Father Knows Best with Gayatri

Hello and welcome back. Gayatri here with a Father’s Day card today. In Australia, Father’s day is 2nd of September. For the card, I used The write Stuff: Leave it to Dad stamp set to make my card.

I used various Altenew inks to stamp an entire white panel using the speech bubble from the stamp set. Then I stamped the secondary sentiment inside each speech bubble using black ink. I trimmed the panel to 4x5.25 inch in size and adhered on a white card base using foam adhesive.

For the focal point, I white heat embossed the frame and the silhouette images on heavy weight vellum, trimmed and adhered on the centre of the card front using foam adhesive hidden behind the silhouette embossed image.

Finally the main sentiment I white heat embossed on a strip of black cardstock and adhered below the white heat embossed silhouette image using foam adhesive. A few white Nuvo crystal drops to complete the card.

 

I love the colourful background with all the white space and white embossed focal image. A different father’s day card. Hope you enjoyed it. Thanks for visiting. w&w supplies listed below.

Brutus Monroe + Winnie & Walter Collaboration Week | Day 4

Hello Folks! I'm super excited to share the projects I made in collaboration with Brutus Monroe!

 

The first project uses the most adorable snow globe stamp of Chicago that's actually on sale for only $4 right now!! Not from Chicago? You still may be in luck ... there are 7 other American cities available. As soon as I saw this I clicked on the order button because I thought it would be perfect for stamping on my envelopes. And it is! Unlike stamps for your cards, which you may only use a handful of times, a stamp like this for your envelope is fair game to be used all the time, just like a return address stamp. So you definitely get your money's worth. 

I made a mask for the globe and inked some of Catherine Pooler's Green Tea Ink through the Winnie & Walter Multifaceted Creative Screening to make the geometric ground. It gives me the impression of stylized roads on a map. On the top of the envelope I sponged a little of Catherine Pooler's Mint to Be through Scenery: Bang Bang Circle Creative Screening. 

I just wrote the return address around the curve of the globe. I used to collect stamps as a kid (because they were paper, after all ... I'm telling you, I've had a thing for paper all my life!) Unfortunately, most of the stamps are completely worthless, so I'm going to start adding some to my envelopes I think. Honestly, I've got thousands of them.

Now, let's find something to fill all those adorable envelopes I'm going to have on hand! 

Did you know that Ken Oliver partnered with Brutus Monroe to release a set of Color Burst watercolor medium? I was so excited to see this! Two years ago at Creativeation I was fortunate to spend some time with Ken watching him demonstrate the Color Burst. It's truly amazing! In case you haven't heard of Color Burst before, it's a powder that contains concentrated amounts of color. Water releases the color, so if you tap some flecks of powder on your watercolor paper, and then spritz them with water, the color LITERALLY BURSTS across your paper. You have to see this for yourself. It's really amazing. Anyway, I never got around to playing with these two years ago, so I was very excited for the opportunity during this Winnie & Walter and Brutus Monroe collaboration. 

Let's take a look!

This was the first watercolor panel I played around with. I made the entire surface damp and then sprinkled several bits of Jack O Lantern powder all over. I sprayed it again with water several times until the color spread pretty evenly and I was left with a mostly solid orange piece of paper. Not terribly exciting. So I sprayed it again with water and added the Marsala to get some deep spots of color. It's so neat how you can just keep adding water and color until you're satisfied. 

Then I used the Brutus Monroe Mixed Media Stencil - Peacock to spray some purple ink on the light areas and some gold ink on the dark areas. Getting better! 

With these colors, a Halloween card was just begging to be made, so I got out the Winnie & Walter Moonlight set and stamped some bats flying around, as well as the pumpkin witch and sentiment. Boy did it feel good to not have any rules and just play around with the colors!

I started this card out with the Marsala because I feel in love with its deep hue. To spice it up I added some Cabbage powder and sprayed it with water to get the "burst." It's interesting that this green color has so many other colors mixed in ... you can see bits of red, aqua, and yellow along with the green. That's perfectly OK for this exercise, I was just a little surprised. In the end it turned out looking (to me, very loosely) like leaves on a tree, with the purple sunset in the background. 

Once the background is done, I go shopping in my binder of extra die cuts from prior projects that I didn't throw away, BECAUSE I MIGHT NEED IT SOMEDAY. Well, someday has come, and I'm enjoying shopping through all the available bits and pieces. I found a "love" die cut from In a Word: Love Coordinating Cutaways that happened to be covered with burlap! Ooooh, that texture!! And with all that texture, a metallic gold "you" from The Big The Bold and You Cutaways is the perfect counterpoint to adhere on top. 

 

After all of that imagining seeing a tree in the last card, I thought why not try and make a tree! I made a green and blue background and dried the card. Then another layer of green for the leafy area, and then dry the card. Finally, one last layer of Jack O Lantern to make a trunk. 

 Not bad! Not sure if you saw, but this month we are highlighting stamps in the The Write Stuff: Picture Perfect set for the Rerun feature (there's still a week left to participate!) This camera is really one of my favorites! I cut the middle of the camera body out to make it easier to see what patterned paper would be nice to add there, and settled on this starburst feature. The "adventure" sentiment is from The Big, the Bold and Fun Cutaways.

Oh my, this is totally one of my favorites, perhaps all year! I swear I needed sunglasses while working on it : ) The intensity and brightness of these colors is just amazing. This watercolor panel started out wet and I just added powder, re-wet it, added powder, re-wet it, etc. 

 The "happy" die cut sentiment is from In a Word Happy Cutaways. I threaded a gold embossed "happy birthday" from Sentimental: Birthday through the cursive font of the die cut. I love staring at these inked creations to see if you can find something that stands out. To me, I see pansies with those tiny yellow centers on the card.

 My final card is a take on the classic rainbow melting crayons art work. I sprayed the top portion of the card with water and sprinkled a few bits of powder on that area in rainbow order. A couple more sprays of water to get the color really nice and moveable, and then I tilted the watercolor panel up so the color would drip down. 

A "congrats" from The Big The Bold and You Cutaways is all I needed to finish the card. Oh WAIT, we haven't talked about the bottle cap sequins!!! These were a fun discovery! There's a whole section of these at Brutus Monroe. They have crimped ridges on the ends, but are nice and flat so you can adhere them to your cards. 

What a fun time this was, playing around with the Color Burst! I'm kicking myself for not doing this two years ago after I got home from Creativation. It seemed like a big deal to figure out how to use them. But nope, not much to figure out. All you do is sprinkle the powder, and spray with water! 

Thanks so much for stopping by! Let me know if you end up playing with the Color Bursts!

- Kelly


Note: Don't forget to enter to win a $25.00 Brutus Monroe gift card HERE and check out the Brutus Monroe blog for more extraordinary inspiration!

Brutus Monroe + Winnie & Walter Collaboration Week | Day 3

Happy Wednesday lovelies!

It's Shay here again with a card I created using Brutus Monroe's Simple Blend - Square and some w&w products.  I am having fun with the Simple Blends and different ways to use them.  For this card I used both the stencil (the stencil with the square cut out) and the square mask.

I began with the stencil over a card base and stamped the outline leaves in grey ink from In Bloom: Carolina's Florals with Angelica Suarez in each corner and then the matching solid leaf in Distress Oxide in lucky clover.  I also stamped the outline tulip 4 times from the same stamp set in grey ink and then used the solid tulip in abandoned coral over it.  I used Waterbrush (medium tip) and some turquoise spray to color in the rest of the square.  I then placed the square mask in the square hole and removed the stencil but kept the square mask in place.

I placed the Scenery: Grand Trellis Creative Screenings over the square mask (feel free to use washi or other tape to keep the masks and stencils and even the card base in place as it really helps) and used the waterbrush again with some watered down turquoise spray to color in most of each diamond and then finished painting in the upper portions of each diagonal with some watered down yellow spray.  I then used some watered down grey ink and the waterbrush to color around the square and give it definition and shading.

As I thought the background was a bit busy I brushed on with a dry brush some white acrylic paint over the diamond background (much better and softer).

Next I stamped the "happy" from the same stamp set in broken china and cut it out using the matching die from In Bloom: Carolina's Florals with Angelica Suarez Cutaways.  I stamped the smaller sentiment from the same stamp set in abandoned coral and then again in grey ink onto a strip of cardstock and adhered the happy onto the strip before adhering it all to the card using dimensional foam adhesive.

I added some yellow enamel dots.  And because I adore splatters (who knew, right?) I masked off the square again and flicked some turquoise ink onto the card.

I am loving that I could get those 2 layers (the focal square and trellis background) without the bulk of actual layering by using the Simple Blend - Square.  What do you think?

Don't forget to enter to win a $25.00 Brutus Monroe gift card HERE and check out the Brutus Monroe blog for more extraordinary inspiration!

Brutus Monroe + Winnie & Walter Collaboration Week | Day 2

Hello there lovelies!

It's Shay here today with a card I created using Brutus Monroe's Simple Blend - Circle and some w&w products.  I love simple tools that give you a lot of possibilities which these Simple Blend stencils do.  I actually used the circle mask that comes in the set.

 

I masked off the circle and then placed the Scenery: Classic Diagonal Creative Screenings over it and blended in some Distress Oxide inks in blues and greens. (salty ocean, broken china, peacock feathers, cracked pistachio and lucky clover).  Then I used the circle wreath in Comfort + Joy and stamped salty ocean and lucky clover around the edge of the circle mask.  I then die cut In a Word: Celebrate Cutaway 3 times in blue and green cardstock and adhered then over the circle.

 

Fun and easy, right?  I also love that you can give this to a guy or a gal of nearly any age.

Don't forget to enter to win a $25.00 Brutus Monroe gift card HERE and check out the Brutus Monroe blog for more extraordinary inspiration!

Brutus Monroe + Winnie & Walter Collaboration Week | Day 1

Hello there loverlies!

This week we are collaborating with the awesome people at Brutus Monroe.  We will have prizes and inspiration for you on our blog and theirs.  Today I wanted to get you all to head on over to Brutus Monroe and check out all the incredible products they offer and then come back here and comment and let me know what is on your wishlist.  I will pick one lucky randomly chosen winner to receive a $25.00 gift card to Brutus Monroe to help with getting those items on your wishlist. :-)  Comments will be open until Monday, August 27, 2018 11:59 p.m. CST.

Don't forget to check out their blog for inspiration this week too!!

Hugs,
Shay.

August Leading Lady Tracey McNeeley | Take Three

Our August Leading Lady, Tracey McNeely is back for her triumphant third performance!  If you missed her smashing debut you must see it...CLICK HERE or her sensational second performance all about backgrounds CLICK HERE.   It's time to get inky as Tracey has a couple of awesome cards to share!

Without further ado, Tracey...

Here we are back to Saturday once again and I am taking over the Winnie & Walter blog with my Week 3 post as the August Leading Lady.

This week I am focusing my projects on ways that I love to use Distress Oxide inks with my stamped projects! For me I was instantly in love with the properties of these inks and how much fun they are to use and blend together. I use them for blending, for smooshing, for watercolouring and even for stamping.

For my first project I combined embossing with blending to create this card that I made for my husband for today which is our 28th wedding anniversary! I actually made two cards the same but used different ink colours. I started by white heat embossing the hearts from Scenery: Seeing Hearts across the top of my panel of Bristol Smooth cardstock. I use Bristol Smooth cardstock for most of my Distress Oxide ink projects because of the way the inks blend so smoothly on it and also because it can take a bit of water. After I embossed the hearts I blended my background on the first card with Tumbled Glass, Mustard Seed, Ripe Persimmon and Warm Lipstick Distress Oxide ink. As I blended the inks I used clean pieces of white copy paper to hold the paper as I blended so that I didn't get any fingerprints on the panel as I worked.

After a blended the ink I use a clean paper towel to wipe the excess ink off of the embossed hearts. I flicked some water on to the panel and absorbed it back along with some of the colour with clean paper towel so you can see some of the oxidization. My sentiment 'love you' came from the In a Word: Love clear stamp set. It was clear heat embossed with VersaFine Onyx Black ink.

For the second project, with the same design, I blended Tumbled Glass, Squeezed Lemonade and Worn Lipstick Distress Oxide inks.  I flicked some water on to the panel and absorbed it back along with some of the colour with clean paper towel so you can see some of the oxidization. Once again my sentiment 'love you' came from the In a Word: Love clear stamp set. It was clear heat embossed with VersaFine Onyx Black ink.

My third and final project was done with my most favourite technique to do with Distress Oxide inks--smooshing. I laid some Shaded Lilac, Seedless Preserves and Crushed Olive Distress Oxide inks on to my craft mat and spritzed the inks with water. Then I took a 5 1/4" x 4" panel of Bristol Smooth cardstock and quickly swiped into through the inks, on an angle, in one pass and set it onto a piece of paper towel to dry. Once dry I stamped my image from Welcome to the Family with Evelyn T. Designs and the tiny 'sweet baby' on to the panel. The In a Word: Cuddles Cutaway was cut three times from white cardstock and glued together for dimension before it was adhered just above the 'sweet baby' sentiment.

I have a  $30 gift certificate for Winnie & Walter gift certificate to giveaway on my blog, In My Creative Opinion. Visit all four of my Leading Lady posts this month and leave me a comment. On September 3rd I will draw a name from all my comments from over the month to win.  You can enter once each week so you could have up to four chances to win...good luck!

I hope you enjoyed learning how I use Distress Oxide inks to created backgrounds for my cards. See you again next Saturday for another Leading Lady post. Have a great day.

Wishing You a Merry Christmas with Gayatri

Hello everyone, Gayatri here with you today. I have my very first Christmas card for 2018 to share with you today. I know it is very early. Last year I put off making  Christmas Card until last minute and it did not go well. So I decided to start nice and early to make a good collection of cards ready to post when time is ready.

For this card, I used Happy Christmas and Merry & Bright with Evelin T Designs stamp sets. I used the  poinsettia stamp set from Happy Christmas stamp set and stamped around the kraft panel using masking technique. This makes a good border. I trimmed the panel to 4’x5.25’ in size. Then I coloured the poinsettia using copic markers. I used R24, R27, R29, R30, R59 for the flowers and YG21 and YG23 for the leaves.

I then spattered some gold Colour Shine spray and once dry, I sponged the edges with white pigment ink to soften the panel. Using MISTI I stamped the sentiment from Merry & Bright stamp set using black ink. I added some Nuvo white blizzard crystal drop to add some texture to the card.

I adhered this panel to a Kraft card base. I also sponged the card front with white pigment ink on the edges. This card is simple, rich of colours and easy to make. You can stamp a number of panels one day, another day colour them, then stamp… Have a assembly line to make a set of 10 such cards. If you find colouring the poinsettia tedious, then use larger image so you have less images to colour. Hope I have kick started your Christmas card making or at least got you thinking about it :) The w&w supplies I used are listed below. See you in another post this month.

Family Recipes with Kelly

Hi Folks! Kelly here with a few more pages from our final Family Recipe Scrapbook. For those who haven't seen my prior posts throughout the years, for each of my husband's 8 cousins, our family has gathered their favorite recipes to present the bride-to-be at her wedding shower. I've made the recipes, along with photos, into a scrapbook. Our intention is to show the new couple that they're surrounded by loving family who are always around if they need help (especially on what to cook for dinner!)

This page uses the gorgeous sunflower from In Bloom: Anna's Flora to make a little collection of flowers in the lower right corner. The "family" from The Big, the Bold and Blessings Cutaways is cut from gold foil, again to compliment all the yellows and golds. The secondary sentiments "smiles," "lots of love," and "giant hugs" are all from Sending You with Evelin T Designs.

I have to admit, it had been awhile since I'd done much scrapbooking and I was surprised at how much I missed it. I was also surprised at how much I had to think about how to us a canvas that wasn't 4 1/4" x 5 1/2"! Layering the words and flowers over the photos helped. I chose the sunflowers because they pull in the gorgeous yellow sweater, golden light, and yellow grasses from the photos. 

The sunflowers were really fun to watercolor. A few different yellows and browns for the petals, and then a shaded center. I inked the dots in an orange/brown and then before stamping them in the center I inked the edges of the dots in a darker brown. 

 This page is a simple one and relies just on and angled "hugs" from The Big, the Bold and Friends Cutaways being cut from the heart in Flawless Heart Cutaway. 

Even though it's simple, there's still a little something to it with the gold sparkle cardstock. Again, the hearts are layered over the photos.

I have to admit, even though these take a ridiculous amount of time, I will miss not working on a recipe scrapbook anymore. I guess that just means that I need to get back to scrapbooking my own family! : ) Hopefully before they all graduate!!

Thanks for looking!

Kelly