Last minute ink smudge!
Posted: October 12, 2023 Filed under: bell & berries, Classes, Penny Black | Tags: Classes, Fabriano Watercolour Paper, Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress inks 11 Comments
You can probably guess from the title that this card was involved in a last minute ink smudge incident. The Penny Black bell & berries stamp was stamped, blended and dry, the panel was trimmed and attached to the card base and I had just stamped the sentiment in vintage photo archival ink when the unthinkable happened. Not just one but two archival ink smudges appeared on the card, one on the top right edge and the other on the bottom edge. I think we can all assume that the culprit was my right hand! If that ink was water based I might have been able to dilute and remove it but there is none of that magic happening with archival ink.
Not only was this card destined to be sent out as one of my Christmas cards but it was also a sample in my upcoming Painting with Stamps class. I reassured myself with the thought that although the two smudges would prevent it from going in the mail, it wouldn’t stop it from being a sample and perhaps a cautionary tale as well.
But dear reader, do you see any smudges? Indeed you don’t. The fortunate positioning of those smudges meant that I could trim the whole smudge off both the right hand side and bottom edge I cut through both card base and panel combined then attached the smaller two layer panel to a new card base. My card’s mailing status has been restored.
So, if you are interested in learning how to position your smudges for the easiest rescue and recovery come along to my next in person class; there are a few spaces left.
Today’s post features affiliate links to the following companies. If you buy through these links I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. The Foiled Fox Scrap’n’Stamp
Autumn Entrance
Posted: September 21, 2023 Filed under: autumn entrance, Penny Black | Tags: Fabriano Watercolour Paper, Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress inks 9 Comments
Days are getting shorter, nights are getting cooler and autumn is officially a few days away. I created this welcoming little scene with the Penny Black set ‘autumn entrance‘. The largest stamps are the door, the window and the bricks but then there are four different pumpkin stamps, the basket of wood, a wreath and a potted plant. Looks like I will be making a winter version too.
I stamped the door, window, pumpkins and basket on post-it notes, then cut them out so I could arrange them on a hot pressed watercolour paper panel. With the post-it masks in place I stamped the brick background over the top in ground espresso and barn door distress inks. I removed the door and window masks then stamped both images with faded jeans, weathered wood and black soot distress inks. Next the basket and tall pumpkin masks came off so I could stamp with mowed lawn, spiced marmalade, wild honey and carved pumpkin inks. Finally I removed the small pumpkin mask and completed the scene.
With the masks off and the stamping complete I used a brush and water, along with extra ink smooshed on my glass mat, to paint all the elements. I added a sentiment from the PB ‘ever thanks‘ set to complete the card. I do enjoy creating scenes or vignettes with stamps and this is a great set for doing just that. Do you have any sets that help you create little landscapes or scenes?
My blog features affiliate links to the following companies. If you buy through these links I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.
Ecstasy Crafts (Ecstasy Crafts offers a discount code heathertecs10 you can use for a 10% discount at checkout)
Tori’s Trees
Posted: September 14, 2023 Filed under: Tori's Trees | Tags: Echidna Studios, Fabriano Watercolour Paper, Penny Black stamps, sennelier watercolours 4 Comments
These lovely trees are so much fun to watercolour! If you scroll down you can see I’ve printed them in different sizes which probably tells you it’s a new digital stamp from Echidna Studios. My daughter created this design featuring a trio of trees on a property just out of Ottawa where friends of hers were married recently. She created a suite of wedding stationery for her friends and now I am playing with the designs myself.
I printed all three panels on hot pressed watercolour paper and painted them with Sennelier watercolour paints. The tree image above is 3.25″ wide, popped up on a card base with a Penny Black sentiment added in black ink. I printed the trees larger, 4.75″ wide, on the landscape oriented card below, painted them again with Sennelier watercolours then added a pale sky background with diluted speckled egg distress ink.
It was so much fun to blend the green, yellow and red on the trees then drop colour into a diluted green patch under the trees.
I’ve said before you can never have too many tree stamps and of course the beauty of this one is I can print them any size and even combine or flip them. You will definitely be seeing these trees again!
This last card is an one layer card, one 11″x 4.25″ piece of watercolour paper folded in half. I overlapped the tree image in different sizes to give me a wide display to paint in reds. Once again I finished it with a PB sentiment.
The trees are all still green around here but I have a hunch it won’t be long…
Late summer flowers
Posted: September 11, 2023 Filed under: Penny Black, sun kissed | Tags: Fabriano Watercolour Paper, Penny Black stamps 4 Comments
As you know I am often inspired by the season outside my window. My garden has been blooming for most of the summer but after the regular rainfall dried up I’m afraid I didn’t step in and keep it watered so the late summer display is not very impressive. I also stopped deadheading the flowers because the mosquitos have been vicious. Excuses, I know but one cosmos has been quietly growing all summer and is now tall and blooming so it is the inspiration for today’s card. The stamp featured in this card is Penny Black’s ‘sun kissed‘ which I used with a different colour scheme a few months ago.
I worked in a stamp positioner so I could add second layers or ink or water where necessary. The cosmos in my garden is close to the colour of seedless preserves ink so that is what I used to ink the flower heads and peeled paint distress ink for the stems and leaves. After inking the stamp I spritzed lightly with water before stamping on hot pressed watercolour paper. If I wanted more ink I would wipe the stamp and reapply but if I wanted more blending I would spritz the stamp again and restamp. Before cleaning the diluted ink off the stamp completely I stamped it in another spot to get the soft background flowers.
While the ink was still drying on the flowers I added some drops of wild honey ink to the centres of a few flowers. When everything was dry I using a blending brush to add peeled paint in to the base of the design. I splattered some green ink around the flowers and some water drops over the blending. To finish the card I stamped the sentiment from PB ‘birthday humor‘ in black and drew some black stamen with a fine tip pen.
Here is the inspiration flower from my garden.
My blog features affiliate links to the following companies. If you buy through these links I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.
The Foiled Fox, Scrap’n’Stamp and Ecstasy Crafts (Ecstasy Crafts offers a discount code heathertecs10 you can use for a 10% discount at checkout)
Purple Potted Pretties
Posted: August 15, 2023 Filed under: Karin brushmarkers, Penny Black, potted pretties | Tags: Karin brushmarkers, Penny Black stamps 13 Comments
The first time I coloured this sweet stamp, potted pretties I used pencils on kraft cardstock but I knew it had to also be watercoloured. I was very happy to be able to get such a range of depth on the petals with just one watercolour marker.
I worked on hot pressed watercolour paper and used four different markers from the Karin Brushmarker set of 26. For the petals I used one of the purples and had water and a brush handy to blend the ink. I put a few dots of ink from the purple marker at the narrow point of each petal then blended the ink to fill the petal. For a dark petal I laid down more ink initially, for the paler petals I sometimes used only the diluted ink left in the paintbrush.
You can probably see the leaves are a mix of a bright green and an olive green and I coloured the pot with blended grey ink. I added a sentiment in black from the PB ‘how sweet’ set and used a black gel pen to define the centres of the flowers.
Here are a few of the flowers I’ve been enjoying in my own garden. They get hit by rain then they bounce back up again. Mostly…
Wishing you comfort
Posted: August 3, 2023 Filed under: Branch 9 die, gel press, Moda Scrap, Penny Black, whisper | Tags: gel press, gel printing, Penny Black creative dies, Penny Black stamps 3 Comments
I’m always looking for ways to use my gel prints because I have many and want to make more! I found this two panel idea on Victoria Wilding’s instagram. I chose not to stamp on my prints but instead added the Penny Black ‘whisper’ die-cut over the top, a strip of cardstock along the edge and a sentiment from the PB set ‘strength‘.
If you don’t have gel prints you could use any kind of patterned paper but I would encourage you to check out my online course ‘Gel Print Journey‘ if you are interested in learning or trying new techniques.
I thought the muted tones of the gel prints lent themselves to a sympathy card as did the dark brown cardstock rather than bold black.
These gel prints are not very bulky as I printed on paper not cardstock. I added double sided adhesive to the back then attached the strips to the card base and trimmed off any overhanging paper.
You might recognise the same greeny brown print on this second card but this time paired with a print featuring the PB background stamp, ‘bed of roses’.
I cut both the Moda Scrap ‘branch 9‘ die and the edge strip from dark green cardstock and used a similar coloured ink for the sentiment. I know the cardstock looks black in the photo but it is truly dark green in real life.
I liked the clean but pretty effect of two gel printed strips together and was able to make several cards using bits of 6″x6″ prints. I kept all the left over scraps too; you will see them in an upcoming journal page.
Village Stroll
Posted: July 28, 2023 Filed under: Stamped Landscapes, Stroll | Tags: Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress inks 8 Comments
This lovely scenic stamp from Penny Black is called ‘stroll’ and it gives you a hint about why it has been so quiet on the blog lately. No I haven’t been in Europe strolling down pretty cobblestone streets but I have been on a break doing a little strolling with family while visiting several pretty places in Ontario and Quebec.
When I searched for a reference photo to guide my choice of colours my first search gave me a very similar English street, lovely but rather monochrome. I will try that approach next. Once I put Danish village street in the search I found something more colourful which ended up being the inspiration for this panel. As usual I worked on Fabriano hot pressed watercolour paper.
My approach was to use a stamp positioner and stamp first the cobblestone path, the trees, the lamp-post and then each house, all in distress inks. I then used a paintbrush and water to blend the colour in each stamped area. When the blended ink dried I stamped over the road and path with archival and amalgam inks to provide outlines. I was aiming for a sketched look so I used a permanent black marker to add outlines to all the houses as well. I fiddled back and forth between blending more distress inks and adding more outlines until I was happy with the image. To add sky I blended whatever blue ink was already in my blending brush! (looks like it could have been faded jeans but who knows?)
My recent strolls took me through the very pretty town of Perth, Ontario as well as L’Anse St Jean, Tadoussac, Quebec City and Mont Tremblant in Quebec. Where have you been strolling lately?
The L’Anse St Jean marina at 8:30 in the morning just before we took a boat tour of the Saguenay Fjord.
Seaside
Posted: June 23, 2023 Filed under: Penny Black, seaside, Stamped Landscapes | Tags: Fabriano Watercolour Paper, Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress inks 9 Comments
This image brings back so many memories for me. I love the ocean and beach so approaching the water down a sand covered path makes me very happy. I spent my first ten years in Tasmania and we had beach holidays at St Helens. After we moved to Canberra our family would go to Bateman’s Bay then in later years Bateau Bay and Port Macquarie. When I visit my Dad on the Central Coast we will sometimes walk along Soldiers Beach or just drive there to watch it during a storm.
To create a sandy background I swiped a piece of hot pressed watercolour paper through some smooshed yellow inks. It gave an uneven coverage which I left to dry before stamping. Using a stamp positioner I stamped first the fence posts in grey and brown then inked and stamped the grasses with a couple of green markers. I stamped the sea in uncharted mariner(of course) then the shadows in the sand with fossilized amber.
The initial stamping on hot pressed watercolour paper is always a bit patchy so I keep the panel in the positioner so I can restamp certain areas to build up depth of colour. I also use a paintbrush or markers to add colour directly to the panel. I painted the sky with broken china ink and finally added white dots to the ocean with a white gel pen. Now if I could just get to the ocean as easily as stamping the ocean…
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Meadow
Posted: June 9, 2023 Filed under: meadow, Penny Black | Tags: Fabriano Watercolour Paper, Penny Black stamps, Ranger archival inks 8 Comments
I have what I call a pile of possibility in my workroom consisting of panels that could be made into something. The smaller ones are housed in a shoebox; there are watercolour backgrounds, stamped and coloured panels, alcohol ink panels and hand painted experiments. This panel has sat in the box for years unstamped but looking very much like a sunset. I can’t remember whether it was painted with watercolour paints or swiped with watercolour inks. I imagine the pale centre circle was dabbed out with a brush or paper towel but I really can’t be sure.
I stamped the Penny Black ‘meadow’ stamp on the panel with peeled paint archival ink then coloured inside the leaves with zig clean color real brush markers. I added spots and dots to the flowers and sky with gel pens, a white, a gold and a copper.
I stamped a sentiment from the PB ‘enjoy builder’ set on a left over strip. Hope you can take some time to do what makes you happy this weekend. Here are a couple of suggestions. (wink)
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Good Day Bouquet
Posted: June 7, 2023 Filed under: good day bouquet, Penny Black, Time | Tags: Fabriano Watercolour Paper, Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress inks, Staedtler watercolour brush pens 3 Comments
Good day bouquet is a pretty vase stamp from Penny Black. I used a strip of hot pressed watercolour paper and kept the deckled edge which is on the large sheets I buy then cut into smaller pieces for card panels and other projects. I smooshed uncharted mariner and lost shadow distress inks on my glass mat, diluted it with water then swiped the watercolour panel through the ink. There was a fine splatter of masking fluid on the panel which is most noticeable on the side of the vase.
I chose to use water-based brush markers to colour the stamp. As the distress markers are being discontinued I have been testing out alternatives for inking stamps. Water-based markers can be helpful in inking small areas on a stamp. For the flowers, leaves and stems I used Staedtler water-based markers; the pack I bought has 36 colours so I was able to use three different pinks for the flowers and a couple of greens for the stems. I used uncharted mariner for the vase and then later for the ‘time’ stamps I added to the background. When I ink my stamps with markers I spritz the stamp before pressing it onto the panel and sometimes blend the stamped image with water also. I inked the centres of the flowers with black, then after stamping used the small tip end of the black marker to add more detail.
To finish I added some water splatter which I dabbed away with a paper towel and some ink splatter because you know I love to splatter! If you are in Ottawa don’t forget you have the opportunity to pick up some crafty bargains this weekend at the Saturday garage sale, details below.
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Heather Telford 