Three Trees & Two Colors in a Christmas Forest!

I thought I might dabble in the Virtual Stamp Night Challenge on Splitcoasterstampers.  They started a pre-mini challenge in early November. . .the actual event takes place December 2 & December 3.  The first pre-challenge was all about trees, even scraggly ones like Charlie Brown's Christmas tree!

I decided to use my Sizzix tree dies that I bought last year and did not get to use due to some hand issues that cut my crafting time down to zip!  I checked out the Christmas Central website for the Inspiration challenge to see if it could give some ideas of what to do with a tree or trees.  I spotted some pretty black and white items, which got my creative mojo going, and I decided a night scene with snowy forest trees would be really pretty.

I had to be clever about this as the Virtual Stamp Night requires you to spend only one hour putting your card together.  Your planning, designing, gather papers, and tools don't count against you, plus you may have pre-fold card bases available, and even some mat layers stashed.  It took me 35 minutes to die-cut and assemble my card parts.  I used a timer, and was able to pause and "punch out" when  my brain went into a re-designing mode with changes to my original thoughts, which required more tool gathering time.  I "punched" back in and went to work with more die-cutting and assembling.  I am pretty happy with the end result; take a peek below:

Ingredients:  Paper:  Stampin' Up--Whisper White (cardbase); Recollections Signature Glitter Paper/ white; Core'dinations--Black Tie; DCWV--Silver Stag Star dsp.  Dies:  Spellbinders--Tear Drop Circles; My Favorite Things--Stitched Circle STAX, Stitched Snow Drifts; Sizzix TH-Alternations--Woodlands; Cottage Cutz Expressions--Merry Christmas.  Stampin' Up: Metallic Stars (retired).  Size: 4-3/4 x 6 inches.

A "Warframe Game" Shutter Sentiment for David!

I am always looking for ideas for birthday cards that suit the recipient, such as hobbies, sports favorites, entertainment favorites (movies, Pokemon, video games, etc.), and even food.  My oldest son, David, is a video gaming hobbyist and that should be in capital letters!  He had a birthday this past week, thus, I needed a card for our celebration held this past Sunday.

His current video game favorite is Warframe, so I started my research campaign a few weeks ago to find out what this game was all about.  I Googled it, asked other members of the family who might know, etc., because  I wanted his card to be authentic.  It took a number of hours to gather enough knowledge to begin.  I resorted to downloading colored digital pictures from numerous searches, and then I was ready to begin.

This game takes place in the future on Earth and in outer space with the players as representatives of the Tenno, descendants of an ancient and mystical civilization.  I wanted to make a galaxy night sky in watercolors inks, which I did using Stampin' Up re-inkers and spritzed watered-down metallic sapphire acrylic paint, which give it a pretty, almost silvery blue sheen.  I also wanted to try out the shutter technique for the inside sentiment area.  My card is larger than the typical A2 size, so I had to find my own measurements for the parts to make the shutter panel and lens.

The shutter technique is used with a gatefold card style and has a bellyband sleeve to hold the gatefold closed.  On my card, this bellyband hosts the Warframe game logo, which is an abstract lotus flower...quite pretty, I think.

When the bellyband sleeve is removed, a picture of Earth is visible where the inhabitants of the game reside at some time far into the future.  I added this element so the card front isn't so bare once the sleeve is removed.

The card inside features a picture gallery of a few of the characters one might run into while playing the game.  On the left panel at the top is The Lotus, the advisor of the Tenno, saviors of Earth, and below her is Alad V, who becomes an occasional ally when it best suits his interests.  At the top right is Captain Vor and below him is Vay Hek, who are leaders of the armies that the Tenno must defeat.  When the card is opened, the personalized birthday verse (made by Mom) is revealed as the eye of the shutter lens opens.

Ingredients:  Papers: Stampin' Up cs: Night of Navy, Rose Red; Recollections Seaside Cardstock Pack (Lt. blue); Ranger Watercolor Paper.  Warframe Colored Digital pictures.  Stampin' Up Inks: Night of Navy, Marine Mist, Rose Red.  Folk Art Acrylic Paint watered down for spritzing.  Dies:  Stampin' Up Starburst Framelits; Spellbinders Circles LG and Circles SM.  Recollections Opaque Marker: Snow.  Score-Buddy creasing tool.  Chatterbox verse/ computer prepared.  Size: 5" x 6-1/8"

Improving on the Christmas Oldie but Goodie!

WONDROUS NEWS!  

THIS CARD IS NAMED A

SPLITCOASTSTAMPERS FAVORITE OF THE

WEEK ENDING - SEPTEMBER 16, 2017!!

In my last blog post, I made a card from an old, never used 1995 PBX stamp with a verse from the poem, The Night Before Christmas.  I entered it in several Splitcoaststampers challenges, and one in particular, the Alphabet Challenge, Round 7, it was entered for Letter J = "Just color...no dies."  The kicker is, the very next challenge for Letter I is "Improve upon your last card," which means I needed to do another card using this same stamp, CASE the card, and change it somehow by improving upon it.  Now, I really like my previous card, so all the while I was making it, I kept saying to myself, "Now, don't go overboard, because you have to leave something to do to it to improve upon it."  Take a peek below...here is my improved upon card.  I have also included the original below it so that you may see what I did to improve it:

Newest Version...improving upon the original.

Original version.

Ingredients:  Papers: Master's Touch 140# Watercolor Paper (WalMart); Core'dinations Silk Glitter Opulent Oval cs; Stampin' Up--Dazzling Diamonds Glimmer cs (retired), Night of Navy (card base).  Stamp: PSX (Personal Stamp Exchange)--Dasher Dash Away All!  Ink:  Stampin' Up--Night of Navy, Rose Red, Marine Mist; Versamark--Watermark Ink.  Paint: Folk Art Metallic Pearl White (splatters).  Gelly Roll White Gel Pen.  Stampin' Up White Embossing Powder. Dies:  Spellbinders--Layered Poinsettias; MemoryBox--Poinsettia Trio Blooms.  Offray Ribbon: White/Silver Striped Organdy (stash).  MISTI Stamping Tool.  Techniques: Heat Embossing; Watercolor background; Splattering.  Size: 4-3/4" x 6".  Inside: Computer verse.

Christmas Card from an Oldie But Goodie!

 MORE GOOD NEWS!  

THIS CARD IS NAMED A

SPLITCOASTSTAMPERS FAVORITE OF THE

WEEK ENDING - SEPTEMBER 9, 2017!!

I own what is now considered a vintage stamp, produced in 1995 by Personal Stamp Exchange (PSX) Stamps.  It is a stamp I have actually never used, but always wanted to.  There is, of course, a story behind my owning it, but never using it.  Well, I decided it was time to dig it out and use it to make my second Christmas card for 2017, and enter some challenges at Splitcoaststampers as well!  Take a peek below at my finished card, and then jump down to "The Story" below if you are interested.

Ingredients:  Papers: Master's Touch 140# Watercolor Paper (WalMart); Core'dinations Silk Glitter Opulent Oval cs; Stampin' Up Night of Navy (card base).  Stamp: PSX (Personal Stamp Exchange)--Dasher Dash Away All!  Stamp: Ink--Stampin' Up: Night of Navy, Rose Red, Marine Mist; Versamark--Watermark Ink.  Paint: Folk Art Metallic Pearl White (splatters).  Gelly Roll White Gel Pen.  Stampin' Up White Embossing Powder.  Offray Ribbon: White/Silver Organdy (stash).  MISTI Stamping Tool.  Techniques: Heat Embossing; Watercolor background; Splattering.  Size: 4-3/4" x 6".  Inside: Computer verse.

"The Story"

In 1996, I was the office manager for a brand new elementary school to which our staff had been transferred.  The principal was a very classy lady with whom I got along famously.  She really wanted our Christmas card for our new school to be very original, handmade, and using our school colors, which were navy, forest green, and maroon.  I went out on a search for the perfect idea, thus visiting Joanns, Michaels, and the local craft store.  I found this Night Before Christmas stamp that I fell in love with, but didn't really know if it would suit the principal...I could see it with gold stamping mat layers of navy and forest green, with some possibly in navy and maroon.  

I was crafting, but if you've read my blog at all, you will know that I did not become a cardmaker until 2008!  I knew nothing about papers, stamping, ink, embossing, etc., etc....so I had no idea how any of this could be accomplished, but I decided when we made a decision on what we'd do, I learn somehow!

I bought the stamp personally, because I thought it was too pricey for our school budget, and I love it.  My youngest daughter, who was a teen-ager, loved to stamp thinks and had lots of little stamps and cheap inks, so I figured eventually it would not go to waste, right!  I inked up the stamp and tried to stamp it, and found it had lots of gaps in the printing, and I could not get a good, clean image...so we did not use it at school.

When I began making cards, I did not learn embossing right away, so still didn't use it.  I did find that I did not LIKE wood stamps because it was difficult to tell where they would land and were often difficult to ink up, especially if large...so my stamp continue to stay buried away.  As the years passed, I see it every now and then at Christmas time, but by then I really didn't like wood stamps and knew it didn't ink up well.

A year ago or so, I learned wood stamps can be unmounted and made into rubber stamps used on an  acyrlic block, but not being too familiar with this trick...the stamp continue to sit.  Then came my MISTI, and I seriously became interested in unmounting this lovely Christmas stamp to see if I could get a better imprint with my MISTI.  Recently, I saw a challenge on Splitcoaststampers called "Oldies but Goodies," and I seriously became interested. 

A few nights ago, I wasn't sleeping well, so up I popped, the stamp to the microwave and stripped it with foam pad attached from its wood.  The image on this stamp was not an acyrlic sheet glued to the wood, but rather it varnished right onto the wood, therefore, I could not remove it.  My solution for this problem is to ink up the stamp and stamp on a small sheet of white printer paper just larger than the stamped image.  I take this stamped paper and many strips, vertically and horizontally, of my tape runner, and glued it down to the foam pad.  Next, I cover this stamped paper with 3" wide clear 3M tape covering the entire paper surface (at school, we called this library tape) and then fussy-cut around the taped paper up to the edge of the rubber.  When I'm ready to stamp with it, I run a few very small tape strips on the clear tape and stick it to my MISTI.  Now, it's ready to use just like any other stamp!

My first card above is done with Versamark Watercolor Ink in order to apply an embossed finished...in this case white embossing powder, which is heat set with your heat embossing tool (like a very hot mini blow dryer).  When the powder is heated, it becomes shiny.  The stamp was still difficult to ink up and took 6 applications over and over of Versamark to get it all inked, especially the word Vixen and Away, after Dash!  But, I managed and I do LOVE the stamp!!  I'm so excited that I finally used it!

Lights, Action, Shine...A Son-in-Law's Birthday Celebration!

I'M GLEEFUL!  THIS CARD IS NAMED A

SPLITCOASTSTAMPERS FAVORITE OF THE

WEEK ENDING - JULY 9, 2017!!

My oldest daughter's husband is have a milestone birthday this month...the pressure is on!  I wanted to make something really different, and I had just the thing.  I recently bought a darling Lantern die from SugarPeas, and I have been dying to use it.  Since Don and Michele like to camp a lot, I thought the lantern would be perfect for Don.

In addition, I wanted to try and meet some of the challenge requirements on Splitcoaststampers.  As it turns out, I will be able to meet three different challenges with the card I designed for Don.  It will meet the July 6th - Ways To Use It: utilizing stars in your card, the Alphabet Round 7 Challenge: Letter L...some type of light, and the Gallery Monthly Theme for April 2017: #1 - Background Check requiring focusing on the card's background by using a background technique, special paper, etc.

For my background, I decided to make a watercolor background with a night sky and lantern light.  This will be only the third time that I've actually watercolored a background, but this time it will have a totally different style as it is not at all random.  I wanted a light burst of yellows and oranges to represent the lantern light and a night sky with stars.  

I watercolored all over with Crushed Curry ink and then darkened the yellow in the area where the lantern light would be shining using upward brush strokes.  My next color for the lantern light was an streaked application of Strawberry Slush in upward brush strokes as well.  My next step was to make my galaxy-type night sky around the lantern light.  Once again, I used flicked brush strokes, but smaller, toward my lantern light.  The colors and the order I applied them over the yellow base was: Old Olive, Island Indigo, and lots of Night of Navy to finish.  I added stars to the night sky by using a paint brush and flicking it with finger snaps to sprinkle my stars in random sizes, but all very small, using White Pearl Metallic Folk Art acrylic paint watered down.  

I must say it was a challenge.  I had to do a trial run and then re-make my final piece to get my lantern light in exactly the right area without the night sky bleeding to far into it.  All in all, I'm happy I challenged myself, and I'm pretty pleased with my result.  I think Don will be pleased as well.  Take a peek below at my finished card inside and out!

Ingredients:  Stampin' Up supplies:  Papers--Basic Black cs, Gold Foil, Watercolor paper;  Stamps--Balloon Adventures (verse); High Tide ("Shine" masked); Inks--Crushed Curry, Strawberry Slush, Old Olive, Island Indigo, Night of Navy; AquaPainter.  Other supplies:  Stamps-MFT/ At the Movies; Die-Sugar Pea/ Lantern; Wink of Stella-Clear (lantern light + sentiment words). Folk Art-White Pearl Metallic Acrylic paint.  Techniques:  Watercolor background; Paint Flicking (stars); Stamped Verse.  Size:  4-3/4" x 6".