Cars, Bikes and birthdays

Posted: April 11, 2023 | Author: | Filed under: brushed stars, classic motorcycles, Darkroom Door, postage stamps, this way, vintage car, word labels, World Map | Tags: , , , , | 5 Comments

You’ve seen me use the ‘this way’ stamp behind a trio of butterflies and a classic car as well as featured on a journal page. It reminds me a little of tire tread so I have paired it again with some vehicles. For this motorbike card I masked the edges of a cream panel and stamped ‘this way’ and ‘brushed stars’ in antique linen distress ink.

After removing the masking tape I added one of the motorcycles from the classic motorcyles set in black along with a little happy birthday. I haven’t masked edges like this in a while but it makes it easy to make a simple but eye catching one layer card. You could fill the masked area with any stamping you wanted then add a bold black image over the top.

I also used ‘this way’ in the vintage style watercolour background of this card. I combined, the arrow pattern of ‘this way’ with postage stamps and world map. There is also splatter and a torn edge to keep the background looking aged. I stamped the DD vintage card on teabags and added stitching and word labels to complete the card.

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Lighthouse Journal Page

Posted: April 6, 2023 | Author: | Filed under: Art Journal, Darkroom Door, global postmarks, Handmade book, this way, word labels, World Map | Tags: , , , , , | 5 Comments

This journal spread was a joy to make. It combines so many of my favourite things. A few weeks back I posted about a new handmade art journal. This is it and these are the first pages I’ve completed. I didn’t work on the very first page; I leave that for later, so this is a few pages in. The pages are cold pressed watercolour paper so I taped the edges and created a watery blended background with distress inks smooshed on a piece of acetate then pressed onto my pages. I added more ink with a paintbrush and stamped the Darkroom Door world map stamp into the wet ink. I wasn’t trying to create sky or land or anything in particular I was just working randomly with blues and browns.

Once the background dried I used stamps from another favourite, the DD ‘global postmarks’ set, again stamped in blue and brown but archival ink, not distress, so it wouldn’t dilute and blur.

On an extra scrap of watercolour paper I picked up some smooshed and diluted ink then dried it before stamping the new ‘word labels’ stamps so I could cut them out and arrange them over the page.

If you have been visiting my blog for a while you will have seen the lighthouse stamp before. The lighthouse is in Norah Head, on the central coast of NSW, not far from where my father lives and the Darkroom Door premises. I have visited there several times and climbed the lighthouse with my dad. You can probably see now why I chose the word labels I did. The lighthouse and the ‘this way’ arrows are stamped on tissue paper. This allowed me to move them around to work out exactly where I wanted them. The blurry world map stamping worked as a ‘reflection for the lighthouse image so that’s where it ended up.

When I am adding stamped tissue to a page I gently tear around the edges with the help of a damp paintbrush. For the lighthouse I cut carefully around the walls and light then painted white paint on the back of the tissue so it would not be transparent. Of course I splattered some water and some gold paint to complete the page.

As this was the first time I had used my new journal I was interested to see how the cold pressed watercolour paper worked. Nothing soaked through the paper to the other side and I took care to dab up liquid from the centre seam so there was not much bleed through there either. The 7″ x 7″ size gave me a little more room than the 6 x 6 journals I have been working in but wasn’t so large as to be overwhelming.

(Compensated affiliate links from Foiled Fox, Scrap n Stamp & Ecstasy Crafts)

Do red cars go faster?

Posted: April 3, 2023 | Author: | Filed under: brushed stars, classic cars vol 1, Darkroom Door, this way, word labels | Tags: , , | 4 Comments

I mentioned on Friday that Darkroom Door has a new release available now and shared a butterfly card. For this bold two toned card I used the same narrow ‘this way’ stamp but in hickory smoke ink. I completed the background with the brushed stars texture stamp then added bright red elements on top.

The labels are from a new DD stamp set ‘word labels’. The set includes 27 different words which will be brilliant for cards and journalling. The cool car is from the ‘classic cars vol 1’ set. I embossed it with versafine satin red ink then added shading with candied apple distress ink.

We had a red car once which I rather liked but not long after buying it we up and left for Canada so had to sell it again!

Make sure you check out the new release from Darkroom Door it is full of style and originality. You’ll be seeing more of it in the weeks to come.

(Compensated affiliate links from Foiled Fox, Scrap n Stamp & Ecstasy Crafts)

Birthday butterflies

Posted: March 31, 2023 | Author: | Filed under: Brusho, Butterflies, Darkroom Door, this way | Tags: , , | 8 Comments

Darkroom Door has just released an amazing new collection of stamps so I will be showing off a few of them in the coming weeks. The narrow arrow stamp named ‘this way’ motivated me to pull out the brusho powders. Brusho is wonderful when used with embossed patterned stamps where the paint crystals can get trapped. I used both ultramarine and emerald green brusho on this card.

I embossed the ‘this way’ stamp in white powder on hot presssed watercolour paper then sprinkled brusho on top and spritzed water from above to get the colours activated. I also painted the black embossed butterflies with brusho but was a bit more strategic in my paint blending.

I popped some gold cord behind the butterflies and tucked a tiny DD birthday sentiment in as well. This slim border stamp is very versatile and in future posts I will be sharing how I used it with cars, motorbikes and a lighthouse!

(Compensated affiliate links from Foiled Fox, Scrap n Stamp)