Wednesday, 17 February 2016

W&W - Brushos on pearlescent cardstock

The two cards I'm showing today, started with the same cardstock and the same technique.
Some time ago, I read about using Brushos on glossy cardstock, which made me wonder if I could also use it on the Centura Pearl ivory cardstock that I had hoarded but never used until now.

I first tried with some brown Brushos, because I thought it would look nice with the ivory cardstock and it did. It looks sooo pretty, but I haven't turned my panels into cards as yet. On today's cards, I used red Brushos, but it turned a very pretty pink because of my cardstock.


For my first card, I simply heat embossed the sentiment stamp and the bird using my new WOW gold embossing powder. When I shook the powder unto my stamped panel I was afraid I would totally mess up, because this embossing powder is so chunky, but it turned out beautifully. I mounted my panel onto a card base made from the same Centura Pearl cardstock using foam tape and added a few sequins from one of Lucy's shaker mixes as a finishing touch.


I'm entering this card into the following Winnie&Walter birthday bash challenge:

I'm also entering my card into the following challenges:
Sweet Stamps - Anything goes
ATSM - 181 Anything goes
Jingle Belles - Text me

For my second card, I went a slightly different route. This time I combined my brusho panel with white heat embossing (SSS). The poinsettia image is from W&W In bloom: Elsa's florals and the sentiment is from the W&W Happy Christmas set. I mounted my panel directly onto a card made from white pearlescent cardstock and added some extra interest using a few sequins and glosssy accents in the flower heart.


On the picture below you can see the lovely sheen of the pearlescent cardstock.


This card fits the themes of the following Winnie&Walter challenges:
Shay's Two challenge
(2 layers, 2 stamps from 2 different sets, a 2 word sentiment)

I'm also entering this card into the following challenge:
Sweet Stampin' - Clean and simple
ATCAS - 81 Bloom


ABC Christmas challenge - D for Don't overdo it.

Sunday, 14 February 2016

W&W belated 2nd birthday bash

Winnie&Walter are celebrating their second birthday this month with a huge giveaway and 10 fun challenges. Since I had quite a bit of play time this week, I let myself be inspired to play along and once I got started, the inspiration kept flowing. Such a rare and wonderful feeling for me, since normally my crafting sessions are short and far between. But maybe I should simply loosen up and go with the flow.


For my first two cards, I was inspired by Taheerah's inpiration image challenge, but I combined it with elements from several other challenges. After seeing the floor covering in the inspiration image and Taheerah's use of the yet to be released stencil, I just had to play along using this exact same stencil, which was included in Catherine Pooler's first Stamp of Approval collection (the Friend collection).


On the first card, I used Hero Arts soft granite ink and the Ranger mini blending tool to apply the ink onto a soft stone cardbase (Papertrey Ink). For the flower panel, I heat-embossed the flower image from the W&W In Bloom: Anna's Flora set in white embossing powder (SSS) and then applied a heavy coat of distress inks (Dusty concord and Chipped sapphire) and then bleached out the flower image using a water brush. After that, I dropped in a little Picked raspberry. You can find a detailed explanation on this technique, including a video, on Jennifer McGuire's blog.

I cut the strip right up to the flower and then fussy cut around the top and bottom of the flower. I finished my design off with two small strips of lime green cardstock, a heat-embossed sentiment (W&W Winter Woodland and The Big, the Bold and the Merry), and a few sequins. And clear Wink of Stella on the flower of course.

I really liked how the flower turned out, but I really wanted to make a soft pink version to mimick the decorative element on the table in the inspiration image.


Therefore I decided to make a second version, this time using Memento Smoke blue ink for the background and Memento Elderberry for the narrow panel. I stamped the flower image onto a separate piece of cardstock and used softer pinks this time around. The sentiment (from the EH Mondo Magnolia set) was heat-embossed in Ranger silver pearl embossing powder to tie in with the smoky blue background. As in the first card, I used strips of lime green cardstock, clear Wink of Stella and a few sequins as a finishing touch.


W&W - Taheerah's inspiration challenge
W&W - Lydia's floral challenge
W&W - Gayatri's background challenge

I'm also entering my cards into the following challenge:
Seize the Birthday - no toppings for me
Stamping Sensations - Anything goes




Friday, 12 February 2016

Magnolia

So happy I managed to create a few cards this week. I had taken the week off because my husband was scheduled for surgery, but surgery has been postponed for at least two weeks until his condition is better. So instead of running to and from the hospital, I could stay at home and play (and taking some rest now that I'm fighting a cold).


Anyway, I had a little play with my new Zig brush markers onto some Bristol smooth cardstock. Some people seem to like this combination, but of course this cs does not take water as well as watercolour cardstock. I stamped the Mondo Magnolia stamp (Essentials by EH) twice and played around to see how the Zig markers worked. The first image did not turn out the way I wanted (too much colour, too little water) but the second one turned out quite nicely. So I cut out a square containing the part I did like (using a SSS stitch rectange die) and matted that onto a square of black cs. I then used my MISTI to stamp the image again onto my card base making sure to line it up with the image on my square. To finish off, I cut the MFT hello die three times from black cardstock and adhered them together using Multi medium matte. And of course I could not resist adding a little clear Wink of Stella.



Challenges:


ATCAS - 81 Bloom


Allsorts - 349 Clean and Simple
Penny Black and More - Anything goes with a stamp and a die