Quoth the Raven

I wanted to make a really Spooky card using the Acrylic Block technique.

Just like in my previous blog post here, I used the thick Whisper White paper for the watercoloring. It just holds up better and doesn't pill. I colored the block with an assortment of neutral colors: Delightful Dijon, Crushed Curry, Basic Gray and Tip Top Taupe with my Stampin' Write markers. Then I spritzed it with water, smooshed on the paper and voila!

To be artsy, I used my Alphabet Rotary stamp and cut out words from Very Vanilla paper. I made little boxes around each word with my black ink pen. Very spooky card. And NO BLING! - a first for me.

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Paper Pumpkin Party and Open House

We are going PINK this month to show our support for Breast Cancer Awareness Month! Come over and play with my Paper Pumpkin kits.

This is an Open House format – come if you can and we’ll have pink treats too!

Sunday, September 27 2-4 PM. More information if you PM me.

More About BCRF

The Breast Cancer Research Foundation (BCRF) advances the world's most promising research to eradicate breast cancer. Founded by Evelyn H. Lauder in 1993, BCRF has raised more than $550 million to fuel discoveries in tumor biology, genetics, prevention, treatment, survivorship and metastasis, making it one of the largest non-governmental funders of breast cancer research in the world. This year BCRF has invested $58.6 million in research, to support over 235 researchers at leading medical institutions across six continents, including $11.6 million to the international Evelyn H. Lauder Founder's Fund focused on metastasis. By spending 91 cents of every dollar on research and public awareness programs, BCRF remains one of the nation's most fiscally responsible nonprofits. BCRF is the only breast cancer organization with an "A+" from CharityWatch, and has been awarded Charity Navigator's highest rating of four stars 13 times since 2002. For more information, please visit: www.bcrfcure.org.

Spring Love

I was inspired by a card by Shirley Ross for an Impressions Obsessions stamp and just had to make my own version with the new Woodlands Textured Embossing Folder.

For this card, I took out my Brayer and inked the folder with Soft Sky before embossing. Usually I'm pretty careful to clean the stray ink that settles on the trees. I didn't this time and the effect is pretty nice!  I just stamped a bunch of leaves here and there and then journaled a little heart and "carved" my initials and wedding date in the tree. I cut out the word love from the Greetings thinlet.

I hope you enjoyed my little taste of spring - it seems so far away!

Birch Trees in Watercolor

This Woodlands Textured TIEF is insanely addictive. I'm not ready for snow, but these are really fund to do!

Today my challenge was to hide my brayer and see if I could make the background using watercolors. Here's my first card below.

To get the colors in the trees, I inked the horizontal markings by hand with with my Stampin' Write marker in Early Espresso. I "blew" on it and then embossed the Watercolor Paper.

Then I watercolored the sky with Soft Sky reinker. The birds are from the Sheltering Tree stamp set (much more friendly than the ravens in the bundle, don't you think?)  are hand-cut and placed with dimensionals. I used Dazzling Details for snow on the trees.

I then did a second version of the card, which I really like. The background on this one is Marina Mist and Soft Sky. I like the contrast.

 

Recipe for the first one:

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RemARKable Blog Tour - September

I'm thrilled to be a part of the RemARKables Blog Hop this fall! We are focusing on Bundles in the new Holiday Catalog. I picked my favorite - the Among the Branches Stamp Set.I've made five different cards from this set - so far - and now I dream about birch trees! We had birch trees in my yard growing up. I remember that my mom used to put birch branches in our fireplace. Once I lit a fire and burnt them. BOY was she mad! I didn't know they were just for show!

My card to share is this "Spooky" one:

Here's the bundle, #140872:

 

First I used a Brayer to ink Basic Gray Archival ink onto the Woodland Textured Impressions Embossing Folder. I did not apply the ink evenly, I hoped to achieve a misty look to the background.  It turned out darker in the middle and lighter toward the edges. 

I wanted the trees to stay light, so I went back and used a Q-tip and cleaned up any smudges with Stampin' Mist Stamp Cleaner. Then I pressed it onto Very Vanilla paper in my Big Shot. I found that Whisper White was too bright for this card.

 The following picture shows the paper and 2" circle "Spooky" from the coordinating Among the Branches stamp set. I adhered the Spooky with dimensionals.The spider web is so easy to stick on with the new fine tip glue pen.

Then I just stamped a black raven and a couple of sets of eyes in the forest. And one more look at the finished card:

Be sure and check out my blog this month every week for more Among the Branches examples! Here's a sneak peak of a Christmas version:

Thank you for joining me on the tour - see you next month!

And you are now ready to hop over to the next Blog on the Tour!

Go to next blog

In case you get lost, here's the tour stops:

Nancy Amato 

Melissa Bolingerr 

Tamra Davis

Arden Dougan<---That's me! 

Tracie Langley 

Anne Matasci

Heather Mathieson

Ann Monhollen

Audra Monk -

Maria Pane

Michele Reynolds

Pam Staples

Janet Wakeland

 Here's my list of ingredients:

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Spooky Trees

I'm in a Halloween mood this week - maybe all month! I decided to see if I could get a moon in among the branches of the Woodland Textured Embossing Folder.

To achieve this effect, I first embossed the Crushed Curry paper with the Embossing Folder. I carefully placed the card in the folder so that I could have room for the raven to sit on the branch in front of the moon. I ended up making 10 of these and so I marked the spot with painter's tape.

Then I cut out a 2" circle in scrap paper with my 2" paper punch and cut a flat side with scissors. I lined up the flat side against the trees and just sponged the card around the moon with Crumb Cake. I wanted it to be darker on the right side. To color the trees and branches on the moon, I carefully used a Q-tip lightly dipped in the ink.

Then stamped the raven in the moon.

I stamped a Spooky from the Among the Branches stamp set with Delightful Dijon and then came back and put in black eyes and cut it out with a 2" paper punch. I adhered the Spooky circle with dimensionals.

The leaves were inked with one color marker and then I "pounced" on the stamp with another marker to make it look like fall leaves.

The Spider Web is oh so easy to  glue on with the new fine tip glue pen.

thanks for looking!

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Watercolor Block Stamping

It's one of those months that I don't want to read Facebook. I found out two friends died from their pages and then another one from email. So I needed to get a few Sympathy cards done. I decided that it was time to learn how to do Acrylic Block stamping. You can't be sad and do Acrylic Block Stamping.

 Basically I colored with my Stampin' Write markers onto an Acrylic block. For this one I used Real Raspberry and Old Olive. Then I spritzed it with water and pressed it on white paper. I did try both the regular and thick Whisper White cardstock. The thick cardstock worked best without rippling when it dried. I'm pretty sure watercolor paper would work very well. Then I let the ink dry or heat dried it.This is really fun - you can't stop making the backgrounds once you start!

Next I stamped onto the paper. Sometimes I used a piece of scrap paper to mask off the bottom so I could put a sentiment there. I stamped off before stamping to create a shadow effect.

A second version - my favorite I think: Elegant Eggplant, Crumb Cake and Delightful Dijon. I used Very Vanilla for the background.

 

Here's the items I used in both cards:

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and a little fun sign I found in Front Royal, VA this weekend: