Thursday, September 24, 2015

De-Stressing with Distressing

This week, the challenge is Distressing.  At first, I was thinking, "sure, I can do this, no problem.....Just stamp with the texture stamps and throw a little Distress Ink on a few edges and bam!"  Then, the lovely ladies at Stampendous sent me some products that I had never used before and a link to a video (which I have posted further down).  I have to admit, the thought of learning a new technique caused me a little stress.  I watched the video and gave it a try.  It was FAR easier than I thought.  I am not sure if I did it exactly like the video, but I loved it.  I am hooked.  Let me show you what I made.


Both the blue and the distressed orange paper started out as white Mixed Media Paper.  I used two variations on the techniques I saw in the video.

Orange Paper

1)  Paint the paper with a mix of Quinacridone Gold and Titan Buff DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics.  Don't mix the paints, just squeeze them on your palette and use your brush to pick up both colors.  They will mix on the paper and create variations of the colors.  Let this dry.

2) Paint some Americana Decor Chalky Finish Paint in Everlasting onto your palette or craft sheet and use it as an "ink pad" for your ASCRS03 Industrial stamp.  I used the one that looks like peeling paint on this one.  Stamp it all over your background.  I made sure that the stamp orientation remained vertical, so that the peels look like they are all weathering in the same direction.  Let it dry.

3)  Lightly brush some Quinacridone Gold over the whole top.


Blue Paper

1)  Using the same technique as the orange (not blending the colors, but picking them all up on your brush), paint the Mixed Media Paper with DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics in Prussian Blue Hue, Paynes Grey, and Titan Buff.  Let dry.

2)  Stamp with ASCRS03 Industrial Stamp Set in StazOn colors Blue Hawaii and Cloudy Sky.  I chose the one with the scratchy effect and used the stamp in a different direction with each stamp.

Stencil

1)  Use removable tape all the way around the DWLG754 Large Oak Leaves Stencil on the blue paper.  Place the first piece across the full top of the stencil and, when removing, treat this as a hinge to lift your stencil.

2)  Use the palette knife to transfer the Black Matte Embossing Paste to the Paste Spreader.

3)  Place the paste spreader on the top of the image and pull straight down, treating the spreader like a squeegee and keeping it in contact with the stencil at all times.

4)  Remove the tape and let it dry.

Now, this is where everything went sort of wrong for me.  I SHOULD have just repeated the above process with the Crackle Embossing Paste and then, when it dried, I would have colored the white surface with inks or alcohol markers.  It would have looked like this (which is a preview of next week's card):

However, I found my only container of Crackle Paste to be almost gone and really, really dry.  With nothing to lose, I added water and Quinacridone Gold paint to the container and mixed it.  In the end, it more resembled small curd cottage cheese than the whipped cream cheese texture that I should have had.  I tried it anyway.  It took forever to dry.  When it was almost done, I turned my Embossing Heat Gun on it, which bubbled the surface even more.  It now had both cracks and bubbles. It looked like this:


The original base color on this (because of the addition of that paint) was sort of a light gold orange.  I added color with my Stencil Brushes and whatever pigment ink I had around.  In this case, I used Vesacolor in Green Tea 161, Split Pea 63, Boysenberry 126, and Orange 13.  I also used Versamagic in Eggplant.  The combination of the Eggplant and the Green Tea over each other made the brown color on the stems and acorn caps.  Finally, just because I had it, I brushed on DecoArt Metallic Lustre in Gold Rush, Iced Espresso and Champagne Ice.  You certainly don't need to use all these colors. they were just handy to me.


So, now that you have seen the video, and my project (please leave a comment if you get the chance), check out the rest of the players for today:

Friday, September 18, 2015

Tombow Collaboration--Fun with Pencils and Markers!

BannerGraphicToday, we have a blog hop using Tombow products, including a couple of wonderful prizes, so read on for your chance to win.
My project using these products is a Halloween card.


It was very easy to make.  All I had to do was stamp my Pumpkin Carving Rubber Stamp with Memento Ink on Mixed Media Paper.  These are products that were given to me by Stampendous for being on their design team.  Then, I tried out the Tombow Recycled Color Pencils, that I received as a gift from Tombow for participating in the hop this week.  I used a light, medium and dark color for each area.  This was a very relaxing experience, and the colors blended well.  I used a couple of layers to build up thick color.  Then, I moved to my Dual Brush Markers.  These markers are water based, and I love them so much that I purchased them in most of the available colors.  Today, I scribbled the colors 606, 665 and 679 on my Blending Palette.  Then, I used my water brush to pick up the colors and paint them onto the background.  The build up of colored pencils helped to resist the water in the spots where I accidentally painted over the lines.  To create even more texture, I colored over parts of the background with the pencils.  Then, I mounted the image on some card stock, and I was done.  Here is what those colored pencils look like:

Remember what I said about prizes?  There are two packages, which include:

  • Tombow Recycled Color Pencils 24 pack tin
  • A roll of Tombow Foam Tape
  • A Jumbo Perfectly Clear Handle
  • Your choice from Stampendous Create Fall, Create Christmas, Create Winter or Create a Poinsettia Cling Stamp set and Matching Dies

  • To win you should:
  • “Like” both TombowUSA and Stampendous company pages on Facebook if you use it.
  • Follow @tombowusa and @stampendous on Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest (or wherever you play along)
  • And comment on all the blog posts from both teams all week. Including our pre-game posts Mon-Thurs and our Weekend hop Fri-Sun.
  • We’ll give you until Tuesday, September 22 to get all those great comments in, then we’ll choose 2 winners on Sept 23.

Be sure to comment and tell us where you’re from, because our Australian Distributor The Stencil Specialists are sponsoring a prize for one friend “down under” to win a Stampendous Stamp, a Dreamweaver Stencil and a surprise goodie from their terrific stock of Stampendous merchandise!

Here are the rest of today's participants.  Be sure and leave a comment on all the posts to win!

Thursday, September 17, 2015

Tombow fun!

Welcome to our Tombow pre-hop event!  I just love the Tombow coloring products.  On today's post, I used a couple of really fun techniques.

For the background, I used the Snowflake Sky rubber stamp.  I stamped it twice with Versamark Ink on watercolor paper.  I then embossed it with Clear Embossing Powder, using my heat tool.  I colored with my Tombow Dual Brush Markers colors 743, 703 and 665 directly onto the color blending palette.  I then used a water brush to pick up the colors and paint them over the embossed surface.  This created that pink snowflake background.
The tree was created by using the Double Glitter Technique with Heidi Swapp Minc foils.  I soaped up the back of my Ornate Christmas Tree Stencil.  You can use any natural soap, but I used the Handmade Hawaiian Soap.  I made sure that the entire stencil back was cloudy looking, and then I brushed off the excess soap bits with my stencil brush.   Then, I placed the stencil on one side of the Double Sided Mounting Paper.  I pressed the foils into the wells of the stencil using my fingers and my small embossing tool.  I used pink, mint green, and gold foils.  When I felt that I had used all the foil I could, I covered the entire project with Micro Silver Glitter.   I brushed off the excess.  Then, I put the project stencil side down on a flat surface.  I carefully peeled the paper off of the stencil, while leaving the stencil flat.  Then, I covered the entire project with Crystal Glitter.  After that, I just assembled the card.
I hope you enjoyed the post today.  Thanks for stopping by.  Check out the other posts for tday:

Thursday, September 10, 2015

Create Christmas with Dreamweaver



This week, the Stampendous theme involves a particular stamp set that also has a coordinating die.  That stamp is Create Christmas CRS 5080.  The die set is DCS 5080.  We are taking this week to show you some of the great ways that you can create with this versatile stamp.  Of course, I had to use Dreamweaver Stencils!
I stamped with Memento Tuxedo Black Ink and colored with Tombow Recycled Colored Pencils.  The background was created by spraying the back of the Snowflakes Stencil DWLJ819 with Memory Mists in Blueberry.  While the stencil was still very wet, I ran it through my Cuttlebug with white card stock and my Stamping Details Rubber Embossing Mat.  With this technique, you can never get the exact same result twice.  This just adds to the beauty, as far as I am concerned.  The sentiment is a simple stamping of the Keep Christmas rubber stamp.  The snow bank is simply card stock cut by me.

Thanks for visiting my blog.  I hope you enjoyed the project.  Please leave a comment, if you have a moment, and stop by to see what everyone else has done with this versatile stamp:

Thursday, September 3, 2015

Dreamweaver All In One

Fran Seiford, Owner and Founder of Stampendous, understands that holiday card making can be time consuming. Plus, it’s not always easy to find images that go together to make the perfect card. Enter the All in Ones from Stampendous. These darling stamps are the perfect size to make a whole card. Easy shapes to cut with scissors or simply stamp on a colored background, these stamps have a focal image, a background, a frame, and a phrase for the holidays. Just stamp it, sign it, mail it. OR get as creative as you like by combining with other stamps and embellishments!
Here is what I did by combining one of these stamps with a Dreamweaver Stencil and a die cut.
Materials:
Removable Tape
Blue Card Stock
White Card Stock
Prismacolor Pencils in the following colors:  White, Cool Grey 10%, Cool Grey 20%, Cool Gray 30%, Cool Grey 50%, Cool Grey 70%, Cool Grey 90%, Metallic Silver, Periwinkle, Indigo Blue, Dark Green, Olive Green, Crimson Red and Terra Cotta
Scotch 3M Adhesive
Foam Squares

Directions:
1.  Use the removable tape to adhere the stencil to the blue card stock.
2.  Remove the embossing paste with the palette knife and place on the paste spreader.
3.  Put the paste spreader on the top of the project and pull the paste down over the stencil, filling in all the gaps.  Treat the spreader as if it were a squeegee, keeping contact with the stencil all the way down.
4.  Remove the stencil, sprinkle glitter on the paste and then let it dry.
5.  Stamp the image on the white card stock with Memento Ink.
6.  Color the image with Prismacolor colored pencils.
7.  Die cut the holly leaves.
8.  Cut out the stamped image.
9.  Assemble the card, using foam squares to pop up the main image.

Thanks for stopping by.  I hope you enjoyed my post today.
Here are the other blogs that participated in either the All In One or the Dreamweaver posts for today: