Sparkle String
Posted: August 20, 2014 Filed under: My Kid's cards, Sparkle String | Tags: Penny Black creative dies, Tsukineko Radiant Neon inks 15 CommentsI had fun creating this little string of lights. I cut several strings of lights with the “Sparkle String” die and experimented with colouring techniques. I decided on the radiant neon inks because the colours are so soft and pretty. To colour the lights I left them in the negative die cut with a bit of tape on the back to keep things from moving around. Before I coloured each light I removed the little white highlight and set it aside. I sponged each light in a radiant neon ink then darkened the left side with a slightly darker ink. (To Electric Green I added Electric Blue, to Electric Yellow I added Electric Orange, to Electric Coral I added Memento Luxe Love Letter, to Electric Blue I added Electric Purple.) I added a bit of sparkle to each bulb with a clear Wink of Stella pen then slotted the white highlights back in. The cords between the bulbs and the die cut sentiment are coloured with a silver sharpie. My finishing touch for the string of lights was glossy accents on each bulb which made them all quite shiny and raised.
I decided to set the lights on a black background but wanted “glow” around each one. I tried the sponging the neon ink directly onto the black cardstock but the colour was not light or bright enough. By sponging with white pigment ink first I provided a white base for each bit of neon sponging. I glued the bulbs to the black panel but not the cords so some of them are raised a little. To attach the Merry Christmas I used a Scrapbook Adhesives Transfer Sheet before die cutting. When it came to sticking it down all I had to do was remove the backing and press it down onto the black panel.
The little splatters you see in the detail picture below are clear Wink of Stella and the larger ones are Silver Wink of Stella.
Since I am showing you my sparkly light card I thought I would share a card my son made the other day. In our latest bit of sorting and organizing he found a set of stickers I had bought him long ago. The set had several instruments but he just used the drum kit and amp. He added the lights, the rack for the lights, the sponging and the little cord and power outlet himself. The coolest feature of this card however is the way it lights up.
Inside he attached a small battery operated light which shines through the holes he punched for the floodlights!
Thanks for dropping by and thanks for the responses to my latest video. I know my videos are few and far between so I appreciate your positive feedback very much.
Supplies:
Creative Dies: Sparkle String, Joyous Wishes (PB)
Inks: Radiant Neon Electric Blue, Green, Coral, Yellow, Orange, Purple inks & Memento Luxe Love Letter, Wedding Dress ink (Imagine Craft/Tsukineko)
Cardstock: Neenah Solar White 110lb, Black cardstock
Also: Silver Sharpie, Glossy Accents, Clear & Silver Wink of Stella pens, Scrapbook Adhesives Transfer Sheet
Watercolour with a stencil
Posted: August 17, 2014 Filed under: Charming, Flower Dance, Tutorial, Watercolour | Tags: Penny Black stamps, Penny Black stencils, Ranger Distress stains, Tutorial 17 CommentsIn creating today’s card I used a co-ordinating stamp and stencil from Penny Black. By applying ink to the Flower Dance stencil and pressing it onto my watercolour paper I was able to create background pattern and colour all around the flower image I later stamped and watercoloured. I have a video tutorial showing how I did it below.
This is the kind of technique that will never produce the same results twice. I’ve tried it already using another stencil with quite different results which I will share once I’ve completed the card.
Supplies:
Stamps: Charming, Friendship, Letter Background (PB)
Stencil: Flower Dance (PB)
Inks: Tumbled Glass, Milled Lavender, Evergreen Bough distress stains and Peacock Feather, Dusty Concord distress inks (Ranger)
Markers: Wink of Stella Gold pen
Cardstock: Neenah Classic Crest Avon Brilliant White 110lb smooth , Fabriano 100% cotton hot pressed watercolour paper, Penny Black Mix & Match Blue Lagoon paper
Also: Teal grosgrain ribbon, gold cord
Most Wonderful
Posted: August 15, 2014 Filed under: Most Wonderful, Prancers, Stamped Landscapes, Watercolour | Tags: Fabriano Watercolour Paper, Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress stains, Tsukineko Memento inks 14 CommentsI was very excited to see some new tree stamps in the new “Season’s Greetings” release from Penny Black. I am always happy to have more tree stamps to create stamped scenes with. I will be using the new trees from “Prancers” to create winter scenes but I will probably keep stamping with them all year long. I used them as the main feature of the scene above and a shadowy suggestion of forest in the scene below.
Both scenes were done on watercolour paper but with different approaches and inks. For the scene above I started with a masking fluid flecked panel and positioned a circle mask for the sky. I then painted the sky in Memento Nautical Blue and Paris Dusk ink taking care to dilute the colour around the moon. I used the same two blues to paint the snow banks after I had stamped the trees in Memento Northern Pine.
On the card below I created a three coloured panel with Chipped Sapphire, Evergreen Bough and Tumbled Glass distress stains. I applied the stains to the watercolour paper then spritzed the panel with my homemade Pearl-ex sprays. When it was all dry I embossed the snowflake and sentiment stamps with Memento Luxe Wedding Dress ink and embossed with white powder. I added trees at the bottom with Chipped Sapphire distress ink and then splattered white gesso over the whole panel with a splatter brush. Both panels are framed by very narrow frames and attached to white card bases.
We had quite unseasonably cold weather yesterday, not quite the snowy scenes you see here but definitely chilly enough to sit by the fire in the cottage where I was visiting friends for the day.
Supplies:
Stamps: Most Wonderful, Prancers, Beauty of the Season (PB)
Inks: Chipped Sapphire, Evergreen Bough, Tumbled Glass distress stains (Ranger) Memento Nautical Blue, Paris Dusk, Northern Pink inks & Memento Luxe Wedding Dress ink (Imagine Craft/Tsukineko)
Cardstock: Fabriano 100% cotton hot pressed watercolour paper, Neenah Solar White 110lb cardstock
Also: Winsor & Newton masking fluid, White embossing powder, White Gesso, Three separated Pearl-ex sprays comprised of water mixed with Interference Gold, Interference Blue and Interference Green.
Snow Covered Berries
Posted: August 14, 2014 Filed under: Happy Berries | Tags: Fabriano Watercolour Paper, Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress stains 4 CommentsI have another berry stamp from the new “Season’s Greetings” release to feature today. Once again I used some watercolouring but the main technique on this card is embossing. I began with a panel splattered with masking fluid as I like to do with winter scenes. Once the masking fluid was dry I stamped the large berry stamp in versamark taking care to place a stamp positioner beside the stamp before I lifted it. I then re-inked the stamp in versafine onyx black, moved the stamp positioner down and to the right ever so slightly and stamped in black. I embossed the image in clear powder some of which also stuck to the masking fluid which just ended up giving the impression of even more tiny snowflakes in the sky.
With the embossing done I positioned a circle mask and painted the sky. I started with chipped sapphire distress stain and water. I painted water in the area I wanted blue then added the stain. When I was happy with the coverage I used a dry brush to take some of the colour out around the moon. I added some dusty concord distress stain to the sky also to vary the colour a little. To create the snow bank I painted a diluted mix of dusty concord and chipped sapphire in the hill shape and immediately blended it upwards with water to fade the colour out. I did the same a second time to create another snowbank near the base of the panel. When it was all dry I added a tag and a red ribbon. It was crying out for a bit of red.
Don’t forget to check the PB blog and Facebook page if you are interested in seeing more Christmas stamping.
Supplies:
Stamps: Happy Berries, Joy Filled (PB)
Inks: Chipped Sapphire, Dusty Concord distress stains (Ranger) Versamark & Versafine Onyx Black (Imagine Craft/Tsukineko)
Cardstock: Fabriano 100% cotton hot pressed watercolour paper, Neenah Solar White 110lb cardstock
Also: Winsor & Newton masking fluid, Clear embossing powder
Berry Merry Christmas
Posted: August 13, 2014 Filed under: Berry Merry Christmas, Watercolour | Tags: Fabriano Watercolour Paper, Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress inks, Ranger Distress stains 10 CommentsI think these berries might be one of my favourite stamps from the new “Season’s Greetings” release from Penny Black. I opted once again for a watercolour design when creating this card starting with a piece of hotpressed watercolour paper splattered with masking fluid. I inked the stamp with barn door distress stain on the berries and vintage photo distress stain on the stems. I spritzed the inked stamp and stamped it twice on the panel. Using brush and some water I added fired brick ink to some of the berries to give them a bit more dimension. I added water here and there to blend and spread the colours. I added some peeled paint in the background but decided to primarily use broken china stain to paint the sky. I painted around the images with water and broken china stain letting some of the berries and stems bleed into the blue. When it was almost dry I added some yellow highlights with a watercolour pencil and splattered some undiluted broken china distress stain over the sky areas.
To finish off the card I removed the masking fluid then added the sentiment in walnut stain distress ink and matted with blue before attaching to a deep red card base.
Supplies:
Stamps: Berry Merry Christmas, Festive Wishes (PB)
Inks: Barn Door, Peeled Paint, Vintage Photo, Fired Brick, Broken China, Walnut Stain distress stains and inks (Ranger)
Pencils: Albrecht Durer watercolour pencils Lemon 107 (Faber Castell)
Cardstock: Fabriano 100% cotton hot pressed watercolour paper
Also: Winsor & Newton masking fluid
A baby girl
Posted: August 12, 2014 Filed under: Heart Swatches, Love Expressions 4 CommentsWe interrupt this week of Christmas cards for a brand new baby girl. My brother and his wife had a baby girl very early this morning so I incorporated some of the ideas and techniques from the Stretch your Stamps 2 class into a card for them. There is a lot which isn’t really me in this card. For starters I never make baby cards; I’m not sure why not. When I need a baby card I usually pull out a pastel or floral card from my stash. Secondly, I rarely use graphic stamps. Unlike the clever and creative Ardyth I don’t reach for those bold geometric stamps. The other feature which is strange for me is the two panels with a white background; its not that I don’t like white space, I do, it is more that I tend to like colour on my panel and white space on my card base. Having said all that I don’t dislike this card at all; it’s just a little out of character for me. I like the silvery bits, the random arrangement of hearts and the two layered die cuts.
When I sat down to make this card I had a scrap of cardstock beside my main panel to test the pinks and reds as I stamped so I could decide which ones to use. My main panel was lined up with perfectly straight rows of hearts, each row a different colour. When I finished the rows I looked at my scrap and liked the random arrangement of hearts way better than the rows so I started again and made the panel you see here. As I stamped the hearts I occasionally stamped off or wiped off a little ink so they would all look a little distressed. The big heart is from “Heart Swatches” and the tiny heart was cut from a row of five in the “From the Heart” set.
I ran the silver sharpie down the left hand edge of the card base and put a ragged piece of mulberry paper under the right hand side of the panel. The die cuts are coloured with the sharpie. I know this probably looks more like a Valentine’s card to many of you but I am sending hugs for my brother and sister-in-law and kisses for the top of my sweet little niece’s head. Who knows when I will see them all as they are on the other side of the world!
We will return to promised Christmas programming soon!
Supplies:
Stamps: Heart Swatches, From the Heart, Life’s Journals (PB)
Creative Dies: Love Expressions (PB)
Inks: Memento Angel Pink, Rosebud, Love Letter, Sweet Plum and Encore Silver (Imagine Crafts Tsukineko) Silver Sharpie
Paper: Neenah Solar White 110lb card stock, Pink Mulberry paper
Poinsettias
Posted: August 11, 2014 Filed under: Exultation, Festive Florals, Red Star, Watercolour | Tags: Fabriano Watercolour Paper, Penny Black creative dies, Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress stains 8 Comments
Are you ready for a week of Christmas designs? Penny Black’s new “Season’s Greetings” release is available today so I will be featuring some of the new stamps here on Bits & Pieces during the week and the PB blog and Facebook will be full of projects made with the new stamps, dies and stencils too.
I have two poinsettia cards for you today. Poinsettias pop up at least five times in the new catalog on stamps and dies. I have watercoloured both these cards but my methods were different for each one. The top stamp, Red Star, is a slapstick cling stamp with textured petals so I inked the whole stamp with distress stains and spritzed both the stamp and the watercolour paper. The pigment in distress stains is quite intense so I spritzed with water after the first impression, then stamped again to achieve a slightly paler image. The panel is splattered with gold “Wink of Stella”, distress stains and masking fluid. The masking fluid was of course splattered on the panel before I started stamping and removed when all the ink was dry.
Supplies:
Stamps: Red Star (PB)
Inks: Victorian Velvet, Pine Needles, Crushed Olive, Mustard Seed, Barn Door Distress Stains (Ranger)
Cardstock: Fabriano 100% cotton hot pressed watercolour paper, Olive Grove mix & match papers, Neenah Avon Brilliant White 110lb card stock
Creative Dies: Exultations (PB)
Also: Gold Wink of Stella pen, Winsor & Newton masking fluid
The second poinsettia image is also a slapstick cling stamp but a line art image from the set Festive Florals. I inked the components of the design separately in distress inks and stamped on dry watercolour paper. I painted diluted distress stains onto the image and used a couple of watercolour pencils for the berries and stems. Again I added splatter and started with masking fluid splatter. The background is a pale wash of Memento summer sky and rich cocoa inks.
Supplies:
Stamps: Festive Florals, Peace on Earth (PB)
Inks: Memento Summer Sky, Rich Cocoa (Imagine Craft/Tsukineko) Barn Door, Peeled Paint, Vintage Photo distress stains and inks (Ranger)
Pencils: Albrecht Durer watercolour pencils Dark Red 225, VanDyke Brown 176 (Faber Castell)
Cardstock: Fabriano 100% cotton hot pressed watercolour paper, Sticks & Stones mix & match papers, Neenah Avon Brilliant White 110lb card stock
Also: Winsor & Newton masking fluid
Happy Birthday Balloons
Posted: August 9, 2014 Filed under: CAS, Uplifting | Tags: CAS, Penny Black creative dies, Penny Black stamps, Tsukineko Radiant Neon inks 6 CommentsI am enjoying the Stretching Your Stamps 2 class and found a little time to try another technique this morning. I was inspired by another class participant who used sentiments inside speech bubbles to make a very cool card. I put mine inside balloons instead.
I cut balloons out of masking paper and kept both the positive and the negative. I was then able to stamp the words and sponge the balloon shape through the negative and mask the balloons after completing them with the positive. I used Radiant Neon inks which are so easy to sponge onto to a card. They blend and cover the area quickly and smoothly. The littlest balloon is stamped in gold but it looks more like a sad brown I’m afraid. I performed more stamp surgery to make this card by cutting the happy birthday stamp from “Edge to Edge” into three sections. I can always stamp them together another time if I want to.
Enjoy your weekend.
Supplies:
Stamps: Edge to Edge (PB)
Creative Dies: Uplifting (PB)
Inks: Versafine Onyx Black, Radiant Neon Electric Coral, Electric Green, Electric Blue & Encore Gold (Imagine Craft/Tsukineko)
Cardstock: Neenah Solar White 110lb
Also: Black Pitt Artist Pen (Faber Castell)
The Cool One
Posted: August 8, 2014 Filed under: CAS, Uplifting | Tags: CAS, Fabriano Watercolour Paper, Penny Black creative dies, Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress stains 16 CommentsYou wouldn’t believe how long this “simple” card took me! It all started because I had a piece of watercoloured paper all sparkly and blue which wasn’t working in the way I needed it to for a project I no longer remember. I couldn’t let that pretty sparkly blue panel go to waste so I stamped something on it in black, again can’t remember what. That didn’t work either but I wasn’t prepared to throw the sparkly blue away so I die cut as many balloons as I could without getting black stamping on them. Most that I cut ended up with a little stamping so I tried 3021 different arrangements where one balloon would overlap another to cover little bits of black ink. Finally I realized I was going round in circles so instead I cut balloons out of plain but co-ordinating colours and decided on the design above. It took me three attempts to get the above card made without inky fingerprints and failed inlaid diecuts. Even this one is a little unbalanced; the balloons should be higher.
I like the sentiment and of course the sparkly blue that started it all.
Supplies:
Stamps: Amazing (PB)
Creative Dies: Uplifting (PB)
Inks: Versafine Onyx Black (Tsukineko) Chipped Sapphire, Tumbled Glass, Broken China Distress Stains (Ranger)
Cardstock: Fabriano 100% cotton hot pressed watercolour paper, Periwinkle & Clear Skies Mix & Match Papers (PB)
Also: Pearl Ex
Merry! Already?
Posted: August 5, 2014 Filed under: A Pocket Full, Flourish Holly, Footnotes, Shades, Tannenbaum, Textures | Tags: Fabriano Watercolour Paper, Penny Black creative dies, Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress inks 5 CommentsI know. It’s only August but I imagine many of you have been creating Christmas cards since… well, Christmas! I have only just started and believe me I find it hard to stamp snow in summer. There is however a very good reason for this little bit of merry. Penny Black is releasing their new Christmas Collection next week so the team are getting you in the mood for Christmas stamping by pulling out a few favourites from last year.
This tree was definitely a favourite of mine last year. (it’s here, here and here). For this little trio of notebook pages I inked it with distress inks, stamped it on watercolour paper, spritzed the image to make the colour bleed and added a little music in the background. I did the same with the holly stamp but added canvas in the background. The third notebook page and the sentiment banner repeated the colours in the two picture panels to tie it all together.
The sentiment banner is my first attempt at inlaid diecuts. (There is one in yesterday’s card but this was my first go) I cut the word merry from light green and a dark green piece of cardstock. I placed a piece of tape behind the dark green negative piece then ran it through the diecut machine again with the banner die. Because the tape was in place it held together. I then pressed the light green “Merry” onto the tape and snipped the exposed tape from above the ‘M’ and the loop of the ‘y’.
How is your Christmas card pile going? Have you started? Have you finished! Counting this one I think I might have thirteen completed.
Supplies:
Stamps: Tannenbaum, Flourish Holly, Textures, Footnotes (PB)
Inks: Antique Linen, Forest Moss, Salty Ocean, Barn Door Distress Inks (Ranger)
Cardstock: Fabriano 100% cotton hot pressed watercolour paper, Olive Grove mix & match papers, Neenah Natural White 110lb card stock
Creative Dies: A Pocket Full, Shades, Love & Joy
























