Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Hand-carved Rubber Stamp Halloween Card

This week's Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge is all about the letter O! I've chosen to showcase two cards celebrating my favorite day in October (Halloween, of course!), and using monsters carved out of "Oops!" brand erasers I bought from Walgreen's for $.50! 


I've been practicing my stamp-carving skills over the past few months, and these creatures were the result of that fun project! :)



Two of my four monsters in these cards were inspired by Lawn Fawn's designs, and the other two (the big green guy and the furry blue guy above) came out of my head. I used the stamp carving tools I'd gotten from Yellow Owl Workshop, along with an exacto knife, to carve these fun creatures and their accessories (the wand, the trick-or-treat bag), along with a handful of other fun stamps inspired by our recent trip to Boston, and other musings.


For the background of the cards, I used a technique I learned from a Lawn Fawn video, blending harbor ink and a purple ink that I don't remember the name of. The two moons were made from blending colors from a color wheel ink pad, and I used the masking technique to keep the colors crisp between the sky and the moon. Both cards were given a spooky tree, cut using Lawn Cuts from Sweater Weather, and were mounted on Paper Source cards (Persimmon and Peacock).


In this square card (my favorite of the two!), I heat embossed three tiny bats using a Paper Source stamp, and added the Happy Halloween paper cut from a 12 x 12 page. I also stamped the chartreuse paper (used as the hills in both cards) with a woodgrain stamp from Paper Source before mounting, and I liked the dimension it added to this card, over the Persimmon one.

These two cards are currently displayed as you walk in our apartment, and I'm not sure I will want to take them down after Halloween ends! :)



Sunday, October 12, 2014

Watercolor Sugar Skull Birthday Card



I put together this Dia de los Muertos-inspired birthday card for my good friend KC, using two of my FAVORITE stamps from Paper Source: the sugar skull stamp  and the Marquee Happy Birthday stamp, and using the arrows from Lawn Fawn's Blue Skies stamp set and the frame from Sweater Weather. I used a watercolor technique with Tim Holtz Distress Inks to color in the stamped images, and also to get these vibrant background stripes, using washi tape to mask. I used Gelly Roll moonlight gel roller pens to fill in the 'lights' on the sentiment (one of my favorite tricks!), which added a neon kick to compliment the watercolor background lines.


I learned the fun masking watercolor technique from this fantastic video by Nicole on Lawn Fawn's blog!  I've really been enjoying watching these videos and picking up tips and tricks to enhance my paper-crafting skills!

Inside, I practiced my handlettering with le pens, and went over her name with a Gelly Roll Clear Star gel pen.



For the envelope, I used versamark ink with Quinn's lowercase letters for the sentiment, and added the Paper Source piƱata stamp to finish it off.



I'm submitting this watercolor birthday card as an entry into this week's Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge: Watercolor on their blog!

Happy Birthday, KC! :)