A Reminder Peace Dove

Time to remind you about CAS Christmas's Peace theme challenge!

I'm not being very original with my reminder card as I'm doing yet another card with a peace dove, but a friend orders several cards from me every Christmas featuring a dove and a peace sentiment, so this helps me get some of hers made well in advance!  But I'm using a very different technique this time!

I stamped the dove with Versamark and then embossed with "Heat and Stick" powder.  After heating, this embossing powder will remain tacky and allow you to apply gilding flakes, glitter, etc.  I've decided it is the easiest way to use gilding flakes with a stamp - far less mess than the glues that are sold for gilding flakes.

The trick with the Heat and Stick embossing powder is to keep your embossing gun a little bit further away than normal, and heat the powder just until it turns from granular to shiny-wet in appearance then immediately move the tool to the next area.  If you over heat this powder it will harden and then lose its tackiness.

I stamped onto a navy cs and used silver gilding flakes that have lovely little bits of other colours in them.  I then stamped the sentiment and heat embossed with regular silver embossing powder.  I bordered with silver glitter cs and popped the panel up on fun foam.

You have until February 24th to link up a card on the theme of Peace.  Please be sure it is clean and simple.  There's lots of inspiration from the rest of the Design Team and this month's very talented Guest Designer, Linda (Scrappin', Stampin', & Singin'), over at CAS Christmas.

Supplies:

Stamps - SU Calm Christmas dove, TH sentiment

Ink - Versamark, ColorBox Silver

Paper - silver glitter, navy, and white cs

Size - 4.75" square

Accessories - Heat and Stick powder, Cosmic Shimmer silver gilding flakes, Stampendous Silver Tinsel embossing powder, fun foam

Pink and Red Birthday Card

Valentine's Day has come and gone but we're still doing Red and Pink at CAS Watercolour.  The Design Team and our wonderful Guest Designer, Darnell (djkardkreations) have made more cards to inspire you.  Here's what I created:

I stamped the lovely collage image onto watercolour paper, then painted it with my watercolour paints.  To add a bit more true red, I used a red Inktense watercolour pencil.  I added a very pale neutral watercolour wash around the flowers.

I trimmed the image, added a very narrow red border, and popped it up with fun foam on a die cut stitched rectangle on which I'd stamped the sentiment.

Please join us at CAS Watercolour with your clean and simple cards, featuring watercolouring and red and pink.  You have until February 24 to link up your card.

Supplies:

Stamps - Stamplorations image, SU sentiment

Ink - Archival Jet Black

Paper - watercolour paper, red and white cs

Size - A2 

Accessories -  watercolour paints, red Inktense pencil, Lil Inkers stitched rectangle die, fun foam

Poinsettia on Corrugated Card

The Sparkles Christmas Challenge is asking for Poinsettias - one of my favourite themes for my Christmas cards.

I used part of a corrugated coffee cup sleeve for a background panel. The holly is cut out of regular green cs and the poinsettia and sentiment out of dark red shimmer cs.

I taped the top and bottom of the holly die cut under the corrugated cardboard so that it looks entwined around it.

I shaped the poinsettia a bit with a stylus and put little rolls of tape behind some of the petals to pop them up a bit more. I added large gold gemstones to the centre. And small dark red ones to the holly.

We're having a lot of snow here in Vancouver so I'm definitely in the mood to make Christmas cards!

Supplies:

Paper - dark red shimmer, green, and white cs, corrugated coffee cup sleeve

Size - A2

Accessories - Tim Holtz joy and poinsettia dies, Memory Box holly die, large gold and small red gemstones

Stenciled Bister Hearts

The CAS Stencil challenge for February is:

I needed to make some Valentine cards for a friend so thought I'd use a heart stencil and red Bister powder.

Using mixed media cs, I sprinkled the Bister through the hearts and then spritzed with water.  After it dried, I framed it with dark red cs with a large heart die cut in the centre.  I trimmed the red cs with a stitched rectangle die and added it to a cream card base.  I die cut the sentiment out of the same cream card base.


So as not to waste all that lovely Bister colour left behind on the stencil, I flipped it over onto another piece of mixed media cs and got the negative print (or a "stencil monoprint").  I then created this card with the result:

I'd cut out the entwined hearts for an earlier project and was left with this piece with the negative heart so I used it to frame a section of my negative heart print.  I added a few red glitter die cut hearts (left over from yet a different project), stamped my sentiment, and popped the panel up on fun foam.

I felt quite virtuous making two cards out of one stencil / Bister session, and also using up lots of leftover bits on the second card.  I'm taking the second card over to Pixies' Craft Workshop "Snippets" challenge.

Supplies for the 1st card:

Ink - red Bister powdered ink

Paper - cream, red, mixed media cs

Size - A2

Accessories - TCW hearts stencil, Poppy Stamps sentiment die, large heart die, MFT Wonky Stitched rectangle die
 

Supplies for the 2nd card:

Stamps - PTI sentiment

Ink - Memento Lady Bug, red Bister powdered ink

Paper - red glitter, cream, mixed media cs

Size - 4.75" square

Accessories - TCW hearts stencil, SU heart die, mini hearts die, fun foam

Birds with Hearts

Valentine's Day is coming up so time for a change from my many Christmas cards!  A friend always asks me to make her a few Valentine cards and specified she wanted birds on the one for her son-in-law.

It needed to be reasonably masculine so thought my NBUS bird die from Concord and 9th was suitably non-feminine!  And no pink or frills or lace!

I die cut the birds out of the card front and then backed it with red cs.  Out of the same red, I die cut a few tiny hearts to place between the birds.  And stamped the sentiment in red with another tiny heart beside it.

It was made with these challenges in mind:

The Male Room - a masculine Valentine

Double D Challenge - "hearts of any colour" 

The Paper Players - "Love is in the Air"

Addicted to CAS - "Birds"

Thanks for coming by today!

Supplies:

Stamps - Impress Cards & Craft sentiment

Ink - SU Real Red

Paper - red and white cs

Size - 4.75" square

Accessories - Concord & 9th "By Your Side" birds, Impress Cards & Craft tiny hearts die

Nature for The Male Room

I really struggle with masculine cards no matter what the occasion so I keep my eye on The Male Room challenge to see if any of their challenges can inspire me.  The latest one did:

It seemed perfect for my Penny Black woodland stamp and some deer.

I used Jill Foster's technique seen in this video.

I put the image in the MISTI and coloured the different parts of the image with various small Distress inks (in the video, Jill Foster uses Distress markers - either are fine). When all was stamped, I restamped it all with Versamark and heat embossed in clear. That way I had a resist for sponging the sky and the snow.  But I realized I also needed to have something on the snowflakes so that they would resist the sponging, so went over all of them with a Molotow fine tip masking fluid marker.  After I did my sponging and heat set it, I rubbed off the masking fluid.

I die cut two reindeer, once out of copper cs and once out of heavy white cs, glued them together to give them more substance and dimension, and added them to the foreground.  I added some glitter to the snowline in front of the trees and around the legs of each reindeer.

Trimmed the panel, bordered it with the copper cs, and popped it up on a cream card base.

The Penny Black tree stamp is really large - this only used half of it so I made a very similar second card out of the rest of it.  It felt very productive ending up with two!

Supplies:

Stamps - Penny Black trees, A Muse sentiment

Ink - Delicata Celestial Copper for the sentiment, various Distress inks for the sky

Paper - mixed media and PTI Vintage cream cs, copper cs

Size - A2

Accessories - Impression Obsession reindeer dies, glitter, fun foam