New Black Craft Plastic

Introductions are necessary, I have a new crafting surface to share with you. Opaque black craft plastic has just been released by Grafix and I found it to be a perfect base for pearlescent paint. It was tricky to photograph but I think you can see the shimmer in the both the paint and the gold card base. Here is a video of my process.

https://youtu.be/wRVw7sCX7l8

The craft plastic also comes in white which I’ve used successfully with alcohol inks. I can’t wait to try the new Ranger Alloy inks on the black.

Grafix gave me the opportunity to try the black craft plastic and I had fun with the alcohol inks and paint markers as well as the pearlescent paints shown here. I’ll be sharing more projects in the future and I will be asking my favourite stores if they can carry this new product.

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All about you

Posted: June 17, 2020 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Penny Black, springtime sigh | Tags: Fabriano Watercolour Paper, Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress inks, sennelier watercolours | 9 Comments

More than once I have created cards that inspire me to make art journal pages. This time it was the other way around; I created an art journal page that inspired this card. Perhaps I should be showing you the journal page first but it contains as yet unreleased stamps so I have to keep it under wraps for a little while longer. (just in case you hadn’t seen them yet, Jill has been sharing some sneak peeks of new PB products over on the PB blog). The panel is stamped on cold pressed watercolour paper. I kept it in the stamp positioner so I could add some detail once all the paint was completed.

I stamped PB ‘Springtime Sigh’ in antique linen distress ink then painted the flowers with Sennelier watercolour paints. To keep the panel cohesive I used the same red and blue paints to create a variety of reds and burgandies for the four large flowers. The blue showed up in the purple flowers and the green stems. Once all the painting was finished I partially stamped the rose with ‘aged mahogany’ distress ink and added little details to the other flowers with a chipped sapphire distress marker and a black soot marker.

The combination of antique linen outline and faded burgandy petals gave the painted flowers a vintage look so I filled the rest of the panel with the same image stamped in antique linen, then chose crimson red versafine to stamp the sentiment from PB ‘special sentiments’.

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Birthday tulips

Posted: June 15, 2020 | Author: Heather | Filed under: blooming bunch, Penny Black | Tags: Kuretake Zig clean color real brush markers, Penny Black stamps, Waffle Flower dies | 6 Comments

Are all your tulips gone? None of mine flowered this year, not even the faithful two that predated our move into this house! I have planted quite a few over the years but I believe they became squirrel lunches. These ones are coloured with zig clean colour real brush pens. I chose an orange and a yellow then coloured some in just orange, one just yellow and a few with a mix of the two pens. The whole image was first stamped in antique linen distress ink which is so good for no-line colouring.

Once again I really enjoyed painting the bucket to give it an aged look with a mix of grey and brown pens. I drew the black centres in after colouring.

To frame the tulips I used two dies, a smaller one from the Waffle Flower A2 layer dies to cut the stamped panel and the other from Waffle Flower additional A2 layers to cut a very narrow green ⅛” mat.

The sentiment is from PB ‘birthday humor’ set but I stamped only part of the phrase and cut it with a die from the PB ‘pocket full’ die set.

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Golden wildflowers

Posted: June 12, 2020 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Wendy Vecchi, wildflowers | Tags: Penny Black stamps | 9 Comments

This card is a combination of things I have been meaning to try but hadn’t got around to yet. The sentiment featured on today’s card has popped up on a few projects already; I like the size and clean font. Each time I’ve used it I have thought, ‘I must use the flower stamp some time’. Today’s the day. The set is from Penny Black and it’s called ‘wildflowers’; it’s a mini set made up of one floral stamp and one sentiment, both featured on this card.

The other products that have been waiting patiently on my work table are the bright happy inks on this card. Rachel from Darkroom Door kindly sent me these Wendy Vecchi’s ‘Make Art Blendable Dye inks’ to try out. That’s quite the title isn’t it? I am happy to say they blended well on the cold pressed watercolour panel in the centre and stamped beautifully on the card base. They beaded a bit on contact but soaked into the paper to make a smooth complete outline. I stamped the painted panel in sunflower and green fern then smooshed both inks on my glass mat along with ‘poppy’ for painting all the flowers and stems. You can’t tell from my card but the floral stamp is made up of a group of flowers on stems all pointing upwards. I stamped my panel on both ends so the flowers are actually coming in from the corners. Once I had painted all the petals and stems I put the panel back in my MISTI and stamped the centres in black soot distress ink.

I matted the panel in green cardstock added the sentiment on the same green then decided to create my own patterned card base by stamping the floral stamp twice on the bottom and twice at the top.

Hope you have a sunshiny weekend! Thanks for dropping by.

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Birthday birdhouses

Posted: June 8, 2020 | Author: Heather | Filed under: A2 layers, Additional A2 layers, Good neighbours, Penny Black, Triple Banner, Waffle Flower | Tags: Fabriano Watercolour Paper, Penny Black creative dies, Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress inks, Waffle Flower dies | 7 Comments

I hope your garden is full of birds and blooms right now, mine is getting there slowly. If you are having a birthday during this season, it’s possibly a little different to past celebrations. My birthday is in the dead of winter but I do remember fondly when it was in the height of summer when birds, blooms and strawberries were in abundance!

To create this bright happy card I did some no line watercolour with distress inks. I stamped the PB ‘good neighbors’ outline stamp in antique linen then did all the painting with distress inks smooshed on my glass mat. For fine lines and tiny spaces I used distress markers.

I used cold pressed watercolour paper for this one; I switch back and forth between hot pressed and cold pressed, often choosing hot pressed for the ease of stamping detailed stamps. Once I was finished I decided to pop up the panel on a piece of foam but first I cut the panel with the new love of my card making life, Waffle Flowers ‘additional A2 layers’ dies. I love both their A2 layers dies and additional layers dies the same, no favouritism, in fact the reason I love them is because there are two sets making it possible to mat panels with a ⅛” border. I’m not demonstrating that feature on this card but I will be on future projects. I also love the fact that my rectangle is even and perfect first go. My cutter still does a great job just not sure if my steady hand and eye do the stellar job they once did.

I finished off the card by cutting two banners with one of Penny Black’s triple banner dies, two so it was raised up just a bit, not as much as foam tape would raise it. I stamped a sentiment from banner sentiments on the banner but if you know this set you might realise the stamp doesn’t actually curve that way; let me tell you it does when you snip it in two and arrange it on the door of your misti.

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Disappearing lilacs

Posted: June 3, 2020 | Author: Heather | Filed under: lilacs, Penny Black | Tags: Fabriano Watercolour Paper, Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress inks, Tsukineko Versafine inks | 9 Comments

I keep returning to these lovely stamps because they handle watercolour effects so well. My other examples are more defined than this one but I like both techniques. I worked on cold pressed watercolour paper for this one and started by wetting the panel so I could stamp a pale washy background. I used only three distress inks, shaded lilac, blueprint sketch and mowed lawn. I inked the stamp with mostly shaded lilac and mowed lawn, spritzed it with water then stamped on the wet panel. The result is the pale disappearing images you see in the background.

I dried the panel before doing another impression with the lilac stamp, this time I added a few drops of water onto the panel and a spritz of water to the stamp. The ink blended on the stamp and pooled a little on the panel. My last impression was the more defined print on the right hand side. For this one the panel was dry but the stamp still got a spritz of water to move the ink.

I chose an area of stamping with very little definition as the spot for my sentiment stamped in versafine imperial purple.

Are your lilacs blooming? Mine are along with the first iris and some lupins so the blues and pinks are currently well represented in my garden. Yay!

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Oh Baby

Posted: May 27, 2020 | Author: Heather | Filed under: balloons!, City Stacks dies, Concord & 9th, Papertrey Inks, Penny Black, sennelier watercolours, simple serif alphabet dies | Tags: Concord & 9th, Papertrey ink, Penny Black creative dies, sennelier watercolours | 8 Comments

I’m not sure if I have ever posted a baby card on my blog; if I have it was so long ago I can’t remember! This one is a commission for a friend; she asked me months ago and I totally forgot. When she texted the other day to see if it was ready I admitted it was not but I would make sure it was by the next day! I was happy to have thought up a concept all those months ago and my idea came together without hiccoughs.

I painted pink, yellow and orange paint on watercolour paper, added water then let it blend and bleed together. Once it was dry I used the Penny Black ‘Balloons!’ die set to cut three balloons then cut the strings and bows from unpainted watercolour paper. I added stick-it adhesive to the back of some peach coloured cardstock then cut two sets of letters to stack for the words using the C&9 ‘simple serif alphabet’ dies.

To create the cloudy sky I cut post-it masks using the cloud die from C&9 ‘city stacks’ die set then blended over the edges on a background panel and an envelope using Papertrey ink cubes in ‘sweet blush’ and ‘lovely lady’. I cut a very narrow mat of pale rose cardstock to frame the panel and attached everything to a cream card base.

I wondered about cutting more balloons to put inside but instead painted some of the same pink, yellow and orange paint on my glass mat, spritzed it generously to dilute it then placed an extra panel of watercolour paper on top to pick up a pale wishy-washy print.

Seeing that I rarely make baby cards this might become my design of choice when I do need one; I’ll just change the colour scheme to keep things interesting.

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Hand painted floral square

Posted: May 25, 2020 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Hand painted, Penny Black | Tags: Hand painted, Penny Black stamps, sennelier watercolours | 13 Comments

I’ve been doing a bit more watercolour painting. When I started this one I didn’t intend to make all the elements so teeny tiny; it took a while to fill the square. I started by taping a square frame on a folded piece of cold pressed watercolour paper to make a one layer card.

I used my Sennelier watercolour paints and as you can imagine a fairly small round watercolour brush to fill the square with flowers and foliage. I kept the colour palette limited and added a few shimmer highlights at the end with some coliro pearlescent paint.

Peeling the tape off the paper to reveal a clean straight edge was very satisfying then I finished it off with a PB sentiment stamped on a co-ordinating green cardstock.

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Alluring Cut Up

Posted: May 22, 2020 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Alluring, Penny Black | Tags: Fabriano Watercolour Paper, Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress inks | 10 Comments

This watercoloured panel stamped with the PB ‘alluring’ stamp has been sitting around for a long time. I’ve been trying to come up with a slightly different way to turn it into a card. I create a great many cards with one large stamped and painted panel and little else so I wanted to mix things up a little with this one. I finally decided to slice up the panel then pop it up on foam backing.

I stamped the original panel on cold pressed watercolour paper and used one of my favourite watercolour techniques. Instead of stamping in a pale water soluble ink then painting with ink or watercolour paint I ink the different parts of the scene with different inkpads or markers, spritz the ink with water then stamp. With some extra ink handy on my glass mat I use a paint brush to blend the stamped ink into the petals, leaves and other shapes adding extra ink where needed.

When slicing it up I took care to divide it unevenly while making sure some elements carried across to adjacent sections. That way the eye moves across the panel and doesn’t come to halt in the middle. I’ve listed the inks I used below, all distress inks in either ink cube or marker form. Oh and by the way have you seen the new distress colour? ‘Speckled Egg’ looks like it might be a blue green or even better a grey blue; I wonder how it compares with tumbled glass and broken china. Regardless, it’s part of the blue family so yes, I will be getting it in a few different forms. How about you?

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Planting time

Posted: May 19, 2020 | Author: Heather | Filed under: a garden, bench, buckets of flowers, hanging planters, Papertrey Inks, Penny Black | Tags: Papertrey ink, Penny Black creative dies, Penny Black stamps | 2 Comments

We’ve had all kinds of weather around here lately as we wait for the May long weekend before which outdoor planting is considered very risky! My daughter has been starting seeds inside so we have quite a few little plants ready for the great outdoors as well as an order of seedlings to come.

These plants are looking pretty healthy, probably because they are not relying on me remembering to water them! I used papertrey ink cubes to colour left over pieces of hot pressed watercolour paper. I swiped the ink cubes across the paper in colour groups, they are juicy little inkpads so they work well direct to paper. I did a panel of two browns, also some greens, another with purples and one with orange, yellow, green. After inking the paper I spritzed water onto it until the ink moved and blended a bit, covering more of the panel and making some light and dark areas.

Once all the panels dried I used several die sets from Penny Black featuring little plants, pots and tools (they’re all linked below). I also cut out the cute little bench die to be part of my scene. I could have cut all the elements from coloured cardstock but I love the variation of colour and depth achieved with watercolour.

I created two backdrops on hot pressed watercolour paper by swiping the spring rain ink cube back and forth to create a solid blue patch. Over the blue I arranged and rearranged my tiny die cuts until I had two little scenes. I used a jewel picker and liquid glue to attach all the elements, making a few errors in the process resulting in some more painting and die-cutting to make replacement pieces. Once everything was attached I hunted through my cardstock to find a matching blue for card bases and added a couple of sentiments from PB ‘banner sentiments’ set.

As I write this the long weekend is drawing to a close and I can report some planting has been done. A couple of readers shared on my last post their planting plans and routines; I’d love to know more plus any clues for keeping the critters away!