I don’t know about you, but I have hundreds and hundreds of card photos stored in my computer and my typical habit is to edit them for blog posts or to post on social media then pop them over to my CopyCatCard file! Once that’s done, I delete them from Camera Uploads but unfortunately, I often forget that step! During this time of social distancing, I’ve been working on cleaning up my files and came across a number of cards that I never edited and so they were never used for a blog or Facebook post! I thought I’d share them with you today! You’ll see that I have quite a few cards made with some of Alex Syberia Designs like this one above! I printed it onto Bristol Smooth card stock and then colored the blossom with my Zig markers. After die-cutting the image into a circle, I mounted it to a white base card which I’d embossed with a lovely folder I have. I think that script is so elegant, don’t you? The sentiment is from Unity Stamps. Here’s another one of Alex’s designs called Roses Bouquet which I stamped onto Bristol Smooth and painted, again using Zig markers! I think the sentiment is from Taylored Expressions Simple Strips set! This card features a stamp made by Crafty Individuals called Summer Poppy Meadow. I have to admit that I didn’t check to see the actual dimensions of this stamp when I ordered it, assuming it was a full A2 size! It was quite disappointing to see the actual size when it arrived but it’s still a beautiful image and easy to work with! I paired it with a black and white striped panel of a store bought card I had in my stash! I made this card over a year ago (maybe two?) and I’ve kept it for myself instead of selling it! The simple yet striking lotus blossom was drawn by Luisana Lowry for her collection of digital stamps she called Red Hibiscus Designs and I was honored to be asked to create cards for her! I colored this blossom with Copic markers and paired it with a background I had in my stash. A little gold cord and a few sequins are pretty details! How gorgeous is this moth?! Another one of Luisana’s designs, it’s not something I would typically be interested in, but I loved coloring this! My Copics collection was fairly new and quite limited at this point but with the excellent tutorials that Luisana has shared, I learned so much and just love how beautifully this came out! The background was made with Hero Arts Everything Flower stamp and I think I colored directly on the stamp, misted with water then stamped it onto Bristol Smooth card stock. A perfect pairing, if I do say so myself! Oh! That bold sentiment is from Stamplorations! I just love this card! It’s a print I found on Pinterest and it came with the blue background so all I had to do was color the flowers! I believe I used Prismacolor pencils on this because I had to print it onto regular weight card stock. The addition of Glossy Accents on some of the blossoms give it a really nice touch! Sentiment is Taylored Expressions Simple Strips! When Alex Syberia created her first line of digital stamps, she invited me to design cards to help promote the line and I was honored and happy to do so! This image is called Spring Bouquet and you can find it here in her Etsy shop! Because I printed this with an inkjet printer, the ink smudged a bit but I used the printer ink as my gray and just went with it! Here’s the same image in orange and yellow; I like the addition of the Tim Holtz Hello die popping out of it! Another colorful card using Spring Bouquet, again letting the printer ink be my gray for coloring. Alex rocked the flower frame with this digi called XOXO Floral! What a glorious array of blossoms and leaves to frame the hand-lettered XOXO! I used Prismacolor pencils for this card, die-cut it with Gina Marie Designs Stitched Rectangle die then mounted it onto a base card made with heavy patterned paper! My last card is a simpler design featuring a sweet little Stampendous set called Sunshine Daisy! I colored it with Copics, die-cut it into an oval and adhered it to the dotted paper oval. The embossed base card is perfect with it’s display of petals, right?! The sentiment is from Butterfly Reflections, Ink set called Let’s Flamingle. Here’s the inside of the Daisies card with the rest of the sentiment! I leave you with this sympathy card done in restful colors of nature and Papertrey Ink’s Meadow Greensstamp set. I heat embossed the ferns with clear powder then sponged oxide and distress inks over them for a resist look, one of my favorite simple techniques! The sentiment is from an old Stampin Up set. Thanks for coming with me on this little walk through my computer files!
Most stampers and card makers know that the term “CASE” means “copy and share everything” and I DO like to copy!! I’m continually impressed and inspired by other’s work and today’s card is no exception! Lauren Lovato is a designer for Brutus Monroe and she recently shared THIS card which I fell in love with! I’m always drawn to watercolored, spatter-y backgrounds and leaves and sprigs are some of my favorite design elements! Her card combined both so I had to CASE! (Technically, I made this card prior to seeing Lauren’s aforementioned card!) This was made specifically for my daughter’s birthday; Sara is an amazing poet and going to grad school this fall for Writing and Publishing. I’m so proud of her for pursuing her goals and “following her bliss”! The very first thing I did was to heat-emboss in black this encouraging sentiment from Stamplorations into the center of a piece of Bristol Smooth card stock. I then pulled out an old Stampin Up set called Remarkable You which I recently found on ebay and heat-embossed the leaves image using Versamark ink and then clear embossing powder. Next, I tapped out Fossilized Amber distress oxide ink onto my craft mat, spritzed with water and laid my card stock into it, then repeated that process with Mowed Lawn distress ink, and Forest Moss distress oxide ink, drying in between layers with a heat tool. As a nod to the written word, I had to add the Dictionary background stamp by Stampin Up in black over the whole card front. I rubbed off the excess inks with a paper towel to reveal the crisp white leaf outlines. Lastly, I sponged Black Soot distress oxide ink around the edges then mounted the panel to a white card base. I really, really love this card and Sara did too! I think it’s quite ironic that I had just created the Follow Your Bliss card for Sara, and then saw Lauren’s card online! Here’s my CASE of hers! Again, I used Stampin Up’s Remarkable You leaves image and embossed them in black onto a panel of Bristol Smooth. Using Zig markers, I began by scribbling a little Deep Blue into the crannies between the stems of the leaves, then moved and blended the ink outward with a water brush. I did a section at a time, letting it dry in one area then going back in to add another layer of color and water. When the dark blue background was filled in, I used Dark Pink on the leaves and again, a waterbrush to move the ink. Persian Green was then added to the leaves and blended with more water. I like that the Pink and Green colors bled into the Deep Blue background! I happily spattered on all three Zig colors and a little extra black then die-cut the circle of vellum, embossed the sentiment with black powder and attached it to my watercolored panel. A few little jewels added extra pizzazz and a black card base finished my card! Thanks to Lauren for her inspiration! I hope you will take the time to view her creations on her Instagram page or blog!
Welcome to my blog! I’d like to share two cards I recently made using brand new stamps from Stampendous! The larger blossom stamp is called Small Hellebore and the floral spray is from another set, Hummingbird Vine! I didn’t intend to combine them originally, but they just seemed to be made for each other, so here they are! I actually colored the floral spray while visiting my Mom a few weeks ago and later colored in Small Hellebore. I searched through my patterned paper scraps and found this beautiful brown, pink and green paisley print and although you can’t see much of it, I think it beautifully enhances the colored image, don’t you? I embossed an ivory card base with the lovely Floral Tapestry embossing folder by Sizzix then attached the layered panel and finally, mounted the larger flower with some bits of foam tape. I stamped the sentiment in brown ink directly to the card base. Here’s a close up shot of my water-bespeckled blossom! I used Zig Clean Color Real Brush markers to color it because they’re so juicy and inky and water-reactive! In retrospect, I can’t believe I didn’t add my usual spatters of paint!! Can you see my mistake on this photo?! I’d stamped the sentiment (from Unity Stamp’s My Condolences set) onto the inside panel, but it was crooked so I flipped it over and stamped it on the other side, not noticing that the first one shows through! Argh! But don’t worry! I’ll redo this inside panel which shows a larger portion of that pretty patterned paper I used on the front! In case you’re wondering if this is the exact same card, I assure you, it isn’t! I decided to make two of these because I liked how the two stamps paired so nicely! The background on this card is a piece of patterned paper from Simon Says Stamp’s June 2018 Card Kit! I stamped a few Small Hellebore over it and attached it to my white card base. Again, I used the same patterned paper behind my floral spray panel and mounted the larger blossom in the same manner as well. So….an interesting thing about THIS card!! I didn’t see that a brown ink pad had dropped onto my layered panel until AFTER I took pictures and then began my editing!! I couldn’t believe it!! My beautiful panel, ruined!! But I decided to go with it as it does look as though I did it on purpose to add shading! But, ARGH!! Oh well! I stamped the sentiment onto the front and called it a day! I hope you enjoyed this and be sure to go check out all the beautiful stamps by Stampendous! As always, thank you for your visit to my blog!
I recently received a big fat package of goodies from Stampendous and was so tickled to see these beautiful images! I immediately got busy and have been making cards with Little Mushroom and it’s coordinating dies plus this amazing background stamp called Fern Garden! I’m in love!!! The first thing I did was to ink up Fern Garden with Peeled Paint and Forest Moss distress oxide inks, then spritzed with a fine mist of water. I stamped it out onto a panel of Bristol Smooth card stock, then stamped it again onto a second panel so as not to waste any of that delicious color! Next, I stamped the Little Mushroom onto another piece of Bristol Smooth and had so much fun coloring it in with my Zig markers! I spattered droplets of water to create “texture” on the image then used the handy-dandy die to cut it out! Lastly, I added some bits of foam tape to the mushroom and attached it to the Fern Garden background then adhered that to a white base card. I stamped the sentiment directly to the card front with Versafine Onxy Black ink. This was a simple card and I just love the woodsy-ness of it, don’t you?! For my next card, I decided to play around with the Fern Garden background using the Floral Garden Embossing Powder kit which I also received! It has twelve little containers of colorful embossing powders and little scoops for using with it. I inked up Fern Garden with Versamark and stamped it onto a piece of Bristol Smooth then scooped the two shades of blue powder onto a section of the inked design, tapped it off and heat set it. I did this again but used the two greens next! I inked up Fern Garden again with Versamark, then turned the stamp so the design was going in a different direction and stamped it directly onto the first heat-set layer of colors! Again, I scooped additional colors of powders (orange, red and yellow) but this time I placed each color onto an area of the Versamark’d image, gently removed the excess and then heat-set them all at the same time. I hope all that makes sense! The result of all that layering, scooping, heat-setting and repeating is quite vividly beautiful, I think! I have a stamp set by Papertrey Ink called Meadow Greens with fern stamps and dies, so I stamped one out onto Bristol Smooth using distress oxide inks (Peeled Paint and Mowed Lawn) then die-cut it. I also die-cut a fern of olive green card stock and placed that beneath the stamped fern. To complete my card, I adhered the Fern Garden background panel to a white card base, added a little Vintage Note script stamp to the bottom then attached my ferns to the lower corner using foam tape for dimension. The sentiment is from Pink Fresh Studio’s Let’s Flamingle set! I had a lot of fun playing with the embossing powder kit and the Fern Garden background and have several ideas for more fun cards, so stay tuned! Thanks for visiting!
Welcome back, friends! I started writing this post almost a week ago, and realized I hadn’t finished it so here we go! I’m featuring some oldies but goodies from my collection of Stampendous images! This series of scenes in Tuscany is called Scenic Serenity and although they’re long retired, you may still find them on ebay or etsy. I was fortunate to have collected several of them some years ago, and love to pull them out to play with occasionally!
After stamping Grapes Scene onto a piece of Bristol Smooth cardstock using Versafine Onyx Black ink, I began coloring with my Zig markers. As always, I use many colors and layer them on, squiggling the brush into the prior color to blend them together. The colors I used here are as follows: Olive Green, Mid-Green, Yellow Green for the grape leaves and grass and trees. Violet, Purple, Mustard for the grapes. Mid-Brown, Oatmeal, Beige on the plowed earth. Ochre and Dark Oatmeal on the house, shaded with Green Gray and roof is Black with Blue Gray. The sky was colored with Persian Green and I used Light Blue to bring the color down toward the trees and to soften and lighten it. I always use my Flesh Colour to blend and add a little visual interest. I also colored in squiggles around the outside edges of this image with Flesh and Light Gray. I trimmed around the colored panel, then added a layer of black behind it. A crisp white card base enhanced with a vine-y embossed design completes my card!
This next image is called Poppy Scene and I colored it in the same squiggly manner using the same shades of green for the grass and tree, then colored the poppies with Wine Red, Red and Bright Yellow which is actually a light orange. I added a glaze of Crystal Effects on each poppy to make them shine! The background hills were colored with Dark Brown and Oatmeal and I colored the house with Mustard, then added some Light Gray to tone down the yellow. Roof is Black with a touch of Light Gray. To create the sky, I started at the top of the image with a thin line of Deep Blue and then brought it down to lighter shades with the Light Blue marker.
Again, I squiggled Flesh and Light Gray markers all around the edges to create a mottled background . I die-cut the colored panel with a Stitched Rectangle die, mounted it to a layer of black then lifted it up using foam tape. The white base card is embossed with Brutus Monroe’s Petal Lace embossing folder.I kept the colors quite muted on this card which features the Stampendous image called Olive Scene. I rather love the brooding dark sky and the dusky hillside! To color the olives I used a touch of Brown, then Wine Red and colored the leaves with my favorite trio of greens, Olive Green, Mid-Green and Yellow Green. I used the same colors on the background bushes and tree and colored the plowed earth with Mid-Brown and Beige. To create that brooding sky I started with a line of Gray Brown at the top, then used my Flesh Colour and Light Gray to blend the color down, really working the marker to depict the movement of clouds. The hillside was colored first with Light Blue and then a blending of more Flesh and Light Gray to tone it down.After trimming around the colored image, I mounted it to a little panel of black and then to a white base card upon which I’d dry embossed a border of flowers. I then added a touch of Crystal Effects to the olives, giving them a sheen and making them pop out a little.Since I’d already colored this Poppy Scene in traditional colors, I decided to get creative and use a brighter, unexpected color palette this time! I always fill in the grassy background first and this time I used a mix of Emerald Green, Light Green, Mid-Green, Yellow Green and Pale Green. I colored the poppies with Cornflour Blue, added a touch of Blue and then a touch of Light Violet. The trees were colored in using Cornflour Blue as well. Isn’t that sky gorgeous?! Again, I drew a line of Wine Red at the top then pulled the color down using that Bright Yellow marker. The house was colored with Ochre and the roof with Dark Brown. The Black I filled in the windows with was pulled into the Ochre to tone it down some. That’s what I love about Zig markers; they’re so juicy and blend together so beautifully!I love the white base cards with embossing which frames them beautifully. I spattered some black paint onto this one . I hope you’ve enjoyed this series of Scenes from Tuscany! Perhaps you’ve been there and my little images are a sweet reminder of a far away place and a magical time! And perhaps I’ll go there someday too! Until then, I can color and dream!
Hi there and welcome! I’ve been working on a lot of cards and although I’m quick about photographing them and posting to social media, I’m a bit slower to get a blog post written to share the details! Yesterday I decided to paint a watercolor using the beautiful Dahlias set by Penny Black. I began by trimming a sheet of watercolor paper down to 6X8 inches then taping off one inch on all four sides, leaving me with a 5X7 space in which to paint! I dusted the surface with my anti-static pouch then began to stamp, then emboss with Brutus Monroe’s Gilded powder, mask and stamp more blossoms and leaves until I had an arrangement I liked.
Next, using my Kuretake Zig Clean Color Brush markers, I started laying in the background with black, then some shades of blue, moving the ink with a wet paintbrush. I dried with a heat tool between each layer and built up a lovely, dark base of color. Moving on to the largest dahlia bloom, I used several shades of red and orange markers, and also a lighter brown to fill in the petals, adding water to soften and blend the ink.
I colored the rest of the flowers using shades of orange and yellow, a little brown for shading, then a little gray for shading. I love how vivid they are against that background even though DO they look like flowers floating in space! 😀 To finish my panel, I spattered on droplets of water then patted it dry and finally a spattering of white craft paint. This painting makes me very happy and I can’t wait to mat and frame it! I may keep it, but it’s more likely to be sold! Check my etsy shop to see if it’s there in a few days!
Here’s a final peek at the finished painting; I’m really bummed that my paper tore a bit. I don’t know why that happened; perhaps using the heat tool so much made the painters tape really adhere more than usual. Thank you for visiting and I hope my post encourages you to get out your watercolors or Zig markers and have some fun with them!
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