Magical Bears

It's time for another Happy Little Stampers Christmas Challenge.  This month it is watercolouring.

I have a set of Gansai Tambi watercolour paints and I love to colour images with them so this was a perfect challenge for me.  I chose a new stamp set I recently bought from Crafters' Companion and made this card:

After watercolouring the image, I laid some paper over the bears and ground area, and splattered with a bit of the gold watercolour paint.

I die cut with a Nesties square as I like the embossed edge it gives to the panel.  I popped it up on fun foam on my card base.

I went over the stars in the image with a glue pen and added very fine gold glitter.  Some of it clung around the stars where I hadn't added glue - I'm sure it will eventually fall off but for now it looks like stardust.

Happy Little Stampers is offering a prize for the best card, so be sure to join in!

You have until the end of the month so get a Christmas card made using watercolour!

Supplies:

Stamps - Crafters Companion

Ink - Ranger Archival Jet Black

Paper - white cs, watercolour paper

Size - 4.75" square

Accessories - Gansai Tambi watercolour paints, gold glitter, Quickie glue pen, Nesties square die, fun foam

Naked Stamping

Last week's Splitcoastampers Technique Lovers' Challenge was called "Naked Stamping".  The idea was to create a background with whatever medium we liked and then use line stamps over top to let the background medium show through (rather than colouring the image).

I chose to use my Brushos.  My first few attempts were disasters - my colours came out too strong or too muddy. I'd been using mixed media and watercolour papers. Then I went back to the coated cs I used when I first got my Brushos and had much better luck.  I ended up creating three cards, the first of which I'm really pleased with:

My plan was to end up with distinct patches of scarlet, yellow, and orange to kind of fit the stamp but the colours ran together a bit more than intended. I was okay with the peachy colour they made in the centre. I watered the Scarlet Brusho down quite a bit to get it pale enough. When dry, I stamped the poppies.

I then went on and made two much more simple variations with different stamps.  In both these cases, I used a single colour of Brushos.

I experimented with different inks for the stamping.  The first card uses black archival ink, the second uses a black pigment ink with clear embossing powder, and the third uses a green archival ink for a tone-on-tone look.

Thanks for dropping by!

Supplies:

Poppy card:

Stamps: Penny Black poppies, A Muse sentiment
Paper: ivory cs, coated cs
Paper Size: 5.25" square
Ink: Ranger Archival Jet Black
Accessories: black pearls, Lil Inkers stitched circle die, and Brushos (Scarlet, Orange, Yellow)

Pansy card:

Stamps: Holly Berry House pansies, Paper Angel sentiment

Paper: white and black cs, coated cs

Paper Size: A2

Ink: Versafine Onyx Black

Accessories: violet Brushos, Sizzix die, clear embossing powder, Buttercup Liquid Pearls, foam tape

Holly card:

Stamps: Great Impressions

Paper: white and coated cs

Paper Size: A2

Ink: Ranger Archival Library Green

Accessories: L'il Inker stitched rectangle die, Sizzix embossing folder, green Brushos, red Stickles

A Lazy Dog and a Frisky Pony

Today's Free for All challenge over at Splitcoaststampers is "Puppy Love" and those of you who have read earlier blog posts, know that I love dogs.

A friend who is a fellow dog lover is retiring soon, and this sleepy lazy dog seemed to go so well with the idea of retiring. I stamped him and coloured him with coloured pencils.

The background panel was done using some blue sprays, then it was run through a script embossing folder. I rubbed Ice Blue Inka gold over the top of the embossed script, and then rubbed some on a scrap of cs and used that to die cut "retirement".

And moving on from dogs to my other favourite animal, I've done a Christmas card using a new horse stamp - actually a stamp of a carousel horse, but I trimmed off the carousel pole.

It's the last of my monthly quota of Christmas cards for the SCS Christmas Card Challenge for September which has a theme of snowflakes and sapphire blue.  I did the background with the faux letterpress technique - I used a swirly snowflake embossing folder, inked up the raised surface of the snowflakes and then embossed my cs so that the blue swirls and snowflakes and debossed.  The pony is water coloured and fussy cut, with Wink of Stella added to the blanket's fur edges.  There are also lines of Wink of Stella on the snowy ground.

Thanks for taking a peek at cards using my favourite animals!

Supplies for the first card:

Stamps: Penny Black
Paper: white and black cs
Paper Size: A2
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black
Accessories: Ice Blue Inka Gold, Mr Huey's Blue Fireworks spray, homemade blue spray, Dee's Distinctively retirement die, Sissix ef, foam tape, coloured pencils

Supplies for the second card:

Stamps: Whimsy Stamps horse, Rubber Soul sentiment

Paper: white cs, watercolour paper

Paper Size: A2

Ink: Distress Faded Jeans

Accessories: Wink of Stella, watercolour paints, foam tape, Darice embossing folder

Gold and Vanilla

Today's Color Challenge on SCS is gold and vanilla - it immediately said Christmas card to me. And gold is so perfect for stars.  And I hold a Christmas card sale to fund raise for Southlands Therapeutic Riding Society, more commonly called STaRS, so I need some cards with stars on them for the sale. 

I stamped and heated embossed Gorgeous Grunge stamps and a sentiment for my base layer, and did the same with the Christmas Star stamp on a separate piece of cardstock. I fussy cut the star and scored and folded it for dimension. To keep the dimension, I put three layers of foam tape in the centre and two layers in the middle of each point, and then a bit of sookwang tape at the ends of each point.

Supplies:

Stamps: SU Christmas Star and Gorgeous Grunge, Wordsworth sentiment

Paper: Gina K ivory cs

Paper Size: A2

Ink: ColorBox Gold

Accessories: Stampendous detail gold embossing powder, foam tape

Mixed Media Peace Doves

My last few cards have been what I call my "old style" - pretty straightforward stamping, colouring, either some dp for the background or a bordering layer.  So the last couple of days I was yearning to get back to my "new style" of using some of the newer products like stencils, paste, sprays, etc. and ending up with a more mixed media type of card.  Yesterday's SCS Inspiration Challenge totally fed into this - to be inspired by one of the pins on a mixed media Pinterest site.  I found this pin and immediately knew what I wanted to do - turn it into a Christmas card with a "peace on earth" theme.

Here's my result:

 

I kept the layout, the general design, the colour scheme, but changed the ravens to doves and the sentiment to peace.

I used three different sprays to get the background, and then flicked some dark brown Twinkling H2O paint on it with a paint brush.  I used a star stencil (made for me by my always generous friend, Loll Thompson) with a gold embossing paste instead of the little triangle stencil on the inspiration.  I stamped my sentiment in dark brown and die cut the doves out of dark bronze shimmer cardstock.  I edged the panel in the same dark bronze.

Supplies:

Stamps: Tim Holtz sentiment

Paper: mixed media cs, dark bronze shimmer cs, PTI vintage cream cs

Paper Size: A2

Ink: Distress Walnut Stain

Accessories: homemade star stencil, Memory Box dove dies, Dreamweaver gold embossing paste, Lindy's Stamp Gang Long John Silver spray, Mr Huey's Shell spray, Distress Antique Linen spray stain, dark brown Twinkling H2O paint

Penny Black Pup with a Snowman

 

Here's one of my other new-to-me Penny Black stamps - love the humour in this one!  

The stamp worked perfectly for a card to fit a stray odd-sized envelope I had in my stash!

I used mixed media cs for the image as it allows enough time to blend the distress markers with water. I put stickles on the snowflakes and then glue on the hats with tinsel glitter, but the stickles weren't dry so the tinsel glitter stuck to the snowflakes as well. It makes it all quite sparkly!

I did it for the 52 Christmas Card Throwdown "for a child" , for the SCS CAS challenge "cute critters", and as an extra card for the Happy Little Stampers Christmas Card Challenge "Sparkle".

 Supplies:

Stamps: Penny Black "naughty or nice", Hero Arts sentiment

Paper: cream, red, and green cs; mixed media cs

Paper Size: 6.25x3.25"

Ink: Archival Jet Black

Accessories: Tim Holtz Distress markers, stickles, Martha Stewart tinsel glitter

Penny Black Pups

I recently picked up some older Penny Black dog stamps in a sale.  The dogs are quite spaniel-like so remind me of my dog!

I've had fun playing with two of them in the last couple of days.  This post has a tag and a card using one of the stamps.

I wanted to make a tag for the Tag You're It challenge blog.  Here's the inspiration:

And here is what I came up with:

I substituted the dog for the bear and coloured his stocking in red, yellow, and blue to reflect the balloons in the original. 

I used my mixed media cs as it is quite heavy so good for a tag. The image was stamped and coloured with Distress markers.  The tiny star cluster was stamped multiple times.  

I then went on and made another tag with the same stamp, but this time, fussy cut the dog, and stencilled the sentiment on the tag, sponged it for a more rustic look, and mounted it on a dp background.  I had another star cluster stamp that I coloured with red and green markers and stamped on the tag to reflect the dp.  Once I'd put it together, I had second thoughts and now feel it's a bit of overkill on the stars - I like things more CAS.  But I do like the tag part of it!  Feel free to tell me what you think!  Here it is:

Supplies for the tag:

Stamps: Penny Black Xmas Treat, Rubber Stampede To/From, unknown mini star cluster stamp
Paper: mixed media cs
Paper Size: 4.5x2.5"
Ink: Archival Jet Black, Distress Mustard Seed
Accessories: Distress markers, gold and green ribbon, Dienamics tag die

Supplies for the card:

Stamps: Penny Black Christmas Treat, Memory Box Magic Stars

Paper: mixed media cs, ivory cs, ColorBok dp

Paper Size: A2

Ink: Archival Jet Black, Distress Brushed Corduroy, Vintage Photo, Pine Needles and Barn Door

Accessories: Dienamics tag die, green ribbon, foam tape, Distress markers, Tim Holtz Christmas Words stencil

Remember to Sparkle!

It's my month to make a reminder card for the Happy Little Stampers Christmas Card Challenge.  The August challenge is "sparkle" so I went for full coverage sparkle!

I stamped the Snowy Postcard image, and coloured the holly in a strong green for a pop of colour and the roofs and snowy highlights in a very pale blue.  I then patted my Versamark ink pad all over the image, sprinkled with a sparkly embossing powder and heat embossed.  I add red gemstones to the holly, a black border, and a white cardbase.

In real life it is very sparkly but it was incredibly hard to photograph.  I took about 20 shots - some inside with lights, and a bunch outside in various light.  I finally settled on this one (done outside in full sun) as it does show some of the sparkle.

You have until the end of the month to participate in the challenge so head on over to Happy Little Stampers and get a Christmas card done for your stash!

Supplies:

Stamps: Stampendous Snowy Postcard

Paper: black and white cs

Paper Size: A2

Ink: Archival Jet Black, Versamark

Accessories: SU Iridescent Ice embossing powder, red gemstones, green and pale blue markers

Sparkling Stars

Here's my card as Design Team member for the Happy Little Stampers August Christmas Card Challenge with the theme of "Sparkle".

The word "sparkle" immediately made me think of stars so it seemed a great opportunity to use a new SU set called Bright and Beautiful, and a new stencil from Hero Arts.

The background uses the stencil with pearlescent embossing paste with glitter sprinkled over it while wet.  I didn't have a gold that blended in with my glitter cs or my gold embossing paste so I mixed gold glitter with clear glitter to tone the gold down.

The large star is stamped, heat embossed, and die cut, and then topped with a smaller star die cut from gold glitter paper.  Repeated the gold glitter paper for the background for the sentiment, and as luck would have it, I had the perfect sentiment with the word "sparkle" in it!

Supplies:

Stamps: SU Bright and Beautiful, A Muse sentiment

Ink: ColorBox Gold

Paper: gold glitter and cream cs

Size: A2

Accessories: Hero Arts star stencil, Dreamweaver Pearlescent embossing paste, Glitter Ritz gold and clear glitter, Judikins Egyptian Gold embossing powder, foam tape

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

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

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

Merry Monday Tag Two

The Merry Monday Christmas Card Challenge is one of my favourite challenges.  It has really helped me over the years to get a good stash of cards built up by November.  I liked this week's challenge "Tag, You're It!" so much I decided to do a second card for it.

I find tags are a great way to play around with mixed media and I really like the look of them on a card.

A few weeks ago, my friend Christine came over and we made some mixed media backgrounds together.  This is the last piece of one of those backgrounds.  It consisted of blue and green acrylic paints swiped on mixed media cs, then toned down with gesso, torn pieces of text paper layered over it, then some stencilling and embossing paste (in this case a harlequin stencil and clear paste so it doesn't show up much) on top.

I die cut the sentiment out of a scrap of shimmery green cs.  The dove is die cut twice and layered together for extra dimension, then rubbed with versamark and heat embossed once with Frantage Shabby Blue ep, then again with Frantage Chunky White.

The background is sprinkled with both Frantage Shabby Blue and Shabby Green and heated from underneath to add a bit of interest to it.

It's also for my June quota at SCS's Christmas Card Challenge.

Here are the challenge links:

Merry Monday

Splitcoast Stampers' Christmas Card Challenge

Paper: white cs, mixed media cs, shimmery green cs

Card Size: A2

Ink: versamark

Accessories: Tim Holtz Peace on Earth die, Memory Box dove die, green ribbon, green and blue acrylic paint, gesso, Stampendous Frantage (Shabby Green, Shabby Blue, and Chunky White), SU tag punch, harlequin stencil, clear paste, dimensionals

Merry Monday Tag

One of the challenges I love to take part in is the Merry Monday Christmas Card Challenge.  This week's theme is "Tag You're It" - to put a tag on your card.

I also take part in the SCS Christmas Card Challenge.  It basically encourages you to create a certain number of Christmas cards each month so that come November, you have a stash ready to go.  Someone suggests a theme each month, but it is optional.  For this card, I've used the September theme of snowflakes with some blue on the card.

I used the faux mother of pearl technique on the tag, done by pouncing a scrunched piece of cling wrap in sparkly white liquid ink and then pouncing that onto the cs. When dry, I sponged over it with various blue Distress inks - the liquid ink acts as a resist. Then cut it out with a tag die cut.

I added a dove die cut in sparkly cs. I die cut two of the main body and glued them together, but just one of the separate small wing - it gives a nice dimensional effect to the wings. The small die cut snowflakes were randomly tapped with my Versamarker and heat embossed with sparkly ep. The sentiment is attached with dotted ribbon to match the ribbon at the top.

The background is a Darice embossing folder and the cardbase is the same shimmery green cs I used for the dove's branch.

Here are the links for the two challenges:

Merry Monday Challenge

SCS Christmas Card Challenge

Supplies: A Muse sentiment stamp, Gina K luxury white cs, Coredinations glittered cs, green shimmery cs; Distress Tumbled Glass, Faded Jeans, and Salty Ocean inks;  Darice embossing folder, dotted ribbon, Impression Obsession dove die, Cheery Lynn snowflakes die, Memory Box Teramo label die, Die-namics tag die, Tsukineko Frost White liquid ink, Versamarker, sparkly ep

An Inspired Wreath

Here is my first attempt at posting a card!  It's one I just did for the Inspiration Challenge at Splitcoast Stampers - to be inspired by a photo on a Pinterest board of wreaths.  I chose this one.

As soon as I saw the photo, I thought of an old Penny Black stamp I haven't used for quite awhile. It even has a bow as part of the image. I kept the colour scheme subtle like the Pinterest photo. I stamped and heat embossed the wreath in gold and bordered it with gold cs to match the gold in the dp.

This is a pretty straightforward card - the style I consistently made when I started out years ago (and still enjoy making).  As my blog progresses, you'll see a whole variety of styles as I've evolved in all sorts of directions.

It's also a card with stars on it (though only in the background this time) - you'll see stars quite frequently!

Supplies:

Stamps: Penny Black Adornment

Paper: white and gold cs, SEI dp

Paper Size: 4.75" square

Ink: ColorBox Gold

Accessories: gold embossing powder, Nesties circles, dimensionals