Stripes and strips

Posted: November 14, 2023 | Author: | Filed under: Christmas background, Dies, Hand drawn, Hand lettered, My Favorite Things, Penny Black, starry night | Tags: , , | 8 Comments

If you have scraps of patterned or solid coloured paper today’s post is for you. I made a panel of striped cardstock by cutting thin strips of patterned paper and gluing them to a piece of light cardstock. From my homemade ‘striped cardstock’ I cut a hand drawn tree, a hand drawn bird and some simple triangle trees. You could use dies for all the elements I was just playing with ideas and decided to sketch and cut myself.

I used an embossed snowflake background for the card at the top of the page, a stamped kraft background for the tree above and then plain kraft for the bird. The little stars that decorate each card I did not hand cut of course! They are cut with the PB ‘starry night die’ and applied with the help of one of those sticky ended tools. Little embellishments have a high fiddliness factor which I don’t appreciate but these tiny stars were necessary!

I added outlines to both the bird and the tree with white or black gel pen along with some dots and a handwritten sentiment.

Cutting my own shapes was fun and put some of the many paper scraps to good use!

Tree Trio

Posted: November 29, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: Christmas background, trio of trees | Tags: , | 14 Comments

Today’s cards are made with a cute set from My Favorite Things and some oxide inks. I didn’t set out to make watercolour cards but it seems I just can’t help it! I stamped the little tree skeleton stamp in versamark then embossed in clear powder. Next I inked the triangle tree stamp in peeled paint and peacock feathers oxide inks and stamped over the top of the skeletons. Then, not willing to leave the trees,  I gave them a watercolour look by blending the two colours within the triangle with water.

I used the same two inks to create a blended sky over the embossed MFT Christmas background stamp. I painted the snow banks in amongst the trees by picking up ink off my glass mat.

I followed a similar process to create this blue card. I inked the triangles with blue print sketch and stormy sky distress oxide inks, blended them and stamped the tree skeleton over the top with blueprint sketch. The background is once again embossed then swiped through some diluted blue print sketch and stormy sky distress oxide ink on my glass mat.

The final card is a very simple design but again I started with two tone blended trees (a different tree stamp). This time my colours were bundled sage and lucky clover oxide inks. Once the trees were dry I stamped the dot stamp over the top with candied apple oxide ink and added a sentiment in the same ink.

I decided to make the sentiment shiny by embossing in clear powder, then restamped all the dots so I could emboss them too.

These cards are a bit different from my usual style but reminded me how much fun can be had with the oxide inks.

Supplies

Stamps:  Christmas background, trio of trees (MFT)

Inks: versamark & peeled paint, peacock feathers, stormy sky, blueprint sketch, bundled sage, lucky clover, candied apple distress oxide inks

Papers: hot pressed watercolour paper, red cardstock, olive cardstock, blue cardstock

Also: clear embossing powder, glass mat