CAS403 Pinecone Tidings

Hi folks!  This week's CAS403 challenge, Ho Ho Ho, is to put three of something on your card.  As you can see, I put three pinecones on my card.  :-)  But I can see you're wondering about the background.  That was the fun part of creating this card.

I went to a stamping retreat a couple weekends ago, and we played with a new product called Infusions.  They are watercolor powders with some ground walnut shells added in there, and those walnut shells give the colors a wonderful earthy hue.  Well, of course, I was smitten, and I rushed home from the retreat and bought all 12 colors as soon as I found them at Frantic Stamper.

On this card, I sprinkled some Jade and Sage Infusions powders onto some Fabriano hot press watercolor paper.  I misted the powders with water until the colors just started to bleed and then I set it aside to dry.  Once it was completely dry, I ran it through a Pine Bough embossing folder.  I added the die cut pine cones and stamped the sentiment at the bottom.  It needed just one more accent, so I tied a tiny little bow from linen thread and added it to the double pinecone.

Come on and play in the CAS403 challenge over on SCS this week!  Just keep your card clean and simple, and put three of something on there.  

Stamps: Christmas Pines (Stampin Up)

Ink: Suede (Stampin Up)

CS: Suede (Stampin Up), Fabriano Studio hot press watercolor paper

Other: Christmas Pines dies (Stampin Up), linen thread, Pine Bough embossing folder (Stampin Up), Sage and Jade Infusions watercolor powders (I bought mine from Frantic Stamper)

Steampunk Dragonfly with Peacock Background

Hi everyone! I went to a stamping retreat last weekend, and we learned several fun new techniques for making backgrounds. This particular background was loosely called a "peacock background." To make this one, you need a nonstick craft mat, some Inka Gold (a gold wax paste), Mermaid Lagoon distress ink, and Peacock Feathers distress ink. 

Smoosh the two distress inks onto your craft mat in separate areas.  Spoon out a small amount of the Inka Gold wax onto the craft mat.  Mist the wax with some water and use a toothpick to mix the wax and water together.  Mist the two inks with water and then dip your cardstock into the inks and then into the liquid gold wax.  Dry the cardstock with a heat tool, and then dip it back into the inks and liquid gold wax again.  Dry it again with the heat tool.  Repeat until your background is covered with ink and gold to your liking.

I thought this background would be perfect with the steampunk dragonfly from Art Neko's Steampunk Fun stamp sheet.  I stamped the dragonfly with Versamark and then dusted it with some gold Perfect Pearls powder.  After I brushed off the excess powder, I fussy cut the dragonfly and adhered it with some dimensionals.  

The sentiment, also from Art Neko, was stamped with an archival brown ink directly onto the peacock background.  I needed something that would stamp on top of the gold wax, so an archival ink is the way to go.  Some sequins were added around the card for some extra sparkle.

Have you seen all the fun steampunk stamps on the Steampunk Fun sheet?  Which one is your favorite?  :-)

Little Chickadee on Woodgrain

Isn't that little chickadee the cutest thing?  I couldn't resist coloring him up when I got this stamp from Art Neko.  This little ATC Chicadee in a Pine Tree is from the State Birds and Flowers Set 6 stamp plate.  I stamped this with SU Archival Black ink onto some white cardstock and let it dry.  The sky areas were sponged with Soft Sky ink before I set about watercoloring the bird and tree.  

I pulled out my Zig Clean Color markers and I love how the tiny little brushes can color such small areas.  The pine needles were flicked with two different colors of green and I left those alone.  The branch was watercolored as well as the bird.  This means that I laid down a little bit of color from the markers and then went over it with a wet brush and pulled the color out.  I didn't want to lose the "needle" look of my green flicks, so that's why I didn't go over those with a wet brush.

The background was pressed through a woodgrain embossing folder and then sponged with some brown ink to make the raised areas stand out.  I wrapped some linen thread around the bottom and then I attached the chickadee piece with some foam tape.

Check out all the State Birds and Flowers in this set HERE.  Isn't that great?  You can also look for your own state in the search box and buy your own State Bird and Flower stamp separately.  :-)

CAS400 Glittery Noel Angel

Over on SCS, we are celebrating the 400th CAS challenge this week.  Wow!  In honor of this huge milestone, Miss Lee is asking us to create a card using items that begin with the letters CAS.  For my card, I chose the following:

C - Christmas

A - Angel

S - Sparkle

I stamped the angel with Lost Lagoon ink and let it dry.  Then I added 1/8" tape to all four edges and covered them with white gold glitter.  I cut out the Noel sentiment from a sticky tape sheet and covered it with the same white gold glitter.  I love how this glitter looks with this Lagoon ink and cardstock. :-)

Come play with our celebratory challenge this week! Check out the CAS challenges in the forum HERE.

Sunflower Smiles

I'm back again today with another Falliday Fest card to share with y'all.  Patty has a very unique challenge up on SCS today which is part inspiration challenge, part color challenge, and part cooking/recipe challenge.  You'll have to read all about it HERE.

I colored this beautiful sunflower from Power Poppy with my Prismacolor Premiere pencils.  (I looooooooooove those Power Poppy stamps!!!)  I had a lot of fun keeping with the theme of the ingredients for apple pie - green and red apples, vanilla, brown sugar, and cinnamon.  These ingredients translated into the colors I used on my card.  For a fun little touch of whimsy, I added some sequins here and there.

Come play in the Falliday Fest challenges with us!  Tomorrow is the last day, so hurry on over and check out the challenges HERE.  Happy Friday!

Stamps:
In Praise of Sunflowers - Power Poppy
Prairie Cheer (sentiment) - Power Poppy

Paper:
Chocolate Chip, Strathmore Bristol Bright White from Paper Temptress
Sugar Hill dp from Farm House

Other:
sequins, sheer brown ribbon, Prismacolor Premiere pencils

Denim Kinkade Christmas

Hey folks!  We are almost in the home stretch for the Falliday Fest challenges over on SCS.  One of the challenges today was to make a blue Christmas card, so I immediately thought of my Thomas Kinkade stamps from Cornish Heritage Farms.  This is one of the original stamps with the wood block, and the easiest way to ink this up is with a brayer.

I inked up the brayer with denim blue ink and rolled it all over the top of the Kinkade stamp.  Then I placed my smooth white paper over the top and held it in place while I pressed the paper onto the stamp.  When I pulled the paper off, this beautiful image is what resulted.  I found a sentiment that would fit across the top and stamped it with the same blue ink.

I love making clean and simple cards like this, and I love making them flat and mail-able.  That is so important when mailing out tons of Christmas cards every year.  :-)

Go check out the Falliday Fest challenges and play along with us!  You have until the end of the month to finish the challenges and upload your cards for a chance to win an awesome prize from one of our sponsors!

Steampunk Feather

Hi again!  I'm back with another Falliday challenge card, and this is the one I created for Bev's (TexasGrammy) challenge.  She challenged us to randomly smoosh Versamark over cardstock and emboss it with any color of embossing powder.  

I pulled out some black cardstock and dotted that with my Versamark ink pad.  I covered it with gold embossing powder, but when I was shaking off the excess powder, I accidentally hit the edge of my scratch paper.  This left a "line" where the embossing powder was scraped off.  After looking at it, I actually liked that look. so I jabbed the scratch paper at my black cardstock some more.  I then hit it with the heat gun and I got this cool looking background.  

I thought this background would look perfect with some steampunk images, so I pulled out my Steampunk Fun stamps from Art Neko.  This steampunk feather was just calling my name, so I stamped it with Versamark and covered it with the same gold embossing powder as the background.  I love the way this looks with that handmade background!

Check out the Falliday challenges over in the SCS forum HERE.  Play along with us for a chance to win prizes!