Lovely cat couple

Another card, this time with one of my new stencils (although this may sound like I bought hunderds of stencils, I actually bought 2 stencils. Yeah, really, just 2). I had set my mind on making a 'happy' card, because of the 15th birthday of the Allsorts challenge.  well, a lovely cat couple on a romantic city trip sounds very happy to me! I also picked orange as one of the main colours of the card because of the mood board on Stamping Sensations. I have also combined 2 vintage elements: the old bridge, and the style of the cat couple which reminds me of Toulouse Lautrec, or better said, his artwork.

I love to experiment with stencils, and this time I made two backgrounds at the same time. I started with a piece of mixed media paper (I use PaintOn) and sprayed some water on it. I put my stencil on it. Now I brush Inktense over stencil + underlying paper. I do this by picking up some Inktense directly from my pencil with the waterbrush, but if you have Inktense blocks, even better! 

Make sure the entire stencil (and paper) is covered with the Inktense. Put another piece of paper on top of it, leave it there for half a minute or so, and pull it off.. With the other piece of paper, you do more or less the opposite.  Allow it to absorb the Inktense. If you feel the colours are not intense enough, add more Inktense and allow the paper to absorb this as well. You can take a quick peek by lifting up a corner of the stencil to see if you are happy with the result. Now you can pull the stencil off. Make sure to clean it very thoroughly. Inktense does stain. I use handwarm water with olive soap.

Feel free to replace the Inktense by distress ink or watercolours!

I stamped the cat couple on both the first background and masking tape. I used a stamping platform and black Versafine to make sure the couple was totally black with no white of greyish spots. Added the mask and stamped the 'Budapest' stamp with purple Versamagic (eggplant). I colourized the bridge with pencils. I used a white gelly roll for the eyes. I also stamped the cat couple on the inside, and on the envelope with the bridge on the other side. 

Stamps:

- Katzelkraft KTZ SOLO106 Budapest 
- Katzelkraft KTZ MINI 028 (cat)

Stencil:
- Stamperia KSTDQ-76

Challenges:

- Allsorts Challenge - #781 - 15th birthday celebrations

- We Love Stamping - Vintage or AG
- Stamping Sensations - Mood board or AG

**** So proud to be one of the top picks from the 15th Birthday challenge ****

Please don't forget to celebrate the 15th birthday party of We Love Stamping! Please visit the challenge, you can use the link above (I tried to make the image a link but it's not working).

Thank you for watching!

 

Spots, Stripes, Clocks and a Cat

 Another card, and hopefully just in time for the Allsorts Challenge!

I am in a rush, only one hour left to join the challenge, so I start with 'the making of' right away. I used a Post-It note to cover the lower part of the cardstock. I used my Inktense pencils to make spots of different sizes and a waterbrush. I started with brushing over the spots and filled in the empty parts between the dots immediately after. I stamped 'Lines and Circles' of Technique Junkies with green versamagic.

I stamped the clocks with Versamark ink, and colourized the rest of the card with blue Inktense (and water of course). I stamped the cat with black Versafine, I did it 3 times to make sure the cat is very, very black. Added the sentiment and made  the eyes of the cat white with a gelly roll. 

Stamps:
- Technique  Junkies - Lines and Circles 
- Art Journey - Lady Clock (the clocks)
- Katzelkraft - Katz03 mini 003 (the cat)
- sentiment was a gift

Materials:
- white PaintOn paper
- Versamagic Turqouise gem
- Versafine onyx black
- Inktense pencils
- Sakura gelly roll (white)

Challenges: 
- Allsorts Challenge - #780 spots and stripes

Sorry for the bad pic, the card looks so much better irl! Thank you for watching!

Peach poppies

 I recently visited the Beautiful Blossoms challenge blog and was immediately inspired by the mood board. Lovely flowers and lovely colours. 

I decided to pick the colours (peach and petrol) from the mood board, and a little searching through my stamp collection turned out to be very successful .... my eyes fell on a beautiful stamp with poppies, the Hero Arts Poppy Background CG140. 

What a coincidence, because we always have peach poppies in our backyard. I've never seen a red poppy which is pretty remarkable, because wild poppies (red ones) can be found on short distance. 

I stamped the poppies with Versamagic Ocean Depth on white PaintOn paper, and colourized the poppies with my Inktense pencils. I used several layers, because I was very careful not to overdo the colours. I also used some Inktense on the white spots in the background. I absolutely adore the 'not so perfect' stamp print but the white was a little too much. 

Challenges:
- Beautiful Blossoms Challenge - Anything florals goes with optional mood board #16

Thank you for watching!

Crazy tulip

 It started with a crazy daisy card, and the story continues .... with a crazy tulip.

Making the background was really fun. I had bought embossed cards and one of the cards came out of the package with pretty severe damage. It was clearly visible on both sides. So I deciced to use this card for something entirely different ..... I colourized the card with my Inktense pencils, sprayed some water on it and put a white piece of mixed media paper on it, and pulled it off immediately. I had no idea what to expect, but it worked like a charm ... great background in 2 minutes. 

I used Memento and Versamagic for the background stamps. I then stamped the tulip and border, and masked the tulip before adding the other flower stamps. I did some masking inbetween as well. I colourized all the flowers and the border with Derwent coloursoft, this was so much fun to do! 

Now it was time for the finishing touch ... I added golden dots to the border. 

Stamps:
- PaperArtsy Eclectica EDY11 (used in the background)
- PaperArtsy Eclectica ELB23 (tulip, border, background)
- Katzelkraft KTZ192 - Les whimsey fleurs
- Katzelkraft KTZ195 - Les fleurs dingues

Challenges:
- Stamping Sensations - April challenge: AG & spring mood board
- We Love Stamping - APril challenge: Spring or AG
- Simon Says Stamp Blog - Wednesday challenge: Anything Goes

Thank you for watching!

Crazy daisy

 The last couple of weeks have been extremely busy, and I also visited the Dutch ArtSpecially Event. More about this event later, when I have more time to write. First I want to show my newly made cards!

I started with visiting my favourite challenges for some inspirations and ideas. It wasn't long before some ideas popped up in my mind! 

I started with some Inktense on my craft sheet. I don't have sticks so I used my little trick: just scrape some from the pencil. Added water with the mini mister and dissolved the pigment. 

I put my new stencil (bought on the event) on the craft sheet and picked up most of the Inktense. I then put the stencil with the wet side on a piece of white mixed media paper (PaintOn Lisse) and left it for a couple of minutes to settle before pulling it off. I left it on my desk to air dry. 

I was gifted WOW embossing powder on the Event and my first thought was to use this beautiful green with copper powder. Fortunately, I did a little experiment on a leftover piece of paper. The embossing turned out to be very transparent, I expected it to be more or less opaque! So I ended up using green versamagic ink instead. 

I used a pencil (dark green) to add shadows, and a white gelly roll to add some highlights to the petals and leaves.

Materials:
- PaintOn Lisse
- Studio Light MASK SL40
- stamp unknown (it was a gift from a friend a long, long time ago, it's a rubber stamp)

Challenges:
- Stamping Sensations - April Challenge AG & mood board
- We Love Stamping - Spring or AG
- Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge - AG (they love to see Impression Obsession)

Thank you for watching!

An outstanding actress

What comes to mind if the theme of the challenge is 'feminine'? Audrey, swirls and vintage ....

I started with stamping and masking the Audrey stamp. I had set my mind on using the birdcage somewhere in the background. My first idea was to stamp it with black or blue ink, but I changed my mind. Too overwhelming. So I used versamark instead. I added the swirls  and colourized all the white parts with my Inktense pencils. 

My eyes fell on this Katzelkraft sentiment and I didn't need to think twice, it was a perfect match!

Stamps:
- Audrey: Stampinback B206
- swirl: Home Impressions - Grungy plate HI28
- birdcage: PaperArtsy - Hot Picks HP1004
- sentiment: Katzelkraft KTZ204 - Be Batman

Materials:
- PaintOn Lisse
- Versafine black
- Versamagic Sahara Sand and Ocean Depth
- Inktense pencils (baked earth, Dark Aquamarine)
- cardstock

Challenges:
- We Love Stamping - March Challenge - Feminine

Thank you for watching!

Daffodils only

 I often combine my flower stamps with other stamps, like funny animals or cute critters. Last weekend, I was playing around a bit with my daffodil stamps. I wanted them to be the theme of a card. My eyes fell on the Brilliance inks, and I picked 'Rocket Red Gold'. It worked out quite well! The colour is close to copper but with more depth in it. 

By now, I had set my mind on using only the flower heads (Chocolate Baroque - Spring bird-Daffodil), well, this was not easy thing to do. I ended up masking the area around the flower heads to make sure the other parts of the stamp didn't stain the rest of the card. The rest of the card is pretty simple, I used an oval stencil (homemade) and a Dutch Doobadoo stencil and sponged Versamagic 'Tea Leaves'. I colourized the flowers with Inktense pencils and added a sentiment (Stampin'Up - Blooming with Kindness).

Challenges:

- Beautiful Blossoms Challenge - Anything Florals Goes With Optional Mood Board #15

Thank you for watching!

The spell

Every once in a while, I promise myself to make a quick and easy card. You know, like the ones you see in tutorials and youtube vids. Ready in 5 minutes. For some reason, I will always end up making the most time-consuming cards ever. Sounds familiair? 

I spend half of my weekend on this card. Idea after idea popped up, so what was meant to be a CAS card with a very stylish daffodil, turned into the not-CAS-at-all-card pictured in this post. 

I stamped the daffodils (so far so good), masked them and stamped my other daffodil stamp and masked them as well. I stamped the bird and masked it. I used a white pencil to add a border around the parts I had previously masked. I used Derwent coloursoft but other wax-based pencils of even crayons can be used as well. 

I stamped the blossoms with versamark and allowed them to air dry before colourizing the entire background with Inktense pencils. Adding the water was like magic, blossoms kept popping out! And now you can see why I added the white border .... there is a subtle highlight around the flowers and the bird. 

Last step was to colourize the flowers and bird and add the sentiment. 

Stamps:

- daffodils: Chocolat Baroque, spring bird - daffodil

- bird: Katzelkraft KTZ151 les piafs

- blossom: Stampinback sheet 142

- sentiment: PaperArtsy - Eclectica EDY11

Materials:

PaintOn (white), purple cardboard, Archival (black), Derwent coloursoft and Inktense, Versamark.

Challenges:

- Stamping Sensations - March Challenge - Spring

Thank you for watching!

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!