More Daring L.O.V.E.

As customers were late sending me work, I got a bit of unscheduled play time to have another go with this week's Daring Cardmakers challenge to use the word "love" to make a project by incorporating at least one item that begins with each letter.

I went girly this time with pink and orange and a more floral image. I thought this would be a good card to have on hand to send to anybody who needs a bit of a lift.

One of the things I loved about (the original) CHF was the scrapblocks - 6" square stamps that offered the chance to cover the whole of a cardfront in one go (US card sizes mean that the typical background stamp is slightly short for us Europeans using a standard A6 card and a 6" stamp gets round that issue). Other companies make them now but I think CHF was the first. I pulled out an old one called "love" to use for the "L" on this project and tried to position it so that the word HUGS would be left exposed and other stuff would be guessable if you wanted to go that way!

L - Love Scrapblock stamp
O - Oval and Orange
V - Vases stamp
E - Enamel Accents

The oval was originally just placed on the card but I felt it needed a bit of accentuation so I used a charcoal pencil and smudged around it. The colouring on the vases is a mix of watercolouring with Distress inks and Copics.

Stamps:
Love Scrapblock by CHF (retired)
Vases by Serendipity Stamps

Ink: 
Brilliance Graphite Black by Tsukineko
Distress Picked Raspberry and Spiced Marmalade

Other:
Oval Framelits Dies by Sizzix
Copic markers
Enamel Accents by Ranger
Charcoal pencil
Corner Chomper

Thanks for stopping by!

Daring L.O.V.E.

Beckie has set this week's challenge at Daring Cardmakers and it's an ingenious twist on the theme of LOVE that's ubiquitous this Valentine's week. Love might be the theme but Beckie's asked us to incorporate it by taking the individual letters of the word and using at least one item beginning with each letter on our makes.

I had lots of ideas for the individual letters but coming up with a coherent group was more of a challenge! I
did, however, want to use this lovely owl stamp as he's a new acquisition and needed inking sooner rather than later. He's not only a handsome chap - he's big to boot! This is a 7" x 5" card.

A faux leather piece seemed like it would be a good "natural material" backdrop for him. It's kraft card sprayed with water and glycerin then scrunched, dried, embossed and inked.

Instructions for faux leather usually seem to tell you to emboss the damp piece of cardstock but I found the leathery creasing disappeared if I did that so I tried embossing once it was dry and was happier with the result. I used Microglaze to give the piece a finish with a slight sheen without being too glossy. It looks more realistic in real life than I could manage to capture with a photo.

Once he was coloured and cut out, I decided the owl was in danger of disappearing a bit on the leathery backdrop so I gave him a gesso "halo" for a bit of pop.

The letter V gave me most trouble for this since my first thoughts didn't work out and I almost gave up. I persevered and finally hit on adding a little touch of variegated leafing (having fiddled with vellum, wondered whether I could find any brown velvet ribbon in stash etc).

After much thought I have several other coherent groups scribbled on the back of an envelope - let's see whether time permits any more L.O.V.E. cards this week!

L - leather (faux, no animals were harmed in the making of this card!)
O - owl
V - variegated metal leaf flakes
E - embossing

Stamps:
T'wit T'woo by IndigoBlu
Big Day Today by Waltzingmouse Stamps

Ink: 
Brilliance Pearlescent Chocolate (for the stamping)
Distress Tea Dye and Vintage Photo (for the "leather")

Paper: kraft and white

Other:
Cuttlebug Fancy Corners embossing folder
Glycerin/water in spray bottle
Variegated Easy Metal gilding flakes by Eberhard Faber
Copic markers
Gesso 
Judikins Microglaze
Corner Chomper

Thanks for stopping by!

Paint time

I decided to play along with the current PaperArtsy challenge, originally as a nudge to use some new stamps although that went out of the window and I ended up reaching for some older ones!

Leandra's starting post for the current theme of "paint" mentioned stencil bumping. I was intrigued and found she has a good video tutorial demonstrating the technique here. I went for a tag as it was nice to experiment on something rather than aiming for a piece to use on a card or other project.

I really liked the effect Leandra got by using the translucent paints over the opaque ones so my colour choices for the base were dictated by what I had in my stash (I've had a transparent blue in my paint collection forever and a day and I had PaperArtsy's Hey Pesto translucent as well as Tinned Peas so blue/green it was!).

I followed Leandra's guide for the base layers and the stencilled circles and then did an extra layer by adding the stars, overlapping the circles in places. My "stencil" was created with a couple of circle punches and a Crop-a-Dile as all my existing stencils are really a bit too fine-patterned (certainly for a learner!).

Using both Mermaid and Snowflake when sponging in the top shapes gives a nice subtle variation of colour, I think and the sanding step really helps with overall coherence.

When I overstamped the painty base, I wanted the word "time" to stand out more so I went over it with a black marker and then clear Wink of Stella. I hadn't planned to stamp on the circles but that swirl was just the perfect size on the larger circle that I couldn't resist the temptation.

There's a second painty thing on the wee hanging tag - the chipboard piece with the year (just metal punches bashed into the chippie with a hammer) was given a base coat of very dark blue and then dry brushed with a couple of lighter paints. I think it gives a nice patina-ish look.

I thought I might use this as a bookmark so steered clear of adding any embellishments on the body of the tag.

Stamps: Clocks Plate 6 by PaperArtsy

Ink:
Brilliance Graphite Black
Hero Arts Charcoal

Other:
PaperArtsy Fresco Finish acrylic paint (Mermaid, Snowflake, Tinned Peas, Hey Pesto)
Midnight Blue and Turquoise acrylic paint by DecoArt
Random transparent blue acrylic paint from stas
Sizzix Thinlits Tag Collection dies
Small tag cut from waste mountboard with Tim Holtz Apothecary Bottles die
Number punches and leather pattern punch
Jump rings
Wink of Stella clear pen
Circle and star punches by Fiskars

Thanks for stopping by!