I’ve been Gnome to Sparkle

April 17, 2020

Hello! Hope everyone had a wonderful week. I’m so glad that the weekend is finally here.

I’m back today with a fun card that’s bright and cheery. I thought everyone could benefit from some bright and cheerful cards right about now.

My card features the adorable Flower Gnome stamp from Dare 2B Artzy. This stamp set is so fun, when I saw her preview in the new releases I knew I needed to add her to my crafting stash. I’ve had her for a couple of months now and finally sat down to color her about a week ago. It was a nice break for me to spend some time destressing and focusing on crafting.

I stamped the cute gnome with some of the Copic friendly Dare 2B Artzy Totally Black Ink using my MISTI stamping tool. My cardstock of choice for stamping and coloring with Copic markers is 110lb Neenah Classic Crest Solar white. I’ve found that it’s the best paper for coloring with Copic Markers.

It didn’t take long to color the cute gnome. I’m a bit rusty because I haven’t colored with my Copics as regularly as I used to. I need to get back to doing that.

While I don’t have the coordinating die for this Flower Gnome stamp set, there will be one available from Dare 2B Artzy in late April. I love their stamp and die coordination. After I fussy cut my gnome, I set her aside to work on the rest of my card.

I wanted to keep my card spring-like so I decided to use an A2 die set I had that features all these fun flowers. Unfortunately I don’t recall the name of the company that released this die, but I remember that they were having a going out of business sale on all their online items. I managed to grab this for a pretty good price.

I cut my background panel from the same 110lb cardstock. I had to run it through my Anna Griffin Empress electronic die cutter because I used such thick cardstock. I was able to get most of the die to cut by running it through a couple of passes. There were just a couple areas that I had to snip by hand.

Once I had my background cut, I used some Hero Hues Reactive inks in Pool Party, Creamsicle, Fruit Punch, Lemon Drop, Green Apple, Taffy, Key Lime Fizz and Grape Slush and blended them onto the background with some blending brushes. I’m really, really loving these inks. They blend like a dream. If you’re a fan of the Distress Oxide Inks, you will absolutely love these and the colors are gorgeous and bright.

Once my background was completely colored, I put a couple of drops of the Lawn Fawn Liquid Stardust onto my glass crafting mat and added a couple of drops of water to it and then used a paint brush to splatter it onto the background.

I decided to use a piece of pink glitter paper behind my die cut flower background. I just love all the sparkle mixed with the bright colors.

For my sentiment, I used the layered hello die from Lil’ Inker Designs. I just love the layered sentiment dies. Its fun to play with a bunch of different colors of cardstock to see what looks best with them. I think the white really pops against the dark teal cardstock and pairs nicely with the inked flowers on the background.

For a finishing touch I added a few sparkly gems to some of the flowers for a little bit of extra sparkle – not that this card needed it, LOL!