Sonoran Starfish Designs

Hello crafty friends! Thanks for joining me today. It's time for another Wednesday blog hop for the Brutus Monroe Inspiration Team, and the theme is "Gnomes"! We're using the cutest gnome stamp set in our projects today. On a side note, if you haven't already seen it, Brutus Monroe is having a design team call, so if you're interested in applying, be sure to check out their facebook page or their website to apply! I started out by stamping these cute little gnomes across the bottom of some aqua pigment paper. I stamped them in Raven detail ink with my MISTI, and then stamped over it with embossing ink and used clear embossing powder to set the image. I repeated the same steps with the branches from the Berry Thankful stamp set above the little gnomes. I colored all of the images with Zig markers and a water brush, followed by the background in the sky. I will be honest, my first attempt at the sky came out horrible! I tried to blend a couple of blues tog...

Hello crafty friends! Thanks for stopping by for another blog hop Wednesday! The Brutus Monroe Inspiration Team is showing projects today with some of the subscription items for the month of September! I used the stamp set from the Inspiration box, the stamp of the month and the embossing powder of the month to make this card. I started with a panel of Aqua Pigment paper, and heat embossed all of the different leaves and fall elements from the inspiration box stamp set with Gilded EP. I used a water brush and color burst powders to color all the images and left them to dry.  I heat embossed the stamp of the month onto aqua pigment paper as well, only so that the tone would match the white space in the background. I used the EP of the month called Fallen Leaves, which is a beautiful maroon/burgundy color. It's fantastic for fall, and I've never seen a similar color! I trimmed the image down and layered that on top of a scrap of burlap and adhered it all to the backg...

Hello crafty friends! Thanks for dropping by today. It's blog hop Wednesday for the Brutus Monroe Inspiration Team and the theme is "Anything Goes" so we had free rein to create whatever we wanted! This card came together fairly quickly. As usual, I can't get enough of the aqua pigments. I used Orange-Yellow, Magenta and Blue brushed across a panel of aqua pigment paper, and dried it with a heat tool before adding another layer. I splattered some of the Yellow-Orange and Magenta on the background when it was dry. Then I heat embossed the butterflies with Alabaster EP onto aqua pigment paper and painted the same colors over it. I fussy cut the butterflies and slightly bent them in the middle for a 3D effect. I took some of the watercolor paper flowers and the plain white paper flowers and used hot glue to adhere them to the card front, along with the butterflies. I stamped the sentiment from the Rock On stamp set in Marsala surface ink, and fussy cut them ou...

Hello crafty friends! Thanks for stopping by my blog. It's Wednesday, which is hop day for the Brutus Monroe Inspiration Team. This was an "anything goes" week, so we were free to do whatever we wanted! My project, to be honest, started out as a total hot mess! I used the branches from this month's inspiration box titled "Feathered Friends". The stamp set is really cute! It actually has a bird and birdcage theme, but I wanted to keep it simple and make a card with the branches.  So I started by stamping the branches around the edge of an aqua pigment paper panel (say that five times fast!) with Raven detail ink. I have been watercoloring a lot lately, but I typically heat emboss the image, which will contain the paint a lot, so this was where I went a little bit wrong. I mean, there's nothing WRONG with painted a stamped image, but since I'm used to the heat embossed images, the first leaves I painted flowed right outside the lines because I...

Hello crafty friends! It's Wednesday, which means another Brutus Monroe Inspiration Team blog hop! This week, our assignment was to re-create a card that another design team member has made. I absolutely loved the dreamy feel of Marie's card pictured here with my two re-creations. Marie used blue tones, and I used metallic blue fading into green for one, and purple fading into pink for the other. Marie's original inspiration was this video from the amazing and talented Kristina Werner, who called it the "dip-dye technique" in this video found here: Dip Dye Video Here's Marie's card (if you don't already follow her on social media, be sure to check out her page because she is insanely talented!) I taped my torn papers down onto some hardboard with purple tape and followed the instructions in Kristina Werner's video. To make the heart, I put double sided adhesive on some cardstock scraps, and foiled the cardstock before running it ...

Hello crafty friends! Thanks for joining me today. The Brutus Monroe Inspiration Team is creating ATCs this week! For those of you who are unfamiliar, ATC stands for Artist Trading Cards. Crafters and artists make these small pieces to trade and share with other artists. Many people collect them and put them in plastic page protectors. I have seen very cool examples of these online, but I've never made any! I was excited to try to make something in a smaller size. ATCs are typically 2.5 inches by 3.5 inches, and people often make them in groups of 3 or 5. I cut 3 panels of aqua pigment paper slightly larger, so I could tape them down around the edges. I came across a Jennifer McGuire video recently (although the video itself is actually 2 years old!) where she used a watercolor "lifting" technique with heat embossing, and decided to try it.  I first used the new metallic aqua pigments on the three panels. My color combos are: cactus/periwinkle, sunflower/marigold,...

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)...

Hello crafty friends! Lauren here, and I am so excited to be a part of this hop! Starting my blogging journey with a collaboration from two AMAZING companies, Brutus Monroe and Unity Stamp Co., is a dream come true. This collaboration includes four gorgeous backgrounds that you NEED in your collection! Background stamps are incredibly versatile; there are so many cool projects that you'll see as you follow this hop. Be sure to check out the Instagram hop as well, because they are doing a giveaway for a few lucky commenters! Click here for my Instagram... The card was made with the Barn Wall background stamp. I started by stamping it in Brutus Monroe's Raven ink , and then using a laser printer to photocopy the image onto the Brutus Monroe aqua pigment paper . Luckily it is lightweight enough to not jam up the laser printer! I used DecoFoil in the color "Gold" and ran the project through my laminator, leaving this lovely gold foiled background. Ne...