{Spotlight Project} Cornelia Plays with Brushos and Stamps

Cornelia here today, playing again with Brushos - my new favorite "toy". I just love those colors! And Brushos are so easy to use. 

{Spotlight Project} Vicki Creates a Mixed Media Tag Card

Hi, it's Vicki here. Today I have a super-fun-to-make mixed media tag card. Here is the finished project:

Here are the steps make this tag card:

Step 1: Stamp an array of images on a tag.

I used the following STAMPlorations sets:

Sentiment Builders: Thank You

Vignette: Chevron & Arrows

Vignette: Celebrate Artsy

Vignette: Retro Mod Shapes

Step 2: Using a stencil, cover with embossing paste. [Ignore the fact the stamping isn't there yet - I did a re-do :)]

Step 3: Spray with ink spray.

Step 4: Using my Silhouette, I cut a border and then stamped thank you. [If you are good, you could use scissors.] I ink sprayed after I stamped this.

Finished Project: I adhered a second tag to the decorated one, put on a re-enforcer, and tied a ribbon. My tag card is done, and I love it! :)

I hope you try a mixed media tag card -- they are fun to make! See ya in 2 weeks~

      

{Spotlight Project} Monika Creates a Layout with the Boxed Blooms

Hi, everybody. As promised some more inspiration for your fabulous Boxed Blooms and Bold Sentiments stamp set. I'm guessing that most of you have by now made it one of your faves.

Today, I'm working with the daffodil image. Well, one could say it's the wrong time of year, but it's never too late to catch up on some scrapbooking. And that's exactly what I've been up to.

To create this beauty you need:

- Stamps: Boxed Blooms and Bold Sentiments, Holiday Artsy, SENTIMENT BUILDERS: Celebrate,VIGNETTE: Celebrate Artsy, and Mini Mixed Media Backgrounds
- Inks: Black Memento, dye inks in brown, yellow, pink and blue
- Ink Markers: black, brown and dark yellow
- ProMarkers: tulip yellow, buttercup, gold, burnt orange, leaf green, pastel blue and blender
- Card stock: white sheet of 12x12" plus a piece of brown card for matting
- Tools: large soft brushes for blending inks (I used shaving brushes), craft knife, steel ruler and cutting mat plus colour spritzer/spray tool for use with markers
- Other: post-it notes for masking, sequins to add some sparkle

I started off by creating my masks for the daffodils and roughly deciding on the layout by placing my elements onto my 12x12" piece of card stock.

I then stamped the daffodils masking them off as I went along. With all three of them stamped and masked, I used my brushes to blend the inks (yellow, pink and blue) for the background.

I then stamped the large 'celebrate' (SB Celebrate) in brown followed by the splashes (Holiday Artsy) in yellow and pink before stamping the small 'celebrate' (Celebrate Artsy) in yellow, the word 'cherish' (Boxed Blooms) in brown and the smaller words (SB Celebrate) in black.

I then added a bit of background stamping (Mini Mixed Media) in pink and yellow. As I didn't want this to be dominant, I first stamped some ink off on a piece of scrap before stamping onto my scrapbook page. This type of generational stamping allows for a softer effect.

To finish off my stamping, I added a couple of brushstrokes (Celebrate Artsy) in pink to my bottom left daffodils, again using this type of generational stamping.

I then removed my masks and coloured my daffodils using my ProMarkers. I did this in a sketched style rather than focusing on perfect blending, which I think works well with this layout. I then cut around a couple of corners using my craft knife, added some splashes in brown and dark yellow and finished off by adding my matted photo and some sequins.

There is also a craft-along video which covers most of my decision making on the layout, masking and stamping in my usual casual style.


Hope you feel inspired to use your stamps in a different way.

Enjoy and Happy Stamping!!! :-)

    
 

{Spotlight Project} Cornelia Plays with Celebrate Artsy to Create Rainbow Medallions!

Hi, it's Cornelia here! Today I want to explore some options with this fabulous set from STAMPlorations called Vignette: Celebrate Artsy.

I have already played around with it in the past (click HERE if you want to see more), it has so much potential! Recently, Dawn McVey made a great video about rainbow medallions. I really wanted to try this out, but did not have time for it. I thought the STAMPlorations stamps are perfect for this. I did do this a little bit differently than Dawn - I have some pictures below. But first the cards:

For the first card, I used that stamp that in my eyes looks like a fish (I made a fish card with it previously).

The sentiments are from the Sentiment Builders: Happy. I fussy cut the HAPPY. Rounded the corners of the card.

For the second and third cards, I used the open oval and also the Sentiment Builders: Celebrate, with which I did some generational stamping and then colored it with Inktense pencils. I used the paint that was on the brush to lightly color the second generation imprint. 

The third card I splattered with yellow and orange and used an enamel dot for the "flower" and rounded one corner.

So, how did I do my rainbow medallions?

I first selected my inks. I never really care what ink I use for what - I mainly care about the colors. I do love those Memento Luxe inks, but the green is just a bit on the dull side, so I went with my Adirondak ink instead. Sorry for the upside down ones - still have to learn how to do those posts more "professionally"....

You see that I started out with  faint pencil marks on white card stock. I do need to mark the center of the "medallion" as a starting point. In Dawn's video, she used 8 colors, but I found that too few. So I used 3 different colors for each quarter of my medallion. I did not measure this, just eye-balled. I did choose a starting point on the stamp, which I tried to line up every time with my pencil crosshatch to get the stamping exact. 

And if you get this right, then a pretty pattern emerges. No need to cover it up, really. although I did cover it in the first card above. 

Of course you have to erase those pencil marks - something I always have trouble with. Once you stamp over pencil it gets hard to remove, which does not matter much for the darker colors, but it really matters for the lighter colors - any suggestions? I tried all sorts of different erasers, but find no difference...

And here is my personal favorite from my three cards again:

Wanna give it a try? Go for it - it works with all sorts of stamps!