Background Bonanza!

I love to have a handy stash of background papers on hand. Here’s a stash I made using Art Foamies big, bold foam stamps and some acrylic paint:

The Foamies come with their own palette, making it easy to add paint and then just stamp. Clean-up is a breeze, too.

And with these busy backgrounds, you don’t need a lot of embellishments to make a card, such as this:

You can see the shimmer of the gold paint in this close-up:

(The “hello” die cut is from Simon Says Stamp.)

Thanks for stopping by!

Elephants on Parade!

Sometimes the best way to try new products and techniques is by making tags. These were fun and easy!

I started by playing with Hero Arts’ new liquid watercolors (check out the great video in the link) in Strawberry, Moss and Indigo (the only three colors I have, but see how nicely they mix and play together?) . These come in a dropper bottle and are highly pigmented.

I used the watercolors to create a large background sheet (which I cut into tags), but they are also great for coloring individual images. I dropped some watercolors into a paint tray, let them dry, and keep them handy on my desk. They re-activate with the touch of a damp or wet brush.

Once the paper was dry, I stamped and white embossed a portion of Hero Arts Bold Prints Floral Mandala background.

The larger pink elephant on the left is a punch from EK Success; the smaller elephant is a Hero Arts layering stamp (which has a matching die). The balloons on the large pink elephant is from Stampin’ Up!’s Balloon Builders set (if you can’t find it, there are several other great balloon stamps on the website!).

So much fun!

Thanks for stopping by.

 

 

I (heart) Valentines!

It’s so close to Valentine’s Day! One of my favorite card making holidays.

Here are a few that will be going out this year:

I’ve always loved these three hearts from Hero Arts. I embossed them on black card stock with Wow! Fluorescent Tickled Pink powder. The grey layer is embossed with athe Swirly Bird Cuttlebug folder. Sentiment from Hero Arts.

Below is a fast and easy card, also a Hero Arts image. (May be an old image?)

As you can see, the heart was stamped and heat embossed (two with white, one with black).

And one more, little wilder:

Also pretty fast and easy. I pulled an ink-splattered background from my stash, stamped this terrific Laurel Burch designed cat (from Stampendous!), added the box of candy (Tim Holtz/Stampers Anonymous Crazy Birds Accessories) and put it all together.

Next post will feature a beautiful die cut floral from Altenew.

Thanks for stopping by!

More Random Cards

Two more leftover pieces that finally found homes:

 

Fast and simple!

And this one:

 

The backgrounds on the stamped pieces were brayered and the larger background is the same as in the last post.  The images (Stampendous!) were black embossed.

Now these can go off to someone’s mailbox!

 

Clean Desk, Random Cards

Yup, it’s that’s time again. Cleaning off my desk and going through my piles of scraps.

Pawing through the leftovers, it’s fun to see what cards I can make…

Found this fun background, made using an old (maybe 2004?) Stampin’ Up! set called What’s Your Type? I apologize for using a set that I think is discontinued, but the background was such fun, I couldn’t resist. And you can substitute other stamps. I’m showing it because these are great backgrounds to have around for quick card making.

You can also create some fun letters using this set! The OMG sentiment is from Hampton Art’s Studio G (and has a subtle Wink of Stella sparkle!)

I know it’s not fair, but here is another “retired” stamp — Lovely Lily — from Technique Tuesday. But again, the idea is that you can take a very simple image and create a fast, easy and eye-catching card.

I hope you use these ideas to spark your own creativity! I promise to get back to current stamps soon!

Happy Independence Day!

 

 

More Gel Printing

Let’s jump right in … here are some more results from my gel printing extravaganza!

As I mentioned in my last post, I used the 3×5 inch plate from Gel Press.

Here’s the big picture:

It’s so fast and easy to make a batch of cards once you have the backgrounds done! For many of these, I added some stamped images to the backgrounds to provide more interest, mostly using Imagine Crafts’ StazOn ink. And then I just added various sentiments.

I trimmed my selected panels and attached them to a 4-bar sized card (4 7/8 x 7 inches, folded in half.)

The card below is a little different. Instead of using the gel print itself, I used this piece to “off-stamp.” I stamped on the wet paint using Art Foamies, then off-stamped on a piece of card stock. I added a sentiment (from docrafts, black embossed and fussy-cut) and some Robin’s Nest Dew Drops.

As you know, not every print is a winner. But even the “fails” can be used. For example, for this one below, I over stamped with StazOn Jet Black, then cut the piece into tiles, edged the tiles with black Sharpie and mounted them to a folded card front. I decided it needed a frame, so I made some score lines. Easy. And now it’s one of my faves.

Some of the fails (and you know there were a lot!!!) I turned into tags:

The pieces were mounted to card stock.

It’s amazing how quickly these cards and tags came together, which is one of the advantages of making a big ol’ stack of backgrounds to have handy!

Thanks for stopping by.

 

Fab Finds Friday — Stampin’ Up!

Ack! What a bad blogger am I!

Here’s a quick Fabulous Finds Friday I want to share because I love the new Stampin’ Up! catalog!

Besides some fun new stamps, papers, inks and other goodies, the catalog has a lot of great inspiration, including some great color combos. I’m planning a baby shower and am pouring over the party section. There’s another section on memory keeping and gift packaging. I am also excited about the new alcohol-based Blendabilities markers.

I got to play with one of my faves, What’s Your Type … a set of 23 photopolymer stamps that fits my current craving for geometric designs.

So far, I’ve just been playing with the various shapes (can you spot the palm tree????):

I trimmed two of my “play cards” to create some quick backgrounds. (Yes, they need focal images!):

Thanks for stopping by … and stay tuned to see what I do with all those backgrounds.

Fabulous Finds Friday — Gelatos

Gelato … yum. Even though these Gelatos are not the kind you eat, they are still creamy and delicious. I’ve long been a fan of these coloring sticks from Faber-Castell, but now beginners can find an easy way to get started with this new kit:

Here’s what comes inside:

Besides a set of Gelatos, the kit also has a mister, foam stamp, cardboard stencil, eye dropper, gesso, paint brush, instruction book and a sample of different surfaces to play on.

Here’s a quick card made using Gelatos and odds and ends from my desk:

(lattice die from Spellbinders, skyline stamp from Penny Black; sentiment from Hero Arts.)

For more Gelatos information and inspiration, check out my previous posts here and here.

Thanks for coming by … have a great weekend!

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!

Random Acts of Stamping

Oh, boy, is my desk a mess. It’s time to clean up and make a fresh start. For a cardmaker, cleaning means using up all those bits and pieces left over from other paper projects. What a great way to clean! Here are some Random Acts of Stamping:

Buried among other bits and pieces was this cool background piece made by rubbing Gelatos (see this post and this post for more info on Gelatos) on water color paper. The big fish is from Rubber Stamp Plantation.

Here’s another card made using random pieces found on my desk.

The birdcage (a stamp and die set) is from Prickley Pear; the quote is from Hero Arts; the die cut border is a Spellbinders die; the gold paper is, I think, Die Cuts With a View.

There is so much more to clean! Stay tuned….