Double Stencils

The wonderful Karen Dunbrook posted this week's "Try a New Technique" challenge at SCS.  It's called "Do a Double Take" - use two different stencils on top of each other to create a background.

I started out with a script stencil and Distress Frayed Burlap ink and stenciled a subtle and patchy script.

I then used a flower stencil and various colours of Distress Oxide inks with finger daubers.

I sponged Frayed Burlap around the edges of the panel for definition, then popped it up on fun foam.

I added some stencils and a brown die cut sentiment.

Thanks, Karen, for a fun challenge!

Supplies:

Ink - Distress Frayed Burlap, Distress Oxide Peeled Paint, Worn Lipstick, and Fossilized Amber

Paper - Gina K white cs, brown cs

Size - A2

Accessories - TCW Believe Script stencil, Plaid Lovely Floral stencil, Tim Holtz happy birthday die, sequins, fun foam

Sitting by the Sea

For this month's CAS Watercolour theme of "Summer", I borrowed some stamps of deckchairs from my friend, Christine.  I already posted this card using one of her stamps but wanted to use another one before I give them back.  I was inspired to get it done today because of today's SCS Ways to Use It challenge "That's Sea Worthy".

It's another card inspired by my childhood holidays in England on the south coast with my grandparents. My grandmother always brought her deckchair to the beach and watched us children while we made sandcastles. She always brought a bottle of lemon or orange squash for us to drink.

I stamped and watercoloured, trimmed the panel and popped it up on fun foam, and then added a trio of little starfish to the bottom corner of the cardbase.

Please come and join us at CAS Watercolour before June 24th!

Supplies:

Stamps - Kittie Kits chair, sandcastle, and starfish; Rosie's Roadshow sentiment

Ink - Ranger Archival Jet Black

Paper - watercolour paper, white cs

Size - A2

Accessories - Gansai Tambi watercolour paints, fun foam

Deckchairs in the Sand Dunes

Time to remind you to come and join us at CAS Watercolour for our June challenge!

The card (see this blog post) I made for the opening of the challenge was inspired by the part of my childhood spent in Ontario - it depicted a Muskoka (or Adirondack) chair.  Today's card depicts the canvas deckchairs of my English childhood (I was born and raised in England until the age of 10 when we moved to Canada).

My grandparents lived on the south coast of England and I spent many summer days on the beach with them.  They would always carry their deckchairs down to the beach as they didn't like sitting on the sand.  The chairs are quintessentially English - rarely seen in North America, but Ikea was selling them one year and I just had to buy one in memory of my childhood.

My good friend, Christine (of It's a Card Day's Night and fellow CAS Watercolour DT member), has this wonderful stamp and die set so I borrowed it from her to continue my theme of summer memories for the CAS Mix Up challenge.  She grew up in Wales so the deckchairs are no doubt part of her childhood too!

I stamped and watercoloured the row of chairs, and then used the matching die to cut them out.  On another piece of watercolour paper, I thoroughly wet the lower half and dropped in lots of sand coloured paint.  When dry, I randomly wet the upper half and dropped in just a bit of blue paint.  When that was dry, I stamped my sentiment (the card is going to an English friend who has a summer birthday).

The die cut chairs are glued down along the bottom edge but popped up with foam tape along their upper edge to give some dimension.

I did a second version using the same stamp but without die cutting the chairs.

This one will go to my cousin in England who still lives in the small town on the coast where our grandparents lived.

Please come and join us at CAS Watercolour.  There is lots of inspiration from the rest of the Design Team.  You have until June 24th to link up your clean and simple watercolour card on the theme of Summer. 

Supplies:

Stamps - Local King Rubber Stamp deckchairs, SU sentiment

Ink - Ranger Archival Jet Black

Paper - watercolour paper, PTI Vintage Cream cs

Size - 6.25x4.5"

Accessories - Local King die, Gansai Tambi watercolour paints, fun foam, foam tape

Texture and Shine for CAS Mix Up

It's time to remind you about June's CAS Mix Up challenge:

You only have until June 24th to link up an entry!  There is some wonderful new inspiration for you over at CAS Mix Up from the Design Team and our June Guest Designer, Marianne of Marianne's Cards 'n Stuff.

I made a snowy Christmas card (see here) for the June 1st CAS Mix Up post, so thought that my reminder card should be more in keeping with June since it is almost summer!

I sponged colour with various Distress Oxide inks through my new Tim Holtz stencil onto mixed media cs, then cleaned my stencil so as not to contaminate my paste.  I replaced the stencil over the image and then used Dreamweaver Translucent embossing paste - the colour shows through perfectly and it has a wonderful sheen to it.  Here's a close-up that gives a better idea of the embossing paste:

I layered it over a die cut stitched rectangle, popped that up on fun foam, and added a stamped and heat embossed sentiment.

Looking forward to seeing your entries - please remember to keep them CAS (clean and simple) and include stamping, embossing paste or gel, and at least one other option from the list on the right side of the CAS Mix Up blog.

I'm also linking up to this month's Flower Challenge where "anything goes".

Supplies:

Stamps - SU sentiment

Ink - ColorBox Frost White for the sentiment, various Oxide inks to colour the image

Paper - cream, black, and mixed media cs

Size - A2

Accessories - Tim Holtz Floral stencil, Dreamweaver Translucent embossing paste, Lil Inker stitched rectangle die, fun foam, white embossing powder

Colours of the Flag for Christmas

The latest Sparkle Creations challenge is to be inspired by this photo:

As soon as I saw it, I knew that a new IndigoBlu stamp I recently bought was perfect for it.  Here's what I created:

Both the image and the sentiment are heat embossed, and a scattering of silver sequins added for embellishment.

I also made it for the SCS CAS challenge, "Flag Day" -  make a card in the colours of your country's flag.  The Canadian flag is just red and white, but I did have to add a bit of black for the sentiment and the border as I tried stamping both image and sentiment in red and I didn't like the look of it.

Supplies:

Stamps - Indigo Blu Baubles Flourish, Paper Smooshes sentiment

Ink - ColorBox Cranberry, Versafine Onyx Black

Paper - white and black cs

Size - 5.75" square

Accessories - clear embossing powder, Ranger red embossing powder, silver sequins

A Poinsettia and Sequins

Here's the new challenge over at the Christmas Card Throwdown:

I went with sequins.  Here's my card:

I stamped and heat embossed the poinsettia in white and watercoloured it with my Zigs, being a bit radical (for me) in my choice of colours - I'd usually use red and green, not pink and lime!

I stamped the sentiment in grey and heat embossed it, and then put a bit of the same grey ink on my craft sheet, watered it down, and did a light splatter on the background.

For the challenge, I embellished with sequins that matched the colours in the poinsettia.

Then bordered it with a pierced frame for a final touch.

I'm also taking it over to the Flower Challenge, where "anything goes" this month.

And the Merry Christmas Challenge is also "anything goes".

Supplies:

Stamps - Penny Black Sparkler, Make an Impression sentiment

Ink - ColorBox white, Versafine Smokey Grey

Paper - white and green cs, watercolour paper

Size - A2

Accessories - white and clear embossing powder, MFT pierced frame die, Zig markers, sequins

A Tree for Happy Little Stampers

Hello All,

Time for another Christmas Card Challenge at Happy Little Stampers.   For June, the optional twist is "tree".

I went with the optional twist:

I had a beautiful piece of a gelli plate background in my UFO box that I made with my friend, Christine's help.  I don't own a gelli plate so enjoy occasionally playing with hers.  If I remember correctly, it's a combination of blue acrylic paint, white gesso, and a snowflake stencil (if you look closely, you can faintly see the snowflakes!) on mixed media cs.  (Christine, let me know if I missed something!)

I die cut the Tim Holtz tree and words twice and glued them together for more substance.  I glued it all to the background, popped the panel up on fun foam, and added some blue sequins.

Come and join us at Happy Little Stampers anytime before the end of June!  There's a chance you will win a prize!

Sadly this is my last month on their Christmas challenge Design Team.  My life has gotten increasingly busy and I need to let a few things go.  But I've enjoyed my past two years, making Christmas cards each month for their challenges!  Thank you so much everyone!

Supplies:

Paper - white and mixed media cs

Size - A2

Accessories -Tim Holtz tree and word dies, blue sequins, blue acrylic paint, gesso, unknown snowflake stencil

Summer Memories

The year is flying by and it's already time for the June CAS Watercolour Challenge.  This month the theme is "summer".

I lived in Ontario from age 10 to 14, and we used to go to a summer cottage for a couple of weeks each year.  I have such a strong memory of hot days (so hot the sky seemed to go very pale from the heat), some large fir trees near a patch of lawn with Muskoka chairs (what Canadians in Ontario call Adirondack chairs) on it, and me curled up in one of those chairs reading my book in the shade of a tree.  That memory was the inspiration for this card:

I stamped and heat embossed the sentiment and chair, then watercoloured it and the grass and sky areas with my Gansai Tambi paints .  I die cut the tree out of a leftover piece of green smooshed watercolour paper, and went over it with a bit more green and also some brown for the trunk.

The panel is popped up on fun foam with the tree added on top but slightly extending off the panel.

You have until June 24th to bring your summer-inspired watercoloured cards to CAS Watercolour - and please remember to keep them clean and simple!!

Supplies:

Stamps - Local King chair, Rosie's Roadshow sentiment

Ink - Recollections Chestnut pigment ink

Paper - white cs, watercolour paper

Size - 5" square

Accessories - Impression Obsession tree die, Gansai Tambi watercolour paints, clear embossing powder, fun foam

Sparkle Paste Snowflakes

Summer starts in the month of June and here's me making a winter / Christmas card for my Design Team card for the June CAS Mix Up challenge!  This month we are looking for:

I'd been meaning to do a card for last week's SCS Ways to Use It challenge, "Kids & Pets, the Perfect Mix!" since I'm such a dog lover and I have the perfect stamp for it in my NBUS box.  It occurred to me that it was ideal for embossing paste snowflakes so I decided to do it for CAS Mix Up, and post late to the SCS challenge.  Here it is:

I stamped my image on Bristol vellum cs - ideal for coloured pencils.  I used my Prismacolours and Gamsol to colour the image.  Then I laid the Memory Box snowflakes stencil over it, masking off any snowflakes that interfered with the image (like a huge one right on the dog's head).  I used the beautifully sparkly Cosmic Shimmer Frosty Dawn embossing paste.

I added a thin border of sparkly cs and popped it up on fun foam.

Here's a close-up of the embossing paste snowflakes:

Because of the proportions of the image, I made this an unusual size of card - 4.5x5" instead of the usual 4.25x5.5".  So it was a good opportunity to use my envelope maker and a piece of dp from my stash to make an appropriately-sized and co-ordinating envelope.

Please head over to CAS Mix Up and check out the other cards by the fabulous Design Team and our June Guest Designer, Marianne of Marianne's Cards 'n Stuff.  You have until June 24th to link up a card that includes stamping, embossing paste or gel, and at least one other option from our list on the right hand side of the CAS Mix Up page - I have stamping, embossing paste, stenciling, and coloured pencils with Gamsol.

And if anyone knows the brand or name of the stamp, please let me know.  It's unmounted and disappeared into my NBUS box with no note of where I got it!

Supplies:

Stamps - ? dog and child stamp, Northwoods sentiment

Ink - Memento Tuxedo Black

Paper - white glitter, white, and Bristol Vellum cs

Size - 4.5x5"

Accessories - Prismacolor Pencils, Gamsol, Memory Box snowflake stencil, Cosmic Shimmer Frosty Dawn embossing paste, fun foam