Ingenious Inkling

Peachy Washi Birthday

My card is inspired by the photo at the Peach Birthday Fusion Card Challenge.

 

I used a combination of peachy washi tape to create my background inspired by the layers of the rainbow.  I love how the design in one of the tapes looks like a row of lacy rainbows.

 

 

I brought in the gold from the picture with a Gold Embossed Sentiment from Poppy Stamps Peony Bouquet and the Poppy Stamps Susanna Blossom die cut from gold cardstock. 

 

I'm also linking-up at the Poppy Stamps September Wonderful Washi Challenge.

There's also a Washi Tape Challenge at Little Red Wagon.

Gel Press Retro Birthdays

This mornings ABC's of Gel Printing theme was Stamps & Stencils.  I had fun using both including this wonderful Donna Downey Foam Stamp for my prints.  This is one of my favorite color combinations.

 

 

I decided to go ahead and use that center print for a birthday card using the Retro Rubber Stamp Challenge Sketch.

 

 

I stamped Hero Arts wood mounted Birthday Blackboard from 2013 and then die cut a circle from it for the focal point getting as many of the words I could inside the circle.

 

 

The Catherine Pooler Inks are perfect for getting solid coverage for single stamping of a big wood mounted image.  The sentiment is from one of my oldest and most-used Hero Arts acrylic sets in my collection - Essential Messages from 2010.

 

I'm also linking-up at the Simon Says Stamp Stencil Challenge.

And since I had my leftover gel print bits from yesterday, I decided to do a male version of the card.  I didn't have enough print for the Retro layout, so I used the sketch from Sunday Stamps.

 

 

I turned the rectangle into a square to better frame my circle die cut ... again Catherine Pooler inks for coverage, although I had to use Archival for the sentiment because she doesn't have a good rust color in her palette.

 

 

This one uses another vintage wood mounted Hero Arts Happy Birthday from 2007 - still a classic font & size.

Recycled Printing

Today's theme at the ABC's of Printing Challenge is R is for Recycled.  

I wadded-up some recycled packing paper and used it to create a pattern on my print.  Here is the first print using Yellow Oxide Paint and my plate inked with Red Oxide doing the same effect.

 

Here it is with both layers.

 

Then I did a few more prints to clean-up my plate.  The first one had too much yellow paint ... the second one was pure perfection (at least to me).

 

 

I used the clean-up print for my card base and the other two prints for my Hexagons (inking the yellow one on the edges for a bit more contracts) with this week's Freshly Made Sketches layout.

 

 

I also added a few vintage Studio Calico Hexagon stickers (which are still available at Frantic Stamper ... I may need to order some more) that just happened to be out on my studio table.  The branch is Simon Says Stamp Outline Clustered Leaves.

 

 

I finished with a Sticker sentiment.

I'm also linking-up at the Red, Orange, Yellow Color Challenge at Just Us Girls.

 

ABC's of Gel Printing

I've had more fun this week with the ABC's Gel Printing Challenge on Instagram (do you follow me there?).

 

 

I started with M is for Mini Plate Art.  I had fun using my Hexagon Mini Plate with some Studio Light stencils.  I loved the variation of depth of color in the two prints.

 

 

This is another fun Studio Light Stencil.

 

 

For the N is for Nature Challenge I tried printing from some grasses I picked from our park.  It seemed like it should have worked better than it did.

 

 

I sort of wondered what I could make with the painted grass ... but that thought passed (LOL).

O is for Oval was next.  I used an Oval Die to cut an oval opening into a piece of printer paper and then used it as a mask on my Gel Press.

 

 

It's another fun Studio Light Stencil.

I skipped P is for Pastel because I couldn't find my Pan Pastels (I know I have them ... at least I think I have them).

And finally Q is for Q-Tip.  I kept feeling like my prints looked like something you'd see in a Petri Dish, but I had fun creating nonetheless.

 

 

The thing I love about these challenges is that they are just a quick piece of art that I can easily make at the end of a long work day ... because a day always feels better when I get to make some art.

Christmas Tic Tac Toe

We're still playing Tree Skirt Tic Tac Toe at Jingle Belles.

 

 

I decided to go horizontal across the top row with Santa, Bling & Stamping.  I chose a vintage set from my stash - Outpost Artistic Outpost Snowy Woods.  I stamped it onto a piece of purple hand-marbled paper from my stash ... I thought the marbling reminded me of blowing snow. 

 

 

I stamped a snowflake from the same set across the stop & finished with two Eyelet Outlet Silver Pearl Bling Swirls across the top that continued with the swirly feel.

We hope you will come play along.  The link-up will be live until 6pm EST on Wednesday.

Thursday Link Love

Another week of discoveries from the land of blogs:

• Apple Cream Cheese Danishes
• a way to try to visit businesses when they are least busy
• this Sugar Cookie Apple Cobbler looks like a quick and easy way to use Autumn Apples
• how cool is this Granny Square Cardigan
• I often order Tom Kha Soup, but have never tried making it.
• DIY tiny Book Stack Necklace
• Shrines from Found Objects
• do you ever want a Small Batch Peanut Butter Cookie Recipe?
• West Side Story was the first movies I remember watching at home (on a rented video disc player)
• how do you like your green beans?
• what a pretty Concrete Pottery Glaze
• love these pretty Pumpkins (one shown)
• a lovely color combination for a Christmas card

Have a tremendous Thursday!

Baking-Up a 100th Birthday Celebration

A friend asked me to make a 100th Birthday Card using these fun baking-themed 3-D stickers.  I used the Sketch from Paper Craft Crew Challenges for my Layout.

The background paper is actually from Pebbles Cozy & Bright Christmas Collection, but I thought the colors worked with the stickers.

 

Instead of wrapping the panel with string, I used Alexandra Renke Washi Tapes.  I swapped the sentiment oval in the sketch for a tag that was the right size to hold my 100 stickers from Amy Tangerine.  I finished with a scattering of epoxy hearts rather than bling and a Happy Birthday Sentiment tucked in at the bottom.

 

 

Gel Press Layered Leaves

Today's ABC's of Gel Printing theme is L is for Layers.  Layers are one of the most amazing techniques to me with the Gel Press.  It makes you think differently about building your design.  I decided to use the colors from the The Card Concept for my layers (my raspberry turned out a bit darker, but I think you can see the hues).

 

 

I started with the lightest shade (the golden yellow) and built to the darker hue.  I decided to just ink part of my 5" x 7" Gel Press (it's stained yellow from ink) and use a polka dot foam stamp I found at the used art product store.  I also got a bit of left-over green from the plate.

 

Next I moved to the green with a big Donna Downey Foam Stamp from Prima.

 

 

I layered on the rosy burgundy by inking the sides of my plate and using a torn piece of paper to pick up the paint before pulling the print.

 

 

Last layer was to add the purple with a Julie Balzer Stencil from The Crafter's Workshop (I picked up the paint from the plate and then stamped on the paper with the painted stencil.  I did a full pull on the plate (which you'll see on the card), and then did a clean-up pull with my layered piece.

I won't lie ... I loved how it turned out.

 

 

Next I used Concord and 9th thankful Leaves Turnabout dies to cut some maple leaves from my print.  I used the rest of the bits to punch and die cut some smaller leaves.

 

 

Finally, I used the sketch from the TGIF Challenges to create my card - Mixed Media is my card style. 

That Purple print I mentioned is the background for the leaves.

 

Isn't it fun how these colors pop.

 

Fall is my favorite season and I'm starting to smell it in the air.

 

I is for Image Transfer

At the last Art Camp Lauren and I had, we tried (relatively unsuccessfully) to do image transfer.   This week one of the ABC's of Art Printing was I is for Image Transfer, so I revisited the technique.

I tried about 20 different fashion magazine images, but these two were the only ones that produced a visible transfer.

 

 

While I liked them both, I was hoping for a higher success ratio.  I posted the images in one of the Facebook Gel Printing Pages and several of the members graciously provided tips for achieving more success, so I went back and tried a second time.

 

 

Their recommendation that I use a darker more opaque paint for creating the transfer on the plate finally yielded success.

 

 

However, I'm still struggling to find the best paint to pull the prints, so I will try again.  In searching through my paints, I clearly need more opaque colors with higher contrast.

 

 

Regardless, I still love the effect (no idea what I'll ultimately do with them, it just fun to see it work).

 

 

Here are a few more I tried.  The right one I just picked-up directly from the plate with no second color.

Learning how to make new art makes me happy.  

Hope your Saturday is happy too.

Tree Skirt Tic Tac Toe

At Jingle Belles we're playing Tree Skirt Tic-Tac-Toe, which is kind of like "Beach Blanket Bingo"... but Christmassy... and with a lot more embellishments!

 

 

We'd love for you to join us; all you have to do is pick a row (horizontal, vertical or diagonal) and create a lovely new holiday card featuring all three elements in that row. There are *lots* of possibilities, so let's get started!

My tic tac toe went straight down the center with Trees, Die cuts and Bling.

I started by die cutting the Memory Box Marvelous Pine twice from two shades of green cardstock and attaching them together slightly offset to provide a shadow.  Next I attached my tree to an Alcohol Ink Gel Press Print from my stash, which has both horizontal and vertical stripes for the Memory Box Stripes Challenge.

 

Next I used Eyelet Outlet Green Jewel Bling Strips to Decorate my tree with Eyelet Outlet Snowflake Bling for the "star".

I finished with a sentiment from Memory Box Typewriter Holiday.