Wednesday, August 28, 2019

Variations on a Theme, Another Card Set


It's funny because I almost never make card sets, but in the last couple months I've made several, and I'm really enjoying the process.

It's fun to be able eto take out a new set and use multiple images at once.  Otherwise, I find that I'll use a new set, put it away, and not get back to it again for months or even years.

I also love when I find a product that can do double, or in this case, quadruple duty.  I'm talking about this Oh, Hello There die from Simon Says Stamp.  I love that it cuts the three words separately, so you can use different combinations of the words as I did with these cards.

The images are from Picket Fence Studio's Sweet Dear Friend set, and I used sentiments from Neat & Tangled, mostly from the So Many Sentiments set, but also one from the Lovely Lotus set.


I started by die cutting my sentiments and then playing with the placement on some panels of Neenah White cardstock.  I also had the stamp sets with me so I could figure out which girl/sentiments went best with each of the die cut sentiment combinations.

Once I had figured out the general layout of the cards, I stamped the girls using Gina K Black Amalgam Ink.


The girls were then colored with Copics.  I did use my normal three color, but I used a very light color for the base coat and very sparing touches of the darker colors to emphasize the light airy feel that the girls have.



Once my panels were colored, I adhered the die cuts and added the secondary sentiments.


I also added a colored mat for each of the panels.


I really love these little girl images, they have so much personality.



Thanks for visiting, hope your week is going well!  We're in the final push to back to school (we start next Tuesday), and we have birthday parties for both girls this weekend, so it's getting a little crazy around here!

Thursday, August 22, 2019

Love Never Fails, Coloring Outside the Lines


I've been coloring outside the lines again.  Sometimes you want to color, but you don't want to have to think too hard about it.  

I recently purchased this Pretty Peonies background stamp from Simon Says Stamp.  It's such a lovely background, and there are so many different ways you can use it, but for it's first outing, I thought coloring the negative spaces would be a great way to really show off the flowers themselves and all the detail in them.

I've used this technique before after creating a random stamped background on this card.  That time I used just a single color, this time I thought I would try adding a little more depth by using two colors (R37 and R39), using the darker color around the edges of the images.  


I also used my C3 marker to lightly color over some of the detailed lines in the images to add just a little bit of emphasis and depth.

After spending all that time coloring the background, I didn't want to cover it up too much, so opted for a simple sentiment from an older Studio Calico set.

Hope your August is going well.  We're less than two weeks from the start of school, so it's starting to get a little crazy here! 

Tuesday, August 20, 2019

We Can Weather Any Storm


I was in the mood to color the other day, and pulled out this sweet set by Torico for MFT.  I love Torico's illustrations and picked up this set awhile back, but hadn't inked it up until now.

The images were stamped on some Neenah Solar White cardstock, and then colored with Copics.  I really wanted the little girl and duckling/bird to stand out, so they were colored brightly, and then I kept the background neutral.

I added a gray halo around the girl/duckling using my N3 Copic, and then smoothed it out using N1 and N0.  For the ground line, I used N5 and blended that out a bit as well, although not as much as I wanted it to have that wet after the rain look to it.



These images are just so cute, I'm going to need to create some more cards with the rest of the images in this set!

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Tuesday, August 13, 2019

ME Whimsical Winter Card Set


Hi everyone!  I'm sharing a sweet and simple card set using Mama Elephant's Whimsical Winter stamp set today using a hybrid approach to mass production.

I really like being able to knock a bunch of cards out at once, but mass production is not my favorite thing...I get bored making the same card over and over.


For this set of cards, I was able to take advantage of the ease and efficiency of mass production, but still infuse a bit of variety.  

I started by stamping the critters on some watercolor paper.  I used my MISTI, so I could stamp twice, but of course you could do this as many times as you want.


I also stamped the tree on some background panels of watercolor paper, also using my MISTI.  To keep things interesting, I moved the panels around a bit so the location of the tree varies from panel to panel.

Next up, watercoloring.  While I love coloring with Copics, watercoloring, especially in the loose fashion I had planned for these critters is so much faster for me.  


I started by coloring my stamped panel of critters, and then set it aside to dry.  Then I worked on my panels, painting the tree and then adding a bit of ground line as well.  I thought about adding some blue for the sky, but decided to go with the less is more approach.


I then die cut my critters and tried them in different arrangements on the panel until I was happy with the result.  


I added some sentiments from Hello Bluebird's Typed Christmas set, and then assembled the cards, popping the critters up for a bit of dimension.


So fun right?  I actually have some additional die cut critters/gifts that I can use on an additional card.  

I'm hoping you're going to start seeing more Christmas cards here on the blog, because it's August and I really need to start building up my stack for December!

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Thursday, August 8, 2019

Tim Holtz Funny Farm


I recently picked up the Tim Holtz Funny Farm set, and didn't want to wait too long before I inked it up, so I pulled it out last night and created a quick one layer card set.

Super quick and easy.


The images were stamped on kraft with Versafine using my TH Tonic Stamping platform.  I have both the MISTI and the Tonic stamping platforms and love having them both on hand because I use them for different things.  The MISTI is all clear stamps for me, and I use the Stamping platform for rubber stamps.


Anyway, I use the stamping platform, leaving the stamp in place.  Then I colored the image with colored pencils.  I just love the look of colored pencils on kraft, don't you?


Once I was done coloring, I put the card back in the stamping platform and stamped again.  This is my normal MO when coloring with pencils because you often get a little bit of pencil over top of your stamping and then it's not as dark/crisp as you want it.


In this case, I added one more step and embossed with Ranger Frosted Crystal Antiquities embossing powder.  I really love this powder, it obviously embosses clear, but if you are looking for something other than a shiny look, this is perfect.  There is a bit of sparkle to it, but it's not overwhelming and you really don't see it until you are up close.  What I especially love about it is that it adds some great height/puffiness to your stamping which provides a wonderful texture. 


This is such a cute set.  Next time I'm going to try watercoloring these!

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