Brusho Rose
Posted: January 23, 2018 Filed under: Rose | Tags: Brusho, Fabriano Watercolour Paper, Penny Black creative dies 12 Comments
Ah, brusho, how I love thee! My cards on the Penny Black blog and here on my blog this week are all ‘love themed’ so it shouldn’t matter that it’s a paint that I’m in love with, should it? Brusho paint powders do such magical things I never tire of putting them to use.
To create this simple card I started with a piece of hot pressed watercolour paper already splattered with masking fluid. I sprinkled rose red brusho on one end of the panel and a mix of leaf green and olive green brusho over the other end. I spritzed with water to activate the paint and added more water and moved the paint around to create a varied coverage. Once it was completely dry I die cut a couple of roses using the Penny Black ‘rose’ die. I kept one die-cut complete and trimmed the rose and leaves off the other to arrange separately on a panel of linen textured cardstock.
I popped up the panel on a natural white card base and left it sentiment free to keep my options open.
Supplies
Shimmer heart
Posted: January 22, 2018 Filed under: Sweetheart | Tags: Finetec artist mica watercolour paint, Penny Black stamps 16 Comments
I don’t often stamp on directly on black but maybe I should more often, the effect is quite striking. I stamped the ‘sweetheart’ stamp and a sentiment in versamark on neenah epic black cardstock and embossed them in platinum embossing powder. I then used a small watercolour brush to fill all the hearts and flowers with finetec pearlescent paint. The finetec paints are watercolour so I added a drop of water to the colour and mixed it in the palette before painting.
The effect is very shimmery, more so than is apparent in the photos. I wanted the same colour and amount of shimmer on the mat to frame the panel so ended up painting a border of pearlescent purple on a square of black cardstock to frame my panel before attaching both to a black card base.
Supplies
Another flower garden
Posted: January 20, 2018 Filed under: Flower garden | Tags: Darkroom Door stamps, sakura Koi watercolor brush pens, WOW embossing powders 10 Comments
The ‘flower garden’ stamp from Darkroom Door performed so well with the random application of colorburst paint I tried it with a more controlled colouring method. I embossed this panel in gold then used Koi colouring brush pens. I decided to colour only the leaves and flowers and leave the tiny circle pattern filler uncoloured. Adding colour to gold embossing like this reminds me very much of Cloisonné which I saw on little trinkets as well as substantial, beautiful vases in China. I used two greens, a pink and a red to colour the design and kept blending with water to create soft gradation of colour.
I matted the panel in pink and embossed a sentiment from the Darkroom Door ‘happy birthday’ set which includes sixteen ‘happy birthdays’ in different fonts and sizes! You might have noticed with both the flower garden cards I managed to add a stamped envelope too. I’m trying to get into the habit of creating a matching envelope while I have all the supplies out rather than thinking about it later but being too lazy to do it…
Supplies
stamps: flower garden, happy birthday
Ink: versamark
Paper: hot pressed watercolour, neenah natural white, pink cardstock
Markers: Koi coloring brush pens yellowgreen, green, red, pink
Also: WOW metallic rich gold embossing powder
Flower garden
Posted: January 18, 2018 Filed under: Flower garden | Tags: color burst, Darkroom Door stamps, WOW embossing powders 14 Comments
I was excited to see this stamp at Darkroom Door when I visited last year; I don’t remember ever noticing it before. It appealed at once and I’m happy to say this panel made me very happy. I embossed the large background stamp, ‘flower garden’ on hot pressed watercolour paper with platinum embossing powder (my current fave) then sprinkled two colours of colorburst paint powders lightly over the panel. A little goes a long way with colorburst and considering how much embossing there is I didn’t need much powder.
I spritzed the panel with water and watched it be magical. The two colours were indigo and alizarin crimson; the indigo gave me all the blues along with a tiny spot of green. The alizarin crimson gave me all the pinks and reds and the purples were a mix. I did do some blending with a paint brush just to make sure colour filled all the spaces. I diluted a few areas with water and pulled out some colour with a ‘thirsty brush’ to create some pale areas.
I tried a few different mat colours before picking blue then decided the white card base was a bit stark. To create a platinum border on the card base I ran my tape runner around the edges of the card front then embossed with the same platinum powder. I decided to write my own sentiment but the silver gel pen did not match the platinum embossing powder. I discovered that I could emboss the gel pen writing if I was really quick with the powder and didn’t let the ink dry for even a second. It might not surprise you to know today’s colours happen to be my favourites.
Supplies
stamps: flower garden
Ink: versamark
WOW metallic platinum superfine
Paint: Colorburst alizarin crimson & indigo
Paper: hot pressed watercolour, neenah solar white, blue cardstock
Vintage Rose
Posted: January 17, 2018 Filed under: Red blush, Textures | Tags: Brusho, Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress inks, Tsukineko Versafine inks 8 Comments
I am over on The Foiled Fox blog today sharing this vintage rose card. You have seen me work with this sort of colour scheme before; I enjoy painting with the ink from a stamped image. In this case the stamp is the Penny Black, ‘red blush’. Although I worked mainly in vintage photo distress ink, I did give it a red blush with some Ost. Red brusho watercolour paint. You can read my whole process over on the Foiled Fox blog. 
Supplies
Stamps: red blush, textures, forever & always
Inks: vintage photo distress ink, versafine vintage sepia
Paint: brusho
Paper: hot pressed watercolour paper, neenah natural white, brown cardstock
Ferns
Posted: January 16, 2018 Filed under: ferns, Leaves, Stencils | Tags: Darkroom Door stamps, Darkroom Door stencils, Ranger Distress inks, Tsukineko Stazon inks 4 Comments
Darkroom Door has a wonderful range of stencils that co-ordinate with quite a few of their stamps. I used the ferns stencil to create a soft background for the fern stamps from the ‘leaves’ set. I used neenah natural white paper and sponged with the antique linen distress ink through the stencil. I did it three times to create a few soft background images.
Over the top I stamped both the large and small ferns from the leaves set in stazon ganache ink. I have been pulling out the stazon inks whenever I’m working with the fine details of some of the Darkroom Door stamps. Initially I bought the stazon inks to pair up with my alcohol ink backgrounds but they are very good for fine detail stamping.
Once I had stamped quite a few ferns in ganache ink I stamped one large fern and one small in versamark then embossed them in gold. The sentiment and ferns on the envelope are stamped in stazon ganache. I added a narrow dark brown mat and a wider brushed gold mat also and attached it all to a natural white card base.
Supplies
Stamps: Leaves, Thank you
Stencil: ferns
Paper: neenah natural white, brushed gold, textured brown
Inks: antique linen distress, stazon ganache, versamark
Also: metallic gold rich embossing powder
Winter sky
Posted: January 12, 2018 Filed under: dressed in snow, peaceful winter, snowy village, Stamped Landscapes | Tags: Brusho, Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress inks, Tsukineko Memento inks 8 Comments
It’s taking me a while to get back into gear here on the blog but I have been busy planning my next class. Living as I do surrounded by winter beauty I often look a the sky or the landscape and wonder how I can turn it into a card. This is one such attempt. I looked at the sky one afternoon, because the sun sets in the afternoon around here, there is no waiting for evening! There was a pale pink glow above the horizon, a little blue then grey reaching up. I was managing to create some subtlety with this scene right up until the brusho shook out of the bottle rather more generously than intended! No matter, a lot of water and paper towel calmed things down again.
I started with a panel of hot pressed watercolour paper splattered with masking fluid. I painted some water across the panel where the horizon would be then sprinkled a little ost. red brusho above and blended it in with a paintbrush. Next I added grey brusho and blended that to fill the sky and finally some ost. blue brusho for some blue tones. I kept adding, blending and diluting until I was happy with the soft gradation of colour. While the sky was still damp I pressed just the small tree part of a landscape stamp out of the PB peaceful winter set repeatedly across the horizon inked with memento London fog ink.
I used the stamping platform to stamp and restamp the trees on the right from the PB snowy village set in black soot distress ink. As distress ink is water soluble I was able to paint over the stamping with water to make the image bolder and darker. I added a little blue brusho as I painted to give the tree some light and shadow. I dried the panel before painting another line of water, this time across the panel in line with the base of the tree trunk. Again I added the same brusho colours but got a bit more blue than I’d bargained for.
After drying that section I stamped just the left hand trees from the PB dressed in snow stamp again in black soot ink. I used a paintbrush to darken the stamped image and extend the trees a little more on the right. To finish I rubbed off the masking fluid and mounted the panel onto a white card base. All the supplies are linked below. I hope you have had a great week.
Supplies
Stamps:
Inks: black soot distress, London fog memento
Paint: brusho
Paper: hot pressed watercolour, neenah solar white
Also: masking fluid
Crisp & cold
Posted: January 6, 2018 Filed under: dressed in snow | Tags: Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress stains, Tsukineko Memento inks 6 Comments
This seems an appropriate card to post right now while the weather is oh. so. cold. For this one I used a stamp postioner to stamp one colour at a time with the ‘dressed in snow’ scenic stamp. I used memento markers to ink the evergreens in northern pine, the deciduous in tuxedo black and the fence in rich cocoa inks. After I had stamped all the elements I added a mask for the moon and then painted a tumbled glass distress stain sky.
I spritzed the trees on the left very lightly to blend the colour and painted some tiny background trees on the horizon. Winter is very beautiful where I live but currently it is also rather bleak. Please forgive me the rather brief description; I created this one a while ago and the details are a little sketchy in my memory.
Supplies
Stamps: dressed in snow
Memento markers: northern pine, tuxedo black, rich cocoa
Distress stain: tumbled glass
Paper: hot pressed watercolour, olive green cardstock
Also: stamp positioner, frisket film
A blessed gift
Posted: January 2, 2018 Filed under: Berry speckled | Tags: Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress inks, Ranger Distress stains, WOW embossing powders 3 Comments
On the ninth day of Christmas I am returning to the blog. I’ve been enjoying some time with family and friends, relaxing, reading but I have not been creating cards! This panel started out as a practice for another project but I ended up turning it into a card anyway. I began with a panel of hot pressed watercolour paper with masking fluid splattered over it. I used a stamp positioner to stamp the different coloured elements of the berry branch in distress inks then embossed over the image with embossing powder. Unfortunately when you put embossing powder over masking fluid it sticks so the panel became very textured and very speckled with ‘snow’. I painted weathered wood distress stain over the background added a sentiment but was not able to remove much of the masking fluid as I had ‘glued’ it there with heat embossing!
As this was a practice panel I changed my order of operations when I made the next card, stamping and embossing first then splattering masking fluid second. I hope your 2018 is off to a great start. I have been busy keeping up with Dressember details which I will post more about later but I’ll just add a quick thank you here to all who have donated to this worthy cause; you have really encouraged me.
Supplies
Stamps: berry speckled, peace & love
Inks: versamark, crimson red versamark, weathered wood distress stain
Distress Markers: festive berries, gathered twig, barn door, forest moss
Paper: Neenah solar white cardstock, hot pressed watercolour paper, neenah red pepper cardstock
Also: stamping platform, masking fluid, WOW clear gloss superfine embossing powder
Winter wardrobe
Posted: December 22, 2017 Filed under: Skis 'n' sled, winter wardrobe | Tags: Kuretake Gansai Tambi watercolour paints, Penny Black creative dies, Penny Black stamps, Tsukineko Versafine inks 1 Comment
I had some fun and a certain amount of frustration putting today’s cards together. The fiddliness factor was high, well for me anyway. All three cards feature the winter wardrobe and sled ‘n’ skies die sets from Penny Black. I’ve backed them with the mosaic pattern stamp on the first two cards and created an outside window backdrop for the final card.
On the cards above and below I stamped the mosaic background stamp then embossed in clear powder. Above I used versafine crimson red ink; below I used versamark. To create all the clothing, skis and sleds I painted scraps of watercolour paper with gansai tambi paints. I had a bunch of coloured scraps that I lay the various dies on to cut as many elements as I could. I also cut a few from black card stock. When I had all my little bits and pieces cut out I arranged them on a white sheet of paper and started making combinations and vignettes. For a few crazy moments I thought about videoing the process of putting these cute little collections together then realized that it would make me want to poke tweezers in my eyes and possibly have the same effect on you, my faithful readers.
Despite the fiddliness factor it was fun to combine my different coloured hats, mitts, scarves, muffs and trims to co-ordinate and contrast with the sleds and skis.
To create my outdoor scene I used a piece of brown wood textured cardstock then tore some white card to create two layers of snow where I tucked in the sled, skis and hats (or beanies and toques depending where you come from!) I painted pale blue on a white piece of watercolour paper for the window panel and die cut a light brown square with four more squares cut from it for the window frame.
All three panels are on white card bases and two feature sentiments from the PB holiday snippets stamp set.
I hope you are having a warm and wonderful day.
Supplies
Stamps: holiday snippets
Dies: winter wardrobe, sled n skis, square dies
Ink: versafine crimson red, versamark
Paper: neenah solar white, neenah epic black, hot pressed watercolour
Paint
Adhesives: multi matte medium, kool tak foam
Heather Telford 