Wintertide Blue

Posted: December 30, 2021 | Author: | Filed under: Penny Black, wintertide | Tags: , , , | 10 Comments

This beautiful ‘wintertide’ stamp from Penny Black is a scene in itself and the first time I stamped with it I didn’t add to it at all. This time I painted extra trees in the background for a bit more depth and atmosphere.

I began by punching a little circle mask from masking tape and placing it on the hot pressed watercolour panel. I wet the panel then painted a mix of dark blues and grey paint over some areas, leaving a few white patches. While the paint was wet I painted trees in the background which ended up with soft edges because I was working wet into wet. I sprinkled salt over the sky area and let the paint dry.

Once the paint dried I removed the salt and used a stamp positioner to stamp the ‘wintertide’ image in black soot and faded jeans ink. The little trees to the right of the feature tree were too small in comparison to the painted background trees so I painted taller trees over the top. I did a little blending of ink here and there but the stamp is so detailed with its branches and white space I tried not to fiddle with it too much. This will be the last post for 2021, I look forward to sharing projects, ideas and conversation with you here on the blog in 2022. Happy New Year!

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Woodsy Winter

Posted: December 28, 2021 | Author: | Filed under: Penny Black, woodsy | Tags: , , | 9 Comments

A winter scene for a winter birthday. Makes perfect sense especially when the recipient loves nature and spends as much time as possible enjoying the outdoors.

This card was a commission and I did plan it in my head before I began. I ended up making it twice, not because it didn’t work but because I smudged the black ink (final stamping step) before it dried! I started by blending the sky in evergreen bough and speckled egg distress ink then stamped background trees in speckled egg ink. There are three trees in the Woodsy set from Penny Black so I repeated them to fill the top of the panel then changed to iced spruce to stamp another line of trees further down and hickory smoke to stamp another line. Each colour was darker than the previous and the trees more prominent and forward in the design. Once all but the black trees were stamped I painted all their trunks just by blending the stamped ink. I used the same inks to paint shadowy dips at the base of the trees then when that was dry stamped the final foreground trees in black soot ink.

To finish I splattered white paint over the scene. The origin of this card goes way back to a card I made in 2012 using the famous Stampin Up set ‘lovely as a tree’.

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Vintage Candlelight

Posted: December 21, 2021 | Author: | Filed under: candlelight, Footnotes, Karin brushmarkers, Penny Black | Tags: , , , | 5 Comments

It has been a while since I created a vintage style card but the pretty ‘candlelight’ stamp from Penny Black has worked well for this technique. I embossed the image on hot pressed watercolour paper in gold powder then used Karin brush markers to paint the candles and foliage before switching to distress inks for the background.

It probably wont surprise you that I used a limited palette for the colouring. I used a mix of red-209 and magenta red-170 to paint the candles, a mix of rosewood-272 and magenta red for the candle sticks, a mix of rosewood and lush green-228 for the leaves and straight red for the berries.

As usual I had not planned my background before I started but the colours on the candlesticks already looked vintage so I blended antique linen around the edges of the panel first then blended right up to the stamping. I stamped the music stamp from the PB set ‘footnotes’ in vintage photo then added more blending and splatter with the same ink. The stamp is tall so the card is A6 (4½” x 6¼”).

As the days are so short right now I am enjoying lighting candles and sometimes the fire. Hope things are cosy where you are.

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Brilliance and Joy

Posted: December 17, 2021 | Author: | Filed under: berries, Dies, jumbo joy, Penny Black, Taylored Expressions | Tags: , , , | 3 Comments

Today’s cards are similar to a recent collection I posted stamped with the delicate pines stamp. I created eight cards this time and repeated some designs because I’m getting down to the wire with these last cards.

I stamped the ‘brilliance’ foliage stamp on a large 11″x14″ cold press watercolour panel in rustic wilderness and peeled paint inks. I blended the leaves with water and with a gold wink of stella pen so some have some shine.

I played around with a few options for colouring the berries but ended up leaving them green. Red paint pen was not bad but not better and vanilla sparkle embossing powder didn’t work either, so green and natural they stayed. I used a few dies from Penny Black and a sentiment strip from Taylored Expressions and eight more cards were completed. Some were sent straight away and didn’t even make it to the photo shoot!

I have received some lovely cards this week from across the city, country and world. Thank you so much for brightening my day and inspiring my creativity.

By the way, we have added another Art Journal Adventure workshop at Crop A While on Saturday January 22. Click here for more information

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Rustic Wreath

Posted: December 15, 2021 | Author: | Filed under: blustery, Darkroom Door, Dies, Nature's Song, Penny Black, Taylored Expressions, Woodgrain | Tags: , , | 2 Comments

When I am designing classes, both online and in-person it can take many days and many samples before I settle on a collection of projects. This card is one that did not end up in a class but I love the rustic textured look of it.

I used two circle dies to cut a kraft ring as the base of my wreath. I stamped the background with the Darkroom Door ‘woodgrain’ stamp and a few brown inks. To create the holly leaves and berries I painted a few strips of watercolour paper with greens and also a strip of red then hand cut the leaves and punched out the berries. To fill out the wreath I used some Penny Black die cut twigs and berries in brown and gold.

The sentiment is from Taylored Expressions; I used the very handy stamp and die sentiment strips combo. My daughter joined me on Monday afternoon and we had fun decking the tree and living area. I now have a decorated wreath hanging over my fire place and greenery hanging either side of the front door.

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Christmas baubles

Posted: December 13, 2021 | Author: | Filed under: Alcohol Ink, bird ornament, Dies, manger, paint pouring, Penny Black, Taylored Expressions, weathered | Tags: , , , | 8 Comments

Here are a few more cards made from patterned panels I had sitting around. The panels were very pretty experiments using brusho, paint poring and alcohol inks but at the time I made them I didn’t have a plan for them. Last week they came into their own when paired with Penny Black dies and a few of my favourite embossing folders.

The background above is from an acrylic paint pouring day I had with a friend. The result looked like peacock feathers but works well as a northern night sky too.

The purple panels above and below right were brusho & cling wrap on photo paper another technique taught to me by a friend.

The blue background below is alcohol ink; you probably recognise the patterns made possible with just one or two colours plus some isopropyl alcohol.

The dies are listed below and the embossing folders are a mix of currrent and retired. Above is ‘weathered’ from Taylored Expressions. The tiny squares folder is a retired Spellbinders one (SEL 006), the woodgrain is Tim Holtz/Sizzix also retired but there are plenty of new options around. The Tim Holtz/Sizzix Snowfall fade folder at the top of the page is still available and I often reach for it.

I enjoyed using some scraps and samples that were too pretty to throw away to make simple but unique Christmas cards. I think I almost have enough for this year so I will start next year’s stack early!

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Nestled in Winter

Posted: December 10, 2021 | Author: | Filed under: A blizzard, Art Journal, Classes, Dies, nestled, Penny Black, pine branch | Tags: , , | 14 Comments

Although I see the beautiful contrast of foliage and snow outside I am not seeing many birds on the feeder right now. Instead I have placed a very cute robin in amongst the wintery Christmas foliage of an art journal page.

This isn’t just any art journal page; this spread is in a new journal I have been using for the last few months as I schemed and dreamed up a new in-person class for 2022. It isn’t just a class it’s an Art Journal Adventure.

To create this double page spread in the Dina Wakley 6″x6″ mixed media journal I used acrylic paints, distress spray and some ‘easy to find around the home’ texture tools. All the die cuts are from Penny Black and are listed below.

To keep things within an acceptable level of fiddliness I die cut all the foliage from coloured cardstock and painted only the the little bird.

I know this is an in-person (in Ottawa) class which excludes quite a few of you but if you are interested in seeing something like this in an online version please let me know in the comments.

If you have hints for attracting birds in winter please let me know. I imagine it has a bit to do with being consistent in keeping the feeder stocked before winter and maybe something to do with keeping the chipmunks and squirrels off it too!

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Trees on Alcohol Ink backgrounds

Posted: December 8, 2021 | Author: | Filed under: Alcohol Ink, beneath the birches, conifer, Dies, modern xmas tree, Penny Black | Tags: , , | 4 Comments

Today’s additions to the Christmas card stack are on alcohol ink backgrounds. If you have been visiting my blog for a while you will have seen the backgrounds before. I posted the panels back in June and asked you all for your thoughts on how to use them. Some of you suggested adding a quote or verse, others thought they would be good as backgrounds for cards. I liked both ideas but have chosen to cut up two of the panels for cards.

The backgrounds on the three cards above are all from one panel; I popped them up on the card base and added trees. As there was gilded alloy alcohol ink on the original design I cut the centre of the modern trees from gold shimmer cardstock.

The backgrounds on the two cards below are cut from another panel. You can see where they joined up originally.

All the die-cut elements are neenah solar white cardstock (and the shimmer gold) and the card bases are also neenah solar white. This is as close to mass production as I get, same basic design but some variety within the backgrounds and added elements.

I thought about adding sentiments, just little ones below the panels but decided I liked them plain and simple. I’ll add a sentiment inside and hopefully they’ll be written and posted this week!

There are a few more alcohol ink pieces plus some paint pour scraps that have become backgrounds for die-cuts. They are still in process on my work table so you’ll see them soon.

Have a great day!

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2021 BuJo – December theme

Posted: December 2, 2021 | Author: | Filed under: brilliance, Bullet Journal, delicate pines, Dingbat notebooks, Hand lettered, Penny Black, Taylored Expressions | Tags: , , , , , | 3 Comments

I didn’t have a lot of time to spend setting up my December pages; I can’t even believe it is December honestly. It’s a busy week but I had a snowflake idea for the theme and a bit of a plan which you can see did not happen at all. But that is ok because I can save my snowflake plan for January or February or March or Ap…….

After creating the large panel for my recent stack of PB ‘delicate pines’ Christmas cards the stamp set was still on my table along with its buddy the PB ‘brilliance’ stamp set. I decided to use them together for some festive foliage. I used a mix of distress greens and blue along with a red marker for the berries and a white gel pen for the frost.

I reused a frisket film mask which I saved after creating October’s title page and stamped foliage from both PB ‘brilliance’ and ‘delicate pines’ sets. I blended over the stamping with prize ribbon distress ink then dotted white around the circle and on top of the red berries.

The to-do page and the calendar page have simple foliage stamping and some lettering with Pentel Flair pens.

I have used masking in quite a few of my pages this year; I might need to come up with a new favourite technique for next year. I hope your December is off to a good start. Because I can’t believe it is December I have a discount code for the Floral Faves class, Winter Wonder class and the Colour Clues class. If you use HTDEC you will get 20% off. If you are interested in giving an online class as a gift please get in touch so I can help you make it happen.

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Delicate Pines – 9 Ways!

Posted: November 29, 2021 | Author: | Filed under: delicate pines, Dies, gift card pocket, joyful ornaments, jubilation, juniper, onramental branch, Penny Black, tall trees, Taylored Expressions, trees and hills | Tags: , , , , | 8 Comments

Welcome to a long post with quite a few photos!

When I last counted up the names on my Christmas card list and the number of cards I have completed the two numbers were not close to matching. I decided a quick way to grow the stack of cards would be to stamp a big panel then slice it up to make several cards.

Turns out this idea was not all that quick. It took a while to make these cards because although they are from the same stamped panel, they are still all different. The photo above shows the original panel stamped with Penny Black’s new ‘delicate pines’ set of 3 stamps and two Catherine Pooler inks. After the stamping I added ink splatter then gold paint splatter.

I kept the deckle edge on the 11″x14″ cold pressed watercolour panel and sliced up the panel lengthwise first. A,B & C are all 4¼” wide, D,E & F are all 4″ wide which left G,H & I all 2¾” wide. Below are all the finished cards. I used some pale gold, Bazzill avocado green and kraft cardstocks for the die cuts and framing. I used versafine clair rainforest ink to add sentiments and some linen twine here and there. All the cards are shown below with the size of the stamped panel portion included underneath (all the finished cards are 4¼”x 5½”)

A. 4¼ x 4½

B. 4¼ x 5½

C. 4¼ x 4⅛

D. 4 x 5¼

E. 4 x 5¼

F. 4 x 3½

G. 2¾ x 4¼

H. 2¾ x 4¼

I. 2¾ x 5½

The finished cards above are in the places that correspond to the labelled photo up at the beginning of the post. I had them laid out on a cutting mat on the floor beside me as I put them all together so I didn’t get them mixed up. I wanted you to see how I used each size in a different way.

I hope you find some inspiration from these cards. Remember that three of my online classes are on sale until the end of November. Use the code HTNOV to get a 25% discount on the Floral Faves class, Winter Wonder class and the Colour Clues class.

The stores I have affiliate links with are also having sales right now (isn’t everyone?) I have put the links in the right hand side bar of the blog for easy access. Just click on the store name and start shopping!

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