Cherish Today

I’ve been keeping a bit of an eye on the Passion for Paper blog of late because the wonderful Kate Palmer (SparkleTart) has been sharing lots of tips and techniques.  (I also applied for their design team so fingers crossed !)

With the coming of some new rubber, I wanted to come up with something that used some of my new stamps as well as Kate’s latest technique, check it out here.  I didn’t have the right cardstock so I thought I would try regular cardstock and it worked ok.

The watermark effect was done with Darkroom Door French Script, it is much more apparent in real life – just hard to photograph! The branch is one of my new favourites by LaBlanche and the butterfly & greeting is from the new Darkroom Door Wings set.  Images were coloured with Copics.

Copic Style Watercolours

I was playing with a stamped watercolour technique using my Distress inks recently and thought I would try the technique out using my Copics.  It created a lovely soft image.

Firstly I coloured my image (Hero Arts) with a selection of Copics, it didn’t matter if I was quick or the ink dried, the next step reactivates it.  I spritzed my X-Press It cardstock with some rubbing alcohol and then quickly stamped the image. 

As you will see from the close-up, the image isn’t quite distinct, more watercolour like.  I find the technique can be a bit hit and miss, sometimes it is more ‘watery’ and sometimes the image is too indistinct to use but mostly it works well.

A solid image works best and this one is perfect as it is just about impossible to ink so many colours using a stamp pad.

Guest Designer Challenge at My Favorite Things

One of my plans for last year was to get published more often and participate in some design teams.  I achieved that wish so I wanted to aim a bit higher this year and participate in a few more challenges and design team calls, I figured I have nothing to lose but a bit of time. 

Here is an entry I finished yesterday for a guest designer call for My Favorite Things.  I love these cute images, they are so easy to colour with my Copics and with a bit of cutting they become really versatile to use on cards.  The company also makes a wonderful range of dies.

The theme of the guest designer call was to use the technique of paper piecing.  If you have never tried the technique it might seem a little daunting but the finished result is well worth the effort.  Essentially you replace parts of your stamped image with paper instead of colouring.  This is done by selecting the papers to be used and stamp each ‘part’ onto the paper and cut out.  Then each part is layered over the corresponding spot of the stamped, coloured image. 

Like this:

I then cut out each piece, including the girl (I coloured her first):

The finished result:

The stamp used was Pure Innocence – Calendula from My Favorite Things.  You can buy them from Stamp Art Studio if you have to have them!

Hero Arts Challenge

If you follow the Hero Arts blog you will know that they run regular challenges with lots of great prizes.  I haven’t entered for ages but I was inspired this month to create a flowery card matching the colour theme of pink, pool, green, neutral & white.

The flowers were coloured with pink & green shades of Smooch Inks and accented with a few tiny pearls.  The butterfly was coloured with Copics & coated with some Ranger crackle accents.  I loved how it softened the strong Copic colours.

A close up of the crackle effect.

Darkroom Door - Masked Stamping ATC Swap

The September theme for the Darkroom Door ATC swap was to use masked stamping as a technique. I thought this would be a perfect way to use my all time favourite butterfly stamp and a new favourite, the Journey wordblock. As this technique can be a bit tricky I thought I might do a step-by-step for the blog.

I prepared each ATC base using some Distress Stain and later when they were stamped I added a bit of sponging to fill in the gaps. I usually make my bases 3 1/4" x 2 1/4" so I can mat them with a contrasting colour & still end up with the required size of 3 1/2” x 2 1/2”.

I then stamped the butterfly image into the centre of each base.

For masked stamping you need to create a mask - a post-it is perfect for this job and they work really well. Stamp the image over the 'sticky' bit and cut it out really closely. Place over your image, making sure you line up the image as closely as possible to avoid ghosting. Remove the post-it after stamping and apply to the next image.

I then stamped over the masked butterfly with the Journey wordblock using Distress Chipped Sapphire ink.  Once I finish a batch of ATC's I usually dispose of the mask as it is very inky but if you are only stamping a couple of images - keep it with your stamps for next time.

To finish the image I coloured it with some Copics and sponged the edges a little more with Distressed Chipped Sapphire ink. I stamped the word 'Nature' using one of the images from the Garden Inchies set and applied it over the middle of the wings with some foam tape.

The final step was to mat the base with some cardstock sized 3 1/2" x 2 1/2" and they were done!

Copic Oz Challenge #12

This month the challenge on Copic Oz is to create a project using Copics to colour the embellishments.  Easy!  I do this all the time.
I haven’t used my Magnolia stamps for a while and as I had a birthday card to make for a 4 year olds birthday I thought this image would be perfect.  I coloured her in pinks (R81/83/85) and also used two shades of pink with the airbrush to colour the flowers.  I was aiming for a light dusting of colour and they came up really well.  I also used Copic to colour the adhesive pearls as I didn’t quite have the right shade of green.
I know the card will be barely looked at by the birthday girl but her mum will appreciate the effort.


I am trying something different with this post to add a ‘Pin It’ button for Pinterest.  Please let me know if you try to pin the card image and it actually works.
Pin It

Adorable

We have a new baby boy in the family and I couldn’t resist a cute card to celebrate his arrival. 

You Make Me Smile

I have been waiting to use this dear little girl again and the Inkurable Stampers challenge this month was a good opportunity.  The challenge for June was to use spots, dots & circles.   

I embossed the front using Sizzix Flourish & Dots embossing folder – it is perfect as a background and needs no further embellishment. This was layered with a darker colour cardstock and mounted onto a tent folded card base. The greeting is new one by Hero Arts and it has been layered over a scalloped die cut (Eyelet Circle by Spellbinders). The dear little girl is a My Favourite Things stamp and I have coloured her with Copics. Her top is paper pieced from some pattered paper. It went so well with the cardstock colours and the pattern was perfect.

January Copic Oz Challenge

This month Copic Oz is running a Summertime challenge.  We are to use yellows and greens and create something Summery.
I chose to use this cute Magnolia image.
Colours used:
Hair/skin – E51, E33, YR14, YR24
Dress – BV02, Y02, Y04
Tulip/socks/bow – YG05, G07, Y17, Y35, Y38, YR16, YR68
Colourless blender was used with tip to tip colouring of the prune colour on the dress.
Embossing is done using a Cuttlebug Jamara plate & die cuts are Spellbinders.

A Birthday Wish

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.

Copic Oz Challenge

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

Special Treasures

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.

Planes, Trains & Automobiles

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.

Spread Your Wings

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.

Copic Challenge – It’s All About Men

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.  

Butterfly Wishes

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

Copic Backgrounds

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

Copic Play

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.

Welcome Baby

My cousin had a baby recently and this is the card I made to welcome the new addition to our family. 

Thinking of You

 

Hi Readers, my blog stats tell me I have had quite a few visitors in recent weeks - sorry you had nothing new to look at :). My inlaws moved in for a while as they waited for their new home to be ready and that didn't leave much crafting time.

Here is a card I made for a class recently using Nestibility dies and a really cute mini Basic Grey stamp, coloured with Copics. I love all the cute owl stamps around at the moment!