Runway Inspired Challenge # 71 - In Memory of Oscar de la Renta (part 2)

This is my second post today and is the second part of my entry for the Runway Inspired Challenge in memory of the designer Oscar de la Renta who died recently. You can find all the details on the Runway Inspired Challenge blog here .

I chose the photo below as my inspiration,  as did Taheerah - *Fill Your Paper With The Breathings of Your {Heart}*.

I used the same Wendy Vecchi stamp from the Art Colors Life stamp set as previously, together with the same three Distress ink markers (Mowed Lawn, Fired Brick and Squeezed Lemonade). However this time I coloured the stamp with the markers then spritzed it with a fine mist of water before stamping it onto some Bockingford Watercolour paper. This gave a lovely mottled look to my background, which I then layered onto a panel of green card and a 6" square white card blank. 

The photo below shows the background stamping, which looked really pale and pretty.

I then repeated the process, but this time I wet the Watercolour paper before stamping, which gave a really mottled look. I thought that the green looked a little like the branches of a Christmas tree with red and yellow lights on it, so I used this paper to cut out two tree shapes using Dee's Distinctively Christmas Tree Silhouette and Christmas Tree No 3 dies.

Using a damp paintbrush I added a little more distress ink in places where it was pale, until I had a more even coverage. Here you can see the two trees before I layered them onto my card using clear foam tape for dimension.

Again I stamped the sentiment, from Waltzingmouse Stamps Vintage Ornaments set in Memento Tuxedo Black dye ink and my card was complete. Two totally different cards using the same stamps and inks, but different techniques! I think that this watercoloured one is my favourite of the two. I hope you like them. Thanks for looking.

Lynn

Runway Inspired Challenge # 71 - In Memory of Oscar de la Renta (part 1)

This week I decided to play along with the Runway Inspired Challenge in memory of the designer Oscar de la Renta who died recently. You can find all the details on the Runway Inspired Challenge blog here . This time there were a number of inspiration photos to choose from, as each member of the Design Team had selected an item of clothing from the Spring 2015 collection to feature. 

I really liked this dress, which was chosen by Taheerah - *Fill Your Paper With The Breathings of Your {Heart}*

Taheerah made a gorgeous card (in fact she made two) - do check out the blog to see her lovely work!

Not to be outdone, I decided to make two cards as well. In actual fact I selected a large background stamp from Wendy Vecchi's Art Colors Life stamp set, together with Distress ink markers (Mowed Lawn, Fired Brick and Squeezed Lemonade) and tried two different techniques. I liked them both, hence the two cards!

Below is the first one, with a trio of layered Christmas trees.

I inked the stamp up using the Distress markers and stamped directly onto a 6" square white card blank.

I also stamped the same image onto a separate piece of white card and used this to die cut my trees with the Dee's Distinctively Christmas Stacker Tree dies. I also cut matching trees from bright green card and layered them all up with double sided tape.

Finally I stamped the sentiment, from Waltzingmouse Stamps Vintage Ornaments set in Memento Tuxedo Black dye ink. I shall be back soon with my second card. Thanks for looking.

Lynn

Stamped Emboss Resist and Watercolour Wash

I have four cards to show you today, all using the third technique taught in the recent online watercolour for card makers classes. All stamped background images were stamped with Versamark ink and heat embossed using Wow! Opaque Bright White Super Fine embossing powder. I then used my Winsor and Newton Cotman watercolour paint set to add a watercolour wash over each background. The white embossing acted as a resist and gave a lovely result.

 

 

For my first  card I stamped the Big Bold Background Belle Flowers by Chocolate Baroque (USQSP0407) onto Bockingford Watercolour paper and heat embossed. I used three colours of paint for the watercolour wash, which I did using a wet on wet technique. I layered the panel onto orange and blue card and a 6" square scalloped card blank. The Birthday die cut and wishes stamp are by Papertrey Ink and I added faux stitching with a Hot Off The Press stamp over the velum and orange card strip. Finally I embellished with a few sequins, which I stuck on with Ranger's Studio matte multi-medium.

 

My second card was made in much the same way, but this time using the largest stamp from Wendy Vecchi's Art Colors Life set (LCS053). I chose Purple Lake, blue and Viridian green paints for the watercolour wash and used Bockingford watercolour paper again. The "Happy" stamp is from Clearly Besotted's "Happy Everything" stamp set and the Birthday die cut is by Papertrey Ink. I also used sequins to embellish this one.

 

Please click on each photo for a better view.

 

For my third card I used the beautiful background stamp from Joanna Sheen's Tales of the Ocean - Fossil stamp set (JS317). Using Bockingford watercolour paper again I painted with a selection of coral, grey, yellow ochre and beige coloured paints, but this time I tried to keep within the shapes of each fossil, rather than blending the colours too much. The panel was mounted onto coral coloured card and a mottled beige C6 card blank. The sentiment stamp and die are from Clearly Besotted's Mini Basic Banners set and I used Memento London Fog ink. Once again I embellished my card with a few sequins (these came from Abakhan).

 

 

My last card is a lager 8" square one. This time I used smooth white card as I wanted to capture the detail from the lovely Big Bold Background Leafy Trails stamp by Chocolate Baroque (USQSP0406). For my wet on wet watercolour wash I chose Lemon Yellow, Sap Green and Viridian Hue paints and blended them together where they met. I used the same stamp and Memento Pear Tart ink to stamp the white card blank, layered the panel onto green card and added a die cut and stamped sentiment (from Papertrey Ink). Finally I embellished with two different sizes of pearls, which I placed where each berry was on the stamped image. I was really pleased with how this turned out - it looks so fresh in real life!

Sunday Stamper - week 300 - Dream Lover

This week is rather a special one over at the very talented Hels Sheridan's blog http://pinkleart.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/sunday-stamper-week-300-dream-lover.html  - it is the 300th week for the Sunday Stamper challenge! For each of the last 300 weeks Hels has come up with a theme, loosely based on a song title, and has created a gorgeous example of her stamped art to inspire us all to join in. As it's the 300th anniversary of the Sunday Stamper challenge, this week there are several companies sponsoring it and a very generous prize up for grabs for one lucky entrant.

All week I have been deliberating as to what to use to make my entry for the "Dream Lover" theme. I knew straight away that I wanted to use the Catslife Press quote stamp that I acquired recently (thanks Kaz)! But it wasn't until I was able to get into my craftroom yesterday afternoon that I was able to find the perfect image to go with it. This romantic couple from Paper Artsy's Urban Snapshots range - Young Love 4 - fitted the bill perfectly!

Apologies for the poor quality photograph - as per usual I was stamping and taking photos at night! The flash has made the copper areas look more orangey, but in real life they are a bright metallic copper. You can click onto any of the photos for a clearer view if desired.

I gathered together some more supplies - a white card blank, some shiny copper mirror card, thick white card which had been previously sprayed with various pink / purple / copper ink sprays (from Sticky Fingers), some pearlescent pink card, double sided tape, foam pads, some pink gems and everything shown in the photo below. Hels is a great fan of all of Wendy Vecchi's products so I thought it would be appropriate to use the "Art Colours Life" stamp set (which happens to be the only one of Wendy Vecchi's that I own), together with the Large Heart from her Stencils for Art collection.  



I started by trimming a layer of copper mirror card slightly smaller than the front of my card blank, then I cut a smaller panel from the colourful ink sprayed card. I used the central heart shape from the stencil as a mask and inked up the large flower panel stamp below with Victorian Velvet Distress ink before stamping it all over the background to give it a subtle texture. When I removed the mask there was a feint outline of where the heart was, but it needed more definition, so I laid the outer stencil over the flower stamped portion of the card and christened my new Ranger mini ink blending tool with the Victorian Velvet Distress ink to add more depth of colour to the heart. I really like the new little circular ink blending tool as it's ideal to use with stencils and it's easy to control the ink without getting any harsh lines.

I stamped the lovers' image onto white card with Jet Black Archival ink and cut around it leaving a narrow white border. I used the mini ink blending tool and the Victorian Velvet Distress ink again to gently add a little shading to the couple, but I made sure to leave the man's shirt white - if he was anything like my husband he wouldn't be seen dead wearing pink!

This photo and the one below were both taken without flash, but have come out a bit dark. In reality the pink is more of a bright rose pink and what looks like gold is actually a warm copper colour.

The brilliant Catslife Press quote was stamped onto white card using the jet black Archival ink and the corners were rounded with a corner chomper. I then layered this onto a slightly larger rectangle of pearlescent pink card, also with rounded corners, and stuck it to the card with foam pads.

I used a pretty Magnolia Doohickey heart lace border die to trim either side of a strip of pearlescent pink card and added a narrower strip of card, which had been sprayed with slightly darker shades of pink and purple with copper. I used JustRite alphabet stamps (Times New Roman font - 50 pt) to make up the words "Dream Lover" which I then stamped onto the strip of card using the jet black Archival ink again. I trimmed the right-hand side to a fishtail shape and mounted it on the card with foam pads, to help ground the image of the pair of lovers (which I had stuck inside the heart using double sided tape). The final touch was the addition of three sparkly pink gemstones .

I was really happy with the finished card and am now considering making something similar in a cream and duck - egg blue colourway that I can use as a hanging in our bedroom. Watch this space!