As a stamper and card artist, I find inspiration in some unexpected places! Like, at the Dollar Tree! I found this gorgeous plate there last week and just love the artists watercolor style! I had to have it, so it came home with me! I knew right away that I’d use Brutus Monroe’s Pumpkin Faces set to make my card; it comes with TEN various sized and shaped pumpkins plus ten faces to add on! Now, I like scary pumpkins as much as anyone, but how wonderful that I can use this set for an elegant card! I stamped and heat-embossed the four pumpkins in silver, masking in order to layer them. In retrospect, I wish I’d used dark gray ink instead. Using the plate as a guide, I colored the pumpkins with a variety of Zig markers in shades of green, gray and brown, adding water to soften the ink. My leaves and vines are from an old CTMH set called Grapevine and I think they beautifully complement the design. I stamped them with Bundled Sage oxide ink. At this point, I realized that Brutus Monroe’s Hit The Brick background would go perfectly so I inked it up with Bundled Sage oxide and gently maneuvered the stamp to fill in the space above the pumpkins. That’s the beauty of flexible cling stamps! I trimmed my panel with a Stitched Rectangle die then mounted it to a panel of dark gray. On a piece of vanilla card stock, I stamped more of the vines and leaves with Bundled Sage again and attached it to a base card of Jurassic card stock. When my card was complete, I made a coordinating envelope with more vines and leaves. I’m pretty happy with my card and hope you like it too! Now, I’m off to Dollar Tree to buy more of these plates! And you should head straight to Brutus Monroe to check out these pumpkins! 😀
Welcome friends! I’m sharing a non-traditional autumn card made with only blue and black inks and my new Simple Blends Circle stencil by Brutus Monroe! To begin, I placed the frame part of the stencil onto a piece of Bristol Smooth watercolor paper and lightly sponged Faded Jeans distress oxide ink around the edges of the circle cut-out to outline my moon, then added a little Black Soot as well. Using a cool texture stamp (pictured below) I added the “moon shadows” with the same colors of ink. I stamped the line of geese with Raven Detail ink.Next, I placed the circle stencil over the moon to cover it up, and heavily sponged Black Soot and Faded Jeans oxide around it to create a night sky. It’s barely noticeable but I also lightly sponged a teeny bit of Zest just above the horizon line! This wonderful tree is made by Stampendous from their Nature set and I heat-embossed it in black right over the panel. I then added fine spatters of white craft paint to depict stars.Once my tree was in place, I got really excited for how awesome it looked!! But it needed to be grounded, so I used a paper mask to create the hillside with Raven Detail ink then stamped the line of geese, also from the Stampendous set. After cutting the panel with Stitched Rectangle dies, I mounted it to a piece of fun foam to lift it up and then onto an off-white base card.I LOVE how this card turned out! I’m not sure if I’ll add a sentiment, but in the meantime, I’ll just enjoy it’s striking simplicity! Now, I’m off to find yet another way to use my cool new stencil! See Ya! ***I added photos below of the texture stamp I used to create the shading on the moon. I’ve had it for many, many years so am not sure it can still be purchased. Made by Magenta.
I’ve created this tutorial to help show you how I created this beautiful card. Be warned! I am super comfortable in the world of stamping. Video Creation and editing? Well, that remains to be seen!
Yay!! It finally cooled down to a lovely 64 degrees which means long pants, a light jacket and no more flip flops! I’ve been having lots of fun making all my fall cards but doing so in hot weather isn’t quite as satisfying! I made this beautiful card a few days ago using the Tree Poem stamp by Stampendous! It’s such a striking image and I decided to add “leaves” of flaming colors!I started with a piece of Bristol Smooth card stock and heat-embossed the tree in black. I then tapped some Faded Jeans oxide ink onto my craft mat, spritzed with water and pressed my card stock into it, moving it around to fill in mostly the edges. Next I tapped a small acrylic block into Fossilized Amber oxide ink then spritzed it with water and “stamped” it onto the tree in several places. This allowed me to control where the “leaves” went. I repeated this step with Fired Brick and Carved Pumpkin oxides, adding some to the base of the tree as well.When my panel was finished, I die-cut it with Stitched Oval dies and mounted it to a vanilla base card which I’d run through the Cuttlebug with my Fall Leaves embossing folder. I kept the overall design fairly simple so that the tree was the main focus!The final detail was to heat-emboss in black a sentiment from The Ton’s Basic Labels set onto a scrap of white cardstock then attach it to a strip of orange floral paper. I lifted it with a bit of foam tape for dimension. The leaves are just beginning to turn here but soon they’ll be aflame! I hope you enjoyed this card and are inspired to play!
Fall is taking it’s time getting to Vermont as we’ve been enjoying prolonged summer temperatures, but I’m ready for all things “fall”!! I made another card using Brutus Monroe’s Simple Blend Circle stencil and paired it with Papertrey Ink’s Meadow Greens again! To make this card, I placed the Circle stencil frame over a piece of watercolor card stock and filled in the center with Zest Surface Ink, making it darker around the edges and lighter in the center. Next, I stamped some leaves from Meadow Greens using Versamark so I could clear emboss them. When that was done, I spattered black paint over the panel then heat-embossed in black the “Hello Fall” sentiment directly onto the card.I set that aside in order to create my leaves by tapping out Fossilized Amber, Fired Brick and Carved Pumpkin distress oxide inks onto my craft mat, spritzed with water then pressed another piece of watercolor card stock into the ink, drying between colors. Before I die-cut the leaves from the inked paper, I stamped the pretty script stamp all over the panel. The little raccoon is from The Greeting Farm and I colored him with Copics then cut him out and mounted him with 3D Foam Squares. The leaves were folded and attached in the same manner.Lastly, I embossed the “you’re my favorite” sentiment onto a strip of black paper then added that as my final touch! A base card of Terracotta compliments the leaves and sets off the brighter colors beautifully! BTW, did you notice my awesome new Brutus Monroe watermark??
I’m really getting into making fall cards and this week on Brutus Monroe’s blog the team is sharing projects that feature the handy-dandy Simple Blend Circle stencil! It comes with the circle cut-out and the frame around it so you can use it both ways! For my card I used the frame part of it. Here’s what I did! To start, I did my usual tapping of distress oxide inks onto my craft mat, spritzed with water and dragged my watercolor cardstock through it, drying between colors. I used Fired Brick, Carved Pumpkin, Fossilized Amber and a little Aged Mahogany.After that I stamped Winnie & Walter’s Renee’s Leaves all over the panel, using Raven Detail ink. I then spattered some black paint over it all and set it aside to dry. The cute little bear is from Birthday Bears, and I stamped him on a scrap of watercolor cardstock, colored him with my Zig markers and cut him out.Before I attached him to the background panel, I laid the circle frame from Simple Blend-Circle stencil over the corner of the panel and filled in the space with Picket Fence distress oxide ink using a sponge dauber. When it was dry, I added a layer of Versamark, then clear embossing powder and heat set it. It created a paler, shiny circle behind my bear! I ran it through the Cuttlebug with Stitched Rectangle dies to trim it down, then again using a Fall Leaves embossing folder.I drew faux stitching around the embossed circle then around a few of the leaves to mimic the “stitched” panel! After mounting Birthday Bear to the panel with 3D Foam Squares, I attached the whole thing to an off-white card base. A few fall flowers added the final detail along with black embossed sentiment strips! Let’s see what the Team has made with their Simple Blend stencil! JESSMARIEWALESKA BERINAHEATHER B.
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!! 😀
CopyCatCards 