GIU Blog Hop

I loved my week as a Growing in Unity (GIU) girl so I immediately jumped at the opportunity to participate in the blog hop. Several of us from the November and December Growing In Unity girls are participating in a blog hop today, so be sure to check everyone’s blog out. Everyone has brought amazing projects to share all year, I feel truly blessed to be among them all!

I absolutely love the stamps that Unity offers! I subscribe to the Kit of the Month each month and I deliberately don’t look at any previews so I can enjoy the wonderful surprise when it arrives. When my December kit (Life is a Celebration) arrived, I was so excited that there were several birthday-themed stamps because my card stash was getting pretty low for birthdays. I spent the last several months focusing on my Christmas cards and ephemera for my scrapbooks, so it was time to replenish my cards. Having an assortment of cards ready makes it so quick and easy when I sit down to prepare my birthday cards to send. It’s also nice to have other themes too for those things that always pop up unexpectedly.

I pulled out the Glass Media Mat, MISTI, watercolors, VersaMark, embossing powders, heat tool and some of my pre-cut & scored A2 card bases. I was ready for a fun evening spent in my crafty space creating! I have two go-to techniques when I’m running dry on ideas – emboss resist and embossing on dark card stock. I pulled them both out this time. I mainly chose colored cardstock in shades of red, blue and black for my card bases, so I needed to be sure to cut out a white insert for the inside of my cards and I always stamp an inside sentiment for birthday cards.

I searched through my Unity Stamp collection to find a few other birthday sentiments. I pulled out these other stamp sets for the sentiments: Peas, Peas, Peas {dirty} and my July 2015 Kit of the Month (Halo Dirty).

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I started out by stamping the birthday cake from the December 2020 KOTM Life is a Celebration using my VersaMark ink on 2 different pieces of black cardstock. I embossed one of them with silver (like a gunmetal silver) and the other with gold. I noticed that I stamped the gold birthday cake super wonky, so I fussy cut it out, loaded the back with foam tape, then mounted it on an A2 card base. I was happy with the silver embossed image, so I put it on the A2 card base right away.

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I stamped the cake again onto a piece of white cardstock and embossed it with clear embossing powder. Now it was time to have some fun with my watercolors! I used Ultramarine, Crimson and Viridian Hue out of my Reeves watercolor tube set. I found a comparable set here. I laid down some water on my cardstock, but not too much since I wasn’t using watercolor paper. I was also careful not to let the red and green hues run into each other so it wouldn’t look muddy. I used my heat tool to set it, then placed it under a heavy book for the night to flatten it out again.

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For my next card, I use the confetti girls from the same kit and followed the same process that I did for watercoloring above. I used more water on this one so the color wasn’t so saturated. I also flicked my water brush with color on it so I could have paint splatters that kinda looked like more confetti. I used the happy birthday sentiment from the Halo Dirty kit and stamped it with Versafine onyx black. Finally, I mounted this one on a burgundy A2 card base.

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For my final 2 cards, I used the balloon animal Happy Birthday sentiment from the December 2020 KOTM Life is a Celebration. I absolutely LOVED this stamp! I stamped it with VersaMark on a piece of black and a piece of white cardstock. On the white cardstock, I used the clear embossing powder again so I could watercolor. For the black cardstock, I used my favorite rose gold embossing powder. I mounted the black onto a white A2 card base. For the white image, I used my watercolor brush and the same 3 colors from earlier and painted in each of the balloons with color. I then used the ultramarine with quite a bit of water and spread the color across the entire card. I heat set it to dry, then splattered more of the ultramarine and the viridian hue. Because of the amount of water I used on this card front, I also had to set it under a book for the night to flatten it out some. Finally, I mounted this one onto a red A2 card base.

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All of these cards turned out to be mostly 1 layer cards, so no additional postage will be required! I now have 6 birthday cards waiting for me to mail and I won’t have to rush around when the next birthday sneaks up on me! All of my stamps from Unity make it so easy to prepare beautiful cards, even when doing a minimal card. Be sure to check out the others in the blog hop today! You will absolutely love what they are bringing you.

Be sure to leave a comment here and on each blog to be qualified for an amazing drawing from Unity too!

Candi – https://sugarcardsbycandi.blogspot.com/

Brandon- https://tazersfan.wordpress.com/

Shannon – https://olasmoon.blogspot.com/

Mary – https://a-red-letter-day.com/

Linda – https://rubberstampormodify.blogspot.com/

**You are here** Michelle – https://annemichellecreates.com/

Jennifer – https://jhammond0128.wixsite.com/website

Holly – https://mamabirdcrafts.blogspot.com/