Thank You card with Envelope Punch Board Bow

I had no idea you could make bows and banners using the Envelope Punch Board!

Well, here they are!

The supplies and instructions for my card are at the VC Rocks Blog.
Elizabeth Kratzer

My Blended Ballerina

Stampin' Up's new alcohol markers are called Blendabilities! They blend very well!
The Ballerina digi image below is by Kristen Werner,  but all the coloring was done with SU! Blendabilities.

Using the Skin Tone Assortment and blending the colors several times really makes for a smooth face.  I used the Ivory for the base color, then darkened a few areas with Nude, then back to Ivory to blend out the line where the two met.  I also used the Blush marker to make the two circles on her cheeks. That was also blended around the outside with the Ivory.  Her lips, dress and shoes were colored with the Calypso Coral trio.

The Night of Navy Light marker was used for her eyes and the shadow.  I thought the shadow was too bright, so I added the Smoky Slate Light to darken it a little.  Well, you know I did go a little crazy with the shadow and had to "erase" the blue/slate that wanted to meet in the middle!  I am so impressed with the Color Lifter!  It was easy to erase the color, then after it dried, I grabbed my Ivory marker to recolor that area of the face.  I bet you can't even see that mistake!  (I had not allowed the Color Lifter on my other mistakes to dry before taking this photo;  those out-of the-lines color on the top of her hair and her left side top of the skirt definitely look better when dry.)

Daffodil Delight markers were used for her hair, but as you can tell my Daffodil Dark marker had no ink in it.  When I get another I will add those dark areas to the hair.

If you use the Blendabilities, let me know what you think of them in a comment below.  Have you compared them to Copic markers?  What do you think?

Elizabeth K.

Sketch Frenzy Friday, Vases Thanks

Hello, everyone!  I am now officially a member of the Sketch Frenzy Friday team!  Yay!  I look forward to creating cards from the wonderful sketches presented - like the one for today's SFF.  Thanks, Marisol Gutierrez, for the great sketch!

I immediately went to my Vivid Vases stamp set.  Using the Another Thank You photopolymer set, I did curve the sentiment as much as I could.

I stamped Vivid Vases on two different Designer Series Paper sets.  Cutting out the vases took a little bit of time, but I believe it was worth it. 

I then used my Blendabilities for the flowers and leaves.  First off, I suggest you stamp the flowers on scrap pieces of paper to practice until you are satisfied with the look before coloring on the main image.

A few notes about coloring with Blendabilities:

***When coloring small images, use only two of the marker set. It's difficult to get all three in.  I used light & dark markers, coloring it several times to get the better blended look.

***To color the navy flower, dot with the dark color and then fill in with the light color.

***I used only the light from the Old Olive Blendabilities for the leaves.  I hope that Stampin' Up! comes up with a lighter green marker set.

***For the first flower, I did "tip to tip" coloring.  First I colored in the whole flower with the Blush marker from the Skin Tone Assortment.  Then using the Blush marker, I picked up a little color from the Melon Mambo light marker.  Starting at the bottom of the flower, I flicked the color up until it blended with the Blush color.  I did this several times until I was satisfied with the look.

Close up

Inside

Supplies:

Stamps - Vivid Vases, Another Thank You, Blooming with Kindness (inside sentiment)

Ink - Memento Tuxedo Black, Lost Lagoon

Blendabilities Sets - Night of Navy, Coastal Cabana, Melon Mambo, Daffodil Delight, Old Olive, Skin Tone Assortment

Cardstock - Crushed Curry, Lost Lagoon, Whisper White

Designer Series Paper - Flowerpot, Lullaby

Accessories - Lost Lagoon ribbon, banner punch, Oval framelits, Jewels Basic Pearls 

How about you taking on the challenge to make a card from this week's Sketch Frenzy Friday? 

If you need to see more ways on how to use this sketch, check out the rest of the design team's cards at Sketch Frenzy Friday Blog.  You can also add a link at the bottom to your post about your card.

Have a blessed day,

Elizabeth K.

Sketch Frenzy Friday 9/5/14 Wishing You Happiness

Hello, everyone!  I hope your day is a good one!
I have enjoyed seeing all the cards created by friends using the sketch from the Sketch Frenzy Friday blog.  So I am hoping to be invited to be on the design team! 
What I like about the sketches is that it's not just one person's ideas, but everyone on the design team gets a few turns to put up their own sketches.  So there's lots of variety.  Seeing the cards the team comes up with is inspiring because of the variety on the one sketch that is posted every Friday.

The past Sketch Frenzy Friday's sketch was created by Patrice Herrera.  (Thanks, virtual roomie!)  It's basically for a clean & simple card, but my card probably doesn't fall into that category!

 Here's my card based on the sketch:

I am not sure if you can see all the shininess, because it's a cloudy day for my picture taking.  I used Stampin' Up's Brushed Silver Cardstock, Silver Foil Sheets, Silver Fancy Foil Designer Vellum and 1/8" Silver Ribbon.  These items really made the wedding card look elegant!

And the inside:

 A couple of things to note about this card:  I used the circle vellum instead of the hearts because it's easier to tape down behind the bigger circles.  The cross was embossed with white embossing powder, very carefully sponged with Smoky Slate ink, then ink was wiped off of the embossed image.
Here's a close up of the cross:

I believe my customer will be very satisfied with this card!
I'm adding a link of this post to the Sketch Frenzy Friday page using the InLinkz at the bottom of the post.  Won't you join me?  Challenge yourself to make a Clean & Simple card based on the sketch or see how many embellishments you can add to the sketch!

All Stampin' Up! Supplies:
Stamps - Blessed By God
Cardstock - Whisper White, Brushed Silver, Silver Foil Sheets & Silver Fancy Foil Designer Vellum
Ink - Smoky Slate, VersaMark
Accessories - 1/8" Silver Ribbon, 1/2" and 3/4" circle punches, White Stampin' Emboss Powder, Stampin' dimensionals & glue dots

Have a blessed day!
Elizabeth K.

VC Rocks Blog Hop

Hello, everyone!  I love these blog hops because there are so many talented ladies in the VC Rocks group.  For this hop we are "rocking our creativity" through colors!  I chose the two complimentary colors of blue and orange. Complimentary means they are straight across from each other on the color wheel. 

I chose Tangerine Tango and Island Indigo.  This card is a CASE, of course, and is a sketch I love to use when trying to use up my scraps. 

Supplies used are:

Starburst Sayings stamp set

Island Indigo and whisper white cardstock

Tangerine Tango ink

Designer papers (ret) from my scrap pile ( I did figure out the dimensions but forgot them & the card at home. I will post them on Mon)

Starburst framelits

White baker's twine

Retired brads

If you love Stampin' Up! products and would like to spend summer months  doing fun activities, join our VC Rocks yahoo group. We also have a blog that you can find great ideas and the rest of the blog hop entries:  vcrocks.blogspot.com 

Elizabeth Kratzer

Graduation Cards

 Here are my 2014 Graduation cards:

Inks used are Garden Green and Smoky Slate. The base of the card is Smoky Slate cardstock.  

I used the Basic Gray from retired Neutrals DSP and the Garden Green from the retiring Regals DSP.  The sentiment is from the retired Word Play stamp set.  I love to use this sentiment for grad cards.

Stars were punched from the previous silver glimmer paper.

 I used the Operation Write Home Sketch 225 as inspiration.

Not being excited by the rounded corners on the card, for my next card I didn't round the corners.

I like this one much better.

On this card I used Whisper White, Rich Razzleberry, and Gold cardstock.  Patterned paper is from the retired Brights DSP pack.  The stars are punched from Champagne glimmer paper.

Rich Razzleberry Blendabilities

Hello! It's been more than a year since I posted, and 

today I want to share the Mother's Day card I made for my mom. 

The stamp I used is a new single one called Blended Bloom, and it's perfect for using Stampin' Up's Blendabilities.  I am so excited about the new alcohol markers because I have Copic Ciao Markers and feel very intimidated when I put the markers to paper.  But with SU's new Blendabilities Markers, I feel confident!  Blendabilities come 3 to a package - light, medium, dark - and you can purchase 12 different color packs.  The Skin Tone Assortment has 6 markers and there's also a Color Lifter.  What's great is that the markers are the SU! colors, so everything matches!

I used the Rich Razzleberry and Pumpkin Pie assortments to color the bloom.

If you are new to alcohol marker blending, I suggest you do what I did.  I found this card created by Kathryn Kunchik at Stampin' With Passion.  She does have a video on her site posted a couple of days later.  I enlarged the photo to see where she put the darker and medium colors.  Then I colored each petal like she did!  (Yes, I did; you can laugh if you want.)  Now that's really CASEing! 

I wanted to use the new yummy in color Blackberry Bliss, so I used the cardstock for matting and the strip on the button.  The happy mother's day sentiment is from Teeny Tiny Wishes stamp set.

If you are interested in purchasing anything from my website, go to Elizabeth's Stamp Room.

Have a great day!

EK