Fern Border
Posted: March 12, 2021 Filed under: Brusho, fern border, Penny Black | Tags: Brusho, Penny Black creative dies, Penny Black stamps, Tsukineko Versafine inks 6 Comments
I was looking through my pile of possibilities recently and found some lovely brusho panels I made quite a while back at a class taught by my friend The Crafty Cigale. Instead of using brusho watercolour powders on watercolour paper we worked on photo paper. I remember the process being so much fun that I kept on making panel after panel.
I’ve chosen two of the panels as borders for today’s cards. Initially I thought I would cut into the brusho panel using the Penny Black fern border die and I tried, but using the patterned print as a background showed it off better while still featuring the delicate shape of the fern fronds.
Before die-cutting the fern border I applied double sided adhesive to the back of the card front so once cut I could easily attach it to the patterned panel. The sentiments from the banner sentiments mimicked the curve of the border die so they were an obvious choice in two versafine brown inks
The card bases are Luxe White cardstock from Foiled Fox, which is a creamy colour with a soft pebbly texture. I’ll be back tomorrow with some more birch themed pages from my bullet journal. Thanks for dropping by.
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Vintage collage card
Posted: March 8, 2021 Filed under: Coliro paints, Darkroom Door, diamonds, Dies, Finetec paints, French Script, Gazette, gerberas, gift card pocket, global postmarks, Penny Black, shall we dance, Stencils | Tags: Coliro paints, Darkroom Door stamps, Darkroom Door stencils, Fabriano Watercolour Paper, Finetec artist mica watercolour paint, Penny Black creative dies, Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress inks 4 Comments
A friend commissioned me to make a ‘vintage’ themed card recently and I happily pulled out a bunch of Darkroom Door stamps to do so. You can see the pocket watch stamp managed to feature three times but the French script, global postmarks, and gerberas also contributed. I stamped, blended and painted with two brown tones of distress ink, two blues and a black. (all the supplies are listed below)
To begin I smooshed some speckled egg and antique linen distress inks on a glass mat, added water swiped the panel through the diluted ink. After that the gerbera background stamp became part of the base layer in speckled egg distress ink. I layered the other stamps over the top in tea dye and antique linen inks and blended some speckled egg ink through the DD diamonds stencil. Of course there is splatter, watermarks and extra blending to darken the edges. To add a dimensional feature I die cut several stems of flowers with the Penny Black ‘shall we dance’ die, some are from watercolour paper, some from tan cardstock and a few from paper painted with salty ocean ink and stamped with the DD gazette stamp.
Almost finished, I added a strand of twine around the base and tied some tiny tags on with stamped PB sentiments on them and some little wooden stars I found. I was pretty happy with all this vintageness but decided to risk some gold paint. I splattered and added it to the tiny stars and heart, the flower centres. Where it worked best though was unevenly painted along the edges of the square panel. You probably can’t even see it clearly but it ended up being one of my favourite parts of the card.
By the way there are yummy new stamps on the Darkroom Door website. You will see them here soon, a few are winging their way here as you read this! Have a great day.
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Faith & floral journal page
Posted: February 16, 2021 Filed under: A Pocket Full, Art Journal, Arteza, Footnotes, illustrious, Penny Black, springtime sigh, tranquil buds, watercolour real brush pens | Tags: Art Journal, Arteza, Penny Black creative dies, Penny Black stamps 6 Comments
I know it is not spring yet, in fact it is still very winter where I am; we’ve had some of our coldest days and nights just in the last few days. Maybe because it’s so cold now is a nice time to muse about spring.
Sometimes I have a plan for a journal page, other times I work it out as I go along. To begin this one I painted absorbant ground on the journal double page. It is a base preparation a bit like gesso which makes the paper act a little more like watercolour paper. I should probably just switch to a journal with watercolour paper pages but I stubbornly want to keep adding to the this one.
Once the base dried I stamp the Penny Black ‘springtime sigh’ stamp in one corner then coloured with Arteza real brush pens. The colouring is not precise, the surface doesn’t react the same as watercolour paper but I found blending with very little water gave me the most control.
I stamped first with Gina K skeleton leaves amalgam ink which I have used for no-line watercolour in the past but it remained too distinct on the journal page so I switched to antique linen which worked a bit better. I restamped and coloured springtime sigh several times then decided I wanted fewer little flowers to colour! I switched to the new Penny Black ‘illustrious’ stamp which co-ordinated well. I don’t know for sure but I wonder if both stamps were drawn by the same artist, the scale and style is similar.
When stamping the ‘illustrious’ stamp I was able to ink most of the stamp with Arteza real brush pens which cut down on the colouring. I still used antique linen ink on the large open leaves then blended with a marker to shade the leaves. When I had almost framed the double page spread I switched to the PB ‘tranquil buds’ stamp to add some lavender.
Next came the tricky stage when I had to decide what was happening with the empty area of the journal page. Writing, stamping, hand lettering or empty space were all options. I decided a bit of ‘filler’ in the shape of a text stamp would be nice and instead of the large script one I often use I chose the smaller typed text stamp from the PB ‘footnotes’ set. I stamped it here, there and everywhere in old paper ink, often spritzing with water before stamping so it just stamped a blurry pattern. I also added splatter then chose a phrase from the new PB ‘inspirational sentiments’ set.
Is that cute notebook die-cut covering a failed stamping attempt? Yes it is but I’m quite happy with that because the notebook page looks sweet. I cut it with a die from the PB ‘a pocket full’ set. I love how this page turned out even though I had no idea at the beginning it would progress this way. That’s the beauty of a journal page.
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Freshly cut flowers
Posted: February 15, 2021 Filed under: Foiled Fox store, fresh cut, love you Mom, Papertrey Inks, Penny Black | Tags: Fabriano Watercolour Paper, Papertrey ink, Penny Black creative dies, Penny Black stamps 2 Comments
I’ve teamed up with the Foiled Fox again to share a post on their blog. If you pop over there you can read all the process details for this floral card featuring a stamp and a die from Penny Black.
This stamp is called Fresh Cut and it is a rubber cling stamp of five long stem roses. I did some masking and partial stamping to fill the corner of my panel with eleven orange roses. I guess I should have added one more to have a dozen!
You might recognise the background style on this card; it is inspired by some of Jill Foster’s amazing cards for Penny Black. Because all those roses make the panel a little busy I separated the stacked die-cut words from the roses with a piece of vellum, just to make it easier to read. Don’t forget to visit the Foiled Fox blog today for all the details and while you are there browse awhile for more inspiration.
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Flower truck…is coming
Posted: February 8, 2021 Filed under: ...is coming, A2 layers, Additional A2 layers, buckets of flowers, hanging planters, Penny Black, pretty picket, silver linings, Waffle Flower | Tags: Penny Black creative dies, Waffle Flower dies 2 Comments
Not my usual style, you know I don’t often take the cute route (pun intended) but this little truck really appealed to me. As I worked on this card and looked through my dies for flowers I realised I could also turn it into an icecream truck or a pumpkin truck and maybe a postal delivery truck.
My initial plan was to die cut everything from kraft cardstock except for the flowers but once I’d done the truck and flowers I decided to add more colour with a picket fence and some clouds on a bright blue background. I used a blending brush to add ‘brushed corduroy’ distress ink around all the pieces of the truck and ‘mermaid lagoon’ around the blue panel. I’ve listed all the dies below; as you can imagine the fiddliness factor on this card was high but I persevered and the satisfaction factor is also high.
I haven’t added a sentiment but feel that it could be good for many occasions so I will wait and see. I’d be happy to see a truck bursting with flowers in my driveway right about now when everything is covered in snow.
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2021 BuJo – February pages
Posted: February 6, 2021 Filed under: Bullet Journal, Dingbat notebooks, Hand lettered, Nature's Beauty, Papertrey Inks, Penny Black, Stabilo .88 fine line pens | Tags: Bullet Journal, Dingbats notebook, Hand lettering, Papertrey ink, Penny Black creative dies 8 Comments
We are still in the thick of winter here in Canada so I chose a northern lights theme for my February journal pages. Like last month I masked a shape and did all the blending inside the shape. This time I masked a square and positioned a hilly mask to create a horizon. I used Papertrey Ink cubes and makeup brushes to blend the sky.
After blending a bold blue, green and purple sky I moved the horizon mask lower to lightly blend a snowbank shadow then positioned a die-cut mask for a deer and blended blue, then black through that. I did film the process just to give you an idea. It’s portrait orientation for instagram and it is 4x normal speed but you can see the steps.
Below are a couple more February pages completed using the same theme. As you can imagine the combination wish list and to-do list took a lot of ink blending which ended up being visible through the paper on the next page. Maybe they bled through because I used more ink on this page for greater depth of colour or maybe these inks are juicier than distress inks; I’m not sure but you can see the bleed through if you look at the February calendar page in the next photo. I’m not too worried about the bleed through, once I have recorded things on the calendar page it will be less obvious I imagine.
I used Stabilo point 88 finelines for the lettering once again but do intend to try some other pens I have on hand (confession – I have many types of pens and markers on hand!)
Last month I did a modified version of the traditional 7 x 6 grid for the January calendar page and a separate habit tracking page. This month I combined the calendar and habit tracker on a list style page. I will record any appointments and outings (you know, the exciting ones like the grocery store) on the left hand side and note down what we cooked, how much water I drank and whether I took all my vitamins on the right hand side. Do you struggle to drink enough water each day? I am the worst in my family but I have become much better since I put a reminder app on my phone. I also am quite good taking my supplements at breakfast but not so good the rest of the day!
I have a couple more pages to get done for February which I hope to share next week. Thanks for dropping by. Let me know if you are a bullet journal user; I’d love to hear what you use it for.
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Rosa
Posted: February 5, 2021 Filed under: Leaves, Penny Black, rosa | Tags: distress markers, Penny Black creative dies, Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress inks 8 Comments
This is ‘Rosa’ a new floral stamp from Penny Black. When I have a new brushstroke stamp I usually reach for the distress inks for the first test drive. That’s what I used for both cards in today’s post and I love the watercolour effects I was able to get.
The ‘rosa’ stamp is made up of round flowers and long leaves in an impressionistic style. For this orange and blue card I kept the stamp in the positioner while I worked on the hot pressed watercolour panel stamping the flowers first in fossilized amber and spiced marmalade, the leaves in faded jeans and forest moss and the flower centres in ground espresso.
Because I was experimenting with the new stamp I didn’t plan or paint a background for the panel. Once the flowers were finished I decided I wanted some colour around them. Rather than paint some pale washy colour I smooshed the faded jeans and forest moss mini distress cubes on a piece of acetate, spritzed it generously then pressed it onto the panel here and there to transfer ink around the flowers. I finished the card with some twine, blue leaf die cuts and a sentiment also stamped in blue. If you’re wondering why I chose to have blue leaves it’s not just because I love blue. Blue and orange are complementary colours, opposites on the colour wheel so when they are placed next to each other they provide a contrast that makes the other colour pop!
The second card features generational stamping stamping and plenty of spritzing to make the paler background flowers bleed into the surrounding area.
The flowers are stamped in abandoned coral and aged mahogany, the leaves are forest moss and the stems ground espresso. Because I added plenty of water when stamping this panel most of the definition in the flowers was lost so I drew some swirls on the flowers with a glue pen, let it dry to a tacky state then pressed gold foil on top. I added more gold details with an embossed sentiment, a gold cord and gold embossed edges round the panel.
Rosa is such a pretty stamp, I’m looking forward to playing with it again. I think it might make a pretty art journal page.
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Moving Alcohol Inks with Air – Video
Posted: February 3, 2021 Filed under: Alcohol Ink, Brutus Monroe, CAS, Dies, grafix, light as a feather, nesting squares, Penny Black, polar bears, Tutorial, Waffle Flower | Tags: grafix, grafix craft plastic, Penny Black creative dies, Penny Black stamps, pinata alcohol ink, Ranger Alcohol Ink, Tutorial, video 15 Comments
I’ve had the alcohol inks out recently and spent some time trying to get soft wavy patterns on craft plastic. I have seen several artists who do this technique beautifully but I am very much still a beginner with it. I have a few cards to share today along with a video showing my process for two of the panels. I worked on white craft plastic from Grafix which is heavyweight and totally opaque. For most of the panels featured today I used only two alcohol inks plus plenty of 99% rubbing alcohol; each panel was created with a metallic and a non-metallic ink.
This first panel was made with turquoise AI and gilded alloy AI; I love the range of blues when diluted with rubbing alcohol. The ‘for you’ Penny Black die cut is two layers of turquoise cardstock topped with one layer of pale gold.
This warm toned card was made with honeycomb AI and mined alloy AI then die cut with a WaffleFlower square nesting die. I used the WaffleFlower additional square dies to cut a larger copper square then added the PB ‘light as a feather’ die cut and a PB birthday sentiment embossed in Brutus Monroe penny embossing powder.
You can see the process for both cards above in the video below.
As I am working on alcohol ink panels I am evaluating my process and working out what I want to try next. I just bought a cheap lazy susan to work on the blown flowers and I’m pretty sure I don’t need to use as much coloured ink when I make the initial drops. You can be sure I will let you know what I discover.
I have a couple more cards made off camera using the same technique shown in the video. The card above features juniper AI and statue alloy AI with the PB ‘many thanks’ die cut from antique gold cardstock and stacked twice.
When this panel was finished it reminded me of photos of the artic and far north where the icebergs and glaciers are made up of beautiful shades of blue. It’s kind of a cross section perspective where we can see below and above the ice the bears are walking on. I did use two blue inks plus a silver for this one, ranger turquoise and stream with pinata silver. The bear die is ‘polar bears’ from Penny Black.
We’ve been watching Cecilia Blomdahl’s youtube channel about her life on Svalbard, an island off the north coast of Norway. She lives in the world’s northern most town. Polar bears are definitely around so you don’t wander outside the village without your weapon!
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Marbled hearts
Posted: February 2, 2021 Filed under: Alcohol Ink, All my hearts, Foiling, Penny Black | Tags: Foiling, Penny Black creative dies, Penny Black stamps, Ranger Alcohol Ink 7 Comments
These hearts were cut from another alcohol inked panel, this one done with only pitch black ink from Ranger. The ink was diluted with rubbing alcohol and moved around on the panel with air and tilting. I also added some bubbles or circles by splattering some rubbing alcohol over the pattern.
I didn’t add foil straight away after completing the panel instead I came back to it days later and ran the panel through the minc with some red foil over the top. The red foil stuck to some nice fine lines as you can see as well as some chunkier sections. What you can’t see is an area where a large blob of foil attached itself. I avoided that area when cutting six hearts using a small heart die from the Penny Black set ‘all my hearts’. I cut six hearts from red foam to pop the hearts up on the card base.
I tried several times to take a photo which would show the dry embossed background behind the popped up hearts but I didn’t succeed. It seems you’re not going to see the shine of the foil and the dimension of the background in one photo. If you click on the photo above you might be able to see the texture a bit better. I used the embossing folder that came with the Gemini Junior, it’s called ‘Regency Swirls’ and it is one of those very detailed 3D folders. I am wanting to add to my embossing folder collection, I’d love to hear your suggestions for some subtle ones and some really fancy ones.
I completed the card with a sentiment from Penny Black’s ‘trust me’ set stamped in red ink and popped up on a narrow banner. Thanks for dropping in today; I will be back tomorrow with an alcohol ink tutorial video.
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Winter Wonder art journal page
Posted: February 1, 2021 Filed under: A blizzard, Art Journal, Brusho, Classes, Dies, fir tree, Heather lowercase die set, online class, Penny Black, Pink Fresh studio, Skis 'n' sled, Snow time, winter trees, winter wardrobe | Tags: Brusho, online class, Penny Black creative dies, Pink Fresh studio 6 Comments
After my son and I finished filming the stop animation intro for my Winter Wonder online class I didn’t know what to do with the painted background and all the die cuts we’d used. They lay on a tray still in their snowy formation for a few months gathering dust until I realised I could keep the scene if I transferred it to my art journal.
The initial spread was bigger than art journal page so I cut down the watercoloured background panel, cut new snowdrifts out of lighter weight cardstock and added ink blending to help them stand out. I saved the trees, sled, skis, mitts, snowflakes and bird all cut using the Penny Black dies listed below and glued them on. Yes the gluing almost finished me but I persevered and even glued the outline letters from Pink Fresh studio. I found that I do have a glue pen that works if you are patient and take note that enough glue if coming out.
If you haven’t scene the stop motion animation it is part of the promo for my WINTER WONDER class which teaches my methods for making cards with a northern winter theme. I’ll include the promo below just for fun and in case you’re new around here.
The scene shown in the journal page is mirrored outside right now; we have plenty of snow, we’ve been skiing and enjoying winter wonder all around us. Back in October-November when we filmed the class there was little to no snow!
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