Floral Coffee Mug Card

Today’s card was completely borne out of experimentation- I had no idea if it would work or not!  I love to create this way, but usually do not have the time to do so.

I wanted to paint with alcohol inks onto vellum to create a watercolored look and I love how it turned out.

To make the card:

1. I die cut several coffee mugs with the die from the Coffee Mug Card die out of Neenah 110 lb solar white cardstock and Bazill thick vellum.  I highly recommend using this vellum because it can stand up to heat embossing and the inks very well by not warping!
2. After using a powder tool, I stamped the Love You Bunches floral image with Versamark ink onto the vellum die cut and then heat embossed Brutus Monroe gold glitter embossing powder onto it.
3. Grabbing an acrylic block, 3 pearl alcohol inks (Intrigue, Alchemy & Sublime) as well as an alcohol mixative, I placed a couple of drops of each color as I used it.  You have to work fairly quickly since the alcohol evaporates fairly quickly and leaves dry ink behind, but you can always reconstitute the ink with some alcohol pretty easily.  I used a small paint brush to apply the color and just working and layering color in different areas until I was happy with the result.
4. As a final touch I added the word HUGS inside the card and the word “sending” on the outside of the card using the Sending Hugs die set.  

It was immensely satisfying to paint with the alcohol ink, I know alcohol inks are very trendy right now- I hope this inspires you to pull out your inks and give it a try.

Thank you for stopping by!

 

Easter Tags

Happy Spring! I can hardly believe that Easter is around the corner.  I decided to make a few Easter tags to adorn some of the Easter baskets I’m going to give to friends.

I have a large assortment of tag, large and small, white and colored.  While many companies have tag dies, I chose to use some small white tags from my collection.  I’ll admit, I’m pretty obsessed with the Winter Botanical stamp and die set.  I stamped several images in a very pale grey ink and die cut them.  I stamped the bow in Versamark ink and heat embossed with Wow sand dunes embossing powder.  I colored the other images with the copic markers G43, YG67, V22 and V25 as shown below.

I decided against putting a sentiment on the tag because I thought the simple look was elegant.  I’ll write Happy Easter on the back of the tag before I put it on an Easter basket.

Thank you for stopping by!

Stamps: Trinity Stamps Winter Botanical

Dies: Trinity Stamps WInter Botanical

Watercolor Card with inks & markers

I was itching to do a watercolor card, I truly love to watercolor, but have mostly spending time copic coloring (which I love as well).  I wanted to show that you can use the lovely Catherine Pooler inks to create a watercolor effect on a card very easily.

I applied Catherine Pooler Seafoam Ink to a block quite heavily, spritzed the block with shimmer spray (instead of plain water) and flipped the block over and let it sit on a panel of Tim Holtz watercolor paper for a few minutes (3 or so).  The panel shown above is actually a second generation spritzing of the block after removing it from the first watercolor paper panel.  I wanted a fairly faint color block and the first panel was quite dark.  The second generation “stamping” (without the addition of additional color) was perfect for the card I wanted to make.  I then diluted some gold Peerless watercolor with water and gently tapped a brush over the panel that I had loaded with color.  It is very faint, but enough for what I wanted.

Meanwhile, while allowing the watercolor paper dry fully, I stamped some images from the Trinity Stamps Winter Botanical stamp set and heat embossed some Wow Under the Sea embossing powder.  This is my favorite color of embossing powder that I own!

To finish the card off, I stamped some images from the Trinity Stamps Coffee with Character set and watercolored them with a Zig real brush watercolor pen.  Adhering some sequins and sequin cord to the top with Gina K connect glue, and stamping a sentiment from the Trinity Stamps Let Love Grow stamp set finished up the card.

I hope that this card inspires you to pull out your watercolors and paint away!  Thank you for stopping by!

Affiliate links used at no extra cost to you.  Thank you for your support!

Winter Botanicals, Trinity Stamps Dies

Coffee With Character, Trinity Stamps Dies

Winter Botanicals, Trinity Stamps Clear Stamps

Let Love Grow, Trinity Stamps Clear Stamps

Coffee With Character, Trinity Stamps Clear Stamps

Let Love Grow, Trinity Stamps Dies

WOW Embossing Powder, Regular – Under the Sea

ZIG Clean Color Real Brush Marker 302, Haze Blue

Ranger Tim Holtz Distress Watercolor Cardstock, 8-1/2 x 11

Catherine Pooler Ink Pad, Seafoam

 

Sunrise-inspired Valentine’s Day card

Two recent photos served as the inspiration for today’s card. My friend Alexia is a runner and gets up at the crack of dawn to run and photograph the sunrise.  Her photos are amazing!

Her photos and a recent sneak peek of a card that Carly Tee Minner made helped me decide to make a sunrise with soft colors and turn a snowy sentiment into a Valentine’s Card.

I have often had trouble picking a palette of colors to use for a card, but it was easy this time.  Trying to mimic a sunrise’s colors of pinks and oranges, I chose several Distress Oxide inks: dried marigold, picked raspberry, spun sugar and worn lipstick.  The Trinity Stamps blendability brushes truly make blending easy and fun.  I have shied away from making backgrounds such as the one used to make this card because of the difficulty in getting an even transition in coloring.  I would never be able to make the perfect background in one try; invariably the color would be too heavy in one area where I wanted lighter coverage and vice versa.  It is easy to fix lighter coverage by simply adding more color, but not so for heavy coverage.  The blendability brushes give the control back to the user without having to first wipe off a lot of color.

I used a cloud stencil from My Favorite Things (products used are below) to create the dreamy clouds using the distress oxide inks on a 4.25 by 5.5 inch cardstock panel.  I used Picked Raspberry & marigold at the top of the card, transitioned to worn lipstick & marigold in the middle and then spun sugar & marigold toward the bottom of the panel.  I never wiped the brush in between any of these transitions, which I think helped create a gradient of continuous and gradually lighter color.

I decided that to use the Trinity Stamp stamp set “If kisses were snowflakes, I’d send you a blizzard” in puff white embossing powder to tie it into the cloud scene and I love the result.  First apply a powder tool to lightly coat the panel and then use versamark ink to stamp the sentiment.  Apply the white puff embossing powder and shake off the excess before heat setting with a heat gun.

The card needed some final small embellishments, so I used a die from a recent Ellen Hutson release- “Confetti Kisses & Tic Tac Toe” by one of my favorite designers Julie Ebersole.  I wanted the hearts to really pop, so I used the two darkest distress oxides (picked raspberry & worn lipstick) and apply these heavily to cardstock prior die cutting. The die cut hearts combined with the sweet & tart candy hearts from Trinity Stamps really pull the card together don’t you think?

Thank you for stopping by! Have a happy crafty day!

Supply list: Affiliate links used at no extra cost to you. Thank you for your support!

Confetti Kisses & Tic Tac Toe By Julie Ebersole, Essentials By Ellen Die Combo

Ranger Distress Oxide Ink Pad, Spun Sugar

Ranger Distress Oxide Ink Pad, Dried Marigold

Ranger Distress Oxide Ink Pad, Worn Lipstick

Ranger Distress Oxide Ink Pad, Picked Raspberry

Blendability Brush Set, Trinity Stamps

Sweet & Tart Candy Hearts, Trinity Stamps Embellishments

My Favorite Things Stencils, Cloud

 

Magical Wizard Valentines

I love to give my daughter a little card and gift each year for Valentine’s Day. This year I decided to change things up and make a little Valentine’s display that can be hung up on a wall or on a door.  We both happen to love the Wizarding World of Harry Potter and so I thought that I would combine the two and make it a Harry Potter Valentine’s Day. I used the Wizard Friends stamp setand the Magical Sentiments stamp setand die set.

Not having a die cut to make what I envisioned, I turned to my Silhouette Cameo and made a heart with a stitched line rectangle inside.  You can easily make one yourself, or feel free to download the one I made here.

I love to add sparkle to anything I make, so I decided to start out with Crafter’s Companion Shimmer Cardstock in rose pear; my cameo cut these out easily using the setting for “Silhouette-brand” chipboard (this cardstock is quite thick).  I then cut out 2 inch by 3 inch rectangles of lighter weight Neenah cardstock as can be seen in the photo here:

I ultimately decided for even more sparkle using various WOW embossing powders listed at the end of this post and shown here:

I decided to stamp my images with ink first prior to heat embossing with WOW powder.  Using a MISTI or similar tool allows one to do this easily. Simply stamp with the desired copic-friendly ink, wipe off the stamp then copic color so as not to have your copic colors interact with the embossing powder.  Now place the image again in the same spot in the MISTI, ink up the stamp with versamark ink and stamp again.  Add your favorite embossing powder and then heat set with a heat gun.  Easy peasy and the results are lovely!  I chose to do it this way because 1) some lighter embossing powders do not show up as well on light cardstock and 2) some images, such as the phoenix, need a mixture of gold and red to really come to life.

Once you have finished a 2 inch by 3 inch panel, adhere it to one of the hearts within the outlined area.  Gently fold along the dotted lines to make the heart into an envelope.  Adhere a inch ribbon to the front (as shown in the photo below); using this length of ribbon will allow you to intertwine the hearts as shown in the first photo. As a final touch you can add a heart to cover up the ribbon, so that when you fold it up, it will look like an envelope.

I hope that I inspired you to make your own valentines this year for all your valentines!  Thank you for stopping by!

All links below are affiliate links- they will lead you to Ellen Hutson’s shop where I will receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.  Thank you for your support!

Magical Sentiments, Trinity Stamps Clear Stamps

Wizard Friends, Trinity Stamps Clear Stamps

Wizard Friends, Trinity Stamps Dies

Magical Sentiment, Trinity Stamps Dies

Crafter’s Companion Shimmering Cardstock, Rose Pearl (Retiring)

WOW Embossing Powder, Regular – Golden Flame

WOW Embossing Powder, Regular – Under the Sea

WOW Embossing Powder, White Puff

WOW! Embossing Powder, Regular – Cupid

WOW Sparkles – Premium Glitter, Stroke of Midnight

 

Blendabilities Brushes Birthday Card

I usually try to have a blog post up on the same day as the corresponding YouTube video goes up on the Trinity Channel.  Sorry for the delay this week, here is the video for the card shown above.

I’m using a new product from Trinity Stamps- the blendability brushes.  I am so thrilled to have these brushes, they make blending so much easier than the foam pads I’ve used before.  There is no need to pounce the color off on a scrap piece of paper prior to adding it to your card- simply control the amount of color on your card by applying varying degrees of pressure- that’s it!  So use a light amount of pressure if you want a thin sheen of color and apply a large amount of pressure if you want a lot of color!

What’s new in this video is that I have used (what I call) a wet blending technique.  By mistake (a happy mistake) I cleaned off a brush and had residual water on it.  I started to blend using a wet brush and presto- not only did I get lovely blended color, but the paper expanded, just a little, in the areas I had applied color.  It’s difficult to see in the photos, but the white areas where I did not add color retained a tight, almost puffy, dimension when compared to the areas where I did add color.  Voila- puffy clouds!  Completely by accident!  I will definitely use this technique again and again.

I hope you will give the Trinity Stamps blendability brushes a try- they make blending truly effortless!

Thank you for stopping by!