Heffy Doodle Challenge – Summer is Here!

Hello fellow crafters! It has been too long since I have posted! There are three months in the year that are very chaotic for our household and is like navigating through a web to get out of. March, May and December are the months that I feel becomes a blur to me…My husband celebrated a milestone birthday, my kids birthdays, holidays, March madness (we have big parties), end of school year…you catch my drift.

So I am back and sharing two cards using stamp sets from Heffy Doodle. The theme for these cards is Summer and were submitted for the Heffy Doodle challenge in May.  I first came to know of the Heffy Doodle brand after following all of the excitement for Creativation this past year. They had a large blown up image of their Happy Snappy Croc and could not be missed from the photos and Instagram feeds. I loved it and had to have it!

On to my cards! The first one I am showing today, “I think you’re Elephantastic”, uses the Heffy Doodle Elephant of Surprise stamp set. I love elephants, I think they are so majestic and yet adorable with their big trunks and big floppy ears…and this stamp set does not disappoint. I began making this card using a white panel from Neenah Solar White 110 lb cardstock. Using one of the elephant images and Gina K Designs Amalgam ink, I created the first impression in the middle of the page. Knowing that I wanted to make a group of elephants, I used Simon Says Stamp making paper and cut the image out to adhere over the image of the card panel. I then repeated stamping the images over the masking. I removed the masking and colored in the images using Copic markers. Once that was complete, I created more masks to put over my elephant images and then used the My Favorite Things Radiating Rays stencil and ink blended over top with Distress oxide Frozen Lemonade and Wild Honey.

To give this a cool Summer feel, I went in search of a pair of sunglasses stamps in my stash and found the perfect ones from the Tim Holtz Crazy Things set. I adhered the sunglasses over the top of the elephant images and coated the lenses with Nuvo Crystal Glaze to give them the effect of glare from the sun. Next, I used sentiments from the same Elephant of Surprise stamp set and white heat embossed using Hero Arts white embossing powder onto a strip of black cardstock.  I then adhered that strip to the card using Darice thin foam strips. Using strong adhesive, I attached the panel to the top folding card base and voila! A summer-filled card with my favorite animals…and a fun dose of coloring and ink blending.

For my second card, I used the oh-so-adorable Happy Snappy Crocs stamp set. If you get a chance to watch my video, you will notice (likely because I point it out on screen) that I start referencing my experience with alligators…and these are crocs. Oh dear. Anyways, this card was fun and simple to make once I was able to get the mirrored image impression to come out crisp. On a piece of Neenah Solar White 110 lb cardstock, I stamped the first image of the croc with his hands in the air (they are passing the ball to each other!). As you will see in the video, I attempted to stamp onto the mirror stamp block in the Misti Stamping Tool and found the best results were using Versafine Onyx Black ink and stamping the image on an acrylic block and then “kissing” the Paper Smooches Mirror Block stamp on the Misti door. I pressed down onto another piece of Neenah Solar White 11o lb cardstock. The image was pretty crisp! Not perfect, but the best result on multiple different attempts.

Using a Copic multi-liner 0.5 pen, I quickly outlined the image so that it was as defined as the original image. Using copic markers, I then colored in the croc images, die cut using coordinating dies and set aside. I found in my stash, once again, another older stamp set from Hero Arts Let’s Chill that had the beach ball of all beach ball images :). I stamped, colored with Copic markers and applied a generous amount of Nuvo Aqua Shimmer pen on top, then fussy cut out the image.

On to the background…I used another Neenah Solar White 110 lb cardstock panel and wanted to add just random “blobs” of color. So, using Altenew’s A Splash of Color stamp set, I was able to control these “blobs” on my background. I used Distress Oxide ink in Frozen Lemonade, which was a nice bright color and didn’t compete with the images. Once the stamping was complete, I chose the sentiment “Hope you have a Snappy day” from the same Happy Snappy Crocs stamp set. I stamped the sentiment directly onto the panel using Versafine Onyx Black ink. I then adhered the crocs to the card using Gina K Designs Connect glue and the beach ball using foam tape. Cutting off the images that were in excess of the card and, finally, adhered that panel to a white card base.

Two different stamp sets and two Summer fun cards! Thanks for stopping by on my blog and hope that this brings you some inspiration.