Merry Monday Hearts 2

I just discovered that you cannot link two images to a challenge from the same blog post so I had to redo my original post and split it into two.

Here's the second card for the Merry Monday "Hearts" challenge:

 

I created a background with red and green brushos, sprinkled on watercolour paper and spritzed. The blue and yellow is actually part of the green brusho crystals! When dry, I dug out an old stamp of a Christmas heart - if you look closely you'll see it has holly leaves on it. Stamped it with my MISTI to get a good impression and heat embossed it. I added it to a red border and a cream cardbase.

I'm still working on my quota for June and July for Christmas cards, and June's SCS Christmas Card Challenge is to use pearls on a card, so I used my cream pearl pen to add dimension to the pearls in the image and to add a few random pearls to the background.

And it's for today's Mixed Media challenge at SCS - "Love It" (to use something you love).  I love my brushos and I love making Christmas Cards.  Plus it's a heart and the word "love" is in the sentiment so it fits all round!

Supplies:

Stamps: Rubbernecker Christmas Heart, unknown sentiment

Paper: watercolour paper, cream and red cs

Ink: Versafine Onyx Black

Accessories: green and red brushos, clear embossing powder, Spellbinders rectangles, dimensionals, cream Viva Pearl Pen

Merry Monday Hearts

One of my favourite Christmas card challenges is the Merry Monday one.  The theme this time was proposed by my friend, Bonnie - "Hearts".  Quite challenging for Christmas cards, I thought!  But I ended up making two.

First up is one using a never before used stamp I bought a few months ago and had forgotten about until I went searching for stamps for the "Hearts" challenge:

I coloured it with Copics and placed it on a dark green cardbase. Then topped it with another layer of the cream cs with a circular opening, cut with an inverted scalloped die that makes me think of holly. Then I cut a frame for the opening using two sizes of the inverted scallop die.

Supplies:

Stamps: Stamp It Australia Wreath, Hero Arts sentiment

Paper: dark green and cream cs

Paper Size: A2

Ink: Archival Jet Black

Accessories: Copics, Spellbinders inverted scallops dies, dimensionals

Polished Stone Background for a Dragonfly

This week's Ways to Use It challenge over at Splitcoaststampers is to use one of the reinkers techniques. I chose the Polished Stone tutorial here:

http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/re...olished_stone/

I love the result! It made a lovely background for my dragonfly which I stamped in archival black, bordered it with black cs with a fleur de lis border and used a narrow embossing folder on the cardbase that co-ordinated with it well. It left faint marks on the cs so I went over them with my scor buddy to make them stand out as part of the design.

Supplies:

Stamps: Tim Holtz dragonfly, SU sentiment

Paper: white and black cs, glossy cs

Paper Size: A2

Ink: Ranger Archival Black

Accessories: Distress Broken China, Faded Jeans, and Antique Linen reinkers; rubbing alcohol, Cuttlebug narrow embossing folder, fleur de lis border punch, scor buddy

Snowy Resist

I need to make some Christmas cards with horses on them.  This one will be for my sister as she rides a grey horse.  I did a background by doing a heat embossing resist (using one of the Itty Bitty Background stamps) for the snow, masking off the snowy hills, and sponging the blue sky.  Then stamped the trees with first and second generations of ink, added a bit of glitter to them and to the hills.  A die cut horse, a sentiment, and a snow embossing folder background finish it off.

It's going to the Splitcoaststampers Technique Lovers' Challenge ("Can You Resist?"), the Splitcoaststampers Christmas Card Challenge for August ("Furry Friends"), and to the Happy Little Stampers Christmas Card Challenge ("Trees").

Supplies:

Stamps: SU Itty Bitty Backgrounds, Old Island sentiment, Art Impressions and Old Island trees

Paper: white cs

Paper Size: A2

Ink: Memento Cottage Ivy, Distress blues, ColorBox Frost White, Versafine Tuxedo Black

Accessories: sparkly embossing powder, glue pen, glitter, grey coloured pencils, Cuttlebug snow embossing folder, PTI Starlit Studio Horse Country die

Techniques: heat embossing resist

Celtic Knot Christmas Tree

Here's another card for the Happy Little Stampers Christmas Card Challenge with the theme of "tree".   It will go up as one of the mid-month reminders.

I kept it very CAS as I'm also entering it in this week's SCS CAS challenge - "Christmas in July".  And because both image and sentiment are stamped, it's also going in the Happy Little Stampers CAS Challenge - "Stamping".

It was a great opportunity to use some of my coloured embossing powders - they tend to languish on the shelf as there are so many new products to use these days!  As much as I love all those new products, it really is nice to go back to my roots in the cardmaking craft world - I started out stamping and heat embossing as I loved that effect!

Supplies:
Stamps:  Wordsworth Celtic Knot Christmas Tree, Tim Holtz sentiment
Ink:  ColorBox Gold and Evergreen
Paper:  cream and gold shimmer cs
Accessories:  Stampendous Gold Detail and Green Tinsel embossing powders, L'il Inkers Stitched Square die

Early for Christmas, Late for a Birthday!

I love making Christmas cards so much that sometimes I get distracted and miss a friend's birthday.  So today I've got my latest Christmas card, and a belated birthday card to share.

The Christmas card is for the Mixed Media challenge "Blue".  I had to take part in that challenge as those of you who know me well, will know that I passionately love blue!

I was playing with my Inka Golds and made a few sheets of background by putting small blobs of different colours of Inka Gold (in this case blue and silver) onto my craft sheet, spritzing with water, and pressing my cardstock into it.  In some spots it comes out thick, in others thin so there is some nice texture to the card.  Here's a close-up showing the texture:

I then stamped some random bits of text on the piece (with some of the ink wiped off of the stamp before stamping).  Because it did not dry flat, I used a trick I saw Bonnie use recently where she made a frame to put around a piece to keep it flatter.

Out of slightly glittered cs, I die cut some small snowflakes and the "winter wishes", making three layers of each and sticking them together for dimension.  I lost the little die cut dot for over the "i" in "winter" so substituted a little embellishment.

Now on to the belated birthday card:

I missed a friend's birthday and so had to make a belated card for her.  I wanted to take part in the Tag You're It Challenge as I really liked their inspiration tag with a flower, some script, a border, and a blue background.

And I wanted to CASE this gorgeous card I saw on SCS.  I love Maura's poppies against the blue stencilled background.  My blue is lighter, almost aqua blue, and I used a different stencil and poppy die, and of course my focal image is a tag.

The background is Tumbled Glass ink sponged through a stencil, then a bit of script stamp in grey.  The poppies are die cut twice - the stems on one set sponged green, and the flowers cut off the other set, sponged with two shade of orange, and then stuck on top of the other die cut. 

I then die cut using a tag die, and die cut a tag the next larger tag die, and sponged the edges of it with the Tumbled Glass to match the colour.  Added a grey ribbon and a grey sentiment.

Thanks for taking a look!

Supplies:

Christmas card:

Stamps: Inkadinkado text stamp

Paper: white and silver glitter cs

Paper Size: A2

Ink: Ranger Archival black

Accessories: blue and silver Inka Gold, L'il Inker stiched rectangle die, Cheery Lynn snowflakes die, Penny Black winter wishes die

Birthday card:

Stamps: Old Island Stamp Co. script, Rubber Stamp Farm sentiment

Paper: PTI white cs

Paper Size: A2

Ink: Vivid Cobblestone; Distress Tumbled Glass, Bundled Sage, Wild Honey, and Spiced Marmalade

Accessories: grey ribbon, dimensionals, Memory Box Poppy die and Texture stencil, Die-namics tag dies

Butterflies Galore

This week's tutorial on SCS is on the new watercolour powders (Brusho, Bister, ColorBurst, etc.).  I've had both Brushos and Bister for awhile now and love using them, especially for backgrounds.

For this card, I made a simple background out of green, blue, and purple brushos - sprinkled on wc paper and then spritzed.

Then I die cut the new Memory Box Reverse Butterfly die out of white cs and added my sentiment. The die worked better for a square card and I badly misplaced my sentiment so die cut some tiny butterflies out of scraps I trimmed off the background piece and scattered them around to balance the sentiment.

Supplies:

Stamps: Rubber Stamp Farm sentiment

Paper: white cs, watercolour paper

Paper Size: 5.25" square

Ink: Distress Tumbled Glass

Accessories: Memory Box Reverse Butterfly die, Sissix Beautiful Wings Embosslits die, dimensionals

Happy Birthday, Loll!

Finally - I have a new computer, it's all set up thanks to a techie friend, and I'm excited to be back using my new blog.

Since Loll was the person who inspired me to enter blogland and helped me set up my blog, it seems appropriate that I start off on my new computer with the birthday card I made for her.

The background was done by embossing my cs with a flowery embossing folder, then dabbing Distress stains on my craft sheet and painting the raised areas of the embossed panel - the Distress stains give a lighter, more translucent look than inks.  I let it be the star of the card and just added a simple die cut navy blue sentiment (layered a couple of times for more substance) and a matching navy border.

My first card for a Design Team!!

I was so thrilled to get my first ever blog up and running a few weeks ago with lots of help from my wonderful (and very generous) friend, Loll Thompson (of Stamping with Loll).  She taught me all the basics and I got a couple of posts done and then my computer died.  I'll be getting a new one soon, but meanwhile I'm using an ancient iPad which is very limited.  So Loll is kindly stepping up again and helping me get this posted and linked to Happy Little Stampers Christmas Challenge.

I'm thrilled to have been chosen to be on the Design Team for the Christmas Card Challenge at Happy Little Stampers.  The theme for July is "tree".

I used a Penny Black stamp called "Twinkling Tree".  I love the way it reminds me of a small tree in my front garden that I decorate with colored lights every Christmas.

I stamped it, then colored in the "lights" with markers, then went over them with Glossy Accents. My "twinkle" word die seemed perfect.  I cut it twice out of dark gold cs and layered them.  I used the same dark gold to border the focal image.

Please come and join us at Happy Little Stampers and add your Christmas tree cards!


I'm going to enter this into two other challenges that are currently running at Happy Little Stampers, this month's Sketch Challenge and the CAS Challenge - Stamping.

Supplies:  Penny Black Twinkling Tree stamp, Tim Holtz word die, white and dark gold cs, markers, Glossy Accents, Ranger Archival Jet Black ink