Topflight Stamps 3rd Birthday Hop!
It's Topflight Stamps' 3rd birthday! They are celebrating with a fun blog hop, and they invited me to hop too! If you're not familiar with Topflight Stamps, I hope you'll check out their site - they carry hard-to-find and beautiful products from all over the world, bringing them to one place so we can buy them soooo easily.
They're heroes.
Today, I hope you'll enjoy the hop! Everyone has made a beautiful project or two with a birthday theme to celebrate. If you're already hopping, you should have arrived here from Karen's blog. If not, you might want to start at the Topflight Stamps blog to take it from the top!
I've drooled over the stamps and stencils from Darkroom Door for a verrry long time, and Topflight has a great selection! Definitely my style - photorealistic, and perfect for collage, clean coloring, mixed media and more. I started off my card by stamping the Cupcake, then covered it with a fussy-cut mask. I taped off a horizontal line for my table top, then did a little Stencil Stacking for the background using the Arty Circles and Polka Dots stencils from their line.
I used colored pencils for my coloring - a variety of brands.
I really took my time on each section to be colored - it's been a while since I slowed down to color a card front, and I really enjoyed the process. (If you're new to my blog, I'm a professional artist, and most of my coloring is done on commissioned pet portraits!)
There was one other birthday stamp set I couldn't resist (and how amazing is it to be able to order products from Australia and the Netherlands in one cart?!), and that was this Sloths set from Craft Emotions. The set comes with 2 sloth images and then some extras - jungly leaves, a birthday hat, balloons, and some tiny circle and star accent stamps. So cute!
There are a lot of layers to my coloring, but here's one little trick for coloring the balloons - with the lightest color, I filled in a full shape for each balloon so the colors would overlap. This make the balloons look like they have a little mass, and a little transparency.
I did my coloring on watercolor paper so I could fill the background more easily with a wash of greens. When the panel was dry, I used some white acrylic paint and that Arty Circles stencil to create a little bokeh effect.
The sentiments on both cards are from a single sentiment block - I left the full stamp together, but masked off these 2 sentiments with sticky notes so I could just ink where I wanted.
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CELEBRATE and SAVE! Everything on the site is 25% off through the 29th!
CELEBRATE and SAVE! Everything on the site is 25% off through the 29th!
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NOW for the fun stuff!! Of course, it wouldn’t be a birthday celebration without prizes!
Topflight Stamps is giving one lucky winner a $50 Gift Certificate to the store.
Each stop (even mine!!) on the hop has an additional $15 Gift Certificate
up for grabs for a lucky commenter.
For a chance to win, make sure to visit every stop on the hop and leave a comment by March 28th.
Winners will be announced on the Topflight Stamps blog on March 31st. Good Luck!
Dina Kowal <<<<<<<<<<<<< you're here!
From here you're off to Kathi's blog - thank you for visiting me today!
fab cards Dina! I want to eat that cupcake lol.
ReplyDeleteBoth cards are wonderful. The cupcake card is truly lovely. I especially love that big fluffy bow.
ReplyDeleteThe sloths are big fun and those translucent balloons are beautifully colored.
The cupcake looks so real! It's making my stomach growl!
ReplyDeleteWonderful coloring. Very lovely cupcake.
ReplyDeleteThe cupcake card makes me think of pretty little girls and tea parties. The sloth card is awesome! You are so gifted!
ReplyDeleteYour coloring always amazes me, but this is over-the-top! What magic you've created with this sweet (literally!) image. The stencil work inspires me, too. Thanks!
ReplyDeletethat cupcake looks amazing - almost 3D - too bad it's not edible ;)
ReplyDeleteYour cupcake looks so real! You are very talented.
ReplyDeleteGorgeous!!! You have the perfect touch:)
ReplyDeletewow Dina - your coloring is exceptional -thanks for sharing
ReplyDeletewow these cards are great- the muffin looks good enough to eat, the sloth is so cute & love the transparency of balloons! Nummy
ReplyDeleteLove your coloring, especially the cupcake!
ReplyDeleteThat cupcake looks good enough to eat! Photo-realism is definitely your thing. The layered stencils combined for a beautiful background. Cute sloth, too!
ReplyDeleteBoth of your cards are lovely and soft and very sternly pretty.
ReplyDeleteOhh the cupcake is so enticing..yummm, fabulous job. My favorite medium watercolor pencils...nice.
ReplyDeleteWow, amazing coloring and fabulous cards! Fun and festive designs - awesome!
ReplyDeleteThis is adorable. You have so much talent!
ReplyDeleteGreat cards. The cupcake looks so real. Happy Birthday!
ReplyDeleteSimply fabulous cards, that cupcake is so real looking and that sloth is adorable with the soft stenciled colors!!😍
ReplyDeleteA+ on your stencil background designs. But you really had me with that delishish cupcake! Yum!
ReplyDeleteYour coloring is amazing. The cupcake looks almost real and classy detail. That sloth is very cute with lifelike coloring.
ReplyDeleteAwesome cards! Love that yummy looking cupcake and the colors you used! Great coloring on the sloth and balloons too!
ReplyDeleteAlways great to see how to use the same idea in different ways! Love the colors.
ReplyDeleteTwo gorgeous designs Dina - your coloring is so beautiful - I want to eat that cupcake and hug that sloth!
ReplyDeleteGreat cards! Both fun! Luvin that sloth!
ReplyDeleteSweet cupcake card and fun sloth with the balloons.
ReplyDeleteThat cupcake is stunning and the sloth is so cute! Thanks so much for joining our Birthday Party.
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