Simon Says Stamp September Kit on the Month

 I made a few more cards using the SSS September card kit of the month. My goal is to use up most of the consumable products and then move the remains into my card-making/stamp stash.

For this card, I am playing along with The Color Throwdown #660 color challenge. I love the dark, rich colors on the inspiration piece. 

The blues of the background really drew me in, so I decided to stay with a blue & used an old piece of patterned paper in my stash for the background. I stamped and embossed the jar of flowers from the SSS Sunshine Flowers stamp set. Using a wide variety of Distress inks in blues, greens, and oranges, I watercolored the image and then stamped the "Thank You" sentiment from the stamp set. Since I did not get the matching dies in the kit, I fussy cut the image and popped it up onto the navy patterned paper, and adhered it to a gold piece of paper from my stash, then I adhered the whole card front to the green card base. I finished the card with a scattering of small sequins. 

Simon Says Stamp September Kit of the Month

 I have a deep love of sunflowers, so this Sunshine Flowers Simon Says Stamp card kit of the month was perfect. I spent this weekend using the card kit to create some much-needed thank you cards.

For this first card, I used the Freshly Made Sketches #503 sketch.

Using an older square punch I punched out three small squares out of Tim Holtz watercolor cardstock. I used Distress inks and water to loosely watercolor the background and then I spritzed the wet watercolor with Perfect Pearls water. Once dry each square was machine stitched with white thread.

I then stamped the single sunflower image from the SSS Sunshine Flowers stamp set in black ink. Once embossed in clear embossing powder, I then watercolored the image using Distress Inks. The center of the flower was then coated with Walnut Stain Distress Stickles which are sadly a discontinued product from Ranger and Tim Holtz. After fussy-cutting the image, I popped it up on the watercolored squares & added the Tim Holtz Ideology "Thank You" label sticker, and finished the card with a scattering of sequins.

Christmas Card

 Today, I played along with the  Color Throwdown #617. 

This color scheme felt Christmas-y, so that is what I went with, especially since I am still in need of a couple of Christmas cards. This card was a little bit of a test run for our family Christmas card minus the family photo. Still, a few things to figure out, but I'm definitely closer to my final design.

The kraft piece is embossed with a swiss dot design and the edges are embossed with gold embossing powder. I also sprinkled a little embossing powder on the piece and heated it. I like the rough gold edges and the sprinkles of gold on the base. I adhered the kraft piece flat onto a deep red card base. The green piece was created on Tim Holtz watercolor cardstock and Distress Ink blending with Twisted Citron, Shabby Shutters, and Pine Needles inks. The sentiment is from Simon Says Stamps Inside Christmas Greetings stamp set. I splattered it with Perfect Pearls and added embossing powder like I did on the kraft piece. Then, the piece was die cut and adhered with foam tape. The Eucalyptus dies were created much like the sentiment piece, except that more Pine Needles Distress Ink was used and I added Tim Holtz dry glitter with Multi-Matte Medium. I finished the card with some bakers twine from my stash.

Crackling Campfire

Today, I wanted to play with Tim Holtz's newest Distress Ink color- Crackling Campfire. I had seen it ink blended and I knew there was a yellow undertone. I decided to use it as an ombre gradient watercolor. I like how the color deepens as it moves from left to right across the watercolor cardstock. 

I used Freshly Made Sketches #458 as a guide as I created. 

Before I added the Crackling Campfire ink, I heat embossed the feather images in gold embossing powder. Both feather stamps are from an older Cocoa Daisy stamp set. Once I completed the embossing and watercoloring, I added a few water splatters and some Perfect Pearl splatters in Heirloom Gold to the piece. After drying the piece completely I used my fingernail to rough up and distress the edges. Using an ink blending tool, I went around the whole piece with Crackling Campfire ink. I adhered the panel to the kraft card base and added sequins and gold Stickles. The "thankful" sentiment is from an older Technique Tuesday/Ali Edwards stamp set. There is also a crosshatched background peeking out from behind the raised panel. It was created using an older Cocoa Daisy stamp. 

I am already making a list of more techniques to try with this beautiful color. 

 

More Embossed Watercoloring

 I decided to play along with The Color Throwdown this week. The color scheme was a good one and could definitely be a fall or Christmas scheme and I decided to go with Christmas because I need a few cards outside our annual family Christmas card. 

For my card, I used Neenah Desert Storm cardstock as my card base & I die cut the Tim Holtz Holiday Green Thinlit Die with it as well.  I used a scrap piece of cranberry cardstock as the mat for my watercolor cardstock. It wasn't quite big enough, so I used gold striped washi tape to finish the mat and add interest. I love the look of gold embossing and kraft together, which is why all of my embossing is done in gold embossing powder. The doily background stamp is from an old Cocoa Daisy kit. The cranberry watercolored images were created using Victorian Velvet and Aged Mahogany Distress Inks and the stamp I used is from the Simon Says Stamp Delicate Flowers stamp set. The pointy leaves are also from the Delicate Flowers set and were stamped and embossed onto vellum.  I used a little Antique Linen Distress Ink to add a little khaki color to them. The card was finished with a greeting from a Christmas stamp set I picked up at Michaels, then I added Perfect Pearl Splatters in Heirloom Gold and sequins and gems from my stash.

I love how this one turned out! I'd like to try this color scheme again with a Poinsettia stamp, so I guess I need to find a good one and get it ordered quickly!

Watercoloring & Embossing on Vellum

In my last post, I mentioned playing with older supplies. I enjoyed playing with my Twinkling H2O's so much that I wanted to continue using them. I am amazed at how much I have used them through the years and how much of them are still left. I'm not sure they are still be made, so I'm glad they don't get used up quickly.

I was excited this week to see Freshly Made Sketches #446. I have been intrigued by slimline cards here lately as I have begun to see more and more of them being made and shared on social media. I thought this was the perfect week to try one.

I pulled my inspiration from a decorative piece I made a few years ago that hangs on one of my inspiration boards. 

Using the same color scheme and vellum I created a slimline card with a similar feel.

Heat embossing on vellum can be really tricky. The best advice I can give is to go slow and hold the embossing gun as far back as possible from the vellum while you are embossing. That way it will reduce the warping or burning of the vellum. 

The stamped leaves came from an older Cocoa Daisy stamp set and are no longer available. They are stamped with Versamark ink & embossed with white embossing powder. My favorite white embossing powder is Hero Arts White Embossing Powder because it is a crisp, clean white. The leaves are watercolored with Twinkling H2O watercolors. Once dry, I buffed the images to remove any watercolor that bled onto the white embossing. 

The sentiment is from the Simon Says Stamp Thanks and Leaves stamp set and is also embossed in white embossing powder.

I used foam tape behind all the bigger leaves to adhere the vellum piece to the white card base. I finished the card with a sprinkling of sequins from my stash. 

This card made me question why I don't play with the vellum in my stash more often. It was a fun card to make and makes me yearn for the cooler temperatures of fall. 

Embossed Watercoloring

This week I began digging around through some of my older supplies, simply looking for something to create with & ended up pulling out some things I haven't used in a long time:

-An older embossing folder from Sizzix ( I think it came in a two-pack from Hobby Lobby)
-Twinkling H2O's Shimmering watercolor paints  (I bought these many years ago from a local shop)
-Two of my favorite pumpkin woodblock stamps from Hero Arts (old, old.....really old)
- A small scripty sentiment stamp from Ali Edwards (way back when she was making stamp set with Technique Tuesday)

I decided to try watercoloring the recessed portion of my embossed image with Twinkling H2O's in the color Copper Penny. It was definitely redder than I wanted since I was playing along with The Color Throwdown #604 color palette, but I decided it could be considered terra cotta, so I went with it. Here is the inspiration piece and my card is underneath.

I figured out that watercoloring the recessed part took much longer than expected and required a steady hand. I love white pumpkins in the fall, so I decided to make my pumpkins white, but I didn't want them to be stark white and blend into the white in the background. So I adhered some pages from an old dictionary to some white cardstock and then stamped and fussy cut the images. Because they now had a mixed media kind of feel, I splattered them in Perfect Pearl Mists in Sunflower Sparkle (brighter gold) &  Heirloom Gold (vintage, darker gold). I still have both of these as mists, but Ranger has discontinued making the mists. Once I run out I plan to buy the powders and mix them with water to replenish my mists (Probably using the same mist containers and mixing a full jar of powder and water to fill the jar). 

Once I layered the embossed piece on top of the black cardstock it felt unfinished and that it was lacking something. I decided to add gold embossing powder along the edges of the embossed piece to give it more definition. I love the way it turned out. 

The stamped pieces are sitting on a scrap of black cardstock with the gold embossed Ali Edwards sentiment. I wound some black thread around my fingers and then sandwiched it messily between the embossed piece and the pumpkins. Sequins are from an older Simon Says Stamp release. 

I had not played with some of those materials in years and I love that I was able to dust them off and make something that doesn't feel dated.

 Love how this turned out and how it pushed me creatively.