Early light

Posted: June 21, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: CAS, Enjoy LIfe, Every Happiness | Tags: , | 39 Comments

Early light

Now that I am back from my trip to DC and half way through the piles of washing I found a little time to create a card. I have some great design team tasks to tackle and new class projects to design for August but before I dive into them I played around with a new toy. I know it doesn’t look like anything new here but I cut my mask with one of my new spellbinders square dies. Creating a mask with a die is that little bit easier than lining up the four post-it notes. (not a ground breaking technique, I know!)

With my mask in place I sponged Memento pistachio ink on the lower two thirds of the square and summer sky in the top third. Before removing the mask I stamped the grasses across the bottom of the scene. After removing the mask I added the grass and sentiment in olive grove.

I hope to settle back into a routine of visiting and commenting on your blogs; thank you so much for dropping in here.

Supplies:

Stamps: Enjoy Life, Every Happiness  (PB)
Inks: Memento Pistachio, Olive Grove, Summer Sky  (Tsukineko)

My unusual creative process

Posted: January 20, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Background Stamps, Penny Black, Social Butterfly, Watercolour | Tags: , , | 18 Comments

Watercolour dragonfly closeup

I visited my Handmade Cards board on Pinterest this afternoon for inspiration. However, the inspiration pic. and my finished card bear absolutely no resemblance to each other. I had a totally different design almost ready to put together when I decided to try and watercolour a background stamp, just in case I wanted a bit more going on in the card. (Unusual for me, I know) As it turned out I liked the background panel so much it became the main event, I tossed the other panel and kept only the little dragonflies from my original design.

Watercolour dragonflies

So, without mentioning the discarded process, here is how I made this card:

  1. dampened a piece of watercolour paper, inked the dragonfly stamp in blues and green and stamped it on the damp paper.
  2. when the dragonflies were dry I cut them out, added a little sponging and used a marker to darken their spines.
  3. stamped the dragon flies with a versamark pad to totally cover them then embossed with a thick glossy embossing powder, twice.
  4. to make the background panel, I wet a piece of watercolour paper (much wetter than for the dragonflies).
  5. I inked the background stamp randomly in the two blues and the green ink and stamped it onto the wet paper.
  6. when all was dry I trimmed the background panel, sponged the edges and embossed the sentiment.
  7. attached the background to the card base and the dragonflies with glue dots.

Not what I set out to create, and if I told you I my initial intention was to make a friendship themed card for the Less is More challenge you would just laugh wouldn’t you?

Supplies

Stamps: Special Time, Wall Paper Print, Social Butterfly (PB)
Ink: Memento Teal Zeal, Paris Dusk, Cottage Ivy and Versamark (Tsukineko)
Also: Thick Glaze embossing powder

Snowscape glimpse

Posted: January 4, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: CAS, Christmas Park, Stamped Landscapes | Tags: , | 33 Comments

Snowscape glimpse

Sometimes a small snapshot of a scene is all that is necessary to give you the big picture. That’s why I like making stamped landscapes which are either wide and short or narrow and tall; they give you a glimpse of a larger scene.

The challenge at CAS-ual Fridays today is to make a clean and simple thank you card. I need a few thank you cards so I decided to keep it simple and enter the challenge. This card started out as a one layer card masked top and bottom with post-it notes but I stamped a simple “thank you” and got two extra black dots I hadn’t asked for. Not to worry, I sliced the stamped panel out of the card and stuck it on a white card base and proceeded to stamp the sentiment again. This time no dots, but crooked! I peeled off the snowscape panel and re-positioned it over the crooked ‘thank you” then wrote my own. The landscape was stamped in the following order:

  1. Position top and bottom masks then curved horizon mask
  2. Stamp trees in Paris dusk over the horizon.
  3. Re-position curved mask and stamp trees in black, emboss in clear.
  4. Return curved mask to horizon, add a post-it circle for the moon and sponge the sky in Summer sky and Paris dusk
  5. Return curved mask to lower hill position and sponge snow bank in Summer sky
  6. Remove curved mask and sponge lower edge in Paris dusk

My son has gone downhill skiing with a friend today for the first time. He’ll probably love it…

Supplies:

Stamps:  Christmas Park(PB)
Inks: Memento Summer Sky, Paris Dusk, Versafine Onyx Black, Versamark(Tsukineko)
Also: Clear embossing powder

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