AerynK : 2/1/22

25 February, 2022

Stamping: Hamster Frolic in a Bottle w/ Marianne Design and Mama Elephant

I'm always happy when a situation like this happens, because when I got this bottle stencil and I started brainstorming I ended up with two distinct ideas. Stencils like this make that kind of easy to do though, and I ended up filming the whole process on livestream, so you can see all the info about what we did in the stream below.

I really enjoy having a large collection of stamps, and options, and the versatility of my supplies, but I like it best when I'm able to use new things right away because usually when I purchase things it's because I have an idea and may or may not execute it.

23 February, 2022

Die Cuts: Cup of Love w/ Lawn Fawn and C.C. Designs

I'd been staring at this little cup from Lawn Fawn for a long time, at least a year, when I started checking out shaped dies in the first place. I was able to hold off for a while, but after the winter holidays it was like "why don't you have this?" over and over and so I used my amazon points to pick it up finally. Sadly it took 20 days to even get here, but in that time I also purchased the little skunks set from C.C. Designs, a company I've loved for years.

When the packages arrived at the same time, surprising me since the cup didn't have tracking, I knew I had to combine them in some way. The skunk set is SO cute, and just perfect for all those lovey and sweet projects. I also want to experiment with one of them jumping into the cup, perhaps "swimming" in it, but for now, we have just the first cup of love and little pink skunk. I combined some marshmallows and heart dies to make a very shallow shaker cards with a few layers of the cup out of cardstock only. It shakes, but not a lot.

22 February, 2022

Die Cuts: Winter Yeti House w/ Lawn Fawn and Clearly Besotted

I was originally inspired to use this birdhouse die by Lawn Fawn with the squirrels from a few projects on Pinterest, but as I was looking at my supplies I kept getting ideas for tweaks and changes that I'd make on my own project. I wanted a blue theme and roof, but I wanted textured snow and wood for the house. I ended up using a 3D embossing folder from Tim Holtz after I sprayed the house with a few Distress Stains and then I used Grit Paste for the snow texture. I found my grit paste is getting a bit dried out, so I'll have to come up with some ideas to use it while it's still good.

For the animals I went with some grey two-toned Lawn Fawn squirrels which were very fun to work with, but then I also included some yetis from Clearly Besotted. It is technically an xmas set; something I've been trying to avoid is overly themed sets, but I ended up deciding they were versatile enough for just "winter" theme as well so I picked them up when they were on sale. I wanted to try out a patterned scarf, after my success with the pattern on the bunnies in the previous project, so I went with a striped scarf similar to those I've seen in my game Cozy Grove.

Once I put the house together I wanted it to have a base of some sort so the squirrels outside would have some stability, so I die cut a scalloped circle and made the house a stick to hold it up.

20 February, 2022

Stamping: Winter in a Bottle w/ Colorado Craft Company and Marianne Design

Originally I'd had a different idea for this project, which I mention because I think it shows the versatility of this type of craft supply. I'm going to make the original project on a stream, but once I started stamping everything out this idea came to me and I had to do it first out of excitement.

The moment I saw the new release from Colorado Craft Company, I knew I had to make my first purchase from them. I've seen so many of their cute stamps, but so far I'd been able to resist. This line? With the tiny homes and the mice? Oh my god. I was supposed to be "being good" this month after a bunch of computer and car issues, but I couldn't let this pass by.

The mushroom house really stood out to me as a winter application. Originally I was just going to do two versions of the other home, but the mushroom just seemed so cosy I wanted to decorate it with snow. I searched through my winter stamp binder and collected various pine trees and things that might help add life to the scene. Then I spied the two bunnies and I knew they were perfect. I coloured their outfits similar to the clothing I was wearing; it was a definite challenge to do plaid on such a small scale.

This stencil from Marianne Design was incredibly easy to use. I'm not sure if I prefer using paper piecing for the background vs colouring a scene on Copic paper, but the beauty of these kind of things is that I can try it again and see which option I prefer. I will say I'm very disappointed in the Nuvo drops white that I used for the snow on this. It bled, and it clumped, and it was difficult to use. I have only one bottle, and I'll definitely not be buying others.

18 February, 2022

Die Cuts: Seagull Adventurers w/ Marianne Design

This took me, possibly, too long to finish, but I am happy with how it came out. The stencil for the boat from Marianne Design turned out to be a bit more complicated than I expected. The two tiny triangle in the back are difficult to sort out. I tried tracing and cutting as usual, but it was sooo tiny. So instead I decided to make separate layers for "front" and "back" of the boat as if it were a 3D object.

When I decided on the seagulls, which I honestly thought were puffins before I bought the set, I was a little unsure that I was making them properly. Not because they were hard to put together, but I felt that somehow my seagulls were not as cute as I saw in the examples. That being said, once it was all together I think they're perfectly cute enough.

I went to find a blue paper to make sky for my boat to have a backdrop and I found this paper on the other side. It looked like a sunset! I didn't want to make it circular as I'd originally planned since the paper was so pretty, so perhaps the square of paper is a little awkward with the boat coming off it, but I just liked that paper too much.

16 February, 2022

Die Cuts: Winnie the Pooh and Friends w/ Dutch Doobadoo and Eline's Animals

Nearly the moment that I finished an order from Buddly Crafts for the winter bears from Eline's Collectibles I started to see on Pinterest little bees! The wonderful thing about having Pinterest find related images is you'll discover things you weren't aware of, or NEW things that you're not keeping up with. I hate sales emails from places so I rarely sign up. I follow a few stamp companies in Instagram so I can keep up with new releases, but this isn't common for me to be "in the know". So I was surprised to actually hear about/see the bees even before they were released to the public.

Thankfully my instinct was to buy them as soon as they came out, so I set up an email alert. This release is super popular and I can see why. These bees are adorable! And how obvious is it to pair them with the bear dies? The project previews also gave me even more ideas for the Dutch Doobadoo honey jar I'd already wanted. I was hoping to use it as a fishbowl, but this works too!

To colour all the little creatures on this project I used my Tim Holtz Distress Inks before die cutting. I also used one of my Tim Holtz stencils to add a little honey comb motif to the distressed yellow paper that I found. Since this is a Dutch Doobadoo stencil it's a little too big for my stash of 6x6 paper. I also messed up the ribbon pattern on this stencil and decided I'd use some twine too, but in omitting that ribbon I had some weird looking gaps in the blue fabric section. To fill that I thought I'd delve into my paper flower collection as it's been patiently waiting for many years now for me to make something.

I really like how this came out, though I admit since it's just die cuts not even any Copic coloured stamps, it feels more plain to me than the previous few projects I've made lately. I'm still finding my true style with these projects.

15 February, 2022

Stamping: Spring Solstice Bunny w/ Lawn Fawn and Eline's Animals

My project is a little early for the season, but I couldn't resist colouring up all these cute stamps once I'd planned out the layout and set up the project pack for myself.

I'd first started when the Marianne Design circle die arrived from HSN. I wasn't sure what I'd make, but I needed to play with it right away and chose rainbow papers because I love rainbows and pride. Once I started to put the pieces together, and was given the inspiration that the Eline's Animals bunny looked like a chocolate bunny, things just clicked in my head and I got to stamping.

I have a large collection of egg and spring stamps because last year there was a little funny meme on my channel related to a game we'd played. Everyone was very excited about eggs. So I purchased related stamps from Lawn Fawn when I found them. I didn't get a chance to use them right away, but having so many sets meant it was easy to go through my collection (under the "food" category), and pick out any images I thought would work for such a spring themed project.

It took about an hour of stamping and laying things out, and then over a few days I coloured up the images with my Copics and glued them down in the locations I'd planned. I always take a picture of my designs during the planning stage for my own reference. Whether I stick to it or not, it's good for me to look back on and remind myself.

I hope that you enjoy this project and it inspired you to make spring solstice projects of your own!

13 February, 2022

Stamping: You're Too Sweet, Valentine's Inspired Card

At the end of 2021, first suggested to me randomly while scrolling Pinterest, I became obsessed with Eline's Animals by the company Marianne Design. I've slowly been getting into shaped dies, instead of just relying on my Cameo (which always refuses to cut correctly for me, because I didn't learn it well enough), and adorable animals is really a gateway for me into *any* new thing. I first saw cats, and the store I found was having a sale as they didn't have many of the cat sets left. Sales and rarity is guaranteed to make me buy, so I picked some up as well as a few other sets that I thought my community would like to see me create with and receive as gifts.

From there it's been me trolling for new ideas and designs. Including this interesting 6x6 circle die with the cut out windows in it, as well as the bunny. I don't have solid colour cardstock in my inventory so I decided to use my Distress Oxide inks to colour the bunny and add some splashes. A friend of mine said he looked like a chocolate bunny for easter and that suddenly inspired me. I had cut out two of these circle frames when the die arrived, just to put it together, no project in mind, and with that chocolate bunny inspiration I had the perfect idea of this bunny.

I paired him with a ton of sweet-themed stamped images from my favourite companies including Mama Elephant, Lawn Fawn, and The Greeting Farm. I store my stamps by theme, so it was very easy for me to navigate to my "food" category and just find any stamp that I thought might work for this project. This is why I prefer my storage method as if I had to take out all of these sets individually to find the images it'd be at least 5 separate sets in different locations.

I don't celebrate Valentine's, but if you do, I hope you have a wonderful holiday full of sweetness!

07 February, 2022

Stamping: Lunar New Year Pho Shop w/ Mama Elephant and Lawn Fawn

I'm actually really proud of this one, to be honest. It came out just like I imagined. I got kind of addicted to little shape dies last year, and have been slowly picking some up on sale, or on amazon with my reward points, or just whenever I see one I can't resist. The little birdhouse has so many applications, and doesn't always have to be a birdhouse.

For this project I stamped out images from three separate Mama Elephant stamp sets, including the tiger/cat, the noodle set, and a steamed bun set. I thought it was really interesting because as I was doing this I was watching Tim Holtz's live video and he was saying "it's one of those things where if you like it, you gotta get it, because it's gonna come around where it's relevant again" and it hit me that I've had this steamed bun set for years and not used it. I needed it so badly, was so excited, but I didn't have a project idea and/or time to make something when they came in. But it really goes to show, having the bun set in my collection was a good idea because they were the perfect finishing touch to this little scene.

I used Distress Stain sprays, Mica Sprays, and a little Distress Ink to colour the house and the stamps are coloured with copic markers and then I fussy cut them.

06 February, 2022

All 218 Of My Colouring Books!

This is my most popular video, year after year, and I hope you'll take the time to enjoy it. I take a look at all of the colouring books I have currently and even show you a little peek at my colouring book excel spreadsheet!

03 February, 2022

Stamping: Gnome Snow Globe w/ Lawn Fawn and Clearly Besotted

For my second try at a die cut snow globe I wanted to do something not holiday themed. I had these tiny gnome stamps still out on my desk and I thought I'd pair them with a background that came from a fairy set. I really liked the sunrise that I'd done on a recent colouring book page so I thought I'd repeat the look in the globe. I also decided that I wanted to colour the globe's base instead of using inks. I feel like I have more control of the overall look and Copics are just my preferred medium for everything I colour. I also used a different circle die to cut out the globe part, which I think looks better than the previous one. It's all about experimentation and finding what works for you and your style. That's one of the things I like about crafting and creating scenes like this. It's like a puzzle, fitting the pieces together, but you're making the picture up as you go along.

02 February, 2022

Stamping: Mermaid Snow Globe w/ Lawn Fawn and Clearly Besotted

During the holiday I got a rather large order from Clearly Besotted because I wanted to take advantage of their sale. This meant I ended up with a lot of holiday stamps I hadn't used as well as some generic images that looked like fun. I decided to cut out this snow globe die from Lawn Fawn that I got on Amazon and make a little holiday themed snow globe. I think it helps to keep up holiday crafting even when it's not the season. That way you get to use those things without any actual holiday pressure.

I decided for the base of the snow globe I would try to use my Distress Oxide and some splatters, give it a bit of character. It didn't end up exactly as I wanted it, but I think it was still successful. I used two stamp sets by Clearly Besotted, the one with the crabs and coral and then I layered on the coral tree behind it. I didn't feel like masking properly, so I kinda fudged it, but you can't see it. I then coloured a mermaid from another set and used her to complete the scene. The "ornaments" are sparkly with glitter gel pen.

01 February, 2022

January 2022's Completed Colouring

While I was technically on vacation I still got 4 colouring pages finished in the month of January which is pretty good considering the complexity of the image and the fact that I was very lax about colouring only when I felt like it. You can watch a video about these images here or on my youtube channel.