Color Anxiety...

Happy New Year!  So many craft projects to work on in the year ahead!

I'm making thank you cards to send to the people who gave me holiday gifts this year and hoping I can tie in each card to the gift itself.  The idea for the first card came easily.  The gift included a small bag of eight kitty treats for my cat, Bunny - one for each night of Chanukah - and though not part of the original gift, the give gave me a tin of cookies that was devoured by my husband over the last few days.  So the card - kitty cat and cookies.  Perfect.

I knew I would use one of the two cat silhouette stamps I have from Lavinia Stamps depending on how much room I had on the card (Mimsy, on the right, made the final cut).

And though I don't have any good cookie images in my collection, which seems impossible to believe, the Celebrations set from Altenew has a fine tiered treat stand. 

 

Then the real challenge - how to color the treat stand.  I mean, I never know how to color anything, not that I lack for coloring mediums.  So I took a deep breath, checked the internet for ideas, and came across this fine card by SkyPaperScissors on Pinterest, and decided that rather than stress about for hours and try a million color combinations, which is my usual habit, I would just use the same set of color that Seeka did in that example using my Zig Clean Color markers and a water brush.  Here's how it turned out:

A sentiment from Gina K Designs and a piece of glitter card stock completed the card.

Not only did I complete the card in less than an hour, I love how it turned out.  My take-away:  it's okay to just go with the color palette from another image I like.  My card is nothing like Seeka's and not nearly as good, but it works for me!

Woodblock Wednesday: Happy Chanukah

Although it's not in any way different than in past years, it struck me this year how most of the stamping industry seems to be so intensely focused on Christmas.  Not only does the Christmas rush start earlier each year with the introduction of new Christmas stamps, dies, etc, with a few token exceptions, non-Christmas holidays are ignored by the major stamp companies and distributors.  And I get it:  this is the key holiday for the vast majority of the customer base, and this is a time of year when more people make and send cards than any other.  Simply from a business perspective, you can't ignore that.  But still, as one of the few who celebrates a different holiday this time of year, I wish the products and card examples were a bit more all-inclusive.

I don't make and send a lot of religion-themed cards, and I don't have many stamps with religious symbols in my collection.  But when I wanted to reflect my holiday on this Woodblock Wednesday, I found this perfect menorah stamp from the now-defunct Rubber Stamps of America.  It was on a short peg with thin, hard to remove foam, but it was fun to use on this slightly askew wreath.

I wish (all two of) you, a Happy Chanukah and a peaceful, healthy new year.

Stamp:  Rubber Stamps of America
Wreath Builder stencil by Gina K Designs
Altenew Inks: the new Tranquility set

Woodblock Wednesday: Moose Day edition

Every year, a number of my friends from college days, along with family members we convince to join us, celebrate a holiday known as Moose Day on the day after Thanksgiving.  The origin of this important day is a story best shared over tea, but making Moose Day cards is an annual tradition of mine, and suffice it to say, my collection of moose stamps and dies is possibly larger than that of your average card maker....

This year, I had two card ideas to choose between for my Moose Day cards.  The first uses a new favorite stamp set of mine:  Cozy Cup by the Greetery.  I stamped the cup layers and wanted to find a moose stamp to use as latte art.  An old woodblock stamp from Silver Fox Stamps just about fit perfectly.  I didn't end up making this card, but last night I pulled out the embossing powder to see how it might look. 

The moose doesn't quite fit in the cup, so I had to not have one of his back legs visible.  I really like this idea, and will probably make an actual card from the moose cup (which is not really adhered to any of the layers below).  I think if I try this again I might find a bigger cup so the entire moose fits inside - I am sure I have one - and/or use white pigment ink instead of white heat embossing for the moose foam.  In the end, this card seemed too involved to quickly replicate, so I went with my second card idea.

Here's this year's official Moose Day card made with Altenew inks, the Concord & 9th Stitched Turnabout and Tim Holtz's moose from Into the Woods.

Happy Moose Day!!!

Woodblock Wednesday, take 1...

I saw a blog post the other week under the heading of "Woodblock Wednesday."  The idea was to create a card using stamps in your collection mounted on woodblocks.  I love this idea because it encourages you to use the older stamps in your collection, rather than always reach for the newest stamps closest to hand.  I have so many woodblock stamps that I adore, but don't reach for as frequently these days because the clear stamps and cling stamps are just so much easier to store and use, especially with the help of the MISTI.  I can't believe I've gotten to this point.  I remember back in the day when I would never even consider buying an unmounted stamp.  Look at me now...

I decided to take this challenge to a new place:  not only to use woodblock stamps in a card each week, but to use this as the opportunity to convert the woodblock stamps to repositionable cling stamps in hopes I might reach for them more often.  Here's my first card in this series, sent to a friend to thank her for hosting me over a dance weekend:

Image:  Picture Show; Quote:  Renaissance Art Stamps; Diecut frame:  Spellbinders

Card promts: Style

I love it when key things coincide:  a card-making challenge with a prompt that resonates and the time to do something about it!  This week, Addicted to CAS (Clean and Simple) presented the code word "style."  This is right up my alley, falling right into my usual card formula.  I made two cards even!

Image:  Moon Rose; Sentiment:  Rubbernecker Stamps

Image:  Scarlet Empress; Sentiment:  my custom version of a stamp from Rosie's Roadshow

Hey gorgeous...

I fell off the card-making wagon during dance camp season, but I finally got a little time in the craft room this weekend!

Last week I watched a Jennifer McGuire video about a technique she calls the embossed watercolor lift.  The short version is you watercolor a background, stamp and clear emboss a background stamp over the watercolor, and then use water to fade the color.  The stamped image under the embossing retains the original color while the rest of the background color begins to fade away leaving a cool effect.

This technique was a great thing for me to try for a number of reasons:

-I'm not short on background stamps
-I'm very much a watercolor novice, and I love the look of it, so I keep trying to practice
-I've noticed that many card makers make lovely backgrounds, and then just pop a sentiment over it, and voila!  They have a great card.  This has rarely been my way.  I tend to focus on the image, and make that fit the sentiment, or the intended recipient, or the occasion in some way.  It was a good exercise for me to just make a background and not overthink it.  Not too much, anyway.

I used Stormy Sky, Chipped Sapphire, and Seedless Preserves Distress inks, and an old Marvy dye ink pad - Plum or Wine, I forget which one.  I stamped and embossed the Gibson Girls Background from Lost Coast Designs, and then used a paintbrush to wipe away a bunch of the color. 

The paper was quite warped by the end of this, but using a stitched rectangle die was great for making it flat again.

Finally I added the Hey Gorgeous sentiment from Pinkfresh Studio (three layers in black over vellum).

This was a fun technique to try.  Using my heat tool was a huge time-saver in-between steps.  Next time, I'll try a different watercolor background - stripes of color was a stress free way to begin, but my guess is that just like acrylic block watercolor backgrounds, once you do the over-stamping, most background color imperfections fade away.

In other crafty news, I visited a new-ish craft store not too far from my house over the weekend:  Creative Inkling.  I know one of the two of you who reads this wants to take a class there with me sometime.  Valentine or holiday card making retreat, anyone???

Card formulas...

I was watching a May Park video the other week where she mentions a favorite card formula - a go-to design that just works but is infinitely variable as you change images and ink colors.  This is what I crave in card-making, fashion, meal-planning, dance program-writing - everything - something simple that just works, that I can turn to again and again.  Here's a basic card design I love:

Formula:  Image, often on the left side, some kind of (often snarky) quote or sentiment, simple border.  I made this one a few weeks ago, took a deep breath, and sent it to my mother.  Image:  Red Castle Stamps; Sentiment:  River City Rubber Works

Looking through my file of scanned cards, I turn to this formula again and again...

I made this one right after I got home from a stamp convention with some just-purchased products.  In a daring move, the image is on the right side!  I used a stencil for the background and lightly colored (and added sparkle to) the image.  Image and sentiment by Character Constructions; Background stencil by Neat & Tangled.

I know I've had this stamp forever!  And look at me attempting some watercolor!  Stamp:  Woman with Cup by David Walker for Uptown Rubber Stamps; Tea Packet sentiment - Stampington (it's not this one, but a similar one...).

I will probably never have enough Gibson Girls in my rubber stamp collection!  Here I stamped the image and sentiment, and then sponged some ink on top.  Image:  Flonz; Sentiment:  custom stamp I had made based on a much-loved button not unlike this one.

It turns out I have two rubber stamps with this same sentiment.  This is one of a pair I made.  Image and sentiment by Technique Junkies.

This is one of a series of cards I made for my favorite place in the world, riffing off of their logo.  Image:  Stampscapes; Sentiment:  Stampa Fe

And finally, a valentine from several years ago.  Image:  Moon Rose; Sentiment:  Just for Fun