Reindeer Fuel

Hello Crafters!

Today’s craftroom creation is a Christmas card featuring the caffeinated reindeer by The Rabbit Hole Designs . I have always loved celebrating Christmas in July, as a kid we went camping in July each year the campground would hang Christmas Decoration and have a parades. Now as an adult I celebrate by starting my Christmas crafting.

Holiday cards are one of my favorites to make because I have lots of fun Holiday scrapbooking paper. I kept this card cards layout simple, I started by coloring the caffeinated Reindeer with my Copic makers. Once my image was all colored this card came together quickly because I used scraps from my stash.

Color combos:

R27, R29, R59, Y18, B00, B000, C7, N5, N3, C1, O, W2, W4, W5, E29, E37, E99, E33

I trimmed down the image to 2 1/2 by 4 3/8 and matted with pearl red cardstock. I used a black A2 ( 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 inches) card base and matted it with Christmas paper that coordinated with my coloring. Side note if you use dark colored card bases either add white cardstock to the inside or write with a white gel. once all my layers were cut I decided the card was missing some texture and added a thin gold ribbon and bow by the focal image which is popped up with foam.
I think it’s important that we remember to shop our stash and create using our scraps every so often. I hope you enjoyed this quick card share. I’ll be back soon to share more projects.

Brandi M

The Craft Bean

Birthday Cake

Hello Crafters!

I hope everyone is doing well. My family and I have been spending a lot more time outside since the weather here has been beautiful. Today’s craftroom creation is a Birthday card featuring the “Wedding cake” digital stamp by Coffee Bean Designs.

The great thing about digi stamps is you can resize them to fit your project. For this card I printed my cake larger so it would take up most of the card front. For the Card I made for the Coffee Bean Design’s blog I printed it smaller.

I had a ton of fun turning this Wedding cake image into a rainbow Birthday cake I used the dotting technique to create rainbow sprinkles at the bottom of each cake layer. To add more depth to the cake I used light gray Copic makers to add shading.

I have been stamping for over a decade now, many years ago big box craft stores sold small clear stamp images in the 50 cent bins. well I have a ton of them in my stash so I dug through them and found a rainbow that was perfect to make a cake topper. It is very satisfying to use thing from my stash that haven’t been used in years.

I trimmed out my cake and rainbow with my favorite fiskers scissors and like always when fussy cutting I ran a black water base maker around the edge to hide the white core of the cardstock. I stamped my “Happy Birthday” sentiment on the bottom cake layer. lastly glued my two images together and add foam tape to the back.

I kept the background simple I add light blue clouds with tumbled glass distress ink and my cloud stencil by Kindred stamps. I popped my cake onto my A2 card base and was done.

I hope you enjoyed this card and I will be back soon to share more craftroom creations with you.

Thanks

Brandi M.

@TheCraftBean

Unicorn Card Set

Today’s card set is featuring an adore unicorn set by C.C design. I love this set! it’s fun, cute and playful.

I started by stamping out each pony with a sentiment on to a cardstock panel slightly bigger then an A2 card in Memento tuxedo black ink.

I colored each of the images in with copic markers. I had originally intended to make simple one layered cards but right after this photo was taken my toddler decided to help, twice. Once spilling water all over my desk and then again by adding some flare as I was just about done redoing my blue pony.

I decided to finish coloring and fussy cut the blue unicorn instead of redoing it again. I created an embossed background with a clouds and rainbow embossing folder. I created a sentiment strip out of blue cardstock layering it over the embossed background. I added the blue pony with foam tape to the card panel. lastly I added the panel to a blue top folding A2 card base.

I was lucky the other two colored panels just had a bit of water damage on the edges so I just cut them down. The white unicorn panel was added to a silver glitter cardstock with fun foam and mounted it onto a A2 card base.

The pink unicorn panel was die cut with a stitched rectangle die and layered on purple and white cardstock. using fun foam the center panel was popped up. I created a fun bow with teal glitter ribbon to match the bow on her tail. Everything was mounted onto a purple A2 cardbase.

I hope you enjoyed these cards. I will be back soon to share more craftroom creation with you.

Golden Age Card Set

Today I’m sharing a card set I created using the new “Golden Age” stamp set by kindred Stamps.

The entire Kindred Stamps April release will be available Friday, April 26th at 8am PST/11am EST. Be sure to subscribe to the Kindred Stamps blog to see a daily line up of sneak peeks from our amazing Design Team and see the full product release on Friday! Come join the Fan Club and release event to be part of the release fun, and you may just win some Kindred Stamps credit!!

There are 6 characters in this set, they are all amazing! I used each character as a focal image on a card within the set. I wanted the cards to feel cohesive so I decided to use the same general card layout and color palette. They are all A2 (4 1/4 x 5 1/2 inches) size top folding cards. The background were cut from 12 x 12 pattern papers from my craft room hoard while the stitched rectangles were die cut from sold card stock. All the characters were colored with copic makers. I used foam tape to pop up some of the images and sentiments.

Golden Age Lady

Copic colors: E79, E59, E57, C9, C7, C5, C3, 100, E31, E51 and E53.

Golden Age Girl

YR24, Y35, Y18, R20, R17, R29, R59, C3, C1, 0, E31, E00, and E51

Golden Age Musician

C9, C7, 100, C3, C1, 0 , E31, E51, E53, Y18, Y35, YR24

Golden Age Chap

C1, C3, C5, C7, C9, 100, E31, E51, and E53

Golden Age Bombshell

Y13, Y18, Y35, R59, R29, E31, E51, E53, C3, C1 and 0.

 

Golden Age Wife

YR24, YR15, Y35, B39, B99, B34, R27, C3, C1, 0, E31, E51, and E53

I hope you all enjoyed this card set I will be sharing my last kindred stamp design team project with you all next week.

If you are interested in this stamp set or any by Kindred Stamps consider using my affiliate link, It cost you nothing but helps support my blog. Kindred Stamps.

Brandi M.

The Craft Bean

Arcade Friends

This week I am to sharing how to draw a scene or background for your cards. I will be using the “Arcade Friends” stamp set by Kindred stamp for my card. I decided I wanted to have my arcade friend bust though a brick wall.

but I don’t have a brick wall stamp, so I need to draw one. I know drawing can be intimidating but start with something simple, a brick wall is just a bunch of rounded rectangles.

Step 1: draw guide lines, this helps keep the bricks similar in size. My horizontal line are ½ an inch a part. I started with the top row of brick; the bricks are about ¾ of and inch in length. I left a small gap between each brick as to be the grout. Once I had my first row in I draw in the second row off setting the bricks to the first row.

Step 2 for the rest of my brick rows I altered between lining up with the 1^st and 2^nd rows. Rows 1,3,5,7,and 9 are all aligned the same, while rows 2,4,6,and 8 are all aligned with one another. Side note bricks are imperfect its ok if your drawing isn’t perfect. I left out brick where I waned to put my character. I used the stamp to judge how big to make the opening

Step 3 out line the bricks with a pen. I planned on coloring with Copic markers so I used a copic multi liner in a 0.3 size. You’ll want to use an ink that works with your coloring medium, has a similar thickness and color so your drawing will blend with your stamping.

Step 3.2 erase all of your pencil lines.

Step 4 making a mask for the foreground. I used a full sticky post-it note I placed it over the area and traced around the bricks I wanted to mask off. Fussy cut along the edge.

Step 5 once all your mask are in place stamp your character image.

Step 5.2 remove all mask and scream YESSS! when everything came out as planned.

Step 6 color in with your medium of choice, I used Copic makers.

RV69,R59,R27,R29 (Bricks) C3 & C5(Button) R15,YR07,YR15, YR65,YR02 (Shirt) W9,W7, W5 (Hole and Grout) E31,E11,E00 ( Skin) E29, E37,E57, E15 (Hair and Pants)

I hope you enjoyed this card share! I will be back soon with more craft room creations.

If you are interested in this stamp set or any by Kindred Stamps consider using my affiliate link, It cost you nothing but help support my blog. Kindred Stamps.

Brandi M

The Craft Bean

Video Game Brothers

I am back this week to share a fun one layer card with featuring the “Video Game Brothers” stamp set by Kindred Stamps.

I love one layer cards but they can be intimidating, since all the dimension is created with masking and coloring. I wanted to show you all how I break this style card down.

Step 1: Figure our your layout, use your stamps and play around with different layouts. For my card I decided to have one of the Brothers coming up from the pipe. NOTE: I always cut my card panels bigger and cut down at the end.

Step 2: stamping and masking. You want to stamp the forward most image first then mask it. For my Card I first masked off the ground with Post-it tape and stamped the pipe. I wanted a taller pipe so I just wipe off the ink on the bottom line. I create all my masks from full sticky Post-it notes, I placed my pipe mask on my card then stamped my character on top. To create clouds, a hill and a bush I draw them onto the Post-it notes and fussy cut them out and placing them where I liked on my card . I masked everything because I did an ink blended background. This is not necessary if you are plan to Copic color the background.

Step 3: Create the background, once every thing was masked I blended with distress oxide inks, starting with the sky , then I moved the ground mask up and then blended peeled paint, fossilized amber and vintage photo to create the ground. Remove all masks when blending is done.

Step  4: fill in outlines, using a Copic safe pen I draw in the outlines of my clouds, hill, bush, ground and extra tall pipe. I just follow the edge of where my mask was.

Step 5: Color in the images, I used Copic Markers.

Step 6: add sentiments, the outside sentiment came from the “Video Game Brothers” set and the inside Sentiment came from “Arcade Friends” stamp set both by Kindred Stamps

Step 7: Trim down or die cut card panel and add to a card base. I used a dotted rectangle die and a craft colored A2 card base.

I hope you enjoyed this card share, I’ll be back soon with more craft room creations.

If you are interested in this stamp set or any by Kindred Stamps consider using my affiliate link, It cost you nothing but help support my blog. Kindred Stamps.

Brandi M.

The Craft Bean

Galactic Hero

Today’s craftroom creation is a simple A2 card featuring a new digital Stamp from Kindred Stamps.

I love working with digital stamps because they are budget friendly and there is no waiting on the mail man. I printed on 80 lb card stock since my printer can be a little picky about the type of paper it wants to work with.

My Galactic Hero was colored with Copic makers and fussy cut out. To make it look like I know how to cut perfectly, I ran a black water based maker along the edge to hide the white core of the paper.

I wanted to make a custom sentiment for this card so I just use a my computer to type one up. After printing on the same 80lb card stock I used a stitched rectangle die to cut the sentiment panel.

The galaxy background paper is from the “Space Hero” box but you could easily make your own galaxy background with watercolors or distress inks.

The card base is gray card stock cut to 4 1/4 by 11 and scored and folded at 5 1/2 inches.

To pull the card together I layered the galaxy paper onto the gray card base and my white sentiment panel on top of the galaxy paper. Lastly I popped up my Galactic Hero in the center of the card with foam dots.

My 5 year old son decided to craft along with me and create his own card. He used a sentiment is from the “Space Hero” stamp set and crayola colored pencils.

I hope you enjoyed this card and have a very Happy April fools day.

This is a free digi stamp for all the Kindred Stamps fans so make sure to join the Facebook Fan club.

If you are interested in this stamp set or any by Kindred Stamps consider using my affiliate link, It cost you nothing but help support my blog. Kindred Stamps.

Brandi M.

The Craft Bean

Crazy About You

I am back with a fun craft room creation featuring the “Crazy About You” stamp set by Kindred Stamps.

I was walking around the craft store and noticed there are different types of Shrinky Dinks sheets. I’ve been playing with the original crystal clear sheet, but don’t like that even when colored it’s still transparent. I found “frosted rough and Ready” Shrinky Dinks sheet and Printer safe sheets, of course I had to pick some up to play. Today I will be sharing what I created with the “frosted” style. I have to say I like this style way better than the crystal clear, as far I can tell its the same except they scratched up one side of the sheet. The added texture on the back takes more color with less streaking and it’s color pencil friendly.

For my project I decided to make my daughter some hair bows with Shrinky Dinks charms.

First I stamped out the female character from the stamp set on to the smooth side of the frosted Shrinky Dink sheet in black StazOn Ink. I decided to color her in with my Prisma colored pencils, you need to color on the rough side of the sheet. To get the best color blend, color from darkest to lightest because you’re actually coloring the back if you start with the lightest you won’t see any of the darker shades. When fussy cutting on Shrinky Dinks sheets you want slow even cuts because the plastic can crack. I used my heat tool to shrink my character, add heat to the smoothed stamped side so you don’t melt to wax in the colored pencil. For the bows I made a single loop bow out with blue glitter ribbon and a smaller double looped bow out of red ribbon from my craft horde. I used thread to secure the two bows together and added a small hair elastic before hot gluing my character charm to the center.

Primsa Colored pencils used:

50 % cool gray PC 1063 30% cool gray PC 1061 black PC 935 white PC 938 peach beige PC 1085 beige sienna PC 1080 Deco yellow PC 1011 canary yellow PC 916 china blue PC 1100 denim blue PC 1101 scarlet lake PC 923 crimson red PC 924

I hope you enjoyed this Craft room creation! I will be back soon to share more with you all.

If you are interested in this stamp set or any by Kindred Stamps consider using my affiliate link, It cost you nothing but help support my blog. Kindred Stamps.

Brandi M,

The Craft Bean

Lil Stinker

My latest craft room creations are featuring the new adorable “lil Stinker” stamp set by kindred Stamps.

The entire Kindred Stamps March release will be available Friday, March 22nd at 8am PST/11am EST. Be sure to check out the Kindred Stamps blog on Friday for the full product release as well as the complete line up of all the Kindred Stamps Design Team projects from release week! If you visit and comment on all of the designers’ blogs this week, you could win $15 in Kindred Stamps shop credit! So join the Fan Club and release event, show the design team some love, and get ready to empty those wallets this Friday!

I love small sets because you get a lot of bang for your buck. I created 3 different project with 3 different coloring techniques.

The first project is an altered mug from the dollar tree.

I started with a plain white mug from the dollar tree I clean it really well with rubbing alcohol. To stamp on smooth or glossy surface you’ll need to use an alcohol based inks like Staz On. I need to be able to curve the stamp so I just mounted the stamp on my fingers. Go slow and press firmly on the stamp. Its OK if you mess up you can wipe it off with rubbing alcohol and try again. It took me a couple of attempts to get it. To color the skunk in I use a dotting technique with Copic markers because they don’t blend well together on smooth surfaces. I let the ink dry and set it with my heat tool. If you plan on drinking out of the mug don’t add any stamping or coloring near the edge of the mug. I would hand wash only. My mug lives on my desk and hold the colors I’m currently using.

My next project are some quick and easy lunchbox notes for my twins. I had to use the “hope your day doesn’t stink” sentiment it was too perfect.

I cut my lunchbox notes to 2 1/4 × 3 inches. I colored one with Copic markers and one with Zig clean color real brush markers (picture below) I added it to a scrap of solid color card stock and used a white gel pen to write a note on the back.

Side note I just want to share the skunk image colored with 3 different mediums (left to right) Copic makers, Zig clean color real brush markers and Prisma colored pencils.

I often get asked which I like better for me its hard to pick because they all color beautifully but are very different. As they say “variety is the spice of life.” I love to color and have been crafting for over a decade, I’ve slowly built my crafty horde. I personally say by some grays in the different color mediums and play away that way you’ll get an idea of what you like.

Copic Colors: 0, C1, C3,C5, C7, C9 and R20

Zig Clean color real brush markers colors: 091 light gray, 090 gray, 095 dark gray, 010 black and 200 S. almond pink

Prisma color pencils colors: PC 938 white, PC 1059 10% cool gray, PC 1061 30% cool gray, PC 1063 50 % cool gray, PC 1065 70 % cool gray,PC 1067 90% cool gray, PC 935 black and PC 1018 pink rose

The last project I have to share is a card. This is an A2 top folding card.

I created simple layers with card stock and patterned paper. The skunk and sentiment was stamped and colored on Strathmore toned tan paper which is my favorite paper for coloring with my Prisma colored pencils. lastly I added a bow and called it done.

I hope you enjoyed these projects and I will be back soon with more craft room creations.
If you are interested in this stamp set or any by Kindred Stamps consider using my affiliate link, It cost you nothing but help support my blog. Kindred Stamps.

Brandi M.

The Craft Bean

Ten Projects One Stamp Set Part 2

I am back to share 5 more projects featuring the “Tea Friends stamp” set by Kindred Stamps. If you haven’t seen the first 5 projects go check them out Ten projects One stamp set part 1

The sixth project is a 12 x 12 scrapbook layout.

This is a simple layered layout that was created with card stock, pattern paper and simple embellishments. The queen is my favorite character from this stamp set. Many keep 12 x 12 layouts in scrapbook albums but I personally frame them and display them in my home, I rotate my layout based on the season or Holiday.

The seventh project I created a pencil holder and paper clip gifts set. This coordinates perfectly with the little altered notebook I shared in part 1.

To make the paper clip color and fussy cut out a character then place on solid colored card stock, trace and cut out a backing piece. Using a strong glue sandwich a large paperclip between the image and backing piece. To make the pencil holder cut a 1 ¾ x 11 inch card stock and score at 8 ¼ and 8 ½ inches on the 11 inch side. Fold score lines and punch a ¾ inch circle on the bottom flap. Add double side tape to the top back of lower flap and adhere to the lager flap. Make a belly band to hold paper clip mine is ¾ inches wide.

The eight project is a postcard.

Cut heavy weight card stock to 4 x 6 inches then stamp out images. I did a bit of masking using full sticky post it notes because postcards are one layer. First I stamped my cat and masked it, then the man and masked him and lastly my stack of cups and masked them. I masked everything so I could ink blend the background with broken china distress oxide ink. I created splatters with clean water and black Zig maker watered down. I color all my images with Zig maker because they don’t bleed through card stock.

For the back of the postcard I used an older Tim Holtz postcard stamp then draw my line with a black micro pen, lastly I add the bottle image from the stamp set.

The Ninth project is a paper hat.

I created a template with good ole trial and error, then traced it onto pattern paper by Graphic 45. I’ll saved you the trouble, Free Template. To assemble this hat start by creating a oblong cylinder then make card stock tabs (¾ x 1 ¼ ) add them to the smaller oval and bend them to fit into the top of the cylinder use double sided tape and hot glue to adhere everything. Then add tabs to the bottom of the cylinder and bend inward add more double sided tape and hot glue to adhere to the larger oval. Assembly takes a bit of fiddling and you might need to trim your top oval a bit. But any imperfect seams can be hidden by trims and decorations. I added my hat to a stretchy headband because my daughter wanted to wear it. This could be used as party decor or even turned into and ornament.

The Tenth project is a mix media art piece

I layered on old book paper with mat median on to heavy weight card stock and then added a white wash on top. Next I stenciled on the clocks to push them to the background I inked over everything with distress oxide inks in broken china and faded jeans. I used the two small flower stamps to add a bit of darker blue to the background. I sketched out a key hold onto heavy weight card stock stamped all the characters masking as needed. I colored them in with my zig markers and add my key hold image to my background piece. I used a black maker to doodle a border. I added part of a sentiment from the stamp set just under my main image.

I hope you enjoyed all the projects! I will be back soon to share more of my craft room creations with you.
If you are interested in this stamp set or any by Kindred Stamps consider using my affiliate link, It cost you nothing but help support my blog. Kindred Stamps.

Brandi M

The Craft Bean