Happy New Year! (Let's Make it a Good One)

I'm going to send my good wishes for a Happy New Year out to you all again this year. We may have some reasons to be optimistic that soon we will all be able to travel and see family and friends once again. Everyone, also, please go here to check out the Magenta Blog. The Design Team members have posted their Happy New Year's wishes to you today.

I used to make backgrounds like this a lot and sort of forgot about it for awhile. I stamped the background onto a piece of watercolor cardstock with Distress ink applied to a Tim Holtz acrylic block. The grid you see is from the block. If you want to see a tutorial for this technique, please go here.

The stamp is a lovely Happy New Year calligraphy stamp from Sally Penley for Magenta. Sally's beautiful stamps make everything look extra special.

When I look at my hopeful and optimistic post from last year at this time I think that it would have been hard to imagine how our lives were all about to change dramatically. I know for some, this past year was truly a disaster. As with last year in my family, we feel that we have much to be thankful for. Covid 19 did touch our lives, but it left us relatively unscathed so far. My sister, who is in a nursing home in Texas got Covid and she recovered. Our oldest grandson Zack, who lives in Pennsylvania, got Covid when he went to attend his sophomore year at college this year, and he also recovered (with a temporary loss of taste and smell). We are super proud of Zack, who is an honors student, and we are very grateful that he did not have a serious case of this terrible disease.

 Our youngest grandson is living in Iceland with his parents, and is growing so fast. He is a very happy and healthy boy. Here's a picture of him hamming it up with the lid to his toy box. (He walked around like this for some time while we were FaceTiming with his Mom) I love this picture so much! He will be two years old on January 5th.

We so very much miss all of our widely scattered family, but we are also thankful to have our oldest son Austin isolating with us this year. He has been such a help to us.

To all of you, Happy New Year, and let's make it a good one this time!

Magenta Products used:

07.986.K Happy New Year

Other Products used:

Tim Holtz Acrylic blocks

The Greetery Crimped Edge die

Distress ink: Spiced Marmalade,

Picked Raspberry, Wilted Violet

Versafine Onyx Black ink

Perfect Pearls Powder

Tim Holtz watercolor cardstock

So Silk Black Style Cardstock

Neenah Solar White 110# cardstock

Happy Birthday Mariëtte!

 One of my dearest friends who is from The Netherlands has a birthday almost at the end of the year. She is such a fabulous card maker that I always try extra hard to do something she will like. I know she loves butterflies, and in fact, she has a stamp by Magenta that is named after her. Unfortunately, I don't own that one, so I used one that I designed.

I made this background panel 5 years ago and have been hoarding it ever since. I made Distress sprays with Distress inkers and water in small spritzer bottles, sprayed them onto watercolor panels, and sprinkled different colors of salt on them, then let them dry. You can see that post here, and this is one of the pictures from that post to show the different panels I made. There is a tutorial on how I made these backgrounds and also a link to a tutorial for how to make your own Distress pearly sprays.

I cut a circle from transparent vellum and stamped my Zen Butterfly from Magenta onto the circle with Versamark ink. I embossed it with silver embossing powder. I wasn't sure how the cardstock would take the Versamark ink. There is some texture on it, and I didn't want to ruin the panel. I didn't want to cover it too much, so the vellum was the best compromise.

I stamped a strip of black cardstock with the Dutch sentiment from the Magenta Multi Lingual Birthday stamp, using Versamark ink. I embossed it in silver embossing powder. As I have shown in the past, I have cut up one of those stamps and really enjoy using them individually. I made the sentiment strip the full width of the panel and die cut the edges with the Crimped Frame die to match the panel.

Magenta Products Used:

44.019.K Zen Butterfly

07.907.L Multilingual Happy Birthday

Other Products Used:

Distress Ink Reinkers: Picked Raspberry,

Mustard Seed, Peacock Feathers

Perfect Pearls Powder

Versamark ink

Sea Salt

JudiKins Fine Detail Silver embossing powder

The Greetery Crimped Edge Frame die

So Silk Glamour Green cardstock

PTI True Black cardstock

Tim Holtz Watercolor cardstock

Neenah Solar White 110# cardstock

Magenta Super Saturday Thank You!

 Hi everyone, I'm over at the Magenta blog today, and you can see my post here. 

I  hope your Christmas was and is magical this year. It's not to early to start thinking about Thank You cards. Magenta has a lovely Multilingual Thank You stamp that is a favorite of mine. I love it because it says Thank You in some of my favorite languages, and I also it has a tall, thin stacked up shape.

This card has the same Distress colors in it that I used on my card yesterday, but it has a very different feel. The blended panel was made with Mowed Lawn and Twisted Citron Distress inks, and a technique I call "stencil stamping." You can see a tutorial on stencil stamping here, and if you search my blog for stencil stamping, you can see I have used this technique a lot. This time I used the very cool stencil called Shell Texture.

I stamped the sentiment with Mowed Lawn Distress, and matted everything with gold cardstock. I hope you like it, and Thank You for looking!

Magenta Products Used:

TM297 Shell Texture

07.882.I Multilingual Thank You

Other Products Used:

Distress Ink: Mowed Lawn, Twisted Citron

Die-Namics MFT-463 Blueprints 13 die set

Neenah Solar White 80# & 110# cardstock

Curious Metallics Super Gold cardstock

Perfect Pearls Powder

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

 Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you! Please check out the post here on the Magenta blog, where members of the Design Team posted some beautiful Christmas cards to wish all of you a Merry Christmas.

I wanted to use the Multilingual Merry Christmas stamp from Magenta this time. I feel the separation from my Icelandic relatives acutely this year, especially since we were with them last year at this time. I also feel though, that we are all in this together; whether it's working to stay healthy, or working against hate. Stay well and safe everyone!

For this card, I used two panels that I made with shaving cream. I have used SO many of the panels I made with this really fun technique. If you missed it, you can see my post here. If you search for shaving cream on my blog, you can see lots of times when I have used it.

I made the inner panel for this card with shaving cream, Distress inkers and the Magenta Tumbled Ash Leaves stencil. The outer panel was made just with shaving cream and inkers, and no stencil.

I made other panels adding other colors, but I really like the simplicity of just one color.

To see the card I made from the panel with two colors (above) please click here.

Merry Christmas everyone, and please check back in for my post tomorrow. It will be my turn on the Magenta blog.

Magenta Products Used:

07.883.K Multilingual Merry Christmas

TM322 Tumbled Ash Leaves

Other Products Used:

Distress ink: Mowed Lawn, Twisted Citron

Shaving Cream

The Greetery Crimped Frame die set

Neenah Solar White 80# & 110#

Dark Green Cardstock of Unknown Provenance

Gnome Merry Christmas with Shaving Cream and Stencil

 I made this card for my youngest grandson in Iceland. He will be 2 years old in January, and I sent him a bunch of laminated pictures of his family so he can play with them. I don't want him to forget all of us during this time.

I love how this card turned out. I made a bunch of gnomes like this last year, and you can see my post here.

I made the background when I made some shaving cream cards using stencils. You can see that post here, and below are some of the blue panels I made.

I used a Tim Holtz stencil for the poinsettia ones. I will definitely make more of these with different colors.

I cut the panel with the middle size of the Crimped Frame die from the Greetery, and matted it with So Silk cardstock. I adhered all of the pieces to a base card.

I hope you like it. I will definitely make more of these for cards next year. 

Products Used:

Simon Says Stamp Large Gnome die sssd112037

Memory Box 94022 Merry Christmas Cheshire Script

(Other products used to make this Gnome can be found

on the post linked above)

Shaving Cream

Distress inkers Broken China, Faded Jeans, Speckled Egg

Tim Holtz THS049 Poinsettia Layering Stencil

The Greetery Crimped Edge die

Memory Box Jewel Glitter cardstock

So Silk Glamour Green cardstock

Neenah Solar White 80# & 110# cardstock

Die Cut Christmas: Ornament Trio and Gelli Plate Background with Distress Oxide

 This is the last of the cards I have that I made using just die cuts. I wanted to cut out all of the Christmas dies that I had not had a chance to use before.

I die cut the ornaments out of a white panel that I die cut using a stitched rectangle die from Die-Namics. I placed the die cut panel onto a background that I made when I was playing around with a Gelli Plate and Distress Oxide inks. This panel was made using Festive Berries Distress Oxide ink that I brayered onto the Gelli Plate. I picked up the color with a textured piece of white cardstock, and it made a nice textured print.

I added a sentiment made with a Memory Box die that I cut from PTI Pure Poppy cardstock. At the end I added tiny red gems.

Products Used:

Poppystamps 1270 Ornament Trio Cutout

Memory Box 94499 Special Merry Christmas

Die-namics MFT-463 Blueprints 13 die set

Distress Oxide ink Festive Berries

PTI Pure Poppy cardstock

Neenah Solar White 80# & 110# cardstock

White Textured 65# cardstock

Gelli Plate

Die Cut Christmas: Shaving Cream Peace

 I have just a couple of cards left that I made by making die cuts with Christmas dies that I had not yet used.

I used the larger snowflake from the Elizabeth Craft die set Ornate Snowflakes, and cut it out of a white panel that I had already cut with the Greetery's Crimped Edge due. I put the white panel over a blue and white background panel that I made using the shaving cream technique. You can see instructions on that technique here, and creating the blue and white panels here.

I die cut the sentiment from an Elizabeth Craft set Love Joy & Peace Christmas Ornament. I used a dark blue cardstock for the sentiment. Last, I added silver snowflakes, and glitter dots from Elizabeth Craft peel offs.

Products Used:

Elizabeth Craft 1409 Ornate Snowflakes

Elizabeth Craft 1442 Love Joy & Peace Christmas Ornament

Elizabeth Craft Peel Off Stickers 8530 Silver/Silver Snowflakes

Elizabeth Craft Peel Off Stickers 7018 Glitter,Silver/Gold Dots

The Greetery Crimped Frame die

Distress inkers Broken China, Faded Jeans,

Speckled Egg

Shaving Cream (generic)

PTI Enchanted Evening cardstock

Neenah Solar White 80# & 110# cardstock

Magenta Card Exchange: Distress Ink Blend Merry Christmas!

I was very happy to get Kazuko Kocho's name in the December Magenta card exchange. She is someone whose art I have long admired, and she was also a friend of Art 'n Soul for many years.

 I started by blending 4 colors of Distress Ink reds, making it darkest in the middle, and light on both ends. I used watercolor cardstock because I planned to get it very wet. 

Once my panel had dried, I stamped the beautiful Magenta stamp Poinsettia Border in Versamark ink, and embossed in gold. If you are going to emboss on an ink blended background, be sure it's dry first. I usually test it out by applying embossing powder onto the panel before I stamp, just to make sure nothing sticks.

I got out my cut up Magenta Merry Christmas Multilingual stamp for the sentiment. I wanted to stamp it in English and Japanese. If you follow me, you know that I have several of this stamp in cling, and I have cut one of them up so that I can stamp in individual languages that I choose. They work perfectly well this way.

 

After embossing the images, I used a brush and water to blot up the ink inside the flower petals to lighten and highlight them. I applied water inside each petal, and blotted it up with a paper towel. I then flicked gold watercolor all over the panel.

At the end I applied Wink of Stella glitter pen to each petal. The panel was cut using The Greetery Crimped Edge die, and it was matted with gold cardstock. I love how it turned out! I hope you do too.

Magenta Products Used:

02.317.O Poinsettia Border

07.883.K Merry Christmas Multilingual

Other Products Used:

Distress Ink: Spun Sugar,

Picked Raspberry, Festive Berries,

Candied Apple

FineTec Gold Watercolor

Wink of Stella glitter pen

The Greetery Crimped Frame die

Tim Holtz Watercolor paper

Curious Metallics Super Gold cardstock

Versamark Ink

Ranger Gold Embossing Powder

Super Saturday at Magenta: Swirly Blossom Poinsettia with Prismacolors

 Hi everyone! I'm over at Magenta today, and you can see that post here.

I've been having a lot of fun with the Swirly Blossom Poinsettia stamp, which I've been coloring with Prismacolor pencils in some of my favorite blends.

I started out by cutting some of my favorite cardstocks for coloring using The Greetery Crimped Frame die. The one above is Strathmore Blue Tone Mixed Media.

I stamped all of the cards with the Poinsettia image using my MISTI stamp platform.

Leaving the stamp in the MISTI, I took all of these panels and colored them with my favorite Prismacolor combinations of blends. 

Since I knew I was going to emboss over these, I was just trying to get some nice color blends laid down under the embossing.

After coloring, I stamped over each panel with Versamark ink and embossed in gold or silver, depending on the colors. It's very important to add powder to the panel before you stamp and emboss, since embossing powder really likes to adhere to colored pencil.

I added a sentiment to each card at the same time, using the same color of embossing as the flower. The above card was done on PTI Enchanted Evening cardstock.

I added gems to some of the flowers, which are very sparkly in real life. This card was done on PTI Pure Poppy Cardstock.

This card was done using Strathmore Tan Tone Mixed Media cardstock

The above card was again PTI Enchanted Evening cardstock. I really like this dark blue with the turquoise blends.

I even did one on a green shaving cream technique panel. I didn't take an individual picture of it, but you can see it in some of the group pictures above. You can also see that technique tutorial here. The post where I made the green ones is here. The Prismacolor choices on that one would also be good on white.

I'll list the colors I used on each color of cardstock, in case you are interested. I hope you like these! I'm getting close to having enough Christmas cards I think.

Magenta Products Used:

0445.O Swirly Blossom Poinsettia

07.995.E Joyeux Noël

07.956.F John Lennon Peace Quote

07.1019.F Wishing you Peace Love Joy

Other Products Used:

Prismacolor Colored Pencils:

For Blue Tone cardstock: PC901 Indigo Blue,

PC902 Ultramarine, PC1087 Powder Blue

For Dark Blue cardstock: PC105 Cobalt Turquoise,

PC905 Aquamarine, PC992 Light Aqua

For Tan Tone cardstock: PC924 Crimson Red,

PC925 Crimson Lake, PC1014 Deco Pink

For Red cardstock: PC923 Scarlet Lake,

PC926 Carmine Red, PC929 Pink, PC927 Lt Peach

On Green and White Shaving Cream cardstock:

PC924 Crimson Red, PC923 Scarlet Lake,

PC1014 Deco Pink

The Greetery Crimped Edge die

Strathmore Blue Tone Mixed Media

Strathmore Tan Tone Mixed Media

PTI Pure Poppy Cardstock

PTI Enchanted Evening Cardstock

Versamark Ink

Ranger Gold embossing powder

Ranger Liquid Platinum embossing powder

Winter Florals With Marker Watercolor Technique

 This is one of my favorite cards this year. I learned this technique from a video by Kristina Werner. You can see her video here. I have to say that it's a bit harder than it looks, but still it was very fun. Kristina used Karin markers, but I don't have those, so I used Tombows. I have it on good authority that I might be getting Karin markers for Christmas.

I really like that the colors are a bit non-traditional for Christmas. I keep coloring my poinsettias all in pretty much the same red, and have been wanting to try something different.

I cut 6 panels of Bristol cardstock to 4.25" x 5.5", and stamped the Simon Says Stamp Winter Florals using Versamark ink. I embossed the images with gold embossing powder. After taping the panels to some boards, I scribbled Tombow markers in different areas of the stamped panels. I used a #10 paintbrush loaded with water to move the scribbles around and smooth them out. The panel on the left shows how I scribbled color onto it, and the panel on the right is after I applied water. 

This is what the panels look like after I applied water to the scribbles.

Once all of the panels were dry, I went back with the markers, and colored each flower, leaf and berry. I was putting down color over the lighter colors underneath. I added the color where I wanted it to be the darkest, and used a brush to draw the color out.

These are all of the panels after I added the final color. Once the panels were dry, I cut them to 4" x 5.25", and then cut them in half, so that I had 12 panels that were 2" x 5.25".

I stamped 12 base cards with the lovely Merry Christmas stamp by Sally Penley from Magenta. I used Versamark ink and embossed the sentiment in gold. I matted each panel with gold cardstock and adhered them to the base cards.

I hope you like them! I want to try this technique again. It needs to be just the right background stamp; one that has images with some background.

Products Used:

Simon Says Stamp SSS102023 Winter Floral Mix

Magenta 07.989.G Merry Christmas

Tombow Markers: 676, 685, 725, 845, 946, 

055, 126, 133, 173, 195, 373

Versamark Ink

Gold Embossing Powder

Bristol cardstock

Curious Metallics Super Gold cardstock

Neenah Solar White 110# cardstock

Die Cut Christmas: Mod Poinsettia Merry Christmas

 As part of my plan to try out all my dies, I thought it would be fun to use the Memory Box Diagonal Stripe Collage die in a way that would make me think of a candy cane.

I first cut a white panel out using the Greetery Crimped Frame die, and then used the Memory Box 94401 Diagonal Stripe Collage die at the bottom.

I added a Memory Box Mod Poinsettia that I cut out of a shaving cream panel that I had made with both red and green inkers.

These are the red ones I made. I didn't photograph the ones where I added green, because I didn't think I liked them; but probably die cutting the Mod Poinsettia out of those panels was a good use of them. If you have not already seen it, you can see how to do the shaving cream technique here.

The Merry Christmas sentiment is from Paper Rose, and I cut it out of Stardream Jupiter cardstock. The panel was also matted with Jupiter cardstock. I put one little gem in the center of the Poinsettia.

Products Used:

Memory Box 94401 Diagonal Stripe Collage

Poppy Stamps 2086 Mod Poinsettias

Paper Rose 17823 Merry Christmas Text die

The Greetery Crimped Frame die

Distress inkers: Mowed Lawn,

Twisted Citron, Festive Berries

Shaving Cream

Stardream Jupiter cardstock

Neenah Solar White 80# & 110# cardstock