Rose garden

I am hanging out on the Foiled Fox blog today with some new Penny Black floral loveliness along with some new to me inktensity!

I have been trying out some inktense pencils lately. Friends have raved about them and Shauna from the Foiled Fox loves them and kindly sent me some to try. Inktense pencils and blocks are permanent once dry so it is possible to blend then add another layer without diluting the first layer. Some watercolours are not permanent so they blend with subsequent layers applied. I was happy to see how easy it is to ‘paint’ with these pencils.

I stamped the roses on cold pressed watercolour paper in versafine clair nocturne ink. I picked out four inktense pencils in red/pink tones and painted each rose in one colour starting with a pale wash then gradually adding more of the same color to build up shadows around the petals.I painted the leaves in green again adding a second layer for extra depth. The planter pot is painted with charcoal grey and bark inktense pencils. I was rather happy with the combination of these colours which I chose randomly. I wanted the planter to look a bit like galvanised iron.

To create the look of wood paneling in the background I ruled some lines with the charcoal inktense pencil then blended the lines with a paintbrush and water. To ground the tub of roses I ruled some lines to look like a table or bench and again blended between the lines and painted shadow around the planter.

To finish off the card I added a sentiment from the new ‘PB ‘grateful sentiments’ set in nocturne ink. I love sets like this one; there are two large words then a whole bunch of phrases that co-ordinate. So many options!

Supplies

Blooming boots!

Posted: February 20, 2019 | Author: Heather | Filed under: blooming boots, square frames | Tags: Penny Black creative dies, Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress stains | 6 Comments

Penny Black has a new release; you probably saw some sneak peeks on the PB social media or maybe you saw this card as a peek on my instagram. The new release is called ‘Timeless‘ and it is full of spring and summer loveliness. To celebrate Penny Black is hosting a giveaway.

Isn’t this a cute stamp? Blooming boots! I guess boots could work as a vase if they were waterproof. I used distress stains to stamp this happy colour scheme but you could use any water soluble ink that blends well after stamping. I inked the tulips with mustard seed and spiced marmalade distress stains. Now that the daubers are discontinued I paint stain onto the stamp with a brush. After stamping the tulips I wiped the stamp and inked the leaves with mowed lawn stain. While the stamped stain was still damp I blended it with a brush and water then dried the panel.

I painted black soot stain onto the boot part of the stamp then stamped and blended to fill the boots. By drying the rest of the stamping first I prevented the black stain from bleeding into the flowers and leaves. I used the new die set ‘square frames’ to cut a green frame. As my dies are not divided up they cut not only the decorative frames but also plain rectangles and that is what I used here. I finished the card with a sentiment from the super-useful new set ‘grateful sentiments’ in black versafine ink.

I am currently enjoying not tulips but a giant amaryllis; it is 80cm tall and each one of the five flowers measures 20cm across. It is huge and beautiful!

Supplies

Tall Flowers

Posted: February 19, 2019 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Darkroom Door, Leaves, Nature Walk, tall flowers | Tags: Darkroom Door stamps, Ranger Distress inks, Ranger Distress stains | 9 Comments

I am excited to feature some new stamps from Darkroom Door today. The tall flowers are from the new ‘Tall Flowers’ set and the background flowers are from the delightful ‘Nature Walk’ set. I am a guest over on the Darkroom Door blog today, if you haven’t visited you definitely should check out all the inspiration shared there.

My first card features a cold pressed watercolour panel filled with one of the stamps from ‘nature walk’ set inked in iced spruce and stormy sky distress inks. I diluted the ink with a spritz of water and stamped first, second and third generation impressions. Over the top I stamped the tall daisy from ‘tall flowers’ four times with wilted violet, blueprint sketch and forest moss distress inks. Because the stems are long and thin I was able to orient them in different directions. I used a mask a couple of times to overlap the daisies. Once stamped I blended the colours with a paintbrush and water.

I used a similar process to create the orange toned daisy card but this time I did the background foliage after the foreground flowers by using stamped and cut out masks. The daisies are stamped in peeled paint and fossilized amber distress inks. I added extra colours one at a time with spiced marmalade marker, rusty hinge marker close to flower centre and finally ground espresso marker on the centre of the flower. I blended the inks with water then after it was dry stamped the centres again to add some texture back in. The background stamping is another stamp from the DD ‘nature walk’ set stamped with weathered wood and tea dye distress inks. I added some splatter because, well, why not!

On both the daisy cards I decided to add the sentiment on a vellum strip. I liked the floral scenes too much to stamp words over them so the vellum seemed like a subtle way to do it. The recipient could even snip the sentiment off and have a picture to display if they wanted to. For this tall thin panel I used the kraft card base to frame it on two sides.

The last card is a little different; I used the small flower from ‘tall flowers’ and some little leaves from ‘leaves’ set to make a wreath.

To guide my stamping I traced a circle onto my watercolour panel. I sponged fossilized amber distress ink around circle then erased the pencil line. With the sponging as a guide, I stamped the small flower heads from ‘Tall Flowers’ set round the circle in carved pumpkin ink, holding the stamp so only flower(not stem) was inked and stamped. I repeated the process with small leaves and ferns from ‘Leaves’ set in fossilized amber, peeled paint, forest moss and tea dye distress inks. You know I splattered forest moss ink over wreath because that’s what I do then matted the panel in orange cardstock, attached to a kraft card base and added a raffia bow.

I loved creating with these beautiful tall flower stamps and couldn’t help myself from using the ‘nature walk’ stamps again because they work so well together!

Supplies

Stamps: tall flowers, nature walk, leaves

Inks: stormy sky, iced spruce, blueprint sketch, wilted violet, forest moss (purple flower card)

fossilized amber, peeled paint, weathered wood, tea dye & distress markers: spiced marmalade, rusty hinge, forest moss, ground espresso (orange flowers)

fossilized amber, peeled paint, carved pumpkin, forest moss, tea dye (flower wreath)

Papers: hot pressed watercolour, cold pressed watercolour, vellum, kraft

Also: stamp positioner, raffia

Nature walk portraits

Posted: February 5, 2019 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Avery Elle, boxes, mesh, Nature Walk, simple sentiments | Tags: Avery Elle, Darkroom Door stamps, Darkroom Door stencils, Kuretake Gansai Tambi watercolour paints, Ranger Distress inks | 6 Comments

I have mentioned before how beautiful these Darkroom Door ‘nature walk’ images are but have I mentioned how easy it is to create pretty cards with them. Each card today features just one image, stamped twice over a quick watercolour background.

I created the backgrounds with my glass mat and some distress inks. I squished the ink pads down on the mat side by side (three or four colours at a time), spritzed with water then swiped my hot pressed watercolour panel through the diluted ink a few times until there was good coverage on the panel. I dried the panel with a heat tool before sponging one or two of the distress inks through a section of stencil then added splots of water for some added texture. The panels were all different, all pretty and done within minutes.

I used the MISTI for stamping because the texture of the watercolour paper makes it necessary to stamp a few times to get a solid image. I used versafine clair nocturne ink which always gives me a crisp print. Once the ink was dry I splattered gold paint from the gansai tambi starry colours palette. The gold splatter might just be my favourite part of these cards; unfortunately it’s not very obvious in the photos.

To draw more attention to the gold splatter I matted with gold and stamped the sentiments either on gold cardstock or with embossed in gold powder. The sentiments are from Darkroom Door’s new sentiment strips. The sentiments are in list format and I have kept the stamp uncut. I stamp on a cardstock panel and cut out the sentiment I want. I now have a handy die set from the Foiled Fox which neatly cuts out the smaller fonts and I always love sentiments in small fonts! The set is called ‘simple sentiments’ and it has ten lengths of sentiment strip dies.

In putting together the cards I used one more happy new product. I am always searching for textured white cardstock. Today’s cards feature a linen texture with enough depth to be seen by the camera. It is in 8½ “x11” sheets so one sheet did four card fronts, no waste. This is the first time I’ve used it so there will be more testing to come with dies, inks etc but so far, so good.

Thanks for listening to me prattle on about this and that. I hope you are enjoying some ‘nature walks’ even if they are of the snowy variety! While we have been experiencing extreme cold followed by loads of snow, friends and family on the other side of the world are experiencing extreme heat and flooding!

Supplies

Stamps: nature walk, (DD)

Stencils: mesh, boxes 12 up

Dies: Simple Sentiment (Avery Elle)

Distress inks: crushed olive, pine needles, blue print sketch, milled lavender, stormy sky, mermaid lagoon, wilted violet, worn lipstick
.
Inks: versamark, nocturne versafine clair,

Paint: gansai tambi starry colours

Paper: hot pressed watercolour paper, snowbound textured white cardstock, gold cardstock, neenah solar white

Also: Cutterpillar glass mat, MISTI, gold embossing powder

Alexandra Renke Poppies

Posted: January 28, 2019 | Author: Heather | Filed under: poppy flower dies, poppy flower stamps | Tags: Alexandra Renke, Penny Black stamps | 4 Comments

After making a gift set of cards with the ‘blissbloss’ stamp I was inspired follow the same process with another stamp set. This time I used Alexandra Renke’s pretty poppy stamp set and her poppy dies. I used Catherine Pooler inks for the watercolour effect on the poppies and for the tiny sentiments.

I started with a 10″x7″ panel of hot pressed watercolour paper. There are five poppy stamps in the set so I positioned them randomly over the panel while in the stamp positioner. I inked the petals first in samba ink then dabbed some rockin’ red ink on the sides or edges but not covering the whole flower. I spritzed then stamped. I wiped off the stamps then inked the stems in eucalyptus ink and stamped again. I moved the panel and repeated the process to fill the panel with poppies. In order to get even spacing I had to clean and reposition the stamps a couple of times but eventually I had the panel covered. At this point I changed my mind and crowded in a few more flowers in a couple of areas using the CP bellini ink along with CP samba to make paler poppies. I added some eucalyptus ink splatter and some gold splatter using one of the gansai tambi gold paints then called it complete.

To create the cards I cut some panels to 5 ½” so they would stretch the length or height of the card and used co-ordinating cardstock to frame and mat the panels. I also cut several poppies using the Alexandra Renke poppy flower dies in light peach, dark peach and light gold cardstock. I don’t have a formula for creating five cards from the panel; basically I played with ideas until they looked ok!

The poppy stamp set has the same seven sentiments in English, French, German and Spanish so I stamped sentiments on a few of the panels using the same word in four languages to fill spaces between the poppies. On one card I needed a larger sentiment so I used a Penny Black stamp from the ‘happy snippets’ set.

I used light weight vellum over one of the watercolour panels to soften the colours and make the die cuts stand out.

I’m hoping to sell cards at a market in the not too distant future so having a few gift sets might be a good idea.

Supplies

Stamps: poppy flower set (Alexandra Renke)

Dies: poppy flower dies (Alexandra Renke)

Cardstock: hot pressed watercolour, Neenah cream, light weight vellum, light gold, dark peach, light peach

Inks: samba, rockin’ red, bellini, eucalyptus (Catherine Pooler)

Paint: gansai tambi starry colours

Also: stamp positioner, diamond glaze, gold cord

Starry Amazing

Posted: January 22, 2019 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Altenew, My Favorite Things, Star turnabout die, Star turnabout set, Watercolour paints 36 | Tags: Altenew, Concord & 9th, Cutterpillar, My Favorite Things | 2 Comments

I am over on the Foiled Fox blog today; make sure you pop over there for more details and for a browse through their recent blog posts.

I have shared cards made with ‘turnabout’ stamps before but the look on this one is a bit different. My other turnabout stamps from Concord & 9th fill the space a lot more than this starry one. ‘Star Turnabout’ is a two part stamp which means you can do a small area of stars with the centre of the stamp, a large border of stars with the the outside of the stamp or, as I did, a large square covered in stars by using both stamps at the same time. There is now a jig available which makes the turnabout process easier.

I worked on a 6″x6″ piece of cold pressed watercolour paper in my MISTI. I started by stamping in versamark and embossing in clear powder. Then after turning my panel 90° I stamped again with versamark then embossed in gold. With a turnabout stamp you turn the panel three times and stamp each time. I embossed with clear, gold, silver and lastly platinum. Once the stamping was done I taped the panel down on my glass mat to paint it. I used Altenew’s watercolour paint set, limiting myself to blues and aquas. I painted the colours randomly over the whole panel, blending them together and diluting if necessary with some water.

While the paint dried I die cut the word ‘wonderful’ using the MFT little lower case dies and some Tonic silver cardstock. C&9 have a co-ordinating star die which I used to cut a few little stars from the same silver cardstock so I could add them here and there over the panel. To complete the card I framed it with blue cardstock and stamped a small banner using a MFT sentiment set.

With the stamps and embossing powders out on my messy desk I decided to do a few more panels including this black one.

I used neenah black cardstock, silver, gold, platinum and gun metal embossing powders then added words on tonic silver and gold embossed cardstocks.

Thank you for dropping by today. All the products I used are linked below. I use affiliate links to the Foiled Fox store in my blog posts. At no extra cost to you I receive a commission when you use the links.

Supplies

Stamps: star turnabout stamp set (C&9), birdie brown greetings galore (MFT)

Dies: Star Turnabout Die (C&9), little lower case letters (MFT)

Ink: versamark, versafine clair nocturne

Paints: Altenew watercolour set

Cardstock: cold pressed watercolour paper, Craft Perfect Luxury Embossed Card – Golden Satin & Silver Silk Luxury Embossed card (Tonic), Neenah black, Neenah cream, Whirlypop blue

Embossing powders: metallic gold rich embossing powder, platinum embossing powder, clear embossing powder, silver embossing powder, gun metal embossing powder

Also: MISTI, T-ruler, glass mat

Blissful blossoms

Posted: January 18, 2019 | Author: Heather | Filed under: blissful blossoms, royal swirl | Tags: Penny Black creative dies, Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress inks | 14 Comments

It is hard to believe I haven’t inked this pretty stamp before now. I made up for it by repeat stamping on a large panel to make into a set of cards. I put the 10″x 7″ hot pressed watercolour panel in my stamp positioning tool and ended up stamping PB ‘blissful blossoms’ four times.

Each time I stamped I followed the same order. First I inked the whole stamp in scattered straw distress ink and dabbed some wild honey and abandoned coral ink here and there on the flowers, spritzed it with water. After stamping I cleaned the stamp, then inked all the stems and leaves in peeled paint ink, spritzed and stamped again. I kept partially inking with markers, spritzing and stamping until the flowers were well coloured. Before moving the panel and stamp to do another print I blended over the stamping with a paint brush and water.

I repeated the process three more times to fill the panel. I was able to orient the stamp so the stems and flowers filled the space and looked like one big patterned panel.

Once the panel was done I had to decide how to divide it for different designs. I could have done four of the same card but no, I wanted to come up with a few options. I pulled out a pretty PB die, a PB sentiment set and some green cardstock to create a set of five cards.

The decorative die does not cut right across, it cuts out the scroll work but scores either side for folding. On several of the cards I cut on the score line for a border instead of a fold.

By double matting and popping up the panel even the last scrap became a card. All the sentiments are from the handy dandy ‘happy snippets’ set.

Supplies

Stamps: blissful blossoms, happy snippets (PB)

Dies: pop on a fold -royal swirl (PB)

Inks: scattered straw, dried marigold, abandoned coral, peeled paint, versamark, shady line versafine clair

Markers: peeled paint, dried marigold, abandoned coral, ground espresso

Cardstock: hot pressed watercolour, neenah cream, olive green

Also: Stamp positioner, white embossing powder, linen twine

Alcohol ink trio

Posted: January 15, 2019 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Alcohol Ink, Dragonfly Frame, Serenity | Tags: Penny Black creative dies, Ranger Alcohol Ink, Yupo Paper | 11 Comments

I created these alcohol ink panels months ago! They were the result of a primary colours experiment with pool (blue), raspberry (red) and honeycomb (yellow) alcohol inks and both heavy and light weight yupo paper. I restricted myself to the three colours to see what I could come up with and how they reacted with each other.

I was able to get very soft blends by adding rubbing alcohol and tilting the yupo around. This panel was done on light weight yupo which is translucent. When I held it up to the light the colours softened and looked like stained glass. I decided I had to cut the cardstock out behind the dragonfly ‘window’ so a light could be placed under the card to show off its soft blended colour. Not a real tealight mind you, remember this is paper crafting! I took a photo to give you an idea of the pretty stained glass effect you see with a soft light underneath.

The same colours appeared but with more lines by working the inks for longer. By that I mean that I kept adding and tilting and blending so there are more secondary and tertiary colours in the mix.

When it came to making the panels into cards I decided die cuts over the top was all I wanted to add. I used three Penny Black dies, dragonfly frame, serenity and heartfelt thanks. For all the cards I put double sided adhesive on the back of the green cardstock before die cutting the images and words.

In the final sample I was able to keep some of each ink colour distinct as well as each secondary colour (blue+yellow=green) (yellow+red=orange) (red+blue=purple). There is also a bit of brown which is is a tertiary colour made when a primary and a secondary mix.

I created this panel by dropping the inks onto the yupo panel and letting them move and fill the space. When there was a good mix of colour patterning the whole area I switched to placing tiny drops of ink or rubbing alcohol onto the panel to create the bubble patterns. Each tiny drop expanded into a little circle or blob shape. The pattern looked very busy all on its own so I just added a small die cut word.

Supplies

Dies: serenity, dragonfly frame, heartfelt thanks (Penny Black)
Inks: pool, raspberry, honeycomb Ranger alcohol inks

Paper: yupo both light and heavy weight, neenah cream cardstock, green textured cardstock

Also: double sided adhesive, rubbing alcohol

Snow forest

Posted: January 4, 2019 | Author: Heather | Filed under: A Pocket Full, snow forest | Tags: Catherine Pooler inks, Penny Black creative dies, Penny Black stamps | 6 Comments

Snowy scenes and thank you cards will keep on popping up on the blog. This one made with the PB stamp, ‘snow forest’, was very simple to make. I put the stamp in the stamp positioner then inked part of it in Catherine Poolers ‘icing on the cake’ ink, stamped then randomly inked in ‘over coffee’, stamped and finally the same with ‘eucalyptus’ ink. With the whole image stamped I blended the larger distinct tree trunks with water to get the watercolour effect.

I ended up painting over some areas, not all, with water also which softened the contrasts but still left light and dark areas. I pressed the three inks onto my glass mat so I could pick up ink to paint the snowy forest floor.

To complete the card I matted in dark green cardstock and die cut a banner for the sentiment. I embossed the sentiment with weathered white powder which gives an antique, and I think, snowy effect.

Supplies

Stamps: snow forest, banner sentiments

Dies: a pocketfull

Inks: eucalyptus, icing on the cake, over coffee (Catherine Pooler), versamark

Paper: hot pressed watercolour, green cardstock

Also: MISTI, weathered white embossing powder, glass mat

Home through the birches

Posted: January 2, 2019 | Author: Heather | Filed under: birches, Spread Cheer | Tags: Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress stains, Tsukineko Versafine inks | 11 Comments

I really enjoy creating winter scenes and today’s card features stamps that lend themselves very well to scenic stamping. I used the PB ‘birches’ stamp and the boy from an older PB set, ‘spread cheer’. I began by embossing the large birch stamps on either side of a panel of hot pressed watercolour paper in versafine clair nocturne ink and clear powder. Next I splattered masking fluid over the panel to later look like snow.

I painted water across the panel from left to right skipping the tree trunks, added distress stains, faded jeans and barn door, then blended the colours to create a winter sky. I painted some diluted blue stain on the tree trunks for a bit of shadow then let everything dry. I stamped the boy and his dog in nocturne inks several times to get a very solid black image over the embossing and stain that was already on the panel. After the black ink dried I painted some shadow with the same stains used for the sky.

Once all the ink was dry I removed the masking fluid to reveal all the little dots of snow. I trimmed the panel to fit on a navy card base (although it looks black in the photos) and will add a white insert for writing my message inside.

Supplies

Stamps: birches, spread cheer (all PB)

Inks: nocturne versafine clair,

Stains: faded jeans, barn door

Paper: hot pressed watercolour paper, navy cardstock

Also: embossing powder, masking fluid, MISTI