Wishing...

It's been a while since I've made a card heavy with die cuts, and I was ready to play with a few dies that I haven't used in a bit, along with a new one, and a couple often used favorites. And since my mother's birthday is coming up very soon, what better time to make one with lots of flowers and pearls and girly embellishments? :)

So here's Mom's card this year...layers of cream diecut cardstock with lots of pretty pink flowers and loopy satin ribbon bows...

There are several layers of cardstock stacked to make the diecut scalloped bottom border, but let's start with a closeup of that yummy Prima flower that's the centerpiece...I need to find another set of this one...it has all the fun layers and gems that I love so much...

I added some handcrafted cherry blossoms and some mulberry roses alongside it...

Here you can see the layers...three in all. The card base has a diecut scallop along the bottom edge, the second layer has a different scallop edge and an open scrollwork edging above it, and the top layer has a scalloped bottom edge and the distressed punchinella die cut along the top right...foam tape holds all the layers down and gives it a bit of dimension...

And I couldn't resist adding a lone cherry blossom to the top corner...

Supplies:

Dies:   Spellbinders "A2 Scalloped Borders 2";   Sizzix Tim Holtz "Mixed Media";   Sizzix "Flowers Branches & Leaves";   Simon Says Stamp "Wishing";   La-La Land Crafts "Cherry Blossom Flowers" and "Stitched Elements"

Stamp:   Simon Says Stamp "Sending & Wishing"

Flowers:   Prima (large pink);   Wild Orchid Crafts (small roses)             Stamens:   ChocolateLetters on Etsy

Pearls:   Recollections               Miscellaneous:   satin ribbon

Thanks for visiting today...have a wonderful weekend!

Art Journal - I Am Not Who I Was Yesterday...

It's Mixed Media Monday here in the Korner, and today's page was a fun experiment gone right. :)

I've used my Gelatos a bit recently, but so far only for accent coloring and almost always mixed with water or an art medium like texture paste or gesso. I've never made a page or layout using "dry" Gelatos as my only color medium, so that's what I set out to do with this art journal spread in my small Dylusions journal. Heavily inspired by Tracy Scott's colorful style, and itching to play with my new circle stamps, I dove right in. As vivid as these colors may look here, they're even more vivid in person...

I didn't do step-out photos, but the process was simple. I wanted to scribble on the colors, and be able to blend with my fingers, so I applied a coating of gesso to the base pages first. I used a brush, alternating my brush strokes horizontally and vertically, because I hoped the brush strokes would show through as a small bit of texture - and they did...yay!

After applying the gesso, I stamped the circles across the pages using my new Indigo Blu "Limor Circles" stamps ...love these...I'm sure they'll be getting a LOT of use in the future! For lack of a stamp or stencil, I had to hand-draw the flowers onto the pages (using Pitt Artist pens in black).  I always say I can't even draw a recognizable stick figure, so I purposely made these flowers look inexact...but in fact, it's the only way I *can* draw them! LOL

Also, in the background, you can see some black smudges...those are intentional, as a bit more added texture. They're made with one of the other stamps in the Limor Circles set...the largest paint splatter...I just didn't stamp them cleanly and neatly. I inked them up with Archival ink, and used my fingers to press down randomly as I applied the stamp to the page. Once covered with the Gelatos, they're more subdued and fade a bit more into the background.

I started coloring in the circles with Gelatos, then the flowers, then the background. I'd originally planned to list the colors I used, but then I realized there was an easier way. I received this set of Gelatos for Christmas, and the *only* colors I didn't use are the grays and the black! I just layered and rubbed, and layered and blended, until I got the intensity and colors I wanted.

Once the colors were applied, I took a black Pitt Artist pen and a white Uni Posca paint pen and added some small accent circles and white polka dots, and touched up the edges of the flowers that had gotten lightened when applying the colors over them.

Next was to add just a bit of vertical texture by using some modeling paste and a stencil in the corners and through the center of the two pages.

The final piece was to add the sentiment stamp. I used a baby wipe to gently wipe away some of the coloring in the area where I wanted the sentiment, made sure it was dry by hitting it with the heat gun for a few seconds, then stamped the sentiment using a black Big Brush pen applied to the stamp and quickly laying it onto the surface. (As sometimes happen, my hand slid a bit, so I went back over some of the letters with an extra fine Pitt Artist Pen to make sure the letters were all there...oops!)

Because Gelatos are waxy, it's hard to photograph them without getting a bit of reflection back into the camera lens when taking the photo head-on, so I took a few pics around the pages to show you just how vibrant these colors are in real life! 

Starting in the upper left corner...

This is the actual intensity of the pink/orange in the upper corner...much stronger than it appears in the "head-on" photo above due to the way the light bounced off the page in the larger photo...

Wiping away just a bit of the background colors with a damp baby wipe highlights the area around the quote so it pops off the page a bit more...

Supplies:

Color Mediums:   Faber Castell Gelatos

Stamps:  Indigo Blu "Limor Circles";   Unity Stamp Company "empowered words"

Stencil:   The Crafters Workshop "Mini Confetti"

Art Mediums:   Golden modeling paste and white gesso

Miscellaneous:   Faber Castell Pitt Artist and Big Brush pens;   Uni Posca white pen;  Ranger  Black Archival Ink

Thanks so much for visiting today...I hope your week is starting with a smile!

Three of a Kind...

Happy Friday the 13th, everyone...I prefer to turn the tables on folklore and hope it's a lucky day for you all!

I pulled out a Penny Black floral stamp I've had for a while but haven't used on a card yet, and decided to mix up my traditional watercolors with watercolor pencils and play around. After stamping the image three times with various shades of black and grey ink, and watercoloring all three a bit differently, I couldn't decide which piece to make into a card, so I made up all three. :)

Once I had them colored in, I couldn't resist the urge to accent with a fun new set of circle stamps, a bit of ink splatter using both a brush and a splatter stamp, bows and lace, and some glittery accents to the butterfly on the stamp.

First, I colored the image in pink and green...I was in the mood for spring colors...

On all three cards, I colored the butterfly twice (using the same colors), then cut out the second butterfly and adhered over the first, accenting the top butterfly with Stickles and a white pearl pen, and bending the wings up for a little dimension...

Then I played with orange and yellow, and ended up with what I now call my "candy corn flowers." I had stamped this one using black ink, so the contrast with the bright colors really makes the details stand out. This card is on its way to a cousin across the country...

Forgot to mention that I added some gold microbeads to the centers of all the large flowers...the pic of the candy corn flowers shows them the best...

And after all the bright colors, I wanted to try something a little more subdued, and maybe a bit darker, so I turned to a fuchsia color flower and a darker background...and I liked that, too...

Supplies:

Stamps:   Penny Black "Botanical Notes";   Simon Says Stamp "Friendship Messages" (sentiments);   Indigo Blu "Limor Circles";   Winnie & Walter "Big Bang Confetti"

Color Mediums:   Windsor & Newton Cotman watercolors;   Caran d'Ache Supracolor watercolor pencils;   "Ice White" Viva Pearl Pen;   "Diamond" Stickles

Miscellaneous:   gold micro beads,  Uni Ball Signo white pen,   twine,  pearls,  lace strip, Archival Inks

Thanks for visiting today...have a wonderful weekend!

Soft and Sweet...

Hi, everyone! There was no Mixed Media Monday this week on the blog, but I hope to have one again soon. How I envy those talented mixed media artists who can whip up a page in their journal in an hour or less. Unfortunately, I rarely finish ANY kind of crafty project in that amount of time...LOL. I ponder, I change, I ponder some more...I'm slow as a turtle, easily distracted from my end goal, and go off on experimental tangents as I play. It can be rather comical, actually! All those years working in the business world, so focused and goal-oriented, and now I'm the complete opposite in my creative pursuits. My current in-progress journal pages are just that...in various stages of progress...and none of those stages include "done."

But I have gotten a few cards made in the last couple weeks, including the one I'm sharing today. It's a spring-colored, softly pastel, shabby little number, with a bit of my mixed media supplies mixed in for fun...

I took my cue from the splatters designed into the patterned paper for the rest of the card embellishments, using pearls and a dotted edge stencil for the white spackle around the edges to continue the "dots" design. Lots of Tea Dye Distress Ink was used around the paper edges, and also used to dye the white twine for the loopy bows...

The chipboard heart was coated with white gesso, stamped with a text stamp, and splattered with Shabby White Frantage...

The flower cluster starts at the top right, centered with a large layered flower surrounded with lots of little roses, loopy twine bows, pearls, and diecut leaves, all sitting atop a diecut doily...

Here's a closeup of the largest flower. I mixed a bit of Frayed Burlap Distress Stickles with some clear glass glitter, and ended up with the perfect chunky, taupe-y, lightly glittery accent on the pastel ledger paper of the center flower...

The flowers, leaves, and pearls cascade all the way down to the bottom corner...

Supplies:

Patterned papers:   Prima "Princess" collection

Dies:   Cottage Cutz "Tea Time Doily";   La-La Land Crafts "Open Leaf  Flourish"

Stencil:   The Crafters Workshop "Mini Halftone Borders"

Flowers:   Prima,  Wild Orchid Crafts,  Kaisercraft            Pearls:   Recollections

Miscellaneous:   Faber-Castell Whipped Spackle,  Stampendous Frantage "shabby white,"    

Tea Dye Distress Ink,   cheesecloth

Thanks so much for stopping by for a visit...I hope your week started with a smile!

A Little of This, A Little of That...

Hello, again! Today I'm sharing a card that combines my latest fixation with mixed media supplies and my long-time "fully-loaded shabby chic" card style.

I was playing with some of my sprays one day, and noticed that the rose, dark tan, and silver looked pretty fun sitting there together on my craft sheet. But instead of creating one of my "smoosh papers" I decided to tape off a card-sized piece of mixed media paper and spray and spritz the three colors where I wanted them...and it ended up looking just the way I had hoped it would...

The fun part is that the rose and the gray sprays both have a bit of iridescence to them, while the tan color is a flat paint...here you can see the glisten in the rose and grey that I mixed a bit in the corner...

Yet when you hold the card at a different angle, you can really see the depths of the individual colors...

Here are a few detail shots, starting at the upper left corner working around the card...

The largest pink rose in the left corner is made using Spellbinders' Rose Creations dies...it started as a white rose, and was colored with Victorian Velvet Distress Ink and a few spritzes of water...

You know how I love to nestle pearls inside flower clusters...I'm not sure I'll ever be able to break that habit :) ...

In the center is a fun loopy die cut using one of Tim Holtz' new mixed media dies. I cut it once from deep rose cardstock and a second time from a lighter rose color...offset them a little bit before attaching them to the card...then decided they needed a light dusting of white craft paint to distress them just a tad...

Supplies:

Color Mediums:  Lindy's Stamp Gang Sprays:  Alpine Ice Rose,  South Shore Sand,  Gag Me With a Spoon Gray;

Liquitex Ink! Titanium White

Stencil:   The Crafters Workshop "Mini Art Is"

Art Mediums:   Golden Modeling Paste

Dies:   Sizzix Flowers Branches & Leaves;   Sizzix/Tim Holtz Scribbles & Splats;   Spellbinders Rose Creations

Small paper roses:   Wild Orchid Crafts            Pearls:   Recollections

Miscellaneous:   lace pieces,   twine,   pink crystal stems,   white craft paint

Thanks so much for visiting today...have a great weekend! (And U.S. friends, don't forget to "spring forward" for the switch to Daylight Savings Time this weekend.)

Mixed Media - Simplify...

Hi, everyone...it's another mixed media Monday here in the Korner. :)

Today, I'm continuing on with last Friday's clean-and-simple theme with a CAS 6x8 canvas...

It all started with the watercolor piece in the center. I stamped the image and sentiment onto a heavily-textured 5x7 piece of Shizen watercolor paper before distressing the edges and adhering the paper onto a 6x8 canvas, where I had already watercolored the same turquoise color around the edges. 

I wanted an opaque white texture around the edges, so I used whipped spackle through a couple different stencils for the clock and dotted edge designs...and it was done! Clean and simple and quick and fun!

Supplies:

Stamp:   Unity Stamp Co. "Bloom & Simplify"

Watercolor paper:   Shizen            Watercolors:   Sakura Koi

Stencils:   The Crafters Workshop "Mini Time Travel" and "Mini Halftone Borders"

Art Mediums:   Golden matte gel medium,  Faber Castell whipped spackle

Miscellaneous:   Faber Castell Pitt Artist pen (black medium);   Uni Posca white paint pen

Thanks for visiting today...I hope your week is starting with a smile!