Rainbow Flowers

Good morning, We finally have cooler weather and I am loving it! No need for air con, all doors open letting the cool air in!

My post today is showcasing 2 cards designed and created with Maker Forte products. Both of them are using the Flower Market White Rubber Stamp. It is a great background stamp which is how I have used it but got 2 different effects even though I have only inked it once! I love rainbows so both have this theme.

My card starts by inking up the stamp. To do this I laid it flat on my desk. Picking out rainbow colors from the Color Hive Inks - Red Leicester, California Love, Everglades, Vegas Strip and Sugar Plum. I also added in Candied Apple Distress Oxide for my red. Not wanting to contaminate my inks with other colors I used blending brushes to add the inks to the stamp giving me stripes of color.

I laid a piece of white cardstock onto the stamp and using a brayer pressed it against the colors. when lifted I had a simple inked piece of card.

On lifting the cardstock there was still plenty of ink on the stamp. So I gave it a light spritzing with water and laid a 2 piece of card over it. Braying this gave me an even color.

This pieces left to dry and I returned to my first piece. Due to the rainbow of ink I decided to do no more than add a sentiment. The toner Ephemera is great a great alternative to stamping. and you can turned them any color you want with foil! I chose the Birthday Elements both the wording and the backing so I could decide which to use once foiled. My background is rainbow - so is the foil

I decided to go with the wording as it stood out better against my background.

By now my other background had dried. I did consider using the reversed foiling piece on this but decided to stamp on it instead. Using the Boxed Sentiments I arranged the box and 'With Thanks' on my background. Wanting to achieve a shiny effect I stamped with Eclipse Black Ink and then quickly covered it with Crystal Clear Embossing Powder. Using my heat gun I melted this, The Eclipse ink stays wet for a few seconds after stamping allowing the embossing powder to stick.

I chose A2 Side Folding Card Bases and Coronation Purple Cardstock to mount my background on to for both cards. Once I had built my cards I added the foiled sentiment. Foam tape gives this lift to make it stand out from the card background.

I felt something was missing from both designs. As a finale I sprinkled some Crown Jewel Gems in Rollerskates, Lemon and Lady Liberty.

Here's the background with water added.

And the one that was just ink.

Which is your favorite?

Thank you for taking time to read my post and hope you have some inspiration.

Foxing around in Spring

 Good evening I hope everyone is keeping safe in the extreme weather we are experiencing.

My post today is a tutorial using the newly released Kawaii image from Stampers Delights Spring Fox. 

Isn't he adorable! He has extras for scene building such as the flowers and butterflies here and a little fence which I didn't use.

I started my card by arranging the digital elements, I was able to change the color of the sentiment by adjusting the RGB levels in my graphics program, the scene was the printed onto stamping card. I then gathered the supplies I would be using:

Next I colored my fox, with this guy I started with my darkest colors and blended out the the lightest.

The flowers and grass were next, I know there aren't many flowers that shape which are blue but the advantage of stamping and coloring means you can tie everything in to your color scheme.

Yellow butterflies added a freshness to the image and tied in with flowers.

I die cut my image using a ricrac oval die, when I had done this I felt it needed something to make it pop off the card so I inked the edges with distress ink.

For the rest of my card I carried the butterflies over the card with a tree die: and some tiny die cut butterflies

As I had used different shades of marker to color my butterflies I used 2 shades of yellow card stock. The tree was cut twice once in green and a second one in yellow. I then cut all the yellow butterflies from the tree and glued them in the correct place on the green tree.

Next was assembling my card; I matted my slimline base with green cardstock and some blue design paper.

My tree was adhered flat to this and my die cut image fixed in place with foam tape. Finally I scattered more yellow diecut butterflies around my image, tree and right side of my card.

I hope you have enjoyed my tutorial. Head on over to the Kawaii new release post where you can find my inspiration from the rest of the Kawaii design team members. Also come back tomorrow for more new release images!

If you are looking for even more inspiration head on over to the Stamper Delights Facebook group and while you are there why not enter their progressive challenge - just sign up for free membership and you will receive emails on how to enter more details are on out Facebook page.

Altenew Educators Certification Program - Creative Watercolor Media

 Good afternoon, it's a bit cooler here this week thank goodness! We have a busy week, groomers and we are looking after another puppy over the weekend so are excited about that!

I'm here with my submissions for the next class for my AECP. The classes this time were all about watercoloring - but not with paint! Jen Rzasa, Debby Hughes and Laura Bassen used other media to paint with and I have some of them to share with you today.

My first card is using re-inkers - The refills for ink pads as paint:

I don't have many re-inkers for my Altenew inks but I do have for other brands so used these. I started by stamping the outline of the flower and leaves from the Peony Tree Build a Flower stamp set using versamark ink onto watercolor cardstock. I heat embossed this with clear powder which gives a resist on the paper.

 I then wet each flower with clean water and added the ink with a brush, just letting the ink flow with the water. This is known as wet into wet, it's not a technique I would usually do as I prefer to work clean and controlled. 

Once each flower was dry I repeated the step on the next embossed area, leaving it to dry in between stops the paints mixing together and becoming muddy. When all the flowers and leaves were colored and dry I trimmed the card panel down, removing any edges that were flooded with color.

For the rest of my design I die cut Thanks in black cardstock 4 times and stacked these on top of each other giving my a raised sentiment. I stamped the rest of my sentiment with Versafine ink and heat embossed this with clear embossing powder.

My stamped card was added to a black A2 card base and my sentiments arranged in landscape. Finally a few Nuvo jewel drops finished my design.

My next 2 cards were made using my Altenew Ink pads as watercolor paint. This was done by smooshing the ink onto my glass mat and picking it up with a paint brush to color the images:

I love anemones, they are bright happy flowers.

I started by stamping my image onto an A2 piece of hot press watercolor card, This is my preferred card to stamp on as it is smooth.

I then painted the image with a number of different color inks when painting flowers it's best to paint alternate petals, painting petals next to each other can lead to the paint bleeding together and you don't get the shading in the flower. I used a black watercolor pen in the center of the flowers to give them the stark black that anemones have.

While I let my image dry I adhered silver Washi tape down the edge of a white A2 card base. This was to give the card more interest. 

I trimmed my water colored image down to 4in wide so that the Washi tape showed when I added it to my card base.

Using Silver embossing powder I heat embossed the sentiment onto black cardstock and added this to the bottom right of my card. Finally I added some silver crystal gems to tie the design together.

I made my last card was just for fun - I couldn't resist painting the Moroccan Mosaic background stamp:

It was stamped on to hot press card again but I left the bottom edge clean.

I water colored each section, Once dry It was matted onto black card and an A2 card base. My sentiment was stamped with black ink and heat embossed with clear embossing powder.

The giraffe was cut 4 times, each one stacked on top of each other to give me more dimension and added to my card overlapping the white area to break it up.

Thank you for taking the time to stop by, I will be back with my next class soon!

Altenew products I used:

Neenah Classic Crest Solar White 110lb Coverstock Purchase From: SSS | AZN	Altenew Crystal Clear Embossing Powder Purchase From: ALW	Shades of Purple Crisp Inks Purchase From: ALW	Altenew Build A Flower - Tree Peony Purchase From: ALW
Altenew Thanks Die Purchase From: ALW	Altenew Heartfelt Sentiments Purchase From: ALW	Altenew Fuchsia Crisp Dye Ink Purchase From: ALW	Altenew Warm Sunshine Dye Ink Purchase From: ALW
Altenew Persian Blue Dye Ink Purchase From: ALW	Altenew Fresh Leaf Ink Purchase From: ALW	Altenew Geometric Menagerie Stamp & Die Set Purchase From: ALW	Moroccan Mosiac Stamp Set Purchase From: ALW
Altenew Paint a Flower Anemone Purchase From: ALW	Altenew Magenta Ink Purchase From: ALW	Altenew Baby Pink Ink Purchase From: ALW	Altenew Forest Glades Ink Purchase From: ALW
Altenew Evergreen Ink Purchase From: ALW

Altenew Educators Certification Program Level 2 - Beyond Basic Backgrounds

 Good afternoon! The sun is shining and it actually feels warm when you are in it.

I completed and passed my AECP Level 1 so I'm back today with the first class of my level 2. Beyond Basic Backgrounds by Lydia is filled with great lessons and I have loved the different techniques she taught.

I chose to show case 2 or these techniques, the first one is a DIY stencil:

Using Scribbled Flowers Dies, I chose one flower die and cut this multiple times into scratch card which gave me a a floral stencil. I then took this one step further, using a pencil I traced through the DIY stencil on to a second piece of scratch card. This gave me the positions of the flowers so I could add leaves in between. I die cut the leaves into the second piece of card so I have a stencil with leaves.

I then taped the floral stencil to a piece of 4x5.5in card stock and inked through the stencil. I repeated this with the leaves stencil. Once the ink was dry I used the coordinating stamps, versamark ink and clear satin embossing powder to give a subtle image of each flower. This was added to a cream A2 card base with foam tape.

Using the green ink I inked all over a piece of white card. I then die cut this with Happy Die and stamped the Halftone Happy stamp with versamark and embossed it with the same powder as my floral design.

Using foam squares I added this to my card. Anniversary was stamped in black ink, cut into a strip and added to the 'Happy'.

I finished the card with some sparkly gems.

My second card used the Matt Watercolor Resist technique. 

I die cut Ornate Cover die into a folded piece of freezer paper. I then laid these onto  A2 pieces of white watercolor cardstock. Lydia uses a Minc machine to melt the wax from this onto the card which holds the paper in place. I couldn't get my machine to melt this so I used my heat press - the higher temperature worked!

Next I used my watercolor paints to add color all over the piece of card, left this to dry then very carefully lifted the freezer paper. This leaves a matt version of the die pattern on the card, a similar effect to emboss resist but without the shine embossing powder gives.

I added this and a color coordinating mat to a white card base.

 I didn't want to cover much of the pattern so I die cut a circle from white card and stamped this using the Mini Hello Stamp set. So this stood out I inked the edges of the circle, and adhered it to the card with foam squares.

Finally I added a few coordinating enamel dots.

As I had 2 die cut pieces of freezer I repeated the card in a blue but faded the paint towards the bottom corner:

Supplies used:

Altenew Scribbled Flower Dies and Stamps

Altenew Ornate Cover Die

Altenew Mini Hello Stamp Set

Altenew Happy Die

Altenew Halftone Happy Stamps

Altenew Inks:

    Jet Black

    Forest Glades

    Deep Iris

    Midnight Violet

    Ocean Wave

Other Inks:

    Picked Raspberry Distress Ink

    Bundled Sage Distress Ink

    Versamark

Altenew Watercolor 24 pan set

Arteza Metallic Watercolor Paints

Hero Arts Satin Pearl Embossing Powder

Neenah Solar White 110lb Cover

Fog Grey Cardstock

Cream 300gsm Cardstock

Bristol Smooth Cardstock

Watercolor Cardstock

Crystal Gems

Enamel Dots

Glue, Foam tape, Foam Squares

Thank you for stopping by I hope you like what you see if so please leave a comment to let me know.

Altenew Educators Certification Program - Irresistible Inking Techniques

 Good afternoon! or as Mollie tells me Happy Christmas Eve Eve! Shopping is done, cards have been given out, just presents to wrap and we are ready!

I'm back today with the last class for level one of the Altenew Educators Certification Program and today I am showcasing the cards I made using techniques from Sara Naumann's Irresistible Inking Techniques. My first card uses 2 techniques from her classes, Direct inking and using an acrylic block to 'stamp' with:

I started with the Beautiful Day stamp set and stamped the outline for the flower and 2 leaf outlines. Then instead of using all the layers of the images I just used the final layer and giving a touch of color to the images. As I don't yet own the dies I then fussy cut these and put to one side.

Using a bar acrylic block I inked it with the same ink I used on my flower, spritzed it with water and 'stamped' the ink on watercolor card. My first attempted had too much color so I repeated with less ink and water which gave me the speckled look on my card. I loved this so have used it! I added a piece of washi tape along the left hand edge to define the inking. 

I decided how I was going to arrange my flowers before adding my sentiment from the same stamp set.

My leaves had foam tape added and were adhered to my card. I added a double height of foam tape to the flower and arranged this over the leaves. 

The image was added to a white top folding card base with foam tape. Finally I scattered an odd number of sequins on my card.

My second card used Altenew inks as watercolors to paint my card:

I stamped the Paint a Flower Spider Mum onto watercolor card using embossing ink. I covered this with a rose gold embossing powder and heat embossed giving me a raised edge to the image.

I dabbed ink onto my glass mat and spritzed water along side it. I then used this to paint my image, layering the color as it dried to get deeper colors.

The using a large brush I painted around the image with a ink wash, once this was dried I used the same ink as the flowers and splattered my card.

I left this to dry while I die cut my sentiment. I die cut 3 sentiments in pink cardstock. Then I added the ink used for the flowers directly to white cardstock giving me an opaque covering. Once dried I die cut the sentiment again using the inked card, giving me a perfect match to my image. These sentiments were stacked on top of each other and adhered to my image. This gives more dimension to the card.

My top folding card base had gold washi tape added to either side of it before I added my image with foam tape.

Shopping List:

Altenew Beautiful Day Stamps

Altenew Paint a flower Spider Mum Stamps

Altenew Dye Inks in Grape Agate, Jet Black, Forest Glades, Coral Berry, Evergreen and Peach Perfect.

Crafter's Companion Sentiment Dies

American Crafts Washi Tape

Sequins, Glue and Foam Tape from my Stash

Neenah Solar White Card Stock

Cason XL Watercolor card