Inspiration

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!  😀

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Cozy Country Christmas

Can I just say I’m in love??!!  I’ve been playing with my spankin’ new Unity/Brutus Monroe Hit The Brick background stamp and having SO MUCH FUN!!  I have so many ideas of ways to use this one!  Yesterday I laid out three panels of watercolor card stock, then covered my Brick stamp with a heavy layer of Ranger’s Distress Resist Spray and stamped it onto the stock.  The card above is the first one I did, and the spray was so saturated on the stamp that it lost some of it’s detail.  The second one was a better image and the third one was perfect!  BUT!  There was no way I was going to waste this one and here’s what I made!

So, here are my three panels after stamping out the Hit The Brick background, as mentioned above.  Not a great picture but you get the idea!

I sponged on these colors: Suede Surface ink, Terracotta Surface ink and Walnut Stain Distress Oxide.  The Resist Spray is VERY resistant so the shiny parts didn’t take the ink very well.

My finished panel; I didn’t love it but was hopeful I could make something beautiful with it!

I decided to cut out the center of my panel with Oval Stitched dies and create a “window”~ but what to place in my window?  After trying out several stamps, I settled on this one by Stampendous called Cozy Cottage which I stamped on a separate piece of Bristol Smooth watercolor paper using Gathered Twigs Distress ink.  I then “painted” over the lines with a watery brush to create the soft sepia look and added a little color using Distress Markers.

Then I realized that this would make a great shaker card!  I’ve only made a few with much angst and frustration, but this one came together beautifully!  I attached a piece of acetate to the backside of the window, then built a wall of foam tape going all around the back of the sponged panel to hold in the “snow” which is actually Ultra Thick Clear Embossing powder!!  I added a few sequins and micro beads as well!  Can you see them?  Anyway, I got all the pieces and parts in the correct order and voila!  A shaker panel!

I found the perfect patterned paper to attach the panel to, then mounted it to a card base of Brutus Monroe’s Lunchbag card stock!  The final touch was a few sprigs of Tim Holtz’ Holiday Greens holly touched up with a bit of Gathered Twigs distress oxide ink and three little “berries”!   Now, isn’t this a lovely scene framed by that amazing Brick background?!

Unity is still holding their awesome giveaway!  You have until October 1st to comment on any of the blogs which participated in the blog hop for a chance to win!  Here’s the link to their blog with the lineup!  On October 2nd, they’ll choose the lucky winners!  I hope it’s you!!  

 

Blog Hoppin’ With Unity!

I’m so freaking excited!  What a week!  Christopher Alan just announced a new collaboration between Brutus Monroe and Unity Stamps!!  And tonight is the big collaborative blog hop including the teams from both companies!!   A line of  background stamps have been created just for this occasion and I got the awesome Hit The Brick to play with!  After making several backgrounds with it, I decided to do a partial brick wall background for my card.  So, here’s what I did: I tapped Bundled Sage distress oxide ink onto the Hit The Brick stamp, spritzed it with a fine mister then, by bending the flexible cling stamp, I was able to just stamp parts of it onto my paper.  BTW, it’s perfectly sized for A2 cards!

After drying with my heat tool, I heat-embossed in white the beautiful Conservatory of Quotes in the lower right hand corner.  I colored sections at a time with Distress markers, adding water to move the color.  I let each color dry, then added more ink to deepen the color.  I also used the markers to add color below and around the image to create that lovely, shadowy background.

In the upper right hand corner, I added my script stamp very faintly with Bundled Sage.  For the spatters, I scribbled out the deep red and green markers onto my craft mat, and mixed them together with my wet paintbrush, then spattered the resulting color over my card.  The sentiment is from a Unity Stamps set called Life Touches and I heat-embossed it in dark red directly to the card front.

 

 

When my panel was completed, I trimmed it down with Stitched Rectangle dies, added a layer of dark red paper behind it then mounted it to an off-white base card.  Doesn’t that brick background beautifully compliment the spray of roses?  I just love it and can’t wait to make more cards with it!

 

You’ll be amazed at all the projects made by the Inspiration Team!  The blog hop lineup includes not only our team but Unity Stamps’ team as well!  Waleska is next on the hop!
Amanda
Angeline
Camille
Donna
Echo
Gaylynn
Heather
Karen 
Lisa
Mandi 
Maria
Noelle
Robyn
Sharon 
Shemaine 
Stephanie
Brutus Monroe
Berina
Heather
Jess
Lauren
Marie Nicole
Sharon White
Waleska
Unity Stamp Co