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Monday, December 7, 2015

MISTI snow

I really have enjoyed my MISTI and decided to use it today to make a snowy card using Kraft cardstock. I thought the MISTI marbling technique would work well with white ink to make snow. 
This is why I love the MISTI-If I were stamping this without it, this is the image I would have. When stamping on Kraft paper it is great to be able to reink and stamp again. I used markers to ink the image so I could use Espresso on the branches and Mossy Meadow on the needles.

Here is the first stamping of white over the 2nd stamping of the greenery. I used a gloved finger dipped in the white to tap "snow" onto the branches and needles on the stamp and then stamped over the colored stamping.

I've stamped some more "snow" but I didn't like how much of the color I'd covered up.

Again, the beauty of stamping in the MISTI is that you can keep layering stamping until you get the look you want. I wanted the snow to look like it was concentrated at the top of the branches so I added more brown on their undersides and I wanted the needles to be more distinct so I added marker there too.


I rounded my corners and sponged some Suede first then I sponged white along the edges of both the base and the image panel. I stamped my sentiments in the MISTI as well. It really helped me to place the words where I wanted them and to double stamp so the red would really show up well.

I popped the image panel over the base for some depth.

Here's a closeup of the greenery.

Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Gearing up for my favorite time of year!

Think PINK.... one of my favorite times of the year is the month of Hope You Can Cling To Challenges at splitcoaststampers
     The best part is that this is not only a fun month of challenges and a chance to win fun prizes, but also a chance to participate in a card drive to provide cheer, hope and encouragement to breast cancer patients and their families. 
     Here are some sneak peeks of challenge samples I've been working on as a hostess for this year's challenges. 



Hope you'll come play along with us? If not, you'll miss out on the chance to lift the spirits of women battling breast cancer at MD Anderson, and also on prizes from your favorite crafty companies. Look for the challenges starting on October 1st and daily through the entire month!

Monday, September 28, 2015

Pounding Flowers

     The Mixability Challenge yesterday was to pound or smash flowers. I grabbed some while I took my dog for a walk yesterday and then took a few from my garden too. Today I tried out a cucuzza leaf from my squash plant after seeing a Dina's beautiful leaf print card.
These are the two prints from a small leaf. I fussycut the one on the right to use on my collage card.
Here the leaf, as well as several other elements, has been tea stained. Lots of distressing 

Here's a close up of the card I made using a larger leaf (this squash plant gets huge and has quite large leaves!) I used a regular pencil to add shading, blending with my finger. 

Here's the finished card; I kept it simple with some added spatter and sponging as well as script stamped using the leaf as a mask.Stamps: French Script, Gorgeous Grunge, You Are Loved Paper: Smoky Slate, Soft Suede, Watercolor Paper Ink: Soft Suede, Crumb Cake, Pear Pizzazz Accessories: Sponge, Leaf and Big Shot, Pencil, Sakura Gelly Roll Clear Star Pen Techniques: Sponging, Pounded Flowers, Pencil Shading, Masking

Read more:   http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/gallery/photo/2657353#ixzz3jbQQwIFL

Here are some flowers laid out ready to pound.

You lose the true colors in the pounded prints.





My youngest wanted to get in on the action-instant art class!

This ended up being one of my favorites and I got two "prints" from this batch of 4 red carnations from my garden.
The green parts didn't really show up and I was working on another inspired card. I've added homemade embossing paste over the non-colored areas.

Tuesday, July 28, 2015

Sanitized Again

Had so much fun with the alcohol ink and hand sanitizer technique the other day that I made more than one panel. Here's one with multiple colors of ink.
I started by dripping Adirondak alcohol inks onto glossy paper. I've used Slate, Meadow and Currant here.

Dropped some more of the color on.

Dropped some pearl onto the still wet second  drops.

I think this is some more pearl.

I dragged some copper around with the wood end of my paintbrush as well as some dots

Traced along the edges of some of my colors with more hand sanitizer.

I'd washed out a lot of the color so I dripped some more Currant on to intensify the color again.

Removing some of the color in places with the hand sanitizer

Here's the final product!
Stamps: Messages for Mom Paper: Elegant Eggplant, Wild Wasabi, Pool Party, Glossy Paper Paper Size: A2 Ink: Versamark Accessories: Hand Sanitizer, Cheery Lynn-Pair of Ferns, Copper Cord, Tempting Turquoise ep, Stampin' Dimensionals, Adirondak Inks: Meadow, Slate, Currant, Copper and Pearl Techniques: Copic Ink Background, Embossing

Read more:   http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/gallery/photo/2649976#ixzz3hFKRg84a

Friday, July 24, 2015

Sanitized Reinker

Played around with a fun technique today using alcohol ink/reinkers and hand sanitizer. I used glossy paper for maximum spreading. I started out with Adirondak Meadow only and covered my whole piece.


My next step was to use Adirondak Pearl dripped on randomly.

I wanted the colors to be nice and deep so I dropped some more Meadown on over the pearl while it was still mostly wet.

Here's where the fun starts with the hand sanitizer. I took the wood end of my paintbrush and dipped it into hand sanitizer then dropped on circles of the gel and also made some veining.

After I dried it, I decided to try some home made shimmer spray which is rubbing alcohol and shimmer ink. I thought it was pretty, but muted the colors more than I wanted so I ended up dropping on some more Meadow to deepen the green again.

I took my Gelly Roll Clear Star pen to add highlights around the background~terrible picture of the colors, but you can see the shimmer.



Here's the final card with some Indigo framing and a pretty corner piece that was a RAK from a splitcoast friend. I embossed the sentiment in clear ep using Versamark then Garden Green inks.
Stamps: Happiest Birthday Wishes Paper: Wild Wasabi, Island Indigo, Glossy Paper Paper Size: A2 Ink: Garden Green, Versamark Accessories: Gelly Roll Clear Star Pen, Hand Sanitizer, Paintbrush, Spritzer with Homemade Shimmer Spray, Adirondak Alcohol Ink: Meadow, Pearl Techniques: Copic Ink Background, Embossing

                                                    Read more:   http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/gallery/photo/2649096#ixzz3gs0HZVBN

Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Penciled Style

     I was working with a previous sketch for this week's sketch challenge on splitcoaststampers where we're picking from sketches in the archives. I chose this pretty sketch.

Here's my finished card with pencil shading in a monochromatic setting with touches of silver.
You can see the difference in the shaded left piece vs original.


I added some touches of glitter and silver as well.

I added some sparkle to the flourishes as well and sponged along the edges to mimic the pencil shading.

Here's a closeup of the image panels with the pointillism. I popped these over my silver cord after framing in Brushed Silver.

Tuesday, July 7, 2015

Water Stamped Medallion

I saw a beautiful technique while scrolling on Pinterest and just had to give it a try. It was a video from Blitsy Crafts. The purple color and use of bg stamp made me think about making an anniversary card for my daughter and son in law. I made their invitations using the Medallion stamp 
Here's the anniversary card I made for them.
Stamps: Medallion, French Script, Wonderful Words, Small Script Paper: Perfect Plum, Blackberry Bliss, Brushed Silver, Watercolor, White, Patterns Pack dp, Book page Paper Size: A7 Ink: Versamark, TH Distress Ink: Seedless Preserves Accessories: Rhinestones, Spritzer, Lace, Silver Ep, Paintbrush, Sizzix #10 Flourish, Stampin' Dazzle Silver Marker, MS Punches~Hydrangea and Frond, Markers: Wisteria Wonder, Blackberry Bliss Techniques: Water Stamping, Tearing, Embossing, Spatter, Direct To Paper

Read more:   http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/gallery/photo/2645253#ixzz3fG84LCV8
     I didn't take any pictures as I made it so I went back and made another panel to use on another card. (Pardon my messy hands~summer is the time when my passions collide as I'm spending lots of time with my hands in the dirt as I garden!) It starts with a piece of watercolor paper and a Distress Ink pad.
You're going to ink directly onto the paper til the whole piece is covered.

Here's the wet piece!
I took my heat gun to dry it before the next step.

Use a spritzer to "ink up" your stamp with water.

You want it nice and wet but not so soaked that you lose the detail. This is probably slightly wetter than I wanted.

Lay it onto your paper and press firmly, holding in place to make sure you get a good saturation of the water. 

Here's a closeup of the finished card. I used some marker to add some detail back in to the waterstamping.

I also used a wet brush to spatter some water drops and also shook a silver marker over it for silver spatter to match my silver embossing and silver paper accents.