Spring Dreams Journal

Every once in a while I like to mix it up! Making something other than a card is super fun, gives you a gift to give (in many cases) and stretches you creatively‘

I had a ton of larger chipboard pieces that hadn’t used in card making because they were honking huge (look a those words! 5” long!) And for my design teams especially I like to do something other than a card! So for this week’s Crazy 4 Challenges, I decided on a journal. Our theme was to make something related to spring (or fall if you live in the southern hemisphere). Of course it’s insanely cold here, UGH! NO spring in sight. When I’m making journals, I usually keep them pretty flat so the larger embellies don’t get messed up during use, especially when I make them for kids. But this one is for a grown up so I went pretty dimensional. I do suppose though that it might be hard to write on the backs of the pages… Ah heck, I never write on the backs anyway!! Hopefully whomever ends up with this won’t either, or maybe write on their lap??!!

I started by placing everything in it’s place which takes a while with this many embellies! Then I took everything off and I added some custom mixed pink embossing paste (Copic/Golden) and applied it through a random heart stencil (SSS). The base of the embellie cluster is a doily (die PTI) then I layered on a sticker with a white flower on it. Then some chevron ribbon (May Arts), seam binding ribbon (Masterstroke), sequins (Simplicity), buttons (PTI) and roses (Really Reasonable Ribbon). The other embellies and paper are all American Crafts.

The binding canvas sticky back ribbon stuff is from Prima and I airbrushed it with a few shades of ink to match my journal. I was super happy with how it turned out! What do you think?? Spring is the best season for creating (right??) so this challenge is fabulous! You want to play right? Visit all of our amazing designers to see how everyone else interpreted this theme! I’ll look for you all there!

Enjoy, Rebecca

Lighthouse Water Colour Cards

Do you ever go back and revisit stamps you hardly ever use? I don’t do that far often enough but while looking for good stamps to use on masculine cards, I pulled out this fabulous stamp.

The stamp is actually even larger than what you see; there is a quote I didn’t stamp that goes in the space where the Thanks is. When I cut the paper for this card, I had a sliver left over. Which leads me to a short cut layout for such a larger stamp…

…spotlighting!  The perfect technique to use when you don’t have time to colour the whole image. It’s a way under used technique both by myself and the community at large, at least from what I’ve been seeing lately. And it’s so fun! People who don’t paper craft are always entranced by it. Much like shaker and magic cards! You can do spotlighting with a strip of paper or a circle or other die cut shape. Then you place the coloured portion over a plain stamped version of the same image. Many people use grey or black for the larger image but really you could use any colour. Sometimes the spotlight image is matted for even more impact.

I hope this inspires you to try this technique!

Enjoy, Rebecca

Dies by Dee and SSS.

Banner Celebrate Card

All week I’ve been creating more cards for my stash. It gives me lots of time to play challenges which is so fun!

This time I used the latest challenge from Crazy 4 Challenges! This week was a sketch challenge. I used to really dislike sketches with diagonal lines on them but that was before I started using banners. Most of the time I use banner dies but this time I had a great chipboard piece from Bo Bunny. It was quite a lot longer but I trimmed it down. Underneath it I tucked a die cut doily (PTI) for a girlie touch. Oh shoot, I just noticed I forgot the sequins I planned to add! Can you just imagine them for me!!?? LOL!

This is fabulous sketch that can be used in so many ways! I had quite a few ideas before my final card came together. The background was water coloured with various professional paints from my big palette which I mounted on a celery card base (SU!). The stamped sentiment (Waltzingmouse)  is embossed with glitter gold embossing powder. I would have stamped it a bit lower but there is an embossed logo from the paper company in the bottom corner. Flourishes were stamped in Raspberry Fizz in with a PTI stamp (PTI).

I hope you will join me in playing this week’s challenge. Feel free to combine our challenge with another for more fun! Be sure to check out all of the creations on our blog and if any really tickle, visit their blog and leave them some love!

Enjoy, Rebecca

Creating a Card Series–Water Coloured Seabirds

Have you ever created a card series? It’s different than making cards assembly line though much of the process is the same.

For this series, I knew I wanted to make several cards using the same water coloured panel. But first you have to decide what other elements will be the same and which will be different. I knew I wanted basically the same layout and water coloured image but different sentiments. Starting with my watercolour paper (Windsor & Newton), I cut it into the size needed for my layout and began stamping and painting my image. I used my old palette of professional paints from various manufacturers.

This little bird image (SU!) seems unassuming at first but comes to life with an ocean scene behind it. I deliberately didn’t tape off the edges for two reasons. Firstly the image was too small to warp too badly and secondly, I wanted the roughness of the uneven edges. In fact, there is another reason, it helps me learn more control with my brush. I didn’t mask off the horizon and beach lines for the same reason.

You might see in some images I got a nice bloom. It first, I wasn’t aiming for them but I wasn’t trying to avoid them since I think they are pretty in the right places. But once I saw how pretty they looked, I deliberately created them. To do this,  you wash in your sky and let it dry until just damp. To tell if you paper is damp, look at it at an angle to your light. The shine of the wetness of fresh paint will be gone but when you touch the paper, it still feels cool to the touch and has not dried completely. At this point, add in some more of the same paint; where the new paint touches the damp paint, it will bloom. Don’t use paint with more pigment than the original wash or it won’t work as well.

When it came time to assemble these,  I matted the image with kraft paper, my favourite for any beachy card then chose the sentiments I would use and my card base colour. I had originally planned to use different card bases but I found this colour (SU!) worked the best. I chose a sympathy die (Dee), a thanks die (SSS), a celebrate stamp (Waltzingmouse), a happy retirement stamp and a brighter days stamp (PTI). I felt like this covered many occasions that suited this image.

Last but not least, the embellishments I would use. Normally in my card making, patterned paper is chosen much earlier in the process. But in this case, since the design didn’t hinge on the paper, I left it until almost last.

For the designs with smaller sentiments, I either put it on a tag or I added some twine to fill the empty space. In the case of the sympathy card, I had die cut the sentiment earlier in the week and wanted to use it but the gold didn’t show up well. That’s when I decided to add the patterned paper. I was using a 12x12 sheet so my cut left me with enough for a second panel so I decided to use it up.

Have you ever created a card series? I’d love to see it if you have, leave me a link below. Would you like to see more card series? Sometimes I make them but only show you the one I like best so if you let me know you’d like to see more, I’d be happy to oblige!

Enjoy, Rebecca

Ice Cream Celebrate Cards

I’ve been making cards for hubby to sell at work. Birthday cards are popular according to people I’ve spoken to online who sell cards but I can’t make them because of my religion. So I’ve been trying to make some that could be used for Birthdays (or other occasions). The images and layouts are easy, the sentiments are trickier.

The ice creams were coloured with Copic markers then covered in Glossy accents to make them look like epoxy embellishments. Do you like the raspberry ripple ice cream? The images, heart die and sentiment are SSS, the papers are by Bo Bunny.

If you have any clever ideas for unbirthday, birthday-ish sentiments, I’d love to know. Please leave me a note in the comments.

Enjoy, Rebecca

Entered In: Retro Sketches 202