The love affair with Beautiful You continues for me

I'm still trying to work out how I have so many birthdays in the next 10 days. I'm not sure what was going on in NZ many years ago about 9 months ago but I know it's mid-winter, so maybe I should say no more. I'll blame the stars as Arians get on really well with Aquarians! But enough digressing this is a card making blog!!!

Below is a quick collage of the cards I've created using up retired DSP from SU! which is just lying in a drawer. I think the DSP umbrellas are just too adorable and of course the beautiful girl stamp.

The DSP I used came in packs, so after I had die-cut out a mat there was more than enough to stamp the umbrella again & then fussy cut it out. I have used my Zig Real Color water brushes to colour the girl up.

I had bought myself a pad of Strathmore Bristol smooth surface card stock as quite a few bloggers had commented that this was their favourite paper for using with the Zig brushes. I'm not sure how you all colour with the Zig brushes but normally I lay down a bit of colour & then use my aquapainter to blend - whoa that don't work on this paper, as it seemed to be impervious to water & I had big puddles sitting on top which were  all mopped up real fast with one of my dry baby wipes that I have handy. Saying that once I knew I couldn't use water the markers blend well with each other  & also with the clear Wink of Stella brush. The end result is a much more vibrant look than my norm with the Zigs and water.

I used my Misti & a scrap of paper to work out the placement of the girl & words as the stamp set is a rubber stamp set. Once I was happy I stamped up 8 images real fast. I used Versafine black ink & then clear embossed as my original plan was to use water for blending.

Once I had my stamped image I used the 2nd largest stitched rectangle die to cut out the girl & saying. I used the largest stitched rectangle die for the DSP.

My favourite umbrella is the wee butterfly one, I decided the paper which is adorable was too dark which is why I made a mat out of Calypso Coral.

I only have the 36 set of the Zig real colour brushes so I chose colours I thought worked best with the DSP, it's not a perfect match but they are so easy to colour with making mass production a breeze.

Here's the cards all by themselves to see them a wee bit better.

My favourite umbrella, the small butterfly image is just perfect!

Who would ever think that this DSP which I have always gulped at before would look so lovely as a mat & also on the umbrella.

There's 3 delightful girl images in this set, so looking forward to creating some cards with the 2 other girl images real soon.

Recipe:
Stamp set: Beautiful You (SU!)
Ink: Versafine Black
Paper: Bristol Smooth (Strathmore), Fresh Prints (SU!), Pretty Petals (SU!), White (SSS), Calypso Coral (SU!)
ZIG brushes: Pale pink, light carmine, carmine red, mid green, olive green, persian blue, blue, flesh colour, oatmeal, blue gray
Other: Clear embossing powder, clear Wink of Stella brush, dimensionals, stitched rectangle dies (SSS)

I've used SSS white card stock which is a lovely heavy weight card & is sized appropriately for the rectangle dies. It doesn't matter who's die you use they all "American-sized" as that is the biggest market & yes I could cut my A4 card stock into 11" long by 4-¼" wide but it's easier to just take a piece of 11" x 8-½" card stock & chop in half. Even when making mats without a die it's easier to work in inches in my opinion but that maybe my age showing.

So happy birthday Debbie, Donna, Faye, Sally, Jo & Tracey I hope you all had a very lovely day when it was your day.


Karen ✿