Graceful whisper
Posted: February 7, 2018 Filed under: graceful whisper | Tags: Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress stains, Tsukineko Memento inks 14 Comments
This branch has been waiting patiently for some ink so I went rather non-traditional and pulled out some purples to create this card. I splattered a few panels of hot pressed watercolour paper with masking fluid yesterday so I would have them on hand for future projects. The effect is subtle on this one but you can see little white dots in the sky and foliage if you look closely.
I used a couple of teardrop memento inks and a marker to ink the stamp. With the teardrops it is possible to apply ink somewhat strategically. I started with the lighter grape jelly ink and dabbed it here and there over the stamp. My panel was in my stamping platform so I was able to do grape jelly ink first, then add some dabs of the darker elderberry ink second. I went back and forth with the two inks and occasionally a spritz of water until I was happy with the image. I coloured the stems with a memento tuxedo black marker, stamped to complete the image then moved the panel to stamp a second branch the same way.
Once all the stamping dried I used mustard seed and salty ocean distress stain to paint the sky. I kept it fairly diluted and dabbed with a paper towel if I had too much water or stain. To finish it off I stamped the sentiment from the PB ‘sentiment collection’ set in versafine onyx black ink then matted the panel with black and attached it to a white card base.
Supplies
Stamps: graceful whisper, sentiment collection
Inks: grape jelly, elderberry, tuxedo black marker
Stains: salty ocean, mustard seed
Paper: hot pressed watercolour, neenah epic black, neenah solar white
Also: masking fluid
Roses all over
Posted: January 30, 2018 Filed under: Bister, My Favorite Things, Roses all over, Shades | Tags: Bister, My Favorite Things, Penny Black creative dies 15 Comments
I pulled out my bister powders the other day; they were kind of pushed to the back of the watercolour shelf. They turned out to be a perfect match for this ‘roses all over’ stamp from My Favorite Things. Bister (and brusho and colorburst) does wonderful things when sprinkled over embossing because the powder gets trapped inside the ‘walls’ of embossing and keeps colours and shades separate. If you are not familiar with bister, you can read about it here. The colours are earthier than brusho and colorburst which is nice for a change.
Believe it or not this panel is painted with just red bister; all that lovely variety is from one colour. I embossed the watercolour panel with platinum embossing powder then sprinkled the red bister over it and spritzed with water. I watched to see if sections were filling with colour before spritzing or sprinkling a second time. Once there was enough powder I used a paint brush in just a few places to blend or spread the colour. I did not have to do much with the brush because MAGIC.
I found a cardstock that co-ordinated to mat the panel and create a banner for the sentiment. The banner die is from the PB ‘shades’ set and the sentiment embossed in platinum is from the PB ‘banner sentiments’ set.
Thanks for dropping by.
Supplies
Stamps: roses all over (MFT), banner sentiments(PB)
Die: shades (PB)
Ink: versamark
Paint: bister powder red
Cardstock: hot pressed watercolour, neenah natural white, red cardstock
Also: platinum embossing powder
Circle of hearts
Posted: January 25, 2018 Filed under: hearts in circle | Tags: Brusho, Finetec artist mica watercolour paint, Penny Black creative dies 4 Comments
For today’s rather bold card I started, as I often do with a masking fluid splattered panel. I continued, as I often do by sprinkling brusho powder over the panel then spritzing with water to activate it. I do tend to be a ‘chap of one idea’ at times don’t I? (Can you place that quote from one of my favourite book series?) This time the brusho was rose red and terracotta. Once dry, I splattered gold finetec paint over the panel and let it dry. I removed the masking fluid, trimmed the panel to a square then painted the edges with gold paint.
That was the easy part; after that the fiddliness factor rose considerably. I attached adhesive sheet to the back of the panel and die cut ‘hearts in circle’ from the centre of the panel and from a red adhesive backed foam sheet. I carefully saved the little hearts in formation on a piece of ‘press n seal’. I peeled the backing off the watercolour panel and attached it to the card front. Next I pressed the die cut adhesive backed foam hearts into each space in the die cut panel. Finally I peeled the backing off the die cut watercolour hearts and attached them on top of foam hearts. This was a little like completing a jigsaw puzzle.
Supplies
In my heart
Posted: January 24, 2018 Filed under: Tree heart, Triple Banner | Tags: Kuretake Gansai Tambi watercolour paints, Penny Black creative dies, Penny Black stamps, WOW embossing powders 4 Comments
This stamp is called ‘tree-heart’ but I always think of it as a family tree. After all what better to have on a family tree but a whole bunch of hearts? I stamped the tree in versamark and embossed with clear powder on hot pressed watercolor paper. Next I painted water over the top section of panel and added pink and blue watercolour paints. Keeping it loose I painted a heart shape over tree with both pink and blue. I filled in the heart leaves with more intense pink and blue paint then painted diluted pink over base area.
I grabbed a scrap of watercolour paper, painted diluted blue over it and stamped a sentiment from ‘happy hearts’ in versafine majestic blue ink. I die cut a banner to contain the sentiment and painted shadows on the ends of banner with blue paint.
To finish I attached the banner to the tree panel with very low profile adhesive dots and matted the panel in blue cardstock before attaching to a white cardbase.
Supplies
Brusho Rose
Posted: January 23, 2018 Filed under: Rose | Tags: Brusho, Fabriano Watercolour Paper, Penny Black creative dies 12 Comments
Ah, brusho, how I love thee! My cards on the Penny Black blog and here on my blog this week are all ‘love themed’ so it shouldn’t matter that it’s a paint that I’m in love with, should it? Brusho paint powders do such magical things I never tire of putting them to use.
To create this simple card I started with a piece of hot pressed watercolour paper already splattered with masking fluid. I sprinkled rose red brusho on one end of the panel and a mix of leaf green and olive green brusho over the other end. I spritzed with water to activate the paint and added more water and moved the paint around to create a varied coverage. Once it was completely dry I die cut a couple of roses using the Penny Black ‘rose’ die. I kept one die-cut complete and trimmed the rose and leaves off the other to arrange separately on a panel of linen textured cardstock.
I popped up the panel on a natural white card base and left it sentiment free to keep my options open.
Supplies
Shimmer heart
Posted: January 22, 2018 Filed under: Sweetheart | Tags: Finetec artist mica watercolour paint, Penny Black stamps 16 Comments
I don’t often stamp on directly on black but maybe I should more often, the effect is quite striking. I stamped the ‘sweetheart’ stamp and a sentiment in versamark on neenah epic black cardstock and embossed them in platinum embossing powder. I then used a small watercolour brush to fill all the hearts and flowers with finetec pearlescent paint. The finetec paints are watercolour so I added a drop of water to the colour and mixed it in the palette before painting.
The effect is very shimmery, more so than is apparent in the photos. I wanted the same colour and amount of shimmer on the mat to frame the panel so ended up painting a border of pearlescent purple on a square of black cardstock to frame my panel before attaching both to a black card base.
Supplies
Vintage Rose
Posted: January 17, 2018 Filed under: Red blush, Textures | Tags: Brusho, Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress inks, Tsukineko Versafine inks 8 Comments
I am over on The Foiled Fox blog today sharing this vintage rose card. You have seen me work with this sort of colour scheme before; I enjoy painting with the ink from a stamped image. In this case the stamp is the Penny Black, ‘red blush’. Although I worked mainly in vintage photo distress ink, I did give it a red blush with some Ost. Red brusho watercolour paint. You can read my whole process over on the Foiled Fox blog. 
Supplies
Stamps: red blush, textures, forever & always
Inks: vintage photo distress ink, versafine vintage sepia
Paint: brusho
Paper: hot pressed watercolour paper, neenah natural white, brown cardstock
Winter sky
Posted: January 12, 2018 Filed under: dressed in snow, peaceful winter, snowy village, Stamped Landscapes | Tags: Brusho, Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress inks, Tsukineko Memento inks 8 Comments
It’s taking me a while to get back into gear here on the blog but I have been busy planning my next class. Living as I do surrounded by winter beauty I often look a the sky or the landscape and wonder how I can turn it into a card. This is one such attempt. I looked at the sky one afternoon, because the sun sets in the afternoon around here, there is no waiting for evening! There was a pale pink glow above the horizon, a little blue then grey reaching up. I was managing to create some subtlety with this scene right up until the brusho shook out of the bottle rather more generously than intended! No matter, a lot of water and paper towel calmed things down again.
I started with a panel of hot pressed watercolour paper splattered with masking fluid. I painted some water across the panel where the horizon would be then sprinkled a little ost. red brusho above and blended it in with a paintbrush. Next I added grey brusho and blended that to fill the sky and finally some ost. blue brusho for some blue tones. I kept adding, blending and diluting until I was happy with the soft gradation of colour. While the sky was still damp I pressed just the small tree part of a landscape stamp out of the PB peaceful winter set repeatedly across the horizon inked with memento London fog ink.
I used the stamping platform to stamp and restamp the trees on the right from the PB snowy village set in black soot distress ink. As distress ink is water soluble I was able to paint over the stamping with water to make the image bolder and darker. I added a little blue brusho as I painted to give the tree some light and shadow. I dried the panel before painting another line of water, this time across the panel in line with the base of the tree trunk. Again I added the same brusho colours but got a bit more blue than I’d bargained for.
After drying that section I stamped just the left hand trees from the PB dressed in snow stamp again in black soot ink. I used a paintbrush to darken the stamped image and extend the trees a little more on the right. To finish I rubbed off the masking fluid and mounted the panel onto a white card base. All the supplies are linked below. I hope you have had a great week.
Supplies
Stamps:
Inks: black soot distress, London fog memento
Paint: brusho
Paper: hot pressed watercolour, neenah solar white
Also: masking fluid
Crisp & cold
Posted: January 6, 2018 Filed under: dressed in snow | Tags: Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress stains, Tsukineko Memento inks 6 Comments
This seems an appropriate card to post right now while the weather is oh. so. cold. For this one I used a stamp postioner to stamp one colour at a time with the ‘dressed in snow’ scenic stamp. I used memento markers to ink the evergreens in northern pine, the deciduous in tuxedo black and the fence in rich cocoa inks. After I had stamped all the elements I added a mask for the moon and then painted a tumbled glass distress stain sky.
I spritzed the trees on the left very lightly to blend the colour and painted some tiny background trees on the horizon. Winter is very beautiful where I live but currently it is also rather bleak. Please forgive me the rather brief description; I created this one a while ago and the details are a little sketchy in my memory.
Supplies
Stamps: dressed in snow
Memento markers: northern pine, tuxedo black, rich cocoa
Distress stain: tumbled glass
Paper: hot pressed watercolour, olive green cardstock
Also: stamp positioner, frisket film
A blessed gift
Posted: January 2, 2018 Filed under: Berry speckled | Tags: Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress inks, Ranger Distress stains, WOW embossing powders 3 Comments
On the ninth day of Christmas I am returning to the blog. I’ve been enjoying some time with family and friends, relaxing, reading but I have not been creating cards! This panel started out as a practice for another project but I ended up turning it into a card anyway. I began with a panel of hot pressed watercolour paper with masking fluid splattered over it. I used a stamp positioner to stamp the different coloured elements of the berry branch in distress inks then embossed over the image with embossing powder. Unfortunately when you put embossing powder over masking fluid it sticks so the panel became very textured and very speckled with ‘snow’. I painted weathered wood distress stain over the background added a sentiment but was not able to remove much of the masking fluid as I had ‘glued’ it there with heat embossing!
As this was a practice panel I changed my order of operations when I made the next card, stamping and embossing first then splattering masking fluid second. I hope your 2018 is off to a great start. I have been busy keeping up with Dressember details which I will post more about later but I’ll just add a quick thank you here to all who have donated to this worthy cause; you have really encouraged me.
Supplies
Stamps: berry speckled, peace & love
Inks: versamark, crimson red versamark, weathered wood distress stain
Distress Markers: festive berries, gathered twig, barn door, forest moss
Paper: Neenah solar white cardstock, hot pressed watercolour paper, neenah red pepper cardstock
Also: stamping platform, masking fluid, WOW clear gloss superfine embossing powder
Heather Telford 