Paper Art

JANUARY *CCC *Christmas Card Challenge & Goal Report

Erika L Hayes5 Comments

Well, as the end of January makes its way toward us, I wanted to share the first 10 of the 120 Christmas Cards for 2023. I put the main product used for each card in the caption. If you see something and want to know what it is, just shoot me an email and I can most likely give you the product name or where I picked it up. I keep pretty good notes in my Color My Life App.

  • JAN 2023 – MFT Stamps
  • JAN 23 – Simon Says Stamps
  • JAN 2023 – Stampin’ Up!
  • JAN 2023 Simon Says Stamps
  • 2023 – My Favorite Things Stamps
  • JAN 2023 Cathy Z with Simon Says Stamps
  • 2023 – Pink & Main
  • JAN 2023 – Spellbinders
  • JAN 2023 – Stampin’ Up!
  • JAN 2023 – CC Designs with Silhouette Cameo 4

I hope that you find some kind of inspiration from these cards, and know I am excited to show what’s in the mix for February. It’s kinda fun to know you can get out your Christmas goodies and play all year long. I have a lot of great ideas and am really excited to use some of the products I got this year more than just for a month!

Some other fun cards that went out this month include some birthday and and a few anniversaries. Of course some of my encouragement cards are going out tomorrow or the next day.

I completed a class from Sandy Allnock. The pen & ink class I started and didn’t finish is now done! Upcoming classes I am signed up for include, The Altenew/Spellbinders class in February and in March the Concord & 9th class. I am very excited for both of these classes. I have also several classes I have in the wings.

Some of the stuff I learned in Sandy’s class was amazing. I don’t want to share the techniques as it wouldn’t be fair to give away her content. I can tell you she has a way of teaching that is fun. You don’t really feel like you can do it wrong, or that you aren’t good enough. She really did give some great ideas and I enjoyed the class a lot! If you are interested, you can follow this link to the class I took. (It is NOT an affiliate link, I get nothing for sharing this class). As of the timing of this post, the class is at a discounted price so….check it out!

Feburary has some fun stuff I’ve made for Valentine’s day I will not share just yet.

When your BFF is a cardist too!

Erika L Hayes1 Comment

It’s been a hot minute! I am working on some fun ideas but realized it’s been a while since I’ve posted to my blog.

My best friend is a cardist too! Which is amazing! We get to go to classes together and create together and that is really the best thing having that one person that GETS IT. We often text back and forth our completed or what I call mayday (those that are crashing and burning and need someone to help) cards because it’s nice to share with the person that gets it. She also gets all the other BFF stuff too! She is really one of my biggest supporters and encourager! I love her!

Anyway, when Christmas or Birthdays come around, it’s tough. I make her so many cards. However, once complete, I then decide they are not “Golda” worthy. I have stacks of cute cards, but I want them to be perfect for her. I also want them to be a “surprise”. I am so accustomed to sending a text with pictures of my card projects to her it kills me to make the one, then I can’t send it to her! UGH. This one was perfect for her. Simple but colorful. It fits her to a “T”. Well I waited to actually hand deliver her Christmas card this year because well, I had more fun with wax sealing my hand-delivered cards and was very happy when she finally got to see this project.

It is my Christmas blessing to be able to share my love of card making with her and know not only does she like getting my cards, but she really GETS them!

Here is a peek at the wax sealing of my hand-delivered cards. I got my monogram seal here and here is a great starter kit for wax sealing

Image gallery image

Merry Christmas and Happy Holiday to you all.

e

Color Play and a Happy Hello!

Erika L Hayes1 Comment

with an Ode to Sarah Renae Clark

To begin, with a “hello”! Today I am exploring some color fun with My Favorite Things & Sarah Renae Clark. (Seriously, I don’t work for MTF, I just love the product and the business practices of this company!) Now, I want to share with you about a product.

It is important to me that you know, it is a product I purchased, and I do not gain anything from sharing about it but the knowledge that I have passed on 1. a great product to like-minded peeps, 2. supported an artist! 3. a bit of fun

I am drawn to bright colors in pure forms (ROYGBIV) under many circumstances. I do, however, love all colors and recently I noticed my cards had been drawn to pure colors again and I stopped adventuring a bit into other color tones. I do love me some pastels, but they are not a go-to. Have you ever been like that? Well, with the release of the “color cube”(more on that in a minute) I was reminded to play more in the colors tones I love but aren’t my go-to colors. It’s a great way to get your mojo in a good mood. It’s all play. Play is important to creators. Mojo needs new ideas and new play often. Sometimes I forget about all the resources I have.

What is a color cube you speak of? First let me tell you about The Color Catalog. There is an artist I follow mostly because she is as silly about color as I am. I just love her. She is an Aussie and one day I really hope we meet for a coloring jam. She is remarkable and I recommend if you would like to learn a lot follow her on YouTube HERE.

She spent thousands of hours I am sure, creating a tool for people that like to color (adult coloring books and cards and what I would call fine artists) called the Color Catalog. When I purchased this product, it was for the color palettes as much as the conversions to Copic and various color pencils I owned. Let me tell you if you are stuck this is a remarkable tool to get you going! She even made a keyword search so if you are not sure what colors you want but you maybe know it’s a summer color you are going for you can find a color pallet that is keen for summer. ALSO, if you know you are using a say soft pink you can search by COLOR she really put a lot of thought into this product. I like the detail I like the detail!

Picture from sarahrenaeclark.com click for more information

I did use the Color Catalog to make the card from the Tall Hello Card I made with My Favorite Things Tall Hello Die and the Stitched Blooms.

She has now created a sibling to the Color Catalog. It is called the Color Cube (Vol 1 & Vol 2) I purchased them in a pre-order and don’t have my hands on them yet. but You can return here soon to see the review of what I think is to become a staple on my desk. As of this post, there is a special pre-order price which I think is going through October. So, if you are crazy about coloring like I am check it out.

Picture from sarahrenaeclark.com – click for more information

Hopefully, you can give Sarah Renae a peek and see what great things she is up to. DO yourself a favor and follow her on YouTube she puts out EXCELLENT content for artists!

Enjoy your weekend! It is World Card Making Day tomorrow so you know I will be back with more fun soon.

Keep Creating!

Blessings e

Mask Painting

Erika L Hayes1 Comment

As I live in a desert, I obviously fell wildly in love with the My Monthly Hero August 2022 card kit. The kit came with fabulous stencils and some die cuts to use alongside.

One of the things about desert dwelling is the stunning sunsets. I was playing around with making a background to use with my stencils and after layering several sky colors on a sheet of watercolor paper, I had that little light bulb go off.

I love the stencils, but I noticed that the dies would cut a desert stack and a nice cactus. So, I cut them from some Gina K Masking paper and mixed some watercolor to create the desert scene in this card.

Use the cut-out negative edge to create the shape of the landscape and the cactus. I was worried that the watercolor would seep through and leave a blob. I am happy to report they did not. While the lines aren’t “crisp” that’s okay because watercolor rarely is “perfect lines”. I was really WOWed by how this masking tape both maintained the integrity of the masking paper but also how it came off the watercolor paper without any tears.

Start by taping off a frame on your watercolor paper. I used Canson XL paper. Once it was taped down spray water on the paper and allowed it a few moments to soften the water. Using a reference photo I added the sky and land to a horizon.

Once I paint the sky and horizon line I was able to place the negative cut masking paper and adding the first layer of color to the mountains in the image. I added the mountains with the masking paper by placing it on the paper after I had put down my sky. (Which is more than half of the cut paper.)

Following that, I added the cactus in the same manner.

I then slowly layered the colors up by drying the layers between each application.

I brushed on some watered-down glue (2:1 ratio) and sprinkled on the bronze Pearl Ex for a nice textured border.

Once I had all this done, I added the white flowers using Dr. Martin’s Bleedproof White and did a little touch-up to the shadows.

I hope you are inspired to try this fun technique.

You can use the product links which helps me out a little as it is an Affiliate Link (full disclosure).

Let me know if you have any questions.

Great News!

Erika L Hayes1 Comment

It’s been a few since my last post. I have been working on something and think I can share the news. I have been able to get my camera and now have the video editing software. I am still learning all the how-to’s, but I think you will soon see the first video up on my youtube channel! Filming starts this weekend.

I don’t want to leave my blog unloved, so I am adding this fun card I made using Honey Bee Stamps Designs – Market Card Builder.

Honey Bee Stamp Designs

Now I have plenty of cardstock something in the crafter of me must not only use but save all the scraps that I could possibly find a future use. While I was making this card, I realized a couple of things. One that it is a fantastic scrap paper user. Second that if you use a large scrap, you can get impressions from the acrylic plates (they of course have cut hundreds of dies and do like to leave behind some lines and shapes on the paper usable portion of the remaining scrap. Usually, I just toss them if they are too bad. To counter those little impressions, I took a lesson from the hot foil tricks and tips. I found after placing my die on the scrap, that cutting it around the die before running it through my machine preserved the rest of the paper for future use. All the dies in this card with the exception of the actual cart are scraps.

This tip is really effective on foiled
and specialty papers

I’m excited about what is coming to my blog and I look forward to sharing, inspiring, and educating. If you have any questions just go to my contact page and send me a note!

Blessings to you all!

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