Sunday, December 28, 2014

Breezy Christmas


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Wishing each and everyone of you a Happy New Year!  Be safe and treasure the memories you make.

I thought this Prickley Pear set would make a beautiful card to wish you all A Merry Christmas with.
One thing we get a lot of in Wisconsin winters is cold blowing winds and snow.  I thought this water stamped background would portray that. Stamped in Peacock Feathers distress ink gives it a hint of blowing snow. First step was to spritz the water color paper with a fine mist of water.  Then stamp off the  snow swirl image and stamp to the paper.  Using a paper towel I quickly daubed up the excess water. I continued stamping and turning the stamp in different directions.  Ticket punched corners seemed a good thing to add to this card.

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Next I die cut the Scalloped Oval Die out of teal.  I chose two stamps to add to the center part of the oval. That beautiful lamp post and the oval image with the similar snow flakes were perfect for this. The sweet sentiment worked well with this too.
This Oval 3’s set is a great little set with beautiful images.

 


Saturday, December 20, 2014

Rita's Watercolored Background Tutorial!


Today I wanted to share a tutorial on three different ways to make a watercolored background.  I am such a big fan of these and I think you will be too once you start making them.

Suppies:
Watercolor paper
Water
Distress Ink
Markers (not alcohol-based)
acrylic block
dye ink
paintbrush

Using the distress ink is super easy, especially if you have a Ranger silicone craft mat.  Just swipe the ink pad on the mat, spray it with water, and lay your paper in it.   You can use a few different inks to get a multicolored background as well, Just swipe the ink pads near one another on the mat and then spray with the water.  This is what it will look like after; it will be much softer once it dries.


The second method is using reinkers. This one feels so very artsy to me.  I am not a painter, but this gives me a chance to play one.  Just drop a little ink on your mat, spray your paper with water, and then paint!

     

Finally, the last one uses markers and an acrylic block.  Super easy.  Just color on the block with the markers, spritz with water, and "stamp" it on your paper.   


Here's a look at the three panels once they've dried.  You can get many different looks depending on the colors and shades of inks/markers/reinkers that you choose.   You are only limited by your imagination.  


I ended up going with the first panel for my project because I wanted to cover it with vellum and it seemed to be the best choice for that.   For my card I just embossed the gorgeous JJ0017 Believe stamp on the vellum and then layered it over my watercolored panel.  I added some other blue and silver details and I am loving how it turned out. 

I hope you'll give this a shot and come share a link to your project in the comments! I'd love to see them. 

Thursday, December 18, 2014

Home for the Holidays!

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I wanted to try something a little bit different and use some non-traditional colors for a card.  I chose a graphite gray card stock for the main panel.  I used a stencil and my white color box pigment ink to create the bricks.  Then I chose  a chip board circle and covered it with a rust colored cut out. 
I love this sweet little collage musical image from Prickley Pear.  Its called Collage Pinecone Tag.  Because the stamp is rounded on the corners I wanted to round the edges of my two layered pieces but my corner chomper cuts too large for this delicate piece.  Hmmm….aha, I have done this before but not for a long time.  I still have some of those scalloped scissors that don’t cut worth a penny but they do make nice little curved edges on card stock.  Here’s how you do that?  Isn’t it fun???
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Once that was completed I flicked spatters on the layers with a tooth brush.  I kind of protected 2/3rds of the green layer to keep the image clean.  I went digging in my stash and found the perfect little banner accent piece from My Mind’s Eye. I then added a pretty little ribbon whose colors were perfect for this.

Oh yes and that sweet little cardinal, he’s from Prickley Pear also.  He comes from the Scalloped Oval 3 Winter Stamps set and I fussy cut him out to perch right on that little sentiment from the same set.  So what do you think?  Does the non-traditional idea work? 

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Stenciled Polished Stone Tutorial


Michelle here, today's tutorial features the Polished Stone Technique.  There is just something magical about alcohol inks on glossy papers!  I decided it was time to get them out again and play with them along with some Tim Holtz Stencils. I used CLR025B Steampunk Gears 3 Clear Set.


For my backgrounds I am using some old Studio 2 alcohol reinkers (similar to Copic makers).  You could either use Copic reinkers or some Ranger alcohol inks.  I chose Mauve, Indigo and Ice Blue.  I am using alcohol, but you could use Ranger's Alcohol Blending Solution or Copic's Colorless Blender Solution.
 I am using a Ranger handle with some felt on it.  I added some Ranger Silver Mixative to the  mix for a bit of shimmery fun.
When I do this technique I usually do a whole pile.  I use glossy cardstock, but I also throw some matte photo paper scraps into the mix, I love the alcohol inks on this coated paper.
I mean, really....love the mixture of colors you get when you mix the inks together!  Pure watercolor wonder!

So, use whatever inks you might have available to you to create some fun backgrounds today!


Saturday, December 13, 2014

One Thing Leads to Another Tutorial with Heidi!

Have you ever cut out paper from dies, then when you look at the scraps think..."That looks like..."? Well that's what happened to me when I was cutting out some barbed wire borders from the Cheery Lynn die.  I saw the scraps and thought they could be tree trunks.  So here is a winter scene that I created with my scraps. I added the Pine Branch Die and the Deer stamp from Prickley Pear Rubber Stamps to complete the scene.

 Here is what the paper looked like once I cut out the borders:
I used the barbed wire on my original cards, then used the scraps to create my winter scene above!
Another example of paper scraps is in this card sample...
These fancy rick rack borders were the scraps from the lacy border die that I cut out for another card.  These looked too nice to throw away, so I used them on this card.  I then used Effie as my main image and the Many Thanks for the sentiment.  Both stamps are also from Prickley Pear.

Below is the borders and scraps that were created when cutting out the lacy border.
Actually...this would even make a neat background using all the pieces and scraps!  So next time you are busy cutting out borders with dies, see what your scraps look like.  They may just make a really cool accent on your next card!

Thursday, December 11, 2014

A Caroling We'll Go....

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Don’t you think these caroling kids are the cutest?  I love the little puppy who went to sing along.  When we were children, before it was dangerous out there, all five of us used to go and carol around the neighborhood.  People would invite us in and give us hot chocolate or apple cider and lots of them gave us money in the form of coins.  We always had so much fun doing that.  It was my four brothers and me.  I know it was before I was ten because that is when we moved and we didn’t do it any more after that. I used to have a little muff thing like that to keep my hands warm too.  (I told you I was and advanced in age stamper) 

This stamp is called Bundled for Winter and it is one of the red rubber stamps they sell that stamps so crisply. 

I embossed the main panel and the white panel and then just used a white gel pen for some faux stitching on the gray panel.

To give a bit of added interest I cut the image out with the largest of the Scallop Nesting Die Set also from Prickley Pear.

Here’s a close up to see some of the detail  I used Staedler Water Color pencils to color with.  I just in-lined the images a bit and used a blender pen to pull the color.

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Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Crumpled Paper Tutorial with Angela!


Hello!  Angie Here!  It's December the 10th so I thought I would celebrate my birthday with a Prickley Pear Rubber Stamp Tutorial.

 A few months ago our guest designer, Janeen challenged us to use crumpled paper on a CAS challenge for SCS.   I came up with the technique I am sharing with you today by using Janeen's "crumpled paper" idea in combination with my favorite way to color paper.

Here's what you will need:
Lightweight card stock
Mister bottle filled with water
Distress Ink
Craft Mat
Heat Tool (optional)

Spritz light weight card stock with water and crumple. 
Tip: The paper will shrink a little so if your project calls for a definite size you will need to cut  the paper a bit larger than the size required.


 Unfold.


 Press pad directly on craft mat and spritz with water.


Swish paper through ink then tap with fingers in the hills and valleys of the crumples to encourage the ink in the crumples.


Allow wet paper to dry.  I like to use a heat gun. 


Repeat the above step a couple of times if more color is needed.  It's important to dry between layering of ink to achieve a vibrant background. In the photo above you can see a lot of white on the edges where the ink just didn't saturate so I took a paint brush and dipped it in the watery ink still left on craft mat and painted the edges


 The next step is optional.  After the paper has dried it's ready to use but for today's card I didn't want the distressed look of the wavy paper so I ironed it!  Just place it between two sheets of copy paper, iron for a few seconds and you have a beautiful piece of designer paper!


 Even after ironing you can still see wonderful texture in the paper but it lays flat for adhering.
For this card I cut a layer 2 1/4 in wide and then used the rest to create the fabulous Poinsettia  embellishments with PPRS D031 Poinsettia Leaf Die.


PPRS Ingredient List:

I hope you will give this technique a try!