think outside the stamp!

posted by Etha

Often when I see a new stamp design my ideas immediately go ways that the stamp probably wasn't initially thought for, this is fun and opens new possibilities for using stamps in a creative way. Let me show you what I mean :)

I wanted to use this wonderful Brush Baby Buggy image and wanted to have the fabric of the buggy to have some flowers. I really didn't have any designer paper that fit so I browsed my DRS stamps and saw the super Flower Butterfly that had exactly what I wanted. I basically used the butterfly stamped repeatedly to make myself a designer paper to piece parts of the buggy and then also the background.
My sentiment is the last row of the Happy Moments/Happy Days birthday message :)

Here is another example for a Valentine's card:
My intent was to showcase the pretty Ribbon Heart from the last release in a simple card. The heart was colored with pencils and gamsol for this one. But I wanted a border of some sort to set off the stamped panel.

Stamping just one side of the Giga Knot Square from the last release I got exactly what I was looking for. So while you may not initially think of the square stamp to be a long border, turn it around and have your paper on a grid surface for alignment, you can stamp it into an endless border to frame an image! The sentiment is the small Happy Valentine's Day sentiment that also would fit perfectly inisde the square if you use it as a whole :)

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January Birthdays

by Etha Schuette
I think it is apropriate to use Winter images for January Birthday cards :) Right now it is snowing here and very very cold.... Did you know that DRSdesigns has a wonderful birthday sentiment for each single month? Along with monthly seasonal images you can find them here . I used some images from the New Releases for my two January birthday cards:





I like to stamp a bit on the inside of cards as well, here I used the snowflake backgrounder and the birthday sentiment for that!




Both main images were embossed with sparkly white powder for a bit of bling!

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Happy Holidays to you!

posted by Etha...

Not sure how many times you can say "this is my LAST holiday card for this year..." so I think I'm going to quit saying that ;) But I can't post on the 24th with anything other than holiday wishes!!


I love this saying as it will be still ok even if my card is a tiny bit late! I added some bling in the corners of my saying panel, are you playing with us in our Bling Challenge??
Notice that I wrinkled up and inked the gold layer, this is to remind you to SAVE all those wrapping paper scraps. Even pieces that seem utterly destroyed after an enthusiastic ripping of packages, I bet they could all be used on cards :)

Happy Holidays!!

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Happy Holidays!

posted by Etha...
Here is my wish to the DRS team and to all visitors of this blog:



It is very cold, icy and snowy here these days which inspired me to color this gorgeous poinsettia (K077) with icy shimmerz colors (wintergreen, pink poinsettia, candle light, sunflower).
I hope everybody has joyful and safe holidays!!

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confessions of a lazy stamper (or, chalk it up now!)

by Etha Schuette

Ahh, I think it is time to confess, if given the choice, I think I rather go the easy way in stamping, let me share some tricks for you if you would like to try your hand with scenic stamping but you shy away from tedious masking and trying out.
Try out your scene on scrap paper once so you see how the elements work together. An easy way to get a background going is to chalk your paper, I like using shimmer chalks and a small cotton ball. Look at your trial composition and then just put some chalk on the paper. No need to stress or be exact!! Mix some colors and when you have the desired colors on paper, make sure to rub over all of them with a heavy hand to blend them.

Next stamp your background images with a non-black ink. I used a grey versafine in both examples, the above card has the Winterscene stamp (trees with fence and birds) and the bottom card uses the Fir Trees for a background - using a muted color will look natural.
Next decide for the foreground. In the above example I stamped the pretty "Branch Sitting Bird" with black and dark green ink, just so that it doesn't overlap the background, no masking required! I added the Pine Bough to the right stamped in dark green. I am MUCH too lazy to use a stamp positioner, so what I do is to cut a tiny notch into the rubber (that I can see from the back) so that I can align it properly with the branch of the bird. (on a wood mounted stamp, I just draw a small line on the side on the wood). Add a few more partial pine branches around the bird for foreground.
Color the bird with pencils, right over the chalk!

Of course you can chalk your background after stamping. But that can cover the stamped images with chalk unless you are really careful and makes them look fuzzy. Much easier to chalk first and stamp on TOP of that. You can still color in your images with any medium that you choose right over the chalk...

My second example uses the new Oswald the Owl as a foreground image and him I DID mask briefly to add the grass. I just cut out the image from my trial stamping/scrap piece and laid it over him. A touch of pine bow completes the illusion that he is in the foreground and the trees much farther away. The partial fir trees at the bottom right of the card again are stamped in a darker ink than the ones in the background. I have a tiny bit of "sun glow" showing in chalks in the upper right which nicely balances out Oswald's color!

But oops, I forgot to leave some space for the sentiment that I wanted to use! In this case, the lazy stamper just used the sentiment on an extra layer, a bit distressed and sponged to add to the forest feel. Glue it on top, no sweat here :) The foreground fir trees were not masked to stamp the background trees. Just stamp them right on top of each other. I haven't met a clean looking forest yet, so it doesn't matter if they slightly mix!

There you have it, try some scenic stamping next time and take it easy ;)

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quick, lets make some ornaments!

posted by: Etha

Today I want to show you how you can make some quick and easy ornaments using the wonderful stars from DRSdesigns and some readily available materials. Right now the stores are full with all kinds of stars in different materials, pick some up to alter. My first one uses a large chipboard star (Basic Grey), lilac cardstock, white and gold acrylic paints and silver embossing. Some dots with stickles top it all off.

This ornament uses the Christmas Tree Punch Star (M900). This is a special design that you can fold into a 3D shape, I have two large pop dots under the center to keep it shaped like that.

Tip: when you want to paint grey chip board in gold, give it a base layer of white first, the gold will be more brilliant that way!

Next up is a simple star ornament that has a transparency center that was painted with alcohol inks. The star was stamped twice and embossed in silver, cut out and the transparency trapped inside:




This is so quick, you can make a bunch of these in very little time. Use your favorite color scheme for your holiday decorations. These window stars look very good in the window or in front of a light source, see:




The stamp I used here is the Double Swirl Star (M907).

Tip: you can use anything fancy in the center of your star, check junk mail or old kid's craft projects that you no longer need, something shimmery or transparent will work!


My last star ornament uses the ever so popular ceramic ornaments that can be found in most craft stores these days. Last year these ornaments were matte/rough and you had about one chance of stamping on them. This year the ones I find are glazed and smooth. I used black stazon to stamp. Now this is a pretty 'slick' affair, if you press down too hard your stamp will slip, if you press down too little, you don't get a full impression. But the glazed ornaments are super, if you mess up, just wipe it off with some Alcohol Blending solution (Ranger) and you can start over :)



I used the Double Swirl Star again. Now the temptation is there to paint this with alcohol inks, but you can't, this would horribly smear the stamped image. But you can paint the ceramic with twinkling H2Os which gets a very similar effect to alcohol inks and will not smear the water proof stazon ink. What I like to do with stamped ceramic ornaments is to give them a light spray with a sealer (like Krylon, any kind, clear) and then right after shake some glitter onto the whole thing. It makes the image a bit fuzzy, but oh the glittery goodness! This also seals the twinkling H20s.. see:




oh fun glitter!

Tip: check for any star shape at the craft store, you can use wood as a base, fun foam, glass, metal, anything will work!


I hope I have given you some ideas for making ornaments on the quick! Leave a comment and share if you make one!

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more ATC fun or, darn, my stamp is too large

No it isn't :)
Often times when following a sketch or wanting to make an ATC I go look around for stamps that "fit" the different panels or sizes. You don't really have to because you don't always need to use the whole stamp, partial is totally ok and can give you nice effects! Take for instance those very cute new snowmen stamps:

These are two separate stamps, I just combined them in one image for you. The smaller one JUST about fits onto an ATC, but it looked a bit overwhelming on the small canvas. So I thought why not just take the tops of both making them look into the scene:

They work very well without their bottoms and it gives a fun look!
The way I made this ATC:
First prepare a background with acrylic shimmer colors (you can also take a stamped or patterned card stock)
Stamp the Interlocking star background twice over the top at an angle with versamark and emboss in gold.
Stamp snowmen at an angle in black for the background layer so that you don't have to cut out arms etc.
Stamp snowmen again on white shimmer card stock, color and cut out bodies but cutting off hat rims, arms and scarf fringes.
Align snowmen over stamped ones and glue down, then trim ATC to final size.
Stamp sentiment and add dove brad, sponge the edges and you're done :)
Manke many and trade!!

So next time you are looking for that perfect stamp for a perfect size, don't be limited by the size of the stamp, see if you can take a partial image, it can work to your advantage!

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something simple

I had planned something more elaborate for today but life got in the way in some terrible motion, so I have to keep it simple for now.
I wanted to show you how you can combine the beautiful DRSdesigns backgrounders to suit your cards. I my example I used the brand new Interlocking Snowflake Background together with the Swish Easy Background! The Swish is just perfect to depict snowy hills:



These backgrounders are so easy to stamp you just can't go wrong. I stamped in versamark and clear embossed, then brayered different color inks over that. But wait, there are some totally cute snowmen in the picture as well! Brand new released Stretch the Round Button and Lil Stretch the Square Button snowmen! I stamped these first and then masked them before doing the backgrounds and brayering.
Except for the sentiment, this is a one layer card and I think it has a lot of dimension despite this!
I used the same technique in my challenge card where I used 4 different backgrounder stamps to make a background for my focal sentiment!

Etha

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a little non-candy treat

Here is a surprisingly quick to make treat, I think young and old kids will enjoy getting one of these. I started with stamping the Spooky Eyes Background onto black card stock with versamark, then embossed with white. Stamped the Happy Girl Ghost on white card stock and cut her out to glue onto the black. Cut the black into a circle to fit into a metal wedding favor tin:

I covered the whole circle with versamark ink and heat embossed it with polysparkle (Ranger) powder. Now lets see what's inside!


A little puzzle! I made the puzzle with a spellbinder's die, but for trick or treaters under 48 I would suggest one of those ready made puzzle cards from JoAnne's, they would be a bit easier to put together. Several companies make puzzle dies in different patterns. I simply stamped my message and images on card stock, colored them, then brayered with versamark and again embossed the whole surface with polysparkle powder before cutting the puzzle.


I hope you enjoy my non-candy favor. Too bad we don't have ANY trick or treaters out here, unless you count the young bear who comes to raid my compost....

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more ATC cards

Since I had made more than one ATC two weeks ago, I thought I show you some more examples how you can use them to make a card. It is kind of clever, you have you main image and style done already and just get to play with it to make a full card.
Here is w hat I did with the little bee:

I stamped the bee numerous times all over a yellow base card in two different light inks, then punched out some flowers in white and popped them up in the corners to visually connect with the white of the card and the raised bee.

The "create" card I wanted to be a bit different, so why not CUT your ATC? This sentiment always makes me feel like I can jump outside of the box and I tried doing that with this one.

Scissors on the table, I cut some more on the christmas bug ATC. The corners went into the card corners and I added the black glaze pen again to the cut edges. Stamped the backgrounder mosaic again on red card stock and took a few pieces to lead the mosaic puzzle into the background.

So, what can you do with your ATC? If you play go ahead and let us know so we can see your creations!

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those large sentiments, making a background and calculated sloppiness

How's that for a title?? I just could not decide what I wanted to call this :)
I have a September Birthday card for you today, just follow along and see what I did. I wanted to use the wonderful September Sentiment stamp - DRSdesigns has one for each month ! I also wanted to use the beautiful sunflower stamp for the background but I did not really want to cover it up with a sentiment layer.
First I made my background using the sunflower:

The sunflower has just about the right size so that the sentiment would fit over it. I stamped my main flower in the upper part of the card panel. Then I stamped it two more times onto a post-it-note making sure that I have part of the flower on top where the sticky part is. I can cover up the main flower with the mask and then stamp some more flowers:

tip1: when you cut out your mask, cut off the black outside line from the stamped image, this way you will not get a while halo around it when stamping over it!

tip2: how do you find the way to orient the sunflower mask? There are two petals on the flower that lie "on top" of the adjacent ones, I marked them in the right image, find those and it will be easy to line the mask up over the stamped one.


Now I quickly colored the background flowers with markers:

This is where the fun sloppiness begins. I just layered markers of different colors over the stamped images until I was happy with the way it looked. Dye ink markers behave like any other water-soluble pigment, you can layer them and even dilute them with water. I colored the background behind the flowers with ink from a brown dye ink pad. I did not want this to look uniform, just slop it on with a water brush. You can see I laid the sentiment stamp on top of the main flower to show that it fits well in there. Next I needed to prepare my background in a way that one would be able to read the sentiment. I used some acrylic paint to just paint the area in bold brush strokes where I wanted to stamp the sentiment:

My first layer used "wheat" acrylic paint (making memories), I dried it with the heat gun, then painted a shimmery white acrylic paint (luna lights) over that and again dried with the heat gun. You could paint your "image" exactly where you want to stamp, but I think its fun when it is just a layer of brush strokes over your background.
Stamp your sentiment, add some embellishments and finish your card:


Click on the image to see what it looks like when you tilt the card in the light :) Since we were just playing with ATCs on Monday, here is one that I made with the exact same method and paint colors:
Fun, isn't it? acrylic paints are in essence a water dilutable pigment that appear transparent in a thin layer and depending on how you hold the ATC you can still see the circles background behind it, or not. A bit interactive if you wish.
I hope you have enjoyed today's venture into painting and masking, see you again in two weeks!

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get out your spirits

Odorless mineral spirits (or gamsol) that is and of course your holiday spirits. I already see the months flying by and before I know it I'm late with holiday cards!
For this card I used the new Fun Circle Christmas stamp! I used pencils (Koh-i-noor) and gamsol with a stump to color in the image. When working with mineral spirits to soften pencil coloring, you need to lay down very little color from your pencil. Just follow the outline of the image, perhaps add a lighter color right next to it and then blend away with your stump. If you want to preserve definite highlights like in the berries on the holly leaf, do add some white pencil at those spots before blending.





Here is how I store my gamsol. You definitely don't want to drag out the big bottle each time you feel like using it. I saved a skin cream container and cleaned it. Then cut a piece of sponge to fit into it, poured some gamsol over that to moisten the sponge. The container must close very well as I have been using this for more than a year so far. I also only use one tiny little stump for all my blending. When switching colors, rub the tip on a piece of scrap until it comes clean. You only need to hold the tip of the stump onto the sponge and it will pick up enough fluid to blend an area of pencil.

I colored the circles behind the images with clear glitter pen for a touch of bling. The sentiment was heat embossed with white powder and the dots around the edges are doodling with white gel pen. If you have never done this I hope you will try out to blend your colored pencils with gamsol/odorless mineral spirits. It really opens up a whole new dimension of pencil coloring. I love combining this technique with regular pencil coloring for different effects.

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stamp this!

Fabric that is!

It is really quite easy to stamp on fabric/jersey if you use the right inks and a steady hand. Make sure that you pre_wash the item that you will be stamping on. It helps to have an old t-shirt or similar handy to try out things before you go for the real thing. I stamped this onesie using the Sunflower and the Happy Bee . I used Palette hybrid inks for stamping, some fabrico markers for coloring and also used a fantastix brush to pick up some color from small palette cubes to do some more coloring. All those inks are wash-proof after heat setting.
If your inks are quite juicy, do insert a piece of card stock into or under the item to be stamped to make sure that it doesn't leak through, it is also easier to stamp that way with a bit of firmness right under the fabric. When you use outline stamps to be colored, heat set the stamped outline before you start coloring it. Lets put this thing into action, shall we?

Ahhh, I think it meets approval! :)

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