Open If You Dare!

Happy Halloween!!!   ***GIVEAWAY!*** We wanted to have a little fun with our blog hop this week, and give away ONE $25 GIFT CERTIFICATE to the Brutus Monroe store! Just leave a comment on each blog post along the hop to be entered! Winner will be announced on next Wednesday’s blog hop post, November 7th, on the Brutus Monroe blog. Please remember to check back next week to see if you are the winner! 
         ***BONUS ENTRY- Post ANY project you have created in the Brutus Monroe Fan Club                    group on Facebook with the hashtag,#TrickOrTreatGiveaway! Good luck!                                            The Team has had a ball creating spooky Halloween cards and I’m excited to share mine!  The Pumpkin Faces and Scare Crows sets have so many great images that I had to use them both!  To begin, I inked up Hit The Brick background with black embossing ink then stamped it onto a panel of Bristol Smooth card stock.  I sprinkled on not just black embossing powder but Brutus Monroe’s cool Glow In The Dark powder too!  I set it with the heat tool and the Glow In The Dark looks amazing in a dark room!

 

 

The next think I did was to heavily sponge on several shades of distress oxide ink (Walnut Stain/Gathered Twigs/Carved Pumpkin and Fired Brick) to create my brick wall, then I trimmed the panel down with Stitched Rectangle dies and cut out a doorway!  I inked up a piece of string with Raven Detail ink then made a handle with it and wrote the words on the door with a Sharpie marker.  Setting that aside, I started on my inside images!

Here’s what the outside looks like in the dark!  I took this photo at 6:30 am in my kitchen!

To create my inside scene, I stamped out the scarecrow image from Scare Crows set, embossed in brown and then colored with Zig markers.  Look at that cute kitty on the left!  I also stamped out the cornstalk and then two pumpkins from Pumpkin Faces and colored them as well.  After fussy-cutting all the pieces, I attached them to a panel of black card stock on which I’d stamped and embossed more cornstalks with Glow In The Dark powder.

Oooooo!!!  Spooky!!!  😀

To construct my card, I adhered the inside panel to the backside of the brick wall panel, then layered that onto a panel of green card stock.  I attached it to a black card base and glued on my cornstalk and two pumpkins to the outside.  This card was a little involved, but so worth the extra effort because I think one of my grandsons will love it!  Especially when Nanna shows him how it glows in the dark!

I want to thank you all for your support and encouraging comments these past four months while I’ve been a part of the fabulous Brutus Monroe Inspiration Team.  It’s been a real joy and a wonderful experience to be part of a group of such inspiring and creative people!  I’m going to bow out with this card as my last official post for Brutus Monroe although I look forward to guest designing in the future!  Now, let’s see what those amazing people have created for this weeks  blog hop!  You’re sure to be inspired!                                                                                                    MARIE
JESS
HEATHER
BERINA
LAUREN
DANIEL
WALESKA
                                                                                                                            

 

 

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Christmas Splendor

I’ve been madly stamping Christmas cards and all sorts of things as I prepare for an upcoming craft fair in late November!  I was inspired by a youtube video I watched the other day using Saran Wrap to get a fabulous background, so decided to try it!   I’m pretty tickled with how this card came out so I made two! 

The first thing I did was spread out a large piece of Saran Wrap on my craft mat, wrinkling it up a bit.  I then spritzed it with Wagon Surface Spray and laid a panel of watercolor paper onto it.  Oooh!!  The texture!!  After drying it with my heat tool, I created another layer but this time using Phonebook Surface Spray, and a third layer of Jurassic Surface Spray!  The colors are so brilliant and pigmented!!  

I thought that Stampendous’ Create A Pointsettia would look great on the background, so inked it up with Raven Detail Ink and stamped it out.  

My next step was to paint the blossom which I did by tapping Aged Mahogany Distress Ink onto my craft mat then using a watery brush, adding several layers of color.  I filled in the holly leaves as well with Peeled Paint.  (Now, why didn’t I think to paint with the Surface Sprays?!)  As you can see, the card above is layered with a die-cut panel of gold foil card stock.  

When this panel was dry, I coated the whole blossom with a heavy glaze of Ranger Glossy Accents and again, set it aside to dry.

I came back to it later on and added Gold Nuvo Drops to the flower center and the berries, then let it dry again.  I trimmed it down with Stitched Rectangle Dies.  Because my image is so splendidly vibrant I kept it simple and attached it to a plain white card base.  I’ll stamp a holiday sentiment inside.  

Just look at all that glossiness and shine!  Who knew that simple Saran Wrap and some Surface Sprays would yield such gorgeous results?!  

Favorite Florals

The Brutus Monroe Inspiration Team is sharing cards made with our favorite florals, and some of you may know that I absolutely love pointsettia stamps!!  I’ve had this new one from Stampendous for a while, called Pointsettia Collage and I love it’s vintage-y style!  For today’s card I combined two products from Brutus Monroe; Unicorn Horn Glitter Glaze and Wagon Surface Spray!  And I mean that I actually combined them!  I placed a little dollop of the Glitter Glaze onto my craft mat and then spritzed some Wagon Surface Spray onto it, mixed it together and voila!  I got beautiful, red glittery glaze!  Using a palette knife, I spread it thinly into a large shape then just pressed my Pointsettia Collage stamp right into it.  I stamped it onto a panel of watercolor card stock and dried it with my heat tool.

Now I realize that Brutus Monroe makes a Glitter Glaze called Scarlet but I don’t have that one, so had to get creative!  There are actually TWELVE colors in the Glitter Glaze family, so be sure to check them out!

I recently bought this pretty gray and white plate for photos, so decided to try painting my image using just watered down Black Aqua Pigment!  I love how it looks against the glittery red lines of the image!  When my panel was dry, I trimmed it down to fit onto a base card of white.

The finishing touch on my card was to add Metallic Silver Lining Nuvo drops onto the centers of the flowers and a few accenting the card.

Now, for a final look at my card on the beautiful plate, just because I want to look at it again!  And check out the others Favorite Florals here!                                                                                           BERINA
HEATHER
JESS
WALESKA

MARIE
LAUREN

Watercolor With Aqua Pigments

It’s blog-hopping time!!  Yippee!!  You probably know by now that Brutus Monroe has come out with a set of watercolor inks called Aqua Pigments!  They’re non-toxic, come in a large 1 fluid ounce bottle with dropper (child proof!) lid and blend beautifully!!  Sadly, I don’t have the full set of twelve but I did buy the primary colors plus black and brown.  For now I can mix them to get more colors and I’ll certainly be adding to my collection soon!  I recently purchased this floral set from Altenew called Best Mom and couldn’t wait to paint it with my Aqua Pigment watercolors!!

I started with a piece of watercolor paper and heat-embossed my floral spray using Brutus Monroe’s Coffee Grounds embossing powder.  Then the fun began!  In my Tim Holtz ink palette, I mixed the inks to get the varying shades of red, orange and yellow by just combining Red and Yellow pigments.  I filled in the blossoms first, letting them dry before adding another layer of color.

Then I mixed drops of Blue and Yellow, varying the amounts to achieve the different shades of green for my leaves!  Easy-peasy!  Next, I created the aqua background by filling in the white space around the image with a watery paintbrush first, then made my aqua by mixing mostly Blue pigment and just a touch of Yellow.  I painted on the color with a wet brush, let it dry and then added more or less Blue and Yellow to get the light and dark shades of aqua.  I tapped an inky paintbrush with Yellow around the flowers for a little added texture and then spattered on some black craft paint!  Now I wish I’d added a few white spatters!

I trimmed my panel down with Stitched Rectangle dies then mounted it to a panel of white upon which I’d stamped the floral spray in Wagon Surface ink.  Finally, a base card of red compliments the water-colored panel as do a few aqua jewels!

So, what’s with the folded paper?!  After I finished this card, I decided to add the sentiment but I’d already mounted the panel with three strips of foam tape and there wasn’t full support in that section of the card!  So, I folded a piece of paper, stuck it in between two of the foam strips and voila!!  Support!  😀  This very old stamp by Hero Arts is one of my favorites and it was perfect for my card, don’t you think?  Now, here’s the blog hop list so you can see how the others used their Aqua Pigments!                                                                                                                               MARIE
BERINA
JESS
HEATHER
LAUREN
WALESKA

Inky Ornaments

I was totally inspired by the unbelievably beautiful ornament cards which my Instagram friend, Karen Janet from Little Blessings blog made recently; her cards took my breath away and I couldn’t wait to try making one myself!  Unfortunately, I don’t have any ornament dies so I had to make do with my Stitched Oval dies instead.  Let me share how I made my card!

First of all, to create my ornaments, I used my alcohol inks on the back of a piece of Kirkland photo paper, letting the colors swirl and blend.  While the ink was still tacky, I pressed on a sheet of Gold Deco Foil which left behind the beautiful shimmery flecks!  When the ink was completely dry, I cut the shapes with Stitched Oval dies and set them aside to make my background!

On a panel of black card stock, I heat-embossed in gold the pine branch from Stampin Up’s Ornamental Pine then the stars from their retired set, Winter Wishes.  Before I mounted this panel to a layer of textured gold paper, I punched a hole in the ovals so I could add some gold string.  I attached the larger ornament to the black panel with Thermoweb Sticky Tape Runner, then the smaller one with 3D Foam Squares from Thermoweb to lift it up.  The string was taped down on the back.

Lastly, I glued a gold sequin to cover the holes on both ornaments and added the sentiment in gold embossing.  I absolutely love Karen’s cards and am thrilled with how mine turned out as well!  I’ll be making more of these, you can be sure!

 

Aqua Pigments = Happiness!

Hello there!  Our Inspiration Team just had a blog hop featuring Brutus Monroe Aqua Pigments and it makes me so happy to paint and play with them!  I just had to make another card!  Again, I used my new set called Best Mom by Altenew and heat-embossed it twice in gold onto a piece of Bristol Smooth watercolor paper.

Using just Red, Yellow, Blue and Black, I was able to paint my images, getting a variety of shades  by mixing the colors!  Creating the background is my favorite part, and I basically splashed very watered down Black all around the blossoms then spattered on droplets of water and more watery black ink!

My die-cut Grateful is from AC Moore and I glued together three of them to get the height, then mounted it to a strip of vellum upon which I’d stamped out an old PSX script stamp in Raven Detail ink.  In retrospect, perhaps that would be prettier embossed in gold like the flowers!  Oh well!  Next time!

I trimmed down my panel with Stitched Rectangle dies, then attached it to a layer of white and finally to a base card of Wagon card stock.  I’m happy with how my card turned out and hope that you’ve checked out the Aqua Pigments for yourself!  They’re big, beautiful bottles of happiness!