Welcome to my blog!

Thanks for visiting my blog. As the title suggests, I love to scrapbook, stamp, and sing! I will share cards and scrapbook pages I create, as well as information about my music - Barbershop harmony.

Friday, June 12, 2020

Bubbles Twofer!

Hey everyone - TGIF!! It's another beautiful day to enjoy - hope you have one too!

I'm sharing cards I made for the current Twofer Card Challenge whose theme is Circles/Bubbles. I chose a Christmas tree for one of my cards to fit the theme at Christmas Craft Creations. Here's my Twofer:


When I saw the Twofer theme I immediately thought of a Hero Arts turtle set - was sure it had bubbles on it. Nope - it was the goldfish set!! Luckily, I had that one too. ☺ I decided to use the goldfish for an underwater scene with the bubbles. Then I spotted Trina (Phamtastic Design) from the CAS Christmas team who is guest designing at Christmas Craft Creations, somewhere I'd never been. She inspired me to make the Christmas tree card with the bubbles for baubles (say that three times fast!). Their June challenge theme is Christmas Trees and it can be any type of Christmas craft. though mostly what I saw posted so far were cards. More inspiration for me and a chance to add to my Christmas card stash - yay! Here's a closer look, starting with the tree card:

Supplies: Paper - Paper Studio cardstock; Lawn Fawn Let's Bokeh in the Snow 6x6
Dies - Hero Arts Fir Trees and Nesting Ovals Infinity Dies;
My Favorite Things Blueprints (retired)
Stamps - Hero Arts Hero Greetings Christmas Messages and
Other - Colored Pencils; Hero Arts lacquer pen & Intense Black ink;
Versamark ink & Ranger Princess Gold ep; foam tape

Ugh, I left my LF stitched hillside dies at my "satellite studio". My sisters want to craft when visiting this summer so I left them a spare die cutting machine and a box of dies. Guess I'll have to reclaim some when I visit my parents! I improvised and used an oval die (mostly off edge) to cut a little snowbank to ground my tree. I cut two trees, one green and one woodgrain. Trimmed the stump off the green one and layered to get the woodgrain stump. As I eyed my bare tree thinking how to add baubles, I spotted the seaweed in the fish set. Hmmmm, my mind went to those gorgeous trees you see in Hallmark movies with the ribbon wrapped around. Tried stamping seaweed on a "test tree" - loved it, so embossed with gold on the card's tree. Then I arranged the three bubble sizes on my MISTI and stamped them randomly, masking off when one of the bubbles ran into a "ribbon". Colored the bubbles with pencils and covered with lacquer. Very dull in the photo but lovely in real life! I also left my star gems for my sisters so recruited a Hero Arts five sided flower for the tree's star. Diecut a soft bokeh background, put it together and stamped the sentiment. Ooops - bit of a black dot by the C - no problem, added a few more dots. Done! Now to the fish card:

Supplies: Paper - DCWV A2 card; Momenta Watercolor 8x8
Neenah Classic Crest Solar White
Dies - Hero Arts Fir Trees and Nesting Ovals Infinity Dies;
My Favorite Things Blueprints 20 retired
Stamps - Hero Arts Hero Greetings Christmas Messages and
Color Layering Goldfish (with matching die)
Other - Hero Arts lacquer pen & Intense Black ink;
Memento Dew Drop inks - Pear Tart, Tangelo & Cantalope;
Distress Inks - Tumbled Glass, Mowed Lawn & Pumice Stone;
foam tape & colored pencil for shading; black pen

I'm making weekly cards for a friend and thought she'd get a kick out of this one. Planning ahead I stamped some more fish for another card (not finished yet), one for a couple. I did a male & a female fish for that card, giving the female fish eyelashes. Decided that would be a great idea for this fishy too! I gave the fishy bubbles on this card some lacquer for a lovely glossy dimension. The MISTI worked great to repeatedly stamp the rocks and seaweed at the bottom edge of my stitched rectangle "fish tank".

That's it from here - thanks to Darnell and crew for inspiration & a fun challenge & same to the team at Christmas Craft Creations. Thanks for stopping & enjoy the weekend!!

  

18 comments:

Viv said...

A real clever idea to use the bubbles for baubles and the gloss makes them really pop off the tree. Love the goldfish on your second card - he looks real surprised that he's created those bubbles! 2 fun cards!

Cat Craig said...

Your bubbles make fabulous baubles for sure Linda. How fun that you were able to translate bubbles into decorating baubles for the tree. Thanks for playing along at Twofer Card Challenge!

Cindy C. said...

Nicely done!! And so clever too.

My Paper Epiphany said...

I love your gorgeous Twofer and reading about your creative process! Clever use of the bubbles and seaweed:) "The goldfish is a real beauty, especially with eyelashes!

Betty said...

what a perfect twofer!! using the seaweed as the ribbon on the tree was a genius creative idea!!

Rosemary said...

so fun you were able to use the bubbles for ornaments! fabulous set of cards, linda!

Tristan said...

Love how you've used the bubbles as baubles on your Christmas tree. Thanks for joining us at Christmas Craft Creations this month. Tristan DT.

Bonnie said...

I love how you've used these bubbles as baubles too, Linda! Two great cards!

Darnell said...

I enjoyed reading your process in making these clever cards, Linda. I think we have a similar laid-back flow when creating wherein we let the ideas take us where they want ... what about this for that, or look, try that ... right? (Otherwise known as a hamster!) It doesn't always work, but normally I find the end results are worth letting things happen organically. And it sure worked in this case for you!

I love both designs using the bubbles, both as fish bubbles and as baubles! And to top that by using the seaweed as a gold-embossed ribbon on your Christmas tree was just brilliant! Keep well and thank you so much for playing in Twofer Card Challenge #28! Hugs, Darnell

Greta said...

I'm completely blown away by your creative use of the fish stamps for your Christmas tree--wow! Darling fish card, too!

Lady Joyful said...

Brilliant cards, and I love how you used the bubbles to decorate your Christmas tree! What a fantastic idea. Thank you for joining us at Christmas Craft Creations - Charlotte/Lady Joyful, DT

Kara Lynne said...

Wonderful way to use those bubbles! I love the way you improvised when you found that some of your supplies was elsewhere. Great idea with those dots by the sentiment to fix the black dot! I love your traditional use of the bubbles too, and I'm sure your friend will love the card! Thanks for joining in the fun with us at the Twofer Card Challenge!

Jean said...

In a word - brilliant! So imaginative.

Anita in France said...

What a clever Twofer, Linda! Your ocean scene has such a great sense of movement with the wavy seaweed and the flowy, bubble blowing fish ... perfect with the sentiment! I love how your creative mind saw some of the same images as decorations for your Christmas tree ... such a fun idea ... and wonderfully executed ... so festive! Thanks so much for playing along with us at Twofer! Anita :)

Mac Mable said...

Fabulous cards, both of them and such a fun and clever idea with the Christmas Tree. Many congratulations with the win over at Twofers x.

Rachelle Oltean said...

WOW - what a wonderful Twofer and now I see that you have won a top pick! I really like this CAS Christmas tree design - it's so pretty but would be fairly simple to mass produce! (And we are always looking for those kind of designs!) Thanks so much for sharing this with us at the Christmas Craft Creations Challenge!
Rachelle - DT : )

Shona Erlenborn said...

Very creative - bubbles as baubles and the seaweed ribbon! Well done! Thanks for joining us over at the Challenge at Christmas Craft Creations.

Helen said...

Love your bubble baubles! Your card looks great.

Thanks for joining us at the Christmas Craft Creations Challenge.

Helen x