I wonder what she is thinking about

 This stamp of a girl dipping her toes in the water always triggers my imagination. She is a bit mysterious, don't you think? When I spotted the challenge 'a penny for your thoughts' on Let's Craft and Create my thoughts immediately went to this girl. I always wonder what she is thinking about.

First, I stamped the girl (Stampin'Up!) on both PaintOn paper and masking tape. I masked the girl and made a heart shaped background with Inktense pencils. My next step was to add another layer to give the card more depth. I used a stencil and sponged versamagic ink, white in the center and blue towards the edges. After heatsetting the ink, I decided to stamp a heart (Art Journey, Follow your heart)  right in the middle of the card. I added the watches (De Stempelwinkel, Watch lg and Watch sm) on both sides of it. 

I removed the masks and colourized the girl with polychromos pencils. 

Challenges:

- Let's Craft and Create - Challenge #203 AG + Penny for your thoughts

Thank you for watching!

 

Special stamp, special card

 A couple of months ago, I was the very lucky winner of the 31 Days of Halloween challenge on Lost Coast Portal to Creativity. I was allowed to spend $10 on stamps from Lost Coast Designs or Carmen's Veranda. Well, that wasn't easy. All these beautiful stamps and I had to pick just one or two of them ... I fell in love with a fabulous stamp of a tree with birds in it. I love trees and I love birds! 

A couple of weeks ago, my stamp finally arrived. By now, it must be the most admired stamp of The Netherlands because I have showed it to my family, my friends, even the teachers at my children's school. My mother asked me if I could make her a card with it. Of course! 

The tree with birds from Carmen's Veranda is a big stamp, it's full size if your card is standard size (A6). I decided to make a XL card with it. After all, it's a special request with the first stamp I have ever won with a challenge. 

I started with stamping the girl (an old stamp from Stampin'Up) with black versafine on both PaintOn paper and masking tape. I colourized the girl with my Polychromos pencils. The pencils are oil-based and resist watercolour and Inktense (to a certain degree). I added the mask and stamped the sentiments ((Darkroom Door - 132 Gum Trees) with Versamark. I colourized the background with Inktense pencils. I used a lot of water because I wanted the pigment to spread unevenly. It turned out very well this time, you can see the 'clouds' in the sky. I stamped the flowers in the background with Brilliance Moonlight white. It gives a wonderful special effect. The bold flower is also an Stampin'Up stamp, the other one is from KiCoStamps. 

Background finished, time for the tree with birds to make this picture complete! I stamped the tree with black Versafine and removed the mask. The rest can be seen on the picture. 

My mother hasn't seen the card .... yet. Please, don't worry about her seeing her card on this blog, she spends very little time on the internet. 

Challenges:

- We Love Stamping - January Challenge - Something new: I have used new stamps, ie the tree with birds and both of the sentiments. 

- Let's Craft and Create - Challenge #203 - AG & a penny for your thoughts.

- Lost Coast Portal to Creativity - Challenge #181 Anything Goes: Due to technical difficulties, I use my Dutch blog to play in the challenges of Lost Coast. Both of my blogs are updated more or less simultaneously. 

Please note I do stick to all the rules of every challenge. 

Thank you for watching!

It is a butterfly

 I love butterflies, and I love butterfly stamps! I use the smaller ones more frequently,, you can easily add a little butterfly to your card to make it more playful, or to fill an empty spot. Well, the possibilities are endless! Now it was time to use on of my 'biggies'!

This time I started with one of my brand new stamps, one of the flowers from PaperArtsy Jofy 63. I inked the stamp with one of my purples, inked another stamp with the other purple and putted this stamp on my new flower stamp. Yes indeed, the kissing technique. It makes it look like there are shadows on the flowers, don't you think so?

I stamped the butterfly (Stampinback SB077-833) and colourized it with Derwent coloursoft pencils. I made the background with Inktense pencils, I made the small dots by scratching the top of the pencils with my fingernail and letting the tiny pieces drop on the card. I used my mini-mister to spray some water over it.

Now it was time for the last step ... adding the sentiment. Another new stamp for me, it was also in the grabbag I mentioned in an earlier post. I stamped it with black Versafine and added highlights with a white gelly roll.

Challenges:
- We Love Stamping - January Challenge Something New

Thank you for watching!

decorating the trees

What would Christmas be without decorated trees? Whether it be coloured lights, baubles or other beautiful ornaments, we have to decorate everything to brighten up the long, dark days. This little penguin decided it was time to decorate this almost leafless tree!

This time, I started with stamping a frame of Christmas baubles. I used 2 very old stamps of Ready2Stamp (SiriusHobby), they were still on loop tape but I had to take it off because the hook tape doesn't stick to the acrylic block anymore. So now the stamps are on EZmount. I stamped them with Brilliance pearlescent Beige. I really love using this colour if I want a golden touch, but nothing to shiny and/or yellowish. 

I putted masks on the Christmas baubles on the lower side of the card and stamped the Penguin (KiCoStamps) with Versafine. I moved the masks to the upper part and stamped the branch (Stampinback), also with black Versafine. 

I colourized the penguin and Christmas baubles with Derwent Coloursoft pencils. I used Derwent Inktense pencils for the background. I added some Inktense around the borders, and started working from the inside to the outside with a water brush. This way it's easy to solve all the pigment and spread it evenly with a bit more pigment around the borders. I think it gives a wonderful accent.

Challenges:

- Christmas Kickstart Challenge - Challenge #82 - The Midas Touch

Thank you for watching!

A gift

Another card, yes, I spend all my evenings upstairs. Time for some creativity! I picked carnation, red and pink from the mood board on Stamping Sensations, and a sentiment I recently bought for the challenge on We Love Stamping: Something New.

First, I stamped the carnation (Stampinback MS91-03) with Stampin'Up Blushing Bride (soft pink) on the card and on masking tape, and masked the print. My next step was to ink the Large Flourish of Lost Coast Designs with versamagic pixie dust, ink a Chocolate Baroque swirl with Pink Petunia and to put the swirl on the Large Flourish a couple of times. Indeed, the kissing technique! 

I stamped the sentiment with black Versafine. The sentiment was part of a grabbag with sentiments I recently bought, a very pleasant surprise because this grabbag contained a lot of sentiments I really love. Lucky me. 

After adding the sentiment I removed the mask and put some colour on the beautiful flower! Of course the colours had to be red and pink.

Challenges:

- Stamping Sensations - January Challenge

- We Love Stamping - January Challenge Something New

- Lost Coast Portal to Creativity - challenge #181 Anything Goes

Please note I enter the Lost Coast challenge through my other blog on Wordpress, to avoid my cards disappearing from challenges (a technical problem I've not been able to solve). I stick to the rules of every challenge I am entering, cards are posted more or less simultaneously on both blogs. 

Bird in Chinese colours

 The mood board on Stamping Sensations inspired me enough to make more than just one card. A great opportunity to use an old stamp and a new one, well, I'll be honest with you. It's a new stamp for me, because I have recently bought it from a friend but the company doesn't exist anymore.

Enough small talk, about the card. I have been collecting pictures of Chinese paintings and drawings, and a lot of them depict birds and blossoms. And geisha's of course, but there is a geisha on my other card so now I wanted to make something entirely different. A lot of Chinese works of art have more or less similar colours: whites and soft pink for the blossoms or birds, and sometimes one bright colour like red. The background colour is often a soft grayish green, a very light grey or sand. 

So I deciced to pick the bird from the mood board and use a bird on my card, it is one of the birds of Stampinback sheet 141. After stamping the bird, I masked it and stamped the blossom. It is also a Stampinback stamp, from the next sheet, sheet 142. I also masked the blossom. Next step was to apply versamagic niagara mist with a sponge, to make a real Chinese background. I should mention I used PaintOn Lisse as cardstock, which is more smooth than the PaintOn I use most of the time. The smooth surface makes it easier to sponge the ink, and I think it looks more 'Chinese'. I coloured the bird and blossom with Derwent coloursoft pencils, and tried to make it look like a Chinese picture. Of course the blossom had to be pink, because it's one the colours of the mood board.

Challenges:

- Stamping Sensations - January Challenge

Thank you for watching!

My first gelli plate adventure

 One of the Dutch webshops had a special offer I couldn't resist ... so now I have a gelli plate. Finally! I really like to be challenged so I deciced to make at least one background I could use for the challenge on Stamping Sensations. The theme is in the form of mood boards. From this mood board I picked Chinese lady in kimono, rose (the pink in the background) and garnet/red. 

The background is made with my gelli plate and acrylic paint, I used a stencil for the rose. The lady in kimono is a stamp from De Stempelwinkel (Long Black Hair, nr. Q8901NS). I stamped her on both the background and a separate white paper with versamagic (black). I colourized the print on the paper with my polychromos pencils, and acrylic paint (gold). I cut it out, and left the collar and cuffs out (so these parts are the background showing through). Glued it on the background. I added golden stripes on the collar and cuffs and covered them with a transparant glossy layer, which is actually ... glue! Yeah, really. I will try to make a picture of the glossy layer, I tried yesterday but it was hardly visible on the pics I took. 

I glued the card on metallic paper (gold), and on deep red card stock. I stamped the border with Brilliance galaxy gold, the stamp is a PaperArtsy (Eclectica by Lin, ELB23).

Challenges:

- Stamping Sensations - January Challenge

Thank you for watching!

Reaching for the stars

 This Penny Black stamp has been waiting for me a long, long time. I just wanted to make a beautiful card, nothing over the top.

I used PaintOn paper to make double cards. I stamped the Penny Black ballerina with black Archival ink, and masked her. Used my home made star stencil and sponged versamagic ink (Aloe Vera), and stamped  'Jingle Bells', 'snow' and 'happy' (KicoStamps) with each another colour of Versamagic ink (Aloe Vera, Oasis Green and Turquoise gem). I removed the mask, reattached the stencil and colourized the girl with Derwent Coloursoft pencils. The little stars are colourized with Twinkling H2O's.

Inside the card, I started with stamping a champagne glass (not sure about the brand), and little stars. I masked the glass and tried to mask the stars (this didn't work out very well). This time, I used the part of the clear sheet I had cut out, everything else is the same. I colourized the glass with both Derwent coloursoft and a Derwent metallic pencil. 

I have decided to show only the outside of the card over here. I have been experiencing great issues with entering my cards for challenges and I have no idea what is going wrong! If you'd like to see the inside, please google 'helenstempelt' and 'wordpress'. Sorry for the inconvenience!

Challenge(s):

Christmas Kickstart Challenge

Lost Coast Portal to Creativity - challenge 181 (Linked on my other blog due to the issues mentioned above).