A Study in Lavender Collage

Good morning!  Today I'm sharing my results of a study using the new Lavender Collage stamp from Technique Junkies.  If you look closely at the picture above, the two cards are stamped the same but the colors are reversed.  I wanted to see how these would look with purple ink and with white embossing powder.

Both cards are stamped with Lavender Collage and the sentiment is from the Difficult Time set from Technique Junkies.  I stamped them with purple ink onto white cardstock for the card on the left.  For the card on the right, I stamped these with Versamark onto lavender cardstock, covered them with white embossing powder, and melted the powder with a heat tool.  You can see the close-up pictures below.

These two cards are very different even though their stamps, colors, and composition are the same.  I love the delicateness of the purple inked collage, and I love how the white embossed card is so crisp and detailed.  Which one is your favorite?

Please feel free to use this code, TJ10Holly, when you shop at Technique Junkies.  You'll save 10% off your order, and you can stock up on new stamps, stencils, Shimmering Bliss sprays, and Distress Oxide inks.  Happy Shopping!

 

The Best View

I loved creating this card with new scenic stencils from A Colorful Life Designs.  It's so calm and peaceful.  I only used one color of Distress Oxide ink (Peacock Feathers) and one white card base for this clean and simple monochromatic card.  

I used the following stencils from top to bottom:

Mountain Edger 4

Mountain Edger 1

Tree Line Edger 6

Tree Line Edger 5

Tree Line Edger 4

Tree Line Edger 3

The stamped sentiment is from the new Altitude stamp set from A Colorful Life Designs.  Yes, they have a stamp set now!  It's perfect with these new scenic stencils, and you definitely need to add this to your order.  Please feel free to use this code, HollyFan10, to save 10% when you order from A Colorful Life Designs.

 

Beyond the Blue #28 - Happy Fall Y'all

Good morning, friends!  This week's Beyond the Blue challenge is to use those ribbons, twines, and fibers that we all have in our craft stash.  I used some ribbon as well as a little bit of twine (it's on the top of the acorn) on my card today.

Here's how this particular card came about.  My mom has been cleaning out her craft room and she's been giving me all her old stamping stuff.  I was going through a small box of dies that she gave me, and one of them was this adorable acorn die from Lil Inker Designs.  I really wanted to play with it, so I designed this whole card around that acorn.  I used my Thankful Leaves Turnabout stamp from Concord and 9th as well as the Fall stamps and dies from Honey Bee Stamps.  

The colors were chosen simply because they were sitting on my stamping table.  I used Baked Brown Sugar, Cucumber Crush, Bermuda Bay, and Razzleberry inks (Stampin Up) with some kraft, cream, and Razzleberry papers.  I die cut the acorn from kraft cardstock and then pressed the bottom piece into the Razzleberry ink and the top piece into the Baked Brown Sugar ink.  They almost look like velvet, don't they?  I tied the tiny little leaf to the acorn with the twine and I added the strip of Razzleberry ribbon behind the sentiment.

Come play along with us and use up some of that ribbon and twine.  You can share your creations by adding your link to the linky tool on the Beyond the Blue blog.  Happy Friday!

 

Cactus and Canyons

On today's card, I played around with a couple of new scenic stencils from A Colorful Life Designs.  I started with some white cardstock and I placed the Desert Edger 2 stencil down near the bottom.  I randomly added different green and yellow Pan Pastels to the cactus and the surrounding grassy areas.  Then I placed the opposite stencil (the mask) of Desert Edger 2 over the cactus and carefully taped it in place.  I laid the Canyon Edger 1 stencil over the top of the cactus and used more Pan Pastels to color in the canyon areas.  I applied horizontal strokes of color because that's what you see when you look at desert landscapes - those bands of color.  I'm so happy this turned out like I saw it in my head!

To complete the card, I carefully removed the Canyon Edger 1 stencil and placed the opposite stencil (the mask) over the colored canyons.  I left the cactus mask in place and made sure both masks were taped down.  Then I applied some blue and gray Pan Pastels to the top of the card for the sky.  After I carefully removed the masks, I sealed this with some workable fixative.  This card came together in about 10 minutes or so.  The longest parts of making this card was arranging and taping down the masks.  

I have not added a sentiment just yet because I'm not sure if this will be a birthday card or a thinking of you card.  Quite honestly, I'm just having so much fun playing with these new scenic stencils, I'm not sure I can part with any of these cards!  :-)  Please feel free to use this code, HollyFan10, to save 10% when you shop at A Colorful Life Designs.  You can pick up these scenic stencils as well as hundreds of others for all your paper crafting creations.

 

Sunflower Birthday - DTGD2021

Good morning, friends!  Today, I am hosting a Dare to Get Dirty challenge over on SCS.  It's my first time hosting as a Dirty Dozen alumni and I'm so excited.  While I can't tell you the details of the challenge, I can tell you a little bit about the card I made for the challenge.  You can find the details by clicking HERE as long as you are a Fan Club member.  If you aren't a Fan Clubber, you can learn more by clicking HERE.  You don't want to miss out on any of the fun this week!!

For my card, I stamped the yellow background with the Sunflower background from The Ton.  It's a very subtle background because I stamped it with Versamark.  Then I stamped the sunflower from Botanical Blocks (PTI) and colored it with Copic markers.  I stamped the birthday sentiment from the Botanical Blocks set and adhered it as a long strip over the width of the card.

Come on over and play with us in the Dare to Get Dirty challenges.  There's still a few more days of challenges ahead, so you've got plenty of time to stamp with us.  Have a great day!!

 

Metallic Mountains

Have you seen the new scenic stencils from A Colorful Life Designs?  They are so wonderful and so easy to work with.  Another bit of news is that A Colorful Life Designs just released their first stamp set!  I used one of the stamps on this card today along with two of the new Mountain Edger stencils.

I decided to try something different with these scenic stencils.  I started with some black cardstock and I placed the Mountain Edger 1 stencil down in the middle.  I used a special sponge to apply some gold Pan Pastels to the black paper following the edge of the Mountain Edger 1 stencil.  I removed this stencil and placed the Mountain Edger 2 stencil down just below the previously colored mountain.  I applied some bronze Pan Pastels to the paper by following the edge of the Mountain Edger 2 stencil.  Because of the chalky nature of the Pan Pastels, I sealed the scene with some workable fixative.  

To complete my card, I stamped the sentiment from the new Altitude set with Versamark and covered it with gold embossing powder.  After I melted the powder, I used a gold paint pen to add the stars.  I wanted to stick to the metallic theme of this card, so my artistic license extends to creating gold stars.  :-)

Please feel free to use this code, HollyFan10, to save 10% when you shop at A Colorful Life Designs.  You will find hundreds of wonderful stencils in the store as well as the very first new stamp set.  If you are finding it hard to decide which scenic stencils to pick, just use the new Master Creator Bundle button to select all of them.  It's a fantastic bargain!

 

Textured Fall Hugs - DTGD2021

Good morning, friends!  I'm back with another card I created for one of the Dare to Get Dirty challenges.  Today is the second day of DTGD, and there's seven new challenges posted this morning for y'all.  I made this card for Misti's challenge (Scraperwannabe), and I had so much fun with this one.

I can't tell you what the actual challenge is, but I can tell you what I did to create this card.  I started with the Skeleton Leaf stencil from A Colorful Life Designs and I placed it onto some white cardstock.  I taped off the edges so I wouldn't smear anything on the card past the stencil.  Then I spread some Paper Glaze (Picket Fence Studios) over this stencil.  I used one of their new ombre sets called Pumpkin Spices - a fun autumnal mixture of greenish brown, orange-red, and a creamy yellow.  I took the stencil off and let the leaf glaze dry completely.  Then I put the stencil back over the leaf and taped over the entire stencil so the only part showing was the rest of the paper beyond the stencil.  

I wanted to try something new for the "background" beyond the leaf, so I dotted some gold Paper Glaze all around the leaf.  Then I spread some brown Paper Glaze next to the gold glaze.  After I spread the two glazes to cover the paper, I smacked the wet glazes with my palette knife.  Yup, smacked!  I just pressed the knife onto the glazes and lifted straight up - very quickly and randomly.  Smack smack smack!  This created the most awesome texture!  I love it!!!

I carefully peeled the stencil off the paper and let the whole piece dry completely.  Then I sprayed the entire piece with some gold Perfect Pearls Mist (Ranger) and let that dry.  The mica spray settled into the nooks and crannies of this card, making this card super shimmery.  I couldn't bear to cover anything up, so I added the fall sentiment (Honey Bee Stamps) right on top of the leaf.

I hope you'll play along with the Dare to Get Dirty challenges!  There's still five more days of challenges ahead and lots of inspiration for you.  

Use code HollyFan10 when you shop at A Colorful Life Designs.  You can pick up this Skeleton Leaf stencil as well as the new scenic stencils that were just released last week.  Have fun!