Technique Tuesday #7 Distress Ink Blended Sunset

Hello! I hope you had a great start to your week.

I'm back today with another Technique Tuesday and this time I used some Distress Ink blending to create a sunset effect on 2 cards.

Isn't that effect awesome? Those of you who have followed me for a while will know that I love Kay Fatula's beautiful butterfly embellishments, I have lots in a box but I can't always manage to find the right space on my cards for them. Well I knew that would just be perfect for this, so I happily dug them out of storage to use here.

I used 3 colours of Distress Ink here and I'll admit that I got so excited at how well this turned out that I forget to note the colours. There was a yellow that may have been Fossilized Amber and an Orange that was Carved Pumpkin, but I can't remember exactly the pink colour, I'm actually thinking that it may have been Candied Apple, which is a red but if used lightly it is more of a reddish pink, pinkish orange tone, or it may have been worn lipstick, but really you just need a pink/red, a yellow and an orange colour that work together.

I built the colour up gradually with my ink blending tools, on some cold pressed watercolour paper. This will give you a textured effect so you may prefer to use smooth paper, I quite like the added texture and I personally find that you can use a much lighter touch when using the cold pressed watercolour paper as the ink transfers very easily and lightly without leaving harsh lines which makes it super easy to blend dry. I blended the pink into the orange into the yellow for a natural blend. I then flicked some drops of water over the page and let it sit for a few moments before blotting with a piece of kitchen roll. Then I lightly flicked some white acrylic paint over.

Once fully dry I then stamped the Flight of the Butterflies stamp with Vesrafine ink in Onyx Black. I masked some of the stamping and restamped to get a bigger flight of butterflies. I used my MISTI stamping tool to help me do this more easily. I stamped one of the single butterfly stamps from the set into one of the spaces.

Then I gave everything a liberal spritz of Glimmer Mist, I do this over a sink so I create minimal mess.

Once dry I cut the finished piece into 2 strips (2 cards for the price of one, who doesn't love a bargain?), and trimmed the top and bottom so they would fit on my card bases, and then mounted them on some thin black cardstock so that you see a narrow strip of black on either side, this really helps it stand out on my white card base and pulls in the black from the stamping, both on the blended strip and the white card base.

For this card I stamped the Life is like a Butterfly sentiment directly onto my card using my MISTI to get just the right position, then I adhered the strip to my card and glued on this gorgeous butterfly from Kay with some Multi Medium Matte from Ranger. Finally I used some orange enamel dots from the Whimsy Summer Breeze set and some black enamel dots I had in my stash for ages. I think it looks really striking.

For my second card I decided to use the panel on the other side of the card,  I stamped the Thinking of You sentiment from the set with Black Versafine ink and then adhered my panel. I used this beautiful 'glass' butterfly embellishment from Kay and then I cut a few tiny butterflies from a scrap of the blended cardstock and the thin back card using a die from Memory Box. For the inked butterflies I used a little Wink of Stella to give them some added sparkle but I left the black ones matte. I glued all the butterflies down with some Multi Medium Matte.

Items Used:

Mini Distress Ink Pads
Blending Tools
Plain White Cardstock
Plain Black Cardstock
Cold Pressed Watercolour Paper
White Acrylic Paint

Whimsy Stamps Flight of the Butterflies Clear Stamp Set
Versafine Ink Onyx Black
Whimsy Summer Breeze Enamel Dots

Memory Box Dancing Butterflies Die
Butterfly Embellishments

I hope you liked today's Technique Tuesday and that it gave you some inspiration. I really enjoyed creating these and am thrilled with how they turned out.

Thanks for visiting and I'll see you soon!

Bye Bye Christmas

Well this is it, honest to goodness my last Christmas card of 2016. What's that? It's 2017 you say? Shhhhhh now, move along....nothing to see here......

But, this will be my last Christmas card for a little while. I love them, but really, I'm ready for something else now lol!

Today's card features an older Whimsy Stamp and die set, Penguins Winter Adventure's Clear Stamp Set and Penguins Winter Adventure die set I do love a penguin so I had to have these. I got them a little late in the year, so I only managed this card, but I will make some more with this set later in the year for sure.

I stamped the little penguin with Versafine Onyx Black, and then coloured with my distress ink markers.

The background was made by painting with distress inks on some cold pressed watercolour paper in Wilted Violet, Spun Sugar and Picked Raspberry and then once dry stamping some of the little snowflakes from the set in Versamark and heat embossing with white embossing powder.

Then I trimmed into a square and cut into 3 strips.

I stamped one of the sentiments from the set onto my card base and then mounted my strips on some foam tape. I glued a little die cut circle on the top after die cutting my penguin with the matching die I popped that up on the circle with some more foam tape.

Finally I added some tiny gems to the centres of my snowflakes and the dot on the i.

You can find both the stamp and die set over at Dies to Die for in the UK.

That's it, Christmas is officially over in the Levoir household, onto Valentines and Spring creations!

That's all for today, but I'll be back on Sunday with something different

Thanks for visiting!

Technique Tuesday #6 Watercolour Night Skies

Hello!

Welcome to my first Technique Tuesday of 2017! Unfortunately I'm afraid you'll have to suffer a couple of Christmas cards again for this, but the next one will be non Christmasy I promise!

Today's cards are showcasing some backgrounds where I played around with making a night sky with distress inks.

For the first card I blended some Blueprint Sketch and some Wilted Violet straight onto some smooth watercolour paper with my markers and then added water with a large brush and blended them together where they met for a subtle ombre effect. I added a little Chipped Sapphire towards the top to darken it a bit more.

Once dry I added some drops of water left for a while and then blotted to lift the colour in some spots. Then I gave it a liberal spray of glimmer mist.

Once fully dry again I added some dots of white acrylic paint and added some small 'stars' with a Sakura Silver Star Gelly Roll pen.

I cut a curved shape from white cardstock and then stamped coloured and cut out the 2 snowmen from the Mama Elephant Polar Pals set along with the star garland from the same set and popped them all up with a little foam tape.

Then I stamped and heat embossed a sentiment from the Mama Elephant Polar Pals set, which I bent a little to follow the shape of the aperture I'd cut from white cardstock to frame the scene. I glued the whole scene onto my base card.

Finally I added my 'frame' with some foam tape for a little dimension and finished with a few glittery enamel dots.

For my second card I played around with a kind of galaxy sky. I used Chipped Sapphire and Faded Jeans distress inks applying fairly randomly and blending but keeping the middle a little lighter.

Then I added some drops of water as before, but this time I went back and added some more and moved it around a bit for a more splotchy look.

I then flicked on some white acrylic paint and finished with some small dots with a glitter pen. Then I cut it to size and glued it on my card base.

I coloured the penguins from the Polar Pals set with my distress ink markers to look a bit like robins and cut them out with the matching dies. Then I cut a small circle of white cardstock and embossed with some glitter embossing powder. I cut a strip of white cardstock and cut an angle at one end and stamped on a sentiment from the same set. I glued on the 'moon' and them arranged my robins and sentiment strip on some foam tape for dimension.

Finally I added a few clear gems to the sky and a couple of glitter enamel dots to the sentiment strip.

Items Used

Plain white cardstock

Hot pressed watercolour paper.

Versafne Ink Black Onyx

Versamark ink

Silver Embossing Powder

Mama Elephant Polar Pals Clear Stamp Set

Mama Elephant Polar Pals Creative Cuts

Distress Ink Markers

Clear Gems 

Whimsy Stamps Winter Wishes Enamel Dots

Sakura Gelly Roll Pen Silver Star

White Acrylic Paint

That's all from me today, but I hope you've enjoyed my post today and feel inspired to try some night skies, I may try my hand at some Northern Lights or Fireworks next time I try them!

Technique Tuesday # 5 - Watercolour Smooshed Background and Heat Embossed Sentiment.

Hi everyone, I'm back with another Technique Tuesday, and this time I've been playing around with splodging watercolour backgrounds.

This is a really fun technique where you use really watery paints or inks and wet watercolour paper and just kind of let it do it's thing lol. The little splotches are made by flicking water on to it once it's dry and then lifting the colour with some kitchen towel.

I cut the area I liked out with my Stitched Rectangles Die and stamped and heat embossed a sentiment from Mama Elephant's Jingle Greetings Set

I mounted it onto some green cardstock and then mounted it onto some lighter green card and then onto my card base. I thought the pale green card looked a little plain so I gave it a liberal coating of Wink of Stella to liven it up a bit. I finished my card with a little chipboard snowflake sponged with green ink and coated with Wink of Stella and a few sequins.

I'll be back tomorrow with another Christmas card for you.

Technique Tuesday #2 - Embossed & Blended Background with Embossing on Vellum

Morning!

It's Tuesday again and I have another of my experiments for you. Well this is a combo of technique experiments really.

Firstly I took a piece of heavy watercolour paper and blended 3 different blue/green distress inks and gave them a good wash of water to fade them out and blend them nicely. After drying I gave a little spritz with a Linday's Starburst Spray in Sea Mint Green and then dabbed it with some kitchen towel to lift the colour. This still leaves behind the shimmer and gives a lovely effect that I couldn't quite manage to show up on camera.

After drying it off again I ran it through my machine inside an old embossing folder that I've had for ages and never really used, but I thought it worked rather nicely for this.

I stamped a sentiment with Versamark ink on a piece of vellum using the Mama Elephant - Jingle Greetings Clear stamp Set, and then embossed with white embossing powder.

I adhered the strip to the embossed panel just on the edges and then covered the edges with a frame cut using the Whimsy Stamps Shaker Builder Die

Finally I mounted it with some foam tape on a little turquoise cardstock then stuck the whole thing to a white card base and added a few clear sequins to embellish.

I really enjoyed making the whole thing and I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out.  One more Christmas card ticked off of the list!

See you soon!