From the Vault — Thanksgiving Cards

Ahhhh, it’s Throwback Thursday, so I thought I’d look into the vault and see what’s hangin’ around. And hello … I found these Thanksgiving cards.

This was part of a series I made using Rit Dye and a Batik resist. I sponged Batik-EZ Resist Medium from Crafter’s Pick onto my stamp (Hero Arts), then stamped onto watercolor paper. I let the resist dry, then used a foam brush to paint on various shades of liquid Rit Dye. (You can find dying instructions on the Rit website. Here is a direct link to another card I made for Rit. The process is the same. Here’s another card. I also have some scrapbook pages on the site.)

This is VERY old! (Remember when eyelets were so hot?) I used mini gold and silver ink pads (you can see the small size in the imprint!) to stamp directly on the paper. The leaves image (Stampendous!) was black embossed then colored in with some shimmer paints.

And one more, using some Gelli Arts paper I made as a background:

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Fabulous Finds Friday — Cosmo Cricket

The watercolor look was in style at the Craft & Hobby Show last month, and Cosmo Cricket is right on trend with some great new products, including this cool resist-infused watercolor paper that is so fast, easy and fun to personalize.

I played with various coloring mediums, including:

… Faber-Castell Gelatos in two shades of pink and a coral. I scribbled them on a craft sheet, then spritzed them (and the watercolor cards) with water. I picked up the color with a water brush, then brushed on the card.

The next two cards I went retro and pulled out my old Sparkling Pastelles Watercolor Palette from USArtquest. I had forgotten how much I love these watercolors!

(I also swished a bit of these colors on the envelopes, which I forgot to photograph.) I could have made a dozen in a few minutes.

For my fourth card, I spritzed first with water, then sprayed with Ranger’s new Cracked Pistachio Distress Stain Spray. Yum. I love this color! Because I wanted a touch more glitter I added a light spray of Perfect Pearls Blue Smoke.

On all these cards, I wiped away bits of color that landed on the white and gold resist parts, just to give them more clarity. I especially wanted the white to pop.

I used another nifty new Cosmo Cricket product — the Splatter Caddy.

The white plastic-lined container is a great spray box … and when you’re done, it folds into a neat package for easy storage:

Thanks for stopping by! There is still so much more to report from CHA.

Fabulous Finds Friday — New Inks

New inks (from Clearsnap and Ranger) were introduced at the recent Craft and Hobby Show, and I love them both!
Today, I’ll play with a new palette of Archival Inks created by Wendy Vecchi for Ranger. The vintage-y colors coordinate beautifully with Ranger’s Distress Inks. These inks are permanent, which means they won’t react with water. Yay! You’ll see why that’s a good thing.

The Buzzing Bee image (from Close To My Heart) was stamped first in Ranger’s Archival Fern Green. I heated the image with my heat tool, then applied Ranger Distress Inks (crushed olive, broken china, fired brick) with a foam applicator. (When rubbing on inks, start off the paper to get a softer look. You can see how imperfect I am at this … I have one semi-harsh line on this sample.)

Now here’s the fun part: Using a dot stencil (The Crafter’s Workshop), I sponged water over the Distress Inks. Because Distress inks are water-reactive, I could take away color, leaving the cool ghostly imprint. Sponge over the stencil, blot with a paper towel, and there ya go. I also flicked a bit of water on it to get some ghostly spatters.

The panel was mounted on paper from Close To My Heart’s new Laughing Lola collection. The fun embellishing “dots” are also from CTMH.
I love the modern color combos!

Here’s a card that uses the same archival ink in a more traditional way:

The papers and embellishment are also new, from Close To My Heart’s Sarita collection.

Stay tuned for Clearsnap’s SurfaceZ inks, coming up!

Stamping by the Numbers

In this post I showed you a messy embossed card that I burned by over-zealous heat embossing (grin.)

I had to try again, this time with better success:

Much better!
(Hero Arts Number Pattern CG516; American Crafts’ Zing! embossing powders Neon Green, Grapefruit, Lilac; sentiment: Hero Arts small letters set; paper by Stampin’ Up!; paper clip from Studio Calico.)

Hearts and Flowers

Another little Valentine’s Day card:

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The resist technique is the same I used for a previous post (white emboss text, then using a reverse mask to ink over the text). Bazzill Basics paper; Hero Arts text and sentiment stamps; Fiskars heart punches; ColorBox chalk ink.

Yay! It’s Time for Valentines

Yay! It’s almost Valentine’s Day … close enough to post some V-Day cards. I love making Valentines. I don’t know what it is, but this is my favorite card-making holiday. Here’s what I’ve been working on:

The resist technique is an oldie but goodie, but I was inspired by a video from Jennifer McGuire for Hero Arts. Check it out. Stamps are all from Hero Arts. The numbers background was stamped using

VersaMark

and embossed in white. I used some

Fiskars

heart punches to create a stencil, then inked over with Hero Arts soft inks.

Next is a card using a beautiful and intricate heart die from Hero Arts:

The background was made with a

Cuttlebug

embossing folder.

And a somewhat different take using the same die:

The paper is from BasicGrey and the scallop border punch is from Stampin’ Up!.

We still have a few days left before Valentine’s Day, so stay tuned for more cards.
Thanks for stopping by!

Boo Two

Yowzahs! I made a quick Halloween card today!

The image, from Close To My Heart, was white embossed on white glossy paper. Then I swooshed on Distress Inks peeled paint, marmalade and a touch of lavender. (My lavendar pad is nearly dry, so you can barely see the lavender tint.) I layered it on a piece of black. The sentiment is from the same stamp set. I stamped it on a left over scrap of the inked glossy paper using VersaMark. I knew as soon as I stamped it that the image had slipped. I decided to emboss it anyway… and I kind of liked the double image for the Halloween sentiment! I edged the sides with some black dye ink, then added Ranger Stickles Gunmetal to the bottom. The polka dot paper is from Bazzill Basics Miss Teagen Sue collection; the spidery punch is from Martha Stewart.

Thanks for stopping by!

Boo! Happy Halloween 2012!

Happy Halloween boys and “ghouls.” (oooh, scary pun.)

Here’s a quick Halloween card for you:

(Yes, I made this last year… but I am posting it because despite my good intentions, I ran out of time.)

Hope your treats are tame and not tricky.

Creative Chemistry Lessons

I recently took an online class, called Creative Chemistry 101, from the amazing Tim Holtz. Tim shared oodles of tips and techniques for working with Ranger products. I have been sadly behind in the fun part — actually MAKING things! But I managed to play a little and created a few tags.

In this first tag, I learned that yes, you CAN emboss with Distress inks!

The flourish vine (Hero Arts) was stamped with Distress Ink, embossed with clear powder. Various distress inks where then blended onto the tag. The ribbon rosette was made using Paper Source ribbon and a large glue dot from Therm O Web.

These next tags were made by inking my image (Hero Arts) using Ranger Acrylic Paint Dabbers, creating a resist, then tinting with Distress Stains.

I used a white dabber, and I thought the contrast wasn’t great enough, so I tried the white dabber again but with darker colors:

The last one used gold dabber:

I really liked the texture of the gold, which came out rather thick. To create the butterfly, I spread Ranger Dimensional Pearls (Lettuce) on a piece of scrap card stock and let it dry. I stamped over it, then punched my butterfly (Martha Stewart).

Thanks for looking!