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Saturday, April 29, 2017

Cupcake Inspirations Challenge card


Hi everyone!  The Frantic Stamper design team is playing along with the folks over at Cupcake Inspirations for this week's challenge.  The inspiration picture is gorgeous, and the colors are orchid, pink, and spring green.  I decided to do a little watercoloring for my card today.

I found some spring green ink, and I smooshed it onto my craft mat.  I added a little water with a paint brush and loosely brushed it onto some watercolor paper.  Then I cut out the 09166 Solid Spring Sprig from Frantic Stamper from some white cardstock.  One I left white, and the other two were watercolored with some pink ink and some purple/orchid ink.  I also cut out the 09197 Small Thanks with Matting and watercolored that with the purple/orchid ink.

After my green watercolor background was dry, I cut it out with the stitched rectangle die from the Blueprints 20 set (MFT).  I glued the three leafy sprigs down onto this piece and then I adhered the small "thanks."  This watercolored creation was glued to a purple/orchid card base.

This is a fun and CAS (Clean And Simple) card - just my style!  :-)  Come check out what the other folks have created for this challenge over on the Cupcake Inspirations blog.


Wednesday, April 19, 2017

Koi and Kanji Wall Hangings


Hello everyone!  Remember the gorgeous collage paper that Art Neko created based on one of my cards?  I’ve used that sakura collage paper on this trio of wall hangings to share with you.  I stamped an assortment of koi and kanji on each of the three pieces.
I started by cutting out the Spring Summer Collage Sheet with scissors.  I trimmed each one to fit onto the ATC Masonite Blanks from B-Muse.  Next, I stamped the 3 Bold Koi and the kanji on each piece with a dark blue ink.  Then I glued the stamped collage sheets down onto the ATC Masonite Blanks, being careful not to get any wrinkles or bubbles in the paper as I pressed it down.
For the hangers, I glued them on with some liquid glue to the back of each piece.  I set some heavy blocks on them and let them dry overnight.  These are ready to hang up in my studio as soon as I finish hammering some nails into the wall.  I still have 6 ATC collage pieces left from the sheet, so I’ll be making more projects with those soon.  You can stamp anything you want on these collage sheets, and I’m looking forward to seeing all the different possibilities.

Items used on my project today:

Wednesday, April 12, 2017

Spitfire Dad card



Are you ready for Father's Day? With the fabulous new Dads and Grads release from Frantic Stamper, I've got my card ready to go. :-)
I started by sprinkling some Navy and Royal blue Infusions powders onto some white cardstock and then I misted that with some water. After it dried, I glued a strip of blue cardstock across the piece. Then I cut it out with the Deckled Squares die (10105). LOVE these deckled squares!! They are great for masculine cards.
For the airplane, I used the awesome Spitfire die (09490) and cut it out from scrap cardstock. I went over the whole thing with Autumn Bronze gilding wax and buffed it to a nice shine. This gilding wax makes these planes look like real vintage metal - so cool! I cut out this Spitfire again from blue cardstock and glued it behind my "metal" plane so that the blue would show up in the holes.
I used the same gilding wax on the die cut letters. These letters were cut from Frantic Stamper's Mattie Thin Upper Alphabet set (09261). After I buffed the wax on these letters, I glued them down onto the small blue strip.

Products I used from Frantic Stamper:



Saturday, April 8, 2017

Peony in Pencil


Hi everyone!  Have you been enjoying your Saturday?  We got up early and planted a bunch of tomatoes and bell peppers and banana peppers today.  That wind is just killer today - it kept trying to knock us over!  After we ate some lunch, I spent the afternoon playing in my studio.

I just got some new stamps from Power Poppy and I wanted to try my pencil coloring on one of these gorgeous peony stamps.  I stamped the smaller peony from the Peony Muse set along with some of the leaves using London Fog Memento ink (a soft gray color).  Because I knew I wanted to color these with pencils, I stamped them onto some Canson drawing paper.  It actually took me several days to color this flower and the leaves.  I worked in short intervals of 10 to 15 minutes at a time so my hand and fingers wouldn't cramp up.  I used Prismacolor Premier pencils and I applied the lessons learned from Kit and Clowder to shade and highlight everything.

Power Poppy just came out with dies to go with their newest release of stamps, so of course, I just HAD to get the matching dies when I ordered the stamps.  I cut these out with the dies and I am THRILLED!  Fussy cutting is not my forte, so I am ecstatic that Marcella will have matching dies for her stamps!  Yay!!

I just happened to notice that they have a fun new challenge up on the Power Poppy blog for April.  They have three sketches, so I picked Sketch #2 and found some papers to go with my colored flower.  I stamped the sentiment from the new Loving Tulips set (which is on backorder right now - proof of how popular this is!!) on the notepaper layer.  This turned out rather cute!  :-)

Enjoy your weekend!


Wednesday, April 5, 2017

Vintage Flower Box


Hi everyone!  Today I'm sharing a handmade box that I created for Art Neko.  Art Neko actually sells several different kinds of boxes in their store, and I used this Hinged Pine Box with Magnetic Closure today.  I stained it with a vintage oak stain and let it dry, and then I stained it again for a deeper coverage.  Once it was completely dry, I rubbed some Antique Bronze gilding wax over the box and buffed it with a soft cloth.

To decorate the top of the box, I used this gorgeous floral scene from the Antique Seed Catalogs collage sheet at B-Muse.  There are TONS of gorgeous collage sheets over there - go check them out!  Seriously, they are stunning!  The best part is they are already colored, so all you have to do is cut em out and glue em down on your project.  :-)  

That's what I did with this one.  I cut out this sweet floral scene and glued it to a dark brown mat.  I then glued this piece down on my box, leaving some room on the side for a handmade flower bouquet.  I simply tied the bouquet with some linen thread and glued it down onto the box.

This will be perfect to give to my mom for her earrings and bracelets.  She loves antiques, and this will fit right in with all her vintage items.  :-)