 Hello friends and happy New Year! Today I am welcoming in 2023 (albeit 10 days late, thank you flu) with an exciting announcement that I am continuing on as Design Team leader for the 2023 Whimsy Stamps InstaPinners Design Team! We had an amazing 2022 year with a real powerhouse of talent from this crew and while we lost a few team members from last year, we're super excited to be adding to our existing team! Many of you know that I am a huge advocate for the underdog, the yet-to-be-discovered-name, the diamond in the rough. When I chose members for my Design Team, I actively pursue artists who have never had the opportunity to be on a team before and experience the friendships, comraderies, adventures and experiences that they might not have had otherwise. I want to give them the chance to let their passion and their work shine. This year, I welcome "newbies" Beth, Lisa, Marie and Melinda.  Crystal Komara - that's me!
Beth Mallette Candice Crawford Lisa VanderGeer Maria Petkash Marie Bingaman Melinda MacDonald Zoe Collins Please check out this amazing team on Instagram to be inspired by their creative talents!
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Hello friends and happy December! It's a very busy time of the year between all the holiday decorating, shopping, baking and entertaining. I guess you either love it, or you hate it! While I won't admit to loooooooving it, my favorite part about Christmas is making Christmas cards (okay. . . okay. . . and drinking the eggnog)! Today I am sharing a fun holiday themed card in which the focus is on the ombre sentiment repeated in the background.  Card details:The base of this A2 sized card is made from 80 lb. Neenah Solar White Smooth cardstock. For this card I used the Christmas Wish digital stamp set. First, I manipulated the digital sentiment "Santa Claus is coming to town" to repeat down the card from black font to a very light gray font. Then I printed this onto Neenah white cardstock. I cut this down and adhered it to a 5 1/4" x 4" piece of red cardstock.   I die cut a row of mountains from white cardstock and adhered these over the bottom of the sentiment. Then I die cut the tops of the mountains from silver glitter cardstock. I printed out the ski Santa image from the Christmas Wish digital stamp set. I colored the image with Copic markers and adhered it to the card using 3M foam adhesive for added dimension. Lastly, I added a coat of clear Wink of Stella to the image for added sparkle.  I hope you have enjoyed this card. Thanks for visiting and have a wonderfully creative day! Additionally, for more inspiration, you can follow me on Instagram, Facebook and on my YouTube channel. XO, CrystalHello friends and happy December! The wait is over, the holidays (whether you're ready or not) are officially here! The Design Team at Joy Clair Designs is excited to share the mood board for this month. Mood boards (also commonly called "inspiration" boards) are a combination of colors, images, textures and patterns that can offer guidance or direction. If you feel like you don't know where to begin a project, try looking at a mood board and let the creative juices flow. You might just be surprised by the end result! Let's take a look at the December 2022 Joy Clair Designs mood board:  This month's mood board is so cool and festive! A monochromatic palette of blues and white these images and scenes evoke chilly winter eves, snow adorned churches and leave me thinking about NOT having a "Blue Christmas."
We would love to see YOU create using this mood board as inspiration too! Feel free to use similar colors in whatever brand of cardstock you have readily available. We'd love for you to use your Joy Clair Designs stamps if you have them! And if you don't have any yet CLICK HERE TO START SHOPPING TODAY! Be sure to tag us on social media using the following hashtags so we can see your cards or other papercraft projects: #joyclairdesignsmoodboard #joyclairmoodboard Thanks for visiting and have a wonderfully creative day! For more inspiration, you can follow me on my website, Instagram, Facebook and on my YouTube channel. XO, Crystal Be sure to sign up for Joy Clair Designs newsletters. You will receive notifications of new releases, sales and exclusive offers to subscribers. You can also follow the team’s creations from Joy Clair Designs on Facebook Page, Joy Clair Stamp Projects Facebook Group, Instagram , Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube! Hello friends! Welcome back from a (hopefully) long holiday weekend. I hope you and your family and friends all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. It is one of my favorite holidays of the year. And, if you are a shopper, I hope by reading this post, it means you survived the chaos and madness of Black Friday! Today I am on the Birch Press Design blog I am excited to be sharing this gorgeous card featuring the Piped Icing Star dies and a few other fabulous holiday themed products all from Birch Press Design. I also created a YouTube video! It's been over a year since I last created a card video, so I'm excited about that too!  There are so many different products all used on this one card. I was really inspired by all the beautiful samples on the Birch Press Design homepage. I never would have thought of combining berries and snowflakes AND Christmas sentiments AND roses all in one card, and it works! Not only does it work, it works BEAUTIFULLY!    I have created a step-by-step video showing I created this card, so click the YouTube link below for all the details! I was really pleased with how this card came out and I hope you enjoy it too! Thanks for visiting and have a wonderfully creative day! XO, CrystalProducts I used:
Hello friends and happy Monday! Today I am sharing another card that I created inspired by this month's mood board at Joy Clair Designs because I am soooo in love with the gorgeous color palette! Ooh la la! It is pure fall elegance. First, let's take a look at the November mood board again:  Here is the card I created that was inspired by the mood board colors of peach, mustard, raspberry, eggplant and gold.  Card details:The base of this A2 sized card is made from 80 lb. Neenah Solar White smooth cardstock. On a 5 1/4" x 4" piece of Yupo (polysynthetic paper) I created the alcohol ink background using Tim Holtz Ranger Adirondack alcohol inks. I used the colors lemonade, salmon, raspberry and valencia. Alcohol inks are one of my FAVORITE backgrounds to create. The colors are always so stunning and well, honestly, you never know what you're gonna get! Once the alcohol ink background dried, I adhered it directly to the card base. Then, I printed out the sunflower image from the Such a Blessing digital stamp set. I printed the image in yellow ink on Neenah White cardstock. Next, I fussy cut the sunflower out and adhered it to the left side of the card. I used Scotch 3M foam adhesive to adhere the sunflower to the card.  Next, I stamped the sentiment, "hello my friend" in magenta ink on white cardstock. This sentiment is from the Thankful For You stamp set.
Thanks for visiting and have a wonderfully creative day! XO, Crystal Follow Us Also, be sure to sign up for Joy Clair Designs newsletters. You will receive notifications of new releases, sales and exclusive offers to subscribers. You can also follow the team’s creations from Joy Clair Designs on Facebook Page, Joy Clair Stamp Projects Facebook Group, Instagram , Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube! November is a great month to celebrate all the things we are thankful for. Today I am on the Joy Clair Designs blog sharing a slimline card she created featuring the new digital stamp set "Such A Blessing. The "Such a Blessing" stamp set is from the latest digital stamp release, Gather Together. Continue reading to learn how I made this card inspired by this month's mood board. First, let's begin by taking a look at this month's mood board:  Card details:To start with, this slimline card measures 8 1/2" x 3 1/2". Slimline cards are designed to fit inside a regular #10 business sized envelope and require no additional postage. The base of my slimline card is made from 80 lb. Neenah Solar White Smooth cardstock. This is my go-to cardstock for everything. It can be used for card bases, die cutting, Copic Coloring, ink blending, heat embossing and so much more! Next, I used a slimline die to create the stitched frame on white cardstock. Then, I layered this white stitched frame onto a piece of blackberry bliss cardstock and cut it to size to give the white frame a purple border. I also selected the "you are such a blessing" sentiment and placed it just above the line of pumpkins. After that, I set to work creating the digital image.  To create the long row of pumpkins, I printed out the digital pumpkin image from the "Such a Blessing" stamp set and repeated the image multiple times and in different sizes. Next, I colored the image using a variety of Copic markers in yellow, orange, peach, pink, raspberry and brown. Then I adhered both layers of the card together with 3M foam adhesive. Thanks for visiting and letting me share my slimline card. Have a wonderfully creative day! Additionally, for more inspiration, you can follow me on my Instagram, Facebook and on my YouTube channel.
Follow Us Also, be sure to sign up for Joy Clair Designs newsletters. You will receive notifications of new releases, sales and exclusive offers to subscribers. You can also follow the team’s creations from Joy Clair Designs on Facebook Page, Joy Clair Stamp Projects Facebook Group, Instagram , Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube! Hello friends! If there is one thing I love when it comes to cardmaking, it's the alcohol. Ink, that is! ; ) Initially I never thought I would have enjoyed working with alcohol inks as much as I have because, well. . . they're messy. They stain. They are a tad unpredictable in outcome and all that just terrifies me. Yet, somehow I learned to love them and now can't feature them enough on my cards.  Card details:The base of this A2 sized card is made from 80 lb. Neenah Solar White Smooth cardstock. I cut a 5 1/4" x 4" piece of Yupo (polysynthetic paper) and "ink blew" Ranger Adirondack alcohol ink in the color Stream over the Yupo paper. That's it, just one ink color was all I used! As it moves around and dries, you get puddles of ink that look like other darker and lighter colors, but I assure you, I used just one color. Nice and easy!  Using the Felicity Snowflakes dies, I cut the outer layer from vellum cardstock and the top thinner layer from white cardstock. I adhered the two layers together with liquid adhesive and then I adhered the snowflakes to the card with a small pop dot (which you can actually see through the vellum, it's too hard to hide).  Using the Contempo Christmas Greetings stamp set and coordinating die, I stamped the sentiment in Versamark ink on white cardstock and heat embossed it with turquoise embossing powder. I used the coordinating circle die to cut out the sentiment. I adhered the sentiment to the card with Scotch 3M foam adhesive for added dimension.  Now that I think about it, you could make this same card in ANY color! Red or green alcohol ink would be very traditional, but I'm also thinking pinks and purples for a pop of pizazz too! Thanks for visiting and have a wonderfully creative day! XO, CrystalHello friends and happy November! No, it's not quite Christmas yet, for all your Christmas lovers! There is still the whole month of November to get through and I'm not ready for snow yet anyway here in New England! The Design Team at Joy Clair Designs is excited to share the mood board for this month. Mood boards (also commonly called "inspiration" boards) are a combination of colors, images, textures and patterns that can offer guidance or direction. If you feel like you don't know where to begin a project, try looking at a mood board and let the creative juices flow. You might just be surprised by the end result! Let's take a look at the November 2022 Joy Clair Designs mood board: This month's mood board is so elegantly dreamy! I love the rust, pink and eggplant hues and swooooon, a touch of gold! Yes please! If this is fall, I'm here for it.
We would love to see YOU create using this mood board as inspiration too! Feel free to use similar colors in whatever brand of cardstock you have readily available. We'd love for you to use your Joy Clair Designs stamps if you have them! And if you don't have any yet CLICK HERE TO START SHOPPING TODAY! Be sure to tag us on social media using the following hashtags so we can see your cards or other papercraft projects: #joyclairdesignsmoodboard #joyclairmoodboard Thanks for visiting and have a wonderfully creative day! For more inspiration, you can follow me on my website, Instagram, Facebook and on my YouTube channel. XO, Crystal Follow Us Be sure to sign up for Joy Clair Designs newsletters. You will receive notifications of new releases, sales and exclusive offers to subscribers. You can also follow the team’s creations from Joy Clair Designs on Facebook Page, Joy Clair Stamp Projects Facebook Group, Instagram , Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube! Hello friends and happy Thursday! It is a very exciting day for my dear friend Martha at Joy Clair Designs as she offers a beautiful new holiday release of digital stamps. This mini-release is called Merriest Moments and you can continue reading to see the new products! If you are new to using digital stamps, please read this very informative blogpost I wrote two years ago to learn more.  Here are the four new digital stamps from this release: Jingle All The Way Christmas Cheer You Gnome Me This Christmas For my card today, I used the new This Christmas digital stamp set. I particularly liked the beautiful holly wreath.  Card details:The base of this A2 sized card is made from 80 lb. Neenah Solar White Smooth cardstock. I cut a 4" x 3" piece of red plaid paper and adhered it to the bottom half of the card. I cut a 4" x 3 1/2" piece of the same Neenah White cardstock and used an envelope edger die to angle the bottom. I printed off the beautiful wreath from the This Christmas digital stamp set and colored it with Copic markers. I fussy cut the wreath out and adhered it to the card using 3M foam adhesive for added dimension. I printed off the sentiment (altering the image from black to green ink) on a thin white strip of cardstock. Lastly, I added a coat of Clear Wink of Stella to the wreath for added sparkle. Simple and elegant.    I hope you will check out this beautiful new holiday digital release at Joy Clair Designs. Thank you for visiting and have a wonderfully creative day! XO, CrystalHello friends! Today I am sharing more holiday themed inspiration using products from the latest Birch Press Design release. Birch Press Design never ceases to amaze me with its elegant layering dies, contour dies and foil plates. Some of my most loved cards have been as a result of these gorgeous and elevated products.  Card details:The base of this A2 sized card is made from 80 lb. Neenah Solar White Smooth cardstock. I cut a 5 1/4" x 4" piece of navy cardstock from the 6" x 6" Ocean Blue paper pack. Using my Gemini Foilpress machine and the String Art Hot Foil Frame, I heat foiled a cerulean blue foil onto the navy cardstock. I know that it kind of looks like silver foil in these photos, but it is ever-so-slightly more blue tinted in person.  Using the Snowy Circle Layer Set, I created the center focal piece. I die cut Layer C (bottom layer) from navy cardstock. I die cut Layer B (middle layer) from a sky blue cardstock. I die cut Layer A (top layer) from white cardstock. Again, I used cardstock from the 6" x 6" Ocean Blues paper pack. I used a fine-tip liquid adhesive to adhere all three layers together and then I lined the back of the three layers with a solid sheet of white cardstock. I adhered the entire Snowy Circle image to the center of the card using 3M foam adhesive.   Lastly, I stamped the sentiment "be merry' in navy ink on white cardstock. This sentiment is from the Contempo Christmas Greetings stamp set. I used the coordinating circle die to die cut the sentiment out. I adhered the sentiment to the lower right side of the snowflakes with 3M foam adhesive.  Thanks for visiting and have a wonderfully creative day! XO, CrystalYou might also enjoy:
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I, Crystal Komara, am solely responsible for this blog and all of its content, including, but not limited to designs, concepts, text, images and photographs. This website is for your personal enjoyment, inspiration and to help stimulate your own creativity.
If you use one of my posts, images, classes or designs please be sure to give credit where it is due. Thank you! 2019 © Disclosure:Whether gifted, or from my own supply, all of my recommendations are based on items that I use and truly love, and I think you will too. |
