Farewell to summer: Beach
Posted: September 24, 2015 Filed under: A Pocket Full, Hand drawn, So Lucky | Tags: Penny Black creative dies, Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress stains 7 Comments
This hand-painted card depicts one of my favourite summer activities, sadly one that I rarely get to enjoy these days. Growing up we had a beach holiday every summer. I don’t live anywhere near the beach now but I did enjoy a couple of trips to the lake during July and August. One trip was to Sandbanks on Lake Ontario. The lake is so huge that it looks like an ocean beach but the water just doesn’t taste right! Apparently the wind does whip up waves most days but when we were there it was flat, flat, flat.
The card above is based on my memories of Australian beaches. We would walk over a little or large dune and reach the beach, usually a surf beach, and check out how good the waves were going to be that day. I painted with distress stains over some masking fluid ‘white caps’ and added some grass with a stamp from the ‘so lucky’ transparent set.
This is the last in my Farewell to summer mini series, it will be pretty much autumn and winter themed cards for a while now!
Supplies:
Stamps: So Lucky, Special Wishes (PB)
Creative Dies: A pocketfull (PB)
Inks: chipped sapphire, salty ocean, tumbled glass, broken china, pine needles, scattered straw, mustard seed, vintage photo distress stains, peeled paint, crushed olive distress inks (Ranger)
Cardstock: Fabriano 100% cotton hot pressed watercolour paper, Neenah avon brilliant white, green cardstock
Holly Tweet tag
Posted: September 22, 2015 Filed under: Holly Tweet, Tagged 6 Comments
I usually whip up a few Christmas tags at the eleventh hour, simple, quick and nothing like this one. I began with a piece of watercolour paper splattered with masking fluid. The panel was larger than the tag size to give me options when choosing which part of the stamped image to use. I inked the ‘holly tweet’ stamp with with markers and stamped it twice so I would have extra leaves available to cut out. I used a waterbrush to blend the colour then let it dry before painting blueprint sketch distress stain around the stamped images. Once dry I removed the masking fluid and die cut it with the large tag die from the ‘Tagged’ set. I stamped a sentiment from ‘Believe’ in black then played around with my extra leaves. I know it probably doesn’t count as fussy cutting but snipping around the holly leaves felt like it to me! I popped some red and white twine behind the extra leaves and attach it all to the tag. To finish it off I threaded two pieces of lace through the top and tied a twine bow to hold it in place.
It’s all about tags on the PB blog this week so drop by there each day to see what the other DT members dreamed up.
Supplies:
Stamps: Holly Tweet, Believe (PB)
Creative Dies: Tagged (PB)
Inks: Memento teal zeal, cottage ivy, lady bug, rhubarb stalk markers, versafine onyx black (Tsukineko) black soot, stormy sky distress markers, blueprint sketch distress stain(Ranger)
Cardstock: Canson hot pressed watercolour paper
Also: Winsor & Newton masking fluid, red & white twine from Twinery, May arts lace,
Farewell to summer: Fuchsias
Posted: September 16, 2015 Filed under: Fuchsia | Tags: Kuretake Gansai Tambi watercolour paints, Penny Black creative dies 16 Comments
This one is a stamp-less card! I created a stencil for myself by cutting the fuchsia die from a piece of plastic then painting through it. I wasn’t able to achieve sharp edges or details but I wasn’t really after that look. Before using the stencil I wet the whole panel with water and painted blue and green paints around the edges. The middle wasn’t totally white but it was paler so my pinks would not end up changing too much. I used kuretake gansai tambi paints which are highly pigmented so it is easy to get some really strong colour. I did add a bit of definition to the petals after removing the stencil. I also painted some very very pale fuchsias through the stencil and added a little splatter. Before fuchsias fully open the lower petals form a little balloon which just screams out to be popped. Did anyone else pop them when they were a child?
Supplies:
Creative Dies: Fuchsia (PB)
Paint: Kuretake Gansai Tambi
Cardstock: Fabriano 100% cotton hot pressed watercolour paper, Neenah solar white cardstock, PB clear skies paper
Also: Winsor & Newton masking fluid
Poppies with love
Posted: September 14, 2015 Filed under: Efflorescence, Flourish, No Card Left Behind | Tags: Fabriano Watercolour Paper, Penny Black creative dies, Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress stains, Tsukineko Memento inks 16 Comments
I have another card featuring one of my favourite techniques, ‘watercolouring with distress stains‘. I worked on a panel of watercolour paper taped to a board and splattered with masking fluid. The stamp is an outline stamp which I inked with festive berries and ripe persimmon stain on the petals and peeled paint on the stems. I painted colour into the petals straight away so the outlines would blend with the colour in the whole petal. I drew a bud and a few leaves with a marker to fill the space more evenly. Once the flowers were almost dry I painted the background with desert sand ink and added some text also. I added black to the flower centres with a marker and blended with water to soften the edges a little.
When I removed the tape and the masking fluid I wasn’t entirely happy with the finished panel. Instead of trying to alter any part of the watercolouring I decided to add another element, the die cut flourish over the top. I tied the flourish in with a swirly sentiment and attached all the elements to a natural card base.
Supplies:
Stamps: Efflorescence, Footnotes (PB)
Creative Dies: Flourish, For You (PB)
Inks: Festive Berries, Ripe Persimmon, Peeled Paint Distress stains, Desert sand ink, Tuxedo Black, Northern Pine memento markers (Tsukineko)
Paper: Fabriano 100% cotton hot pressed watercolour paper, Neenah natural white cardstock
Also: Winsor & Newton masking fluid
Rose of roses
Posted: September 12, 2015 Filed under: Rose | Tags: Penny Black creative dies 6 Comments
I have something a little different to share today. I am currently prepping for classes I will be teaching this week using some gorgeous Italian papers. Our local scrapbooking store brought them in and I was so taken with them I designed a class around them. The card shown here is not part of the class lineup but does show off one of the papers. The papers all have a cream base colour which matches perfectly with Neenah natural white cardstock. I took a panel of patterned paper and die cut the rose from it, then inlaid a natural white cardstock rose in its place. I attached the patterned rose inside the card. I double matted with the natural white plus a green textured cardstock. I don’t often fiddle around with patterned papers but I am really enjoying pairing these papers with Penny Black dies. The papers have a bit of a vintage feel and come in all sorts of designs and themes.
Supplies:
Creative Dies: Rose, (PB)
Paper: Neenah natural white 110lb cardstock, green textured cardstock, Grafiche Tassotti paper
La Fleur Rouge
Posted: August 27, 2015 Filed under: La Fleur Rouge, World of Wishes | Tags: Penny Black creative dies, Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress stains 5 Comments
Penny Black seems to come out with at least one pretty new poinsettia stamp every year and this year’s, featured above, is called ‘La Fleur Rouge’. The stamp has three flower heads on it and I have stamped it three times on the panel. You can see from the white speckled effect that I started with masking fluid splattered on my watercolour paper. I stamped with distress stain three times but rather than re-inking the stamp I just spritzed with water between stampings. The result is lighter images the second and third times. I also spritzed the panel to get some of the stain to bleed into the surrounding area and painted pale green between some of the flowers. When all was dry I added some green splatter. To finish the card I matted with red to match the red die cut sentiment. To see how Jill Foster used this stamp check out the PB blog
Thanks for dropping by; I hope you’re having a great day.
Supplies:
Stamps: La Fleur Rouge (PB)
Creative Die: World of Wishes (PB)
Inks: Forest Moss, Festive Berries, Mustard Seed, Barn Door, Peeled Paint distress stains/markers(Ranger)
Cardstock: Fabriano 100% cotton hot pressed watercolour paper, red cardstock
Also: Winsor & Newton masking fluid
Gild the Lily
Posted: August 24, 2015 Filed under: Bister, Foiling, Sun fire | Tags: Bister, Canson watercolour paper, Minc, Penny Black creative dies 11 Comments
I have something new to share today. There has been something of a Midas situation happening in my craft room. I brought home a Heidi Swapp Minc machine last week and warned my family that anything not nailed down was about to be foiled! It turns out their possessions are safe for now as I am currently experimenting with different ways to use the machine to do the type of foiling I want to do. I will share more over the weeks to come but I will say for starters that the Minc does a beautiful job.
As you know I have recently dived into watercolour powders and all the experimentation with them has resulted in a surplus of watercolour panels just sitting around waiting to be made into things. I pulled out one of those abstract panels and foiled a gold lily onto it using the ‘sun fire’ die from Penny Black. I am still learning and making mistakes so I won’t go into the how-to for today’s card but as I nail down the techniques that work for me I will share them here.
Prepare yourself for a little more shimmer and shine around here!
Supplies:
Stamps: A Sweet Day (PB)
Creative Dies: Sun fire (PB)
Inks: Bister watercolour powders
Cardstock: Canson 100% cotton hotpressed watercolour paper
Also: gold foil
Poinsettia panel
Posted: August 19, 2015 Filed under: Bursts of Red, Footnotes, Sparkler 10 Comments
I played around with a poinsettia stamp from last year’s Christmas release to create these cards. My plan was not to create two cards. Well to be honest I didn’t really have a plan; I just taped down a piece of watercolour paper and started stamping. All the stamping was done with distress stains which enabled me to fill in all the petals by either pulling stain from the outline image or adding it where extra was needed. After the poinsettias were painted I drew the centre clusters with a marker as it had been blended over. I treated the panel more as patterned paper than a ‘picture’ by adding some music and snowflakes in blue then painting over them to spread colour into the surrounding area.
Because of my lack of planning the finished panel did not really work as a square or wide rectangle so I sliced it up and was able to make two cards. I had some gold foil cardstock scraps which worked for matting and sentiments but the little square piece needed more than the pop of gold. It is quite hard to see but if you click on the card below you might just make be able to make out the navy die cut poinsettias I arranged behind the patterned panel.
Pink, blue and gold is an unusual colour scheme for Christmas but I think it works. What colours are you reaching for when making this year’s Christmas cards?
Supplies:
Stamps: Sparkler, Footnotes, Hello Winter (PB)
Creative Dies: Good Tidings, Bursts of Red, Exultations(PB)
Inks: Aged Mahogany, Mustard Seed, Salty Ocean, Stormy Sky, Black Soot distress stains/markers(Ranger)
Cardstock: Fabriano 100% cotton hot pressed watercolour paper, Neenah Patriot blue, Gold foil cardstock
Also: Winsor & Newton masking fluid
A Very Merry
Posted: August 10, 2015 Filed under: A Very Merry | Tags: Fabriano Watercolour Paper, Penny Black creative dies, Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress stains 3 Comments
On the Penny Black blog for the remainder of August you can see one new product after another as the ‘Especially for You 2015’ release is revealed. This week is all about new dies and there are a whole stack of new word dies featured on the PB blog today. One of the new word dies happens to be ‘A Very Merry’ on my card above. The pine bough is a new stamp too but I can give you details about that another day. There is a giveaway to coincide with the new release too so pop over to the blog.
If you have visited here before you will know my watercoloured cards range from quite neat and controlled to rather free, watery and loose. This is one of those loose ones that almost didn’t make the cut. However there was something about it, just enough definition in a couple of pine needles and cones to keep me from tossing it. It is stamped and painted on watercolour paper splattered with masking fluid. Before I stamped any images I spritzed some water and some spots of distress stain over the panel. I painted some tumbled glass distress stain also to fill in parts of the background. I let it dry a little before inking the pinecone stamp with distress stains and stamping it three times. It was quite wet so I dropped some bister powder into the wet areas to give some extra depth of colour. When it was almost dry I stamped over the initial images to add more definition in a couple of places. To complete the card I attached the panel to a dark brown card base and die cut the sentiment out of the same colour.
Supplies:
Stamps: Brush Pines (PB)
Creative Die: A Very Merry(PB)
Inks: Pine Needles, Evergreen Bough, Vintage Photo, Tumbled glass, Black soot, Gathered twigs distress stains/markers/inkpads (Ranger)
Cardstock: Fabriano 100% cotton hot pressed watercolour paper & Brown card
Also: Blue and Green bistre powder, Winsor & Newton masking fluid.
Color burst poppies
Posted: July 30, 2015 Filed under: Color Burst, poppy pair | Tags: color burst, Fabriano Watercolour Paper, Penny Black creative dies, Penny Black stamps 7 Comments
This watercolour powder experiment displays on one card some of the different effects you can get with color burst powders. Depending on how much water you add you can get fine dots of colour or very watery blends of colour. I sprinkled the powder on a piece of watercolour paper and spritzed lightly at one end but more generously at the other. The fine dots must have got hardly any water, the little irregular shapes a bit more water then the purple and blue areas were fairly saturated. All the purples and shades of blue came from only pink and blue powders.
I die cut poppies from the watercoloured panel and some from foam as well then attached them all together with stick it adhesive.
Supplies:
Stamps: Snippets (Penny Black)
Creative dies: Poppy Pair (Penny Black)
Inks: Color burst watercolour powders(Ken Oliver), Salty ocean distress (Ranger)
Cardstock: Fabriano cold pressed watercolour paper
Also: Stick it adhesive sheet (Ken Oliver)
Heather Telford 