Merry! Already?

Posted: August 5, 2014 | Author: Heather | Filed under: A Pocket Full, Flourish Holly, Footnotes, Shades, Tannenbaum, Textures | Tags: Fabriano Watercolour Paper, Penny Black creative dies, Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress inks | 5 Comments

I know. It’s only August but I imagine many of you have been creating Christmas cards since… well, Christmas! I have only just started and believe me I find it hard to stamp snow in summer. There is however a very good reason for this little bit of merry. Penny Black is releasing their new Christmas Collection next week so the team are getting you in the mood for Christmas stamping by pulling out a few favourites from last year.

This tree was definitely a favourite of mine last year. (it’s here, here and here). For this little trio of notebook pages I inked it with distress inks, stamped it on watercolour paper, spritzed the image to make the colour bleed and added a little music in the background. I did the same with the holly stamp but added canvas in the background. The third notebook page and the sentiment banner repeated the colours in the two picture panels to tie it all together.

The sentiment banner is my first attempt at inlaid diecuts. (There is one in yesterday’s card but this was my first go) I cut the word merry from light green and a dark green piece of cardstock. I placed a piece of tape behind the dark green negative piece then ran it through the diecut machine again with the banner die. Because the tape was in place it held together. I then pressed the light green “Merry” onto the tape and snipped the exposed tape from above the ‘M’ and the loop of the ‘y’.

How is your Christmas card pile going? Have you started? Have you finished! Counting this one I think I might have thirteen completed.

Supplies:
Stamps: Tannenbaum, Flourish Holly, Textures, Footnotes (PB)
Inks: Antique Linen, Forest Moss, Salty Ocean, Barn Door Distress Inks (Ranger)
Cardstock: Fabriano 100% cotton hot pressed watercolour paper, Olive Grove mix & match papers, Neenah Natural White 110lb card stock
Creative Dies: A Pocket Full, Shades, Love & Joy

Music and Blooms

Posted: July 15, 2014 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Footnotes, Petal Power, Textures | Tags: Fabriano Watercolour Paper, Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress inks, Tsukineko Memento inks | 3 Comments

The new Pocket Treasures release from Penny Black features some wonderful new background panels. The music and canvas stamps on this card are two of my favourites. There are several more patterns you can see in tomorrow’s post.

This card is lot busier than my usual creations with none of my usual white space. I stamped the flower panel first on watercolour paper using distress inks. I inked the solid flower stamp from Petal Power and spritzed it with water before stamping to make a very loose blended image. I added some more colour with a waterbrush and continued adding colour with both the solid stamp and the co-ordinating outline stamp until I was happy with the result. I stamped the music over the top. I inked the canvas stamp with distress stain and spritzed it before stamping on the card base and added several large drops of water.

I did a little stamp surgery to create the sentiment. The original stamp from Edge to Edge says “you make my heart smile” but I found that I never used the whole phrase; it was often too big for my designs. So instead of avoiding the stamp I removed the ‘heart’! I also had to change the ‘my’ to ‘me’ which involved cutting off the tail of the ‘y’ and adding a loop with a marker. I don’t often slice up my stamps but I think I might use this one more often now.

Supplies:

Stamps: Petal Power, Edge to Edge, Footnotes, Textures (PB)
Inks: Memento Tuxedo Black (Tsukineko) Walnut Stain, Spiced Marmalade, Fired Brick, Peeled Paint Distress inks (Ranger)
Cardstock: Neenah Classic Crest Avon Brilliant White 110lb smooth , Fabriano 100% cotton hot pressed watercolour paper, black cardstock