Dyamond Board Doodle Trees

It's a TREE-mendous Mandala Monday featuring a terrific TREE-o of Dylusions Dyamond Board Small Trees, doodled with Letter It Fineliners and then tinted with all my favorite green shades of Simon Hurley create Dye Inks. 

To make the trees into a card, I embossed Simon's Stitched Snowflakes background with Ranger's Cottontail Embossing Powder, applied Breakup Blue ink on top, then cleaned the excess ink off the embossed flakes.

A mat of dark blue cardstock, a sentiment from the Sketched Snowmen stamp set, and a little machine stitching complete the design.

As we cruise into the final full week of holiday preparations, I hope you're having fun getting ready for the big day (if you celebrate Christmas) or the big night (if you celebrate Hanukkah)!

Banner Holiday (Week 2)

It's the second week of holiday cardmaking inspired by our Jingle Belles Blog Header:

And here's my card:

This week I've made a less literal version, but I've still embraced the colors, the florals, and the red glitter and golden metallic accents. My florals are Hero Arts' Christmas Roses, embossed with Ranger Gold Embossing Powder and watercolored. The diecut sentiment is Penny Black. The tiny star sequins are Eyelet Outlet.

You have until next Wednesday evening, December 4th, to link up with us for this last 2024 Jingle Belles challenge. There's even a little poinsettia-centric prize which will be randomly awarded to one lucky cardmaker. Read all about it at Jingle Belles!

Embossing on Textured Cardstock

I love the crisp perfection of using Ranger Embossing Powders on smooth cardstock, but recently I've been experimenting with using them on on Ranger's Woodgrain and Cracked Leather textured cardstocks; and even on Dina's Stickyback Canvas Tape! I love the result... a beautifully soft, slightly worn effect, similar to vintage linens. Head on over to the Ranger Project Tutorials Page where I'll walk you through the process step by step using Ranger Embossing Inks and Powders, I think you'll enjoy trying this yourself!

SOS534: Time for a Hot Drink

It's time for a new challenge at Shopping Our Stash and this time we'd like to see (as the title implies) cards and projects which feature your favorite hot beverages. Mine is (surprise!) COFFEE!

I'm fairly proud of my stash usage here, I've gathered a bunch of sadly neglected items and given them some love. Fair Warning: the three lynchpin items are sadly out of print. The Caffeinated Flamingo was one of my all-time favorites from The Rabbit Hole Designs; the Coffee Pots Embossing Folder from Darice seems to be similarly unavailable. The former was a prize I won in a Coffee Lovers' Blog Hop a few years ago; the latter a gift from my friend Michelle. I don't use either of these enough, and somehow I've NEVER used them together, so it was especially exciting to combine the pair. I stamped, colored and paper-pieced the flamingo, and I'm taking bonus points for remembering to stamp the legs onto my background paper so that I wouldn't have to cut them out. (Go, me!) I embossed the coffee pots on watercolor paper and then painted them a bit wonkily, mightily resisting the impulse to outline all of them with a .01 Fineliner. The "blahmingo" sentiment came with the flamingo; the second sentiment is from Honey Bee Stamps' Perfect Blend Stamp Set, which... you guessed it... is also out of print, but that's ok because the point of Shopping Our Stash is to unearth the older things YOU already own and I bet --like me-- you've got some awesome goodies you've forgotten all about and will enjoy reviving again!

Completely coincidentally, this theme lines up perfectly with the 2024 Fall/Winter Coffee Lovers' Blog Hop (they have some AMAZING prizes, if you like that sorta thing; their hop ends on Friday, 11-8-24) so you can enter both by making just the one card, woohoo! The Time for a Hot Drink Challenge (#SOS534) runs until the evening of Monday, November 18th.

You're Not the (EM-)Boss of Me!

Flashing back to Wendy Vecchi's first collection for Spellbinders (The Garden Collection) and specifically playing with the Flowers and Foliage 3D Embossing Folder with a selection of Wendy's Archival Inks from Ranger. I've used a bunch of different techniques that Wendy has shown off in various Tip Tuesday posts, such as inking and spritzing the emboss- or deboss-side before embossing; painting the flowers with diluted Archival Reinkers from the back or front; applying ink directly from the Archival Ink Pad (on the emboss- or deboss-side); and inking, stenciling, stamping (with some older Studio 490 stamps) and/or doodling on top. I love how you can get so many completely different variations with the same embossing folder, but they're all equally beautiful!

Bloom!

Eyelet Outlet Flower Brads are ALWAYS a good choice for adding color and charm to a card, plus they pair really well with stamped or diecut vases, jars and planters; in this case Honey Bee Stamps' Bud Vase Die Set. Here we have a vase full of Rose Brads and one of White Daisy Brads which have attracted the attention of a Mini Bee Brad. The background is Wide Sky Washi; the sentiment is diecut from Grass Tape; and the base of the planter is a single strip of Wood Tape. A scatter of white Round Sequins completes the design. 

Visit the Eyelet Outlet Online Store to see ALL of the amazing brads, washi tape, bling, sequins, enamels and more! 

PS: I'm currently obsessed with Ranger's Cottontail Embossing Powder which gives LOADS of subtle texture to the background without being overpowering.

Elegant Embossed Bookmarks

I'm always pleased to be on the Ranger Project Page, and today it's with a step-by-step tutorial for making these beautiful and useful embossed bookmarks. I've used a pretty palette of Ranger Embossing Powders (there are more than 60 varieties!) with Simon Hurley's Floral Borders Stamp Set and you can read all about it by clicking -->THIS LINK<--! 

SOS528: Color Challenge

This fortnight at Shopping Our Stash we have a fun color palette challenge featuring blush pink, rich red and camel; plus you can use neutrals, as well, if you like:

Here's what I made: 

I have a new obsession: imperfect embossing on textured cardstock! (I know, I know, we spend a couple of decades and a bunch of money on the best products & techniques in order to execute perfectly smooth embossing... and then... some of us decide to go completely in the other direction, lol!) This technique was partially inspired by my lovely blogging friend Jan R who often stamps and colors with pencils on textured cardstock and it looks VERY cool; so I wondered if it would be cool to try a similar idea with embossing and imo it came out really well, a bit like faded vintage linens. For best results, I recommend a biggish cover/background stamp (this is an older Impression Obsession Cover a Card called Peony Pattern) and you definitely want a fairly solid pattern, as opposed to just outlines. Then, just stamp using clear embossing ink and emboss as usual and the textured cardstock will the do work of "distressing" for you because the powder will stick to the bumpy parts but not get down into the crevices. The bottom layer of my card pairs My Colors Cardstock in Chamois with Ranger's White Embossing Powder. The top layer is Blush Pink cardstock and to increase the faded/distressed look of the design I used Rose Quartz mixed with Love Letter and a tiny sprinkle of Cranberry for a sort of stippled effect. Since I put so much effort into getting a cool look, I didn't want to cover my background up too much, so I added a bit of inking to the edges of both panels, matted them on the darker red color from our palette and sewed around the edges. A few ancient mulberry paper flowers and an oversized Eyelet Outlet Pearl Brad complete the design.

This color challenge (SOS528) will run until the evening of Monday, August 26th. Head over to Shopping Our Stash and be inspired by the lovely cards our creative Crew have made!

Mission: EMBOSS-able!

As you may remember, your mission, this fortnight, should you decide to accept it, is to join the Jingle Belles in creating a holiday card that features heat and/or texture embossing. Hop over to Jingle Belles to see Stephanie's gorgeous card, and in the meantime here's how I went all EMBOSS-ible this week: 

I stumbled upon this background panel, which, at some unremembered point in the past year or so, I had (apparently) embossed using Memory Box's Poinsettia Corner e/f, colored the raised design with Wendy Vecchi's Leaf Green Ink and Sunflower Liquid Pearls and then set it aside. But this is a very good illustration of why I am a Setter-Aside rather than a Thrower-Out (ok apart from mild hoarding tendencies) and that is because although this did not originally meet whatever my goal or requirements might've been at the time, it was a beautiful background which seriously helped me out on a crowded and busy week. All I had to do to make the panel into a card was add Penny Black Poinsettia and Joy diecuts, plus a couple of coordinating mats et voila! Job done!

My Sweet EMBOSS-able You

This fortnight at Jingle Belles we're asking you to create holiday cards that feature EMBOSSING... either pressure embossing OR heat embossing... or BOTH if you're an over-achiever! 

I am currently somewhat re-obsessed with the emboss/resist technique, so I chose to go with heat embossing. I stamped the gorgeous oversized Snowflake Spin background from Stampendous in Ranger's Clear Emboss It Ink, sprinkled with White e/p and once it was cool I applied a combination of Picked Raspberry, Kitsch Flamingo and Spun Sugar Oxide Inks, which I splattered lightly with a waterbrush for even more variation of shades. The "Merry" die is so old I'm actually not sure who made it, but I love how it looks cut from magenta glitter paper and mounted on some coordinating May Arts ribbon. 

This challenge runs until Wednesday evening, July 17th. Hop over to Jingle Belles to see Stephanie's beautiful card and start thinking about how you'll approach this Emboss-able Mission!

JB2411: Tic-Tac-Toe

This fortnight at Jingle Belles, we're playing a game of Tree Skirt Tic-Tac-Toe, which is kind of like "Beach Blanket Bingo" but... you know... more Christmassy; and with LOTS more embellishments! We'd love for you to join the fun, all you have to do is pick a row (horizontal, vertical or diagonal) and a create a lovely new holiday card featuring all three elements in that row. There are loads of possibilities, so let's get started.

Here's what I made:

I chose the center column and thus had Embossing + Red or Green + Diecuts to work with. I broke out the Big Box of Bits and Bobs and lucked into the grocer's kraft panel (Simon Hurley Evergreens embossed in a combination of Ranger's Lime Tinsel and matte Green Embossing Powders, with a couple of Raspberry Liquid Pearl hearts on top); the glossy mat with the green stamped foliage from Wendy Vecchi's Doodle Holiday set, and all of those diecut Penny Black Layered Poinsettias to which I've added green Eyelet Outlet Snowflake Bling. 

JB2411: Tree Skirt Tic-Tac-Toe runs until Wednesday evening, June 5th; so head over to Jingle Belles now and see Stephanie's gorgeous card and start planning what you'll link up with us!

Taking (Card)Stock

It's week two of our Jingle Belles celebration of Cardstock Christmas for which absolutely NO patterned paper is allowed. I usually semi-panic at times like these, but luckily my Wendy Vecchi stamps, Chippies and 3D Embossing Folder stepped in to save the day!

I stamped half a dozen poinsettias from Wendy Vecchi's Doodle Christmas Stamp Set and a bunch of holly leaves from the Doodle Holiday set, embossing them in Ranger Lilac Pearl and White Embossing Powders, respectively. I colored them with Petunia, Peat Moss and English Ivy Archival Inks, then did a bit of fussy-cutting before adding Sunflower Liquid Pearls to the centers. I stamped the large swag of greenery from Doodle Holiday in English Ivy across the chunky chipboard "Joy" from Wendy's Statements Chippies; then mounted all of the above on a cardstock panel to which I gave quite an impressive bit of dimension with Spellbinders' Flowers & Foliage 3D Embossing Folder. One skinny Petunia mat later, my 5.5" square card was complete!

You still have until next Wednesday evening (5/22/24) to join our Jingle Belles' Cardstock Christmas fun, which we hope you will!

It's Wendy's Day on Thursday

Does anyone know if there's a twelve-step program for embossing? Because I seem to be addicted to embossing with Ranger White Embossing Powder on white Perfect Cardstock... then blending various shades of Wendy Vecchi's Designer Series Archival Inks on top.

This card has a rainbow of Archival Inks (Pink Peony, Sunflower, Leaf Green, Bluebird and Cactus Flower) over Wendy's Perfectly Plaid background stamp; and Cactus Flower over her Polka Dots (both are from the Stampers Anonymous Studio 490 collection). I used the Vintage Florals Die Set from Spellbinders' In the Garden collection to diecut a cascade of flowers, leaves and a sentiment. 

I'd write more, but I have a few additional ideas for emboss/resist, so I think I'll sign off for now!

SOS518: Spring Has Sprung

As you may already have guessed from the title of this post, the brief this fortnight at Shopping Our Stash is to create a Spring or Easter card! I chose the former:

This creation incorporates every age of my (considerable!) Wendy Vecchi stash from her Studio 490 days (Perfectly Plaid Background and Wild Rose Collage Stamp & Stencil combo) to her Ranger collection (A Million Thanks Stamp, Die and Stencil Set plus Archival Inks and Embossing Powders) right up to this year's beautiful In the Garden Collection from Spellbinders (Vintage Florals Die Set). I stamped and embossed the two backgrounds (in White and Watering Can Powders); stamped the big Lily once in Rosey Posey and once in Leaf Green; added color to all the images with the coordinating stencils and Archival Inks; did a little diecutting, outlining, machine-stitching and matting.... et voila! 

I hope you'll hop over to SOS to see the gorgeous cards from the rest of The Crew, then start planning what you'll link up with us this time.

BLING It On!

We're heading into our second week of our super-sparkly BLING-centric theme at Jingle Belles and you're invited to join us. Just make a brand new holiday card that has some jewels, gems, pearls, stickles, glitter paper or any other sparkly element and link it up with us for a chance at a fun little random prize.

I applied Izink Diamond Glitter Paint (in a luscious shade called Rose Foudre) through an older TCW snowflake stencil, let it dry, then matted it on white Non-Shed Glitter Paper, I added multiple fussycut layers of a snowflake-looking Stamplistic Mandala stamp, each of which I had embossed with a different Ranger Embossing Powder (Love Letter, Gold Tinsel, Pink Tinsel and Copper, to be precise) and then I stacked up and adorned with sticky-back rhinestones.

Be sure to visit Jingle Belles to see the Readers' Gallery and of course Stephanie's beautiful card; then start planning your own sparkly, BLING-y masterpiece!

Aubergine, Beach Cruiser and Mountain Lake

The six brand new (gorgeous!) Ranger Archival Colors came out on Monday, and I cannot stop playing with them in various combinations. My first card used all six shades and there's a full step-by-step tutorial on the Ranger Project Page. This card uses just the two blues (Beach Cruiser and Mountain Lake) with Aubergine and Graphite accents; though once again I've stenciled OVER a white-embossed stamped background, in exactly the same way as the tutorial card.

This time I white-embossed Simon Hurley's Handwritten Background Stamp* and used Simon's In Bloom layering stencil set to apply the Beach Cruiser, Mountain Lake and Aubergine Archivals on top; then I wiped off the excess inks with a rubbing alcohol wet wipe, to keep the background embossing nice and bright. On the second panel, I did the same white embossing, but just used a Mini Ink Blending tool to add the inks on top, without the secondary pattern from a stencil. Finally, I used the new shades to stamp some of the blooms (and a sentiment) from the Watercolor Flowers clear stamp set, which I cut out and added some coordinating Stickles** with the super-useful new Angled Brushes as a sparkly accent.

Of course, the very first thing I do with new inks is SWATCH them! Above you can see a little 3x3" ring-bound book I made to hold all of my Archival Inks, as well as the new pages I made for these six colors. I find swatches very handy indeed, because you can compare every color to every other shade and see how they relate to each other. If you embark on a swatching project of your own... this may sound weird and counter-intuitive... I highly recommend using more than one stamp or stencil and also, don't make your pages too perfect! Because if you add and/or subtract colors in future you don't want to pressurize yourself to spend ages finding the stamps you used last time or to make the pages exactly the same or perfectly aligned; these are SWATCHES, they're there to work for you! Save any perfectionist tendencies for your projects or better yet, let them go and just have FUN!

Here's one more shot of today's card, just because I took some extra pics, so of course I want to use them, lol. I hope your week has been fun and creative but if not, take heart... the weekend is nearly here!

*The Handwritten Background Stamp is out of stock as a single item, but can still be purchased as part of Simon's new Release Bundle; though if you missed it, any background stamp with small to medium text will work, as will any fairly dense background, for that matter!

**All of the new colors also have Reinkers and coordinating Stickles, which you can purchase separately or as bundles... check out the Ranger New Product Page to see all the different combos.

NEW Ranger Archival Colors!

Today at Ranger we're celebrating the debut of SIX gorgeous new Archival Ink Colors: Wine Cellar  (a deep rich red); Cayenne (a medium-hued red with orange undertones); Beach Cruiser and Mountain Lake (two lovely medium blues that go with everything); Aubergine (a gorgeous purple that perfectly splits the difference between red- and blue-toned); and Graphite (perhaps the most beautiful and useful shade of grey EVER?!) Oh and did I mention that not only are there Ranger Archival Reinkers for all of the above, there are coordinating Stickles for each shade, as well!

I'm up on the Ranger Project Page with my first make to feature these fantastic new shades; it's a card on which I've white-embossed Simon Hurley's Bitty Botanicals background, then used Simon's The Loo! stencil on top, to make a very detailed multi-color ombre tile effect... with accents of glittery Stickles, of course! I'd love for you to jump over there and read all about it.

BLING On the Holidays!

This fortnight at Jingle Belles we're BLING-ing on the Holidays by making cards that incorporate jewels, gems, beads, pearls, glitter, stickles or anything sparkly. Here's what I made:

This card has a lot of elements (and A LOT of sparkle!) but it came together quickly because nearly everything on it was a leftover! The background was stamped with Simon Hurley's Bold Holiday Blooms and embossed with Ranger's Green Tinsel and Lime Tinsel Embossing Powders. It was one of several panels I made while playing around with said glittery e/p's to create this post on the Ranger Project Page; (the Emerald Green Archival-Inked mat was made at the same time). The strip featuring two offcuts of green patterned paper and some Eyelet Outlet Fancy Long Bling I found in my EO box when retrieving the tiny Pearls and the Jewel Brad that's holding the silk poinsettias (I took apart an ancient poinsettia garland from the big box store a few years ago and am still enjoying the fruits of that labor) and pre-diecut glitter paper snowflakes. I have no idea where that giant pale green holly leaf came from, but it was the perfect size, shape and color so on it went!

Our Jingle Belles BLING It On challenge runs until the evening of Wednesday, March 27th. Be sure to hop over and see Stephanie's amazingly gorgeous (PINK!) Bling Tree card and start planning what you'll link up with us this time! 

The Embossable Dream

One of the best ever embossing folders has to be Wendy Vecchi's 3D Flowers and Foliage, featured in her Spellbinders' From the Garden Collection. It's nice and big; it embosses deeply; and you can turn it literally in any direction without feeling upside-down or off-kilter!

This time I embossed some grocer's kraft cardstock and a LOVE Chippie (from the Statements set), then painted all of the raised flowers and leaves with Wendy's designer series Liquid Pearls from Ranger. I diecut the smaller blossoms and leaves from the Vintage Florals set, and mounted the whole thing on a light green mat, made "edgier" by the largest frame in the Heartfelt Thanks and Scallops set. Not to brag, but I LOVE how this turned out!

Seeing RED!

It's the second week of our "Rudolph the RED-Nosed Reindeer" theme at Jingle Belles, so we're still creating holiday cards that are predominantly red!

I recently got this beautiful Altenew Perfect Poinsettia 3D Embossing Folder at Paper Anthology, and I couldn't wait to use it! I embossed the design on watercolor paper, added color by scribbling all my favorite RED (plus a bit of yellow gold) Tombow Dual Brush Pens onto my craft mat, then picking them up with a waterbrush and painting the flowers. When the panel was thoroughly dry, I added some RED Metallic Rub-On to make the design stand out even more, with a bit of Sunburst Stickles on the berries. I diecut the sentiment (ancient Hero Arts) from both deep red cardstock and Red Non-Shed Glitter Paper, which I also used to mat my card. It's a poor workwoman who blames her tools, and a poor blogger who blames her camera, but I have to tell you that this photo reallllllly does not do justice to all the tones, dimension and shimmer of the original!

Be sure to hop over to Jingle Belles to see Stephanie's beautiful card (Spoiler Alert: It's RED!!!) and start planning what you'll link up with us. The challenge runs until next Wednesday evening, February 14th.