Welcome to week 11 of Pile It On! I am so excited about this project this week… there were some awesome challenges out there this week!! Close To My Heart has these adorable Door Hangers with a Pouch, so I decided to create one this week with a mini set of matching cards to go in the little pouch! I hope you enjoy this project and find much inspiration in all of the challenges that are available to us this week!

Stamps Used:

Challenges Used:

Good morning, friends!

Welcome to week 8 of challenges with Pile It On! This week we are playing with water coloring and I hope you all will head on over to check out the wonderful creations from the rest of the design team. I have never actually worked with water colors… I think I may have cheated a little, hehe… but I just recently purchased my very first set of CIAO  Copic Markers and I have been wanting to play with them, along with the blending pen. So here was my opportunity to try out some water coloring with the markers and blending pen!

OH OH! AND I just got my package in the mail Friday filled with this month’s Papertrey Ink goodies! So yes, that is pretty much what inspired this card. I used the large & small flowers from In Bloom, as well as one of the background stamps from Text Style. It has been quite awhile since I have aged my projects by sponging or swiping ink around the edges but this card pretty much called for it once I was done laying it all together. I think it ties it all together nicely.

As for my simple watercoloring technique, using my CIAO markers, here is a quickie step by step:

1. Swipe the Blending Pen across the tip of your CIAO marker of choice.
2. Gently sweep the color onto your image (usually starting from the outside inward, so it lightens up toward the center)
3. After filling in the image, sweep the clean Blending Pen over the image until you have your desired water coloring effect. The more you go over it the more “watery” it will look.

A couple of TIPS:

• Stamp your image in a permanent ink such as a Versa ink pad, so that it will not blend with the rest of your color.
• If you do not have a Versa ink pad, consider stamping in a similar ink color as your marker so that it blends well.
• Beware that you do not need a lot of ink on the Blending Pen for this technique to work, you may want to do a quick swipe on the image and then turn the Blending Pen to a clean side to help blend it in lighter.

I did want this one to be a bit darker and since the flower had stripes, I felt the need to make it all a bit more random. Love how it turned out with the dark shades up to the light shades. This could be a new technique that you might be seeing more often around here :)

Now for all the challenges that were used to create this card:

• Pile It On! – Water colors
• Stamps and Smiles — Sketch
• Color Throwdown — Celery Green, Plum and Chocolate
• Three Covers — Bling (Rhinestones)
• 365 Cards — Wednesday’s “You Raise Me Up” – Dimension

Don’t forget to play along this week! I promise that you will get more than you could have ever asked for by trying out challenges (not to mention “Piling” them on)… you will create in ways you have never created before! I can’t wait to see what you all come up with this week!

Happy creating!

This is SO much fun! I am really enjoying the extra challenge of being on the Design Team for Pile It On. This week I was able to complete  8 challenges in one card/envelope set! Below is my adorable (if I dont say so myself) Butterfly Friends postcard and envelope.

Challenges Used:

Pile It On: Sketch

Scrap or Dare #10: colors (Green & Yellow)

Stamp Simply:  Let the Sparks Fly — Something Glittery

Wednesday:  Buttons, a Bow and Butterfly

Flourishes Timeless Tuesday: Cut it out and Pop it up!

Ann’s Creative Nook: Basic Tools (Colluzle and Corner Rounder)

Papertake Weekly: My Favorite Things (Butterflies, Green and Buttons!)

Creative Inspirations: Gems or Pearls (I used Rhinestones!)

I got these papers from the Scarlet Lime July Kit that came in the mail today! Every month I am always blown away by the great items that Christy Tomlinson puts together so perfectly! As soon as I saw that cute envelope I knew I had to create something fun with it… and really just couldnt wait, so tonight was the night!

Hope you all will play along with us at Pile It On this week! There are many great challenges out there that will help you create some awesome projects — Dont forget about Scrap or Dare HERE every Tuesday! Have a wonderful week everyone!

This adorable card is not only my very first circle card but it is my very first card created as a Pile It On DESIGN TEAM MEMBER! Yes, you heard me correctly, I am part of a Design Team and this week marks the first week out of a 6 month commitment. I can not even begin to express how excited I am to have been chosen as part of their team (their very first team, to be exact!) and I can not wait to see what these next 6 months bring through it all. To check out the rest of the new team and what they have created this week, check it out right here!

For those of you who are new to the Pile It On challenge, let me fill you in on all of the fun! Each week, Dalis or Vicky (owners) will challenge us crafty ladies to create a project in a specific way or using a specific embellishment or technique, etc. There is just one more very important part to this challenge… you MUST “pile it on!” On top of this challenge you will have to use at least one more challenge from another challenge site. This makes creating fun and exciting… seriously, it really makes me think outside of the box and I love it! Everyone is welcome to play along and then post their work to share with the rest of us — lots of inspiration!

Here are the challenges that I used for this week’s card:

Pile It On — Use at least 3 Embellishments (Ribbon, Button and Rhinestones)

Paper Play – Use a Hand-crafted Flower

Paper Blooms — Create a card in a Special Shape

Hope you likey!