Monday, March 31, 2014

Mama Elephant Guest Designer: Make a Wish

Today I'm sharing my last projects for Mama Elephant using Make a Wish,
 my favorite set from the release.
  

Using Post-it Tape, I masked off a square area on each card, and ink distressed
inside of the square with different colored inks. I used the same sentiment on each card 
and gold embossed it and the stars in different patterns for different looks.






I love the collaboration between Pauline Ibarra and Mama Elephant
and I look forward to seeing more awesome sentiment sets from her in the future.

I'm also grateful that I won the guest design spot and got to play with 
Mama Elephant's awesome stamps. Thanks for a fun month, Kryssi!



Saturday, March 29, 2014

Water Stencil Stamping 101

I received a few comments and questions on how I did the background for this card
so today I'll show you the steps in a pictorial because I'm not proficient with videotaping.


* * * 
Using an ink blending tool, apply several colors of distress/dye ink on the surface 
of white card stock. I used Picked Raspberry, Spiced Marmalade, Squeezed Lemonade 
distress inks and Papertrey Ink's Simply Chartreuse. Dye inks work well, 
but Distress inks are specially formulated to react with water.


Spray a liberal amount of water on your stencil and place it on the inked surface. 
Press down lightly on the stencil. You should see some of the color start to 
disappear beneath the stencil.
 

Gently lift up the stencil. You can use the corner of a damp paper towel to pick up 
some of the excess water that pooled up on your card, or you can leave it as is.


I tend to be a bit impatient so I use my heat tool to dry off the water. Make sure the piece 
is completely dry, especially if you plan to stamp on the surface, or do some 
heat embossing as the embossing powder will stick to water.
 

Keep in mind that you will always get different results, depending on
how much water you spray on the stencil, and how much color is taken away.

Just practice until you like what you see. It's a forgiving technique and there's
no right or wrong way of doing it. Have fun and let the stencil and water do the work.

If you do try this, share a link to your card in the comments section below.
I'd love to see your results!
Thanks so much for stopping by.

Friday, March 28, 2014

CASual Fridays 130


First of all, I have to say that the entire CASual Fridays design team (and Michele!)
were blown away by the number of entrants in CFC129! There were over 220 entries
and I'm guessing that you all like the longer playing time. I do, too!


CFC130 is Good Egg--use ovals on your clean and simple project.

In addition to a guest spot on the CASual Fridays Stamps blog,
our prize sponsor is Pretty Pink Posh,
a unique online store with tons of pretty embellishments--
think sequins and ribbon and twine! Yum!


I went pretty literal with my card, and decided to make an oval shaped one.


I pulled out my long neglected Spellbinder oval dies and paired it with the new
WAIT FOR IT set from CASual Fridays. Love the fun, bold sentiments!


After die cutting two different sizes, I did some layered stamping
and lined up the ovals, then added a few gold stars.

Visit the rest of the design team to see their projects and join us if you can.

AmyArdythJingleKellyLauraMayuriSylviaTracey
 
Remember you have until April 18th at noon EST to link up your card(s).
Hope to see you in the gallery!

Thursday, March 27, 2014

CAS(E) this Sketch 70


Here's this week's sketch brought to you by Sam.


And here's my take on it.


The bunny buddies were stamped and lightly shaded in with Copics.
I colored in a sky and added some grass and flower buds, then stamped
the sentiment from the same Mama Elephant set.
Gotta love a one layer card!

Visit CAS(E) this Sketch to see how the rest of the design team
interpreted the sketch and join us if you can.
Link up your card(s) by Thursday, April 3rd.

Thanks for stoppin' by!


Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Styling with Stencils

I'm entering Moxie Fab World's Styling with Stencils Challenge
using the stencil stamping with water technique.


I love how water "bleaches" distress and dye inks and it's always a thrill
when you lift up the stencil because you never know what you're going to see,
and no two pieces ever turn out the same.


And you don't get to see the finished result until everything is completely dry.
I also added more color along the edges and the sentiment is from Papertrey Ink.

Thanks for stopping by!