Gorgeous Grunge Cards.

 I enjoyed making these very quick cards.   I used  a selection of the stamps in the "Gorgeous Grunge" set  and  several neutral coloured inks.

Inked Snow Scene Tutorial

 These cards have been much admired so I thought I would share the technique with you so that you too can make this card.
 Except it won't be this card as no two cards come out the same.
Which makes everyone unique.

The tools and materials used are very basic.

2 shades of blue ink 
2 sponges or daubers.
1 dark green ink pad and matching marker if possible (just incase)

Versamark clear ink pad

A pine tree stamp and a splatter stamp

I have used the pine tree from the Stampin Up  " Lovely as a Tree" stamp set.

and the splatter stamp from the stampin up "Gorgeous Grunge" set.

4x4  Whisper white card stock,   (it's so smooth and easier to sponge on.)

Scrap paper cut  a long curvy line across it. 

Lastly a glue pen and some Dazzling Diamonds glitter.

Let us begin....

 Ink up the splatter stamp with clear versamark ink  and randomly stamp the the top half of your white card and allow the ink to dry.  ( about 10 mins)

You won't see very much  on the card at this stage as the ink is clear.

 Cut a curvy line across a sheet of scrap paper. I am using a mask I have used before so you can see it.

This is going to be your mask for  creating the drifts of snow and I will refer to this scrap paper as your mask from now on.

Lay your mask across your 4x4 card stock
about an inch and a half down from the top and sponge the sky starting on the mask and work  upwards onto your cardstock.

Never start sponging directly onto the card stock as the ink is too intense and you'll end up with big circles of ink you can't disguise.  

Keep applying the lighter blue ink  (I used Stampin up's Marina Mist) until the whole area has been covered.
You will now notice the versamark ink starting to show through the blue ink. 
The Versamark  creates a  ghosting effect  giving the  impression it's snowing.

Apply more ink at the edges of the card and long the wavy line of your mask than in the centre.

Once you have covered the entire area take your darker blue  ink  (I used stampin up's Night of Navy) and sponge a little over the edge of your mask and around the edges of your cardstock,  this will give a little more depth to your snow drifts. Be careful not to over do the darker blue. 

Tip.... Try not to get hard lines of colour the key to success on this is softness ... BUT  if you do get the odd hard line  of  darker blue blend it out by adding more of the light blue over the area.

Work down the cardstock by applying the light blue  starting  on the mask paper  and working upwards onto the cardstock leave  a narrow white strip at the top of each drift.



Blend in until you reach the bottom.
Move your mask around to vary the direction and slant of the drifts.

Stamping the Trees. 
All the trees on this image have been created with the same stamp.

You will need your mask again for this.


Before I continue I will share a little tip.
Something I discovered many moons ago.

If you look to the picture on the right you will see the tree doesn't meet up with the snow drift and  looks  odd.
That is because I lined the mask up exactly with the snow drift before I stamped the tree.
Yes,  I did that on purpose to show you what not to do. 

If this happens to you, it can be rectified by drawing in the lower tree trunk and branches with a marker pen in the same colour ink. So it's not the end of the world.

My tip to avoid this happening in the first place is to position your mask about  1 or 2 millimetres lower than your sponged  snow drift.  (see photo on left)
With a little practise you'll become an expert at judging just how much space to leave.

Now you know how to position your mask for stamping the trees.

Line up your mask with your snow drift leaving the tiny gap and make sure your mask is large enough to cover the lower part of your work.

Ink up your tree stamp and  stamp your tree over the mask and onto your cardstock.   
As the mask is covering most of your work only the top of the tree will be stamped onto your card, creating what appears to be a small tree.
Move your mask down to the the next snowdrift  where you want your next tree to be and  repeat the process.  Make one tree in the foreground a complete or almost complete tree.




Ideally you want to have an odd number of trees. Odd numbers always look better.

When you have stamped all your trees  use a glue pen and add tiny dots of glue randomly over the trees and add  Dazzling Diamond glitter.

Finally ......
It has taken me three hours to do this tutorial, which is two hours and  forty five minutes longer than it took to make the card.
I have to say,   this all looks quite involved and time consuming  but it's not. I could have made a dozen of these in the time it's taken me to write this up. LOL

Petite Petals Birthday Card.

Today's post is a card I have CASE'd from another SU demonstrator from Germany.

 I saw  this card on her blog and thought it was beautiful so I  just had to CASE it.

  I think what drew me to this card was her use of the Gorgeous Grunge splatter stamp.

She has stamped the splatters and heat embossed them in silver.

 The card looks a bit flat and uninspiring without this addition.

My card is not exactly the same  but its as close as I could get it without actually copying it stamp for stamp.   I will post the link to her blog

 at the end so you can pop over and see the original versions.  

You will notice  a few more changes that I haven't mentioned.

I am not sure what colours Annmarie used on her card as she doesn't list her colours on the first version of this card. She does list her colours for the second version.

I can tell you the colours I used. 

They were Blushing bride, Night of navy, and Raspberry  ripple.

Stamp set used were  Gorgeous grunge, Petite petal and Flower shop.

 The paler images in the top and bottom corners I inked up the small flower with Blushing bride ink and stamped it off once onto scrap paper before applying the stamp to the corners for a softer image.  Then inked up the stamp with the same ink and applied it directly to the card, which gave the stronger image.

Then I stamped the flower again in Night of navy directly onto the card and I stamped two images onto scrap card and punched them out with the corresponding punch for layering up. 

Using Versamark ink I inked up the splatter stamp, wiped down my card with an embossing buddy ( anti static pad) and stamped the image in the top left corner and the bottom right corner, covered the splatters in embossing powder and heated until shiny. 

The sentiment was also heat embossed in silver before punching it out with the word window punch and mounting it on to Blushing bride cardstock.

The central flower is a stamp from the Flower shop stamp set. I used Raspberry ripple ink to stamp this image on to scrap card. Then used the same ink along with a water filled paintbrush to colour in the image.  Once the  ink was dry I punched out the large flower with the corresponding  punch and  added the smaller flower to the center with a small, thin sticky foam pad placed a sparkly in the  center of the flower and adhered it in place on the front of my stamped background. 

The final steps were to add the rhinestones and  mount my finished work onto a piece of Blushing bride cardstock, then onto  Night of navy cardstock and finally onto the 7x5 white base card.  

All that's left for me to do now is create the insert and get this in the post to a special lady for her birthday.

But before I go here is the link to Annmarie and Andrea's  post for this beautiful and  inspiring  card.

http://firsthandemotion.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/petite-petals-in-pastell.html

Greg's Birthday Card

Yesterday was our son's birthday and I was stuck for ideas for a card for him. .  My mojo  has definitely been hiding from me this last week or so. 
Time to get some inspiration from the internet.

After some time trawling certain facebook sites I came a cross a  very similar card to this created by Paula Knall which  took my fancy. 
So I went into case mode and recreated her card,  but with a couple of differences.
 I added the word son were  Paula's had a number and the sentiment is different as I don't have the stamp she used. I think this works.
The stamp set  used for the ink splatters and lines are from the Stampin' Up set Gorgeous Grunge and the chevron stripes were created with the chevron punch also from Stampin' Up.
 Fortunately  for me this card was very quick to make as I only had and hour  to do the card, create an insert for it and cook dinner, before rushing round to deliver the card.