Happy birthday - Joseph's coat

If you have seen my earlier post today, you may have recognised the marbled pattern on my card. Yep, it's another of those shaving foam marbled panels. This one was a little crazy, since it was my very first experiment, so I decided to keep a few good parts and hide the rest of the marbling behind a coat of black soot distress ink, a technique I've recently seen referred to as Joseph's coat. Don't ask me why though. What I do know, is that it reminds me of a technique I used to do as a child, using wax crayons and then scratching off the black top layer to reveal the colours underneath.

Anyway, I started by arranging the solid stamps and one of the sentiment stamps from my Winnie & Walter set (Scenery: Bigger, Bang Confetti) and picking them up on the lid of my MISTI. BTW, I wanted my stamped images to be as big as possible, so I used the back of the stamps. I stamped and heat embossed them 3 times to get even coverage of my embossed layer (using Hero Arts clear ep), and then blended black soot distress ink over the entire panel. The embossed images are resisting the ink. You can still see the marbling shimmer through the black distress ink, which gives a fun space-like dimension. If you look closely, you can also see that the ink did not cover up the panel evenly, which is probably due to the shaving cream that I used to create my marbled panel. A surprise bonus! After I finished my ink blending, I carefully wiped the embossed areas to remove any excess ink.

I die cut my panel using a stitched rectangle die (SSS, stitched bundle) and adhered it to a warm yellow card base (SSS) using plenty of adhesive. The sentiment strip was created by heat embossing the label sentiment (Altenew, Label Love) in clear ep onto a snippet of green cardstock and then fussy cutting it. I also added a few star sequins (Studio Calico) and added some black enamel accents (Ranger) to hide the holes in the middle.

Challenges:

W&W Gossip Column with Taheerah Atchia - No 6: Marble

W&W 3rd Birthday Bash - Three challenge with Shay

(3 circles, diamonds & stars; 3 layers, 3 word sentiment)

QKR Stampede - #232 Anything goes or birthday cards

SSS Wednesday - Anything goes

Marbled shaker

Thanks for stopping by. For today's card/ornament, I used one of my shaving cream panels to create a fun shaker. Yep, still working on my marbling pieces and trying to post them before the current episode of Taheerah's Gossip Column is coming to a close tonight. It's always fun if you can draw inspiration from more than one challenge, as is the case today.

Materials used:

Background - shaving foam and distress ink reinkers (Ranger)

Dies - Essentials: Carly cutaways (Winnie & Walter)

Sentiment - Sentimental: Winter (Winnie & Walter)

Image - Season's Tweetings with Evelin T Design (Winnie & Walter),
coloured with Copics

Glitter - Distress glitter (Ranger)

Ribbon - free gift with my order from Ellen Hutson

Twine - Hemptique

Glitter marker - Spectrum Noir

Ink - Memento tuxedo black (for image),
Archival jet black (for sentiment)

Foam tape - 3M Scotch

Challenges I'm playing:

W&W Gossip Column with Taheerah Atchia - No 6: Marble

W&W 3rd Birthday Bash - Cute Critter challenge with Gayatri

Merry Monday - #237 Shimmer and sparkle

Jingle Belles - It came upon a midnight CLEAR

February Rudolph's Days at Maureens' blog

Tuesday Throwdown - #332 Things with wings

Roses and hugs

I hope you're not bored with my marbling experiments just yet, because I have another marbling card to show you.

 

As before, I used alcohol inks on vellum. Because I already knew I wanted to stamp roses on this particular panel, I made swirling motions using my mini ink blending tool, so there was a flower-like pattern showing on my inked panel. Next I took the large rose of the In Bloom: Elsa's Flora stamp set (Winnie & Walter) and started stamping my roses on top of my swirled flower shapes and heat embossing in batches using white embossing powder (SSS). I used a bit of masking where necessary and also used the smaller rose from the same set a few times to fill in the smaller areas.

BTW, I created this panel just before the new W&W release was revealed with the gorgeous Mini Scenery: Bed of Roses. Obviously, that stamp set is now high on my wish list!

I absolutely loved how my panel had turned out, but I had a hard time figuring out how to turn it into a card. So I put it aside for a while and in the end decided to cut it slightly smaller, using a rectangle die by SSS (from the stitched bundle set), because I wanted a narrow white border around my panel. I adhered a few stacked die cuts (Hugs cutaway, Winnie & Walter) from white cardstock, but was not entirely happy with how this looked. This weekend, I decided to die cut another sentiment from white glitter cardstock and added this on top of my earlier stack. Much better! To enhance the wonderful colour of my vellum panel, I added a few amber coloured gems that have been in my stash like forever.

Challenges:

W&W 3rd Birthday Bash - Pattern making with Mayuri

W&W Gossip Column with Taheerah Atchia - No 6 Marble

SSS Wednesday - Anything goes

Just Add Ink - #348 Just add ombre

Spreading a little kindness

Hello there! I'm back with another card using marbling techniques.

For this card I used 3 marbled panels: the blue background and the panel for my stamped flowers were made using alcohol inks on vellum, while the panel with my sentiment was made using a different marbling technique. When I was researching paper marbling techniques, I found examples of the suminagashi technique. I decided to give it a go using the supplies I had on hand, that is, reinkers instead of inks. I used some small yupo panels that I had lying ready on my craft table. Probably not the best choice, because it's a synthetic paper and ultra smooth. That's why the colours dried up very soft and light, but I really like this soft look. I hope to give this technique another go using regular cardstock soon.

I heat embossed my sunflowers (In Bloom: Anna's Flora, Winnie & Walter) in white embossing powder (SSS) and then heat embossed the flower hearts in sticky embossing powder (Ranger) and added gilding flakes. I fussy cut the flowers, leaving a small border.

I arranges my flowers and sentiment stamps and then stamped my sentiments (Kindness with Evelin T Designs, Winnie & Walter) using Archival jet black ink. To ground my sentiment, I added a tiny strip of my inked blue vellum, which I was left with after trimming my panel to size.

Challenges:

W&W 3rd Birthday Bash - Off the Page with Keren

W&W Gossip Column with Taheerah Atchia - No 6 Marble

SSS Wednesday - Anything goes

Noel - Muse: ChristmasVisions - 2 cards

This afternoon I realised that I had not yet blogged about my cards for the current Muse:ChristmasVisions challenge, even though I finished them last week.

When I saw the card that Chriss Blagrave had created to inspire us, I was instantly reminded of a relatively new Winnie & Walter stamp set (Frenchy's Festive Florals). This seemed like the perfect opportunity to ink up several of the small stamps in this set.

I stamped my pattern onto watercolour cardstock in gold Delicata ink, so that I could see where I was stamping, and then heat embossed the images using my new gold embossing powder (Papermania). I coloured my images using my Zig markers and a water brush. I used the same embossing powder to create a panel of gold cardstock from which I die cut my sentiment (Noel cutaway, Winnie & Walter). I stacked my gold sentiment with 2 extra die cuts for added dimension and adhered them to my stamped and die cut panel (Stitched rectangles, Simon Says Stamp). I mounted my panel onto my red card base (Schoolhouse red, SSS).

While I was having my stamps out (I had several images arranged on an acrylic block), I also decided to stamp a similar pattern onto some kraft cardstock, and then coloured my images using coloured pencils. To add a little more interest, I heat embossed the bottom of my die cut using my new red embossing powder and also swiped the edges of my panel over my Versamark pad and heat embossed them using the red ep.

So what do you think? I prefer the white version, although the kraft version is starting to grow on me.

Below is a picture of the MCV#77 card by Chriss that inspired mine:

I'm also linking up my first card at:

W&W 3rd birthday bash - Pattern making with Mayuri

SSS Wednesday - Fantastic Florals

I'm linking up my second card at

W&W 3rd birthday bash - Pattern making with Mayuri

Sparkle's Christmas challenge - #73 A krafty Christmas

Celebrating PTI

Hello there! I'm just popping in with a quick post with 2 cards for the cebrations that have been going on this past week at Papertrey Ink, who are celebrating their anniversary.

My first card was inspired by Emily's card in the year 2015 overview.

I used two of the few PTI sets that I own to case Emily's card. I 'inked' up the images with Zig markers and lightly spritzed with water before stamping. I used a tiny dot from another set to add a little more interest, since I felt that other tiny flowers would impact the design too much, and then added a sprinkling of even tinier dots using a stylus for stamping. I added a strip of gold glitter tape underneath my stamped panel and added a few Christmassy sequins (PPP) to finish off my design.

I'm also linking up this card at the following challenges:

AAA Cards - #84 Watercolour

SSS Wednesday - Fantastic Florals

Sweet Stampin' - Flowers

Seize the Birthday - Anything goes (no toppings for me)

The inspiration for my second card came from Ashley's card in the year 2014 overview.

I used my Zig markers again, this time inking up and spritzing the back of my butterfly before stamping. After drying my panel with a heat tool, I stamped the butterfly itself and the sentiment in black Archival ink.

I'm also entering my card in the following challenges:

Stamping Sensations - Animal magic

Allsorts - #403 Anything goes

CAS on Sunday - #102 Critters

Black and white

Just popping in quickly with my card for this week's LIM challenge.

I heat embossed my image (NBUS Wild Hibiscus, Altenew) and sentiment (golden oldie All Occasion, Impression Obsession) in white embossing powder (SSS) onto black cardstock (Crafter's Companion).

I'm also playing at:

ATSM - #229 Clean and Simple

SSS Wednesday - Fantastic florals

STAMPlorations - February CAS challenge 

Marbled poinsettia

Hello there! Thanks for stopping by! Today I have a card for a few challenges that are celebrating this month: Less is More is celebrating its 6th birthday, while Winnie & Walter is celebrating its 3rd birthday.

For my card, I used one of the shaving cream panels I had created previously, stamped the poinsettia (In Bloom: Elsa's Florals, Winnie & Walter) onto my panel in black Archival ink, fussy cut the image and went around it with a black marker. I cut my panel using one of my new dies (Essentials: Noelle Cutaways, W&W) and used a stencil (Pattern of the Rings, W&W) and a Clarity brush to pull in a little more pink for my orange, red and pink colour scheme. I used my pink brush, which still had some ink on it from a previous project. The sentiment is from another stamp set by W&W (Frenchy's Festive Florals). I adhered my panel onto a red card (SSS lipstick red cardstock) and foam-mounted my poinsettia. To finish off, I added a little white detail to the flower heart using a white gel pen and adhered a few clear sequins (Pretty Pink Posh).

Challenges:

Less is More - #314 Use 3 adjacent colours

Taheerah's Gossip Column at W&W - No, 6 Marble

W&W 3rd Birthday Bash - Stencil challenge with Kelly

ATSM - #228 Holiday

Merry Monday - #234 Clean and simple

Celebrate the holiday season

Hi there! I'm back with another card, a Christmas spinner card this time.

I used one of my shaving cream and distress reinker marbled panels to stamp one of the tree stamps from the Season's Tweetings set by Winnie & Walter (twice) and die cut the sentiment using my neglected NBUS Block Out dies by Little B. I fussy cut the two trees and adhered them together with a piece of white thread in between. The tree is almost symmetrical, but not quite, so I snipped off the extra bits on either side and then went around the edge with a black marker. I secured the ends of my thread to my card base from which I had die cut a circle and then adhered my debossed (an old NBUS Cuttlebug embossing folder) and die cut front panel on top of my card.

I heat embossed the second part of my sentiment (from my NBUS Frenchy's Festive Florals stamp set by Winnie & Walter) in white onto a snippet of black cardstock and added a tiny strip of foiled cardstock (created using glossy accents and gilding flakes) behind it to incorporate more of the colours of my tree. The pictue below shows the shimmer of the gilded strip as well as the flip side of my tree.

After I had added my sentiment, I decided I needed a little something extra, so I used an eyelet tool to create a few cicle embellishments from my inked panel and added those around my circle frame.

Challenges:

Allsorts - #400 Let's celebrate

Taheerah's Gossip Column at Winnie & Walter's - No. 6 Marble

Darnell's NBUS #10 - Anything NBUS goes

(haha, come to think of it, 

I used my embossed panel backwards, 

so I'm also using the optional twist, 

since last Tuesday was National Backward Day in the US)

ATSM - #227 Make your mark

ABC Christmas - D for Dimension

Time to celebrate

Here's a card that I created for our granddaughter's 13th birthday, which is tomorrow. I pulled out two NBUS stamp sets by Concord & 9th: Birdie banners and Banner Alpha Bits.

These stamps are so much fun to create quick and playful scenes, especially since they contain both the outline stamps and solid stamps, and the Alpha Bits stamps can be used to customise your banner texts. I did a little masking to place my poles behind the banner flags and the beaks of the sweet birdies and added colour using the solid stamps and my Altenew ink cubes. The blue and green are from my NBUS cube sets. To finish off my scene, I added a few pink hearts and then added a little sparkle to the hearts and the banner flags using my Spectrum Noir glitter pen. I used a sheet from my NBUS Studio Calico paper pad to add an extra pop of colour and adhered everything to my A2 card base.

Challenges:

Allsorts - #400 Let's celebrate

Seize the Birthday - Anything goes (no toppings for me)

Darnell's NBUS #10 - Anything NBUS goes

STAMPlorations CAS card challenge - Anything goes (optional: hot pink)