Moonlit Night

Posted: December 16, 2010 | Author: Heather | Filed under: CAS, Stamped Landscapes | 7 Comments

One of my favourite techniques as you might have noticed, is to create sponged and stamped scenes. This one just might be the smallest I have done. I started by masking a rectangle with post-it notes and then cutting a hill shape with another post it note. I punched a tiny circle out of post-it note and stuck it in the corner. With my hill and moon in place I sponged in both brocade blue and night of navy until I was happy with the sky. I then added my trees and removed the mask. I did a little bit of sponging on the snow in blue and then stamped the trees upside down in navy and sponged around them.

Once I had removed the masks I could see that it had actually created a moonlit hill top.

To borrow a “Joan Bardee-ism” Mood when done: most pleased!

Supplies:

Stamps: A little tree stamp from Embassy Arts, Wondrous Gift
Inks: Night of Navy, Bashful Blue, Basic black, Brocade Blue
Cardstock: Flourishes classic white

A musical theme

Posted: December 15, 2010 | Author: Heather | Filed under: CAS, Rollers | 7 Comments

These cards were inspired by cards I admired on Susan Raihala’s and Colleen Dietrich’s blogs.

As our family is involved in many musical activities I bought the musical notes roller from SU planning to make many cards with it. I made a few and then seemed to get stuck without inspiration. That is until I saw Susan’s delightful Christmas balls which I reproduced with very minor changes.

When I saw Colleen’s clever stack of presents I again saw an opportunity to use my music roller. I reproduced her card but without all her gorgeous embossing and layers (I was a bit lazy to add them). Then, because I was on a roll, I made another card with the gifts in a row. On all the cards the punched shapes are popped up on stampin’ dimensionals and on the two cards above the shapes are sponged around the edges too.

Now I had better get on with writing in these cards, that is the idea of making them after all isn’t it?

Supplies

Stamps: Music Notes roller, Short & Sweet
Inks: Choc Chip, Real Red, Wild Wasabi
Paper: Whisper White, Confetti White ,
Also: Gold cord, Red ribbon, red gingham ribbon, stampin’ dimensionals

Penny Black Snow Dust

Posted: December 14, 2010 | Author: Heather | Filed under: CAS, Penny Black, Snow dust, Stamped Landscapes, Wondrous Gift | 7 Comments

It is not quite as snowy as this card just yet, but it won’t be long. When I bought the Penny Black wreath stamp, I also bought this PB stamp called Snow Dust. I did my masking with post-it notes as I usually do, both to frame the scene and to create the snowy hills. I stamped the trees in versmark with a base of black and then embossed in clear before sponging in the sky and the hills. Once all the sponging was done I realised that my tree bases were too black compared to the white branches so I used a super fine black marker to draw a line under several branches so that they appeared to be snow laden not made out of snow.

I noticed that the technique lovers challenge at Splitcoast this week is to use sponging, so I will be participating with at least this card, but probably more.

Supplies:

Stamps: Snow Dust(Penny Black),
Inks: Versamark, Bashful Blue, Pretty in Pink, Brocade Blue, Going Gray
Cardstock: Flourishes classic white
Also: Clear e.p.

Watercolored Gift Set

Posted: December 8, 2010 | Author: Heather | Filed under: All That Glitters, CAS | 9 Comments

Recently a friend of mine celebrated her 50th birthday. Because her birthday is in late November I decided to create a set of Christmas cards and tags as her gift. It is a gift she will end up giving away but hopefully she will still enjoy it.

I have been wanting to create some watercoloured Christmas balls so a gift set was the perfect opportunity. I created one sheet of randomly blended watercolour first using blue, green and pink ink on wet watercolour paper and when it dried I stamped the Christmas balls all over it and embossed in gold. The time consuming part was cutting all the balls out. Once that was done I started playing with combinations of balls. The first card took forever as I threaded the gold cord through the card so that it could attach to each ball and then added little bows. It was at this point that I doubted my decision to make a gift set. Things sped up after that and I got all the cards made and finished off with a few tags.

On a couple of cards I threaded the cord through the loop of the ball but did not adhere the ball so it swings when you tip the card from side to side. I thought this little gimmick was cute; I just hope it doesn’t break off the cord at some point.

Some of the Christmas balls are stuck directly on the cardstock; others I popped them up on stampin’ dimensionals. For the little balls I did not use real cord, instead I drew cord and bows with a gold gel pen.

Thanks for dropping by, I know it’s been rather quiet here lately. I started writing Christmas cards yesterday and it seems I might need a few more. That is fine with me; I have had much stamping time lately.

Supplies:

Stamps: Short and Sweet, All that Glitters(Flourishes), Many Merry Messages, Graceful words
Inks: Versamark, Not quite Navy, Garden Green, Pretty in Pink, Bravo Burgandy, Riding Hood Red
Cardstock: Flourishes classic white, Fabriano Hot pressed watercolour paper, Not quite Navy, Riding Hood Red, Pretty in Pink
Also: Gold e.p., Gold cord, Gold gel pen, Stampin’ dimensionals

OLW 30 Inspiring Minds

Posted: November 25, 2010 | Author: Heather | Filed under: All That Glitters, CAS, Snow Swirled | 7 Comments

Jennifer has a great one layer challenge this week on her blog Styles Ink. The inspiration comes from some Christmas cards designed by Walter Erhard in the 1960’s. I browsed through all Jennifer’s links and saw a card I liked, but when I sat down to stamp I discovered the card I wanted was not on the designated page and a single picture of that card was not available. Although I will go back to that card and get inspired another time, I chose the card below for my inspiration this morning.

I didn’t set out to recreate it, but it appears that is what I have done. Where Erhard’s original card had a splat shaped ornament, which looks very twinkly, I have water droplet twinkles instead. I stamped the branches in versamark and then the snowflakes in versamark and grey. I then embossed the branches with black and the snowflakes with clear. The balls were made by positioning punched circle masks over the snowflakes and then sponging the whole card with Wild Wasabi.

Supplies:
Stamps: All That Glitters (Flourishes),Snow Swirled. All Year Cheer
Inks: Wild Wasabi, Basic Black, Versamark, Going Grey
Cardstock: Flourishes classic white
Also: Black and Clear e.p.

Penny Black wreath

Posted: November 24, 2010 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Adornment, CAS, Penny Black | 5 Comments

If you have been visiting here for a while you would know that 99% of my stamps have always been Stampin’ Up. Not much has changed there; I still love the range and images at Stampin’ Up, but I have discovered a whole world of beautiful stamps from other companies. A year or so ago some gorgeous images from Flourishes started appearing once in a while on the blog because they were simply too hard to resist. I was browsing Sharon Johnson’s lovely blog the other day and saw a couple of beautiful stamps by Penny Black. After a little research I discovered I could buy those stamps not far from here. That’s right, no shipping, no waiting. So what I have to show you today are my first two cards made with the Penny Black stamp “Adornment”.

What I do not have to show you is my first attempt. I did think about photographing it and showing you what not to do, but camera issues continue around here so I didn’t bother. I will tell you that it looked considerably like a tumbleweed blowing across the prairie!

In the card above I inked the stamp with three different green markers and then spritzed it with water before stamping. I think those little circles almost look glittery – but, in fact no bling was applied to this card. On the card below I was a little more intentional with my markers, applying red on the bow and dots before creating some blur with the spritzer.

Supplies:

Stamps: Adornment (Penny Black), All Year Cheer, Best Yet
Inks: Wild Wasabi, Handsome Hunter, Garden Green & Real Red Markers
Cardstock: Flourishes classic white, Wild Wasabi

Watermarked Snowflake

Posted: November 17, 2010 | Author: Heather | Filed under: CAS, Snowflakes | 5 Comments

This snowflake is from the now retired SU set “Snowflakes”; the first set I ever bought. I have parted with various sets over the years but I think I will always hold onto this one. I remember after moving to Canada the excitement in seeing snowflakes falling that were clearly 6-pointed shapes. It isn’t always obvious but occasionally they will fall on your coat or mitt and you can see the intricate design for just a moment before it dissolves.

To create this card I masked off the panel I wanted to colour then stamped the snowflake in versamark and embossed in clear. The sponging was all done in Brocade blue fading off into nothing on the right hand side. I then dropped water on the area I had stamped and sponged . What I didn’t realize until I removed the masks was that the water would seep under the post-it note masks. I don’t think it matters too much. I searched through my Christmas sentiments until I found one which was whimsical enough to match with the fluid style of the card.

Thanks for dropping by.

Supplies:
Stamps: Snowflakes, Many Merry Messages
Inks: Versamark, Brocade Blue
Cardstock: Flourishes Classic White

OLW 28 A Mitten Maze

Posted: November 13, 2010 | Author: Heather | Filed under: CAS, Holiday Sampler | 13 Comments

Some of you may remember when Susan from Simplicity inspired us to try some Andy Warhol style cards. I did a couple with flowers and leaves. I decided to revisit that idea for this week’s OLW challenge from Jennifer. She has challenged us to use five different colours on a one layer card this week. I have only one mitten stamp so it is repeated using the five different colours.

Supplies:
Stamps: Holiday Sampler, Hugs & Wishes
Inks: Real Red, Brilliant Blue, So Saffron, Glorious Green, Lovely Lilac
Cardstock: Flourishes Classic White

OLW 27 Christmas Kindness

Posted: November 7, 2010 | Author: Heather | Filed under: All That Glitters, CAS | 11 Comments

My order of heavy white card stock arrived this week so finally I can make some one layer cards on white again. One layer cards really need something heavier than Whisper White from Stampin Up but I let my supply run down without realizing and was without for a couple of weeks. I am stocked up again now and able to play along with Susan’s OLW challenge to make a holiday card which could be used by the inmates of the North Dakota State Penitentiary to send to their loved ones. The cards must be one layer and have no sparkles and or metal.

I have pulled out my mask and sponge technique again using Christmas baubles from Flourishes, first with a traditional colour scheme, then with the non-traditional. I masked with post-it notes, sponged in three colours, stamped the bauble stamp in the same colours then removed the masks and stamped the bauble in black. I drew the cord with marker and finally added the sentiment. In the card below the featured bauble is darker because I created a circle mask and sponged extra colour in that circle before stamping over the top in black.

I know we have used non-traditional Christmas colours on the OLW challenge before but I still like the reds and greens. What do prefer?

Supplies:

Stamps: Short and Sweet, All that Glitters(Flourishes), Teeny Tiny Wishes
Inks: Basic Black, Real Red, Wild Wasabi, Not quite Navy, Turquoise, Brilliant Blue, Pink Passion
Cardstock: Flourishes classic white

Limited supplies

Posted: November 6, 2010 | Author: Heather | Filed under: CAS, Designer Paper | 1 Comment

I know there are limited supplies challenges around the place but this card isn’t for one of them. I have a friend at church who got into stamping through me and wanted some ideas for Christmas cards. She brought her supplies to me and I said I would come up with a few ideas. She had cream and real red card along with a old pack of Cerise dp, a favourite of mine. Her plan is to stamp some Christmas cards with the two girls she cares for each day after school. I came up with some designs which are not too difficult. The challenge for me was sticking to the supplies she had in her bag. I couldn’t do it; I had to dip into my stuff now and again for a punch or sentiment. The card above was inspired by this CAS beauty, which was in turn inspired by this one!

After I had designed these two plus a few more in red and cream I worked on a few in greens. As I mentioned last time I posted we are without a camera. Mine is taking only purple blurry pictures and my daughter’s, which is working again, is in Berlin with my husband on a business trip. It has been years since he traveled with work so we could not let him go without a camera.