Welcome! I’d like to share two cards I made this week using a “dots” technique inspired by the amazing Alex Syberia! I’ve been fascinated by her work and her riotous use of color plus the unique way she incorporates dots into her cards! You won’t believe your eyes when you check out her blog! In the meantime, I recently printed off a couple of floral images I found on Pinterest; I resized the image down to fit an A2 card and then just got busy coloring with my Copic markers! Isn’t this floral spray beautiful?! I enjoyed branching out a little with my colors, trying to loosen up and be more creative! I opted for muted tones and layered color upon colors. This particular image came with a pale gray background so all I did was use the colorful “pointillism” style which Alex is known for to fill in around the blossoms and leaves. Isn’t it fun?! Here’s the second card I made, using another floral spray image from Pinterest and a slightly less colorful use of the dots technique. I began coloring with my Tim Holtz distress markers, Rusty Hinge, Dried Marigold and Tattered Rose for the blossoms and Peacock Feathers, Broken China and Evergreen Bough for the leaves! I wasn’t satisfied with the depth of color from just the distress markers so went over the images again with Copics. I use so many different Copic markers that I feel it would be too overwhelming to list them all. But the Copics definitely boosted the color! You can see that I made dots of black, gray, peach and aqua, then added white gel pen dots afterwards. I also added shading to the leaves and flowers with a pale gray marker. To create the background I added more gray with Hickory and Pumice Stone distress markers and used a water brush to spread it in a lovely watercolor-y manner! (That buckled my paper a bit as it’s only 110# card stock.) The next steps were to stamp the beautiful Vintage Note by Stampendous with Pumice distress ink around the main image, then heat-embossed the sentiment (from Altenew’s Beautiful Day set) using Brutus Monroe’s Golden Gourd embossing powder for a perfect match! I mounted this panel onto a soft gray base card and attached a strip of Tangerine Glitterstock along the edge for a little bit of bling! Three shimmery sequins were my final touch! I leave you with this very closeup photo of my card, showing off the lovely colors and interesting dots! I hope you enjoyed this post and my cards, and that you’ll have a look at Alex’s gorgeous creations as well!
Wanna know what makes this card artist’s heart go pitter-patter?! New stamps from Stampendous!! I just received a big fat package filled with wonderful new goodies and this baby was the first one I inked up! It’s called Dahlia Collage and it’s HUGE!! You may recall my obsession with their gorgeous Pointsettia Collage background stamp and can just imagine my excitement to play with this one! In my package was a container of Rose Gold Embossing Enamel and I used it to emboss my image onto a panel of watercolor card stock. Isn’t it gorgeous?! I then began to color with Aged Mahogany and Tattered Rose distress markers, blending the inks with a waterbrush. I used Pumice Stone around the edges of the image and now wish I’d softened it a bit more. The leaves were colored with Bundled Sage and Shabby Shutters and I colored the center of the dahlia with Fossilized Amber and a touch of Gathered Twigs for depth. I dug through my stash and found a strip of French Rose Glitterstock by Brutus Monroe which added a little more visual interest to my card. Here’s a final peek at my beautiful, complicated-looking card which actually was REALLY easy and quick to make!! I encourage you to search the Stampendous website to see what a vast selection of stamps and products they have to appeal to every crafter’s style! As always, I very much appreciate your visit here and your comments!
This strikingly beautiful card was shared yesterday by Unity Stamps on the Stamping Life Facebook page and I was immediately captivated! I love strong color and just love this card, so had to make a copycat!! The card above was made with the newest release by the dynamic duo of Brutus Monroe and Unity Stamps, called Botanical Background and I can’t wait to get my hands on it! But let’s talk about how I copied it! For my card, I used a Brutus Monroe favorite, Conservatory of Quotes to create my black and white roses background, heat-embossed in black onto a panel of water color card stock. Then I got out my Zig markers, Mustard and Yellow and began to fill in the space between the images. I scribbled one section at a time with Mustard, then went over it with Yellow; a wash of water from my waterbrush softened and blended the two colors. As you can see, my image didn’t stamp out completely, but I knew I could cover that section up! I decided to make another card using shades of Aqua but the ink didn’t blend or flow as evenly, even with the addition of water! The panel on the right was my first attempt and the one on the left wasn’t any better! I set those aside to try another color! For this panel, I used Yellow Green and Mid Green, beginning with the darker color next to the image, then blending out with Yellow Green, and finally, softening again with water. I’m not sure why the aqua inks didn’t blend out but I was happy this one did! The last color I did was purple; again, the colors didn’t blend as well as the yellow and green, but I like the texture of this one! I used Purple and Light Violet then used my water brush to soften the ink. Here is my finished CopyCat card in yellow! The sentiment is from Brutus Monroe’s Super Sentimental set which has a great variety of sayings! I trimmed down my watercolored panel with Stitched Rectangle dies, then adhered it to a panel of white, and then to a black base card. The sentiment was heat-embossed with Alabaster embossing powder onto a strip of black then adhered to a strip of vellum for accent. I don’t love this one, but it’s still quite nice! I die-cut the panel again with Stitched Rectangle dies, then mounted it to a white card base. A strip of vellum enhances the die-cut sentiment. For this version, I die-cut the image with Stitched Circles, then mounted it to an off-white base card which I’d embossed with a Large Dot embossing folder. I stamped “Hello Beautiful” from Brutus Monroe’s Super Sentimental set and heat-set it with Alabaster embossing powder on a scrap of black card stock then attached it to the card front with a bit of foam tape for lift. Remember those aqua panels which didn’t work out so well? I retrieved one of them by cutting it down with a Stitched Circle die then sponged Peacock Feathers distress oxide ink around the edges. I had this embossed panel in my stash which I’d made using Tim Holtz’ Botanical 3D Texture Fades embossing folder. I love the white on white effect and then the pop of aqua! I recently bought this die “Fabulous” and love how it looks! The “YOU ARE” stamp is from Stampendous Big Words Thanks; the sentiment was actually “hope you are having a great day” so I taped off the words I didn’t need, inked it up with Versamark then removed the tape and heat-embossed it with Alabaster powder. I trimmed it down and adhered it to my panel. I had a lot of fun creating this series of CopyCat cards and I hope you enjoyed reading about the process! I appreciate your visit!
I recently received a request for 100 of a particular card in my etsy shop! My customer is the founder of You Matter! which is a monthly subscription box to encourage young people who struggle to find their place in this world. January’s box is music themed and she felt my card would be a nice addition! I haven’t done a large card order in quite some time, so I jumped right in and got busy! Be warned! This post is picture heavy! My first photo shows a number of the black base cards upon which I stamped my logo in white pigment ink. I purchased it from Hello World etsy shop last year and just love it!
Here I’ve gathered my beginning pieces to assemble the card; the larger white stack on the left is 4 X 6 index cards which I trimmed down to 4 X 5 1/4″ and will form the white border around my central image. The second stack of white is card stock cut to a quarter inch smaller than the border panel. This is the piece which I’ll emboss with my Brutus Monroe folder called Petal Lace using Fossilized Amber distress oxide ink. I die-cut my ovals using Gina Marie Designs Stitched Oval dies.
Thankfully I was able to cut two ovals at a time, which saved me some elbow grease with the Cuttlebug! I stamped the sentiment from Brutus Monroe’s set called Break The Rules using Versafine Onyx Black ink.I colored in the little microphone using a gray Copic marker then…
…lightly stamped the music notes onto the ovals.This is the faux Letterpress technique and it’s so pretty! I rubbed my ink pad all over the flat side of the embossing folder then ran it through my Cuttlebug. Unfortunately, this had to be done 100 times as I could only do one at a time! UGH!But look how cool it is!I sure was happy to finish that step and adding more of the musical notes onto 100 panels went fairly quickly! I realized when I was done that the original card in my etsy shop only had the notes inked down one side! Oh well!Back to the ovals! I decided to add a bit of Glossy Accents glue to the microphone for a little additional detail.At this point, I quit for the night and left them to dry!I ran out of my Glue Glider Pro tape so tried using Elmer’s Glue stick to attach the inside panel; I didn’t love it but it was the best I could do at this point!Today I was thrilled to get my tape runner refills in the mail! Thank goodness! 😀 I have a monthly subscription through Amazon and it’s half the price of buying them at a retail store! I love this tape runner because it’s lightweight and the perfect size to work with! Here’s a link to Amazon for them. I zipped right through this step of adhering my embossed panels and ovals to the fronts of the cards!At last!! Finished!! I packed 100 cards and coordinating envelopes into a sturdy card box, stuffed bubble wrap in the gaps and covered with tissue paper to make it look prettier!One of my favorite thank you cards went on the top and expresses my gratitude for the order and her support of my work!And here’s one of the finished cards! I hope that each person who receives this will feel special and sense the love that went into the creating of it! Be sure to check out the You Matter! website and if you know of a young person who would benefit from such a meaningful gift, please subscribe! Thank you for staying with me to the end of this time-worthy project!
It’s Ugly Sweater season again! And just in time Stampendous offers this adorable Cool Penguin Clear Stamps & Cutting Dies set! In fact, Stampendous will give away 3 Cool Penguin sets randomly drawn from the comments on all blog posts featuring this set from November 25th-December 8th! Check out the Stampendous blog HERE. Now, onto my card! I like a little bling as much as the next penguin, but this little chick is rockin’ her sequin-loaded ugly sweater!! To create my card, I began by stamping the penguin, sweater and hat onto a piece of Bristol Smooth card stock and colored them in with Zig markers. I forgot that the dies came with the set and fussy-cut out the images. GAH!! Don’t do that!I have a stash of plain old craft sequins so dug through and found the red, yellow and green ones to bling out the sweater and hat, gluing them over the colored images. I added a dot of glitter glue to each one as well and a bigger blob to the pompom on the hat! I then glued the sweater and hat onto the penguin.Setting that aside, I started on my background! On another piece of Bristol Smooth I stamped and embossed the snowflakes with white powder, then sponged Lemonade and Cracked Pistachio Distress Oxide inks over it. Using my border dies, I cut the snowy landscape from Brutus Monroe’s Fallen Snow Glitterstock, and adhered them to the pretty background, then added a little line of glitter glue beneath my penguin. I heat-embossed the sentiment onto a scrap of green card stock, cut it down and attached that as well.Let’s take one last look at this Ugly Sweater before moving on to my next card!I confess that I don’t LIKE ugly sweaters so had to make a beautiful one too! Again, I stamped my images onto Bristol Smooth card stock and colored with Zig markers. Again, I forgot to use my dies and fussy-cut the pieces and then pressed each one onto my Versamark pad to coat with clear ink, then used clear embossing powder to create a glossy glaze! I glued them onto the penguin and set it aside.I decided to make a beautiful night sky behind my little girl, so on another piece of Bristol Smooth card stock, I sponged Wilted Violet, Fossilized Amber and Broken China Distress Oxide inks randomly over the paper, then sponged a layer of Blueprint Sketch to cover the colors and finally a layer of Black Soot, letting some of the colors show through. A spattering of water created “stars” and a spattering of white paint added more!
I cut the snowy landscape from Brutus Monroe’s Fallen Snow Glitterstock, and attached it to the sponged panel. Using a sentiment from Stampendous’ Merry Words, I heat embossed Believe in white directly onto my background layer, then the smaller sentiment onto a strip of black card stock which I adhered with adhesive. A base card of white completed my card. I actually love both cards and will bring them to my upcoming craft show to sell! Thanks for visiting!!
Isn’t this just beautiful?! If you look closely, you’ll see that the embossing powder has glitter in it! I received a container of Brutus Monroe’s Embossing Powder of the Month called Christmas Eve and it’s absolutely gorgeous! A beautiful deep red powder with bits of golden glitter! Naturally, I had to use my newest Stampendous stamp, Create A Pointsettia!As always, I began with a piece of Bristol Smooth card stock and stamped out the image with Versamark, then heat-set it with Christmas Eve embossing powder. Using my Aqua Pigment watercolor inks, I began to paint, adding layers and layers of color! I used just Red, Blue and Yellow, mixing colors to get the perfect shades.When the panel was complete and dried, I spattered droplets of water to get the cool reactive pattern which you can really see on the blue background! I left the larger berries white but filled in the smaller ones with Gold Nuvo Drops.My final step was to trim down the watercolor panel with Stitched Oval dies, then cut a larger oval of Glitterstock and adhered the two together. I mounted them to a simple off-white card base and decided to leave it as is, allowing the pointsettia to take center stage! I just love the added shine of the glitter in the Christmas Eve embossing powder! I may add a sentiment to the front, or just stamp one to the inside of my card. Thanks for visiting!
CopyCatCards 