Sonoran Starfish Designs

Hey crafty friends! Happy Halloween! This week's blog hop is Halloween-themed, and Brutus Monroe is offering a treat!  ***GIVEAWAY!*** We wanted to have a little fun with our blog hop this week, and give away ONE $25 GIFT CERTIFICATE to the Brutus Monroe store! Just leave a comment on each blog post along the hop to be entered! Winner will be announced on next Wednesday's blog hop post, November 7th, on the Brutus Monroe blog. Please remember to check back next week to see if you are the winner!  ***BONUS ENTRY- Post ANY project you have created in the Brutus Monroe Fan Club group on Facebook with the hashtag, # TrickOrTreatGiveaway ! Good luck! I am super excited to share my project this week...I started with a hollow foam pumpkin from JoAnn stores, and cut a big window out of the front. I painted the inside with black acrylic paint, and used some mossy stuff from the floral arrangement section to line the bottom. I cut a hole in the bottom of the pumpkin toward...

Hi crafty friends! This week's Brutus Monroe blog hop is focusing on florals. I have two projects to share today, both using the exact same products in different ways. For both projects, I used the  Enchanted Rose stamp  . The enchanted rose is the first stamp I ever bought from them! It's so pretty, and has a lot of big open spaces to color. For the first card, I decided to heat emboss the image using the Gilded EP  onto some aqua pigment paper . I used Pink aqua pigment for the flowers and Yellow and Green aqua pigments for the leaves. I die cut a circle from vellum and wrapped it around the from of the card. I die cut the "Hello" sentiment 3 times from aqua pigment paper, and layered them together for dimension. I matted it on Speckled Egg cardstock and a white card base. I finished it off with a few clear dew drops. For the second project, I used the same stamp, but I heat embossed onto vellum with the Gilded embossing powder. I fussy cut the center r...

Hello Crafty Friends! Thanks for stopping by today. I have two projects using the "Okie Pride" stamp set, designed by Ann Corbiere-Scott for Paper Arts in Edmond, Oklahoma. For the first card, I stamped the images in Memento Tuxedo Black ink. This technique can be simplified if you have a wreath builder template from Gina K, but I thought I'd show you an easy technique to fill your backgrounds up if you don't have one. You do, however, need a stamp positioning platform of some kind. Take a square piece of cardstock and use a ruler to draw diagonal lines all the way through. Keeping the lines face-up for now, arrange the small stamps in one of the sections, taking care not to go over the line, but make sure that you fill the space up to the lines. Once you are satisfied, close the door to your stamp platform and pick up the stamps. Open the door again, and flip your cardstock over so that the pencil lines are not showing. Ink up the images and stamp them. ...

Hi crafty friends! Thanks for hopping through to my blog today. Our theme this week is "Watercolor", so I'm showcasing some backgrounds made with the Brutus Monroe aqua pigments . This first card was made with the colors Blue, Green, and Black. I used a thick flat brush to make the largest strokes of plaid with the Blue aqua pigment. Then I mixed together Blue and Green aqua pigment to get the teal shade and used a thinner round brush to make those strokes. Then I used Black with the smallest brush. This was a great easy background to make, and you could really combine any colors to fit any occasion! For the second background, I used Red, Yellow, Green and Blue aqua pigments to make a rainbow effect. I mixed Yellow and Red to get the orange shade, Blue and Green to get the teal shade, and Blue and Red to get the purple shade. If you like to try things out before committing to a whole set, I highly recommend buying primary colors (Red, Yellow, Blue)...

Hi friends! All the cards in this post use  This Floral Background stamp  , made by the Stamp Market. I bought it from Auntie Dayna's Cards and Things. Dayna operates out of Hawaii, and offers classes and products to her customers that are harder to get in the islands. You can find her group on Facebook. Background stamps are so much fun! I couldn't wait to use this one! For my first project, I heat embossed the background with white embossing powder on watercolor paper. I wet the paper thoroughly and then dropped color bursts onto the background. I used a spray bottle to break up some of the larger chunks, and the embossing acts as a resist. I heat embossed the sentiment from the Altenew set "Heartfelt Sentiments" (also purchased from Auntie Dayna) onto black cardstock and cut each individual word out. I positioned them on the background and popped them up with foam tape. To finish it off, I used a black Copic multiliner pen to add some random lines around th...

Hello crafty friends! Thanks for stopping by. The design team hop this week is showcasing embossing powder! My project today uses the gorgeous Brutus Monroe embossing powders in the shades "Penny" and "Coffee Grounds". Coffee grounds is part of the Embossing Powder of the Month Club . If you sign up for the Embossing Powder club, you will receive a unique, limited edition powder once each month. IF there are any powders left over from the subscriptions, they will be sold in store until gone. Also, everyone that SUBSCRIBES to ANY of the subscriptions (Stamp Club, Inspiration Box, EP), will also receive 15% off on every in store purchase at any time. This is ONLY if you subscribe! Coffee grounds is this deep, rich brown color that really does resemble coffee grounds! I opened it and automatically took a sniff because it looked like the real deal! I decided to use it with their Penny embossing powder , which is a stunning, shiny coppery shade. The metallic ...

Hello crafty friends! In my post yesterday I talked about my talented friend Ann Corbiere-Scott and her awesome stamp designs. Today I'll be sharing cards made with her stamp set called "Cactus Christmas" . If you aren't local, you can purchase the stamp set by click this link here . All of the cacti in this post were colored using Copic markers. This first card is a shaker card! I used some Christmas confetti from HAI designs and the cacti from the stamp set inside. For this card, I first stamped the santa hats, and then masked them off to stamp the large saguaro cactus. This makes it appear that the hat is actually on the cactus. I colored the images with Copic markers and fussy cut the images. I cut the shaker frame using Lawn Fawn stacked scalloped rectangle dies, and adhered a piece of acetate to the back. Then I used some foam tape around the whole thing. I cut a piece of striped cardstock from the Photoplay paper pack "O Canada Christmas" to fi...

Hello crafty friends! I had a lot going on yesterday, but I managed to sneak in one card for World Cardmaking Day. I have the honor of being a design team member for Ann Corbiere-Scott Designs. Ann hand-draws stamp designs for our local scrapbook store, Scraps of Love in Peoria, AZ. They also recently opened a second location in Sun City West, AZ. Ann is not only a talented artist but teaches fabulous classes for things like hand lettering and bible journaling. She has shown me incredible kindness and encouragement, and I will be forever grateful to her for changing my life! Many of Ann's stamp sets are southwestern, and include the most fabulous cactus designs. This set was the first of her designs that I fell in love with! The set is called "Cactus Doodle ", and it is available at Scraps of Love in their store or on their website at www.scrapsoflove.com . I used the Lawn Fawn "Shadow Box" die to make the box and the sandy hills, which I also purcha...

I am crazy for the October stamp of the month from Brutus Monroe! A candy corn vampire! How cute is this guy?? And bonus, it has really clean lines around the outside of the image that make it very easy to fussy cut. The stamp of the month club is really cool;  you will receive a 2x3 stamp set for only $5 which includes your shipping and handling! The stamp set is designed each month by Christopher and will be shipped out to you by the 15th of the month (excluding holidays, in the event of a holiday falling on shipment day the stamp will ship on the next business day) I stamped four of this yummy little guy and colored them with copic markers. I fussy cut all of them and used a black marker around the edges. (This is a trick I learned a lot time ago, and it makes any cut stamped images look more finished and polished!) FRONT  For the front of the card I used the new  Aqua Pigments  in the colors "Yellow" and "Red". I wet the paper ahead of time and th...