I created this card and tutorial last night after checking out all the snow we received here in my neck of the woods.   We got a foot of snow and drifts of at least 4 foot.  Winter is not over in Ohio.

This is my man, best friend and love of my life, Russ clearing a path for me, as he put it “clearing the way for YOUR HIGHNESS”.  Too funny!

So, on with the winter scene tutorial without further ado.

Supplies:

I used my mirror image stamp.  It is made by Rubber Stampede.  You stamp any stamp on the solid rubber of the mirror image stamp then stamp the mirror image stamp on your paper and you got it, a mirror image.

I like to start off stamping my mirror image first.  I find it is easier to line the regular image up with it. 

Stamped Trees on mirror image stamp with Blue Bayou and then stamped the mirror image on Whisper White card stock.

Used my Stamp-a-ma-jig to line up tree image and stamped it with Basic Black ink.

Cropped the image and brayered Soft Sky ink over the Blue Bayou trees.

Brayered Lake Mist ink at top of black trees.

Sponged Pebble ink at top of card stock and sloped it down on the right side for interest.

Sponged Soft Sky under pebble sponging and at bottom of black trees.

Used the trusted torn Post-it-note as a mask to create a hard line where the ground meets the ice.  I sponged on Blue Bayou ink right at the torn edge of the Post-it-note. 

Removed Post-it-note and used my white gel pen in the crooks of the Black trees to create snow in the branches.  Put just a tiny bit in the Blue Bayou trees too.

Assembled card and decided I wanted the appearance of wind in the air so I stamped one of my favorite stamps, Baroque Motifs over all the layers with River Rock ink.   The River Rock ink did not show up well on the dark sky of the main image so I traced it with a Versamark marker to darken it.

There you have it another finished card. 

Thanks for joining me today for this tutorial.  Hope you have enjoyed seeing the process and will give it a try.

Hope your day is one of warmth and joy!

I’m still working on sympathy cards.  I realize it may be a bit depressing, but we need them just the same.

Supplies:

Let me talk for a moment about a couple of supplies.  Below is the Tim Holtz Alcohol Ink Applicator.  This tool was made to be used with Alcohol inks but I found I can use my Stampin’ Up Re-inkers with this applicator to make interesting backgrounds.  You can purchase little pre-cut felt pads for around $4.99 to attached to the Ink Applicator.  Remember I’m cheap so I spend .25 cents on a piece of white felt and cut it myself.

My Stampin’ Up Re-inker storage is not fancy at all.  I bought these little baskets that will hold 18 re-inkers each for about a $1.  I like them because they are portable and can be moved from a shelf to my work area easily. 

I can also tilt a basket to the side to see what colors are in that row instead of picking through them.

On with the tutorial.

Dotted Applicator felt with Sky Blue re-inker and pounced it on Whisper White card stock.  I also did some circular smearing to cover the entire piece of card stock.  The pouncing motion gives you little dots, which I like.  Dots in a background give the impression of dabble light to me.

On the same applicator felt I put dots of Certainly Celery re-inker and pounced it on the card stock, not covering the whole card stock so the blue can show through.

It’s hard to see in the photo, I apologize for the bad pic.  I put a stripe of Garden Green re-inker on the same applicator felt and then made stripes of color from the top of the card stock down in varying lengths.

I changed the felt for this step because I was afraid the colors would start getting muddy.  I dotted a fresh felt piece for the applicator with Really Rust re-inker and made stripes with it in varying lengths at the top of the card stock.

Put dots of Garden Green on the applicator felt and smeared it in a circular motion on the bottom of the card stock to create a shadow for the coming flowers.

Stamped flowers with Palette Nior Black ink.

You will want to learn from my mistake here.  I did not wait until the card stock was completely dry before coloring in my flowers with a white gel pen.  It did not do well and I have to repeat this step later to get whiter brighter flowers.  My suggestion let it dry completely or use your heat gun to dry it before coloring in the flowers.

Outlined flower petals with a Tempting Turquoise marker.

Colored in the flower stems with an Old Olive marker.

I cropped a lot of this off to get a more interesting shape.

Assembled card and drew lines at the corners of the layers to create a window look.  Also, went back over my flower petals with my white gel pen to make them stand out more.

Finished card.

I seem to never have enough sympathy cards on hand.  I keep a basket of cards at work for staff to purchase and for agency use.  Sympathy cards never last long in the basket I’m afraid.  I try to keep the price of my cards down.  I’m currently charging $4 a card.  I’m not into it for the money.  Stamping is my therapy.  It’s the creative process that gives me so much pleasure.  You will never see me do a 5 minute card (remember therapy, I need lots of it). With that being said, lets get started on today’s tutorial.

Supplies:

Starting with Whisper White card stock and a torn piece of copy paper as a mask for the sky area.  Keep the piece of paper you tore off.  We will use it in later steps. I just hold the copy paper in place.

Stamped flowers from Trees Three set with Versamark and heat embossed using clear embossing powder.

This is one of my stamping buddies, Lucas.  He is a German Short Haired Pointer/Great Dane mix and weighs about 110 lbs.  He is so darn cute and attentive this morning.  Thought I would share!

Sorry, back to the tutorial.

Return copy paper mask, lining it up as best you can.

Brayer on Old Olive ink.

Now I sponged on more Old Olive ink to create a shadow on the hill.

Sponged on Always Artichoke ink to get a graduation in shadow color.

Remember the piece of copy paper I tore.  Well here we are using the chuck of it that was torn out to mask the hill area.  I tack it down with small post it notes on both sides to help keep the mask in place.

Brayer on Aqua ink to create lake.

Turn piece around and brayer on Lake Mist ink for the sky, not brayering all the way down to the water color.  I like to leave white showing to brighten things up a bit.

Remove mask and wipe ink off the embossed flowers on the hill.

I just want to use the grassy part of this stamp in this step. So I colored in just the grass on the stamp with an Always Artichoke marker, huffed on it then stamped.

After stamping a line of grasses with Always Artichoke I stamped over them using an Old Olive marker to get some color variation in the grasses.

Stamp some more grasses using Old Olive marker at the bottom of hill.

Used a sponge and Always Artichoke ink to sponge in the shadows at the base of the grasses.

Put to much time into this card so far to mess up on the sentiment so I used my Stamp-a-ma-jig for placement.  Stamp my sentiment using Blue Bayou ink and stamping off on scrap paper once before stamping on the card stock to lighten the color of the image.

Thought the sky looked just a little drab, so I brayered in a bit of Aqua ink at the top of the sky area.

Completed card!

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial and will give it a try.

Thanks for visiting with me and Lucas today.  Have a wonderful day!

This card is for the todays Sketch Challenge SC166 found here:  http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=330124

Supplies:

 Stamp vine by loading stamp with Versamark and then Lettuce ink and stamping on Whisper White card stock.

Heat emboss image using clear embossing powder.  Note:  I keep my embossing powder in a sandwich sized plastic container so I don’t have to try to put the embossing powder back into the tiny container it came in.

Stamp bird by first loading stamp with Versamark and then Cranberry ink.   Heat emboss it using clear embossing powder.

Stamp flowers from Stampin’ Up Trees Three set by first loading stamp with Versamark and then Mountain Rose ink.  Heat emboss using clear embossing powder.

Crop image and sponge on Stream ink using a circular motion with the sponge.  It is ok to go over the embossed images with the sponge.  The ink will not stick to the embossed images.

Give dimension to the vines by highlighting the under sides of the vine with an Always Artichoke marker.

Sponged additional Stream ink on bottom corners of card stock.

Used a Sharpie Silver Paint Pen and run it around the edges of my main image card stock and the layering card stock pieces.  This is very easy to do and gives a look of additional layers without the weight and bulkiness.   

Used a small Cuttlebug embossing folder to emboss top and bottom of Cool Caribbean card stock layer.

Sponged Stream ink on bottom of Taken with Teal card stock layer.

Used the Sharpie Silver paint pen again to go around the the very outside of the assembled card.

Added some flower punches and brads. 

 Finished card!

Hope you have enjoyed this tutorial.  If you did, check out my other tutorials on this blog.

If you don’t participate in the Splitcoast Stampers Challenges, you don’t know what you are missing.  They really have kept me stamping and growing in my creativity.

Have a super wonderful day!

On Split Coast Stampers today there is a very interesting color challenge.   The challenge is to use Purely Pomegranate, So Saffron & Wild Wasabi.  Whew!  What a challenge for me.  I really don’t like bright colors and these colors just leap off the paper.  You can find the color challenge here:  http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=329824

I decided to go ahead and do a tutorial for this one.  Let’s get started!

Supplies:

Punched a circle from the sticky part of a Post-It-Note to use as a mask for the moon, positioned it on Whisper White card stock.

Brayered So Saffron Ink on bottom 2/3 of card stock.

Brayered Wild Wasabi on bottom 1/3 of card stock.

Brayered Purely Pomegranate on top 1/3 of card stock.

Decided to tone sky down and give it a little light by removing moon mask and Brayering So Saffron over the sky area.

Tore a cliff shape from So Saffron cardstock and sponged on So Saffron to create a shadow.

Adhered Cliff to card stock.

Used my Stamp-a-ma-jig for placement of tree and stamped it with Basic Black ink.

Torn the very top of two Post It Notes and used them as mask so I could create some grass on the cliff.

Sponged on Wild Wasabi ink right at the edge of post it notes to create grass.

Using same post it notes I turned them around and used them again to put in some ground at the very bottom of the card stock.  Sponge on Wild Wasabi at the edge of post it notes.

Sponge Purely Pomegranate in the sky to darken it.

Darkened front of cliff with a So Saffron marker.  Sponged Wild Wasabi ink on tree leaves.  Colored in tree trunck with So Saffron marker.

Stamped weeds at the bottom with Wild Wasabi ink.

Cropped image, used a Garden Green marker to highlight the leaves in the tree and the top of the grasses on the cliff, colored the flowers of the weeds with a Baroque Burgundy marker.  Darkened the cliff front with the So Saffron marker to try to get it darker yet.

Assembled card front and used my Stampin Up Piercing tools to pierce sides of card.

There you have it!  The finished card.

Hope you enjoyed the tutorial and it inspires you to try using any color combination to create landscapes.

Have a colorful day!

Needed a thank you card today.  So here is a new tutorial.  🙂

Supplies:

Stamped Butterfly with Black ink on Whisper White card stock.

Loaded flower stamp first with Versamark and then Certainly Celery ink then stamp them.  Heat embossed them with clear embossing powder.

Colored Flowers and leaves with Barely Banana and Certainly Celery markers.  Colored over the flowers and leaves with Versamark marker and heat embossed them with clear embossing powder.

Brayered Certainly Celery ink at bottom of card stock.

Brayered Soft sky ink over top two thirds of card stock.

Wiped ink off of embossed images with paper towel.

Cut sentiment with Cuttlebug die cut out of Certainly Celery card stock.  Cropped image.

Decided I wanted the sentiment to be darker so I went over it with a Certainly Celery marker.  Also, added certainly celery marker to the bottom of the butterfly wings.

I like to use Metallic Sharpie markers to out line a layer to give the appearance of another layer without the weight.  Much cheaper than buying metallic cardstock too.

Stamped Flowers at side of Barely Banana layer of card stock with black ink.

Colored flowers with Certainly Celery, Barely Banana and a white gel pen.

Completed card

I hope you liked this little tutorial.  If so, give a shout out in the comment section. 

Also, thank you for visiting my blog.  Hope your day is filled with Butterflies and flowers!

This card was inspired by a beautiful photograph by Werol that can be seen here:  http://www.deviantart.com/print/475044/

It is also inspired by this weeks Split Coast Stampers Inspiration Challenge IC117 found here: http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=328890

Let’s get started with today’s tutorial.  🙂

Supplies: 

Stamp tree on Stampin’ Up Whisper White card stock using Blue Bayou ink.

Stamped background pines using a Not Quite Navy Marker to color in just the trees on the stamp.  Huffed on it to moisten then stamped.

Used Post-It-Notes to mask sky area.  I torn the Post it Notes on the stick edge of the note, making sure to leave some of the stick part on the Note to adhere to the card stock.

Sponged Night of Navy ink right at edge of Post It Note mask to create a horizon line. 

Sponged on Soft Sky ink, working from the edge of the paper and swiping the ink on toward the tree base.

Did the last step again only using Not Quite Navy ink and not covering all of the Soft Sky ink already applied.

Same step again, only with Night of Navy ink and not covering all of the Not Quite Navy ink applied in the last step.  We are getting a graduation of color here. 🙂

Removed Post It Notes.

Went over the tree trunk with a Not Quite Navy Marker to make it stand out more.

Now for the sky:  Sponged on Soft Sky ink in a swiping motion from the edge of the paper toward the tree, leaving white card stock showing around the tree.

Sponge on Blue Bayou and then Not Quite Navy in the same swiping motion as in the last step creating a graduation in color, by not covering entirely the lighter colors before it.

Used a Night of Navy marker to make a few of the leaves in the tree darker to create dimension.

Punched a circle out of the sticky part of a Post It Note to use as a mask to create a sun.

Sponged Soft sky ink with a swiping motion from the mask out toward the edge of the card stock.  Leaving white card stock showing to create a glow.

Removed Post it Note mask and sponged some black ink at very bottom of the card stock in a swiping motion.

Added a couple of layers of card stock and Cuttlebug die cut corners and here is the finished card.

I hope you enjoyed today’s tutorial.  I realize my tutorials are long, but I like to show each step individually, as much as possible. 

Hope your day is filled with as much light as this tree!

I put together this tutorial showing how to mask your card stock in order to put a sun in the background. 

Supplies:

Start out with Barely Banana card stock and punch a circle from a post it note.  You will want to punch it trying to get as much of the circle out of the sticky portion of the Post it Note.

Position your circle mask on your card stock and brayer the entire card stock with Summer Sun ink.

Sponge More Mustard ink on using a circular motion with the sponge with out going all the way to the mask.  Leave some of the Barely Banana ink showing around the sun mask.

Sponge Pumpkin Pie on in the same manner, only don’t cover all of the More Mustard Ink.

Sponge Really Rust on in the same manner only don’t cover all of the Pumpkin Pie ink.

Remove Post it Note mask.

Stamp branch using Black ink.

Stamp Bird using Stamp-a-ma-jig for positioning with Black ink.

Decided I wanted the image to be darker to the right side so I sponged on Bravo Burgundy ink.

Distressed edge of  with Tim Holtz distressing tool.

Sponged Really Rust ink on the More Mustard pieces of my layout.

Stamped weeds at bottom of More Mustard Piece of card stock.

Assembled card front and stamped additional branches on with black ink using my Stamp-a-ma-jig for placement.

Since I stamped over layers of card stock there were little gaps in my stamped image so I colored them in with a black marker.

Finished card!

I love making scenes with the emboss resist technique and I created this tutorial to show you the process.  If your up for a challenge, give it a whorl!  I would love to see your creations using this tutorial, please leave me a link to them in the comments section!

Supplies:

Note:  When working a scene with the emboss resist technique you work from foreground to the background (front of scene to back of scene).  This is so your images in front resist the ink of the images you want to look like are behind them.

I started out with Whisper White card stock and loaded my stamp with Versamark and then Certainly Celery and stamped it, heat embossed it with clear embossing powder.

I store my clear embossing powder in a plastic sandwich size container so I don’t have to mess with putting the embossing powder back into a tiny canister or cleaning an embossing powder tray.

Stamped the same stamp again only this time loading with Versamark and then Garden Green then stamping it, heat embossed it with clear embossing powder.

Loaded tree stamp with versamark and Cameo Coral ink, then went over the trunk with a black marker, stamped, heat embossed them with clear embossing powder.

Loaded house stamp with Versamark and then black ink, stamped, heat embossed it with clear embossing powder.

Used a Versamark marker and went over the entire house with it and heat embossed it with clear embossing powder.

Tore the edge of two post it notes and positioned them to cover the sky area.  You will put the torn edge where you want your horizon line to be.

Brayer Old Olive ink on.  Don’t be shy, use a lot of ink and work it into the nooks and crannies of the embossed trees and bushes.

Remove Post it Notes and wipe the Old Olive ink off of the house with a paper towel.

Next brayer on Soft Sky ink.   Brayer across the card stock, not up and down.  Start at the very top of the card stock, with most of the brayer off of the cardstock and work the brayer back and forth moving down the card stock.  Use a lot of ink and work it into the paper.  I like to leave some white card stock showing above the horizon line so I don’t brayer all the way down to the horizon line.  The more ink you put on the paper the better it blends and you won’t have those brayer lines.

Brayer on Blue Bayou ink in the same manner as the Soft Sky ink in the last step, only don’t brayer all the way down over your Soft Sky ink, leave some of it showing, we are creating a graduation in color.

Do the same process as the last two steps only using Not Quite Navy ink.  Don’t brayer all the way over your Blue Bayou ink.  Remember, lots of ink and work it in.

Sponge on Night of Navy ink around the edges of the card stock and work it into the bottom card stock in the bushes area and at the top of the card stock in the sky.

Use a White Gel pen to put in the walk way in front of the house.

Assemble card and stamp Stitched Exotics using Stampa-ma-jig and White Craft Ink.

Finished creation!

If you enjoyed this tutorial, give me a shout out in the comments section.

Hope your world is completely filled with color today!