Happy Birthday Layering Stencils

I have become fascinated with layering stencils, and I have posted some of my projects here and here. This is my favorite one so far, and I used a set from Pinkfresh Studio called Cosmos Bunch. I hope to do much more with this set, since it comes with stamps, a die and layering stencils. For these cards I only used the  stamp and stencils.

I honestly wasn't sure which card to post first, since I love them all. They are all the same design, but with different colors, and most of them went to my friend Pam's Church charity.

I stamped each panel with a light color of ink. It really doesn't matter what color you use for this step because it will eventually be covered with gold embossing. There are 5 stencils: 3 for the blossoms and 2 for the leaves. I used my small iCrafter brushes to blend the inks. I like to smooth out some of the blending with colored pencils. A complete list of the colors used is below.

I made 2 or 3 cards with each color family. It's easy to make multiples while you have everything out.

After I stamped each panel I left the stamp in the stamp platform. Once they were all colored I stamped them with Versamark ink and embossed with gold embossing powder.

I very much enjoyed coloring all of these, both by blending the inks and then adding touches with colored pencils.

I used blends of orange, red, purple and pinks with accents of blue

I die-cut each panel using my favorite edge finishing die, The Greetery Crimped Frame die. I then cut the sentiment out for each panel from black cardstock.

I chose mats for each color family and put everything together. I hope you like these, I really think they're pretty and they were fun to make.

Products used all cards:

Pinkfresh Studio Cosmos Bunch Stamp Set 132721

Pinkfresh Studio Cosmos Bunch Layering Stencils 132921

Simon Says Stamp CZ Design Happy Birthday Die czd82

Versamark ink

Ranger gold embossing powder

Neenah Solar White 80# & 110# cardstock

Products for orange cards:

Distress inks: Wild Honey, 

Spiced Marmalade, Prize Ribbon,

Peacock Feathers, Twisted Citron,

Mowed Lawn

Prismacolor Pencils: 

PC1032 Pumpkin Orange, PC1003 Spanish Orange 

PC912 Apple Green, PC905 Aquamarine

Stampin Up Cajun Craze cardstock

Products for red cards:

Distress inks: Aged Mahogany,

Festive Berries, Prize Ribbon,

Peacock Feathers, Twisted Citron,

Mowed Lawn

Prismacolor Pencils:

PC924 Crimson Red, PC994 Process Red,

PC905 Aquamarine, PC912 Apple Green

Malmero Pearl Red Cardstock

Products for purple cards:

Distress inks: Wilted Violet, 

Villainous Potion, Peacock Feathers, 

Twisted Citron, Mowed Lawn

Prismacolor Pencils:

PC1008 Parma Violet, PC956 Lilac,

PC905 Aquamarine, PC912 Apple Green

PTI Plum Pudding Cardstock

Products for pink cards:

Distress inks: Kitsch Flamingo,

Picked Raspberry, Peacock Feathers,

Twisted Citron, Mowed Lawn

Prismacolor Pencils: 

PC928 Blush Pink, PC994 Process Red,

PC905 Aquamarine, PC912 Apple Green

PTI Hibiscus Burst Cardstock

Super Saturday at Magenta: Card Exchange and Distress Blending

 Hi Everyone! I'm over at the Magenta blog today with this post, and you can see it here.

I want to take a few minutes to talk to you about the Magenta Card Exchange. It's hosted by DT member Mariëtte van Leeuwen on the FaceBook page Magenta Style - Passion Studio. It's a page for people who are passionate about Magenta, and a place to share and view cards made with Magenta products. Here is my exchange card this month

The Card Exchange will be taking a brief hiatus for the Summer (as usual) but will start back up in the Fall. I really hope you will join us. It's an amazing way to meet fellow card-makers all over the world. You send a card to the name and address you are given, and you will also receive one from someone completely different. I have had several really enjoyable conversations over FaceBook Messenger with card-makers who have received my cards. It's so rewarding to discover how much we all are alike. I have met the most remarkable people through this craft.

I was very much thinking of the Ukrainian people when I made this card. They are in my heart. I have followed a card maker from Ukraine, Yana Smakula, for many years, and I cried when I read her first post after Ukraine was invaded. She still posts on her blog and Instagram, and most of her posts start with "We are still ok." or "we are safe." I hope she and her husband and mother remain so.

To make this card, I used the Magenta TM277 stencil and blended Distress Ink into the square. I stamped the Magenta Graceful Tri-Petals stamp (one of my favorites) and used Prismacolors to color in the petals and leaves. I stamped the image once more onto my panel and embossed in gold; then added the Peace sentiment and embossed that in gold as well. I die cut the panel with the Greetery Crimped Frame die.

Magenta Products Used:

0810.P Graceful Tri-Petals

07.956.F John Lennon Peace Quote

TM277 Square Silhouette

Other Products Used:

Distress Ink: Mustard Seed, Speckled Egg

Prismacolor Pencils: PC1032 Pumpkin Orange,

PC1003 Spanish Orange, PC912 Apple Green

Ranger Gold Embossing Powder

Versamark Ink

The Greetery GD-M-016 Crimped Frame Die

Neenah Solar White 80# & 110# cardstock

Curious Metallics Super Gold cardstock

Super Saturday at Magenta: Christmas Ornaments

I'm over at the Magenta blog today with this post, and you can see that here.

I love this new Christmas stamp from Magenta with the ornaments and my favorite Christmas flower, Poinsettia. I decided to try it on a darker background like I have been seeing on other blogs lately.

It was super hard to photograph this card and have all the colors true to life. The background cardstock is a dark navy blue. You can see the color better in the picture below.

I stamped it in white and colored it with Prismacolor pencils. I decided to emboss just the ornaments in gold and also stamped and embossed the sentiment - one of Sally Penley's beautiful calligraphy stamps - in gold also.

At the end I sprayed it with a sheer glitter spray. It's very sparkly in real life.

Magenta Products used:

02.329.P Ornaments and Flowers

07.990.G Peace Love Joy

Other Products used:

Prismacolor Pencils: PC923 Scarlet Lake,

PC998 Hot Pink, PC994 Process Red,

PC912 Apple Green, PC908 Dark Green,

PC938 White

White Gelly Roll 08

The Greetery Crimped Frame die

Ranger Gold Embossing powder

The Paper Cut Dark Blue cardstock

Curious Metallics Super Gold cardstock

Neenah Solar White 110# cardstock

Super Saturday at Magenta: Distress Blending and Prismacolors

 Hi everyone, I am also posting this over on the Magenta blog, and you can see that post here.

I love the technique of stamping and embossing a background stamp, and then blending Distress ink over the embossing. Sometimes though, I feel that the image needs a little bit more to make it stand out.

I stamped the Magenta stamp Floral Background onto a panel of white cardstock using Versamark ink. I then embossed the image with White Diamond embossing powder. I blended three colors of Distress ink over the panel. To make the floral, leaf and berry images stand out more, I decided to color them with Prismacolor pencils.

I took this photo after I embossed the background and blended the Distress, and I was just starting to color in the flowers. It was fun and relaxing, and I like how all of the images were enhanced.

Here's a more up close shot of the process. The White Diamond embossing is really pretty in real life, and very sparkly, but that doesn't show up well in the photos.

To finish the card, I cut the panel down to 3.5" x 4.75" and adhered it to a piece of So Silk cardstock that was die cut using a new to me Greetery die called Postal Frames.

I stamped the Magenta sentiment onto another piece of So Silk cardstock and embossed it in white. The sentiment was die cut using a Poppy Stamps die called Colwell Label Set. I adhered the sentiment to the panel using foam tape, so that it was popped up a little. The entire panel was adhered to a white base card.

Magenta Products used:

14.660.R Floral Background

07.969.F Have a Beautiful day!

Other Products used:

Distress inks: Wilted Violet,

Twisted Citron, Blueprint Sketch

Prismacolor Pencils: PC105 Cobalt Turquoise,

PC992 Light Aqua, PC1008 Parma Violet,

PC912 Apple Green, PC908 Dark Green

JudiKins Diamond White embossing powder

Brutus Monroe Alabaster White embossing powder

The Greetery Postal Grames Die GD-M-038

Poppy Stamps Colwell Label die set 2325

Neenah Solar White 80# & 110# cardstock

So Silk Glamour Green cardstock

 

Layering Stencils - Happy Birthday

I have been playing a lot lately with layering stencils and they are pretty fun. A lot of companies have come out with different ones, and I have been mostly using Altenew and Pinkfresh ones so far.

Today I used a stencil from Altenew called Sweet Spring. I really like this one because it has both layers on the same stencil, and they are pretty easy to line up.

It all boils down to what colors you choose to use. I used regular Distress ink on all of these panels, and used small iCraft brushes to brush on the color. I did find that it enhanced them a little to do some finishing with colored pencils.

After finishing the color on this card, I added a happy birthday die-cut and sent it to one of my oldest friends.

Here are some photos I took of the other panels I made, so that you can see the colors I used

Products used for Birthday Card:

Altenew Sweet Spring Stencil

Distress inks: Wild Honey, Crackling Campfire

Mowed Lawn, Twisted Citron

Prismacolor Pencils: PC917 Sunburst Yellow,

Scolar318 Orange, PC912 Apple Green,

PC1004 Yellow Chartreuse

Simon Says Stamp Happy Birthday die czd82

The Greetery Crimped Frame die

Tim Holtz Matte Black Alcohol Ink cardstock

PTI True Black cardstock

Neenah Solar White 80# & 110# cardstock

Super Saturday at Magenta: Distress Oxide Gelli Plate Background With Prismacolors

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

I really enjoy making Gelli plate backgrounds using Distress Oxide ink. I made this one using a brayer to apply Wilted Violet, Peacock Feathers, and Blueprint Sketch inks onto the Gelli plate. I picked up the colors with Neenah Solar White cardstock.

I also flicked some of the Oxide inks over the panel for additional texture.

I die cut the panel using The Greetery Crimped Frame die, and then stamped it with the beautiful Magenta Blossom Crescent stamp in Wilted Violet.

I pulled out some purple Prismacolor pencils (see below for which colors I used) and colored the flower petals. I used my favorite greens for the leaves and branches. I loved how the Prismacolors were not completely opaque, but let some of the spots on the background show through.

When I stamped the flower image, I used a stamp platform and left the stamp in. After coloring the image, I put the panel back in the platform and stamped again using Versamark ink. I embossed it with silver to bring out the detail in the flowers.

In the photograph at the top of the page, the embossing looks a bit white. The silver is hard to capture. Maybe it shows up here a bit better?

At the end, I stamped the sentiment with Versafine Clair Blue Belle ink., and matted the panel with PTI Enchanted Evening ink.

Magenta Products Used:

09.256.P Bloom Crescent

07.305.G Happy Birthday

Other Products Used:

Prismacolor Pencils: PC1026 Greyed Lavender,

PC956 Lilac, PC1008 Parma Violet,

Scholar 331 Purple,

PC1004 Yellow Chartreuse, PC1005 Limepeel,

PC912 Apple Green, PC908 Dark Green

Distress Oxide: Wilted Violet,

Peacock Feathers, Blueprint Sketch

Gelli Plate

The Greetery Crimped Frame Die

Versafine Clair Blue Belle ink

Versamark ink

JudiKins Detail Silver embossing powder

PTI Enchanted Evening cardstock

Neenah Solar White 80# & 110# cardstock

Super Saturday at Magenta: Prismacolor Thinking of You

 Hi everyone! I'm over at the Magenta blog today and you can visit the Magenta blog here.

Sorry it's been so long. It seems like it's been so busy around here! We are doing Spring cleaning and painting the Back Porch, and all sorts of things like that, you know? It seems like after re-doing my craft room and work space, we all just got the fever to clean things out. It almost seems like we are emerging from our cocoons. We are so hoping that soon things will seem a lot more normal around here.

I have a dear friend who died last August, and his husband's first birthday since his death is coming up this month. I thought a nice Thinking of you card would be more appropriate than commanding him to have a Happy Birthday, so this is the result.

I stamped the Magenta Mallow Flowers stamp onto a panel of Strathmore Tone Blue cardstock in white pigment ink, and started coloring using my favorite colors of Prismacolor pencils. This takes some time to do, but I enjoy it and find it relaxing, which I can really use these days!

The cardstock looks kind of gray in this photo, but the Blue Tone cardstock is a very pretty blue.

After coloring, I smudged a bit of the blue around the flower for some texture. I stamped the lovely Sally Penley calligraphy stamp Thinking of you at the bottom using Versafine Clair Paradise ink, and added a few gems.

I tried out a Caran d'Ache blender pencil this time and I think I like it. I need to use it more to be sure.

I thought about my friend who died the whole time I was making this card and I poured some of my love and grief into it. I do hope his husband will like it.

Magenta Products used:

14.635.P Mallow Flowers

07.982.E Thinking of you SM

Other Products used:

Hero Arts Unicorn White ink

Caran d'Ache blender pencil

Prismacolor Pencils: PC938 White,

PC992 Light Aqua, PC905 Aquamarine,

PC105 Cobalt Turquoise, PC901 Indigo Blue,

PC1004 Yellow Chartreuse, PC1005 Limepeel,

PC912 Apple Green, PC911 Olive Green

Strathmore Toned Blue Mixed Media Cardstock

Versafine Clair Paradise ink

So Silk Glamour Green cardstock

Magenta Super Saturday: Coloring with Watercolor, Zig Markers and Colored Pencils

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

I had a lot of fun making cards with the Magenta Large Flower Tile stamp today. There is a story behind the creation of this stamp, and I will share that with you at the end of this post.

I started out by stamping and gold embossing the image onto 4 of the different pieces of cardstock. On the 5th, I stamped in white pigment ink.

I thought I would color the floral images on this stamp with Zig Clean Color markers, and they worked great on most of these. They don't show up well on dark colors though. On the black watercolor cardstock, I decided to use Iuile Watercolors, which show up so well on black. I used the paint from one of the dot cards.

It's really hard to show how glittery these beautiful watercolors are in real life. The are also a bit opaque, so they don't blend in quite the same way as regular watercolor.

On the Strathmore Toned Blue Mixed media cardstock, I chose some of the Turquoise colors from the Zig markers.

I really love how this one turned out. 

For the Strathmore Toned Tan Mixed Media cardstock, I chose dark oranges and red.

These lighter colored Mixed Media cardstocks worked beautifully with the Zig markers

For the Tim Holtz watercolor cardstock, I chose reds, pink and purple. For all of these last 4 cards, I embossed with gold embossing powder.

The final version of this card is shown at the top of this post. I used regular cardstock, and therefore chose colored pencils rather than a watercolor medium.

These are my favorite colors for this dark blue cardstock. This is how it looked before it was embossed.

This is how the panel that I colored with pencils looked after I put it back into my stamp platform and stamped over the coloring with Versamark ink. I embossed this one with JudiKins Silver Detail embossing powder. The card at the very top of this post was taken in brighter light and shows off the colors better.

Here are all of them with their chosen colors for matting. To finish the panels off with a sentiment, I added a Happy Birthday sentiment on vellum. I couldn't bear to cover up any of these pretty patterns. (And yes, I needed a bunch of birthday cards this month)  

The banners were die cut using a sweet little banner die which is included The Greetery Crimped Slimline die set. The Birthday stamp is from my cut up version of the Magenta Multilingual Happy Birthday stamp.

I promised to tell you the origin story of this stamp. This pattern came from a piece of china that belonged to Susie Tracy's mother. Susie is the former owner of Art 'n Soul, and a good friend of mine, and also of Helene, who owns Magenta. When Helene was visiting Susie one time, she took a photograph of the china, and voila! This beautiful stamp was born.

Magenta Products used:

40.346.Q Large Flower Tile

07.907.L Multilingual Happy Birthday

Other Products used:

Blue Colored Pencil card:

Prismacolor Pencils: PC992 Aqua,

PC905 Aquamarine, PC105 Cobalt Turquoise

PC1008 Parma Violet, PC932 Violet, 

PC1004 Yellow Chartreuse, PC1005 Limepeel,

PC912 Apple Green

PTI Dark Indigo cardstock

DCWV Foiled Silver cardstock

Versamark ink

JudiKins Detail Silver embossing powder

The Greetery Crimped Frame die

The Greetery Crimped Slimline die set

Translucent Vellum

Iuile Watercolors on Black

Iuile Christmas Series Dot Card

Stonehenge Black Watercolor Cardstock

Curious Metallic Super Gold Cardstock

Versamark ink

Ranger Gold embossing powder

The Greetery Crimped Frame die

The Greetery Crimped Slimline die set

Translucent Vellum

Toned Blue Card with Zig Markers

Strathmore Toned Blue Mixed Media Cardstock

So Silk Glamour Green Cardstock

Zig Clean Color Markers used: 042 Turquoise Green,

033 Persian Green, 047 May Green,

050 Yellow, 084 Deep Violet

Versamark ink

Ranger Gold embossing powder

The Greetery Crimped Frame die

The Greetery Crimped Slimline die set

Translucent Vellum

Toned Tan Card with Zig Markers

Strathmore Toned Tan Mixed Media Cardstock

PTI Terracotta Tile Cardstock

Zig Clean Color Markers used: 047 May Green,

060 Brown, 070 Orange, 

029 Geranium Red, 023 Scarlet Red

Versamark ink

Ranger Gold embossing powder

The Greetery Crimped Frame die

The Greetery Crimped Slimline die set

Translucent Vellum

White Card with Zig Markers

Tim Holtz Watercolor Cardstock

PTI Pure Poppy Cardstock

Zig Clean Color Markers used: 047 May Green,

029 Geranium Red, 021 Light Carmine,

080 Violet

Versamark ink

Ranger Gold embossing powder

The Greetery Crimped Frame die

The Greetery Crimped Slimline die set

Translucent Vellum