Tim Holtz/Ranger

Featuring Tim Holtz/Ranger products

Best wishes to you

Hello everyone

There a fabulous bold colour palette over at the Color Throwdown challenge this week – purple, green, yellow and red.

It did take me a little while to decide how I was going to use the colours but in the end I chose the fabulous Penny Black potted plant die which I painted with my Altenew watercolours.

I stuck the image to a background I created with by smooshing some mustard seed distress ink onto a base card. (I painted the brown with some distress oxide ink once I worked out where I was going to adhere the coloured die cut).

To finish off the card, I added sentiment from Penny Black and some Nuvo drops to the centre of the flowers – but they are quite difficult to see in my photos.

I’m also entering this into the Penny Black Saturday Challenge (anything goes).

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Sweetest Fluffles

Hello everyone!

Who remembers the wonderful Fluffles the Cat by Stampendous? Such a cute fun kitty! I still have all the wood-mounted Fluffles stamps I bought probably a decade ago and today I had fun reminiscing about the happy hours I used to spend at a couple of ‘local’ craft stores back in the day. I love how the internet has connected us all and we have so much more online choice nowadays. But I really miss those days in the craft stores.

Anyway, when I saw that the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge had a theme of ‘anything goes’ with Stampendous products, I immediately thought of my Fluffles stamps and decided to use one of them with the sketch from the current Freshly Made Sketches challenge.

I was originally going to fussy cut Fluffles and put him on an action wobbler but in the end I decided on an ‘out of the box’ die cut instead.

I went through my backgrounds box and pulled out the remnants of a Hero Arts background that I created with Satin Pearl embossing powder and distress oxide inks last year and adhered it to my base card before adhering the Fluffles image. To finish off the card, I added a sentiment from My Favorite Things.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

 

Enjoy your day

Hi everyone!

Today I have my next DT post for Crafts-U-Love using the ‘Always Flowers’ stamp set by Pink Fresh Studio. As usual, links to all the products are at the end of my post.

I noticed that my past couple of DT cards have been rather pink, so I was determined to use a different palette this time!

Step 1 – ink blending

Over the past few years, my style has definitely changed and I always tend to make my own backgrounds. My piles of pretty patterned paper are quite unloved, but I just can’t bear to part with them. I’m sure I’ll end up using them at some point (maybe!).

Anyway, when I started on today’s card, I hadn’t decided the size, so I used a larger piece of cardstock and blended three distress oxide inks. This ink is fabulous for blending!

 

Step 2 – stamping

Once I was happy with my blending, I randomly stamped images from the stamp set.

Step 3 – ink lifting

One of my favourite techniques with distress ink (regular and oxide) is ink lifting. I usually do this with larger images, but it’s easy to do with smaller images too.  I simply ‘painted’ water onto each image and then blotted it off to remove the ink. As usual, when working with smaller images, it’s best to use a small brush for all that detail work, and also ensure that the brush isn’t too wet. I also made sure to wipe off my brush at regular intervals – otherwise I’d start applying some of the colour I’d just removed!!

Quick, easy and effective! Once I finished, I almost stopped and started to assemble the card as I love the effect so much!

Step 4 – colouring

But in the end I decided to watercolour the images using my distress inks, diluted with a bit of water.

After colouring the images, I felt that the gaps between the images was a little too large so I stamped a couple of images from the Pinkfresh Studio ‘Happy’ set.

I then cut down the panel to fit on a square card base. I stamped a Hero Arts sentiment onto a strip of card which I adhered to the base. (The remainder of the background card will go into my ‘bases box’ as I know I can use it on another card!) I then stamped, coloured and fussy cut a couple of flowers and adhered them and a few gems to finish off the card.

I’m also entering this card into the current Pinkfresh Studio challenge as I was inspired by their summer theme and loved their colour palette (although I was determined to stay away from pink!)

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

 

Supply List

Here are the links to the products I used on my card. Products marked with an asterisk (*) were kindly sent to me to use.

Pinkfresh Studio – Always Flowers stamp set*

Hero Arts – Happy Birthday Messages stamp set

Pinkfresh Studio – Word series stamp set – Happy*

Distress Oxide ink

Distress ink

Brilliance ink

Papermania adhesive stones*

Just keep swimming!

Hi there!

Two posts in one day! I can’t believe I forgot to post my card for the current Poppystamps challenge (‘make a splash’) earlier, but I’m glad that I remembered before the challenge closed!

I decided to use stamps from Poppystamps’ ‘Yes I whale’ set. As it’s the end of summer and people are heading to new schools, unis, jobs etc, I thought it would be appropriate to make an encouragement card, so I paired the whales with a stamp from Avery Elle. After colouring the whale images, I had to fussy cut them because the coordinating dies have gone AWOL – so annoying!

I then created a watery background using the faux alcohol ink technique demonstrated by Tim Holtz/Jennifer McGuire using glossy cardstock, distress oxide ink, water and distress glaze. I really like how this turned out. As you may know, I can’t use the alcohol inks as the strong smell triggers migraines so I love that I can still create a similar look! (I’m actually wondering if I should enter this into the current Ellen Hutson challenge (which is about alcohol inks) – as an alcohol-free alternative!!)

I used the Ellen Hutson strands die to cut a piece of white card which I stuck on top of my watery background before adhering the whales and sentiment.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Skating Bear

Hi there everyone!

Well I’m clearly on a roll with my return to My Favourite Things’ challenges. After completing a card for the colour challenge yesterday, today I got to work on the current MFT sketch challenge.

I’ve been meaning to play along with the cute MFT polar bears again and the sketch seemed like the perfect opportunity! I stamped and coloured the skating bear using my Altenew Watercolours and then masked off the image to create a soft ink-blended background. To create the blue vertical panel, I embossed the MFT Scribble Circles background stamp and then applied a watercolour wash using one colour from the Altenew set.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Mod Tree

Happy Friyay people!

My mojo appears to have gone AWOL. I’ve tried to craft so many times this week, and have failed miserably. But look! I finally finished a card today! Hurrah!

I decided to use the colours from this week’s Color Throwdown challenge (lime green, green, aqua and eggplant) to create another Christmas card. The tree die is one of my very first Simon Says Stamp dies. I think it’s retired now, but I still love it!

I cut the tree and Savvy Stamps sentiment from eggplant cardstock although it looks quite brown on screen. It actually looks much closer in colour to the small bits of eggplant ink I added to my background panel, but they look quite different here.

Anyway, I’m also entering this into the current CAS Christmas challenge (tree).

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.