Category: die cuts

Flower Power

I have been working on an In Detail post for the CLASSroom on the Sizzix Stephanie Barnard Triplit dies. I had bunches of flower die cut pieces on my work table and assembled some for this card.

Flower Power

With all of the flower pieces, it’s easy to get overloaded with choices, so I kept to three colors for the flowers, although I’d originally started out with four. I first tried the flowers on a kraft cardstock base, but they looked much better on the green base. I had a Mead spiral notebook in the early 1970s with a fabric floral pattern that had these same colors. Even though I can more or less remember the pattern, I wish I’d kept it for card inspiration!

I’m entering this card in the Less is More Challenge whose theme is flowers, as well as the CASology challenge whose theme is also flowers.

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.

OCC Watercolor Day 3

I’m sharing a card created with the technique shown by Jennifer Rzasa in today’s Online Card Classes Watercolor for Card Makers lesson. The idea is to ink your stamp and mist with water before stamping for a watercolor effect.

DayThreeStamping

I worked on this for most of the morning (read, tore my hair out) trying Memento dye ink pads, as she suggested, and finally switching to Distress Ink pads. I walked away from this more than once when I wasn’t getting the results I wanted! I had the best results stamping onto the Ranger Watercolor paper. I tried Neenah Solar White but the ink looked blah on it.

I die cut the sentiment four times, the last time in watercolor paper I colored with the Worn Lipstick Distress Ink pad to match to the flowers.

Supplies:

Penny Black Patterned Paper Sunflower

In addition to the watercoloring I’ve been doing lately, I’ve been crafting with my patterned paper collection. Today, I’m sharing a card created with the Penny Black  Sunny Hello [#30-230] stamp set and the Leaves [#51-002] die set using patterned paper.

SunFlowerPPCardI stamped and heat-embossed the sunflower on patterned paper and then fussy cut it. I also stamped and heat-embossed the “Sunshiny HELLO” sentiment (I can see myself reaching for this sentiment time and again!). I cut the leaf die several times and cut some of the stems and leaves off in order to arrange them to my liking under the sunflower. The sunflower is attached to the card panel with dimensional adhesive.

Hope there’s sun shining in your part of the world today!

Poppystamps: Starry Night

Hello, today I’m sharing a card created with Poppystamps dies and a Memory Box stencil suitable for any occasion. My inspiration was a clear night in the Pacific Northwest. Year-round we have beautiful evergreen trees, and the Pine Tree Border fits perfectly with the Brevilla House die. We’re more apt to have a clear night during the summer.

HousesMay2014

To begin, I colored three watercolor panels with Distress Inks. I die cut the panel colored in earthtones with the Brevilla Houses die, and I die cut the green-colored panel with the Pine Tree Border. I intentionally left some of the windows in place in the houses for some variety. Finally, I applied embossing paste through the Starry Nights stencil onto the panel colored in dark blues.  Before applying the embossing paste, I covered up the largest stars in the stencil with washi tape. Even though the stars aren’t realistically in scale with the houses, the largest stars would have thrown off the balance considerably.

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