I need to re-stock my sympathy card stash, so this week's TGIF Challenge Sketch was the perfect starting-off point.
I pulled out papers from Alexandra Renke and a vintage 2003 Hero Arts Woodblock stamp Difficult Time.
I just love combining those gorgeous papers and stamping on top of the floral image.
I'm continuing to have fun and challenge myself with the #marchprintingchallenge at GelliArts.
Day 7's theme was Transparent. I realized I had never tried gel printing on a Transparency, so I pulled out Dina Wakley Media Transparencies and gave it a try. I did several pulls mixing green and turquoise. When I got a look I liked, I pulled up the rest of the paint with a sheet of paper. I love the tiny bubble effect the transparency produced on the plate.
Day 8 was CardBoard. I went to our Condominium Trash Room and picked up a piece of torn cardbard that had fallen on the floor as it flew down the trash shoot. I peeled back one layer and used it like a stamp on my plate, first going vertically with Dina Wakley's Neon Pink Acrylic and then horizontally with Dylusions Vibrant Turquoise paint.
Day 9 was Book Pages. I chose page 473 of Automobile Ignition Starting Lighting and printed with layers of four translucent golden paints, so you can still see the cool schematic. I love using pages from books like these for masculine cards. I used my leftover piece of cardboard to provide some texture on the layers.
Day 10 is Tissue Paper. I’ve saved this cool shoe-printed Tissue Paper for a long time for some sort of artsy fun ... and this was perfect. The printing is on the back of the paper.
This week at Jingle Belles it's a Cardstock Christmas where we're asking you to create your holiday card using nothing but cardstock (step away from the designer papers). You can spray it, die cut it, emboss it, color it ... but just make sure it's all cardstock.
I intended to join the PoppyStamps Die Cut Challenge, but realized too late I added as stamped sentiment to my card, so I'll try again later in the month. I do, however, love these PoppyStamps Die Cuts.
I die cut the PoppyStamps Whittle Friendly Snowman from White textured cardstock using a piece of white cardstock colored with watercolor markers for the scarf & black cardstock hat band.
I used a layout from the BYSH (Build Your Stash Holiday) Cardmakers and instead of a cardstock strip, I used the PoppyStamps Frozen Flakes Die Cut down the left side.
I finished with a sentiment from Memory Box Dashing with Reindeer and some pink bling in the snowflake centers.
I'm also joining the Christmas Kickstart Challenge, which is to feature a scarf on your card (get it ... wrapped up for Christmas).
Another week of blogland discoveries:
Have a tremendous Thursday!
I had fun Gel Printing over the weekend for the GelliArts #marchprintingchallenge on Instagram.
Day 3 is Crayons. I had fun trying a new technique with Distress Crayons. I put the Flora & Fauna Criss Cross Stencil on a dry gel press, sprayed on water, added crayons and then picked-up three prints.
Day 4 is Pattern, which is defined as a repeated decorative design. I chose this repeated globe-like pattern stencil and had fun creating multi-layer pattern prints.
Day 5 is Feathers. I pulled out my favorite hand-carved feather stamp from Tyggereye.
And lastly (for this post) is Day 7 - Initial. I attached foam letter stickers to a clear acrylic block and used Dina Wakley Orchid Acrylic paint.
On my list of things to accomplish this weekend were some birthday cards. I used the March Sketch Challenge at Unity Stamp Company.
I used my never-been-inked Winnie the Pooh Sweet Little Smiles for my focal image with the separate party hat stamp, so I'm also linking-up at the NBUS Challenge.
I stamped & colored Pooh and then managed to lay my image down in some residual ink on my studio table (ugg) so I started over and stamped and colored him again, but I liked my first image better. My solution was to detail cut the first image and use foam tape to attach him on top of the second image for some dimension, but I couldn't get that tiny pom pom on the top of the hat to line up ... so solution number two was to swap it for a felt flower ... a card maker always has to be ready to pivot.
I finished with a reverse birthday sentiment from Unity Stamp Company ... so kind, so caring, so you Sentiment Kit.
I'm also linking-up at the We Love Stamping Challenge where the optional theme is Spring.
Somehow I missed the start of the March Printing Challenge #marchprintingchallenge at GelliArts, so I've got a bit of catching-up to do.
The first theme is Birds. I don't have any bird stencils, so I decided to try to use some die cuts of Sea Birds from Impression Obsession. For my first print, I laid the birds down on a clean plate a pulled a print.
Unfortunately, when I put the next layer of paint down, I lost my birds. It always takes me a few prints to remember how the layers work backwards on the colors.
For the second print, I put down Sevres Blue on the plate first and pulled a solid plate. Next I laid down the die cuts on the plate, covered it with Quinacridone Magenta, which produced a lovely purple hue.
I kept out the same colors for the Day 2 theme - Circles. The timing of the emptying of a toilet paper roll was perfection, so I used it together with a larger empty pill bottle for my prints.
I really love the second one with both circles and the blend of the two paints.
Off to get groceries and then spending the day making more art and packing supplies for another upcoming art trip ... love it.
For this week's CLEAR prompt at Jingle Belles, I decided to give a shaker card a try. I thought the Ornaments from Taylored Expressions Beauty Lies Within 3 would make a cute shaker (without clearly thinking through the challenge of getting my foam strips curved around that very thin little circular border ... but I didn't give up).
I filled my shaker with Pinkfresh Studio Champagne Glitter Drops before attaching it to a lovely piece of snowflakes designer paper from Gina K. Designs.
I added a few strips of red cardstock & finished with a Taylored Expressions Simple Strips - Christmas sentiment.
Another week of skipping through blogland:
Have a tremendous Thursday!
The newest challenge at Shopping Our Stash is Flowers, Flowers Everywhere!
There was a time in my paper crafting past where flowers were my go-to embellishment, so much show that I would shop the floral section to see if there were hydrangeas or other silk blooms that I could dissect to add to my flower stash. Since then I've purged a lot of my flowers, but I still found a long-forgotten stash to work with.
The first thing that came to mind were the floral decorated wedding cake cards I used to make ... it looks like the last one was in 2016. Since most of the flowers I have in my stash are neutral tones, I decided to use a piece of sprayed paper for my cake base (since I've seen some cool air-brushed wedding cakes). I used this scrap from my stash that combined pink, green and yellow.
I combined blooms from lots of different brands to make the path up my cake. I even pulled out tiny old-school golden brads for the flower centers for the tiny white prima blooms.
While I was shopping my stash for lots of old school supplies, I pulled out a golden sticker sentiment to finish the design using the sketch from The Paper Players.
We can't wait to see what you do with those flowers in your stash.
