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!
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!!
Happy Saturday, my stamping friends! I’m excited to share my card on the Brutus Monroe blog this morning as we continue to feature our Fall Favorites! There are so many things to love about fall, especially in beautiful Vermont where the foliage changes to brilliant shades of red, orange and yellow! Today’s card showcases those colors via the luscious Surface Inks; Zest, Wagon, Suede and Terracotta plus a little of the beautiful Sage! Each one of these velvety chalk inks wonderfully represents the colors of fall!I had no specific design in mind as I began this card and it always fascinates me to see what develops as I begin! For my first step I embossed a piece of watercolor card stock with my Vintage Tapestry folder then just rubbed the various shades of color onto the raised surface! That was easy and fun! I knew I was going to gold-emboss some leaves so I also rubbed a little embossing ink randomly around the panel, sprinkled on Gilded Embossing Powder and then set it with the heat gun. I love the little bit of shine it created!After cutting down the panel with Stitched Rectangle dies, I attached it to a layer of Copper Glitterstock to add another shade of shine! I heat-embossed Papertrey Ink’s leaves from their Meadow Greens set and used the coordinating dies to cut them out. Setting those aside, I then heat-embossed in gold the sentiment from Brutus Monroe’s Super Sentimental onto a strip of vellum.To assemble my card, I mounted my embossed and Glitterstock layers to a card base of Terracotta, then attached my vellum strip with a couple of jeweled brads which I colored with a Copic marker to get the exact shade I wanted! Lastly, I tucked in a couple of the embossed leaves behind the vellum and VOILA! Done! I actually can’t stop looking at all the colors on my background!! This card really makes me happy!! Take a look around Brutus Monroe‘s website and see if there’s anything there that’ll make YOU happy!! 😀
We’re blog hopping at Brutus Monroe today and sharing some of our Fall Favorites!! Halloween isn’t my favorite holiday but making cards for fall is! And I do love making backgrounds with distress oxide inks! For this card, I tapped out Carved Pumpkin, Fossilized Amber and Black Soot onto my craft mat, sprayed on some water then just dragged my watercolor paper through the ink. You know the drill! 😀 Of course, I dried between colors! I then heat-embossed in black the skull image from an old CTMH set called Thriller and stamped the other images using Raven Detail ink.I have some fairly large alphabet dies and cut the letters from the panel with my Cuttlebug. After popping out the die-cut letters I adhered a strip of the beautiful Tangerine Glitterstock behind the openings. I then reattached the letters by lifting them with Thermoweb’s 3D Foam Squares.I heat-embossed the sentiment right onto the card front then attached it all to a black card base. I used the All-Purpose Craft Glue to attach a few sequins to accent the shiny Glitterstock! Bring on the fall!! Let’s take a peek at the Inspiration Team’s Fall Favorites! BERINA HEATHER B. MARIE JESSICA
I’m having so much fun choosing which Glitterstock color to use for a new project and decided to use Tangerine for this card! The color itself prompted a Halloween card with it’s gorgeous rusty-orange glitters! To begin this card, I tapped Carved Pumpkin distress oxide ink onto my craft mat then spritzed it with water and dragged my watercolor cardstock through it. After drying with my heat tool, I used Black Soot next, again drying before adding my final color, Dried Marigold.
If you look closely you can see the faint impression of Winnie & Walter’s Scenery stencil which I foiled using Thermoweb’s Deco Foil in Copper! It made me think of a spider web! Anyway, after dusting the surface with my Embossing Buddy, I heat-embossed my Inkadinkado stamp in black right over all the colors!I have a skulls and crossbone stamp which I use on my biker cards, and thought it’d make a fun accent so stamped that in Raven Detail ink over the background. Next I used my Stitched Rectangle dies to cut the panel and also cut the edge of a strip of Tangerine Glitterstock and attached them together with Thermoweb’s Sticky Tape Runner, then mounted it to a panel of white card stock. I used my scissors to rough up the edges of the white paper.I adhered the panel to a black card base which I embossed with Tim Holtz’ Gridlock Set folder, then added some copper sequins for a bit of bling to accent the Glitterstock on the left! The sentiment is from a retired CTMH set called Thriller and I heat-embossed it onto white scraps, trimmed it down and mounted it with Thermoweb Sticky Dots! I love how all the pieces came together in this card! If you’re looking for a great glitter card stock, be sure to consider Brutus Monroe’s Glitterstock! It comes in a variety of colors, doesn’t leave glitter “crumbs” at all and cuts like a dream!
CopyCatCards 