Color for Fun and Happiness

Happy New Year - Dreamweaver Stencils Style

Greeting Everyone!

This is the last posting for 2011. I hope this has been a decent crafty year for you. Learned a few new things, made lots of mistakes and kept that brain sharp? Stuff to strive for next year for sure! Especially the mistake part, that's where I learn and sometimes come up with something fun.

This is my winter vision of a forest. It came about while playing with the Color Solutions Alcohol Inks.

Ingredients

Dreamweaver Stencil LJ849 Bare Trees

Dreamweaver White Stencil Paste

Color Solutions Alcohol Inks: Iceberg, Blue Velvet and Sugar Plum

Judikins Window Plastic

White, cream and copper cardstock

Diamond Glaze or Glossy Accents

 Ranger Distress Ink: Broken China

 

Method

Using the alcohol inks in succession, ink up one side of the window plastic.

Looks pretty cool. 

Flip over the plastic and work on the uniked side.

Tape down the plastic and the stencil.

Spread the embossing paste over the stencil. Set aside to dry and clean the stencil. 

Once the paste is dry layer on a white card, adhere with Diamond Glaze or Glossy Accents. 

Layer on card stock.

On a small piece of card stock write or stamp "Happy New Year." Buff edges with foam ink applicatore and Ranger Distress Ink Broken China.

Adhere to the card. 

You are done, now have fun and make art today!

Leave me a note that you stopped by and check out the other Dreamweaver Design Team blogs. 

Next week our three new team members will join us -- should be fun!

Lee

StampaFe Merry Christmas Tag

Happy Holidays!

 

I hope this holiday season has been pleasurable and creative. I have enjoyed sharing all these cards and tags that I have made. Somewhere in all of them I trust you got some ideas and inspiration.  Thank you for all your encouragement and ideas!

This is my favorite of the collection. 

Ingredients

Postcard tag by American Tag

Card stock by Paper Cut - red and white glossy

Ranger Distress Ink Pine Needle

Brilliance Platinum Ink by Tsukineko

Stamps by StampaFe: Pine Cone, Pine Bough, Larch Bough and snowflake trio

Embossing folder by Tim Holtz - holly bough

Ranger Watermark Resist Ink

Ribbon by May Arts

 

Method

Ink the Pine cone and Snowflake trio with the resist ink and stamp all over the glossy paper.

Use a small brayer, pick up the ink from the Pine Needles ink pad and roll onto the glossy paper. Do this repeatedly until the color is nice and dark. Buff with a paper towel. 

In the pine bough with the Brilliance ink and stamp twice on the glossy card. 

Layer with the red card stock.

In the embossing folder strip by rubbing the Pine Needle ink pad across the surface of the folder. 

Place a the bottom of the tag, run through your embossing machine.

Stamp the Larch Bough along the edge and top of the tag - use Pine Needles Distress Ink.

Adhere the resist image and add the ribbons. 

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Make art today and have fun!

 

Lee

 

Dreamweaver Stencils Burgundy and Gold

Seasoned Greetings!

I hope you all are not too stressed and still enjoying the season with all of the fun craftiness it holds. I have gotten most of the Christmas cards out --late, but then I am not too surprised given this December. Never-the-less, here's my last Christmas card for 2011:

Our challenge for this posting was burgundy and gold. I had vision that just wouldn't materialize. This came about instead. 

Ingredients

Dreamweaver Stencil LL570 Pine Trees

Dreamweaver white embossing paste

Dreamweaver Color Solution Alcohol Inks: Paprika Red, Sugar Plum and Gold Star

Ranger Glassine Paper

Alcohol Ink applicator

Alcohol Ink Blending Solution

Card stcok from Paper cut

Adhesive for mounting

 

Method

Using the Gold and Paprika Red inks, generously apply them to your applictor and stamp it all over the smooth glassine paper.  Cover the entire sheet of paper on one side only. 

Once the paper is dry, crumple it well. Smooth out and now apply the Sugar Plum on the backside (uninked side) with a fresh applictor felt. You want this to be a generous coverage. It should look like this:

When you turn the paper back over you should see this effect: 

Cool Huh!? This is the technique I used to make the snowflakes in the previous posting. 

Tape down the paper well since it is rumpled it won't want to lay flat. 

Using the Pine Trees stencil and the white embossing paste, fill in the stencil. Set aside to dry and clean your stencil. 

Once the trees have dried return the stencil to the paper, with the white trees showing through. Ink the white with the Gold Star Color Solutions. 

Trim the paper and layer up. I used a pale yellow card stock to show off the gold trees. 

Have fun and happy Holidays! Make art today!

Leave a note that you stopped by and check out the other Design Team member's blogs. 

Lee

Snowflakes

Howdy!

I am back with the continuation of using the snowflakes you made the other day. 

 

So, you can see that I like to use the same elements in different ways. You've invested in the stamps and dies, so let's make use of them!

Ingredients

Postcard Tag by American Tag

Snowflake embossing strip by Tim Holtz

Ranger Distress Inks

Clearsnap Chalk Ink Blue Lagoon

Ho Ho Howdy by Deadbeat Designs

Snowflake Cover a Card by Impression Obsession

 

Method

Ink the snowflake embossing stip with a Broken China Distress Ink. Use the side where the snowflakes are indented. Lay over the end of the tag and run through your die cut machine.

Ink the snowflake cover a card rubber with the blue chalk ink pad. Stamp on the tag above the embossed strip.

Adhere the three snowflakes that you made the other day. See my last posting for directions.

Stamp Ho Ho Howdy on cream card stock and trim. Dust with blue ink. Adhere to the tag.

Add ribbon if you want.

Have fun and make art today.

 

Lee 

Holiday Crazy Continues

Howdy!

More of my Holiday card frenzy! Enjoy and leave a comment so I know you stopped by.

 

I love this resist technique, it produces a nice look to the card. 

 

 

Lots going on with this simple card! Here's the laundry list:

Ingredients

Kraft card stock -- Paper cut

Glassine Paper - Tim Holtz

Glossy paper, layering paper -- Paper Cut

Tim Holtz  mini Snowflake die cut

Impression Obession Cover a Card: Snowflakes and Swirls

HoHo Howdy by Deadbeat Designs

Alcohol Inks by Dreamweaver: gold, pale blue and thistle

Felt ink applicator

Adirondack Dye Ink pad: Sail Boat Blue

Small Brayer

Ramger Watermark Resist Ink pad

Platinum Brilliance stamp pad by Tsukeniko

Method

Ink the felt applicator with the gold and blue ink, stamp all over the glassine paper. 

Once the ink is dry crumple the paper, ink the backside with the thistle ink. 

Die cut the snow flake. Save the extra for the next posting -- I've used more of these snowflakes.

Ink the snowflake cover a card rubber wit the water mark resist ink and stamp it on the glossy paper.

Using the small brayer, roll it over the Sailboat Blue ink pad and then roll over the resist image on the glossy paper. Do this many times until the ink color is nice and dark.

Use a paper towel to buff the inked paper. This will make the white stand out.

Ink the swirl cover a card with Brilliance Platinum and stamp over the blue. 

Layer on colored card stock and adhere to the card.

Stamp HoHo Howdy on card stock, trim to fit on card. Adhere.

Adhere the snowflake. 

You're done! Have fun and make art today.

 

Lee

 

Dreamweaver Stencils Dream Schemes Thursday Vintage Christmas

Hello Everyone!

It's getting closer to Christmas! I hope you are enjoying the holiday season. I love this time of year, even though my life seems to be increasingly busier and busier. 

Today's Dreamweaver Stencil Design Team posting is based on a template and the theme of a Vintage Christmas. 

Here is the template:

It's a wee bit tiny, but you get the idea. Here is what I took from that and created:

 

I used the following Dreamweaver Stencils:

 

 

Ingredients

Dreamweaver Stencils: LS91 Season's Greetings and LL467 Reindeer

Dreamweaver Embossing Paste White

Ranger/Tim Holtz Holiday resist paper

Ranger Distress Stain: Barn Door and White Picket Fence

Tim Holtz/Sizzix Die - Tattered Banners and a die cut machine

Ranger Distress Ink Shabby Shutters

Card stock for layering

Kraft paper

 

Method

Stain the resist paper using the red then the white Distress Stains. Use your finger to blend the area between the two colors. 

Tape your stencil down on the stained resist paper. Using your Dreamweaver paste spreader, spread the white embossing paste into the reindeer stencil. Set aside to dry and clean your stencil.

Once dry carefully cut the image into thirds and trim image to fit your card. 

Layer on colored card stock.

Using kraft paper cut a banner from the tattered banner die

Stencil on the Season's Greetings in one line. Hint: use removable tape to cover up the words you are not using to make stenciling easier. 

Fold the edges of the banner in a zigzag to give it depth, mount on card stock below the reindeer.

You are done! 

Check out the other Design Team blogs and see what they created with the theme today. Thank you for stopping by, do leave a comment or hello to let us know that you have been by.

Have fun and make art today!

Lee

 

Christmas Crazy

Howdy! 

As with most of you, I love this time of year. We've had a dusting of snow, the town is all decked out in colorful lights and the plaza is beautiful. I am in the Christmas mood and feel that I have no time to do all that I want to. Ah well, I am making holiday cards and tags like crazy. Maybe I'll get some of them mailed out before the year end! Enjoy the next several postings. Contact me if you have questions or want the stamps/stencils/die cuts, etc.

 

 

This tag is a fun combo of techniques: die cut to stamping.

Ingredients

Pine Bough and Larch Bough by StampaFe

Kraft tag, American Tag

Distress Ink by Ranger

Distress Stain by Ranger, Barn Door

Tim Holtz Reindeer Big Die

Tim Holtz/Stampers Anonymous Reindeer stamp

Tim Holtz Christmas Kraft resist paper

Ribbon by May Arts

 

Method

Ink Pine Bough stamp with Pine Needles Distress Ink, stamp in corners. 

Ink Larch Bough stamp with Vintage Photo and stamp in upper corner.

Ink Reindeer stamp with Vintage Photo and stamp in lower right portion of tag.

Using the Barn Door Distress Stain, color a piece of the kraft resist paper that is large enough to cover the die cut reindeer. 

Once the paper is dry, die cut the reindeer. Besure to face your paper correctly to the reindeer can be reversed from the stamp. 

Adhere it to the tag and add the burlap string and twill ribbon.

Done!

Have fun making Christmas cards. I am thinking about doing a Christmas Card retreat next year in Santa Fe, NM. Making that 50 or 100 cards in a group setting is a whole lot more fun that by yourself. Let me know what you think. 

Happy Happy! Make art today!

Lee

Stampa Barbara Christmas Tag

Howdy!

It's tag time again! And Christmas to boot! Today I am playing with the Christmas stamp set by Stampa Barbara.

Ingredients

Stampa Barbara Christmas Set

Ranger Winter Seasonal Distress Colors and Vintage Photo

Ranger Rock Candy Stickles 

Tag by American Tag size #8

Ribbon by May Arts - red and green twill

Judikins Eclipse Masking paper

 

Method

Smug red ink around the edges using the Ranger Ink Blending tool. 

Stamp the house at the base of the tag using Vintage Photo Distress Ink.

Stamp the house on the masking paper and cut out. 

Cover the house with the mask.

Stamp the trees using the green ink. 

Remove the mask. 

Stamp snowflakes with the Iced Spruce ink and Merry Christmas with red. 

Tie ribbon to the top.

Add the Rock Candy Stickles to the roof of the house, smush around a tiny bit with your finger. Be careful not to smear the ink. 

Set aside to dry and you are good to go!

Have fun and make art today!

 

Lee

 

 

Dreamweaver Stencils Dream Schemes Free Thursday

Hello Everyone!

It is the rush of December and I strive for the simple things this time of year in an effort to try to remain sane. Today's Dreamweaver Stencils Design Team posting is a free one and of course mine is a holiday tag.

I love the elegance, ease and simplicity of this tag.

Here are the stencils I used:

 

 

Ingredients

Dreamweaver Stencils LS91, Seasons Greetings and LL3005 Holly

Ranger Distress Inks Vintage Photo, Fired Brick, Pine Needle and Peeled Paint

Ranger Stickles Christmas Red

May Arts Burlap string: natural, red and green

Tag by Amerian Tag #8 size

 

Method

Using the Ranger foam ink blending tool, smug Vintage photo around the edges of the tag. 

Using Dreamweaver Stencil Holly and stencilig brushes, color in the holly coming from the lower left corner. 

Clean the stencil and flip, working from the upper right corner, color in the stencil. 

Stencil in the Season's Greetings in the center of the tag. 

Add the red stickles to the berrries, set aside to dry. 

Once dry add the burlap strings and you are done! 

Now check out the other design team member's work and leave us all a comment so we know you stopped by. 

Have fun and make art today.

Lee

Dreamweaver Stencils Dream Schemes

Greetings!

Today's Dreamweaver Challenge is Turquoise and Silver. Good colors for the year-end holiday season. 

Here is what I came up with:

 

Here are the two stencils I used:

 

Ingredients 

Dreamweaver Stencils  Cowboy boot LG660 and Snowflakes LJ819

Dreamweaver White Glossy and Silver embossing paste

Blue acrylic paint

Dreamweaver paste spreader

Ranger Distress Ink - Broken China

Stencil brush

White, kraft and blue card stock

 

Method

On white card stock emboss the cowboy boot with the turquoise colored paste. To make your own colors of paste add a wee bit of acrylic paint or use Dreamweaver’s tints. I got the streaking by not mixing the blue in throughly and I like the effect. 

 

On another sheet of paper choose the snow flake you want to be the spur of the boot. Mask off the other snow flakes. Use the silver embossing paste to create the spur. 

 

While the boot and snowflake are drying, stencil brush the snow flake background on the kraft paper. 

 

Once the embossing paste is dry, cut out the snowflake and boot. 

Mount the boot on the kraft paper, adhere to the card. 

Add the spur to the boot and you are done!

 

Now check out the other silver and turquoise creations today on the rest of the design teams’ pages. They are listed to the right. 

If you can, leave a note so we know you stopped by. 

 

Have fun and make art everyday!

Lee