It always seems a while between posts but I appreciate that I have had a few visitors in-between posts.
Recently I had a recipe on the Tarisota blog. Tamar does a yearly Christmas recipe book and I was lucky enough to be able to contribute this year. You can see the post here. The recipes are all fabulous and worth trying over the holidays.
Now to sharing a card I made recently for daughter of my cousin. The girl is a Hero Arts stamp and it has been coloured with Copics.
For the 5th year in a row Lisa Vollrath is having a countdown to Christmas and sharing lots of free images on the way. Check it out here.
There are lots of terms & conditions on the use of the images so make sure you read the FAQ’s – but they are so worth it
I woke this morning to hear my hubby pointing out this visitor to our sons. What a lovely surprise! We used to have lots of kookaburras around our area. A pair used to live very close to us but I haven’t seen one for ages. Hopefully he is back to stay.
Today is the last day for the current Copic Oz challenge and I finally found the time to finish my card. It has been sitting all coloured on my desk all week but I couldn’t decide how to finish it.
The challenge was to create a card with feathering and this lovely stamp was certainly a challenge to feather! But it turned out how I planned so that was a bonus. Since the certification course I did back in June I have been working on mastering this technique and this stamp shows it off really well.
Here are the colours I used:
Just a few!
Stamps - Hero Arts, die cuts – Spellbinders
I thought I would have a go at the sketch for the October challenge on Inkurable Stampers. There is still time to enter – you have until midnight tomorrow night.
I stamped Darkroom Door butterflies all over a 9cm square piece of white cardstock and then coloured them with Copics. I then cut the cardstock into four 4.5cm square pieces and arranged them over a lime piece of Bazzill. The border was punched with one of the new EK Success large border punches, this was attached to the left hand side and layered with a bit of pink ribbon. To complete the card, I stamped a Hero Arts greeting onto an oval and layered that over a Nestibility tag with foam tape. A couple of pink pearls on the flourish ends completed the card.
Earlier I mentioned my spot as a guest designer at Inkurable Stampers, here are some images of the samples I created for the challenge this month.
Journey
This arch was a good opportunity to try a new technique – beeswax. I was really happy with the results and the arch smells so good!
· The arch was hand drawn after looking at a few images online. It is based on a template by Belinda Schneider but I changed the dimensions a bit. All images were from Darkroom Door.
· I started with a white cardstock arch. The background was made by first stamping the French Script background with Versamark ink & clear embossing.
· The arch was lightly sponged with Distress Wild Honey & Barn Door inks and excess ink wiped from the embossing. I dripped a bit of water onto parts of the arch and allowed them to dry.
· I stamped the cars from Vintage Automobiles and the words from Prague Vol 1 onto white tissue paper and cut images out roughly. These were adhered to the arch with gel medium. The tissue paper allowed me to alter the orientation of the top car.
· The gentleman is from the Photobooth Hats sheet and I used a grey pen to ink the edges so the white cut marks wouldn’t show. He is also adhered with gel medium.
· Once everything was dry I melted some beeswax and painted it all over the arch. Additional heating smoothed the surface a bit.
The next is one I called Destination.
I came across this sheet of Basic Grey patterned paper at my LSS this week and it became the perfect background. Once again stamps are Darkroom Door.
· Cut arch from patterned paper and paint with white acrylic paint. Allow paint to dry for a few minutes and remove parts using a baby wipe. This will allow some parts of the design to show through more than others. If you remove too much, just repeat the process until you get the required effect.
· Once dry, paint with Ranger Distress Crackle paint in Rock Candy. Allow to dry and lightly sponge with Distress Frayed Burlap. Check out the before & after pic to see the change painting & sponging makes to the paper.
· To highlight a couple of the cars, I used my Copics to go over two of the car images to deepen the colour and then applied a bit of glossy accents to make them pop.
· The border is punched and stamped with the border stamp from Ornate Elements with Distress Chipped Sapphire ink and then affixed to the bottom of the arch.
· The words are from Vintage Automobiles and die cut using a Spellbinders label die. The diecut was then sponged lightly on the edges and towards the centre with Distress Chipped Sapphire ink, folded slightly and affixed at an angle over the border with foam tape under each side.
If you aren’t too familiar with the technique of painting over patterned paper – give it a try. This pic shows you the difference painting can make before & after.
It is with great pride that I can tell you that this month I am the guest designer for the gothic arch challenge on Inkurable Stampers! Please visit Sarah’s blog and check out my interview and have a look at the samples.
Regular readers will know that I often participate in Sarah’s challenges, I always find them inspiring and the chance to win a prize is a great bonus. This time around it was to make something totally different, a gothic arch. A shape that many find inspiring but some find totally difficult :). After this challenge I am in the first group.
The challenge this month is to create an arch with the theme ….
PLANES, TRAINS & AUTOMOBILES
Don’t forget to upload your arch to the Flickr group when you are done.
I’ll be back later to give you another look at my arches – dinner is calling.
I made this card a while ago for a class at Stamp Art Studio and thought I should share it. The card is pretty basic but the flower showcases the Tim Holtz tattered flowers die.
The flower is made by die cutting a variety of papers (I used dictionary paper) and fabric and then layering the pieces to create a flower. I used a premade flower as the centre point.
Once complete the flower was spritzed with Chalkboard Glimmermist.
Just when you think I might be getting more frequent with my blog posts I go MIA again! We have been in Melbourne for a holiday and had a fantastic time. Melbourne is a beautiful city and the people were so friendly – pity the weather wasn’t better but you can’t have everything. I plan to share some pics in coming posts, but for now I have another card to share.
I have had this stamp for ages and had planned to make a card exactly like this when I bought it. For a change the image in my head matched what was created – it rarely works that way :)
The background was made using Luminarte sprays onto watercolour paper. The image was stamped onto the background and also onto clear acrylic. The image was coloured using Copics. The clear acrylic was cut out and coated on the back of one wing with Stickles and the other wing was coloured with Copics, it was then affixed over the card image and the wings bent up a bit.
It is really hard to see from the pics but the wing became quite luminous with the glitter behind it and the background is very glimmery.
The butterfly stamp is Stamp It, the words Darkroom Door and the punch is EK Success.
Today I completed my latest swap ATC’s for the September Darkroom Door swap. They turned out so pretty!
The base was embossed with the Swiss dots Cuttlebug plate and the background image was the large roses background stamp. I clear embossed it onto white cardstock and then sponged with dye inks to bring out the colour. The flower images come from montage sheets and words from the Viva La Flora wordstrip. The punched strip is a Martha Stewart punch.
Copic Oz is running a challenge to create a Father’s Day card or masculine card. As I rarely make male cards I thought I would give it a go. It was the perfect opportunity to get my Tim Holtz stamps inky.
You might be wondering how the Copics were used? The black images were stamped with black Momento ink directly over cardstock pre-coloured with Copics. I also coloured in the Paris postage part of the main image with Copics.
For the strip along the left hand side I inked my stamp with 3 different Copic colours, spritzed the cardstock with Colourless Blender solution and stamped. The blender solution reactivates the ink on the stamp and you have your image – much like the brushless watercolour technique using dye inkpads. It takes a bit of practice but the results are worth it!
A close up of colouring the cardstock & stamping. The foolproof way to get perfectly matching cardstock!
For the interested, here are the colours used:
It is a bit hard to see but the stamps are Tim Holtz Visual Artistry, French Market. The embossing was done with a Cuttlebug plate.
Last month I won two stamp sets from Darkroom Door for participating in a challenge. My stamps have arrived and I wanted to thank Rachel for running the competition and for my lovely new stamps. I can’t wait to play! Pity we are about to go on holidays :(
I chose two sets from the new Essentials 6 release – Noel & Chocolatier.
I thought I would share a card given to a friend recently for her birthday. She has a particular fondness for butterflies. The image is coloured with Copics.
Stamp: Hero Arts; die cut: Nestibility
Did you know that aside from colouring with your Copics you can stamp with them as well?
Just colour in your stamp as you would if using dye based markers, spritz your cardstock with blender solution or rubbing alcohol and stamp. The blender solution/alcohol reactivates the ink on your stamp to create the image.
Usually you get a paler image so it is best to use stronger colours that you normally might be used to.
This card background is a bit splotchy looking as it is stamped onto textured cardstock – just the effect I was after.
Stamps: Darkroom Door, Hero Arts; die cut edge: Nestibility
Lately I haven’t had much time to play with my Copics so I made a special effort at the weekend.
Stamps: Darkroom Door, embossing folder: Cuttlebug, punch: EK Success, die cut: Nestibility.
It seems ages since I have participated in Sarah’s Inkurable challenges. I had forgotten how much fun there are.
The theme for this month is resist techniques and I have chosen to make an accordion card for Christmas using a Brilliance resist.
I have used Darkroom Door Christmas stamps – Christmas Reindeer & Yuletide Vol 2. The front is stamped with Brilliance and the reindeer is clear embossed.
The inside is also stamped with Brilliance but it is heat set, not embossed. I imagined the reindeers flying across the sky on their way to meet Santa :) The branches along the bottom are stamped with Brilliance in a rust & olive. Once heat set the card base can be sponged with dye inks. I used Distress mustard seed, tumbled glass & shabby shutters.
A close up:
It is a bit hard to see but the Brilliance ink retains the lovely pearly effect.
