Party Time (Project 39)

In an attempt to tempt you over to the Artys Inker's message board to play along during our summer party AIR15, I'm going to post the sample I made for the challenge I am hosting. You still have plenty of time to join in.  The party runs through next Sunday, June 7.

 

The challenge is called Sentimentally Yours and I've challenged the players to make cards featuring sentiments. Mostly because I have a ton of sentiment stamps and I hardly ever use them, so I'm looking for some inspiration.

I started by creating the background. And to do that I started by performing some surgery on the stamp. It is from a clear set by Fiskar and is actually 6 flowers arranged in a curved line (you know for stamping in a corner). But I wanted to create a background with flowers all over and plenty of white space so I cut the flowers apart. I did create a couple of masks to make the clusters of three. I colored them with watercolor pencils.

The sentiment was stamped on the die cut flower (My Favorite Things) and is by Kolette Hall ($1 bin at Micheal's). I've had it forever and I'm not sure if I've ever used it before. I colored the flower with watercolor pencils and added some gems.

The grey ribbon is from Really Reasonable Ribbon from one of the monthly ribbon club assortments. The yellow was from Micheal's. I made the bow with my bow-it-all.

Update: I forgot to include the link to the cushions from Bed, Bath & Beyond when I first published this post.  cushions

Thanks for stopping by and please come again.

Winterfest Part 1 (Projects 8-10)

In my last post, I mentioned that Artsy Inkers was gearing up for a stamping party.  But alas, if you did not sign up, you missed out on Winterfest 2015.  Even though there isn’t a party currently going on, you can still join the message board and participate in challenges and stamp related discussions.  And then you will already be a member when our next party comes along (tentatively scheduled for the beginning of June).

I had a blast during Winterfest and learned 5 new techniques.  Well, technically, they are new to me techniques.  So for the next couple of blog posts, I will share what I learned and the projects I created with the new techniques.

So the first one is watercolor dry embossing.  There is a step-by-step tutorial on splitcoast stampers.   But here is the gist.  Emboss a piece of watercolor paper with an embossing folder, preferably one with a lot of debossed space.  Use a brayer to apply Versamark to the raised portions and heat emboss with clear embossing powder.  Now you are set to watercolor.

Here is the first background I created. I used an embossing folder by Darice and colored the image with Distress Inks in Spun Sugar, Dried Marigold, Picked Raspberry, Squeezed Lemonade and Ripe Persimmon.

 

 

To make the finished card, I trimmed the piece down and mounted on green cardstock.  The ribbon was originally cream but I dyed it with Shabby Shutters.  The flower was created for another challenge.  For that challenge, we had to create a flower using three layers of punched pieces, but the punch did not have to be a flower punch.  I used a butterfly punch.  I punched a dozen butterflies and colored them with Distress Ink with Picked Raspberries, Squeezed Lemonade, and Ripe Persimmon. I used a 3D glue dot to create the flower. I colored a pearl with a Copic marker for the center.   That is my money saving tip – don’t buy pearls and gems in a bunch of colors, just buy white and clear and color them with a permanent marker.  I have a set of Bic markers for color gems and Copics work too.  On the little tag, I used a sentiment stamp by Inkadinkado and a butterfly by EK Success.

 

 

 

For the next one, I used a background embossing folder by Cuttlebug. I colored it with DI in Spiced Marmalade, Barn Door, Fired Brick and Mustard Seed (another favorite color combo). The tree stamp is by Recollection. The shadow effect on the tree was a happy accident - the middle of the tree didn't stamp so I restamped but didn't have it lined up quite right. The flowers are a Cheery Lynn die and colored with DI. The ribbon is seam binding that I dyed with DI. And of course, the pearls were colored with Bic markers.  I forgot to take a picture of the background before I finished the card.    

For the final piece, I used an embossing folder by Darice. I colored the birds with Distress Ink in Tumbled Glass, Salty Ocean, Peacock Feather, Dusty Concord and Shaded Lilac. I used Shabby Shutters for the background. To finish the card off, I added the branch and bird made from air dry clay and a cake decorating mold.   Don’t worry, I bought the mold for using with air dry clay and it will not be used in the kitchen.  I colored them with Distress Ink in Peacock Feather, Shaded Lilac, Mustard Seed, Black Soot and Vintage Photo.  Again, I forgot to take a picture of the background before finishing the card.

 

Thanks for stopping by and please come again.

 

 

Bunny Trouble

Every have one of those projects that does not want to cooperate with what you have planned. And you are left with a choice of either forcing it to get with your plan or letting go of the plan and listening to what the project want to do. Well this was one of those projects. That cute little bunny did not like my plan. The planned card would have had the bunny on a cut out label shape with Fran-tage embossing powder and color fragments around the edges. As you can see, that is not what happened.

I started out by opening the bunny digi stamp (by a Day for Daisies) in my Silhouette Studio, resizing it, opening the label cut file, sizing it around the bunny, printing the bunny with registration marks, and then attempting to cut it out. The first time, I loaded the cutting mat wrong and the cut went through the middle of the bunny.

 

Attempt number two was successful. So I colored the bunny with colored pencils and blended them with baby oil. I then inked the edges of the label with Versamark ink and added the embossing powders and color fragments. Because the fragments don't stick to the piece, you have to heat it from underneath. Here's where it went horribly wrong. I scorched the paper in two places. So I set bunny aside and stated working on the background.

 

For the background, I decided to do an embossed resist technique. I started by stamping the Inkadinkado swirls with Versamark and embossed with clear embossing powder. You can kinda see the pattern I created on the paper.

I then added Distress Ink in milled lavender and tumbled sage. I thought the lavender was a little to pink, so went back and added some watered down dusty concord. Here's the final result.

 

 

Once I got done with the background, I went back to the bunny. I had two choices: start over or fussy cut the bunny out. I really liked how the coloring came out. So I decided to fussy cut the bunny. I used foam squares to attach him to the base. It still needed something. This weekend, I had made some flowers, leaves and butterflies using Martha Stewart molds and air dry clay. So I pulled out a couple of flowers and leaves and painted them with acrylic paints. Then I brushed on some Twinkle H2O paint to add a little sparkle. I used glue dots to add them to the corners, and viola, the bunny card was finished.

Here's a close up of the flower:

 

Thanks for stopping by and checking out my troublesome bunny.  Have a great day.

Challenges entered:
Crazy4Challenges - Number 228 Shake Your Thing
Emergency Crafters - Flowers
A Day for Daisies - Challenge 92 - Pretty Pastels