Magenta Super Saturday - Stencil Stamped Heron

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

I love all of the stamps in the Magenta Spring 2019 release, but I particularly like the Egret and the Heron, because they are beautiful and peaceful. I chose the Heron this time because he seems to be contemplating the start of a new day.

This card was done using the stencil stamping technique that I have done many times. You can see some of the things I have done using this technique here, (scroll down for the stencil stamped items) here, here, and here. To see them all, you can search for "stencil stamping" on my blog search feature.

I first die-cut a panel of Neenah Solar White 80# cardstock using the Lawn Fawn LF768 Small Stitched Rectangle Stackables die. The largest die in this set cuts a 3.75" x 5" rectangle with a stitched edge. 

I applied Distress Ink direct to paper, using Twisted Citron at the top, Mowed Lawn at the bottom, and Mustard Seed and Wild Honey in the middle to simulate a sunrise. For this technique to work, you need a lot of ink on your paper - the more you have, the better it works.

I took the new Magenta stencil, TM297 Shell Texture and sprayed it with Pearly Water (water mixed with Perfect Pearls powder). When doing this technique, you don't want to get the stencil too wet, or it will just make puddles on your paper. I often use watercolor cardstock for stencil stamping, but this time I wanted to see how regular cardstock would work. If I try it again with regular cardstock, I might use 110# Neenah. I sprayed the stencil until the water was beading up but not running off.

I pressed the stencil onto the card panel and pressed it down with a paper towel. When I lifted it off, I could see the texture of the stencil, and also some of the droplets of water that were on the plastic part of the stencil. I loved how it turned out. As the panel dries, the image becomes more prominent.

To finish it off, I stamped the Heron stamp and sentiment with Versafine Onyx Black ink. I chose not to stamp the Heron's reflection on this piece, but it is on the stamp, and is a nice option. I tried really hard to get the shimmer of the Pearly Water to show up; maybe you can see it better at this slightly oblique angle. It's very pretty in real life.

To finish the card, I mounted the panel onto a 4" x 5.25" piece of Stardream Flame cardstock, and adhered it to a base card of Neenah Solar White 110# cardstock.

Enjoy and have a beautiful day!

I have received some questions about how to get the Magenta stamps I use. You can order directly from Magenta by going to their online store here. You can see the Spring 2019 collection here, and you can click on "Stamps" and/or "Stencils" to look at the entire collection. If you are interested in a stamp I have used on any of my blogposts, you can click on the name of the stamp or stencil below the image at the bottom of each of my posts, and the link will take you to that stamp or stencil in the Magenta Store. Just put the item in your basket, and as many more as you wish, and check out. You will be glad you did!

Magenta Products Used:

0763.M Reflective Blue Heron

TM297 Shell Texture

07.969.F have a Beautiful day!

Other Products Used:

Distress Inks: Twisted Citron, Mowed Lawn,

Mustard Seed, Wild Honey

Perfect Pearls Powder

Lawn Fawn LF768 Small Stitched Rectangle Stackables Die set

Versafine Onyx Black ink

Stardream Flame cardstock

Neenah Solar White cardstock 80# & 110#

Magenta Super Saturday - Coloring Hellebores with Prismacolors

I am coloring with my Prismacolors again, and this time I'm using the new Magenta Flower Corner stamp. This stamp was drawn by the very talented Nathalie Metivier, and the flowers are Hellebores. Hellebores are a beautiful winter flower, and often appear in Holiday bouquets. I think this stamp could be used all year round, and for any occasion.

I first cut 6 panels from different colors of cardstock, using the Lawn Fawn die LF768. The largest die of this set cuts a nice stitched edge panel that is 3.75" x 5". I placed the first panel into my MISTI and arranged the stamp in a corner. I stamped, and then flipped the panel and stamped again in the opposite corner. I did the same on each panel.

I stamped the dark cardstock panels with white ink, and the others were stamped with light colors of ink that went with the colors I was going to use on the flowers. The important thing is that you can see what you are coloring. This ink will be covered up later.

I have done this technique with different stamps before, and you can see those posts here and here. I like to stamp a lot of panels when I do this to make multiple cards. Once you have it set up, it's easy to do. One tip is that you should leave your stamp in your stamp platform until you have finished coloring all of your cards.

I have been experimenting with colors, and have found that I like certain ones on different colors of cardstock. I really like the purple on black, red on Kraft, and so on. The combinations I have here are some of my favorites, and you can find details about them in the product information below. I'm still tinkering with combinations, but when I have finally figured out my very favorites I will do a post about them.

Once I finished coloring each panel, I put each one back into the MISTI (I never moved my stamp) and stamped on each of the previously stamped and colored corners with Versamark Ink. It's very important to use a powder bag or some sort of anti-static tool before you stamp with the Versamark. Embossing powder really likes to stick to the Prismacolor.

After stamping with Versamark, I applied embossing powder to each one, according to what I thought would look good with the coloring and the color of the cardstock. In all, I used white, gold and silver.

After embossing the flowers, I went back and stamped and embossed the sentiments. I think that Magenta's Sally Penley calligraphy stamps go very well with this type of card design.

On all of the first 5 cards shown above, I stamped with Versamark ink and embossed using the same embossing powder on the sentiment as I used on the flowers. On this 6th card, I thought the silver would not show up well enough, so I searched for the right color of blue. I discovered I have a lot of blues.

Sorry for the not so great photos here, but I thought you would like to see my process. I realize I'm obsessive, but I wanted to get the best color for the sentiment that I could. I spent a lot of time coloring these panels, and I didn't want to ruin one by having a poorly matching color.

Weird shadows and lighting on both of these, but you get the idea. All of them were stamped and then embossed with clear embossing powder onto the front and back of a strip that I had saved of the same cardstock used in the panel. I ended up using Blueprint Sketch Oxide ink for this sentiment. I'm going to save this strip in case I need to refer to it in the future. (And yes, I have more blues but I stopped with these since I found my match).

Here are all of them ready to be matted. I wanted to finish them all for this post, but I also think it would be good to stamp, color and emboss the panels, and then wait to stamp the sentiment until you need a card for a particular occasion. I think this design and these stamps could be used for lots of kinds of cards such as Thank You, Happy Birthday, Merry Christmas, Thinking of You, Mother's Day, and Sympathy.

I hope you like these and will try out this technique.

Magenta Products Used:

14.669.L Flower Corner

07.989.G Merry Christmas

07.975.I Happy Birthday Large

07.979.G Thank You Medium

07.980.E Thanks Small

Other Products Used:

Card #1 Merry Christmas:

Prismacolors: PC924 Crimson Red

PC923 Scarlet Lake, PC1014 Deco Pink,

PC911 Olive Green, PC912 Apple Green,

PC1005 Limepeel, PC1004 Yellow Chartreuse

JudiKins Detail Gold embossing powder

Tea Dye Distress Ink

Versamark Ink

Lawn Fawn die LF768 Small Stitched Rectangle Stackables

Strathmore Tan Tone Mixed Media cardstock

Malmero Pearl Red cardstock

Neenah Solar White 110# cardstock

Card #2 Purple Happy Birthday

Prismacolors: PC931 Dark Purple,

PC1008 Parma Violet, PC956 Lilac,

PC1026 Greyed Lavender,

PC911 Olive Green, PC912 Apple Green,

PC1005 Limepeel, PC1004 Yellow Chartreuse

JudiKins White Opaque embossing powder

Hero Arts Unicorn White pigment ink

Versamark Ink

Lawn Fawn die LF768 Small Stitched Rectangle Stackables

Papertrey Ink True Black cardstock

So Silk Passion Purple cardstock

Neenah Solar White 110# cardstock

Card #3 Turquoise Thank You

Primacolors: PC105 Cobalt Turquoise,

PC905 Aquamarine, PC992 Light Aqua

PC911 Olive Green, PC912 Apple Green,

PC1005 Limepeel, PC1004 Yellow Chartreuse

JudiKins White Opaque embossing powder

Versafine Smoky Gray pigment ink

Versamark Ink

Lawn Fawn die LF768 Small Stitched Rectangle Stackables

Strathmore Gray Tone Mixed Media cardstock

So Silk Glamor Green cardstock

Neenah Solar White 110# cardstock

Card #4 Orange Happy Birthday

Prismacolors: PC944 Terra Cotta,

PC921 Pale Vermillion, PC1001 Salmon Pink,

PC1011 Deco Yellow,

PC911 Olive Green, PC912 Apple Green,

PC1005 Limepeel, PC1004 Yellow Chartreuse

JudiKins Detail Gold embossing powder

Tea Dye Distress Ink

Versamark Ink

Lawn Fawn die LF768 Small Stitched Rectangle Stackables

White Stonehenge cardstock

Stampin' Up Cajun Craze cardstock

Neenah Solar White 110# cardstock

Card #5 Turquoise Happy Birthday

Primacolors: PC105 Cobalt Turquoise,

PC905 Aquamarine, PC992 Light Aqua

PC911 Olive Green, PC912 Apple Green,

PC1005 Limepeel, PC1004 Yellow Chartreuse

JudiKins White Opaque embossing powder

Hero Arts Unicorn White pigment ink

Versamark Ink

Lawn Fawn die LF768 Small Stitched Rectangle Stackables

Deep Blue cardstock from The Paper Cut

Neenah Solar White 110# cardstock

Card #6 Blue Thank You

Prismacolors: PC901 Indigo Blue,

PC902 Ultramarine, PC1097 Powder Blue,

PC911 Olive Green, PC912 Apple Green,

PC1005 Limepeel, PC1004 Yellow Chartreuse

JudiKins Detail Silver embossing powder

JudiKins Detail Clear embossing powder

Versafine Smoky Gray pigment ink

Distress Oxide Blueprint Sketch ink

Versamark Ink

Lawn Fawn die LF768 Small Stitched Rectangle Stackables

Strathmore Blue Tone Mixed Media cardstock

Malmero Pearl Blue cardstock

Neenah Solar White 110# cardstock

Happy Birthday Fred!

Sorry that I have been absent from the blog for so long. Many of you who know me know that Art 'n Soul, the shop where I have worked the last 6.5 years, recently closed and I have been super busy with helping to facilitate that for a while. I have promised my customers that I will continue to post to my blog, and I will try to post more often.

Other than the shop closing, I've had a wonderful year, including a trip to Holland and Iceland. I had a lot of lovely company this summer also. All through that time I shopped (many of my guests were artists and stampers, and I had to take them around, didn't I?) and acquired lots of stamps, dies, stencils, inks, paper, etc. I decided to put all of my new stamps and dies in a box (and then I had to get a larger box). I'm going to try to use everything in the box before I put those things in their places in my bins. That might mean that next summer you may see things I acquired this past summer. Sorry about that, but I'm determined to use everything!

To kick it off, I used a new die from Poppy for a birthday card for a dear friend from Holland. I'm sure he would not mind my posting it here.

I wanted to keep it simple because of mailing it to Holland, and no sequins or glitter because..guy card.

I die cut a panel of white linen textured cardstock using the largest of the Lawn Fawn Small Stitched Rectangle Stackables LF768.

I then used the Poppy die 1949 Oak Leaf Oval Collage, that is new this Fall. I really like collage type dies. I placed the die right in the center of my panel and cut it out.

Behind the Oak Leaf panel, I mounted a piece of Yupo paper that I had covered with alcohol inks in Turquoise, Pool, Mermaid, Amethyst and Raspberry.

For the sentiment, I stamped the Dutch Happy Birthday sentiment from the Magenta Multilingual Happy birthday stamp 07.907.L. I actually have several of this stamp, and I cut apart one of my cling ones. It has Happy Birthday sentiments in English, French, Icelandic, Spanish, Dutch, Japanese and Russian. If I don't have room for all of them on a card, I like to be able to use just the one I want. I stamped it with Versafine Deep Lagoon (when oh when will the new Versafine Clair colors be out in this country)?

I mounted the panel onto So Silk Glamour Green cardstock and then onto a 110# Neenah Solar White base card. I hope you like it!

Magenta Stamps Used:

07.907.L Multilingual Happy Birthday

Other Products Used:

Poppy 1949 Oak Leaf Oval

Lawn Fawn LF768 Small Stitched Rectangle Stackables

Tim Holtz Yupo paper

Ranger Alcohol ink: Turquoise, Pool, Mermaid,

Amethyst, Raspberry

Versafine Deep Lagoon

So Silk Glamour Green cardstock

110# Neenah Solar White cardstock

You are Awesome Blossom!

This Zen Bouquet stamp is the latest of my Zentangle inspired stamp designs, and is being featured on the Magenta blog today. I designed it so that it would work for coloring, or stamped onto an all-over wash of color. In this case, I chose to color the blossoms, and used Tombow markers.

I stamped the Zen Bouquet stamp with Versafine Smokey Gray ink, and embossed it with clear embossing powder. I colored the blossoms with various Tombow markers, just in the areas where I wanted the color to be darkest. I then took a clear Wink of Stella glitter brush marker and used it to pull the color out into each blossom and leaf. If you need more color, you can color your marker onto your craft mat, or an acrylic block and pick up the color with your Wink of Stella brush marker, just like using a water brush  This process is very fast and fun to do, and the end result is very glittery! It's hard to capture the sparkle in a photograph.

The sentiment, "You are Awesome" is also my design and is new in the Spring 2017 Collection, and was stamped in Versafine Onyx Black ink. I added a few white dots with a Uniball broad white gel pen.

I die cut the panel with the largest die in a Lawn Fawn stitched rectangle set (see list of materials below). This creates a panel that is 3.75" x 5", and is perfect for matting onto a card.

Magenta Products Used:

(If you are local, please look for products at Art 'n Soul. If you are not local and wish to find Magenta products, you can click on the link in the stamp or product name below each image, or you can visit the Magenta online store here).

44.024.Q Zen Bouquet

07.966.D You are Awesome!

Other Products Used:

Tombow Markers: 177, 098, 245, 743, 685, 725, 515, 933, 885, 925

Clear Wink of Stella brush marker

Lawn Fawn LF768 Small Stitched Rectangle Stackables

Versafine inks: Smokey Gray; Onyx Black

JudiKins clear detail embossing powder

Uniball Broad white gel pen

Tim Holtz watercolor cardstock

So Silk Fair Blue Cardstock

Neenah Solar White 110# cardstock