Happy New Year!

A very Happy and Healthy New Year to you all! I have a card for you, but first I wanted to tell you why I feel that I have so much to be thankful for in the past year.

Our beautiful, healthy, sweet and happy grandson Asa was born, and will be a year old on the 5th of January. We  adore him so much, and he is a bright light in our lives. His parents are raising him in Iceland, and that is such a beautiful place to grow up.

I am also grateful that our son Austin is doing well. He was hit by a car, while riding his bicycle on the evening of last September 6th. I am grateful that he is alive and is healing so well. We have every expectation that he will get back to 100%. He is so strong, and he is working hard to be completely recovered. That story could have had such a different ending. Please everyone look out for the bicycle riders and drive very carefully around them.

Everyone else in the family is doing well also, and I'm grateful and happy about that. I hope you all had a wonderful year last year, and will have an even better one this year. Hold your loved ones close, kiss them, cherish them, and then let them go where they will. Their happiness will be your happiness too.

Here's my New Year's card, I hope you like it! I love these sweet Magenta birds with shoes, designed by Nathalie.

Happy New Year!

Check out this post at Magenta, where members of the Design Team wish you a Happy New Year.

Magenta Products used:

03.124.J Love Birds

07.1016.E Happy new Year!

MC84 Mandala 5 Small

Other Products used:

Broken China Distress ink

Prismacolor Pencils: PC905 Aquamarine,

PC924 Crimson Red, PC938 White

Versafine Onyx Black ink

So Silk Black Cardstock

Neenah Solar White Cardstock 80# & 110#

Lawn Fawn LF768 die

Imagine Crafts Sparkle Shimmer Spritz

Magenta 2019 Fall/Winter Collection: Home for the Holidays

I'm kind of a sucker for birds and birdhouses, and so when Nathalie designed a birdhouse in the pines, I knew I had to have it.

I have a story about how this card was made. I had in my mind to try stencil stamping with this one, and there are some amazing Mandala stencils with this new collection. You can see other posts where I have done stencil stamping here, here and here. If you want to see others, you can search for stencil stamping on my blog; there are a lot of posts.

I have been doing this technique for some time, and lately I have seen others also doing this, and they may call it something different. It's a technique where you ink up a panel liberally with dye ink (I always use Distress ink because it's so highly reactive with water). You then take a stencil (preferably one that has about the same plastic or metal to open areas) and spray the stencil well with water (I use water that has Perfect Pearl powder added to it for a little extra shine).  You then place the wet stencil onto your inked cardstock, and cover it with a paper towel and press down. When you take off the paper towel and stencil, you have an image of your stencil in the ink.

To start, I used a piece of Neenah Solar White 80# cardstock, and brushed on Distress ink in Broken China and Shabby Shutters. The ink needs to be added pretty heavily, so I brushed on a lot. When I used to demo this technique at Art 'n Soul, I would use the mini inkpads and rub the ink on direct to paper. The more ink you put on your paper, the better the image will show up.

I wanted to experiment, so I decided to use a piece of Tim Holtz watercolor cardstock as well, just to see which one worked better.

The Neenah cardstock is on the right, and the watercolor cardstock is on the left. The thing about watercolor cardstock is that it isn't absorbent. It's supposed to be that way so that your watercolor will move around on the paper. It was hard to get a lot of color down, and then when I put the wet stencil on it, the color...well, moved around, as it's supposed to. This is a fun look, and the watercolor panel is the one I used for the card above with the birds and birdhouse.

The Neenah panel on the right turned out so pretty that I couldn't stamp over it. I just loved how perfectly the stencil image showed up on it.

So I made this card with the Neenah panel. I added a sentiment and some gems, and called it done.

The birdhouse image in the first card was stamped with Versamark ink. An important tip is to BE SURE your panel is dry before you try to put embossing powder on it. Since this was non-absorbent watercolor paper, the ink on it did not sink into the paper. It took some time for it to dry, using a heat tool. I kept testing whether it was dry by putting embossing powder on it (before I stamped the image). When the powder would stick, I brushed it off and kept drying it until no powder stuck to the card. Only then did I use a powder tool and then stamped the images with Versamark ink.

I love the Happy Holidays from our house to yours sentiment with the birds and birdhouse image. I used JudiKins Diamond White embossing powder for the stamping. Both cards were matted with Malmero Pearl Dark Blue cardstock.

Magenta Products used:

03.122.N Home for the Holidays

07.1015.H Happy Holidays

07.1022.I Wishing You a Merry Christmas

MC84 Mandala 5 Small

Other Products used:

Distress ink: Broken China, Shabby Shutters

Versamark ink

Perfect pearls powder

JudiKins White Diamond embossing powder

Tim Holtz watercolor cardstock

Neenah Solar White 80# & 110# cardstock

Malmero Pearl Dark Blue cardstock

Lawn Fawn LF768 Small Stitched Rectangle die set