Winter Solstice

Monday, December 21, 2015

Only 3 hours and 45 minutes of daylight here today. Now the sun barely rises to the top of the trees. Since we have too much daylight on the 4th of July to enjoy fireworks winter solstice is our time to celebrate with vibrant fireworks and added sparkle of snow and glistening trees. We celebrate that with each new day we will have more sunlight. I am very excited to share with you my interpretation of nature's beauty that we enjoy during this time of year.

I created this card's background with the Stencil Stamping Technique:

I used 2 small pieces of tape to attach a stencil (Tim Holtz, flourish stencil) to watercolor paper. Lightly tapped Ken Oliver's Color Burst powders through the stencil openings and misted. When pleased with the 1st image removed the stencil. Gently place the bottom side of the stencil which is still covered with lots of color on top of a fresh 2nd piece of paper.  Hand press color onto paper and removed stencil. I continue coloring the cardstock and drying as needed.

I added some special sparkle to the card. I stamped the top left corner with a Hero Arts Sparkle Border stamp and colored with Stickles. Layered snowflakes at the bottom left and added a few sparkling gems. Strips of glitter add sparkles to the side edges of the card.
   
I am submitting this card to this month's Craft Stamper's Take It, Make It Challenge. Here is the blog link.

Thank You for stopping in!  
May your holidays be Merry and Bright!...Jan

A Christmas Card Favorite

As always I made lots of holiday cards this year and this is one of my favorites.

Distress ink colors: fired brick, broken china, peacock feathers, and pine needles and as needed fern green archival as well as Memories unicorn white pigment ink.

The poinsettia is stamped in archival fern green ink and water colored on Strathmore paper. The center is accented with opal liquid pearls and overall with Wink of Stella.

Dies: Tim Holtz- mixed media die set ( lattice piece) and Tim’s winter greens die set (evergreen branch). The small package tag is from a retired SU die set.  I colored it with a round blending tool to achieve the background color as well as darker color on the word “Merry”. Tim’s faded dot stencil was added over top.   A bokeh technique was used for the background.  Mercury Glass stickles around the evergreen.

Happy holidays!...Jan

Challenge for Artsy Inkers

INK15 Warm-Up activity 

Hi Artsy Inkers!

Please start your timer for 30 minutes now.

Artsy Inkers certainly have a wide range of embossing supplies and experience using them.  During your  30 minutes you can explore the various textures of different types of embossing powder and try simple ways to create heat embossing with alternative adhesives you have on hand. There are NO Rules for what you create.  Hopefully this activity will help you explore new ideas for you to incorporate EP into this week’s challenges. 

Here are some possible ideas of what you may want to create as you warm-up your creative juices:

        Create a  swatch sheet for your winter colors or ones you have limited experience using.

I embossed each tape separately. Used anti-static bag before any embossing.

OR:.Use your traditional methods to prepare paper surface with anti-static method and heat emboss powder. Try using what you have on hand to adhere the embossing powder:

Sakura Quickie glue  looks like a ballpoint pen

Glue dots

Double stick tape

Hot glue

Or any other adhesive you have on hand

OR—Create new hand-drawn embossed designs, or accent edges with embossing powder; or emboss die cuts; or emboss items other than stamped images.

Or make a  small gift card to explore using these techniques.

OR anything else you would like to try!   

Happy creating!...Jan

Domestic Violence Awareness Month-Hop to Stop!

Hello friends!

When I read Becca Cruger’s announcement of “Hop to Stop” as an effort to raise awareness regarding domestic violence I knew I wanted to support this cause. The need to bring awareness to this issue is so-o great: 1 in 3 women will experience domestic violence over the course of their lifetimes. Yes, even if you have been fortunate enough to personally not be effected by DV you probably know someone who has. But many victims are forced to live in silent fear and yet often suffer with physical or mental issues.

Unfortunately here in Alaska we have the highest rate of Domestic Violence in the country. Many of the women have severe lasting effects which sometimes begin in childhood. It is difficult to see the lifelong effects as I did when I worked with individuals to find resources to support their lives as they try to make new choices.  Raising community awareness is a slow, hard process for this problem which generally is not discussed.  As a society we need to start talking more about this issue so changes can be made.

Here are the cards I will be sending to Becca: 

Step 1:  I start my cards by making focal image backgrounds by covering glossy paper with a combo of alcohol inks. Note-I did not add any blending fluid or rubbing alcohol. When dry I taped a circle stencil on top.

Step 2: Cut a piece of felt to use on a round handled blending tool.  Add a small puddle of rubbing alcohol on craft sheet.Lighten damped the blending tool with rubbing alcohol. Lightly covering each stencil opening.Remove stencil and dab off any excess rubbing alcohol.

 

Step 3:  Stamp image with archival ink.  Card bases are made with combinations of paint, ink, spray, and splatter. 

 

Sometimes I find it is easier to make a few extra technique backgrounds when the results are not predictable. This time I was happy with each one and decided to make a few more cards for this cause.

 

 

Becca has gathered support of 15 stamping related companies who are offering nearly $600 in prizes-What awesome support! Stampers are to link purple cards on her blog before Oct 14, 12noon CST.  Of course Becca has lots more details on her blog.

I am so pleased that cardmakers are beginning to take action to raise public awareness about Domestic Violence.  Thanks so much for considering supporting this cause by doing what papercrafters do so well…make a card!...Jan

Birthday card

Hi there!  

Hope you have time to create today!  I enjoyed playing with some Dylusion spray inks.  I sprayed the background with 3 colors nudging them to mix and blend. Followed by the ghosting technique of spraying water through a stencil (circles) drying and spraying white dylusion spray through a star stencil and drying. Note: Dylusions white linen is not an opaque white and paint takes on some the waterbased spray color.  I really like the depth this combination brings to a background. I made some extra background paper and stamp/embossed the sentiment so I could use it for grounding my bird. Scribbly birds are by Dina Wakely.

Thanks for stopping in! 

Follow-up to coffee blog hop

I just wanted to say a huge thanks to all who stopped by my blog and left comments on my coffee card post.  Unfortunately my community got hit hard with a heavy very wet snow the week of the hop.  Many trees broke under the weight of the snow causing power outages for most of the community.  I was without power for the 5 days of the hoping making it impossible for me to post comments.  I still remain without water since my well was effected by the large number of power surges.  Hopefully today will bring the needed fix!

I did pick a name of a lucky commenter for the stamp and stencil promised.  Happy Dance will soon be receiving some happy mail!

Several people asked about my musical coffee stamp.  The artist is Maryse Carrier and the stamp is available at Stampotique.

Go for the Gold class

Sandy Allnock's FREE class this week Go for the Gold kicked off on Sunday in Ellen Hutson’s online classroom.  The rest of the classes can be found on Sandy’s blog or on You Tube. Sandy and Ellen are providing opportunities for us to share the creative ways we use Sandy's daily inspiration.  I am enjoying this class immensely and using more gold on a single card that ever before!  This is a great opportunity to open some products that don’t get used very often.  Hope you join in the fun too!

Sandy’s 1^st day is an ornament card and here is how I used the inspiration with products I had on hand.  Like Sandy’s card I first made a die cut. I covered it with Dreamweaver’s metallic gold embossing paste and stamped on the top and bottom to add some flourishes.  Sandy’s best tip for me was to mist the paste to help prevent the paste from sticking on the stamp…that helped a lot!! 

On the center of the ornament I wanted to add a special memory from my travels this year. And I wanted to try out Faber-Castell’s Glass bead glitter glitter gel.  OH my, when the gel dried the glitter was a blue-green and should have worked great with my Paua Shell pieces but for me the quantity of glitter was over powering. Perhaps I didn’t stir the gel sufficiently because I could not see many beads on my ornament. To remedy the situation I added more gold paste…LoL who would have thought more gold would tone down too much sparkle?...but challenge solved!

I also added gold paste to the edges of the card base and created a background paste paper with acrylic pastes, glitter and a few tools for creating dimension.

Thanks for stopping in!

...Jan

Fall Coffee Lover's Blog Hop & Giveaway

Hi there!

Want to join some blog hop fun?  Here's the link.

Come along to see many amazing designs from so many talented artists and a fabulous group of sponsor.

While the leaves have already turn colors and fallen here...I sure didn't mind an extra cup of coffee while watching our 9 inches of snow make a beautiful blanket over all the leaves still on the ground.  It sure was fun to recapture the beautiful fall colors in my card. 

I created this background with spray inks and used a small piece a fern fond as a mask. I blended additional distress inks on the edges. 

I stamped the main image and sentiment and heat embossed. Added glossy accents to emphasize the coffee and a metal washer next to the sentiment. Die cut the edge with distress card creator.

I will be giving away 1 stamp and a stencil for one lucky person who leaves a comment.  Thank you for stopping in!...Jan