Distress Ink Panels Made into Cards :)

Hi There!

I sat down yesterday to make some cards from the Distress Ink panels I created the other day. 

This first one is a gatefold card inspired by cards made by Jennifer McGuire here. The idea of gatefold cards is inspired, but my execution of it leaves a little to be desired. 

I got the idea to add the distress ink panel after I cut the gate-fold with an MFT Dienamics border die. Of course, when I cut it, I was off just slightly. I probably should have been a wee bit more careful. So I cut the sides trying to make the edges line up. It definitely took some doing and trimming to get it right. 

I thought the black butterflies looked really pretty against those ink colors(Paper Smooches Graceful Beauties and Hero Arts Butterflies Stamp and Cuts). The hello is a die set from Penny Black called Doodles. I cut part of the doodly part off and glued it with my Quickie Glue pen. Thought about adding some black Wink of Stella on the butterflies, but decided against it. What do you think?

Here's what I did with one of the striped panels I created with the Post It tape. 

 The colors reminded me of an ice-cream parlor, so that's where I went with it. I stamped the images from Lawn Fawn's Here's the Scoop stamp set onto watercolor paper with black pigment ink and heat embossed with clear embossing powder. Then I watercolored with the same color Distress Inks and fussy cut them out. I added some Clear Wink of Stella to the topping and CTMH Liquid Glass(same type of product as Glossy Accents) to the cherries on top.  I cut the journal card and the banner from Lawn Fawn's Journaling Die Set. The banner has again, the same ink colors as the rest of the card.

My friend Becky gave me an early birthday present in the dotted stamp. It's called Charming Cascades and is from Close To My Heart. She has made a few cards with that set and I really liked the look. My birthday isn't until the end of the month, but she wasn't sure when we'd get together again and she wanted to give me a chance to play it with before school/work got in the way. 

Thanks so much, Becky. :) I stamped the cascading circles stamp in each of the colors of Distress Inks I used on the stripes, too. I inked the stamp more toward the middle and bottom of the stamp so the dots wouldn't overwhelm my background.  For Picked Raspberries, I stamped off once to get a lighter version of the color. In the end I covered just those circles with some Stickles to add a little sparkle because the stamping didn't look that great. Sparkles fix a  lot of boo-boos. :)

That's it from me for now. 

Thanks so very much for stopping by.

I appreciate the visit.

Hope you have a wonderful day.

Hugs,

Jeanne 

Secret Garden Treehouse Finished :)

 Hi There!

I'm back again today to share my completed Secret Garden treehouse picture. 

I'm really happy with how it came out.

The only bummer is the pencil mark that was accidentally added and won't be erased.

Hope you like it, too. :) 

I decided not to add a background. Mainly because I don't know what to add and I want to move on to other pages. :)

I so appreciate your very kind comments on my coloring. Thank you very much for leaving such encouraging words. Makes me feel good, that is for sure and helps me feel good about continuing to color.

That's it for now.

Thanks so much for stopping by. 

I hope you have an amazing day.

Hugs,

Jeanne

Distress Ink Stripes with Post It Tape

Hi There!

The Post It Tape I ordered came in today. Right on schedule. I ordered it because I saw a pin on Pinterest that led me to a video on You Tube and the artist on Instagram.Here's a blurry photo of what the package looks like. Well, a tad bit crumpled. I didn't care about that. The tape was fine. It's model 652 and is 1/3 inch wide. I ended up taking out of the plastic housing. Bianca messaged me to let me know she orders a 2 inch wide roll of Post It Tape and cuts it down to the size she wants. She gets hers at Simon Says Stamps. Not knowing if I was going to be good at this technique, I think a couple of dollars spent on the tape was sufficient. 

Here's my first attempt at stripes following her tutorial on You Tube. 

Here's how it turned out.

Now I have to apologize for slightly blurry photos. I was taking them with my smart phone in my craft space and I don't think the camera liked that much. 

I used the same colors as Bianca here, Barn Red, Spices Marmalade, Mustard Seed, Twisted Citron and Mermaid Lagoon.

She uses watercolor paper, but I tried it with Georgia Pacific cardstock that I got from Walmart. It works well for me when I want to blend Distress Inks. 

Here's my version of another color combo on her Instagram. I don't have Evergreen Bough, so I used Peacock Feathers. The other colors are Picked Raspberry, Spun Sugar and Cracked Pistachio.

Before I pulled the tape off, I decided to spritz the page with my spritzer that has water and Perfect Pearls for a little shimmer. I think I like it. :)

Finally, I wondered if Washi Tape would work for this technique. 

The ink blending went well!

But pulling the tape off did not go so well. :(

Oh well. Now I know. 

I haven't used the panels yet. But I wanted to share my results with the Post It Tape I found. 

I got mine online from Walmart and had it shipped to my local store, which is just a couple of minutes from my house.

So there you have it. Hope this helps!

Thanks again to Bianca from The Colours of Magic for the inspiration. 

Thanks so much for stopping by!

I hope you are having a wonderful day.

Hugs,

Jeanne

Ink Blending and Treehouse Coloring Page Update

Hi There!

I fiddled and futzed around today. I couldn't seem to settle down on one project for whatever reason. 

I finally decided to try some Distress Ink blending. One day last week, I came across a pin that captivated me. That led me to The Colours of Magic on Instagram. I can't remember which pin it was that lead me to Bianca's account, but I ended up watching thisYou Tube video. I've been on the hunt for that narrow Post It tape that she uses. Apparently it isn't sold locally, so I ordered this from Walmart. I hope it's the right stuff. In the mean time, if you check out this talented gal's Instagram account, you will see she shows many lovely blended color combinations. Since I have to wait for my order to come in to make the neat looking stripes, I tried my hand at some ink blending. 

Here's how Peacock Feathers, Scattered Straw and Worn Lipstick turned out for me. 

At first I wasn't too sure, but the combination is growing on me. Some of the other combinations she uses, include colors I don't own...yet. :)

I also worked on the Treehouse coloring page for the first time in what seems like weeks. I finished the trunk of the tree and added some color to the accessories around the tree house. 

I thought I messed up the trunk. I was definitely feeling a bit rusty when I first sat down, but hopefully it doesn't look too bad. 

Boy, looking at this picture, that base for the treehouse sure stands out. Hmmmm...maybe it won't so much after I'm done coloring. Otherwise I might need to add something to tone it down a little. 

That's it from me today! 

Thanks so much for stopping by.

Hope you've had a great day!

Hugs,

Jeanne

Hello~Watercolor

Hi There!

Yesterday I started a case of a card by Suzy Plantamura as seen in this blog post. I was feeling brave enough to watercolor, actually. I painted the background panel and dried it with my heat gun. Then I added some more color and dried it. Then I set it aside. I stamped and watercolored the images. I used the Artist Loft watercolors from Michaels. I really like the blues and greens in that set. Hey, you can't be $4.99, either!

I'm making an effort to tweak my cases a bit more. Here you can see I added the journaling panel (from Lawn Fawn). I did die cut these images, but had stamped first and then die cut. Um, it's hard to line them up as the dies are solid and I can't quite tell where I should tape them. As it was, each cut was offset, meaning I ended fussy cutting to get the images to look good. Guess with these dies, you do the die cutting first and line up the stamps, huh? Now I know. 

Here's a close up. You can see I also watercolored the journaling card. All of the images are adhered flat with no pop dots this time. Being the messy watercolor-er that I am, I went over the images with a Micron pen, too, so you can see the eyes and the wings. :)

I'm also making more of an effort to decorate the inside of the card, too. I had a piece of leftover watercolor background that I die cut and added the images with SSS Fog ink. 

I so wanted to add some sparkle, but figured with it being a watercolored piece, I'd just mess it up. Sequins didn't look right, either. Ah well. Some white dots are all the embellishments this card got. 

That's it from me today.

Thanks so much for stopping by. 

I hope you have a great start to your week!

Hugs,

Jeanne

Sparkly Butterflies

Hi There!

On Wednesday, I came across a beautiful butterfly card created by Michelle Lupton for A Blog Named Hero. Okay, she had me at butterfly as many of you know I love butterflies. :) I was also struck by the rainbow of color on the single butterfly against the rest being white. I thought the butterfly looked familiar, but I didn't own the set she used. Well, I discovered I DO own the same butterfly stamp. I have a different set called Stamp and Cuts Butterfly sold at Joann's. Yay!

I cased her card and added a few twists to make it my own.

I colored the butterfly using my Koh-i-noor colored pencils. I blended with odorless mineral spirits. 

A twist I added was to not only sparkle up the colored butterfly, but also the rest of the butterflies I stamped. I really like the look. I also added some little butterflies instead of the hearts Michelle used. 

I used MFT's Make a Wish set for the sentiment and went over the Wish (as well as those little butterflies) with my black Wink of Stella. The sentiment is all on one line. I inked just the Wish first. Then I cleaned the stamp really well and inked Make a and covered the Wish with some post it note to make sure no stray stamping showed up. 

I even stamped decorated the inside just a bit.

The sentiment is from a Penny Black set called Sprinkles and Smiles

I always forget to do that. :)

I'm very happy with the final card. 

Thanks so much for the visit. I hope you are having a happy day!

Edited to add: Carol encouraged me to enter this card in a challenge at Happy Little Stampers, here. :)

Hugs,

Jeanne

Needed Some Cards...

Hi there!

Well, I wish I made some cards just for fun, but unfortunately, I found myself in need of sympathy cards. My lifelong friend's father passed away. He and his wife had been married for 54 years! What a remarkable achievement. He had a good life, but is gone too soon. 

I was inspired to make this card from one made by Kay Miller

The following card might be a little bright, but I feel it still fits. I cased this one on Clips-n-Cuts 

I actually made a third one, but I neglected to take a picture of it! Darn. 

It looked a lot like this one. :)

I also made this birthday card. I saw this design somewhere, but cannot find it right now. 

My girls and I actually went to California to attend the funeral. It was the very first time my girls had been there and the first time I'd been back "home" in fifteen years. We spent a long weekend. My dad was thrilled (well, except for the reason we went). The service was lovely and a wonderful tribute to a wonderful man. 

The highlight of the trip was going to the beach. There was no way we were going to be in CA and not go to the beach. My mom took us kids every Wednesday during summer break when I was growing up. She would drive us through Topanga Canyon, for those of you who might know that route. We used to go to Santa Monica beach, but it's gotten to be such a tourist area, my brother thought it'd be more fun(less crowded) to head to Zuma beach. He was right. We did drive home on Topanga Canyon, though. :) 

And look! We saw dolphins! (I asked the lifeguard to be absolutely certain). I've never seen dolphins when at the beach. There were about 6 of them swimming along the shoreline. They'd move out of our sight line and then they came back. I was thrilled to capture them in photos. So cool!

Thanks so much for stopping by.

I truly appreciate the visit. 

I hope you are having a good day.

The Opening Ceremonies for the Olympics are tonight. Are you going to watch?

Hugs,

Jeanne