Many Mandalas

Posted: September 19, 2018 | Author: Heather | Filed under: many mandalas | Tags: color burst, Concord & 9th | 8 Comments

To be honest, I originally chose the ‘many mandalas’ stamp set for the range of sentiments rather than the mandalas. After taking a closer look I got inspired to stamp with the intricate circular designs and had a happy time creating a panel which I now want to turn into fabric! The stamps in this set are made of very fine lines so you can make very intricate designs with them. The set also has a guide for putting all the separate stamps together to make the intricate mandala you see in the centre of my card. That’s not one stamp; oh no; that is made from five separate stamps one inside another. Yes it is tricky to get them lined up (the guide helps with this) but having them as separate stamps means you can create an unending number of patterns. You can see from my card I have single or double patterns surrounding the central intricate design. Trust me; these stamps are fun.

I stamped my design in versamark but I probably should have gone for a coloured ink (duh!) as I was embossing in gunmetal powder anyway. I stamped the individual mandala circle stamps one at a time on hot pressed watercolour paper and embossed after each stamping. If I had used a coloured pigment ink to see where I had stamped I probably could have stamped several before stopping to emboss with the gunmetal powder. After I’d done all my embossing I sprinkled tangerine, violet and fuchsia colorburst powders over the panel and spritzed with water. I try not to sprinkle too much the first time so I can see where each colour has fallen and then decide if I want to feature a colour in a particular place. You can see from the close up that I did concentrate some areas as violet, some as tangerine and others as a blend. To keep a section as one colour I started moving and adding colour with a paintbrush instead of sprinkling it from the bottle. I used my glass mat as a palette and mixed some of each colour on the mat so I could then paint it into sections on the panel. Once all the painting was done I dried the panel and painted diamond glaze over several of the mandalas. You can probably see a reflective shine on parts of the top two photos, that’s the glaze.

To complete the card I decided to slice the panel into three pieces and pop them up on foam on a white card base. I stamped the sentiment on white too in some versafine clair glamorous ink. Now if there was a way to turn this small panel into a nice big piece of fabric I think I would be making myself something to wear.

Supplies

Stamps: many mandalas (C&9th)

Inks: versamark, glamorous versafine clair

Paint: violet, tangerine, fuchsia colorburst powders

Paper: hot pressed watercolour paper, neenah solar white

Also: gunmetal embossing powder, glossy accents

Painting with painted prints

Posted: September 18, 2018 | Author: Heather | Filed under: painted prints | Tags: My Favorite Things, Ranger Distress inks, WOW embossing powders | 15 Comments

When I was working with the painted prints set a few weeks back I kept experimenting and came up with a process that uses only one of the stamps in each co-ordinated set of 2 or 3 layered stamps. The stamps are designed to work in 2’s or 3’s; you usually stamp the larger stamp first then the smaller ones over the top.

Instead for these cards I worked with the second stamp of each layering combo. I stamped in distress ink and used a brush and water to blend the stamping into a fuller shape. This gave me light and darker shading on each flower. I stamped and restamped the leaves and stems to get dark, medium and light green tones. A little spritz of water over the leaves made the colour bleed into the paper a bit more then I finished it off with some green splatter. The inks used in the card above were worn lipstick, aged mahogany, forest moss and shabby shutters.

This second rose card I completed the same way but didn’t fling quite so much water around. The inks were tea dye for the stamping of the rose (the second layer stamp) and abandoned coral for blending over the top. Once again the leaves and stems were forest moss and shabby shutters. To make it just that little bit fancier I matted with a dark gold cardstock and embossed the sentiment with gold powder.

The technique described here is the one I used for the tulips in the previous post. Layering stamps are very clever but I am happy to also have worked out a loose looking un-layered technique to try with them; you know I like blending everything with water!

Supplies

Stamps: painted prints, fluttering friends (MFT)

Inks: worn lipstick, aged mahogany, shabby shutters, forest moss, mowed lawn, tea dye, abandoned coral, versamark

Paper: cold pressed watercolour paper, shimmer antique gold cardstock, pale green cardstock, burgandy cardstock,

Also: metallic gold rich embossing powder

Painted tulips

Posted: September 15, 2018 | Author: Heather | Filed under: painted prints | Tags: My Favorite Things, Ranger Distress inks | 8 Comments

My Favorite Things is having a competition to find some Card Design Superstars so I thought I would throw a card into the ring. This one is created with stamps from the ‘Painted Prints’ stamp set. I have another post coming on Monday which explains my process using the rose stamps from the same set. I pulled this card out of that post so I could enter it in the ‘Clean & Simple’ category of the competition.

I used distress inks for all the flowers, leaves and stems then switched to versafine for the delightful sentiment from the ‘All About You’ set.

Supplies

Stamps: painted prints, all about you (MFT)

Inks: dusty concord, milled lavender, forest moss, mowed lawn, abandoned coral, picked raspberry distress inks, shady lane versafine clair

Paper: cold pressed watercolour paper, olive green cardstock

Christmas berries

Posted: September 14, 2018 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Christmas berries | Tags: Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress inks, Tsukineko Versafine inks | 15 Comments

I’m hanging out on the Foiled Fox blog today, one of my favourite places to be. They have a bunch of lovely new stamps & dies from Penny Black; if you haven’t had a chance to browse their new arrivals, you really should. Christmas berries is one of the new rubber cling stamps and I have filled out my panel with extra branches from a handy set called ‘winter branches‘.

I used a stamp positioner so I could work on berries separately from leaves and twigs. I stamped the berries in ‘festive berries’ ink (imagine that) and blended on the paper with a paint brush. I let the ink dry before painting some ‘aged mahogany’ onto the shadowed areas of the berries.

I inked the leaves with pine needles distress ink at one end and peeled paint at the other. After stamping I blended the two colours together with a damp brush. I stamped all the branch and twiggy bits with ground espresso distress ink which is a nice dark brown and used the same colour to paint details onto the berries. I used the ‘Winter Branches’ stamps to fill out the design but first I stamped the Christmas berries stamp on post-it notes so I could cut some masks to cover the berries while I stamped the branches over the top in the ground espresso ink.

I switched to versafine vintage sepia ink for the sentiment because it prints fine detail so well. To make the colour closer to the depth of ground espresso I just stamped several times in the stamp positioner.

Supplies

Stamps: Christmas berries 40-626(PB), winter branches 40-637, Joyful wishes 30-434

Inks: pine needles, peeled paint, festive berries, aged mahogany, ground espresso distress inks & vintage sepia versafine ink

Paper: hot pressed watercolour

Also: stamping platform

Peaceful

Posted: September 12, 2018 | Author: Heather | Filed under: peaceful | Tags: Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress stains, Tsukineko Versafine inks | 8 Comments

This simple card utilises only two stamps and three inks but I think it manages to convey an impression of a big winter sky. I splattered masking fluid on hot pressed watercolour paper then, after it had dried I sprayed water, stormy sky and forest moss stains over the panel. I did it fairly randomly but tilted the paper to keep one corner pale while the rest of the panel filled with colour.

When the sky was partially dry I stamped the trees with forest moss distress ink. With the trees in place I added more drops of stormy sky stain and scattered straw stain while tilting the panel upside down to make the colours bleed up into the sky like the northern lights. I blended forest moss stain into the stamped trees then let the panel dry before removing the masking fluid.

I trimmed the panel to cover the whole card front and added a sentiment from the PB ‘Christmas and love’ set. I had forgotten how much I like the look of masking fluid splatter. I use it more as snow in wintry scenes than anything else but it adds a little something to other designs also. Now I want to go and splatter masking fluid on all my watercolour paper…

Supplies

Stamps: peaceful 30-511(PB), Christmas and love 30-508(PB)

Inks: forest moss distress stain, stormy sky distress stain, scattered straw distress stain olympia green versafine

Paper: hot pressed watercolour

Also: masking fluid

Christmas arrangement

Posted: September 11, 2018 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Christmas arrangement | Tags: Kuretake Zig clean color real brush markers, Penny Black stamps | 4 Comments

I have another Christmas card for you today; in fact it is going to be ‘Christmassy’ all week here on my blog. If you haven’t watched Michael McIntyre talk about feeling Christmassy you should check it out; I’m sure you’ll smile. I’m not actually feeling Christmassy myself; I love summer too much to wish it away right now but I have started creating with Christmas stamps as well as wintry images. This PB stamp is called ‘Christmas arrangement’. I embossed it in platinum embossing powder, which is such a lovely not gold/not silver but still shiny colour. All the watercolouring was done with zig clean colour real brush markers. If I didn’t have exactly the colour I wanted I did some blending to get it. You can see in the close up that I did not take all that much care with my colouring but the overall effect is still vibrant with the pop of red against both dark and muted greens.

The sentiment is from the ‘peaceful season’ set and the whole panel is matted in red to make those berries pop even more.

Now if you are in Australia or elsewhere in the Southern Hemisphere you would realise that preparing for Christmas does not herald the coming of winter, far from it. The Christmasses I enjoyed for the first part of my life were often hot and sunny. We headed off to the Christmas tree farm in t-shirts, played cricket in my grandparents back yard after Christmas dinner and often headed off for some time at the beach after Boxing Day.

Supplies

Stamps: Christmas arrangement 40-646(PB), peaceful season 30-498(PB)

Ink: versamark

Markers: zig clean color real brush markers

Paper: hot pressed watercolour, red

Also: platinum embossing powder

Christmas Glow

Posted: September 10, 2018 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Christmas glow | Tags: Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress inks, WOW embossing powders | 10 Comments

Penny Black has launched a challenge on their blog asking you to share your holiday themed PB creations.

Two lucky winners will receive a $25 shopping spree to our online store. And the grand prize winner will receive a $100 shopping spree to the Penny Black online store!That’s three winners! The $25 shopping spree winners will be announced here on the blog on September 28 and October 26. The grand prize winner will be announced on November 30^th.

I am sharing Christmas cards on my blog this week; I hope you get inspired to do some creating with your PB stamps and dies. If you do make sure you enter the challenge; there are several ways to enter so check out the details here.

This large tree stamp is called Christmas glow and it is stamped on hot pressed watercolour paper. I coloured it with distress inks while working in a stamp positioning tool. I dabbed different green inks on the tree branches and spritzed lightly before stamping. I wanted to retain the shape of the tree but have the greens blend with each other so I added only enough water to move the ink a little. I stamped the pot in vintage photo then blended with a paint brush then added black soot ink to the inside of the pot.

I dried all the coloured stamping then inked the star and sentiment with versamark and coloured inside the string of lights with a versamarker (embossing pen) then embossed in gold powder. I used a gold gel pen to draw the string between the lights.

Supplies

Stamps: Christmas glow 40-627(PB), peaceful season 30-498(PB)

Inks: crushed olive, pine needles, mowed lawn, vintage photo, black soot distress inks & versamark

Paper:

Also: WOW metallic gold rich embossing powder, gold gel pen, embossing marker

Grevillea aflame

Posted: September 7, 2018 | Author: Heather | Filed under: grevilleas | Tags: Brusho, Darkroom Door stamps, Ranger Distress stains | 8 Comments

Thank you for the lovely comments you left on my previous post, also featuring the grevillea stamps. I love hearing from you and was very touched by your sweet words about me and my dad.

I’m sharing cards over on the Darkroom Door blog today. If you haven’t visited there you should; there is a collection of amazing artists who share their creations there. I have a couple of grevillea cards to share with you today. One of them not too realistic in colour but still bright and bold like the real thing. I stamped the grevillea in versamark twice and the foliage twice then embossed in silver embossing powder on hot pressed watercolour paper. I sprinkled brilliant red brusho around the flower heads and prussian blue brusho round the perimeter of the panel, spritzed with water and let the brusho activate before adding any more. I then played around with adding more water and tilting to make paint move. I also used a brush to pick up wet paint from panel to move it to an empty area then let it dry.

For a background I stamped mesh textures stamp four times on white card base with versamark ink (you could use mesh background stamp if you have it to fill card base) and embossed in silver. I stamped a sentiment from happy birthday sentiment strip in versamark on red cardstock and embossed it with silver powder. To complete the card I matted the grevillea panel with red cardstock and attached it to the card base.

For this more realistic colour scheme I painted a circle in wild honey distress stain on cold pressed watercolour paper and let it dry. Then I painted scattered straw distress stain over whole panel and let that dry. I inked the large grevillea flower in wild honey, ripe persimmon, spiced marmalade and forest moss distress stains, spritzed stamp then stamped on the watercolour panel. I repeated by spritzing the stamp to get a paler impression then followed the same procedure to fill the base of the panel with flowers. I inked the foliage stamp with forest moss distress ink, stamped and restamped for bold and paler images.

To finish I stamped a sentiment from ‘happy birthday’ set in rusty hinge distress ink then trimmed and attached the panel to natural white card base.

Supplies

Stamps: grevilleas, happy birthday, mesh textures (DD)

Card 1 Inks: versamark

Card 2 Inks: wild honey, scattered straw, ripe persimmon, spiced marmalade, forest moss distress stains, rusty hinge distress ink

Paint: brilliant red, prussian blue brusho

Paper: hot pressed watercolour paper, neenah natural white cardstock, neenah solar white, red cardstock

Also: stamping platform, silver embossing powder

A Grevillea Challenge

Posted: September 5, 2018 | Author: Heather | Filed under: grevilleas | Tags: Darkroom Door stamps, Ranger Distress inks, Tsukineko Memento inks | 17 Comments

My father lives not too far from Darkroom Door in NSW, Australia. When I knew he was coming to visit this summer I asked him to pick up some new stamps and bring them over. Not only did he bring what I’d ordered he also studied the stamps and came up with a challenge for me. I completed the challenge a while ago but the busyness of our summer has meant that I am only now getting this post written. Below you will see my dad’s words then I will wrap up at the end.

The Grevillea is a beautiful Australian Native Plant found across the continent and popular in many home gardens. There are many varieties from low ground hugging varieties to shrubs both small and large, sparse and thick. Their flowers are both small, individual and delicate as well as thickly clustered with the appearance of large flower heads. The bright colour of their flowers covers most of the spectrum, attracting many birds, particularly colourful parrots and lorikeets seeking nectar from their flowers and camouflage protection amongst their leaves and branches They tolerate hot seasons, have low water needs in comparison to many plants and have an extended floral season. They are very popular in home gardens as well as parks and their native bushland settings. The grevillea is frequently portrayed on Australian greeting cards and seems to be popular in all seasons. The beautiful range of colour and form seems to relate to a range of sentiments for both personal and seasonal occasions.

The sentiment stamps from Darkroom Door demonstrate that a message, be it seasonal or personal, happy or sad, celebrating or apologizing, or much more, can be expressed in a great variety of ways.
My suggestion to Heather, or was it a stampers’ challenge, was that, before she cuts either of the new stamps into individual stamps, she design a card using at least two of the grevillea images and at least half the sentiment expressions from one of her new stamps. She has agreed to the suggestion and I am confident she will rise to the challenge. What follows is Heather’s response to her dad and her explanatory notes for you, her fellow stampers.

For this first card I based my colour choices on the grevillea juniperina sulphurea . I used distress inks and markers to ink first the flowers then the tips in scattered straw, wild honey and spiced marmalade. I stamped the main image and, without re-inking, stamped pale images behind. The leaves and stem are stamped in peeled paint, again first and second generation stamping. As stated in the challenge I kept the sentiment stamps together (they still are) and stamped the strip three times across the card base in memento desert sand ink. To finish I splattered some spiced marmalade stain, matted with a mustard cardstock and added some linen twine.

The colour scheme for this second grevillea card is based on the grevillea superb. This time I aimed to keep the tips of the petals yellow while the rest was red. I inked the whole flower in love letter and rhubarb stalk ink to fill the centre of the flowers with colour. Then, to preserve the tips I wiped ink off the ends of the petals and stamped. To finish the flower I added dandelion ink to the tips of the petals and stamped again. To get background images I spritzed the stamp and got a second generation image behind. For this one the leaves and stems were stamped in memento olive grove ink.

To make one sentiment stand out from the strip I first stamped the whole strip in dandelion ink then placed tape either side of the target words on the panel. I inked again with olive grove ink on the smaller section and stamped over the yellow.

I chose an olive cardstock to frame the panel and finish the card.

I hope you enjoyed my response to my dad’s challenge. If you have kept stamps together for projects rather than separate them I would love to hear about or see your designs. I am also interested to see more colour schemes for the grevilleas. I’ve taken inspiration from a few different grevillea so far and have another couple of approaches to share later in the week!

Supplies

Stamps: grevilleas, happy birthday (DD)

Card 1 Inks: scattered straw, peeled paint, wild honey, spiced marmalade distress inks & markers, desert sand memento ink

Card 2 Inks: dandelion, love letter, rhubarb stalk, olive grove memento inks &  markers

Paper: hot pressed watercolour paper, neenah natural white cardstock, green cardstock, mustard cardstock

Also: stamping platform, linen twine

Mesh stencil butterflies

Posted: September 3, 2018 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Butterflies, mesh | Tags: Darkroom Door stamps, Nuvo embellishment mousse, Ranger Distress inks, Ranger Distress stains | 6 Comments

There is plenty of texture on today’s card, more than most of my projects. The pretty shimmer which is only just apparent in the photos is from Nuvo pure platinum embellishment mousse. I pressed it through the Darkroom Door mesh stencil onto watercolour paper. Once the mousse had dried I added distress stains over the mousse. It soaked into the paper but was easily polished off the mousse.

To create the butterfly panel I stamped with the same colour inks as previously used stains. After stamping the butterflies in one colour I blended with water and added drops of another colour to make them all all two tone. You can also see some dots of blue because I love a little splatter here and there.

I completed the card with a sentiment, some silver cord and co-ordinating blue mats.

Supplies

Stamps: Butterflies, Thank you

Stencil: Small stencil mesh (DD)

Inks: spiced marmalade, festive berries, stormy sky distress inks

Stains: spiced marmalade, festive berries, stormy sky distress stains

Also: nuvo embellishment mousse, silver cord