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:

</a

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.

Friday Fiddlings — Happy Holidays!

Hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season! Can you stand one more simple holiday card? It’s another resist technique.

I stamped the large background image (Hero Arts Poinsettia Birds S5068) on glossy cardstock using VersaMark ink. Let it dry, then rub on Ranger Distress inks (Blue China, Mustard Seed, Lavender). Watch the magic of the white pop up!  Add white knotted ribbon (anchored with a glue dot under the knot.) Stamp Hello Circles (Hero Arts CL291) on scrap paper and emboss in silver glitter. Stamp warm wishes (Hero Arts CL130) in blue. Cut out the scalloped circle and use dimensional tape (I used EK’s 3D dots) to affix it to the lower right corner. A few strategically placed gemstones finish the look.

Enjoy the holiday season, no matter how you celebrate, and be safe.