Winter Window

Posted: November 9, 2020 | Author: Heather | Filed under: art deco window, juniper, layered Xmas wreath die set, Penny Black, Winter lantern | Tags: Dr PH Martin, Penny Black creative dies, Penny Black stamps | 6 Comments

Sometimes I get inspired by the detailed and delicate foliage dies from Penny Black. The new ‘juniper’ die set got me started for this design along with a navy panel of cardstock splattered with white paint.

I gathered other dies to combine into a winter window scene. I could have chosen brighter reds and greens but I am in a muted vintage style phase right now so forest green and burgandy were my picks for the juniper and berries. All the dies are listed below; I picked from a few sets and added double sided adhesive to all the cardstock before die cutting. The window die is designed to open but I chose the adhesive backing so it would be stuck down firmly to keep the snow outside and the candle from blowing out!

Supplies

Masked Snowscape

Posted: November 5, 2020 | Author: Heather | Filed under: grafix, Nature's Friend, sennelier watercolours, winter woodland | Tags: grafix, Penny Black stamps, sennelier watercolours | 5 Comments

I teamed up with Grafix to create some videos this year. My first project was very definitely a summer scene, but this one, as you can see is not! We have had a few snowfalls already but currently are enjoying a reprieve and a few really nice mild days. Grafix makes a wide range of art plastics and films; I used their extra tack frisket film to mask the snowbanks and moon on this card and splattered Grafix liquid frisket to create the falling snow.

I worked on hot pressed watercolour paper and painted the sky and shadows with Sennelier watercolours. The trees and deer are stamped with the ever useful versafine clair nocturne ink. The video below shows my whole process.

If you are keen to create cards featuring the beauty of a northern winter I am working very hard on a new project that might interest you. Can’t wait to share more soon.

Supplies

Wreath & Wings

Posted: November 4, 2020 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Coliro paints, Hand lettered, mirthful, wreath & wings | Tags: Coliro paints, distress markers, Hand lettering, Penny Black creative dies, Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress inks, Staedtler watercolour brush pens | 6 Comments

I’ve combined a new PB stamp, ‘wreath & wings’ with a new PB die, ‘mirthful’ for simple elegant style Christmas card.

I used distress inks and markers to ink the wreath elements and birds, keeping the stamp in the positioner so I could work a bit at a time. I inked the stamp, stamped the image then did a bit of blending with a paintbrush to fill the leaves, berries and birds.

I used a gold gel pen to colour some of the berries then continued the gold highlights in the die cut word. The die has decorative diamond cut outs so I cut gold ones to add to the burgandy letters and framed the panel in the same burgandy cardstock.

For the second card I decided to use the curve of the wreath as a hanging garland. Using a centering ruler to help me with positioning I stamped half the wreath on the centre top edge of the watercolour panel, then stamped another part loop either side.

Once again I worked on hot pressed watercolour paper so I could blend the ink on the leaves. I used ocean coliro pearlescent paint on some of the leaves and berries for a little shimmer.

I wrote the sentiment for this one using the darkest blue marker from the Staedtler watercolour 36 brush pen set and matted the panel in a dark blue cardstock.

Even though I don’t like to over do my designs I’m wondering if the blue card is a bit sparsely decorated. What do you think?

Burgandy Card Supplies

Blue Card Supplies

Season’s Tweetings video

Posted: November 3, 2020 | Author: Heather | Filed under: season's tweetings | Tags: distress markers, Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress inks, Tutorial, video | 9 Comments

This sweet bird on a branch is a single stamp from the new Penny Black release ‘Season of Hope’. The stamp is called ‘season’s tweetings’ and I used it here to create both the bokeh background and the foreground watercoloured image. I filmed my process so you’ll see how I use the same blending technique to build up colour on the leaves and just a few tones to paint the little bird. (the video might look familiar to you if you have a membership with Penny Black)

We have a few centimetres of snow on the ground this morning so this sort of scene is becoming way more likely!

Thanks for dropping by today, I will be back with more of the PB new release over the coming weeks.

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Daisy & Dahlia

Posted: November 2, 2020 | Author: Heather | Filed under: all the birthdays, Brusho, Colorado Craft Company, Concord & 9th, Daisy & Dahlia, Papertrey Inks | Tags: Colorado Craft Company, Concord & 9th | 8 Comments

This bunch of flowers is a single large stamp from the Colorado Craft Company and I’m over on the Foiled Fox blog today describing how it inspired me. It’s called ‘daisy & dahlia’ and it is from the ‘big and bold’ collection.

For this square card I chose autumn tones, because despite that sprinkle of snow we had last week it is definitely still autumn. I used Papertrey ink cubes which are very juicy and blend well with water after they’re stamped on watercolour paper.

I used one of the inks from the floral panel to stamp a bold birthday square with one of the stamps from Concord & 9th’s ‘all the birthdays’ set.

On my second card I used a similar colour scheme but threw in the contrast of purple paint. I embossed the stamp on a rectangular panel with platinum embossing powder then sprinkled four different colours of brusho powder strategically on the panel.

If you have used brusho powders at all you will know you can’t really be very strategic; it goes where ere it will! I still ended up with a red flower, an orange flower and a purple flower but my favourite bits are the ends of the petals that ended up multicoloured.

Once again I chose stamps from the C&9 ‘all the birthdays’ set to create a purple sentiment band trimmed in quartz shimmer cardstock.

An idea I have yet to try with this big beauty is to stamp it in one colour to highlight the detail of the design. Make sure you pop over to The Foiled Fox for more details and tips on these cards and techniques.

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Seashells Filmstrip

Posted: October 30, 2020 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Darkroom Door, seashell filmstrip | Tags: Darkroom Door stamps, Fabriano Watercolour Paper, Ranger Distress inks | 4 Comments

Before you wonder why a seashell card has popped up right after a snow covered bell card remember that not everyone is heading into winter right now. I can wistfully look at these seashells and wish I was entering an Australian summer and that wistfulness would not just be about the weather! Speaking of Australia, this stamp is from Darkroom Door and is one of their new filmstrip stamps.

I used a stamp positioner to stamp the filmstrip edge to edge moving my panel up or down each time to feature a different portion of the stamp. I used five different inks to ink the stamp fairly randomly then spritzed it before stamping so the inks were already moving. I continued blending the colours with a paintbrush on the watercolour paper panel.

You can see some shells are more sharply defined than others which corresponds to how much water I added before and after stamping. I stamped a sentiment from the DD sentiment strip – friendship stamp. I have kept the stamp as one long strip (I think many people have done so), so I can stamp them all at once or stamp a section and cut out the one I want. In this case I stamped a section, cut out the sentiment I was after then ripped one edge and coloured the tear with wild honey distress ink.

I have a shell collection which sits untouched in a box for years at a time and then an occasion like this arises and I open the box and remember how delighted I always am when walking on a beach looking for shells.

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Bell & Berries

Posted: October 28, 2020 | Author: Heather | Filed under: bell & berries, Coliro paints, Finetec paints, fragile branches, Penny Black | Tags: Coliro paints, Fabriano Watercolour Paper, Papertrey ink, Penny Black stamps, Tsukineko Memento inks | 13 Comments

Over the summer I kept reaching for the blues and greens; they were refreshing in the hot weather. It appears that my fascination with them is continuing into the winter! I created this wintry panel with the Penny Black ‘bell & berries stamp and the versatile PB ‘fragile beauty’ set.

When I started this panel by stamping only the branch section of the stamp at the very top I chose only blue, grey and green inks. Choosing green over red for the berries helped to create a fresh frosty look. After stamping only the top branch I repositioned the stamp and stamped the whole image then finally a bit more branch on the right hand side. The extra twigs were added in dark blue.

I inked the leaves with papertrey ‘enchanted evening’, a dark blue and ‘stormy sea’, a grey blue. I used the olive toned ‘prairie grass’ for the berries. When I spritzed the stamp before stamping on the hot pressed watercolour paper the inks began to blend. I did further blending on the paper with a paint brush and water but didn’t blend every part of the image, some leaves and berries I kept unblended to show the texture of the paper and stamp.

The paper had spots of masking fluid splattered over it before I began which caused the white dots you see in the finished panel.

I stamped the bell in a mix of stormy sea and true black ink and also added ‘blue silver’ pearlescent paint from the Coliro ‘ocean’ set so there is a shimmer to it in real life.

I used a piece of dark blue cardstock for a card base then stamped the ‘bell & berries’ on both an insert panel and the envelope.

I woke up to the frosty look of fresh snow on autumn leaves this morning; it’s pretty but it can go now!

Supplies

Bloom Art Journal page

Posted: October 26, 2020 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Art Journal, Christmas bush, Darkroom Door, sketched alphabet, torn text | Tags: Art Journal, Darkroom Door stamps, Fabriano art journal | 2 Comments

After making a Christmas card with the new Darkroom Door Christmas Bush stamp set I was keen to use the silhouette stamps for a different project. I decided to fill a journal page spread with them and chose a different colour scheme to do so. I think they look a bit like violets.

I taped the edges of the pages which frames the layout, keeps the pages flat and protects any pages underneath which are poking out. I painted absorbant ground over the whole area as a base before stamping and painting.

I wanted to have layers of flowers and so I tore a ripped edge on some masking paper and attached it across both pages. I used blending brushes to apply colour over the torn edge then did generational stamping in blueprint sketch, shaded lilac and peeled paint distress inks. Once the top section was completed I masked again, further down the page this time and repeated the process twice.

For highlights and details I used markers and gold paint to add details to the petals and centres to the flowers. I also used gold embossing to make a print border and title with the Darkroom Door ‘torn text’ and ‘sketched alphabet’ stamps. The Christmas Bush stamps proved to be very versatile as I thought they would when I first saw them.

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Art de Fleur

Posted: October 23, 2020 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Art de Fleur vol 1, Botanical Script, Darkroom Door, global postmarks, majestic mountains, scratches, sheet music, tall flowers | Tags: Darkroom Door stamps, Fabriano Watercolour Paper, Papertrey ink | 5 Comments

This card is the cardmaking version of going down a rabbit hole. I know how easy that is on the interwebs, but apparently it is possible with a card as well. What started out as a vintage style two layer card became a little more than that. I just kept thinking of stamps and papers and techniques I wanted to add.

I decided an insert would be nice; I don’t usually put anything on the inside of my cards so an insert is quite the departure. An insert turned into two inserts which is more like a little book when you count both sides of the pages!

The front panel, which was initially going to be the whole deal features several Darkroom Door stamps: scratches background stamp, sheet music background stamp, global postmarks, art de fleur vol 1.

For the whole card I stuck with four Papertrey ink cubes (listed below); I used them for stamping, watercolouring, splattering and blending with a blending brush.

The inside pages are not watercolour paper but handmade paper from a Hanji gifts in Toronto. It is handmade paper with rose petals embedded in it. It was very white straight out of the packet so I smooshed some brown and pink inks on my glass mat, diluted with water then swiped the paper through the ink. This resulted in the colour I wanted but removed the sizing and wrinkled the paper. I ironed it, which did the trick then added little bits of stamping on every page. I used a couple of sentiments and some quote stamps, all from Darkroom Door and reused the same background stamps plus the floral stamps from the Art de Fleur set.

To join it all together I poked holes and used some fine twine for a little ‘book binding’. With all the ‘vintaging’ I did on the front panel and pages the card base itself looked very stark so I swiped that through some smooshed ink too so everything would co-ordinate.

I was so deep down the rabbit hole by this point I realised an ordinary envelope was just not an option so I pulled out another sheet of the handmade rose petal paper, inked it, ironed it and used my envelope punch board to create an custom envelope, which I failed to photograph. All in all a very satisfying but surprising creative project. Now, back to work!

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Gel printed feathers again

Posted: October 21, 2020 | Author: Heather | Filed under: gel press, Heather lowercase die set, phrase builder you, Pink Fresh studio | Tags: gel press, gel printing, Pink Fresh studio | 10 Comments

Last year I did my first gel prints with feathers and I was thrilled with the detail in the prints. When I was gel printing with leaves a few months ago I did a few feather prints at the same time. It’s the same process.

The letters and word added to this feather print were cut from the same panel. I was working on my large gel plate and lifting the prints on A4 pieces of cardstock. The mustard/gold paint was over the whole print before I added dark turquoise paint to one end as I printed feathers.

I cut the letters for the word ‘sending’ with the ‘Heather lowercase’ dies from Pinkfresh studio. There are capital letter dies in the same style and co-ordinating stamps for both lower and upper case but I just bought the lowercase dies. Buying alphabet dies or stamps is quite the investment so I worked out what I would get the most use from and it was these pretty letter dies. I am way more likely to make words with all lowercase than with all caps. After I had ordered the dies I realised they were all double dies in that they cut a very narrow border around every letter which gives you a bonus delicate die cut letter which can be used as a border for the solid letter. Maybe you know all this but I was pretty happy to get double the letter fun.

I cut all the letters for the word ‘sending’ and arranged them on top of the feather panel but they did not stand out enough until I cut the same letters from shimmer gold cardstock so I could give each one the narrow border. I added double sided adhesive to the back before cutting the letters so it would be easy to attach them to the panel. I cut the word love from a teal section of the printed panel twice and layered them to make them stand out a bit more, the die is from the Pinkfresh phrase builder ‘sending’ set.

I’m very keen to get out my gel plates again but my to do list has other things on it right now. It’s fun to have a stack of prints to put to use in the interim.