Rudolph Days - Reindeer Family

I think this is a record for me, 3 posts in 3 days.  I wanted to join in the fun at Rudolph Days, so I pulled out some new dies and created a winter wonderland.

 

 

I started by creating my night sky with my Brushos in Prussian Blue and Violet.  Then I stamped the pine trees with Distress Ink in Pine Needles.  The stamp is by Impression Obsession.  Then I took my silver gelato and made a moon in the top left corner.  

 

Then I made a stencil using 2 of my circle hand punches.  I'm not sure if the bigger circles are 1/4 or 1/8, but the smaller one is 1/16, because McGill had enough sense to put the size on the handle, but the other one doesn't.  I'm not even sure who made the other punch. I smeared on some heavy gel medium (which dries clear) and sprinkled on some glitter.  I got the idea in part from this YouTube video.  I think you can kinda see the sparkle a little better in this picture.

 

 

 

The birch trees are a Memory Box die and I added quick drying spackle to give them some texture.  The deer and bird are Impression Obsession dies and colored with Brushos.  For the momma and baby deer, I used lt. brown and papa deer was dk. brown.  For the bird, I used brilliant red.

 

For the snow mounds, I freehand drew cut lines as guides for cutting them.  Then I panted them with Elmers glue and cover them with glitter.  I used rolled pieces of scor-tape to attach everything.

 

I used snippets for all the die cuts and the snow mounds.  So in addition to Rudolph Days, I'm going to enter this over at the Playground.

 

June Rudolph Days Challenge

 

Pixies Snippets Playground Week 183

 

Thanks for stopping by and please come again.

 

 





Gothic Character Piggy Bank

First, I want to welcome my 2 new followers: Carol L of Our Little Inspirations Blog and Kathy of KT Krafts.  I know Carol had an issue with the follow button, so I'm glad the work around work for her.

So this was a project in the works that I wasn't necessarily planning to finish this weekend, but I saw that Tiddly Inks Challenge Blog's challenge was Let's Go Gothic.  And since I was already using 4 of the Tiddly Inks's Gothic characters, I figured I would finish this project and post it over there. 

This is going to sound like a random tangent, but I have point, so stay with me.  I have horrible allergies. Due in part to living in Florida and probably in larger part to the fact that I have 2 dogs and 2 cars and I'm allergic to both.   So I go through a fair amount of tissues.  And I dutifully recycle the boxes.  But about two months ago, I was looking at another empty squarish tissue box, and I thought, I'm sure I can come up with something crafty to do with that. And thus today's project was born.  Actually, this is the second box I started on.  The first one is still not done.  It is going to be a paint brush holder.

Today's project is a piggy bank.  I wanted somewhere I could put my spare change.  And store bought piggy backs are a hassle to get the money out of.  But a tissue box is designed so you can reach in and get the last tissue.  So I figured I just needed to pretty it up.   Here's the before picture.

 

 

And the after pictures:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



I started by using my silhouette to print and cut 4 Tiddly Inks digi stamps.  Then I colored the images with Copics. 

I'll start with Precious, since I colored her first. 

You will notice that I did not get creative with the shading of her skirts. As I mentioned a few posts ago, I can never figure out where the shadows and highlights go.  Although, I am happy with how her hair came out.  This is one of my favorite color combos.  I know it isn't very gothic but since this is for me, I went with what I like.   For the background, I tried to create a peachy base with my Brushos but it didn't work.  So I pulled out Distress Ink in Dried Marigold and colored the base.  Then I dropped a few crystals of turquoise Brushos.  I used mod podge to attach the base and then to attach the image, with a coat over top to protect it.  I was happy that the mod podge didn't smear the Brushos or the printer ink.  I've used it over images stamped and colored with Copics before, but this was a first time with a digi image.

Next is Owlette.

For her, I used one of the sample cards on the Tiddly Inks website for an assist with the shading of the skirt.  And at first, I didn't think it had blended well enough and I wasn't all that happy with it, but when I came back to it a few days later, I was pleased with how it came out.  Background was created with Brushos in Ost. Blue, Ultra Marine and Cobalt Blue. 

Now Pricilla.

I did a Google search to ideas for coloring her skirts.  And I forgot to keep track of what image I used as the inspiration.  Although, none of the images I found had black hair and she was just begging for black hair.  So I went with the black, and I don't love her hair.  Her background was Turquoise (?), Violet and Purple.  I did figure out that Purple has more red tones in it and the Violet is more blue.  So I won't be using the Purple with the blues again.

Finally, Maria.

I could not find an image for an assist with coloring her skirts, so I tried it on my own.  And I'm feeling underwhelmed.  As soon as I got done with her, I realized that the highlight should have been where I put the shadow.  To create the pink background, I used Ost. Red and White.  Then after that dried, I added a few crystals of Leaf Green. 

I was just looking at he and realized she is crooked.  Oh well.

Here's the top. 

 

Brushos in Turquoise, Violet and Sea Green.  I used a Spellbinder's oval die for the opening.  It wasn't exactly the right size, so I added some liquid pearls to over the cardboard that was showing.  Oh, and I removed the plastic that was in the hole. 

Copics Used:

All the faces - E000 & E00 

Precious

Dress - YR00, YR01, YR02, BG10, BG13, BG15, BG18

Umbrella - V12, V17, C-7, C-3

Hair - E00, E08, E09

Owlette

Dress - B14, B16, B18, B39, BG000 (meant to grab B000), B32, B34, B37

Owl - E21, E23, E27, Y38

Hair - Y11, Y15, Y17

Feather - V05

Priscilla

Dress - v12, V15, V17, BG000, BG01, BG05, BG09

Hair - C-0, C-1, C-3, C-7, C-10, 100 (Yep I used all the cool greys I have)

Maria

Dress - RV000, RV02, RV04, RV06. YG06, YG09

 

Hair - E21, E23, E27, E29

As I said, I'm going to enter this over at the Tiddly Inks Challenge Blog - Challenge 160 Let's Get Gothic


Thanks for stopping by and please come again.  

 

 

 



Brushos

Here is the very first project I made with my new Brusho Crystal Colours.  And I love playing with them. 

My Dad's birthday is in June, so I have to come up with 2 masculine cards each June.  And masculine cards are not my forte.  So I was having a hard time coming up with an idea for a Father's Day card (I made his birthday card for an Artsy Inker's challenge back in March) so I pulled out my new toy. 

I used Leaf Green, Emerald and Sea Green for the card base.

For the focal piece, I used Cobalt Blue, Ostwald Blue, Ultramarine, Prussian Blue, and Turquoise.

Here's what they look like before I stamped on them.

 

Because it is so humid in Florida, I haven't worked up the courage to poke holes in the tops of the containers like I've seen in so many you-tube videos.  Instead, I used a soft dry brush that I dipped into the container.  I tapped most of what the brush picked up back into the container and then tapped a small amounts of the crystals onto the paper and then spritzed with water.

 Once dry, I stamped the Dad stamp with Versamark and embossed with white embossing powder. The stamp is by Stampendous. I matted it with black. 

 

 

I know there have been some attempts by folks for Pixie's playground to follow me and they have encountered problems. Thanks so much for trying.  Since this seems to be a persistent issue, I created a page with the directions Mary found for a work around when the join this site button is being twitchy.

 

I will have some more posts this week of projects I've made with my new Brushos.  They are seriously addictive.

 

Thanks for stopping by and please come again. 

Snarky Birthday (Projects 49 and 50)

Woo Hoo!!!! I've finally met my goal of 50 projects posted, so I can lift my shopping moratorium.  I do have a bit of a confession.  Since I knew I was getting close to my goal and I had to order some reinker for my Copics (a purchase allowed under the moratorium) and Dick Blick was having a sale with free shipping, I picked up a set of Brushos last month.  But they have been sitting in a drawer untouched since they arrived.  Which has been making me a little twitchy. But now I can play with them.  I can't wait.

These two cards have been waiting a while to be posted, since I made them for my aunt's birthday in March and my sister's in April. They started with the sentiment stamps from Riley & Co.'s Funny Bones collection.  I picked them up because I thought they were really funny and perfect for my aunt and sister.

This first card I made for my aunt for her birthday. She collects, among other things, Wizard the Oz stuff. So I figured this sentiment would be great for a card for her. The image is by Kraftin Kimmie and I picked it up to go with the sentiment. I colored her with Copic markers and I will admit to googling the stamp to find some ideas for coloring her.  I have such a hard time figuring out where to put the highlights and shadows, especially on clothes.  I know you are supposed to decide where the light is coming from but that method just doesn't work for me.  I have a easier time using an example.  There is a reason why I stamp instead of draw.  I kept the card fairly simple.

The second card was for my sister’s birthday. She is a runner. She has run several marathons and half-marathons. And I think she's crazy. So when I saw this sentiment stamp, I had to get it. Again, I picked up this Kraftin Kimmie stamp to go with the sentiment.  

I created the background for one of the alcohol ink challenges over at Artsy Inkers back in March/ April. I used mod podge to attach tin foil to a piece of comic book board. Then I embossed it with a Cuttlebug embossing folder. Then I inked it with Meadow, Juniper, and Clover. The alcohol inks did not adhere very well to the tin foil.

The die cut piece was cut from a piece of comic book board covered with a "dirty" paper towel. I've mentioned before that I save the paper towels I use to wipe distress inks off my craft sheet because they usually come out looking cool. In fact, I tend to use one paper towel for blues, greens and purples and another to reds, yellows and oranges to ensure I have pretty paper towels. I attached the paper towel with mod podge and while it was wet, I added some perfect pearls. 

I added the sequins because I accidentally tapped the image with the grey marker.

Sorry but I'm not sure what I did with the list of the Copic markers I used for coloring the images.

Thanks for stopping by and please come again.


 

Christmas Z-Fold Card Insanity (Project 48)

Warning: this will be a really long post with lots of pictures and detailed descriptions of one card.

As promised, here is the second Z-fold card I made. And this was one of those ideas that sounded really good in my head and then about 1/3 of the way through, I realized that it was actually insane. I think I spent about 10 + hours making this card. And I'm not sure if I'm going to give it away or keep it for myself. I'm just not sure I like anyone I like enough to give this too. :-) I'm either going to put it out with my Christmas decorations or maybe add some squirrels and give it to my mom since she puts all the cards I've made for her over the years out with her Christmas decorations.

I started by drawing a triangle on each section to create a base shape for the tree. Since I improvised on the z-fold cut to make my tree base and insure that the whole tree lines up when the card is folded, I've included at the bottom of the posts photos and an explanation of how I did it.

Since I was going to use die cut pine needles to create the tree, I knew there would be gaps. So I used painter's tape to mark off the partial triangle on the front section and inked it with Distress Ink in Mowed Lawn and, what else, Pine Needles. I wished I had taken some pics while I was doing this.

 I die cut the pine needles from snippets of watercolor cardstock. It is an Impression Obsession die.  Then I colored them with Distress Ink in Mowed Lawn and Pine Needles. I know it would have been faster to color the paper first and die cut second but then the sides would still be white, which would have bugged me. I have slight crafting OCD tendencies. Then began the epic assembly process by attaching each one individually. Here's a pic of what the individual pine needles look like, with a dime for some perspective on the size. For non-Americans, a dime is about 1.8cm in diameter.

 

The trunk is a piece of brown floral tape attached at the top (before I added the pine needles). The bottom 2 rows of each section were attached with glossy accents and the rest were attached with rolled pieces of scor-tape to give some dimension.  There are 43 pine needle branches on the front section.

I couldn't decide if I liked the full sun or in the shade photos better, so included both.  For the garlanded, I attached pieces of ribbon that I folded the edges under the pine needles to give the illusion of it wrapping around the tree.  

 

Here's the middle section, with the front folded back, so you see the middle section and the bottom section.  There are 54 pine needle branches on the middle section.

 

And the full sun picture.

Here it is with the whole card unfolded.  This is the back of the card.  For the sentiment, I die cut the red and white cardstock with Spellbinders' nesties.  It is one of the label sets but I forget which one.  The sentiment is by Impression Obsession. I stamped with ColorBox Pigment ink in Evergreen and since it usually takes forever to dry, I heat embossed it with clear embossing powder.  I realized when I went to attach it that it was a little to big for the section, so I had to attach it at a wonky angle to fit.  I added a couple of gems.  I think that was because I smudged some ink on the white cardstock. 

 

Here's just the middle by itself.  I realized as I was drafting this, I didn't have a pic of just the middle without the bottom layer showing, so I took another pic but by that time the sun was hiding.

Now for the bottom section (the inside of the card), which had the full tree on it.  The star on top of the tree is a die by My Favorite Things colored with metallic watercolor paint and with a gem at the center.  And this section has 69 pine needle branches.  So that's 166 individually colored and attached pine needle branches. Yep, I'm a little crazy. In full sun:

 

 

And in the shade.  I added a dime to give perspective on the ornaments.  

 

The ornaments are My Favorite Thing stamps. I used the pieces of cardstock cut off from the card base for stamping them. The first batch I stamped with Versafine. Since I didn't stamp nearly enough the first time, I stamped the second batch with Versafine and embossed with clear embossing powder, because after I colored the first batch, the lines on some of the ornaments didn't show up as well. On some of them I embossed a snowflake with clear embossing powder. It was part of a three snowflake stamp also by My Favorite Things that I did surgery on. I colored them all with metallic water colors, added glossy accents, cut each out and attached with rolled pieces of scor-tape. I also added sequins with a dot of Stickles in the middle and gems for sparkle. This close-up (of the bottom section) shows the ornaments better.

 

 

You can really see the sparkle in the full sun one. Again this is the bottom section. 

 

When I attached the trunk, I only adhered the top down because I wanted to be able to tuck the ribbon for the tree skirt under the trunk so that it would look like the tree skirt went around the whole trunk.  It took a bit of trial and error to get the tree skirt to work.  I used a snippet of wired ribbon to create the skirt, tucking it behind the trunk and then folded over the top. The presents are My Favorite Things stamp, except the gold one, which is Hero Arts.  I stamped all but the far left one on snippets of pattern paper, embossed, used the watercolor metallic paint for the ribbons and fussy cut. The far left one was stamped on snippets of plain white cardstock and painted with metallic paints.    

In this close-up of the front section, you can see that I got better at attaching the tree skirt as I went along.  The presents were a strategic choice to hide the worst of the lumps.

 

Here is the card fully open to show the inside.  The inside sentiment is by Stampendous.  Oh and the green pattern paper on the 2 non-tree panels were snippets as well.

 

Full Sun



 

 

Partial Shade

 

 

Since this card is literally covered with snippets, I'm going to share it over at the playground.

 

Pixie's Snippets Playground Weeks 181 and 182

 

Thanks for stopping by and please come again. 

 

Now for the detailed directions for creating the card base, which I figured I would put at the bottom so you didn't have to read through/ scroll through them to get to the good stuff, but you could look if you were interested.

 

For the Z-fold you need a piece of cardstock that is 6 inches by 12 inches (15.3 cm by 30.6 cm - I think I have conversions right).  I used a scrap piece for these pics because I forgot to take pics while I was making it and the piece was only 5.75 inches by 12 so if it looks a little off that’s why.  Here's a picture on the starting piece with all the measurements on it.  They will be explained in steps 1-3.

 

1) You are going to measure up 3 inches (7.6 cm) on one side and draw a diagonal line to the opposite corner.  That is your usual cut line for a z-fold line. 

 

2) Flip the paper over and draw the diagonal line again, making sure you measure up the 3 inches on the same side that you did on the front. This will give you a guide line for the middle section, which when the card is folded is actually the back of the piece of paper.

 

 

 3)  Then score at 4 inches (10.1 cm) and 8 inches (20.2 cm) across.  These are your fold lines.  That way each section is 4 inches wide.  Here’s a pic of the front with all the measurements and the diagonal cut line draw in.

 

4) Fold you card at the 4 and 8 inch score lines to make your Z. 

5) Now, on the front panel, find the center point of the top and draw a triangle with a ruler.  I also added the trunk and line for the tree skirt. The diagonal line is the cut line.  The straight line is showing that it is 4 inches wide.

 

 

 

 

6) Now cut just the front section along the cut line and then up the folded edge to the top.  That way you can see the middle section when the card is folded.

 

 

7) Line the ruler up using the edge of the tree on the front section to draw the top of the tree on the middle section.

 

 

 

8) Then on the front panel measure up from the bottom of the card to the bottom of the tree. 

9) Use that measurement to draw the bottom line of the tree on the middle section. 

 

 

10) Then connect the bottom of the tree to the top part you already drew. 

 

 

11) Again, cut along the cut line (for the middle section this time) and the fold.  This is where drawing the cut line on the back comes in handy.  Now you can see the bottom section when the card is folded.

 

 

 

12) Repeat steps 8 to 10 for the back section.  When you go to cut this time, cut along the cut line until you get to the tree top.  Then cut up the tree top then down the other side to the cut line, across the cut line to the fold and then up the fold.  Now you have a tree base.  

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

Now you too can join my insanity.  And I did warning at the beginning this would be a long one.  So thanks for hanging in there for all my long drawn out explanations. 

A Couple More AIR 15 Cards (Projects 46 & 47)

Even though AIR 15 if over, I’ve got a couple of more projects from AIR15 to share with you. 

The first card involves a z-fold.  Here is a link to the FarNorth’s blog posting with instructions on how to do a z-fold.  Here's a pic where you can see the z of the fold.

I decided that I wanted to create a scene that went across all three layers and I went with a beach scene.    Instead of cutting along the diagonal, I drew a line on both sides of the paper so I could use that as a guide for stamping.  Then I fussy cut the top part off so that instead of having a straight line.

 

The front panel is the ocean. I stamped the waves with Versamark and heat embossed with clear embossing powder. Then I stamped the fish with Versafine.  I added the bubbles, stamped with Versamark and heat embossed with clear embossing powder.  I inked around the fish with Distress Ink in Salty Ocean. I colored the fish with Squeezed Lemonade, Mowed Lawn, Picked Raspberry, and Dried Marigold.  I went back and stamped in some waves with Salty Ocean and the seahorse with Picked Raspberry.  The waves and fish with bubbles are by Studio G.  The other fish, bubbles and seahorse are by Fiskar.  I fussy cut along the top waves.

 

I did the same scene on the back, except I forgot to stamp the fish before adding the Salty Ocean background.

 

 

Center panel is the beach. I stamped the shells across the top with a variety of ColorBox pigment ink and then embossed with clear embossing powder. Then I inked the beach with Squeezed Lemonade and Antique Linen and then flecked Vintage Photo. I meant to stamp the shells on the body of the beach before coloring the beach but I forgot so I did it after and embossed them. I added a little bit of the ocean at the bottom.

I did the same scene on the back of the center panel.

Back panel is the sky. I stamped the birds and palm tree using Colorbox pigment ink and embossed with clear embossing powder.  I also stamped and embossed the waves. Then I inked the sky with Tumbled Glass and Salty Ocean, the sand and ocean the same as the other layers. I added a beachy sentiment. All the stamps are by Inkadinkado.

 

Here's a picture of it completely open.

 

And here's what it looks like closed.

 

This next card combines 3 of the challenges in this card.  The first is the paint background, which I described in previous posts.  The second was the digital stamp challenge.  The host’s husband converted a piece of his art into a digital stamp for us to use for the challenge.  Isn’t she lovely?  And the final was the mistakes challenge, which is going to take some explaining.  One of the members of Artsy Inkers hosts a Bingo challenge during every party.  Before the party starts, she posts a list 25 words.  If you want to play along, you pick a 10 of the words and message her your list.  Then each day of the party, she posts 3 of the words from the list of 25.  The first person to have all 10 of their words posts and post BINGO, wins.  This time around, she picked a list of common mistakes made in stamping.  So for her challenge, you had to incorporate at least 2 of the mistakes on the list into your project, but not cover them up.  Personally, I think this challenge was a bit of a jinx because I ended up making several mistakes on this project, none of them intentional.   



 

Here is the list of my mistakes:

Mistake 1 - technique gone wrong - I intended to print the digi stamp and cut it on a lace scallop rectangle with my silhouette. Well the cut file was for a frame and I forgot to remove the inner cut lines and ended up with a frame and the image on a plain rectangle.

 Mistake 2 - torn paper - the silhouette ripped one of the scallops, so I ripped a bunch more so that it looks like the scallops frayed in the wind blowing the girls hair.

 Mistake 3 & 4 - blurred images and partially stamped image - the stamping of the background did not go so well.

 

 Mistake 5 - warped card stock - the paint warped the card stock.

 

You can see the mistakes better in this closer cropped picture.

 

I colored the image with Copics (I forgot to write down which ones, but I think it was YG03, YG06 and YG09 and then BG45, lips are RV10 and the eye is B02????) and went with making her a fairy. And I added some die cut flower to her hair with liquid pearl centers.

The background stamp is by Impression Obsession and I did the paint technique with metallic blue and purple paints.

I've got one more AIR 15 card to share but it deserves it's own blog post.  So I will post that one later this week.

 

Thanks for stopping by and please come again.