Author: Jean Manis

Freshly Made Sketches #136

I’m mixing things up a bit this week and playing along with Freshly Made Sketches for the first time.

Freshly Made Sketches #136

Why, yes, I am still making nautical cards! I had so much fun making them last week, I’m making more! Although I considered using patterned papers, I decided I wanted to stamp the individual pieces instead. I stamped just about everything more than once, in a variety of colors, before making my final selections. I’m sure some people can just “know” right away that they want a particular element to be a certain color, but not me! I need to see all of the different combinations.

One Layer Card

There’s a brand-new challenge over at Stamp Nation – to create a one-layer card. It’s been a while since I’ve done any masking, so it was fun to get back at it! I’ve created a card using one of my favorite Mama Elephant stamp sets.

MEBalloonsTo mask the hot air balloon, I stamped the balloon a couple of times on a large sticky note and fussy cut it. The teal balloon is stamped with VersaMagic. The VersaMagic has a bit better coverage than the VersaColor, which was used for the orange balloon. I have an assortment of both in Dew Drop pads that I pull out occasionally. Ideally I’d have an entire set of pigment inks!

Have a fabulous weekend, and may it be one full of sunshine!

Supplies: VersaColor Orange, Blue, VersaMagic Teal inks

Penny Black Poppy Trio: Two Approaches

Today I’m sharing two cards using the Penny Black Poppy Trio stamp [#40-311] .

For the first card, I stamped and heat embossed the image four times – on green, yellow, orange and dark orange cardstock. I then fussy cut the blossoms and adhered them to the green card panel. I finished the card with a sentiment from the Friendship Flowers set [#30-223].

PoppyTrio

For the next card, I stamped and heat embossed the image on Strathmore 140lb coldpress watercolor paper and colored the image with Distress Inks – Squeezed Lemonade, Wild Honey, Dried Marigold, Ripe Persimmon, Peeled Paint, and Tumbled Glass. I die cut the watercolored image and added a sentiment from the Penny Black Kind Words [#30-226] set, which was stamped and heat embossed on vellum.

WatercoloredPoppies

OCC Watercolor – Not Handpainted

The recent lessons in the Online Card Classes Watercolor class have been phenomenal! I’m amazed by the talent in the cardmaking community! However, after I “painted” a cardinal and a flower today using some of the recent lessons, and pouted a bit, I realized I needed to put my training wheels back on! So I’m sharing a card that’s technically from Day Six in class.

LovelyMums

For me, the training wheels are heat embossed lines to help hold the water. I heat embossed the flowers from the Mama Elephant Lovely Mums set with white embossing powder on Strathmore 140lb coldpress watercolor paper. I colored them with Distress Inks and then fussy cut them. The die cut circle was stamped with a sentiment from Penny Black Special Wishes and  heat embossed in gold powder. This card draws on the design shown by Jennifer McGuire in the Day Six lesson.

Supplies:

Ahoy!: Cards for Him

As a counterpoint to the watercoloring I’ve been doing, I’ve been creating masculine cards using inspiration from Catherine Pooler’s Creativity Grows Here Cards for Him Online Class

I really like to make variations when I’m putting ideas into practice, so starting with inspiration from the Nautical section of the class and adding a CAS lesson from Maureen Merritt, who’s part of the Stamp Nation Design Team, I created three cards!

AhoyCFH

GoodLuckCFH

With three men in my life (my husband and two sons), I’m often in need of masculine cards. I’ve always had a thing for anything nautical, starting with my first trip to the Pacific Ocean. I guess we didn’t pack a suitcase for me, so we went to May & Co. in San Diego and bought a nautical switsuit. I still remember it quite vividly, including its anchor belt! And I always like anything red, white and blue, especially this time of year.

Supplies:
WPlus9 Design Dockside, Dockside Background
Wplus9 Design Tag Die
Impression Obsession Thin Line Background
My Favorite Things Wood Plank Background
Sizzix embossing folders