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! As promised, here’s Part Two of my Mixed Media Canvases series! I can’t decide which of the canvases I like the most! But why choose just one?! I love them all, each for their own beauty and style! The style of this canvas is definitely vintage/feminine and a little shabby-chic! This time I began with an 8X10 hard canvas board, and coated it with a layer of tan craft paint. I then tore up some patterned papers and glued them down with Mod Podge. You can still see the striped piece toward the bottom and the vintage book page near the center top. Again, I forgot to get my camera set up in order to make a video and now I have to try and recall what on earth I did to make this! Yikes! I think that, after applying the torn pieces of paper, I just started using stencils and stamps to embellish the background. In this section I stamped out Tim Holtz’ Flower Garden blossoms and heat-embossed them with Brutus Monroe’s Coffee Grounds embossing powder. The butterfly ephemera was given to me by my crafty friend, Theresa! The sentiment is also by Tim Holtz and I heat-embossed it in white. I found the scroll-y die cuts in my stash, and added them with more Mod Podge, then smeared paint over them. In the center of the frame is another piece of ephemera from Theresa. I stamped and embossed Vintage Note from Stampendous over it. I love the white against the dark frame, don’t you? The larger white die-cut has a coat of Martha Stewart Pearl White craft paint, then some gray rubbed over it, and finally, another word stamp partially impressed onto it. I painted my blossoms with Gansai Tambi watercolors. Along the top and sides, I stamped Lace Borders from Stampendous, using Versafine Onyx Black ink, and added another stencil impression with pink paint. How about that lovely textured paper in this picture?! I didn’t really know it had that texture till I smeared paint and ink over it! I really like the dimension that the raised frame die-cut adds. I can’t wait to make some DIY gesso this weekend and add more texture and dimension to my next canvas! I’m sharing this canvas even though it’s not mixed media. I got a wild hair idea to pull out my alcohol inks and ended up making this instead! And I’ll write yet another post with more pictures to share the process for it! Thanks again for stopping by!
I love being inspired by other artists, and these cards were totally inspired by someone I just found on Instagram! Afia, whose blog is here and Instagram here, just posted some cards that blew me away!! Here’s the first card which I fell in love with! Just look at that gorgeous color and the beautiful butterfly and that gold embossed detail! I decided to follow Afia’s process which she shared on her blog and made my cards in the same manner. I used my retired Stampendous Jumbo Dahlia and their current Mixed Mesh background stamp plus the Vintage Note stamp as well. My first step was to stamp the Mixed Mesh background stamp onto a panel of watercolor paper using Versafine Onyx Black ink. I dried it with a heat tool, then heat-embossed the Jumbo Dahlia using black powder. Next I painted the blossom and the background with Gansai Tambi watercolor paints, drying between layers. I mixed shades of reds, pink and orange for the Dahlia and greens and yellow for the background. When it was completely dry, I spattered some watery white paint over it. Next I heat-embossed in gold the Vintage Note stamp along the left hand side. Afia used gold embossing on her butterfly card and I love how it looks on mine! My watercolor panel was a little short, so I visually “extended” the panel by gold embossing a Lace Border (also an old Stampendous stamp!) along the bottom of my ivory base card. I cut a panel of gold metallic card stock to border the watercolor panel, then attached it to the card base. My final touch was to add a few sequins and adhere a sentiment which I heat-embossed in gold onto a scrap of black. I LOVE this card and although it looks nothing like Afia’s butterfly card, I thoroughly enjoyed copying her process! This is my second card following Afia’s process. This time I used a panel of Bienfang Canvas paper and stamped the Mixed Mesh background stamp onto it with Versafine Onyx Black ink then dried it with a heat tool. I heat-embossed in black the retired Jumbo Peony by Stampendous and then painted both with Gansai Tambi watercolor paints, drying between layers. Again, I used Stampendous Vintage Note and heat-embossed it in silver down the left side of the card. I added a strip of rose-colored Glitterstock as an accent, along with a few silver sequins. I think this textured card stock is the bomb, don’t you?! I embossed the sentiment in silver onto another scrap of black card stock and attached all the layers to a card base of white. I love both of my cards and now am heading over to Afia’s blog to see what will inspire me next! Thanks for stopping by!
CopyCatCards 