April Showers Challenges:
April Showers bring May Flowers
Trite, isn't it? But if you have a stamp of an umbrella and you don't know anyone having a baby or getting married, it's about the only theme you can do with it. This is an ATC.
I began by stamping the umbrella, then coloring it with glaze gellies which not only give a glossy embossed look, but resist ink. I used the clear glaze gelly pen to draw in the rain. I then burnished the image with distress inks. the flowers were all punched. I thought it needed a little black doodling to bring in the black from the umbrella.
April Showers Challenges:
April Showers Challenges:
Twinkling ATC
On the ATC_World yahoo group, we were discussing the virtues of Twinkling H2Os versus other paintable mica powders. Finally, one lady pointedly hinted to me that she would love a sample to see in real life. I generally avoid people who request cards outright without even an offer of a swap, but I am feeling benevolent in my old age - I have thousands of ATCs, and make them because I enjoy making them, and certainly not because I want to have more of them to store.
The thing that I love about twinks is that they are more like watercolor paints with a little sparkle to them than they are mica powder. You can't see the sparkle at all in this scan, just the pigment. You get the transparency and shading of a watercolor.
The tiny tag is resin, I think. I complimented another ATC maker a few years back on how cute a similar tag looked on one of her ATCs, and she sent me a packet. I love how cute they are, and how well they take ink. Unfortunately, I hate to use them, because I have no idea how to replace them. I shouldn't hoard my goodies, I know.
The bird image is from SweetStamps, and the kanji is from TAC.
Challenges:
The tiny tag is resin, I think. I complimented another ATC maker a few years back on how cute a similar tag looked on one of her ATCs, and she sent me a packet. I love how cute they are, and how well they take ink. Unfortunately, I hate to use them, because I have no idea how to replace them. I shouldn't hoard my goodies, I know.
The bird image is from SweetStamps, and the kanji is from TAC.
Challenges:
- SweetStamps - use 2 stamped images
- ATCs with Attitude - sparkle
- Dilly Beans - pastel colors
- Simply Create Too - Shop your Stash (tag)
- Twisted Tuesday - animal plus flowers
Bees Twinchie
This is my first twinchie. I haven't made them before because I really don't know what to do with them, but at this point, I'm feeling that way about everything I make. the theme for this mingle is bees.
It probably is bigger here than in real life, but basically, I stamped the image on a piece of patterned paper that has an embossed glitter trim on it. I colored the image using the blended glitter technique in some places and markers in others. It looks quite sparkly in real life.
Challenges:
Challenges:
- Happy Campers - flower power
- Shopping our Stash - not normal paper
- Opus Gluei - pastels
Plane ATC
Planes, trains, and automobiles was the theme for an ATC mingle the altereddesigns group was having. I hadn't made any ATCs in a long while, so I thought I would give it a go.
Embossing, burnishing, tissue tape, punches, and doodling - iI felt pretty good about it, until I check the due date for the mingle - it was last Friday. Ouch!
Stamps are from Close To My Heart. There is a story about the airplane punch - I bought it on clearance at Michael's a few years back. I used it exactly once, for a small set of airplane inchies. I had even forgotten that I had it, until someone, googling around for an airplane punch (this one is discontinued), found my blog post about my inchies. She asked if I would be willing to sell it, so I decided that it needed some love more than it needed to stay at my house. However, my gut was telling me that if I got rid of the punch, I would surely need some little airplanes, so I punched out about a dozen before I boxed it up and mailed it to her. This is one of those dozen.
Challenges:
Stamps are from Close To My Heart. There is a story about the airplane punch - I bought it on clearance at Michael's a few years back. I used it exactly once, for a small set of airplane inchies. I had even forgotten that I had it, until someone, googling around for an airplane punch (this one is discontinued), found my blog post about my inchies. She asked if I would be willing to sell it, so I decided that it needed some love more than it needed to stay at my house. However, my gut was telling me that if I got rid of the punch, I would surely need some little airplanes, so I punched out about a dozen before I boxed it up and mailed it to her. This is one of those dozen.
Challenges:
- Papercraft Star - use a stamp
- Whimsical Designs - Embossing
- Oldie but a goodie - transport (airplane punchout)
- Party Time Tuesdays - anything but a card
- Cardmania - punches
not Renoir
At the altereddesigns yahoogroup, there is a challenge to make an arch with "Flowers Galore" the first thing that came to my mind (and probably everyone else's) was to make paper flowers and but them all around a focal point (probably a woman). I started experimenting with this idea, and everything I came up with just seemed uninspired. I looked at the few cards that had already been posted, and yes, they were exactly as I supposed they would be. I felt even less inspired, feeling like I was just making what everyone else was making.
I was looking through my Dover samples hoping for a different direction for this challenge, when I came across a coloring page based on a painting by Renoir (Dover has a lot of coloring books for grownups). I digitally altered them to fit the project parameters, then printed out several copies with the thought of doing some kind of decoupage, but after I looked at the prints, I realized it would be too fidgety for me to cut out. I ended up coloring it with the Penciled Twinks technique. The shimmer doesn't show in the scan.
So, basically, it is just a colored image, which is not what people in the altereddesigns group do. I suppose I could embellish it, but I'm not convinced it would make it better, just busier. it's a fairly complicated design to color, and my gut is telling me that it looks fine just the way it is. I just don't know if other people will like it as much as I do.
Colorwash sprays
One of my favorite things to do with bold image stamps is to use a resist technique. Here, I heat embossed the images with clear embossing powder, then sprayed with a colorwash spray. I used three images from the marvelous marigolds stamp set (a•muse studio) with three colors of spray to make 3 different papers.
after that, I went crazy with dies - dies for the curly white strips (more fun than ribbon!) and for the layers of the sentiment. there is a ton of texture here, considering what a very flat card this is.
Challenges:
Challenges:
- Bloggers Challenge - backgrounds
- Card Makin' Mamas - no DP
- Creative Moments - Things with Wings
- Flutterby Wednesdays - flowers
- The Perfect Sentiment - thinking of you
Techniques for roses
I have recently come into two different rose silhouette stamps - the wild rose from a•muse studio, and this rose from Sweetstamps. To be honest, I probably have dozens of roses in my stamp collection. They are my favorite flower to stamp. However, these are my first rose silhouettes, and I am excited to be able to use some different techniques with my roses.
This technique is called Copic Colored Embossing. Some places refer to it as Black Magic, but since Black Magic is now a type of paper (black paper with a colored core, part of the Coredinations line), I'm not calling it that.
It's a very simple card layout. I tried various embellishments, but ultimately I thought the image was too pretty to cover up. I can probably sneak a sentiment into the lower left corner if I need one. The framing element is a Nellie Snellen die. it is actually a square die, but I cut 2 and pieced them together.
Challenges:
This technique is called Copic Colored Embossing. Some places refer to it as Black Magic, but since Black Magic is now a type of paper (black paper with a colored core, part of the Coredinations line), I'm not calling it that.
Challenges:
- Addicted to Stamps and More - CAS
- Crafting for all Seasons - Floral Delight
- Rhedd and Rosies - Vintage
- Deep Ocean - photo inspiration
- Lexi's Creations - dies
- SweetStamps - pastels
