Gone To The Dogs!

Yes, I’ve abandoned the flowers for a time and have gone to the dogs using a stamp set called Dog Kisses from Stampendous!  Just look at those sweet faces!  I’ve had this for some time but when I began binge-watching Stampendous’ youtube videos recently, I got really excited to get out many of my sets and be a CopyCat!  If there’s anything you want to know about stamping, watercolor, heat-embossing, mixed media and many other card-making techniques you’ll find it there!  This is the first card I made yesterday after following one of Fran’s (Owner and Chief Artistic Officer of Stampendous!) awesome videos!  

 

One of the things that Fran does before starting to stamp and paint is to tape off the edges of her card stock.  I used a little cutting board I bought just for this reason!  So I got my two smallish panels taped and ready to stamp out a few of the little doggo’s and my Kuretake Gansai Tambi watercolors to paint.  I don’t own really good watercolor paints- yet!  I’ll be purchasing the Daniel Smith paints recommended by Fran.  

After stamping out the dogs and sentiment I used a black Posca pen to hand-draw a border around the panel.  

I painted a light layer of color first then added some darker details.  Fran shows exactly how to choose and mix colors, place the colors for shading and gives lots of helpful tips and information throughout the video!  

Here they are!  All painted up and ready for a card!  

A pretty floral patterned paper plus a couple layers of yellow and aqua to coordinate with my colorful background made this a quick and easy slimline card to fit into a regular business sized envelope!  

I love the purple painted background on this one and found the perfect paper to finish off my card!  The mustard layer behind the doggie panel was a piece of cardstock I’d unsuccessfully cut a cover die from and I thought it gave a little visual interest!  

I had so much fun creating those two cards that I wanted to do more, especially after watching a number of landscape/scene-building videos!  I pulled out two more sets which I’ve not used much but will now that I know better how to work with them!  The top set is called Scenic Meadow and is a cling set.  The lower set is Meadow’s Edge, is a clear set and also has coordinating dies!  I started by stamping the dogs, then added detail stamps from the two sets.  

I was a bit disappointed in myself for doing such a bad job with my painting! My paints didn’t move and blend the way I wanted and I forgot the rules of depth and lightness in regards to perspective.  Bah!!  Hence the ugly solid swaths of color on the trio of dogs panel!  But I did have the fun of peeling off the tape to reveal the nice crisp white borders and decided to just go ahead and make these panels into cards anyway!  I will keep watching the videos, keep practicing and get better!  

I think this card is pretty darn cute!  Isn’t that a fun sentiment for it?  (It’s Taylored Expressions Simple Strips!) Inside is a birthday greeting and any dog lover would get a kick out of it!  

Should I mention those…hand-drawn pines in the background?? NAH!!  Let’s just say “boo-boo” and leave it at that!  I love the trio of happy, smiling dogs and think that someone will like this card!!  

Last but not least, here’s the final card I made this morning!  I determined to combine the two Meadow sets and add a doggie to sweeten it up!  I did some stamping, then masking, used my Zigs for coloring along with my waterbrush and finally, added a sentiment from Gina Marie Designs.  I hope I’ve inspired you to head over to see all the goodies at Stampendous, then zip on over to Youtube to watch some very inspiring videos and  then get busy in your crafty place!  Thanks for visiting today!!  

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Stampendous Cling Garden Mum

I wasn’t planning to write a blog post about this card- okay, actually, it never occurred to me to write a post!  I just pulled out this gorgeous new stamp set by Stampendous and went crazy with it!  But someone requested a post to describe how I made this so here I am!  I’ll try to remember to at least snap some photos of the process the next time I make a card!  But for today I’ll just explain my process!

The name of this set is Cling Garden Mum and it comes with a beautiful flourish stencil and some gorgeous samples depicted on the back of the packaging!  I was so inspired by the samples!  To begin my card, I taped the stencil to a panel of watercolor card stock and sponged on Broken China distress oxide ink.  The next step was to heat emboss the giant mum directly to the stenciled panel using black embossing powder.  I decided to use my Bister watercolor powders to fill in the blossom; the depth of color is determined by how much powder and how much water you add!  I tried to create shading with the use of both!  

When the flower was colored in I decided to add the row of flourishes down the right side; to do that, I stamped them in Versamark then heat set them with clear embossing powder.  I then sponged a layer of Black Soot distress ink over the whole panel, trying to stay away from the blossom.  This, of course, made those flourishes pop!  If you look at the top left you’ll see where I stamped on a scripty stamp using a little water then removed the dampness with paper towel.  This left a faint impression for yet another detail!  

My card looks far more complicated than it actually was!  To finish it off, I trimmed down my watercolor panel and adhered it to a base card of textured aqua card stock then added the sentiment strip.  I like how this pops against the colorful background!  

I typically keep my inside panel quite basic with a sentiment or a coordinating strip of patterned paper as a band at the bottom, but this time I went all out!  I used Technique Junkies Zinnia’s with Monarch stamp in Hickory distress oxide ink right over the stenciled pattern which I did first!  I heat embossed the sentiment onto a scrap of pink then cut it with a label punch.  I think I can still write a message inside despite all the other stuff going on here!  I had so much fun making this card and hope I’ve inspired you to play with your own stencils and stamps!  Thanks for your visit!  

New Lesia Zgharda Stamps!

 I’ve long admired the stamps and coloring by Lesia Zgharda, marveled at the precise and delicate detail of each image and have been enamored by their whimsical charm!  I don’t know why it took me so long to place an order but I finally did and just received my package from the Ukraine today!  (Am I the only one who gets a thrill knowing my mail has come from so very far away?!)  I pulled out my Prismacolor pencils and chose three shades of green plus the white to get started, copying Lesia’s style!  

I just love this sweet image which is actually two stamps!  Lesia’s cards are typically made with kraft card stock and coloring on the slightly rough surface gives the pencils some “tooth”!  I finished by mounting the kraft panel to a white base card which nicely accents the white highlights!  I stamped another Lesia sentiment in the center to complete my card which is appropriate for any person or occasion!  

After making two green wreaths I thought a purple one would be pretty and so it is!  I used my blender pencil to smooth out and blend the colors more on this card.  The sentiment is from a Stampendous set called Cling Garden Mum and is just a wee too big for the space but I still love it!  

This up close shot shows the smoothly blended pencil achieved by using the blender pencil.  

I’m not loving this third card but really enjoyed the creative process!  The stencil is part of the Stampendous set I mentioned above and I placed it over the panel then lightly brushed white distress oxide ink over it all.  After heat-setting the design with clear embossing powder it left behind a glossy, opaque impression which I feel overwhelms the delicate leaves.  I liked the gray tones of it though, so mounted the panel onto a gray textured base card.  A different look, for sure!  

My final and favorite card using the beautiful Eucalyptus Wreath was also colored in three shades of purple.  I added Crystal Effects as an added detail which I think is lovely against the organic card stock!  This time, however, I stenciled the background first, again using white distress oxide ink.  I just love how delicate it is and what a lovely backdrop it is for the bolder wreath design!   

Just look at that shine!  The sentiment on this card is from Studio Katia‘s Blooming Bunch stamp set.  I’m so happy with how each one of these cards turned out!  I hope you’ll go to Lesia Zgharda’s website and see all the wonderful images, cards and tutorials she shares there!  Perhaps you’ll be inspired as I was!  

I leave you with this final photograph of my favorite card.  Thank you for visiting!  

I’m Baaaack!!

It’s been such a long time since I’ve posted here but the new year is a great time to start afresh!  A friend recently asked me to make her bridesmaid-request cards and we had fun sharing inspirational ideas from Pinterest!  She wanted each card to be personalized so I created the wording on the computer then printed each one out.  I created three designs for her to choose from!  The first card was made with the main image from Simon Says Stamp’s Beautiful Flowers.  I inked up the stamp with Stampin Up’s Not Quite Navy and stamped it on the top and bottom of a panel of white card stock then created a watercolor effect with a damp paintbrush.  A white card base kept the overall design sweet and simple!

For her next option, I used a new set from Stampendous called Wild Rose Cling and it’s simple spray of blossoms was stamped with black ink onto two corners of my panel.  I colored the wild roses with Copics, making the leaves two shades of blue and finally, added a dotted background with a gray Copic marker after outlining the overall design with the same gray marker.  I mounted this to a base of navy card stock which made the white really pop!

The third and last choice was created using Simon Says Stamp Beautiful Flowers again, but this time I created a border at the top and bottom of the card using permanent black ink, then colored with Copic markers, trying to feature reds, pinks and a hint of blue.  I added a layer of navy behind the colored panel then mounted that to a white base card,

This is the final card made for her matron of honor and three bridesmaids; I added more red and a hint of red/orange ink to the blossoms to deepen the colors and then outlined the images with a gray marker to ground the design.

The two junior bridesmaids will receive this card in the mail, asking them to join the wedding party; I’m not sure how old the girls are but I think they’ll feel very special to be asked to participate and also to get their own personalized request card!  I enjoyed spending time just coloring and creating in my stamp room to fill this order and hope to share more cards with you soon!  Thanks for visiting!

Red Hibiscus Designs Meets Stampendous!

Isn’t this an intriguing card?!  Are you wondering how on earth it happened?  😀  Well, let me tell you!  This is a compilation of one digital stamp paired with a real background stamp!  For those who aren’t familiar with digital stamps, it’s basically an image you can purchase as a downloadable file, then resize it to suit your needs, print it out and color!  Below is the image of Alcohol Markers drawn by Luisana Lowry for her new etsy shop called RedHibiscusDesigns! (hence, the hibiscus background as a copy-write watermark on her image)  I’m honored to be one of her designers!!  

To create my card, I began by printing the alcohol markers image onto a piece of Neenah white card stock, then printed it again onto a piece of regular copy paper.  I cut the markers out from the copy paper so that I could use them as a mask!  After putting a tiny piece of adhesive onto the backs of the marker images I then placed them over the printed version on card stock.  It was simple matter of inking up this fabulous Dahlia Collage stamp by Stampendous with Brutus Monroe’s Raven ink and stamping it over the masks in my stamping platform.  I stamped it three times to get really great ink coverage.  

 

How fun it was to then color away!  I used lots of Copic colors and as always, forgot to keep track of the names to share with you.  When I was finished coloring, I trimmed down my panel then adhered it to a base card of black and called it done!  Be sure to check out all the beautiful and interesting images that the super talented Luisana Lowry has available in her etsy shop HERE!  And you KNOW that Stampendous has an endless variety of images to peruse!  Thanks for stopping by!  

Color Explosion!

Hi there!  I’m back with another Alex Syberia-inspired card using her fabulous dot-coloring technique!  Check out some other’s cards with dots HERE!  I was particularly inspired to create my card after seeing THIS one of hers!  What a riotous explosion of color!!  I just had to make one of my own!  

Before I begin a card, I often think to myself, “Now, what can I do to make this card especially striking or unusual?” So that’s why I thought of the red background!  Not something we see that often in our cardmaking community!  I began by stamping and masking my Stampendous Small Hellebore image onto a panel of Bristol Smooth card stock.  I then added the leaves and little floral sprig from Altenew’s Crown Bloom set.  Unfortunately, I didn’t make a video of this process.  I wish I had!  But as always, I created my background first with many layers of red Zig Clean Color Brush markers, placing the darkest color next to the stamped images then smudging and squiggling the color outward using a lighter shade.  The Flesh Color marker is my blender, adding a lighter tone without being too heavy.  

After filling in the background to my satisfaction, I began on the flowers and leaves, using shades of aqua for the blossoms and many shades of green for the leaves.  A little gray and yellow kept the floral sprigs clean and simple against the explosion of colors everywhere else!  

Next, I used my Copic markers to add the colorful dots randomly over the whole panel, making some larger than the others.  I love this fun technique which adds such an unexpected dimension to a card!  Lastly, I thought that Taylored Expressions new Simple Strips sentiments on black would make a nice contrast to the background, so I heat-embossed them with white, lifted each strip with a little foam tape and arranged them on my card.  Aren’t they perfect?!  I LOVE how this came out and will certainly be making more dotty cards in the future!  Thanks for visiting!