The Brushstroke Binge – Christmas 2023

During my brushstroke stamping binge over the last few months I stamped this Penny Black stamp, winter gem, a few times, both the full stamp and just a portion as shown here. I made four cards very similar to this one changing only the colours in the pinecone and they were pretty but needed a little extra something. It just so happens I had uncharacteristically bought something sparkly after watching Tim Holtz say it reminded him of formica tables! It is a texture paste with sparkle in it but smooth, not at all gritty like glitter can be. I swiped it across all the little pinecone panels and they were pretty as can be. I did stamp the pinecone in distress inks so when I spread the texture paste across the panel the distress inks bled a bit but not so much as to spoil anything.

I made a short video of most of this year’s brushstroke Christmas cards and because it is short and not the usual Youtube orientation I can’t seem to embed it in this blog post but you can click over to watch it here. You’ll see the other versions of this card on the short video.

Most of the cards in the video have been featured on the blog but there are a few that didn’t appear here. I hope you enjoy my collection of brushstroke stamped. Thank you for dropping in to see what I have been creating. I hope your Christmas is full of joy and peace.

Today’s post features an affiliate links to Scrap’n’Stamp. If you buy through this link I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Winter Gem

Posted: August 22, 2022 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Dies, Penny Black, winter gem | Tags: Fabriano Watercolour Paper, Penny Black creative dies, Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress inks | 5 Comments

This lovely pinecone stamp is a new one from Penny Black called ‘winter gem’. The stamp has one pinecone plus groups of needles but I stamped it several times to fill my card front. The way I oriented the pine cones makes it look a little breezy with all the needles pointing to the left. I have a large and not very attractive pine tree in my front yard. It drops things all. year. round! There are always needles on the lawn, driveway and flower beds and most of the year there are pinecones too. It isn’t a tidy tree.

The one time the pine tree looks beautiful is after a fresh snowfall when all the snow is balancing on pinecones, needles and branches. For this panel I worked on hot pressed watercolour paper with masking fluid splattered over it before starting. I worked in a stamp positioner and inked the pinecone with three browns. I spritzed the stamp with water before stamping and spritzed again after before stamping a second generation image. I decided to stamp the pinecone a couple more times on the edges of the panel. I used a slightly wet paintbrush to blend the browns on the pinecones and touched up some of the pine needles also with a fine tip paintbrush.

Once the panel dried I blended speckled egg ink around the pinecones. Because there was masking fluid spots all over the panel little white dots of snow appeared after the masking fluid was removed.

Penny Black has come out with a few clever sentiment dies which pair a large word with a one sided outline. I cut the outline from the stamped panel but it looks fresh and snowy if you cut the outline from white cardstock and place it at the base of the your panel. My word is cut from dark green cardstock but looks black; it’s always the way with dark colours in my photos.