Vintage Tapestry

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!!  😀

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Hollyhocks on Heather!

I recently bought this stamp called Hollyhocks from Unity Stamps and inked it up the other day!  I’m not in love with this card, but I AM in love with Brutus Monroe’s line of cardstock!  To begin, I tapped out several colors of distress oxide inks (Broken China/Faded Jeans/Iced Spruce) onto my craft mat, spritzed them with water then blotted up the inks with Brutus Monroe’s Not Your Mama’s Ultra Heavy Base Weight card stock (now THAT’S a mouthful!) and was delighted at how well it took my watery inks!  I then stamped the Hollyhocks onto the background with Wilted Violet oxide ink and then Iced Spruce.

I created a little stencil using my Punchinella die and added the dots of Iced Spruce in a couple of places.  I heat-embossed the Hollyhocks in black over the finished background and I love how they really stand out!  I wanted to darken the edges so I sponged Brutus Monroe’s Sea Surface Ink around the edges, then trimmed my panel down and roughed up the sides with my scissors for a distressed look.

But did I stop there?!  Heck, no!!  I then got out my new little pot of Brutus Monroe’s Unicorn Horn Glitter Glaze and smeared a little onto my craft mat, then tapped a dots-stamp into it and stamped it around my panel.  I like the little sparkle it adds!   I also recently received a lovely selection of Brutus Monroe’s card stock and chose to make my card base with Heather.  I inked up Hollyhocks with Wilted Violet distress oxide then added some Sea Surface Ink, spritzed it with water and stamped right onto the card stock!  I was impressed that it took the watery ink so well, with no buckling or warping!  After attaching my distressed panel to the card base, I found this sentiment from the Super Sentimental set in my stash and placed it on with Thermoweb’s Sticky Strip Runner which doesn’t show through the vellum!  A spattering of black paint added the final detail to my card!  

Brutus Monroe Birthday Bears

Welcome to our blog hop for the Brutus Monroe Inspiration Team!  This week’s theme is die-cutting and I decided to take out My Favorite Things Striped Sentiment die and combine it with the adorable Birthday Bears by Brutus Monroe!  I used Brutus Monroe’s awesome Lunchbag cardstock to cut my first panel and then embossed it for some added texture.  I  then cut another panel with teal glitter cardstock; as you can see, I just popped the teal stripes into the Lunchbag panel for some fun contrast!  I adhered the panel to a base card of vanilla and moved on to the bears!

 

I stamped the two bears onto a piece of watercolor cardstock using Antique Linen Distress ink and got out my Zigs to watercolor them!  They’re such “chubby little cubbies”!  After fussy-cutting out the bears, I attached them to my card with pieces of foam tape for lift.  The HAPPY BIRTHDAY sentiment is from, you guessed it!  Super Sentimental!  I stamped that with Raven Detail ink onto a scrap of cardstock then trimmed it into a little banner, sponged a little Broken China distress ink around the edges and added it to my card front.

Combining dies and stamps make for a really interesting card and I love how this one turned out!  I just may tuck it away for a grandsons birthday!  Be sure to take a peek at what Waleska, Berina, Aletha and Marie have created!  It’s great to see how diverse our group of crafters is!  

Altenew Crown Blooms

I finally opened my bottle of Tim Holtz Distress Resist Spray which came in my Simon Say’s Stamp June card kit, and had fun making a bunch of backgrounds!  For this one I used a cool grid stencil and then sponged Shaded Lilac, Iced Spruce and Fossilized Amber distress oxide inks over it!  This card also features my brand new Altenew stamp set called Crown Blooms and I just love the images!  

I stamped the flower and leaf using Brutus Monroe‘s fabulous Raven Detail ink onto Bristol Smooth card stock, then enjoyed coloring with my Zig markers!  I didn’t buy the dies because I intended to use my Scan N Cut machine to cut the images but wasn’t very successful with that, so ended up fussy-cutting.  I stamped the little cluster of flowers onto the background several times then arranged my blossom and leaf over them.  The addition of a few coordinating pearly-thingies were a pretty accent!  

This little sentiment is from Brutus Monroe‘s Super Sentimental set and I heat-embossed it in white onto a strip of black card stock then adhered it to the blossom with bits of foam tape.  Lastly, I mounted the whole panel to a base card of lovely gray Bazzill card stock.  I know I’m going to really enjoy making more cool backgrounds and using my new Altenew set!  

Happy Birthday, America!

My first Inspiration Team Challenge is Envelope Art and I knew I wanted to make something patriotic!  I’ve had this retired Stampin’ Up set for a very long time and it was perfect for this project!  The first thing I did was to clear-emboss the stars onto a piece of watercolor cardstock, then  silver-embossed Happy Birthday and You’re The Best from Brutus Monroe‘s Super Sentimental set.  Using Fired Brick and Faded Jeans Distress inks, I sponged the background then sponged a little Pumice Stone around the edges.  A scrunched up baby wipe, lightly tapped over the sponging made a subtle texture!

Setting that aside, I heat-embossed my central image with silver embossing powder and tore around the edges, then sponged on more distress ink.  I found a piece of mulberry paper which I’ve had for YEARS, and placed it beneath the image, then adhered it to my card front with a bit of foam tape.  A few sequins and a white card base completed my card!

Now for my envelope!!  I have a great stamp of the Pledge of Allegiance and stamped it twice in Pumice Stone onto the front and back of my envelope.  Lady Liberty  graces the lower right hand corner and Sent with Love (from Super Sentimental!) in black on the left corner.  I randomly stamped stars in red and blue then sponged red and blue around the edges.

I love how this duo turned out for the Envelope Art challenge and look forward to creating more projects using Brutus Monroe’s fabulous products!

 

Glorious Rose and Gold

It’s been wickedly hot here in Vermont the last few days and will continue to be so for the rest of the week!  We don’t own a pool so I’m keeping cool in my stamp room!  Sometimes I have no idea which direction my creativity will take me and today was like that.  I sat at my desk wondering what on earth to work on, so began searching through my stamps for something I haven’t used much.  I came across this wonderful striped background stamp called Cabana Stripes by Echo Park Paper Co.  One of my favorite design combos is stripes with florals so that’s what I decided to do!

Upon further searching around, I came across one 12X12 sheet of this beautiful soft rose cardstock and it inspired my color choices for this card!  Rose and gold!!  So feminine and so elegant!  This called for Altenew‘s Beautiful Day set!  I began by heat-embossing the outline images in gold onto Bristol Smooth card stock, and chose Zig colors of soft pink, peach, flesh and ochre.  (I’ve been using my Copic markers so much lately, that I forgot how much I love Zigs!)  When I finished coloring, I used Beautiful Day dies to cut them out.

Anyway, setting the blossoms aside, I inked up Cabana Stripes with Versamark and stamped it onto another piece of Bristol Smooth paper, then added gold embossing powder.  I LOVE that the stamp didn’t adhere 100% so it left these wonderful “distressed” looking spots with no color!  I just bought Tim Holtz’ Tattered Rose distress oxide ink, so tapped some onto my craft mat, spritzed with water then tapped my panel into the ink.  After drying it, I trimmed the panel down with Gina Marie Designs Stitched Rectangle dies and adhered it to my base card upon which I’d used Stampin Up’s Manhattan Flower embossing folder.  I think that nicely compliments the blossoms and adds even more texture!  Next I arranged my die-cut pieces and mounted them with layers of foam tape.  Lastly,  I gold-embossed the simple yet sweet sentiment from Brutus Monroe‘s Super Sentimental set onto a strip of the rose card stock and tucked it in along the left side.  Voila! A combination of stamps from a variety of companies to create one gorgeous card!  Now…who’s birthday is coming up…?!  😀