Camping themed cards

I ordered the Campology stamp set basically to make up my figures for this quarter. I didn't really want it. It's not the sort of stamp set I would go for, but I did really like the trees, so I am glad I did buy it. 

I have had hours of fun playing with this set over the last few days.

The card above is Hubby's birthday card for next week. Maybe it will remind him of a camp site in Suffolk we stayed on, more than 40 years ago. It was called the Moon and Sixpence. I loved that name, which is probably why I remembered it. I also recall it cost more than sixpence to camp there.  That's enough of my memories, time to tell you about todays cards.

 The card above is nothing like what I had in my mind when I started it. I had originally stamped the lantern on the scene, but I didn't like it, so I started messing around with aperture card fronts and managed to save a portion of the card.

 However  the handle of the lantern was showing through the aperture, which was not a good look. 

After a little thought on how to get round this, I decided to stamp and colour the lantern on a separate  piece of card. I then cut it out, cutting off the handle. 

 I inked up the handle part of the lantern stamp only, and using the stamp a majig, I matched up the handle on the stamp with the piece of handle showing through the aperture and stamped the handle on the front panel. I then stuck the body of the lantern on the front matching it up with the handle.

To create this one I stamped the tent twice and masked each one off as I stamped them. Then blended  a band of yellow ink through the centre, above the yellow, I blended in some peachy ink, followed by pink ink and finally purple. 

I then stamped the trees over the top and sponged in the foreground and added the sentiment.

I have had a few questions about how I coloured the tents. 

Here's how I do it...

 I coloured the tent with alcohol markers, starting with a pale yellow, draw a circle and colour it in. 

 Add a circle of a golden yellow around the pale yellow, then  draw an orange  circle and fill the corners. Blend all the colours together with the lightest coloured marker.  If you want a little more shading  add  a little brown in darker areas and blend all the colours together with the lighter coloured marker. Don't blend too much or you will blend out all the shading.

  I wanted the trees to have a bit more substance,  so  I dabbed dots of dark green ink on the foliage areas and coloured in the trunks. Lastly, I dotted stars in the sky with a white Posca pen.

The card above was inspired by Michelle Zindorf, I saw her version and decided I wanted to have a go at reproducing it myself.  I would never have thought of using greens in the sky, but it works.

I am happy with the result, it's quite close to the original,  but not exactly the same.  I think Michelle's card is nicer.

My third card is a 3x 7 inch card.  I adapted the image to fit the slimline card.

I swapped out the lantern for the coffee pot and mug. I cut out the pot and mug and adhered them in the foreground using dimensionals.

 My final card, which was actually one of my first attempts with this set. I almost abandoned it as I thought the foreground was too dark, then I decided to try painting a path through the foreground  with a paint brush, after water waiting a few seconds for the water to do it's stuff, I dabbing off the water with kitchen towel. The water lifted just enough ink to create a moonlit path through the darkness. So I managed to save yet another piece of work that was heading for the bin. I found some tiny crystal stars in my sparkles drawer and used three on this card. 

Campology Tutorial.

I posted a couple of cards on the  Stampin' up demonstrator face book page yesterday and the response was phenomenal.  I have been asked  many times to do a video on colouring the stamped images, in this instance the tent,  but my blog won't allow me to upload videos. The nearest I can come to a video is a photo tutorial. 

So I don't have a finished card for you today. The purpose of this post is to show you one of the ways I have been working with the Campology set. Which hopefully will answer all the questions left on FB. The actual cards will be posted  here on Tuesday,  which is Hubby's birthday. As he follows my blog,  I can't have him seeing his card on here before then. Hence the delay in posting the actual cards.

 If you are a visiting demo you will probably have seen the cards already and they are probably the reason you are visiting here.  I hope that this post will answer your questions.

First I stamped the tent onto my piece of basic white card and again on the sticky edge of a post it note.

 I cut out the tent from the post it , cutting on the inside of the stamped line. I placed the post it over the stamped image, to protect the tent from the blending process. You really don't want to get any ink on the tent.

I used Blueberry Bushel and a blending brush to create the sky. I load the brush with ink then tap off the excess in the lid of the ink pad, I can come back and collect the ink from the lid next time I need to load my brush.  I also work on a sheet of laminated card, this is so I can brush the ink from the laminated card onto the  piece I am working on, meaning I don't waste too much ink.  If I was working on paper the paper would soak up a lot of ink and I could never reclaim that. Yep! I am a tightwad.

Always start work from the top edge of your card and blend down towards the middle. The top edge will absorb most of the ink on your brush, as you work downwards the  less ink you will have on your brush, which will give you a graduated look. This will help to give the scene a little depth.

The next step was to stamp those trees. I roughly lined up the bottom of the tree stamp with the back edge of the tent, so as not to stamp over the guylines holding up the tent.

 I moved the tree stamp over and planted another row of trees on the opposite side of the tent. One set of trees looks great, but I decided to go with two sets on this sample.

Using a piece of torn scrap paper and Soft suede ink I brushed in some shade at the base of the tent and under the trees. I used the edge of the torn paper to brush in  some extra shading or contour lines.

 You can add the stars  with a white Posca pen now if you wish or leave it to the end.

 With a Mellow Moss ink pad  and a brush, I completely covered  the foreground in green ink.  This time working from the bottom upwards so the intensity of the green is darker at the bottom. You can still see those contour lines I brushed in but they are nowhere near as obvious. They give the impression of uneven ground without hitting you in the face.

                           Now we can colour that tent. So remove the mask. Take a pale yellow alcohol marker  The paler the better. Draw a circle with the marker and colour in the middle. 

With  a  slightly stronger, more intense yellow, draw another circle around the first circle and overlapping the first slightly.  Do not colour it in this time. You're creating a bullseye effect with the markers.

With a stronger  golden yellow, draw another circle around the first two,  slightly over lapping the last circle.

 With   a light or mid tone orange marker draw  another circle and fill in the corners of the tent with light orange.

Going back to the lightest yellow marker, gently blend the  hard lines between the circles. They don't have to disappear altogether, you just want to soften the edges.  

Don't go over the middle circle, you need to keep that as light as possible. 

Warning..... If you blend too much, you will washout all the darker colours. You are  also in danger of flooding your card with ink.  The good news is, if you do blend out too much colour,  let your card dry and then you can put it back in.

    

If you want a little more shading on the edges, try adding a little mid brown in the shaded areas and blend to soften the edges a little. Once you've achieved the look you like,  add some stars with a white Posca pen. if you haven't done it already.

I am including a photo of the marker pens I used  to give you an idea of the colours I used.

However I think I should have swapped the pale yellow Y11 to canary yellow Y02 or something even lighter.

 I do hope this information has helped and answered all the questions.

Nuts and Bolts

I almost missed this set in the mini catalogue, if I hadn't seen a cute card by another demonstrator, I probably would have missed this set altogether.

I have really enjoyed playing with  this set. I got a bit carried away stamping and colouring these little guys and have a little pile of them waiting to be turned into cards.

For the card below I decided to experiment with some die cut gears in silver foil as a background.  I used saddle brown Stazon ink to give the impression of rust.  I think this one would make a good Thank you card,

I embossed a piece of silver foiled card for the background of the next card. I wanted a more industrial feel to it.

I have say the colours are a bit washed out in this photo, in reality they are much stronger.

If you take a closer look at the card below, you may notice I have put one of his arms in a different position.  I have also added a banner, borrowed  from the woodland wonder set.  

I used two of the robots to make this anniversary card.

Here's a 5 x 5 card,  using up some waste materials.

For the card below I stamped the gears using a stamp from the Sense of Time set, then blended ink over the stamping. The greeting is from otterly awesome stamp set.

Here's how I changed the position of his arm.

You'll need a stamp positioning tool for this technique.

The Tool is in two parts and consists of a  clear plastic sheet and a black T shaped tool.

 Cover the arm with the sticky part of a Post it note ( you could also use Sellotape.) then ink up the stamp.

 Remove the post it, and stamp the image.

 Now mask off the body with a post it note.

Ink up the arm  and remove the post it note.

 Using  the Stamp a Majig   (stamp positioning tool )  Place the  plastic sheet into the corner of the T tool, then stamp the arm onto the clear plastic sheet,

 

 Position the plastic sheet over the body of your stamped image and line up the end of the arm with the outline of the body. When you have the arm positioned  where you want it, hold the plastic sheet firmly in place and bring back the T tool and place it back on the corner of the sheet.

 

Ink up the arm of the stamp again, using a post it to mask off the body. Just as you did to stamp the arm on the plastic sheet.

Go back to the positioning tool.....Check your arm is still aligned with the body and that your plastic sheet and T tool  haven't moved.

Hold the  T tool firmly and remove the plastic sheet. 

Check you stamp is the right way round and stamp the arm in it's new position.

This might seem like an awful lot of trouble to go to to move an arm half an inch, But I really wanted him to be waving that flag above his head.

In the photo below  you will see I have given him a flag to wave,   it's from the Woodland Wonder set. Yay! all that remains to be done is the colouring and to turn him into a card of some sort.

Mischievous Mice

This is a 6 x 4 inch card rather than my usual 7 x 5 inch cards. I  stamped and coloured the the mouse from the Mischievous Mice hostess set.  It's still available until June... I think. It's in the  back pages of the summer mini catalogue.  

This is an fairly easy card to do.

  I cut a piece of dsp to fit  the front of my card, then die cut a large rectangular aperture in the middle and adhered the DSP over my mouse image and stuck both layers onto the base card.

An Easter card for a young man who likes Peter Rabbit. The Rabbit image is from the retired set Fable Friends. I stamped the rabbit on an oval die cut and coloured the image. I didn't want to mount the rabbit on a second oval layer , so I  rolled the edge of the die cut along the surface of the ink pad until I had a very fine border, just wide enough for it to separate the oval from the background.

 The background was created using a stencil from Lavinia stamps. Again I created the edge on the background panel by dabbing the edge of the card on the surface of the ink pad. This is a great way to give the impression of extra layers without actually adding  the layers. It also means the card weighs less saving you money on postage as well as saving you card.

Golden Egg Card

I 've left making most of my Easter cards to the last minute again.  So I needed to come up with something quick as they need to be in the post tonight. 

As I was searching through my scrap drawer I found a piece of card, out of which I had die cut an egg shape. I started wondering if it would make a good  stencil. So I decided to give it a try.  Sometimes you get a fuzzy edge when using die cuts as stencils.

I taped the negative die cut  on to a card panel and blended ink through the aperture. I then placed a decorative stencil over the top and brushed more ink over the stencil. The  blue and pink versions below were the first attempts. I mounted the blue one onto blue card before adhering it to the base card.

I got a bit more adventurous for the yellow one. After applying the yellow ink and allowing it to dry thoroughly, I used a sponge dauber and dabbed Versamark ink through the decorative stencil and heat embossed in gold. Applying the versamark is more difficult to apply due to the sticky nature of the ink. When dabbing with the dauber and versamark the stencil  tends to lift , so you have to be really careful not to move the stencil.  I would also recommend using a mucky versamark pad as it's easier to see where you have been.

To add the ribbon, I cut a slot along the edges of the egg on both sides. I threaded a piece of ribbon through the slots and secured at the back. I used a length of invisible thread and tied it  tightly around the middle of the ribbon to pinch in the centre. I adhered a double bow over the thread.

 To give the impression of a pink and navy layers,  I dipped the edges of the card panels on the ink pads. I added a few tiny sparkles to the pink one. 

The pink  and blue cards  were  pretty quick to make so you could do a few in next to no time. 

Applying the versamark  through the stencil is more difficult and requires more time and patience.

Spiral Dye stamp.

This is a bit different for me,  for one it's yellow and orange... two colours I rarely use.  and secondly it's not really my style.  I had no intention of buying this stamp, it did nothing for me in the catalogue, but then I watched a video by Sarah Douglas (CEO of Stampin' Up! )  Well, I ended up buying it on the strength of her video. It's a funny stamp to use.  You ink up the stamp and stamp it , then you turn the card 180 degrees, place it back in the exact same position and stamp again  in a different colour.  

I had quite a few goes with this stamp experimenting with different colour combinations.

For the first card I used Summer sun and Peekaboo ink pads.

 For the second card the combo I chose was Almost Amethyst and Certainly Celery.

 For my third card I used Fresh Freesia  and Soft Sky ink pads. 

I experimented with darker colours too but I wasn't to happy with the results. Too dark and sombre  for a card to brighten somebody's day in my opinion. I think the lighter colours look best.

Tool shed card

 I had no idea how I was going to use this stamp set when I bought it or when I got it out to make this card. It was a  case of Okay,  let's stamp the spade, mask it off and work it out from there.

 Perhaps I should have said at the beginning that  I used vanilla cardstock for both the image panel and the base card.

I stamped the ladder next, (slightly overlapping the spade)  followed by the rake, trowel and shears. I masked off all the tools before starting work on the background. 

I inked up the Hardwood background stamp and stamped off most of the ink onto scrap paper,  before stamping it over the masked off tools. I didn't want a strong woodgrain background that would distract from the tools. Using a blending  brush, I blended Baked Brown sugar and soft suede ink around the edges of the panel. 

Once I'd used up most of the ink in the brush, I began working in the middle of the panel and over the tools using a blending brush with next to no ink on the brush .  

I placed a post it note over the tools and in line with the bottom of the ladder and blended some Crumb cake and Early espresso ink,  starting on the post it note and working  downward to create the floor , applying the ink heavier at the sides.

I stamped the cobwebs with white craft ink, which I then embossed using a white detail embossing powder. Detail embossing powder is finer than the standard powder so you get a finer line.

 I removed the masks and coloured the tools using strong colours of Copic markers to hide any ink that may have strayed on the tools. I also used a  silver polychromos pencil to add highlights to metal parts. (This doesn't show in this photo)  Lastly I added some shadows to one side of the tools with a mid brown marker pen and added the sentiment.