an easier route and used stencils, but I love how that turned out!

Watch the video to see the whole card come together, as well as find out how I covered up a mistake! I tend to make those a lot. 😉

Sunny Studios has a ton of cute stamps. You can see the blog post of the other card I made using their stamps here.

Thanks for stopping by! Leave a comment and let me know what your favorite type of food truck is.

Y’all take care!

Winter Camper Slimline Card

October 26, 2020 Handcrafted Cards, Holiday Cards

This Winter Camper Slimline Card will make you a happy camper!

Well, hi!

I’ve only recently begun experimenting with slimline cards. If you don’t know what slimline cards are, they are simply cards that will fit into a legal size envelope. That’s the basic shape.

You can make them horizontal/landscape orientation, like the one above. Or you can make a really tall card by orienting it vertically/portrait.

One of the things I love about slimline cards is the freedom it can give you! I have alphabet dies, for example, that I love but I can only fit four letters across a landscape A2 sized card. With a slimline card, I have a lot more word options.

With my Winter Camper Slimline Card, I had the space to make a nice, wide scene. No crowding the images! Had I done an A2 sized card, I likely would have left out the snowman entirely. I really wanted space in this snow scene.

My experiment with making glowing Christmas lights worked out pretty well, I think. They look glow-y to me anyway!

Although I could stand to do more in the way of shadow and light, I’m learning! And the practicing has been really fun. You can see some earlier examples of me working on night skies here and here.

So check out the whole video below! I hope you enjoy it!

Y’all take care!

Matching Card & Envelope Challenge

October 21, 2020 Challenge Cards, Handcrafted Cards

My examples for the Simon Says Stamp Matching Card & Envelope Challenge

Well, hi!

Simon Says Stamp runs two weekly challenges. One is on Monday. The other on Wednesday. I’m going to try to make examples for those and post them here on the blog. You can link up to five entries for each challenge, and I think that’s a great way to get creative and have some fun! Plus, winning a $25 gift card is a pretty sweet incentive.

Last Wednesday’s challenge was to make cards with matching envelopes! Since I needed to add some inventory to my Etsy shop anyway, I figured this fit my needs pretty well!

My recent post on the We Go Together Wheel Card qualifies for the challenge as well. You can go read about it here. Shoot, I guess that makes six cards! Someone is gonna get left out! Oh well.

All these cards, minus the We Go Together card and the Bunny Love card, are currently in my Etsy shop!

Bunny Love

The first card to show you is a simple one that uses some…well…some cheap stamps I found on Amazon (see note below). The bunnies are a cute little grouping and I love doing simple shading above and below just to give a hint of a scene. A coordinating bunny stamped on the envelope flap completes the challenge! The inside sentiment says, “Somebunny loves you.”

(Side note: I don’t recommend the off-brand photopolymer stamps and dies on Amazon because they are not great quality. It was an experiment purchasing a few sets…an experiment I won’t repeat. I can use these stamps, but they have ZERO stick, so they won’t stick on their own to a block or stamp tool. The dies are not super accurate either.)

Typewriter Hi

The second card to share with you is this simple but very clean Typewriter “Hi” card. I worried when coloring this image that it would be boring, but I have to say that I love the open white space around the typewriter. And the way the black cardstock behind it sets it off against the patterned letter paper. The stamps are from Stampin’ Up!…all from the same set.

It makes a nice, clean lines card.

Floral Quote

Next I’ll share this more inspirational card. One of my sisters recently requested that I stock my Etsy shop with some cards she could send people at church. So I thought I’d take a spin in that direction.

To make this encouragement quote card, I used a very intricate die from Tim Holtz. It was a bit time-consuming to punch out all the negative space, and a challenge to glue down. But I really like the effect of the white on blue cardstock. I die cut some leaves and used sponge daubers to add some shading with a dark green ink pad. The quote is just printed onto cardstock from my computer.

I used the green cardstock that I die cut the leaves from as a stencil for making the coordinating envelope back. I used the sponge dauber and that same dark green ink pad to lightly swirl over the stencil.

I’m looking forward to making more of these, incorporating quotes from spiritual leaders as well as scriptures.

Santa and Reindeer

I saved my favorite two for last. I love the bright sky behind this Santa and reindeer card. I’ve really been enjoying using my alcohol markers to work with blending color. While I’m still learning, I find that each time I work with the markers, I’m willing to be a little more daring and use more and more contrast. I just signed up to take the Copic Jumpstart class from Sandy Allnock’s Art Classes site, and can’t wait to level up my skills with all her amazing classes!

The stamps for this card are from Stampin’ Up!.

Polar Night

Night scenes seem to have become a favorite for me with my markers. This night time polar bear scene was fun to create. When I look at it, I totally get the cold, snowy mood going! Simple masking for the bear helped created some depth in the scene. And using a white gel pen for snow in the air and on the trees really makes the whole thing pop!

The Matching Card and Envelope Challenge was fun to do and helped me get some inventory into my shop!

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you got some card inspiration. I’d love to hear your comments on your own favorite ways to coordinate your envelopes with your cards! Or maybe you can do your own Matching Card & Envelope Challenge.

Y’all take care!

We Go Together Wheel Card

October 15, 2020 Handcrafted Cards

We Go Together Wheel Card….a DIY interactive

Having just recently gotten back into the card game, I find myself without very many dies. Building my library slowly, sure (too slow if you ask me…too fast if you ask my husband), but I find myself with not a lot of options for interactive cards.

And that’s why I love it when card makers share their DIY ideas. So I’m sharing one of my DIY ideas here–a way to make an interactive card with no fancy dies. I mean I do use a die for the circle but technically you could just trace one and cut it out by hand!

This is a pretty easy card to work on, but I’d suggest making a couple out of your scrap cardstock…just to test the mechanism and placement of elements.

If you watch the video below, you’ll get to see how I made it. Bonus, you’ll also get to see a cool trick on dividing a paper circle into thirds! I was so psyched when I learned this. Super easy!

Enjoy!