Hello everyone and Happy Monday! Its Nina-Marie with you today, sharing the latest installment of my Studio Monday series. This week I wanted to share tips for creating with mood/color boards. I’ll also be featuring some newer products from Hero Arts.

Mood boards, or also known as color boards, are a collection of images that share a common color scheme. You could also use a mood board for a collection of images that share a similar style, theme or subject. I personally love them for color combos. When I decided to use the Destination Paris wood block stamp with the Postage Stamp dies on these cards, I headed over to Pinterest to see what kind of color schemes I wanted to use.

I started my search by looking up “Paris, France”. Because the stamp I was used in these cards is depicting this particular location, I felt it was a natural place to begin. Looking through the vast array of options in my search results, I focused on finding three images that REALLY caught my eye. Here’s a look at the three color boards I created for these cards:

Once I had decided upon the three main images, I then searched for other images that shared the same predominant colors. For example, let’s look at the photo of the Eiffel Tower in the rain. The primary colors in the image are red and gray. By searching Pinterest for “red and gray”, I was able to discover other images with the same shared color palettes.

Now, the idea of searching for additional images may seem pointless.  I already had my color combos picked out by the initial image search I had done, so why choose more? Because selecting a few additional photos for my boards is SO handy! They might help me draw inspiration for a certain texture, accent, theme or feel. I also save these boards for future use, so having the additional photos included in the board provides further inspiration.

In the video, I will be sharing how I created the partial die cut card-front using the Postage Stamp dies from Hero Arts. These dies are SO versatile. If you follow me often, you’ll have noticed how much I have been using them lately. I love that I am getting so much use out of these particular dies.

One of the things that I love about the Destination Paris stamp is the clean, graphic style of it. I wanted to make sure I carried that same feel into my finished cards, so you’ll notice the “minimalist” appearance. This is actually quite trendy these days! By utilizing clean lines, flat color and some hand drawn elements, I was able to let the modern feel of the stamp shine beautifully.

I am particularly fond of the pink and gray color scheme. The pop of gold also accents those two colors nicely!

Another thing I wanted to point out: This card design is perfect for those of you that are not into coloring as much as other crafters. I personally would -and will!- color almost anything I lay my hands on. But its fun to break out of the norm every so often and do something a bit outside of your usual style.

If I had skipped adding some color with my Copics and simply used the stamped image as-is, it still would have looked amazing. Had I done so, I would have still added the additional hand drawn details with the gold, silver and black gel pens. You can see those details in the finished cards.

Be sure to check out the video below to see how I put these cards together! You’ll also learn a bit more about working with mood/color boards. I will be talking about that in the beginning of the video and I hope it is of help to you! I love referencing things such as color boards when I am in a creative rut. I never know what kind of spark it will ignite by seeing something totally unrelated to papercrafting!

Thanks for stopping by and spending a bit of your Monday with me… I will be back again next week with another Studio Monday video for you!

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Hi friends! Thanks for tuning into the latest edition of Doodling with Debby with Debby Hughes! Today she has made this adorable sheep card with a gorgeous handmade watercolored background with Gansai Tambi Kuretake watercolors. Be sure to watch the video and enjoy!

Hi it’s Debby here today with this month’s Doodling With Debby feature. After my recent blog post for the Hey Love Blog Hop where I watercolored a red and grey plaid I got a lot of requests to see a video. Credit must go to the fabulous Kristina Werner who kick started my love of watercolor plaid/tartan. As my previous plaid had been rich dark colors I thought I’d switch things up today with a pastel spring plaid.

Using the Gansai Tambi set I mixed up a dilute coral/pink and rich yellow. On a piece of watercolor card I started with a wide flat ended brush and painted a broad pastel pink stripe diagonally. Before starting the next stripe you either need to let the paint dry or dry it with a heat tool. If you don’t then one color will bleed in to the next. I followed up the with a narrower second stripe of the yellow. A good brush set with a couple of flat ended ones included is this Ranger set and at a really reasonable price for 7 brushes. I continued painting the stripes diagonally across the card and leaving the odd gap between stripes too. I then turned the card and painted stripes in the other direction, again drying between touching stripes. For a final accent I use the Moon Gold color in the Finetec set to add a few narrow champagne gold stripes.

I cut the completed watercolored plaid with a Stitched Rectangle and wrapped it with Lawn Fawn twine. I thought the plaid would make a great background when combined with the lamb from Melody’s Easter for a spring or new baby card. I stamped the lamb in Versafine Onyx Black ink and lightly watercolored with the Gansai Tambi paints before cutting out with the matching die. I also cut a Stitched Circle from watercolor card to mount the lamb on and prevent it getting lost in the busy background.
For the sentiment I used the I See You set and stamped the speech bubble outline in Versafine Onyx Black. I then stamped the ‘baaah’ word from Melody’s Easter three times using Rosie Cheeks and Melon inks which toned well with the plaid before die cutting the speech bubble with the matching die. All the elements are foam mounted on an Ivory card base and then accented with sequins from Little Things From Lucy’s Cards.

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Thanks so much for reading today, and thanks to Debby for being our guest!

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Hello and happy weekend to you my creative friends! Welcome back to the latest edition of Weekender with Wanda here on the Simon Says Stamp blog! Thanks for spending part of your weekend with me! Hope you have Happy Valentine’s Day coming up this week. The hubs and I don’t have any plans – maybe just a low key dinner together and some nice valentine cards exchanged at home. I wouldn’t mind getting some chocolates though! LOL. Chocolate is always a good idea in my book. When I was little my dad used to always leave a giant heart shaped box of candy on my dresser at night – kind of like the Valentine Fairy came!

Today I’m featuring lots of pretty dies and stamps that are from our Simon Says Stamp brand. Often, I make cards that have only dies and no stamping! Do you do that? There are so many pretty dies available for us to use nowadays. Well, today, my card is about 90% die cuts…and one stamp set used as an accent. I happen to really love working with patterned papers and die cut cards are perfect for using your nice paper pads.

This card started with an A2 card base made from Neenah Desert Cardstock. Next I trimmed a panel of cream cardstock and die cut the long edge using the Simon Says Stamp Exclusive Scallop Stitches Die. I inked the edges with Vintage Photo Distress Ink and a sponge for a bit of a vintage feeling. Now, here’s where I used the awesome Simon Says Stamp Falling Backgrounds stamp set! I used the circles stamp to add accents at the top and bottom corners of the cream panel. It gives just the right amount of interest to all that white space.

Next I had fun using the Simon Says Stamp Stitched Circles Dies and Simon Says Stamp Stitched Heart Collage Dies to cut out pieces from the Party Time 6×6 paper pad. I also die cut brown circles in the same size to layer on the bottom. This gives a nice shadow effect. After all my pieces were die cut out, I used the same Vintage Photo Distress Ink to ink all the edges.

I had fun choosing enamel dots, wood veneer pieces and buttons to add interest to the hearts. I die cut the beautiful Simon Says Stamp Handlettered Greetings Die from brown paper.

Here is a close up of the pretty scallop edge and the thank you die. So pretty!

Here are my pieces before I inked them. I think it makes a big difference to just add a bit of ink!

These wood veneer pieces from Kaiser Craft come in all kinds of shapes and sizes. They are so pretty to add a little something to a card or other mixed media project.

Thanks for joining me today for this die cut card! How do you like to use your patterned papers? I have so many paper pads in my studio I could make cards for 50 years! (But I’m not a craft hoarder! ha). Best wishes for a great weekend and I’ll see you next week!

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