Welcome Baby - Masks and Shading

The challenge at Papertrey Ink's Make It Monday this week is to ink blend through die cut masks. Lizzie has a great video that you can watch here. I created this baby card using a mask that I made with a circle die and acetate.

 

I blended the ink one circle at a time, moving my mask and taping it down each time. I then laid the mask over each inked circle and stamped my polka dot stamp with white pigment ink.

Supplies:
Stamps - Polka Dot Basics, Keep It Simple - Baby (PTI)
Dies - Std. Circles Lg, A2 Matting Basics A & B (Spellbinders), Double Ended Banners (PTI)
Paper - Stampers Select White (PTI), Lagoon DP & Vellum (CTMH)
Ink - White Pigment Ink, Gypsy, Lagoon, Pear, Sky & Moonstruck (CTMH), Versamark, silver EP
Other - Fun foam, acetate, Metal flower & brad

Birthday Balloons - Watercolour and Stencil

I hope everyone had a wonderful Mother's Day. Today I am playing along with the Wednesday Challenge at Simon Says Stamps, which is to use stencils.

I used my new Peerless Watercolours to create the background and using the Bubble stencil from Tim Holtz I added some modeling paste over top. Some of the watercolour had not completely dried so the paste soaked up some of the green colour, I do like how that turned out. The background colours are actually much more vibrant in person. I added a silver foil balloon die cut, embossed the sentiment using Versafine Onyx Black and clear EP and added a few silver sequins.

Supplies:
Stamps - Ombre Sentiments (PTI)
Dies - Best Birthday (PTI)
Stencil - Bubble (Tim Holtz)
Paper - Watercolour (Strathmore), Silver Foil CS (DCWV), Stampers Select White (PTI)
Ink - Versafine Onyx Black, Peerless WC, modeling paste
Other - Sequins

Watercolour Peony Card Set

The Make It Monday challenge at Papertrey Ink this week is to create a watercolour set of cards. Melissa has a great video tutorial that you can see here illustrating how she created her pretty set. I love the look that Melissa created using a sponging and ink technique to create a watercolour look, but since I just received my Peerless Watercolours last week I had to use them. I am also posting these cards to Simon Says 'Work it Wednesday' for the month of May. Here is the set I created:

 

I first stamped my images with Versafine Onyx Black ink onto cold pressed watercolour paper. Then using a wet brush I added my Peerless colours to each image. As I am new to this it took a little bit of experimenting. I first started with a wet on wet technique and ended up with a royal mess with far too much bleeding of colours into each other. I think the wet on wet works best if you heat emboss your image. I then spattered some watercolor paint onto each and then water droplets. As you can see I don't have a lot of bleeding of colours, but I rather like it that way as it satisfies my need for precision and colouring 'inside' the lines - I am working on this.

I die cut my watercolour panel using a new die that I just received in the mail as part of a blog hop prize from Simon Says - a great big thank to them!

Supplies:
Stamps - Peonies on Parade, Botanical Silhouettes (PTI)
Dies - Big Word Pop Die (Memory Box)
Paper - Watercolour paper (Strathmore), Stampers Select White CS (PTI), Black DP (CTMH)
Ink - Versafine Onyx Black, Peerless Watercolours
Other - Raindrops (PTI)

Papertrey Ink April Blog Hop - Stacked Circles

Good Morning! Today is the day of Papertrey Ink's monthly blog hop. This month Nichole has given us a very interesting photo as our jumping off point. The stacked concentric circles and subtle linear elements inspired me to create this card:

Here is the inspiration photo:

A lot of different ideas popped into my head the first time I saw this picture. After a few failed attempts at different designs I finally came up with one that I liked.

I created a set of masks using full sticky backed post-it notes and my Spellbinders Standard Circle dies. Using these masks I sponged the concentric circles in shades of blue, inking only half to create an invisible line down the center. I used a stitched rectangle die to mimic the dashed lines in the photo, added a die cut silver foil and white heat embossed sentiment.

Supplies:
Stamps - Thank You Kindly (PTI)
Dies - Wet Paint (PTI), Standard Circles Sm (Spellbinders), Stitched Rectangles (Lil Inkers)
Paper - Stampers Select White CS, True Black CS (PTI), Silver Foil
Ink - Sky, Dutch Blue, Pacifica, Outdoor Denim (CTMH), Versa Mark, White EP

Tulip Glory - Make It Monday #246 - Faux Brush Lettering

The Make It Monday challenge at Papertrey Ink this week is brought to you by the wonderfully talented Amy Sheffer, I have been a huge fan of her work for years. This week she has a tutorial on creating the look of Brush Lettering with sentiment stamps - check out her video here. I used one of the beautiful layered images from Tulip Time and a sentiment from Birthday Cheer. I was inspired by this beautiful card by Marika.

I masked the large three tulip image and stamped only one of the blooms and then coloured over the stamping with coloured pencils. The stem is from Meadow Greens, and I masked one of the leaf images from Tulip Time. I stamped the sentiment in a medium grey tone. I tried using a brush and ink and also copics to get the brushed look effect but the lines of this sentiment were too fine and I just made a mess, so I settled on adding the darker highlight with a coloured pencil. I added some shading to ground the image and raindrops to finish it off. I kept wanting to do something else to this card, but couldn't come up with anything so decided to just leave it alone.

Supplies:
Stamps - Tulip Time, Meadow Greens, Birthday Cheer (PTI)
Paper - Stampers Select White CS (PTI)
Ink - Grey Wool, Petal, Gypsy, Pansy Purple, Pear (CTMH), Prismacolor Pencils - Cool Grey (70%, 50%, 20%), Violet, Parma Violet, Apple Green, Dk Green, White
Other - Raindrops (PTI)

Coloured Beauty - Copics & Pencils - Create Along With Us

Today I decided to play along with PTI's 'Create Along With Us' challenge, a new challenge to me. I chose to CASE this pretty card created by Laurie, you can see more of her work here.

I was truly inspired by another blogger and her beautiful colouring technique using Copics and coloured pencils. Marika Rahtu has some fabulous videos showing how she colours her gorgeous flowers, be sure to check it out here.

 I absolutely love this method of no line colouring and am very excited about doing more of it. For my first attempt I am extremely happy with it, although I had a little oops at the end and got black ink on the lower right petals. My sentiment covers most of it - I had put far too much time into this not to use it. I guess the ink thing frazzled me a bit because I had intended to pop the flower up after fussy cutting and instead just glued it straight down to my watercolour card base.

 

I was unhappy with the colouring of the flower center, so I stamped over it with black Versafine ink. I then added my sentiment and raindrops.

Supplies:

Stamps - Peonies on Parade (PTI)

Dies - Wet Paint (PTI)

Paper - Nina Solar White CS, True Black CS (PTI), Watercolour Paper

Ink - Baby Pink, Buttercup (CTMH), Tumbled Glass (Ranger), Copics - R01, R20, YG03, YG11, Prismacolor Pencils - pink, pink blush, crimson red, apple green, grass green, dark green, white, Versafine Onyx Black

Other - Raindrops (PTI)

New Beginnings - MIM #245 - Colour Isolation

For the Make It Monday challenge at Papertrey Ink this week, Ashley highlights a technique called Color Isolation. This technique, used in photography, creates beautiful and dramatic photos. I love the look of pops of colour against the neutral backdrop, like the one below:

 After a couple of false starts using different stamp sets, I finally settled on Mini Blooms to try to recreate the feel of one of these great photos. Here is the card I came up with:
 

I started out with a piece of Fresh Snow linen cardstock (love this paper) and stamped two of the large corner stamps from the set in grey. Next I centered my sentiment from Tulip Time before filling in with the rest of the flowers. I coloured in here and there on my flowers with a darker grey pencil crayon, inked the edges with grey and then added my colour pop. I thought this would be a great card for someone facing a difficult challenge in their lives, so I coloured the flower red for love and strength, added the touch of green for health and growth and topped it off with a rhinestone for a glimmer of light and hope.

Supplies:
Stamps - Mini Blooms, Tulip Time (PTI)
Dies - Mini Blooms (PTI)
Paper - Fresh Snow linen CS, True Black CS (PTI)
Ink - Grey Wool, Tulip, Pear (CTMH), Memento Tuxedo Black, Warm Grey pencil (Prismacolor)
Other - rhinestone

Polka Dot Baby Girl - MIM #244 - Score Lines

Had a busy week, but finally had a few moments to put together a card for Papertrey Ink's Make It Monday challenge. Laurie has a great video here, reminding us how a few simple score lines can up the interest on our cards. I seem to forget this technique, but I do like how it can add depth to white space on a card. This card is for my great-niece due next month. It started out as a CAS single layer card but a rogue spot of blue ink on my finger changed that up.

I don't normally take pictures on my window sill, but it turned very dark this afternoon and the artificial light in my room wasn't giving me the true essence of this card. I really like how it turned out and it is the first time I have used my new Fresh Snow Linen CS that I received last week.

I used score lines to create a grid on my original one layer card. I was concerned about stamping the polka dots in the right spots so I placed my stamp where I wanted it in the center square, lined up the inside corner of a small picture frame with the side and bottom score lines and then popped my 1" x 1" glass block against that corner picking up the stamp. So after that all I had to do was place my picture frame 'jig' along the score lines of each square and use that as a guide for my glass block getting all of my dots in the same place (well almost, but it worked pretty well). After my ink 'accident' I die cut my polkdots and popped the piece up with a piece of fun foam. A silver embossed sentiment and a pretty little pink bow completed the card.

Supplies:
Stamps - Polka Dot Basics, Keep It Simple Baby (PTI)
Dies - Plain Squares (Spellbinders)
Paper - Fresh Snow Linen CS (PTI)
Ink - Baby Pink, Heavenly Blue, Buttercup (CTMH), VersaMark, Silver EP
Other - stylus, BowEasy, pink ribbon

Papertrey Ink March Blog Hop - Embroidery Stitching on Paper

The Papertrey Ink Blog Hop challenge this month is to incorporate embroidery stitching on your paper project. The first stamp set that came to mind for this was Doodlie-do - it has simple images and lines that almost suggest the type of stitches to use. Here is what I came up with- (no sun today so not the greatest picture)

I stamped the image that I wanted to embroider in Soft Stone ink and the rest with Versafine Onyx Black. The sentiment was heat embossed - I did this before I started stitching in case it didn't turn out. Using a straight pin I pierced the holes for the section of the image I wanted to embroider first being careful not to put the holes too close together. I used three strands of floss and worked my way through the image, piercing and stitching each section as I went. I used mainly an outline stitch, french knots and a modified satin stitch. Stitching on paper has it's own unique challenges, you are handling your paper a lot more than usual so you have to be careful, your thread starts to shred a bit after being pulled repeatedly through the paper, so keep your thread fairly short and if you work the paper too much and put too many holes in it you essentially perforate it and your work can fall apart.

I have embroidered on scrapbook pages in the past, and when I first saw this challenge I wondered why I hadn't carried that over onto my cards. After spending I don't know how many hours embroidering on this card I remembered why - it is a huge time investment. This card is going to a very special someone, so it was worth it. I enjoyed the challenge of embroidering on paper, but after doing all of the stitching I was really worried that I would mess up the card in some way I was almost afraid to put it together.

Supplies:
Stamps - Doodlie-Do, Birthday Cheer (PTI)
Paper - Stampers Select White, Soft Stone, Enchanted Evening CS (PTI)
Ink - Soft Stone (PTI), Versafine - Onyx Black, Versamark, Blue EP
Other - embroidery floss (DMC), bitty rhinestones

Make It Monday #241 - Ombre Stenciled Backgrounds

Monday's 'Make It Monday' challenge at Papertrey Ink is all about Ombre Stenciled Backgrounds. Betsy Veldman does a great video tutorial here. We are still under construction and my house is still upside down, but I did manage to quickly stencil a couple of pieces of cardstock and really liked the way this one turned out. Took a few minutes today to make a card out of it and get it posted before tomorrow's deadline.

Edited to add a second picture to show the sentiment as silver, people were seeing it as gold. Had trouble photographing this card because I didn't have a lot of light or time. Hope that helps.

 
  I thought the background was so pretty I didn't want to embellish it too much (which I can't really do anyway since most of my embellishments are still stuck in the back of a room stacked with furniture that is hopefully going back into the basement soon.  Received an order late this week so had to use my new stencil and the new to me Birthday Cheer Die. I cut it out 3x in black CS and once in Silver Foil CS. I layered and staggered the final bottom black die cut  and added a few foil chevrons since it did need something.
Thanks for looking.

Supplies:
Dies - Birthday Cheer, Chevrons, Modern Background Stencil (PTI)
Paper - Stampers Select White CS, True Black CS (PTI), Silver foil CS
Ink - Sweet Leaf, Sky, Moonstruck (CTMH)