8 Days of Holiday Cards! Day 7.1 - Another Inky Sky Background!

Okay y'all, I must admit I had so much fun with the Winter Owl, but wasn't as pleased with my sky as I would have liked, so I gave it a second go. I followed the same process for making the Leafy Tree Backdrop and Stitched Hillside scene, but this time decided to color in my lights on the tree with only red and 'white' (which was actually white mixed with yellow), colored in with watercolor pencils, and finished with adding some glitter with a clear glitter pen on top for some shine and sparkle! :)

The background on my previous card had a more even green ombre tone to it, which was nice but didn't look as much like the sky as I wanted it to. This time, I decided to use some purple and blue distress inks blended along the card base, and added the additional step of letting some water droplets (sprayed from a spray bottle) sit on the inks for a bit, then dabbing off the water with a paper towel. I LOVE this technique, as it lifts color from the areas that were wet, giving more dimension to the sky! I finished the sky by stamping the snow from the Snow Cool set with the MISTI tool, using Frost White Pigment Ink and stamping it twice to get my desired look. I added the Santa (made from Gnome Sweet Gnome and Hats Off to You) holding his latte (a clear favorite of mine, from Love You a Latte!) with foam squares for dimension, and was finished with the card, lickety-split! :)

I opted not to use a sentiment on the outside of the card, and used the Warm Wishes from the Love You a Latte set on the inside (but forgot to document with photo evidence!).

I prefer this one to the Winter Owl because there's more contrast in the background and more interest with the water droplet technique, and I loved the red and white lights instead of full color. Both will be sent, though - so that's good! :)

This post is being submitted into the Lawnscaping Challenge #143: Let it Snow!

8 Days of Holiday Cards! Day 7: Christmas lights and inky sky

For today's card, I wanted to create a vibrant sky background, and have the rest of the card be white so the background really pops. I started by preparing the Leafy Tree Backdrop and Stitched Hillside. I have a bunch of 12x12 patterned paper packs that are one-sided, with patterns I don't really plan to ever use, so I actually cut these large papers down so they could go through my Evolution tool and could be used with die cuts, using the opposite side. I wanted them to be bright white, and the non-patterned side was perfect!

In Colorado where I grew up (and still consider my home), people often wrap the beautiful white aspen tree trunks with lights, so I wanted to create a similar effect here, only wrapping the base of these trees. To create the strings of lights, I stamped the lights from the Lawn Fawn Happy Howlidays set on watercolor paper, and cut them out using the coordinating Lawn Cuts. I liked that the die-cut lights had a slightly different white than the tree, as it helped them stand out a bit more. Because these lights are setup for going around the dog images from the set, I cut them apart into two-light strands and three-light strands, so they'd look more natural going around the base of the trees. I ran them through my mini xyron machine to add the adhesive, which is the perfect tool for adding adhesive to small and complicated die cut images. Once I had the trees wrapped, I colored in the lights using distress inks and water. This helped me ensure I had a relatively even distribution of color, and didn't end up with multiple lights of the same color too close together.

On the cover of my Paper Source A2 Superfine White folded card, I used a blending tool to add distress inks, starting from the top with evergreen bough, and blending it down the page, before adding in cracked pistachio and blending down further along the page. I also added Pine Needles ink towards the top of the page, and a little of the  I decided on the background colors by coordinating them with the scarf I used on the Lawn Fawn Winter Owl die-cut image. I kept positioning my card elements on top of the distress ink background in order to determine how much more I needed to add/how far down I wanted the ink to go on the page, which proved to be important and helpful!

Once I was satisfied with the color of the background, I finished it by stamping the falling snow from the Lawn Fawn Snow Cool set with Frost White pigment ink. I added this using the MISTI tool, which allowed me to double-stamp the snow in order to get the look I wanted. I then adhered the hillside and the tree to the card base with my tape runner, stamped the sentiment with Memento Tuxedo Black Ink, and finished the card by attaching my owl with foam squares for dimension.

This post is being submitted into the Lawnscaping Challenge #143: Let it Snow!

8 Days of Holiday Cards! Day 4: Santa's Cheers

Welcome Back! Today, I have a fun new technique to EASILY ground your stamped and die-cut images, without having to make an elaborate scene!

When I get new sets, I often search through Pinterest, Lawn Fawn's blog, Flickr groups, Lawnscaping's blog, etc., to find fun ideas for using each set. I'll also stamp and die-cut multiple images, so I have them ready to go when making cards later. I followed this same process with the Hats Off to You and Gnome Sweet Gnome sets, ultimately planning on pairing a santa hat on the gnome to make him Jolly Old St. Nicholas, and, of course, giving him a giant latte to prepare him for his Christmas Eve shenanigans! :) I had a large number of these Santas ready to go, without an idea of what the scene should look like, and then I found an awesome card from another Lawn Fawn fanatic, using a simple technique that I knew would work perfectly with this card!

For the background of this card, I simply used a strip of post-it note tape across the card, and blended Distress Ink with an ink blender up from the post-it note tape line. This makes the line darker closer to the tape line, and lighter as you go up so it eventually fades into the card, giving the impression of a wall behind the die-cut image and a floor below. SUPER SIMPLE, y'all - and makes for a stunning pop of color! I stamped the sentiment with Memento Tuxedo Black Ink, being careful to place it above where the latte would end up so that it has the steam effect. I finished the card by mounting the die cut images with foam squares.

I liked the end result a lot and repeated it for a few cards, but wanted to change it up a bit and use the Cheers sentiment from the Let's Bokeh set. I find that I use the individual words in this set all the time for all different types of projects, and I love the scripted font for the Cheers sentiment specifically. Because it doesn't have the same steam-like effect of the other sentiment, I decided to use it below the images on these additional cards. I was definitely pleased with the results!

Because I loved this ink blended background technique so much, I decided to try it again with another card, and reverse the direction of the blending so it went down instead of up. I used some fun pups from the Lawn Fawn Happy Howlidays limited edition Stamptember set made for Simon Says Stamp, which happen to look like our dog, Penny. :) All of the images in the card below were stamped on watercolor paper and colored with either watercolor pencils or watercolor distress ink. The Santa Paws part of the sentiment was stamped first with red ink, but I didn't like it as much and decided to stamp over it with Memento Tuxedo Black Ink afterward, which unintentionally created the halo effect, so I just went with it. :) All of the cards shown today were on A2 Paper Source Superfine White folded cards.

Let's Toast!

For the current Lawnscaping Challenge (Sweets!), I decided to create a congrats card, and finally try out the Lawn Fawn scripty congrats die. I was wanting to find a use for the Perfectly Plaid and other patterned 6x6 papers, too, as I often create cards without patterned paper and wanted to challenge myself to use them for something other than my iPhone case!

I started this card by creating a card base from Superfine White Paper Source paper, then cutting the blue plaid sheet down to match the size. I found two corresponding green patterned papers to use for the grass, and die cut them with the Speech Bubble Border die to create the hills (one paper was sent to me from Lawn Fawn with an order a while back, and the other from a random assortment of 6x6 patterned paper packs that got jumbled together). I stamped Let's Toast! inside the card with Memento Tuxedo Black ink at this point, too. I then rounded the bottom corners of the card base and the patterned papers, and set them aside.

I stamped the fun images from Love You S'more in Memento Tuxedo Black ink on Superfine White Paper Source paper, and colored in most of them with distress ink 'watercoloring' (with the exception of the marshmallows and s'more on the inside of the card, which I'd colored in with watercolor pencils), and stamped the brown sticks/logs stamps with espresso ink before die-cutting all of the images with the corresponding dies. I also used the smaller two flame dies to cut out the flames from Sunshine and Poppy Paper Source papers, as I wanted them to stand out a bit more. Lastly, I die-cut the scripty congrats four times - twice from white cardstock and once each from Clover and Sunshine Paper Source paper. I glued the congrats with the green on the bottom, whites in the middle, and yellow on top to give them dimension.

I then began adding the various elements using a tape runner for most of the elements, and using foam squares to pop up the elements that are raised. The green bird on top of scripty congrats and the S'more inside the card were popped up with 3M tape, as I wanted them to have less elevation than the scene at the bottom of the card.

This card is being entered into the current Lawnscaping Challenge #126: Sweets.

Fall Leaves Pop-Up Thank You Cards

So at my side hustle at Paper Source Austin, I have the fantastic opportunity to teach crafting workshops, thus learning fun crafting techniques in the process. This pairs my passion of art and creativity with my passion for teaching and learning - thus, the perfect side gig for me! :)

At our recent Fall Cards Workshop, we created some beautiful and fun pop-up cards using the our pre-cut Small Paper Leaves packs. One card featured a pennant-style banner that read "FALL" with some leaves hanging from either end. The other had three of the maple leaves attached together and popping up when the card is opened.  I loved both so much, and wanted to use the maple leaf idea in some 4-bar Wedding Shower thank you cards.

A video posted by Paper Source Austin (@papersourceaustin) on Sep 10, 2015 at 4:21pm PDT

I started by masking a border on the front of the cards with masking tape, then using distress inks with water to create my 'watercolor' effect, simply painting them on with a wide brush. I did all three cards simultaneously and had them side-by-side, which made it easy to drag the ink across the cards and masking tape between them, which allowed me to have very similar finishes. The brush I was using had firm bristles, which created a fun bit of splattering on the cards as the bristles brushed over the masking tape, so that added more fun dimension. I heat set these briefly, then let them completely air drive overnight before embossing the beautiful scripted Thank You Handwritten rubber stamp with versamark ink and Gold Superfine Detail Embossing Powder.

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While the ink was drying, I cut leaves using my Silhouette Cameo from Persimmon, Curry, and Papaya coverstock papers (although I'd recommend using text-weight papers instead - I just didn't have any handy!). You don't have to have a Cameo for this project, since Paper Source sells the pre-cut leaf packs in-store (which are text weight! Yay!)! I took one of each color, and determined the order in which I wanted the leaves on the inside of the card (in this case, I alternated the order so that each card had a different order). Then, I took the middle leaf and used a ruler and bone folder to create a score line down the middle of the leaf. I then took the leaf that would show on the left side of the card, and made one score line that extended diagonally on the RIGHT side of the leaf from one ridge of the leaf to the stem of the leaf, and another parallel to this one about a quarter inch beside it. I repeated this with the right leaf and mirrored the score lines so they'd be on the LEFT side of the leaf.

Once you crease these score lines, you end up with a leaf that kind of curls up over onto itself. I adhered the smaller portion of this leaf curling up over onto itself to the back of the middle leaf (they should match up perfectly), and did the same with the other side, so that all three were attached together. The end result is a grouping of three leaves glued together. I took this grouping and placed six foam squares (three on each of the outer leaves), as shown in the picture, without removing the covers so the adhesive wasn't yet exposed. To install, I opened the card and lined up the score line on the middle leaf with the card's fold, then removed the three foam square covers for the leaf that would be on the RIGHT side of the card, and adhered it to the inside panel. To adhere the other side, I removed the covers to expose the adhesive on the LEFT side leaf, and then I CLOSED THE CARD on top of the leaves instead of simply sticking the leaf to the left side of the card. This insures that the leaves and card will open simultaneously when you open the card.

See? SO SIMPLE! (Okay, maybe not so simple - but it's honestly not hard to learn once you've completed one card) While my simple write-up is possibly confusing and missing some potentially helpful pictures, I hope it was helpful! I'd much rather teach it to you in person - so come check out a workshop sometime! :)

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 piñata 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! :)