ink blending

Three Snowmen

Hello. ABC Christmas Challenge has reached the letters ‘S’ and ‘T’. Fabiola is hosting, and the themes are ‘S for Snowmen’ and/or ‘T for Three of a kind’. I used both the themes on my card:

For the background, I die cut the Lawn Fawn ‘Four Square Backdrop’ and then each of the four insert panels I ink blended with Distress Oxides. I then splattered with water, and also splattered with some silver shimmer acrylic paint and set aside to dry.

I stamped the images from Time For tea Designs, coloured them with Copics, and die cut with the matching dies.

Onto a white card base I adhered the frame with 3D foam, added the ink blended panels and the images, found a foiled sentiment to add to the fourth opening, and adhered some sequins for even more shimmer and shine.

I hope you can come and join us with your Christmas creations following one or both of our themes. xx

You Are A Friend-A-Saurus

Hello there. I have a fun card to share today for the new challenge at The Alphabet Challenge. Veronika has chosen the theme of ‘L for Literature – inspired by a book’. Here is my card:

I certainly had some fun creating this card. The book I was inspired by is ‘The Lost World‘ by Arthur Conan Doyle.

I used an older MFT stamp set for the images, stamped onto water-colour card, then coloured using my Distress water colour pencils. Once dry, I die cut them with the matching die and set them to one side.

The background is also water colour card stock. For the top I used a cloud stencil and some light blue Distress Ink, and the bottom is Distress water colour pencils again, swashed then splattered.

The sentiment is also from the same stamp set.

I loved creating the different coloured dinosaurs – those Distress Pencils work a treat for me. I don’t colour straight onto the card stock, as I find there are pencil scores left behind and they don’t blend enough for me – maybe I’m too heavy-handed – but I like to wet the tip of the pencil, then use a brush the the wet tip to add colour to the images.

I hope you can come and join us with your creations inspired by a book. xx

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Lil Patch Of Crafty Friends – anything goes

Crafty Animals – anything goes with an animal

Crafting Happiness – anything goes

Avenue 613 Create – anything goes

Mix It Up – anything goes – option to create your own background

Sending A Note

The new challenge at Cardz 4 Galz has started, Caz has chosen the theme of ‘Leaves’. Here is my card:

This card was created using Gina K Designs Poly-Glaze stencil-mates foiling sheets. I followed the YouTube video, used a laminator and some green Decofoil I had from goodness knows when, then used the matching stencil to colour in the foiled leaves, with a yellow and a light orange to create some depth.

I have a couple of the poly glaze sheets for different stencils, and when I get my laminator out again, I’ll probably do batch foiling with different coloured Decofoil to them ready for future quick cards.

I also used Gina K Designs Master Layouts to die cut the black panel, then the leaf panel, adding a previously foiled sentiment and some goldy/orangey sequins.

I hope you can come and join us with your ‘leaves’ creations. xx

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Lil Patch of Crafty Friends – anything goes

Challenge Up Your Life – anything goes

Crafting Happiness – anything goes

Love To Craft – anything goes

Mix It Up – anything goes – option make your own background

Foiled and stencilled birthday

Hello there. I am Guest design Team Member at Dragonfly Dreams challenge for this coming month.

The theme for the challenge is ‘birthday‘. Here is my card:

The main floral images are from Pinkfresh Studio, stamped twice, then coloured using the matching layering stencils. I varied the colours on each layer of the stencils, not just sticking to one colour each layer, and used a liberal amount of masking/low tack tape to cover some areas up – I am quite a robust ink blender when it comes to stencils.

I gave a deeper pressure towards the centre of the flowers to try and give some dimension, then die cut with the matching die set.

The background is a hot foil plate – also from Pinkfresh Studio – and used as more of an interest in the background. Once this panel was adhered to the card base, I attached both of the floral images as you see with 3D foam, added a foiled sentiment strip, and some gold sequins dotted around.

I hope you can come and join us in the challenge this month with your birthday themed projects.

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Addicted To Stamps and More – birthday

Krafty Chicks – anything goes

Beautiful Blossoms – flowers

Challenge Up Your Life – anything goes

Pinspirational – birthday and leaves

Die Cut Divas – anything goes with die cuts

Octopus ‘Hi’

Hello, I hope you are doing well. I have a card to share using some products from the June release at Spellbinders which I haven’t got around to using yet:

I started by ink blending my background panel using the two inks you see in the main picture. I splattered them with water and set it off to one side to dry.

This piece of card is an older Distress Heavystock – some of the batch which doesn’t take water well, so I had to be very careful with the amount of water I added – but the effect came out as I wanted.

Once dry, I die cut the bottle, and then used a Spellbinders embossing folder to create the bubble effect. Onto that embossed bottle I then rubbed – very gently – some of the Hero Arts white pigment ink so it would pick up some of the edges of the bubbles.

I then used a previously created ink smooshing panel of green – a lighter green panel and a darker green panel – to die cut the octopus layers and the seaweed.

I put the layers together, added some black for the eyes and mouth, and stuck them down onto the bottle.

The cork was from some brown cardstock, as was the board and sentiment, slotted into one of the arms of the octopus.

This was fun card to create, and I can see I’ll be playing with this die set again.

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Lil Patch Of Crafty Friends – anything goes

Color Throwdown – pink, green, magenta, white

Cut It Up – die cuts and under the sea

Shopping Our Stash – any wild animal

Crafty Animals – anything goes with an animal

Die Cut Divas – anything goes with die cuts

Grab My Button

Hello ‘Deer’ Friend

I little to play in my craft room today, which I needed after a four hour Teams meeting:

Onto a white card base, I ink blended some Bundled Sage Distress Ink through an Altenew stencil.

I then die cut a square aperture into a white card panel. and stuck that down to the card base.

The deer and rabbit are from a die set from Charlie and Paulchen, cut with Kraft card, and behind the stag I also placed a gold layer, slightly off set, for a little more interest.

The foiled sentiment was added, created from a previous foiling session.

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Color Throwdown – Kraft, white, green

Inkspirational – use stencils

Love To Craft – anything goes

Mix It Up – anything goes – option of aperture taken

Stencil Fun – use stencils – option of butterflies not taken

A Merry Holly Christmas

A new challenge has started at The Holly and Ivy Christmas Challenge. The theme is always ‘anything goes Christmas‘. Here is my card:

I first stamped a Hero Arts background script onto a white piece of card in a water-proof ink, then ink blended around the edges, taking the colour inwards a little haphazardly.

Then I had a go at a newish technique for me. I used a Tim Holtz red rubber stamp, and Distress pencils, slightly wetting the stamp, drawing the colours on with the pencils, a little spray of water – and stamp…..I think I did this a couple of times, adding a little less water the next time, but I really like how it turned out. I may have to have a further play with this technique in the future.

Once that was dry, I attached to a red layer, then a Kraft card base.

I felt the berries needed a little something-something, so I added some gold highlights to them:

The sentiment is stamped using a Tim Holtz stamp in Distress Oxides to match one of the pencils I used.

I hope you can come and join us with your Christmas/Festive creations. xx

I shall be entering the following challenges:

We Love 2 Create – anything goes mixed media

Crafty Catz – anything goes – option Christmas in July

Paper Dragonfly – anything that flies or nature

Creative Artiste Mixed Media – anything goes mixed media

Crafting Happiness – anything goes

Get Creative – Christmas in July

A Sunny ‘Hi’

Hello there. After a busy week, I was able to get to my craft room and play. Here is what I created for today:

I used a couple of die sets which were cabin counsellor gifts from the Concord & 9th Summer Camp. I first created the hot air balloon in bright and sunny colours, then the sun – obviously in yellow.

The background cloudy panel was created using Milled Lavender Distress ink and a Simon Says Stamps stencil. The ‘Hi’ sentiment is also from one of the die sets, layered three times – even the tiddle….

I then used Gina K Designs Master Layouts for the black layer and the cloudy layer.

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Addicted To Stamps and More – die cuts and/or stencils (both)

Cut It Up – die cuts and look up in the sky

Daisy Chain Challenge – summer time

Inkspirational – travel/journey mood board

Lil Patch Of Crafty Friends – anything goes

Simply Ellibelle’s I Spy Challenge – a sweet or warm and sunny colours

Hello Friend – Mushrooms

Hi once again. I have used this sentiment quite a lot in the past few weeks. I obviously like it, but I can’t keep having the blog post with the same title, so I just added the theme. Here is the card I created:

I have had this stencil and die set from Pinkfresh Studio since attending one of their virtual crafting events. I haven’t completed that class yet, but I wanted to use the set when I saw the colours for the current Color Throwdown challenge.

I stencilled the mushrooms in red and blue inks from Pinkfresh Studio, then stencilled the leafy sprigs in a brown from Altenew. A little grey for the ground/sand stuff at the bottom.

I then used the matching die and played around – for quite a while – with the layout and design.

The final card has a light brown dry embossed background, using a Spellbinders embossing folder. I then die cut the glass dome from some vellum, played around a little more, and decided the brown leafy sprigs were best going behind the vellum. In that way, they aren’t disturbing my trio of mushrooms, and yet still create some background interest.

The sentiment strip was added to the vellum, and behind the solid elements of the mushrooms and sentiment I added glue to adhere the vellum to the light brown embossed panel.

The mushrooms needed something more, so I added some gold shiny dots:

And juts a little more bling with some blue sequins.

This card looks deceptively simple – and yet it took me while to get the ink blending, the layering, and the final composition to where I was happy.

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Color Throwdown – red, blue, brown, white

Crafts Galore – anything goes

Creative Fingers – anything goes

Stencil Fun – stencils – option layering stencils taken

Inkspirational – emboss your background

Hello Friend

A change in craftiness with this card – I wanted some messy crafting:

I started by creating the background panel. This is a Spellbinders stencil from a recent class, and I masked off the centre oval shape, then ink blended the two Distress Inks that you see. I added some brown around the edges for some darker contrast.

I then ink smooshed a couple of card panel – Distress Mixed Media Heavystock – with darker browns on one panel, and lighter browns on another. Once they were dry I used the Tim Holtz ‘Merry Moose‘ die, as I haven’t used him for quite a while. I wanted to enter a challenge where the theme was ‘deer’ – and then had to Google if a moose was a deer or something quite different – thankfully, a moose is part of the deer family – phew!