Tuesday Card of the Day

Today's card features the vine stamp from Michael Strong's Pumpkin Harvest stamp set.

Today's background was made with Tim Holtz distress crayons, water and a paintbrush. I scribbled onto an acrylic block, dipped my paintbrush in water then wet the scribbles and applied the color to my watercolor paper. Colors used: fossilized amber, festive berries, peeled paint and rusty hinge. 

When the background was dry, I applied distress crayon directly onto the vine stamp, first spritzing the stamp with water so the crayon would dissolve and stick to the stamp. I worked quickly before the crayons dried on the stamp. I added a spritz of water to a few dry spots on the stamp before stamping. Tim Holtz mentions in this YouTube at the 3:00 minute mark "you can stamp over the top of them but not with them".  It was fun to experiment with the distress crayons. If you don't like the "runny" look, regular watercolor crayons or pencils might be a better choice.

When the layer was dry, I dry embossed it with Park Lane's Flower Repeat embossing folder.

The dreams sentiment, stamped in Stampin' Up's rose romance, is from a Tim Holtz Visual Artistry set called Flights of Fancy.

Thanks for visiting! Hope your you have a wonderful day!

Monday Card of the Day

This week I am card captain at the Enjoy Michael Strong Stamps Group.

Today's card features the smaller leaf from Michael's Cloisonne Leaves set.

My inspiration came from Karen Dunbrook's Leaves card. Probably the only similarity is that I used distress inks and a paintbrush. Does that happen to you? Being inspired and then going off on a tangent? I had fun with it so I guess that's the main thing.

I used some watercolor paper from my stash...not sure of the brand or weight, but it was a thinner type.

I smooshed distress ink onto my craft sheet and spritzed with water. Then I pressed the leaf stamp into that puddle of color and stamped with it. Used squeezed lemonade, fired brick and rusty hinge. The lemonade came out too light. After it dried I re-stamped with fossilized amber oxide right from the inkpad over the dried lemonade impression. 

For the background I smooshed scattered straw  and crushed olive in two spots on my craft sheet. Spritzed each with water.  With paintbrush I picked up the scattered straw color and applied it to the unstamped parts of the paper. I ended up blending both the straw and olive colors together with my paintbrush and applied that to the background and let it all dry.

I used my paintbrush loaded with crushed olive ink and water to flick spatters.

Then I embossed with the Swiss Dots embossing folder. 

Stamped the sentiment in Versafine onxy black using a Stampin' Up set called Day of Gratitude.

Thanks so much for visiting! Hope you have a very blessed week! 

November 20 Stampfest at Lynette's

Lynette and I had a wonderful time Wednesday visiting and making cards!

Our first card was inspired by Dawn Turley's butterfly card.
We used Tim Holtz' watercolor crayons-festive berries, seedless preserves, fossilized amber and peeled paint, scribbling on our craft sheet, spritzing with water and using a paintbrush to apply the color onto watercolor paper. I found the Tim Holtz distress crayon watercolor kit on clearance for about $14 at Michaels.

Once the paper was dry we stamped a Hero Arts script stamp in hickory smoke using Hero Arts H2141 Manuscript Background. Then we used a stencil from another kit: Tim Holtz distress  mixed media spray stain kit-numbers and circles.

Lynette stamped some butterflies in hickory smoke.

I added more stenciling with fossilized amber and picked raspberry. Used a stencil from my stash that I had bought in The Netherlands a few years ago-thanks Hetty!!
We dry embossed the layer with Park Lane's Flower Repeat embossing folder and sponged the edges in hickory smoke.

We used Lynette's Tim Holtz "butterfly duo" thick die and embossing folder for the butterflies. We sponged with a few colors ending with festive berry and hickory smoke.

 Our flower card was inspired by Karen Dunbrook's card. We spritzed the flower stamp, applied Tim Holtz watercolor crayons directly to the stamp, spritzed again then stamped on watercolor paper.

Stamps: Hero Arts: E2900 A Real Candytuft, F2897 A Real Wild Poppy, C3270 Verbena,
C2830 Real Wild Aster, C2899 A Real Bluebonnet

TH watercolor crayons: seedless preserves, peeled paint, fossilized amber, festive berries
We used the same Park Lane "Flower Repeat" embossing folder on the green layer for this card.

The butterfly is punched from a Martha Stewart punch and "painted" with picked raspberry

Our third card was inspired by Jacqueline de Groot's Winter Scene houses card.
We used Lynette's Stampin' Up set, In the City. We started stamping the houses at the bottom. Lynette cut out masks and we proceed to stamp above each row, using Stampin' Up creamy caramel ink. The stamp set has a separate stamp to fill in the color of the houses. Very easy and fun. Other inks used: SU close to cocoa, chocolate chip, pistachio pudding, pretty in pink, bordering blue, barely banana.

Thanks for visiting.
Wishing you a very special week of remembering our blessings and giving thanks!

Drawing with Grace, November 18, 2019

My sister Grace, and I spent some time together on Monday testing out art supplies.

Grace made this drawing of the Farnsworth House using colored pencils.

I revisited a stampfest project that Lynette and I worked on in October inspired by Heather Telford's  Lake Wanaka mountain scene card. This time I used Stampin Up watercolor pencils with an aqua painter/waterbrush.

Grace made these cool origami paper cranes with some printed papers that she gave me. When you hold onto the bottom, you can pull the tail to make the wings flutter.

Hope all is well in your neck of the woods!

Halloween Cards 2019

I started making some Halloween cards on Saturday.

Punched a circle to use as a mask for the "moon". Then sponged distress inks onto the paper: chipped sapphire, fossilized amber, peeled paint. Used hickory smoke to add cloud streaks in the moon and sky and also along edges of the paper.

Pumpkins stamped in distress carved pumpkin and colored with coloring pencils.

Used Versafine onxy black for the sentiment.

Stamps from:

Michael Strong-cloisonne alphabet (Boo), and pumpkin harvest (large pumpkins)

Posh Impressions-tree

Hero Arts-Halloween sentiment

Bat and tiny pumpkins are unmounted stamps from my stash given to me by Lynette.

Trees are from Lynette's Sizzix Branch Tree which I had in my stash.

I made six more cards on Monday.

This time I drew trees on brown cardstock and cut them out. 

After dry embossing a Darice tree, I sponged it with fall colors using distress inks:

wild honey, fired brick, peeled paint, fossilized amber, rusty hinge and gathered twigs for the tree trunk.

This tree was created with the embossing folder stamping technique.

 I like to refer to these two tutorials for the embossing folder stamping technique:

Heidi Wegman's Embossing Folder Stamping
and
Audrie Magno-Gordon's Embossing Folder Stamping

Onto the raised side of the embossing folder, I dabbed distress inks: rusty hinge, wild honey, fired brick, peeled paint, fossilized amber on the leaves and gathered twigs on the tree trunk and branches of the embossing folder. Spritzed with water. Placed a piece of watercolor paper in the embossing folder. Closed it and pressed it down with my hands. When I opened the embossing folder the tree image was transferred to the paper.

I decided to add color to the white space using a paintbrush, distress ink and water. I transferred distress ink to my craft sheet by dabbing it. In another spot, I spritzed some plain water. I wet my brush with water then grabbed some ink with the brush. In that way, I added color to the paper. It was fun playing with the color. After it dried, I added some lines  with a black XS Faber Castell PITT pen. With distress carved pumpkin ink, I stamped the tiny pumpkins on a separate piece of watercolor paper. Then added some distress inks with my paintbrush: spiced marmalade, carved pumpkin and peeled paint to color in the white areas.

Variations on a theme...hope you are not bored! I switched to faded jeans for the sky and used a favorite Penny Black tree stamp, fantasy 3880K. Used mowed lawn and my home made curvy hills templates. 

I made a Birthday/Halloween card for my friend's daughter who was born on Halloween!  I was heavy handed with the sponging of color on the dry embossed Darice tree. Cut apart a Hero Arts Happy Birthday sentiment and the Halloween sentiment combining them.

Thanks for visiting!

Hope you have a very fun Halloween!