Lady Face Cards

After seeing Dina Wakley's YouTube, Learn to Draw Artistic Faces
and borrowing Jane Davenport's book,
Drawing and Painting Beautiful Faces from the public library
I started sketching faces...
on the back of envelopes, on scrap paper, everywhere.

For these cards, I made a few sketches on white cardstock,
added some color with colored pencils and markers, then cut them out.

 I used Lynette's Stampin' Up! Notably Ornate Set
and added some of my own stamps to create some simple vintage, shabby-chic cards.

 

Used wrinkle free distress backgrounds from my stash
sponging additional color on them.

Stamps:

Stampin' Up! Notably Ornate, Friendship's Journey, Antique Collectibles, Letters from Friends,

Hero Arts
Dawn Houser

Distress Inks
mowed lawn, festive berries, spiced marmalade,  fossilized amber, wild honey, pumice stone, brushed corduroy

Colored pencils & Distress markers

Christmas Card Stampfest at Lynette's December 7

Lynette and I had fun making Christmas cards

on our December 7th Stampfest at her house.

Love making this easy step card with a big WOW factor
We used a 5-1/2 x 12 inch piece of cardstock.
Scored and folded at 2, 4 and 8 inches.
We used printed papers, ledger paper and old book pages.

Stamps: Sizzix Tim Holtz cling rubber stamps and die set for the reindeer, trees and JOY.

Inks: distress pine needle, fired brick, brushed corduroy

Stampin' Up! handsome hunter

This tree and bird card was inspired by Bonnie's White Christmas for Merry Monday card
Stamps: Stampin' Up! and unknown stamp
Inks: Versafine black onyx, distress fired brick,
colored pencils and clear glitter gel pen

The "tree and snowman" cards were inspired by a card I saw on ebay.

I would like to credit the original but I cannot find it online any longer.

 Stamps: PSX, Rubber Stampede, Penny Black, Stampin' Up!, Tim Holtz and unknown

Inks: distress tumbled glass, broken china

Stampin' Up! chocolate chip

Black soot distress marker, colored pencils and glitter gel pen.

Thanks for visiting!

Dots Stampfest on November 18

For our November 18 stampfest, 

Lynette and I made fall tree cards.

Inspired by Michelle Zindorf's card

we used Judith's dots stamp AAA-04 to add various colors to a little fall scene.

We started out by stamping a tree stamp on a small piece of white cardstock

using either Penny Black's Fantasy tree

or Rubber Stampede Posh Impressions Tree Frame Z283-F.

 Used a circle punch and a post-it, to create our sun mask.

LEFT-Lynette used Versafine black onyx ink on the Tree Frame stamp.

After stamping, she added extra branches by hand with distress black soot marker.

RIGHT-Lynettte colored distress black soot marker directly on Fantasy tree branches.

After masking the sun with our circle

we stamped dots, starting in the upper corners with blue.

Then we used the yellows circling the "sun"

going from lighter in center to darker toward edges.

At the bottom we used blues, lighter to darker.

To create the sun, we sponged yellow using the reverse post-it with the circle opening.

Finally we sponged the edges with various blue distress inks.

LEFT- Used SU's chocolate chip on the Fantasy tree stamp.

RIGHT-Used Versafine black onxy on the Tree Frame stamp.

Inks for the dots and sponging

Distress-

scattered straw,squeezed lemonade,fossilized amber,

spiced marmalade, broken china, salty ocean, chipped saphire

Stampin' Up!-old olive

 

My Pentel fine point correction pen was clumpy

when I tried using it to add white highlights to my tree

so we switched to a white Sakura souffle pen.

Wrinkle Free Distress Tutorial

 A friend of mine asked me how I make my distress ink backgrounds
so I decided to do a blog post on it.

I learned from Tim Holtz' "wrinkle free distress" technique
described here and here.

I used distress inkpads festive berries, mowed lawn, scattered straw.

Later I substituted fossilized amber for the scattered straw.
Choose colors you like!

 

Place inkpad directly craft sheet.

Smudge and squish it a little to get the color transferred to the craft sheet.

You can see green and red but it's hard to see the yellow.

Spritz with water.

I used an old hairspray bottle with a fine mist

so I had to spritz several times.

Place paper on the wet ink.
I use Georgia Pacific 110 lb. index cardstock.
I turn the paper a  bit to "collect" the colors.
This is the fun part. You can experiment however you wish.

 I wanted to add more color, so I went back to the craft sheet 

and dipped the edges into the color.

 After finishing that first piece of  paper,

I added fossilized amber distress ink to craft sheet

and spritzed with water.

My second piece of paper had more dilute green and red.

The amber is bright because it's first generation here.

 

Adding more festive berries and fossilized amber ink to the craft sheet

and spritzing with water.

Results of placing paper onto craft sheet.

Results after dipping the paper into colors a second time.
If you don't like results clean the craft sheet and start again.

Here are my 3 backgrounds waiting to dry.

You are supposed to dry between the applications of ink color

to prevent colors from getting muddy.

I'm always in a hurry and I just dab the paper back into the wet ink

when I want to add color to the white spaces.

I tend to make several 4 x 5.25 inch pieces of paper.

They are very nice to keep on hand for a quick card.

After paper is dry, I sometimes iron it to flatten it.

Before adding to a card, I sometimes sponge distress ink on the edges

and/or even on white areas in the middle.

Made this card by sponging mowed lawn then tea dye distress inks on the edges of the background.

Used a Dina Wakley Scribbly Bird with Versafine black onyx ink

to make a belated birthday card.

Thanks for visiting!

Birds Note Card Set

Made this note card "case" from a folder.
It will be a gift that holds 4.5 x 5.25" cards and envelopes.
A few more details are here.
I used distress inks to sponge a scene on the front layer
using "holmade" stencils for the hills, clouds and sun.
Stamps:
Fantasy tree from Penny Black
Bird trio from Savvy Stamps

 

Dina Wakley's scribbly birds

were stamped onto background papers.

Some were distress ink sponged 

and some "wrinkle-free" distressed.

Distress inks used:  mowed lawn, festive berries, fossilized amber.

Birds and text stamped in Versafine black onyx.

An old favorite of mine, SU's Friendship's Journey is used on these cards.

Other stamps used:  SU's Antique Collectibles, Hero Arts E2758 Meadow Petals stamp,

from the Poetic Prints Pastel Petals set of four.

Inks: Stampin' Up! creamy caramel, rose romance, close to cocoa, 

Distress: spun sugar.

Thank you for visiting!

Pumpkin Harvest

The cloisonné pumpkin used on these two cards

is part of a Michael Strong Stamp set, Pumpkin Harvest

that I won from the Enjoy Michael Strong Stamps Yahoo Group Summer Challenge.

This background was made by first pressing distress ink pads directly onto my craft sheet,

then spritzing the inked areas with water.

Then my paper was place on the inked areas.

 

For this background I sponged distress inks onto paper,

then flicked some water on top.

Used Viva décor green glitter and clear pens on both pumpkins

which were stamped in distress abandoned coral.

Tree stamped with distress frayed burlap.

Thanks for visiting!

Stampfest from September 2

Lynette had a stampfest at her house way back on Sept. 2.
The two cards on the right were blogged already:
 Michael Strong Halloween 2015 blog hop.
 I'd like to show you the rest of the cards we made that day.

Lynette designed our tri-panel card which was inspired by
Kathy's leaves card on her The Daily Marker Blog
We used Lynette's Stampin' UP! markers:
glorious green, rocket red, only orange, yoyo yellow
using lighter colors first.


Here Lynette used leaves which were fussy cut.
The Sizzix Birch tree embossed layer was sponged with white ink.
Then accent lines were drawn with brown marker.
Used Stamped Michael Strong's Cloisonne Alphabet for the word, FALL.
Added green crepe paper beneath the leaves.

These flower cards are made with the Tim Holtz Flower Garden set.

We both love flowers and flower stamps!

The images were stamped first.

Then an aqua brush painter was used to pick up color scribbled onto the craft sheet

to add color to the "white" areas.

 

Thanks so much for visiting!

Halloween Test Tubes

These simple Halloween cards were fun to make
with an Inkadinkado Clear Stamp Set called Test Tubes
and a Tim Holtz Clear stamp set, called Lost and Found (birds)

 

...and a fussy cut bird from printed paper.

Lynette Makes Her Own Crazy Bird Stamps

 

My friend, Lynette Stewart, made her own "crazy bird" stamps

by carving them herself!

Here are the Halloween cards I made with her bird stamps.

I used colored pencils to color the birds.

Stamped the "BOO" with Michael Strong's Alpha set
Here are some close up views:

 I got the idea of the purple "drips" from Heidi, The Reluctant Blogger

Thank you for visiting!

Michael Strong Halloween Blog Hop 2015

Welcome to the Michael Strong Halloween Blog Hop for 2015!

Hope you came here from Shelly's Creative Rumblings blog.

My first card features Mike's Alphabet stamps

along with the bat and spider from his Halloween Confetti Die set.

Added white ink directly to the raised trees after embossing with Sizzix Birch trees.

 Drew accent lines with brown marker.

Spider web is made with a piece of dryer sheet.

I got carried away with making the following cards.
While they may not be specifically Halloween, I think they could work.
What do you think?

I also have to mention that I created these cards with my stamping friend, Lynette.
We always have so much fun at our Stampfests!

Mike's leaf Cloisonne Cameo is featured in the next three cards.
Used distress markers to color the cameo stamp
then it was spritzed with a fine spray of water before stamping.

Before stamping these cameos, I added color to my paper.

Scribbled with distress markers directly onto my craft sheet, 

spritzed with water and then placed paper directly on the craft sheet.

When dry, stamped cameos with black ink.

Here is a Halloween Birthday card for a special friend who was born on Halloween!

The background was made with tea dye distress ink 

swiped directly onto the logo side of Woodgrain embossing folder.

Pressed embossing folder together with hands.

No need to use embossing machine for this simple technique.

For these cameos, I sponged distress mowed lawn on some areas, 

after background was created (as noted above).

The small leaf was cut from Mike's cameo. The other leaf is from Lynette's stamp stash.

I'm so glad you came to visit the blog hop!

You have a chance to win Mike's new Pumpkin Harvest stamp set
if you leave a comment
on all the participating blogs in Mike's Halloween Blog Hop 2015.

Please visit the next stop at  Herma's blog.

Thank you very much for visiting!

Addendum:
I wanted to save the permanent URLs to each of the blog hop posts:
Michael Strong
Hetty
Heidi
Peg
Shelly
Laura
Herma
Rosie