Bundles of Blossoms

Happy Halloween! Today I am featuring two cards which I made using the My Favourite Things "Bundles of Blossoms background" stamp and Zig clean colour real brush markers. Although I've used the same stamp and layout for both cards, they each have a very different feel about them.

For my first card I used very vibrant colours as I am entering it into a "Shades of Halloween" colour challenge. I cut the word "hooray" twice in purple and orange card, using a My Favourite Things Die-namics die,  and layered them to give a shadow effect. The "Let's Celebrate You" sentiment is from the "More Essential Sentiments" set, also by My Favourite Things. I stamped it with Versamark ink and used Zing Apricot embossing powder to heat set it. The sentiment strip was then added to my card with some foam tape for added dimension.

My second card has a very Autumnal feel and features the "Celebrate" Die-namics by MFT and another sentiment from the "More Essential Sentiments" set. This time I used Wow! Primary Chartreuse embossing powder and layered the sentiment strip again to make it stand out from the background a bit more.

Each card was a labour of love as they took ages to colour in all the intricate details, but it was very relaxing to do and I think that the end results were worth it! 

A First Birthday

Today is our youngest grandson's first birthday, although it hardly seems 12 months since he arrived! Of course I wanted to make him a card and thought that bright and cheerful was the way to go.

I selected a cute stamp from Lili of the Valley for the main image and added the perfect sentiment with an old PSX stamp, Versamark ink and Denim Zing embossing powder. The design paper is from the "Candles and Cake" NitWit collection by Mary Fran for Lili of the Valley. I coloured the stamped image to co-ordinate with the patterned paper using Copic Ciao markers (R000, R00, Y11, B93, B95, YG03, RV29, R37, B99, C0, C1, C3, C7 & B12). The scalloped rectangle die that I used was from a really useful set by Waltzingmouse Stamps and the finishing touch was a number 1 cut using a Memory Box die.

Here is the birthday boy Lucas - looking a little bewildered as he had just woken up from his nap when I took this photo this morning. The photo below was taken earlier on when he was playing in his new birthday gift from his Mummy and Daddy. I think he likes his new house!

Thanks for looking,

Lynn.

Waltzingmouse October Pajama Party - Challenge 1. Texturise it.

Hello! Today I am joining in with the Waltzingmouse Stamps October Pajama Party - challenge 1 - Texturise it. You can check out the full details here http://waltzingmouse.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/welcome-to-october-pj-party.html .

This challenge was to use embossed textures but without using an embossing folder. I decided to make my own embossing plate by cutting lots of the Gingerbread Family shapes using my WMS Cutting Edge dies.

I started by cutting lots of the smaller gingerbread boys and girls out of thick greyboard, so that I could use them to make an embossing plate. While I had the dies out I also cut several of each size and shape out of some self adhesive cork sheet, which was ideal as they looked like real gingerbread men!

I took a piece of smooth, thick greyboard and marked out the size of my card blank (5" x 7") in pencil. Inside that I marked out a 6" x 4" panel with a small border to represent the area which I wanted to emboss. The card was also divided vertically, horizontally and diagonally in order to assist with the placement of the tiny gingerbread boys and girls, which I stuck in place with some strong red - lined double sided tape. 

Here is the finished embossing plate complete with eighteen little gingerbread men in neat rows.

I took a piece of 6" x 4" Core'dinations red Kraft-Core card from the Tim Holtz Nostalgic collection and held it in place with some low tack masking tape to prevent it from moving as I passed it through my Grand Calibur machine (using the tan mat and pale pink embossing plate). The photo above shows the embossed piece before I sanded it to reveal the kraft core.

Here is my finished card, matted and layered onto a Kraft card blank with red paper and kraft gingham card. The cork gingerbread men were stamped with Versamark ink, coated with Zing Opaque White embossing powder and heat set to give the effect of icing. They turned out really textured too and I think they look very effective! The sentiment was from the same stamp set - Oven Fresh Gingerbread Joy - and was heat embossed onto a small stitched sentiment flag die cut from a Lil' inker designs die and using kraft card.

I'm very happy with my first Christmas card make of this year and I have enough pairs of Gingerbread men ready to make eight cards in total - so that's a result! Thanks for looking!

Lynn 

Soft Watercolour Wash Background (with Stencils) - part 1

I have been taking an online class, Watercolour for card makers, and have been trying out lots of different techniques. Some are new to me and others I'm revisiting - but all have been lots of fun! We were set homework after each day, so my next few posts will be showing what I made for that - thankfully none of my assignments look like the dog has eaten them!

The first lesson on day 1 was to make soft watercolour wash backgrounds using stencils. I got carried away with trying out different stencils for this and ended up making five cards using this technique. For my first card I used a Tim Holtz layering stencil - Burlap (THS007) and a selection of brown shades of watercolour paint on Strathmore Bristol smooth paper.



 

 

The tag was stamped with a sentiment from Kaisercraft (from their Friendship Sentiments set) and this was heat embossed using Zing Chestnut embossing powder. I added a bow from button twine to echo Jennifer Rzasa's original design, but I felt that it needed a little more embellishment, so I added three small gold mosaic tiles.

 

 



 

 

 

My second card was made in a similar way, but using The Crafters Workshop Mini Basketweave stencil and yellow and red paints. This is very vibrant in real life and looked good on a black card blank. The sentiment is from Waltzingmouse Stamps' Compact Sentiments set and the small heart is from their Sweethearts set - I heat embossed them both using Wow! Black Glint embossing glitter. You can't see in the photo, but it's actually really sparkly! The die cut camera was mounted with foam pads for extra dimension.

 

 

I'll be back later with a few more cards. Thanks for looking. 

Happy Mother's Day and Cure for the Monday Blues Challenge #10

This is my second post today, please scroll down to see my Sunday Stamper #300 card.

Happy Mother's Day to all the Mums and Grandmothers out there! I think that this is the first year that my daughter has been away from home for Mother's Day and I am missing her a lot! She is away at University in Kent, but was sweet enough to send me a beautiful card, a copy of "The Great British Sewing Bee" book and a pretty bunch of roses - I am a lucky Mum! We will probably Skype later on and catch up with all the news and I am very much looking forward to her coming home for Easter.

 

Over on Taheerah Atchia's blog http://littlemisst-papercraft.blogspot.com/2014/03/cure-for-monday-blues-challenge-10.html the current Cure for the Monday Blues challenge #10 is running. The inspiration photo this week is of a gorgeous blue and white bedroom with pops of bright pink and orange colours.

 

 

Source Pinterest.

 

I decided to make a card using some of my beloved Chocolate Baroque stamps, Papertrey Ink coloured card and ink and Memory Box dies. I probably have more Chocolate Baroque and Elusive Images stamps than any other brand, as I used to be on the Design Team for Elusive Images, before they became Chocolate Baroque. I love their designs and the grey rubber stamps are always really deeply etched and are wonderful to work with.

 

I loved the flowered wallpaper, the bright quilt and the textured rug in the inspiration photo, so that's what I went with.

 

 

Here is my finished card. As usual, you may click on any of the photos to enlarge them for a better view. This blog post is photo heavy, as I actually remembered to take step by step photos this time!

 

 

This is the gorgeous big stamp which I chose to use for the wallpaper background. I masked off the top of a white card blank and stamped directly onto the card using Papertrey Spring Rain ink.

 

Then I used an acrylic block as a palette, stamping the inkpad onto it and using a fine waterbush to pick up the colour and watercolour the flowers and leaves. I tried to shade the underside of the petals and leaves so that they would look a bit darker.

 

 

This was painstaking, but I was thrilled with the finished result! The photo below shows the background after I had finished watercolouring it.

 

 

The photo below shows the selection of bright Papertrey Ink card that I picked out (Spring Rain, Orange Zest and Hibiscus Burst), together with matching Zing embossing powders (Grapefruit and Apricot), Versamark ink, a Memory Box Tessatina border die and a small elephant stamp from a larger A4 Chocolate Baroque stamp set (UA4GW0157 - originally released in 2007 by Elusive Images).  

 

 

I used the Versamark ink to stamp two of the elephant images onto the Orange Zest card and very carefully applied the Grapefruit pink embossing powder to the decorative blankets on each of the elephants' backs. I then added the Apricot embossing powder to the remaining areas and heat set them.

 

 

Each elephant was then fussy cut out - I used a craft knife and cutting mat to cut out the area around the trunks.

 

 

 

I used my Grand Calibur to cut out the Tessatina dies twice - once from Spring Rain card and once from the same white card as my card blank base. I pushed out all of the small inner pieces from the white die cut, then added a strip of strong, red lined tape at the rear. Then I took the small inner pieces from the blue die cut and inserted them into the spaces on the white one, using tweezers. You can just see the red tape underneath in the above photo.

 

 

 

I cut a strip of Hibiscus Burst card (to represent the bright quilt in the inspiration photo), mounted it towards the bottom of my card blank, then added the embossed elephants using foam pads for added dimension. The Tessatina border die cut was added beneath this to mimic the rug - I think it looks like the elephants are strolling along a decorative path!  

 

 

 

I needed a sentiment and decided to use the same Hibiscus Burst card to cut some letters from a Memory Box alphabet die set, to spell out the word "hello". I adhered these letters to the top right of my card using small dabs of Ranger Glossy Accents. As there are some large letters hanging over the wallpaper in the inspiration photo I thought that these would be ideal.

 

 

 

Finally I used some more of the Glossy Accents to highlight each letter and give it a nice glossy, dimensional finish.

 

 

I must say that I am very pleased with how this turned out! Although it was very time consuming, I am looking forward to doing the same watercolouring technique on some more of the big background stamps as I think it looks really effective. Thanks for reading this far!

 

PTI Make It Monday challenge #153 - Watercoloured Backgrounds with Heat Embossed Sentiments

Last week on the Papertrey Ink blog Dawn McVey shared a video highlighting one of the latest trends in cardmaking, using watercoloured backgrounds and heat embossing a sentiment over the top. You can check out her video here http://nicholeheady.typepad.com/capture_the_moment/2014/02/make-it-monday-153-watercolored-backgrounds-with-heat-embossed-sentiments.html

I have a lovely set of Windsor and Newton watercolour paints that my husband bought me for Christmas a couple of years ago, so I decided to play along with the challenge this time. I found that painting the backgrounds was quite addictive and I got carried away and painted thirteen of them! I picked out the best ones and ended up making eight different cards, all using Papertrey Ink stamps and Zing embossing powders.

 

The background on my first card was painted in blocks of green colour, gradually becoming darker to give an ombre effect. All stamps used are from the "In Bloom" set. The sentiment and leaves were embossed using white Zing embossing powder and then I painted the leaves using some more of the same green paint. The flowers were embossed using Blush Zing embossing powder onto PTI coloured card, then I fussy cut them out and mounted them onto the card using foam pads for dimension. The background panel was then layered onto New Leaf card stock before adding to a white card blank.

 

My second card was made using two shades of paint, Zing white embossing powder, and stamps and the die from the "Floral Foliage" set. The tree was stamped with Dark Chocolate and Ocean Tides ink, then mounted with foam pads.

 

 

 

Card number three is one of my favourites and uses stamps from the "Friends 'til the end" set. The background was painted in a blue ombre effect, then I embossed the sentiment and flowers using the white embossing powder as before. I painted the flower petals with white watercolour paint and used a darker shade of blue for the centres. The whole panel was layered onto blueberry sky card stock, before mounting on a white card blank.

 



 

My fourth card uses the same "Friends 'til the end" stamp set and white embossing powder, but this time I tried the mottled effect on the background, making it slightly darker towards the bottom where I wanted to place the large sentiment. I painted the leaves with more of the same green paint and the two flowers were embossed onto Hawaiian Shores card stock and the petals painted white.The whole panel was also layered onto Hawaiian Shores card before mounting on a white card blank.

 

 

My next card features the same type of mottled background, but this time I used three different shades of paint. When it had dried it reminded me a little of Monet's waterlilies, so I decided to use "Boy Basics: Frog Hop" stamp set and matching dies to make this fun card! I layered New Leaf and Blueberry Sky card stock onto a kraft card blank before adding the painted panel.

 

 

I stayed with the mottled background look for card number six, but kept it subtle with pale olive greens. I thought that the ferns and sentiment from the lovely "Meadow Greens" stamp set would make a nice Sympathy card. I embossed the sentiment using the same white powder, then repeatedly stamped the two ferns around the edges with Simply Chartreuse and Ripe Avocado inks. I over stamped the ones in the top left with Vintage Cream ink as I wanted it to look like there were shafts of sunlight coming into the clearing. I deliberately made the bottom edge darker so that it would appear to be in shade. I was really pleased with the overall effect (it looks much nicer in real life).

 

 

I reverted to the ombre colour blocking method for the background on my seventh card. All the stamps are from the "Harvest Berries" set. I used Ripe Avocado ink to stamp the leaves and the sentiment and berries were embossed with white Zing embossing powder. The whole panel was layered onto some Simply Chartreuse card stock and added to a white card blank.

 

 

My last card is my favourite from this batch. I used Ripe Avocado card stock to make the card and the watercoloured panel was done with two shades of paint onto Bockingford Watercolour paper. I went for a mottled look again and blended the two colours to look like sky and grass. All stamps are from the "Meadow Greens" set. I embossed the sentiment and flower heads using white powder, then stamped the stems and leaves using Ripe Avocado ink. The heavier paper gives a lot of texture to the piece and in my opinion it looks more like a watercolour painting.

 

If you have read this far, thank you very much for looking and I hope that I have inspired you to try this technique out for yourself.

 

EDITED to say that shortly after I'd posted this we had a visitor, so I wasn't able to link up to the Papertrey challenge list after all (I missed the deadline by 5 minutes)! Never mind - at least I have some cards ready!