anita jeram

Colorado Craft Company Holiday + Sale!

August 22, 2021

Hi there! I’m popping in quickly with a sweet holiday shaker card and some sale information from my friends at Colorado Craft Company! The Anita Jeram holiday release features some absolutely darling holiday sets, including the sweet On the Lookout-the little doggie reminds me of Wishbone; remember the show from PBS in the 90’s? (Did I just date myself?) I used the coordinating dies to create a snowy shaker background, so let’s get started with the details!

I began by stamping the sweet little pup and mouse duo from On the Lookout on some watercolor paper using no-line coloring ink, then watercolored the image using my Daniel Smith watercolors. The Anita Jeram images are so wonderful for no-line watercoloring. The storybook aesthetic from the Anita Jeram line and watercoloring are a match made in heaven. I die cut the image using the coordinating dies.

For a wallpapered background for the peeking doggie, I used the Floral Tile stencil from Hero Arts to add some navy blue ink on a deep hunter green panel of A2 sized cardstock. The slight contrast with the navy ink from the deep green card base provided the subtle texture to the background to create a pretty wallpapered background for the pupper dog! I figured out approximate placement for my watercolored doggy die cut, then used my trimmer to cut a square slightly larger than the window. I wanted to create a snowy background with some white sequins, so I backed the opening with some acetate and created my shaker!

I added the watercolored On the Lookout die cut to the shaker card front, then white embossed a greeting from On the Lookout on some more hunter green cardstock and added it to the card front. So adorable! You can’t go wrong with the Anita Jeram sets!

Now, Colorado Craft Company has a fun sale going on:

Just enter the code SUMMER15 at checkout from now until Monday, 8/23/21 to receive 15% off of your entire order, as well as a free Anita Jeram enamel pin wtih any order over $20! (While supplies last.) Shop the Anita Jeram collection here.

Well, that’s all for me today. Thanks so much for stopping by, and have a marvelous day!

Colorado Craft Company June Anita Jeram Release!

June 13, 2021

Hi there! Colorado Craft Company has a brand new Anita Jeram release available right now… and it’s so gosh darn cute!! We are celebrating all things adorable with a blog hop, so you should have arrived here from Nichol Spohr and your next stop is Amy Tsuruta. These darling new sets are perfect for people like me, who like the look of sweet little storybook critters, but are terrible at scene building. The new Happily Ever After stamp set has a variety of individual images that are already “laid out” for you, so no masking is required, or you can also use the beautiful (and huge!) wedding scene. Let’s get started with the details on my cute little wedding card!

I started by stamping the little mice sitting by the tree and the wedding cake from Happily Ever After on some Arches Cold Press watercolor paper using Hero Arts’s Contour Ink so that I could do some no-line watercoloring. I then watercolored the images using Schmincke watercolors. I just love the two little mice in this scene; they remind me of my biggest twinkies- waiting patiently for the cake to be cut, but keeping an eagle eye on things so that they don’t miss out!!

I added a pale blue halo around the topmost portion of the scene, allowing the blue sky to fade organically away by adding lots of water to my brush and pulling the color out. One of the things that I love most about watercolor is that you can be super detailed and specific, or you can make just the merest suggestion of a shape, a color, a shadow… and the brain will supply the intended effect. (Usually-ha!) I used a flicking motion to add grass to the bottom of my scene, allowing various intensities of color and going over the same spots I’d already painted a few times as they dried to make the grass look fuller.

Once everything had dried, I heat embossed a greeting from Happily Ever After using Altenew’s Obsidian Black and clear embossing powder. The crisp black with the clear embossing powder helps the sentiment really pop over the soft watercoloring.

Well, that’s all for my project today! To celebrate this latest release, Colorado Craft Company has some fun giveaways:

Colorado Craft Company is giving away one of each of the new stamp sets. In order to be eligible for the giveaway, leave a comment on each blog. The comments will be open until midnight Eastern time on the 16th and winners will be announced by us on the 17th on the Colorado Craft Company blog.

*****(If you can’t find the comment box on my post, click on the title of the blog post, then scroll down to the end of the post, where you should see a comment form.)*****

That’s all for my post today! Thanks so much for stopping by today, and happy hopping! Here’s the full hop lineup:

Colorado Craft Company- Adrienne Kennedy
Jenn Gross
Bibi Cameron
Jennifer Kotas
Kelly Griglione
Angelica Conrad
Daniel West
Caly Person
Sandy Allnock
Mansi Bhatia
Kassi Hulet
Erin Thompson
Melissa Andrew
Donna Hitz
Nichol Spohr
Emily Midgett
Amy Tsuruta

New Anita Jeram from Colorado Craft Company!

May 15, 2021

Hi there! Colorado Craft Company has some absolutely darling new sets illustrated by the talented Anita Jeram that are releasing today, and I’m so happy to be helping them celebrate! There are lots of fabulous designers helping to inspire you with these new goodies, and you can find the entire list over on the Colorado Craft Company Blog. I’m not normally very good at creating scenes with critters. Something in my imagination hits a bit of a creative wall when it comes to scene building, ha! Luckily, the new Home Sweet Home stamp set has an absolutely darling little scene already built for you, so that you can just stamp and color with your choice of medium! I have a cool blue project for you today, so let’s get started with the details!

I began by stamping the sweet scene from Home Sweet Home on some Arches cold press watercolor paper using no-line coloring ink. I then used my Sennelier watercolors to add lots of cool blues, grays, and purples to the scene, keeping the overall feel nice and loose to help maintain that sweet, storybook feel that Anita Jeram’s illustrations have. (PS-I love that there are coordinating dies for the individual elements of the scene! You could easily add lots more dimension to the card with the addition of some die cut elements. So much fun!)

I maintained a cool cornflower blue and gray color scheme throughout the card, thinking in my mind’s eye of an English summer cottage surrounded by a lovely garden full of beautiful flora and graceful fauna. When doing a larger scale no-line coloring piece like this, I like to do a large wash on the biggest section (in this case, the walls), then allow it to dry completely so that I can add the details without worrying about the paint running or blooming into each other. The Sennelier watercolors are very pigmented, and maintaining a light and airy feel requires lots of water so as not to add too much pigment to the card front.

Once I had completed my painting, I trimmed the panel down (the large size of the Home Sweet Home stamp means that it covers almost an entire A2 card front) and mounted it on a panel of Lapis cardstock from Hero Arts. I white embossed the greeting from Home Sweet Home (how apropos for these crazy covid times) and popped it up on the card front using foam adhesive.

Well, that’s all for this project! I hope you’ll check out the new Anita Jeram release, as well as the blog hop happening now! Your next stop is Amy Tsuruta. We also have some fun giveaway information for you:

Each designer will be giving away a $25 shopping code to one lucky commenter on their blog. All you need to do is visit each designer’s blog or IG page and leave a comment saying which of the new release is your favorite. You have 23 chances to win by leaving your comment. Giveaway ends on May 19th, 2021. Winners will be announced by each designer on May 20th, 2021.

Please be sure to subscribe to my blog (just enter your email address on the top left hand side of my blog) so that you receive email notification when I announce the winner. If you don’t contact me, I won’t be able to get your prize to you!

Thanks so much for stopping by today, and happy hopping!

Birthday Mice with Colorado Craft Company!

March 12, 2021

Hi there! Today, I have some fun little birthday cards created with some of the new Anita Jeram stamps from Colorado Craft Company! The So Sweet Slimline stamps are full of darling little mice sharing some sweets with the recipient. I created a trio of birthday cards to share with you today, so let’s get started with the details!

I stamped the trio of little mice from So Sweet Slimline with their chocolatey offerings using some Copic-friendly ink and colored them with my Copic markers. I die cut them using the coordinating dies and turned my attention to the card bases.

I stamped the polka dotted striped strip from the Stripes and Dots on three different card bases using Watermelon, Pale Blush, and Spring Rain inks from Simon Says Stamp. I used my Misti to stamp each of the bases lickety split! I added some subtle ink blending on each card, with placement depending on where I wanted the die cuts and sentiment strips to end up.

Next, I stamped several greetings from the So Sweet Slimline on some plain white cardstock using black pigment ink. (I absolutely adore the sweet font used on this set!) I trimmed them down to strips so that I could add them to the cards.

I adhered all of the die cuts and sentiment strips to the stamped and blended card fronts using foam adhesive.

Aren’t these little mice darling? Paired with the sweet sentiments they create such a precious set of cards!

If you haven’t checked out the stamps from Colorado Craft Company featuring Anita Jeram’s illustrations, you are totally missing out. They’re absolutely precious, and there are stamps for so many different occasions! Thanks so much for stopping by today, and have a marvelous day!

Colorado Craft Company October Reveal+Release!

October 3, 2020

Hi there! Today is a special day for the Colorado Craft Company. They have released a brand new line of absolutely darling stamps created by Anita Jeram, the illustrator for the popular Guess How Much I Love You children’s book. I personally adore this illustrative style: kinda sketchy, whimsical, but still an element of elegance! I’m not the best scene-builder in the world, and the majority of these new stamps have the scenes already built for you. All you have to do is stamp and color! You can view the entire release here at Simon Says Stamp and here at Ellen Hutson. The entire release is full of gorgeous images, from cats to deer to birthday bunnies. My little guys are going through a cognitive leap this week, making them extra clingy and unusually cranky, but I managed to make two cards with some of my favorite sets from this release: Kittens and Mittens (EH|SSS) and Snow Happy (EH|SSS). Let’s get started with the details!

If you’ve ever read the Guess How Much I Love You book, you’ll have noticed the beautiful, detailed illustrations straight away. I tried to maintain this whimsical watercolored style with both of my projects today by stamping the main images on Arches Cold Press watercolor paper using Ink On 3 Fadeout Ink (my favorite for no-line watercoloring), then watercoloring with my Daniel Smith watercolor palette.

For me, the key to no-line watercolor is to work in segments, keeping the wet sections away from each other so that you can maintain crisp lines and avoid different colors bleeding into each other. Once I had stamped the images onto the watercolor paper, I maintained a cool color palette for both projects, adding in lavenders and blues to the snow on the Snow Happy (EH|SSS) card. I just love holiday cards featuring deer. Something about a deer in the snow conjures peace for me, reminding me of a crisp, cold Christmas Day.

Once it had dried, I trimmed down the watercolored panel and adhered it to a light gray A2 card base. I also added a charcoal gray foil frame, cut from the Essentials by Ellen Essential Rectangle dies and some dark gray foil. (I’ll link both below.) The final step was to add a simple greeting from the Christmas Tree Cat set using some black pigment ink to make it nice and crisp. I just love the simplicity of this project, and it will be super easy to place in an envelope and pop in the mailbox!

For my second project, I focused on the darling Kittens and Mittens (EH|SSS) stamp set. Not only does this set have a sweet little trio of felines, but it also features some wonderful sentiments, such as “Like mittens in winter you warm my heart!” I’m not huge on schmaltzy sentiments on my projects; I feel like it’s more of a challenge to pair with just the right recipient, therefore making them more difficult to send. These sentiments, however, are so sweet that I think anybody would love to receive them!

I began by stamping the image from Kittens and Mittens (EH|SSS) again on a panel of Arches Cold Press watercolor paper using Ink on 3 Fadeout Ink, but this time I used a wide brush to create a wintry sky before adding details to my kittens. I wanted to pull the lavender down behind the kitties, but still maintain that super light fade into white, so I laid down my blue to purple ombre, pulling the super diluted color down even over the top of the kitty images. I allowed background to dry completely before moving on to adding paint to the kitties. Ensuring the panel is completely dry before adding the details will help to avoid feathering and bleeding when adding color to the stamped images.

After I’d finished watercoloring all of the felines, I used some white gouache to add snowflakes, first by flicking my paint-loaded paintbrush at my panel, then adding individual dots of white so that we got different sized snowflakes. I also added a few white pearls for extra dimension. I white embossed a greeting on some light gray yardstick, then added it to the watercolored panel with foam tape. Finally, I matted the watercolor panel to a slightly larger piece of charcoal gray cardstock, then mounted it on a cornflower blue A2 card base.

To celebrate their new release illustrated by Anita Jeram, Colorado Craft Company is generously giving away a $35 gift certificate to their store for each blogger participating in the reveal! To enter the giveaway, simply leave me a comment telling me which of the new sets is your favorite. I will leave the contest open until the end of the day on October 7, 2020.

Here are all of the links of everyone participating in the release:

Adrienne Kennedy
Angelica Conrad