Stockings are hung

Posted: January 29, 2021 | Author: | Filed under: brick wall, Christmas sentiments, Darkroom Door, Dies, knitting, layered Xmas wreath die set, Penny Black, stockings, Woodgrain | Tags: , , , , | 6 Comments

When I was making knitted panel cards a few weeks back I thought I should create a knitted stocking card at the same time. I also decided to try and make at least one, but hopefully more than one Christmas card each month. Usually I don’t feel like making Christmas cards after Christmas but I’m happy to right now so I made this little stocking and hung it by the chimney with care.

I stamped the Darkroom Door knitting pattern in versafine clair ‘glamorous’ ink, embossed in clear powder then painted over it with festive berries distress ink. I cut out a stocking with one of the Penny Black Christmas Stocking dies. To fill the stocking I cut foliage from watercolour paper using the PB layered wreath set then coloured the die-cuts with festive berries, pine needles and ground espresso distress inks. The stocking needed a bit more trim so I cut out a white cloud shape to and blended some brown ink around the edges.

To create a chimney I used a stencil and a stamp from Darkroom Door, the woodgrain stamp for the mantle and brick wall stencil for the bricks. I worked on hot pressed watercolour paper for both so I could blend distress inks and add watermarks. I stamped the wood with ground espresso archival ink so it wouldn’t blend then painted and blended ground espresso, black soot and rusty hinge distress inks over the top. I blended the same three distress inks through the stencil then spritzed some water over it before lifting the stencil. I blended some of the bricks with a paintbrush and added some black soot splatter.

The mortar around the bricks looked too white so I blended antique linen ink over the whole panel and used some to blend above the mantel too. To finish of the card I added a gold bow and a sentiment from the DD Christmas sentiment strip stamp.

So that’s one Christmas card done so far in 2021! Do you make Christmas cards all year?

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Alcohol ink + foil

Posted: January 28, 2021 | Author: | Filed under: Alcohol Ink, all the birthdays, Concord & 9th, Metropolitan, Penny Black, poppy edger | Tags: , , , , | 11 Comments

When I get the alcohol inks out I always have a stack of panels at the end of the session. Some sit around and never amount to much but others wait for inspiration to hit. This one was created on white craft plastic (Grafix dura-bright white) with ginger and burgandy Ranger alcohol inks and Pinata magenta. I added gold foil using the minc well after the inks had dried.

Sometimes it is possible to make the foil stick soon after finishing the inking. There is a sweet spot as far as letting the ink dry enough that it is not gooey but not so much that it is dry to touch. The sections that will hold the foil are the ‘seams’ between colours where the ink is thicker. If you press foil on these areas when they are a bit tacky you can get it to stick with just a bit of burnishing. If the panel has dried it sometimes possible to get foil to stick by running the panel through a minc or laminator using some heat. This can be risky as sometimes the foil sticks to more of the panel than you expected.

When I ran this panel through the minc I was happy with most of the foiling but there were a few sections that didn’t look great so I just used the part that looked good and covered the rest with this pretty poppy edger from Penny Black. I finished the card with a gold embossed sentiment from the PB ‘only you’ set.

This second panel amazes me because it was created with only black alcohol ink plus rubbing alcohol. The blue and burgandy tones appeared when the black ink was diluted. Cool huh? I pressed the blue foil onto this panel at just the right time to get it to stick when the seams were tacky. It is hard to get it to show in the photo but there are small sections of blue foil here and there across the sky.

The inking on both panels was pretty experimental, a drop here and there some rubbing alcohol and tilting and blowing the ink to make a random pattern. I cut the Penny Black metropolitan die from both black and blue cardstock then stacked blue on black without removing all the window cut outs. I ended up using spray adhesive on the back of the blue die cut because gluing is not my gifting.

The sentiment is from the Concord & 9 ‘all the birthdays set stamped in black and embossed in clear then stacked up on two layers of black cardstock. More alcohol inks next week; I’m having fun.

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Snowflake Skies – Video

Posted: January 27, 2021 | Author: | Filed under: Alcohol Ink, grafix, neighbourhood border, Penny Black | Tags: , , , | 5 Comments

I teamed up with Grafix to create a couple of snowy projects on their Duralar plastic films. The card you see on the left and below was inked on white craft plastic, also know as DuraBright white. It is totally opaque and has a bit of weight to it. For the votive wrap I used Dura-Lar matte film which is lighter weight and has a frosted transparent appearance which was what I wanted so the light from a votive would shine through.

I used stream and denim alcohol inks and felt to apply the inks to the plastic films. To create the snowflake patterns I die-cut a Penny Black snowflake from felt and stuck it to the wooden back from a old stamp. You can see the whole process in the video below.

I cut the Penny Black neighborhood border from Dura-Bright white for both the votive and the card.

You can see in the video and the photo above how the colours in the votive surround look different with a light inside; I guess it would depend too whether your battery votive candle was a white one or more of a yellow glow.

I’m really enjoying working with the Dura-bright white for alcohol ink projects and will be trying more techniques on the Dura-Lar matte in the future. If you are looking for the bright white remember it also goes by the name white craft plastic. Crop A While might have some and Deserres does carry it.

I’ve been working on a few different alcohol ink techniques so there will be more cards to share and another video next week.

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Big & Bold thank you cards

Posted: January 25, 2021 | Author: | Filed under: Brutus Monroe, Colorado Craft Company, Concord & 9th, Daisy & Dahlia, Karin brushmarkers, phrase builder you, Pink Fresh studio, simple serif alphabet dies | Tags: , , , , | 9 Comments

I’ve teamed up with the Foiled Fox again, as I love to do and I’m sharing two cards featuring the Colorado Stamp Company’s ‘daisy & dahlia’ stamp. I made a couple of cards last year with this stamp using a very different colour scheme.

On the card above I wanted to show you how much depth and variation you can get from single Karin brushmarkers. I was so happy to see the light and shadow I could achieve on each petal with one or two dabs of ink from the marker then blending with water. The blue flower on the right which is barely showing was coloured with a bold dark blue but as you can see it was possible to dilute it to a pale blue. I used the following Karin brushmarkers on the panel: black, henna, cool grey , rose wood, cyan, turquoise, royal blue.

It’s not easy to see but you might notice a white on white embossed image on the card base; it’s the same stamp providing a bit of texture. You can learn more about my process by visiting the Foiled Fox blog today

I kept some of the colours but went for a bolder look on my second card embossing the same large stamp in white on black cardstock. As you can see this stamp works as a coloured image and and a black and white image. White on red, red on white, blue on white, there are many colour combos which I’m sure would also look bright and beautiful.

Make sure you check out all the details on the Foiled Fox blog and take the time to check out Shauna’s stunning floral card from last Friday; it is a beauty.

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2021 Bullet journal – an intro

Posted: January 23, 2021 | Author: | Filed under: Bullet Journal | Tags: , | 4 Comments

New Year, new journal. I started a bullet journal/dot journal in 2018 and used it off and on for the last three years. I created some pretty spreads with coloured pens and carefully planned layouts but also some loosely organised lists and scribbled reminders. I used it for meal planning, book logging, exercise records and blog planning. I switched between different coloured pens and went through a phase of adding old magazine pics to my layouts. There were lists of cards sent and received, chore lists and notes about craft products waiting to be used in projects. I abandoned it for months at a time and came back to it with new ideas. It was handy and it gave me a chance to work out how a bullet journal could work for me.

The first journal was a Fabriano dot journal which was a great size and price; it sat flat and had pages you could easily remove (a plus and a minus). My new dot journal is a little more upmarket; it is a Dingbats notebook from the Earth collection with a hard cover, sewn binding, slightly heavier weight dotted paper, numbered pages and a few designated key and index pages at the beginning. The fact that is is my favourite colour with an embossed image symbolising the Great Barrier Reef on the front is just a bonus. It has two ribbon bookmarks and a pen holder on the side.

After learning from my first bullet journal experience I plan to use the new one as both a planner and a recorder. I already have pages ruled up to log books read in 2021. I’ve created a chore list to keep track of when I last cleaned this or that part of my house. My exercise log is up to date with days I’ve done boot camp, x-country skiing, walking or running. Those are all pages for the whole year. I’ve also designed and started using some January pages I will share with you next weekend. I’m hoping to post bullet journal pages on Saturday or Sunday starting today with my 2021 title page.

You know what it’s like when you have a brand new notebook or journal; it can be nerve wracking to make a mark on the first page. I decided to keep it simple so I wouldn’t mess it up. I sketched the numbers in pencil, went over them with a dark blue Stabilo fine 0.4 marker then used the same marker for the circles and lines. To add colour I punched circles from a post-it note and used it as a stencil to blend through with a range of archival inks. Safe and simple for my first page.

I will be trying different inks and markers through the year as I try to keep the bleed-through to a minimum. You can see some of the design through the back of the page so it will be interesting to see how other products compare.

I would love to hear if you are keep a bullet journal (BuJo), dot journal or something similar. There are thousands of inspirational designs and ideas out on the interwebs; I’ve spent more time than I should browsing through instagram and pinterest. If you have some hot tips or tried and true techniques please let me know. If you’ve never heard of bullet journaling, don’t worry, I’ll be back with cards on Monday!

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Wish upon a star

Posted: January 22, 2021 | Author: | Filed under: Celebrations, Dies, Penny Black, We R Memorykeepers | Tags: , | 14 Comments

Shaker cards are very very rare around here: I think I’ve only put one on the blog before today. I bought the nesting star dies recently on whim (I think they are discontinued but other companies make similar dies ). This card is for a little girl who turns five next week so I thought a little shimmer and shake might be fun.

I had the plan in my head with a starry sky watercolour panel for either the front of the shaker panel or the background then decided both would be best. I had pretty micro beads in six different colours so I thought it would be cool to co-ordinate the sequins, beads and inks.

Making the watercolour panels was very straightforward; I smooshed Papertrey ink cubes on the glass mat, spritzed shimmer spray (homemade water + gold pearlex powder) on the inks then swiped the panel through the ink several times until it was mostly covered. I finished the coverage using a paintbrush to add ink here and there. There was masking fluid already on the panel before I started so that added to the night sky look.

Once I started doing the ‘shaker card’ steps I remembered why I don’t make shaker cards. For me this one had an extreme fiddliness factor! I will happily spend hours no-line watercolouring an intricate flower but taping around all the points of five stars to seal the shaker area of each one was above and beyond! But then I put the micro beads, sequins and stars in each section, attached the watercoloured background, turned it over and…happy sigh, it was as cute as I’d hoped.

I won’t describe the process for making a shaker card; I think you would be better off watching a video from someone who has made more than two! I know there are many ways to build them up but my layers were: die-cut star watercolour layer, acetate layer, foam layer with star die-cuts then watercolour background layer. When I had all the layers stuck together I attached it to a square of shimmer blue cardstock and die cut the PB ‘make a wish’ sentiment from the same cardstock three times for stacking. I realise now I should have cut it from a brighter colour but the glue is stuck!

I’m happy with how it turned out and I love how it shakes (the micro beads move a lot while the sequins cling to the acetate) but I think it might be another five years before I make another one. How about you, do you whip up the occasional shaker card?

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A Day at a Time journal page

Posted: January 20, 2021 | Author: | Filed under: alphabet medley, Art Journal, book spines, Darkroom Door, diamonds, handwritten script, plaid, pocket watch, sheet music, teacups, Woodgrain | Tags: , , , , | 7 Comments

This page is in one of my Fabriano art journals. I’ve mentioned before that I have a love/hate relationship with these journals as the pages are not really meant for watercolour and I always want to do watercolour. I can’t bear to quit though because there are quite a few completed pages in the journals and I want to get to the end.

I began this spread with some inspiration pages open on my Pinterest ‘journal‘ board but no real plan; I was after a look but didn’t have a theme. I rarely use my distress stain sprays as sprays; I usually paint with them but this time I taped the edges of the pages then put the book in my recycle paper box and sprayed with vintage photo, faded jeans and wild honey spray stains. I then sprayed some water but as I mentioned, this paper doesn’t act like watercolour paper so the stains didn’t blend and move.

Next I added some texture with modelling paste through the Darkroom Door diamonds & handwritten script stencils. Once that dried I blended round the edges of the pages with faded jeans, vintage photo, wild honey and black soot distress inks which highlighted the added texture. I was happy with my chosen colours but still didn’t know what the focus should be. I coloured some strips of sheet music and added Darkroom Door ‘plaid’ and ‘sheet music’ stamping here and there.

Initially I wanted to use the pocket watch and the teacups so I stamped them in vintage photo and swiped them through diluted inks to pick up colour as well as adding colour with a paint brush. Once they were painted and cut out I clear embossed the clock face three times with high gloss embossing powder to look like glass and used normal clear embossing powder for the cups.

To brighten up the centre of the double page I ended up spreading white absorbent ground over the strips of sheet music and out towards the edges. Then began the longish process of turning the page into a composition. After much rearranging I realised that the tower of teacups and the pocket watch need a third element so I tried a floral piece then just a single shelf (stamped with DD woodgrain background stamp) and finally realised the ‘book spines’ stamp would probably work again. Honestly I’m not trying to put that stamp in every single journal page. Even with the books it still took a while to balance the layout and come up with some words. I finally decided on ‘one day at a time’ stamped on the shelf with the DD alphabet medley stamps. As Vicky Papaioannou often does on her amazing art journal pages, I finished with both black and white splatter then removed the masking tape before gluing down my elements.

It’s nothing like my initial inspiration photos on Pinterest but it did give me some good practice at adding texture and layers to my art journal, two things I don’t find easy. I only have one of my art journal pages on youtube as there is so much humming and ha-ing as I work out what I want. If I cut out the pondering parts is an art journal page process something you’d like to see in a video?

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Woolly Wishes

Posted: January 18, 2021 | Author: | Filed under: A2 layers, Additional A2 layers, Darkroom Door, Karin brushmarkers, knitting, Penny Black, Waffle Flower | Tags: , , , , | 6 Comments

This is the first knitting project I have done in years! I keep meaning to pull out some needles and wool to see if it hurts my hands to knit. I have a little stash of wool and plenty of different sized needles and I used to knit while watching tv. My last project was never finished then my hands became quite sore so I haven’t tried again.

When I first saw this Darkroom Door knitting stamp I couldn’t believe how realistic it looked when stamped and coloured. I stamped with versamark and embossed in clear powder on hot pressed watercolour paper for both cards. On the panel above I used Karin brushmarkers (amber, lilac, violet blue, magenta) to colour random shapes over the panel just like you get when you knit multicoloured yarn. I spritzed lighlly over the panel with water to get the colours to blend just a little.

I knew just the dies to use to complete the card. Penny Black has a set of looped frame dies which look a little like knitting stitches and the PB warmest wishes die is made of small curly letters that look like loops of wool. I cut both from purple cardstock with double sided adhesive on the back.

The second card features a simple pattern painted over the embossing with nautical blue and cottage ivy memento inks smooshed on my glass mat. I wanted to do a fancy snowflake pattern but decided I should start with something simple. Just as well as I missed a whole line of the pattern I was trying to do. This time I matted the panel with dark blue cardstock and stacked three layers of the ‘hello’ from the Penny Black ‘doodles’ die set which also looks a bit like yarn.

I had to make the knitting panel smaller to fit on the matching piece of blue cardstock so I re-cut it with the WaffleFlower A2 layer dies and saved the slim outline to glue inside the card. I will definitely be playing with the DD knitting stamp again because I want to colour a fancy fairisle type pattern. It will also show up in a small role on a card coming up later in the month.

I am happy to be back blogging again after my short break; I’ve missed chatting with you. I wish I could say I achieved all my planning and preparation goals but that is far from the truth. I think maybe my expectations were set a bit too high! Today’s cards feature the knitting stamp that had been sitting waiting patiently for some ink for months. I could have continued to stamp and play this image for days but I limited myself to one day so I could move onto other things. Is your year off to a good start, have you had some creative time already?

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See you soon

Posted: January 5, 2021 | Author: | Filed under: Darkroom Door, gel press, My Favorite Things, Pink Fresh studio, starry night, Stencils | Tags: , , , | 11 Comments

Just popping in with a couple of cards carrying a couple of messages for you. I hope your new year is off to a good start; I am still enjoying the beauty of an array of Christmas cards sent from around the world, thank you my creative friends for brightening up the midwinter days.

I made today’s cards from a gel printed panel done several months ago. I can’t remember the paints but you can see there was definitely orange, aqua and black. The panel I cut up is shown below, most of it included distinct or faint stars made with the Darkroom Door small starry night stencil. Along one edge there were two very distinct feather prints made with real feathers.

I ended up cutting a square which included one feather, leaving me one for another project. I also cut a rectangle covered in colour and texture which became the base for die cut letters and stars. I chose gold cardstock and gold embossing powder to add some brightness and shimmer on top of the dark background featuring a ‘scripted bold sentiments’ stamp from Pinkfresh Studio, alphabet dies from MFT and nesting star dies from We R Memory Keepers. I popped up the letters and the stars on black foam which kind of makes them appear to be floating.

I wanted to let you know I am taking a short blogging break so I can devote some time to planning and prep. I will be working on projects to share with you over the coming months. Ideally I would have done this before I stopped for Christmas but that didn’t happen so I’m doing it over the next week or so. I have lovely ideas and projects floating round in my head, I have a little stash of stencils and stamps that haven’t been out of their packets and some new release products from Penny Black on the way.

It has been a while since I devoted time to gel printing, alcohol inks, stenciling and lettering so that’s on the list along with some more hand painting. I will be making some videos to share here on my blog and youtube channel. I have a new online class in the works also. So you see while it’s quiet on the blog it will be busy behind the scenes.

As always I am happy to answer questions and I’m open to requests or suggestions for new projects and videos. If you feel like diving into one of my online classes just click on COLOUR CLUES or WINTER WONDER to learn more. (Here is a discount code for COLOUR CLUES which will take 20% of the price until January 15, 2021 HTNY21 )

So take care everyone, I’m looking forward to sharing techniques and experiments, cards, journal pages, paintings and more here on the blog during 2021. See you soon…

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Reading Year journal page

Posted: January 1, 2021 | Author: | Filed under: book spines, Darkroom Door, Woodgrain | Tags: , , | 11 Comments

I know 2020 was a very different year from what any of us imagined but I hope you are able to look back on it and see some new habits or achievements that please and encourage you. I’ve always been a reader but I have to admit I spent more time immersed in stories this year. I read physical books, listened to many audio books as I worked on art and in the last week read e-books on my new e-reader. I was hoping to reach 100 books but fell a little short with a total of 93 and three currently on the go.

It is highly possible that I had years as a child when I read more than 93 but I don’t know; I didn’t keep a record. I have this year’s books written in a bullet journal but I decided to record them on an art journal page as well. This is the second book filled spread in my art journal and who knows, there may be more.

I love the book spines stamp from Darkroom Door and this time stamped it across the pages instead of in piles. After I had coloured all the book spines with watercolour markers and pearlescent paints I drew a shelf underneath and then stamped the DD woodgrain stamp above and below the shelf of books in grey and brown distress inks. I added a few titles to book spines with gel pens then used a scribbly script to fill the surrounding area with all the rest of the books. It soon became apparent that there would not be room for author names so I just did book titles. Once I had filled the space I had to squeeze the last few in between lines. I splattered some black soot distress ink over the page before removing the masking tape and adding the hand lettered title.

I read mysteries, war novels, crime novels, literary fiction, comedy, romance, historical fiction and a thriller. There were books I didn’t care to finish so they are not on the list and there were a handful I read twice. I read several series; I do like a good series and I took pains to try and have them arrive in my library holds in the right order or close to it.

The book club I belong to did manage to meet this year, once indoors before the pandemic started then two more times, outdoors around a picnic table then, in late October, around a bonfire. We discussed ‘Where the Crawdad’s Sing’, ‘Small Great Things’, ‘The Lager Queen of Minnesota’ and ‘The River’. If you know of some good ‘book club books’ please let me know in the comments below. I have received helpful recommendations from you before which I’m looking forward to reading in 2021.

Happy New Year!

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