Holiday Greenery with Prismacolor

Another set of Christmas cards done! I love to color or paint, especially when I'm listening to podcasts or audio books. These cards were a lot of fun. I made 5 with gold and 5 with red.

I stamped the image using the MISTI stamping tool first, with green ink, and left the stamp in the MISTI.

After coloring, I replaced the panel in the MISTI and stamped it again with Versamark ink and then embossed with gold embossing powder.

After embossing, I flicked gold paint all over the panels

I couldn't decide between the green and the gold sentiments and mats, so I went with both. Which one do you like best? The sentiment is from Penny Black. I love this one because the waste piece between the upper part of the "s" and the "t" in Christmas is shaped like a heart. I like to use it for the dot over the "i". I added a couple of peel-off glitter dots from Elizabeth Craft in the center of the greenery. I hope you like these; more Christmas cards to come.

Products Used:

Memory Box CL5244 Holiday Greenery

Penny Black die 51-248 Merry Christmas

The Greetery Crimped Edge Frame die

Prismacolor Pencils: PC928 Blush Pink,

PC926 Carmine Red, PC924 Crimson Red,

PC1004 Yellow Chartreuse, PC1005 Limepeel,

PC912 Apple Green, PC909 Grass Green

Memento Bamboo Leaves Ink

Versamark Ink

Ranger Gold embossing powder

Finetec Gold watercolor

Curious Metallics Super Gold cardstock

PTI Poppy cardstock

MISTI stamping tool

Bearly Art Precision Craft Glue

Elizabeth Craft Be Creative Tape 

Die Cut Merry Christmas

 I've been so busy that I had not had time to start doing Christmas cards until recently. I got out all of my Christmas dies because I suspected that I had not even used quite a few of them. I kind of thought that the reason for that is I couldn't quite envision how they would look on a card. I decided to just start die cutting them out of white paper to see how they look. 

As I was die cutting, I started putting things together and ended up with some Christmas cards that were all die cuts and no stamping at all. As the days go by, I will be posting these cards.

This one is placed over a panel I made using the shaving cream technique that you can see here and here. I made a huge stack of shaving cream panels in blue - some using stencils and some without.

The ones without stencils make a really pretty snow background. You will probably be seeing the ones using stencils on future cards.

I die cut the Hero Arts Snowflake Medallion die out of white cardstock and stuck it down onto the shaving cream panel. I added the sentiment and snowflakes that I die cut using some Impression Obsession dies and Memory Box glitter cardstock. Super simple, and it will be easy to make a lot.

Products Used:

Hero Arts DI789 Snowflake Medallion

Impression Obsession DIE330-R Merry Christmas

Impression Obsession DIE100-F Small Snowflake Set

Distress inkers: Broken China,

Faded Jeans, Speckled Egg

Memory Box Jewel Glitter cardstock

Neenah Solar White 80# & 110# cardstock

So Silk Glamour Green cartstock

Magenta Card Exchange October: Distress Blends and Mandala Dreams

 This is the third card exchange sponsored by Magenta in which I have participated, and it's so much fun. This month, I coincidentally got the name of the person who got my name last month. So I'm getting a chance to send her a card this time.

The front panel of this card was blended using brushes and Distress inks, with Picked Raspberry, Abandoned Coral and Worn Lipstick. I stamped Mandala Dreams and Sending Hugs with Versamark ink and embossed with gold embossing powder. It was mounted onto a mat of Super Gold cardstock from Curious Metallics, and then onto a white card base. I'm super happy with how it turned out. I stamped Mandala dreams on the inside and also the envelope, and enclosed a couple of extra panels from stamps I designed.

I did the same design as a birthday card for a family member overseas. I think it works as a guy card too.

On this card, the only difference is that I used Distress Inks in Faded Jeans, Cracked Pistachio and Wilted Violet. Instead of just flicking water onto this one, I also put some of the Wilted Violet on my palette, wet it, and flicked that onto the panel as well.

Shaving Cream technique update:

The above cards were originally going to be done on a couple of my shaving cream background cards. When I tried to gold emboss on those though, part of the embossed areas turned dark.

They also had what I considered excessive pitting or bumpiness in the gold embossing. I even tried two types of powder to be sure it wasn't just the powder, and I tried embossing twice, which only made certain areas too thick and did not solve the darkness problem. The problem was immediately solved when I moved to using blended Distress Ink panels as my substrate.

In talking to Pam, who first brought the shaving cream technique to my attention (see my previous shaving cream card posts here and here), it seems that I missed the step of wiping off the panel with a cloth after scraping off the shaving cream. I didn't do that, and there was probably some shaving cream or sort of a soapy reside left on these cards. At this point, since they are all dry, the only solution I can think of is to spray them with a fixative, and I may try that, and let you know. I can also use them for die cutting and for putting die cuts onto.

Magenta Products used:

14.679.Q Mandala Dreams

07.971.F Sending hugs

07.1028 Happy Birthday!

Other Products used:

Distress Ink: Picked Raspberry, 

Abandoned Coral, Worn Lipstick,

Faded Jeans, Cracked Pistachio,

Wilted Violet

Ranger gold embossing powder

Versamark ink

The Greetery Crimped Frame die

Super Gold Curious Metallics cardstock

Neenah Solar White 80# & 110# cardstock

Super Saturday at Magenta: Shaving Cream with Stencils

 Hi everyone, Happy Saturday! I am over at the Magenta blog today and you can see that post here.

I have been playing pretty much non-stop with the technique that Pam introduced us to using shaving cream. This is not a new technique, but fairly new to me. You can see Pam's video on this technique here, and another post by her here. My first attempt at this technique is here, and these posts explain pretty well how to do this technique. I used Neenah Solar White 110# cardstock for these panels.

Here's my latest attempt. I made a bunch of backgrounds with shaving cream and green Distress inkers.

I was also playing with stencils and using the green shaving cream as if it was stencil paste. Once I took off the stencil, I scraped the shaving cream completely off, and it leaves ink behind. This is really addictive.

After making a lot of regular swirly backgrounds, I put all of the shaving cream in a little jar that was on my desk. From there it was easy to load on to a palette knife, and apply it to the stencil on my panel. I experimented with putting the leaves onto white cardstock, and cardstock that already had swirls on it.

For today's card, I took a panel that already had green swirls. I added additional cream using the leaf stencil, but I felt that the leaves were rather lost in the swirls. I put the stencil back down and added some Distress Crackling Campfire ink using a small blending brush.

To complete my card, I die cut my panel with the Crimped Frame die from The Greetery. I matted the panel with PTI Terracotta Tile cardstock, and adhered it to a base card. I colored the leaves with Wink of Stella clear glitter pen, and added some gems.

I love this technique and have continued playing with it and making cards in lots of colors, so there will be more cards using it with and without stencils.

Magenta Products used:

TM322 Tumbled Ash Leaves

07.969.F have a Beautiful day!

Other Products used:

Shaving cream - any (must be cream, not gel)

Distress inkers: Mowed Lawn, Twisted Citron,

Crackling Campfire

The Greetery Crimped Frame Die

iCrafter mini brushes

Wink of Stella clear glitter pen

Lucy's Little Things Rainbow Jewels

PTI Terracotta Tile cardstock

Neenah Solar White 110# cardstock