For Daddy - Father's Day Card

Hi Everybody,

Happy Father's Day!  Enjoy your time with your Dads today.  I'm not getting to see mine today but we're having lunch next week so I'll give him this card next week.

My Dad is 74 and still rides a Harley Motorcycle so for the past few years, I made a card for him with motorcycles on them.

Here's an example of one of them lol.

This year, I wanted something more sentimental for him.  I found this super cute stamp from Penny Black called For Daddy and there's a story behind why I wanted to use this stamp.

When I was a little girl, my Dad worked second and third shifts mainly and when he would get ready to leave, I would grab his legs to try to keep him from leaving and he would say, "I have to go to work to buy you chocolate milk" and I would say, "Okay"... lol   

I'm assuming he will remember this if I do. :)

I colored with Copic Markers and I cut out a mask to put over the colored stamp.  Next I stamped the background around the stamp with Tree Rings by Stampin' Up.  I wanted a neutral, masculine background so the stamp itself would stand out but all that white area would be covered.  I used Altenew mini ink cubes in the grays called, Warm Gray and started with light and went down to the third color to create an ombre effect. It's hard to find good gray ink colors that work well together and I really like these. 

I had this Happy Father's Day die in my stash and cut out with black cardstock, adhering with a Zig Two Way Glue Pen.

The bottom layer gray cardstock is Bazzill brand, not sure of the color. I used the textured side. 

The inside says, have an amazing day. The sentiment inside is from The Ton Stamps, Thoughtful Poppies stamp set. 

I hope you like my card and the story behind it.  I can't wait to give it to him!  

Thanks for stopping by and enjoy your day!

Regina

Stenciled Oxide Ink Background

Hi Everybody!

I haven't been on here since end of last week!  I had out of town company, a good cardmaking friend of mine from IL and her husband came to see us for a couple of days. My friend and I could spend the day anyway we wanted and we chose to relax and color, talk, listen to smooth jazz on and drink wine.  It was really nice to not feel guilty about coloring for several hours while she was here.  We ate lots of good food cooked by my husband, who used to be on BBQ teams and we went shopping.  So when I stop crafting for several days, it is hard for me to get back in the groove.
  
Yesterday, I picked up my Oxide Inks and some stencils, started sponging and the wheels in the brain finally started turning again.  :) I don't think I will ever get tired of these oxide inks because I'm still not tired of my distress inks. Yes, I will be getting the second set of 12. 

This entire card is basically all sponged ink.  A couple months ago, I stamped and embossed lots of the flowers in the Pretty Posies set by Casual Friday Stamps and I sponged them all with pinks, oranges, yellows.  I have the matching dies so I cut them all out and put them in a bag for a later date when I needed a card fairly quickly.  It's so nice to always have colored images on hand, stamped, embossed, etc, stamps on hand. It's just as easy to do 20 as it is to do 1.  LOL!  

I have to tell you, sometimes I play with color combos that surprise me.  I really love how this background turned out.  I love how soft the gray and pink look together.  You can obviously sponge harder or do more layers and make it darker but because my flowers and leaves are so vibrant, I wanted a very soft, pretty background.  I have never even used this stencil and I really like it now that I have.  I got it at a big box store, brand is Heidi Swapp but I'm not sure of the name of the stencil itself.  It came in a set of 2 or 3 that layered together.  Back when I bought these stencils, I also bought some of her sprays and I've never used those either.  What is wrong with me??  So I'm sure I'll be playing with sprays here soon and stencils. :)

For the background I used Tim Holtz Oxide Inks in Worn Lipstick and Iced Spruce.  I used jumbo sponge daubers and lightly sponged over the stencil that was taped down over the Bristol Smooth paper.  
The flowers were embossed with Hero Arts white embossing powder, cut out with the matching dies and sponged with distress inks (this was before oxide inks  BOI) lol.  Pretty Posies stamps and dies from Cas-ual Friday Stamps.  I went over the flowers and leaves with a clear Wink of Stella glitter pen. I used pop dots to pop up the flowers and leaves on the card for the focal point part but not the other 2 flowers.  The Thanks die is from Hero Arts called Thanks Stamp and Cut and the 'for brightening my day' part of the greeting is from Right At Home called Color in Sentiments. 

I thought it would look beautiful to finish it off by placing sequins where the small circles are on the stencil.  I used some gorgeous sequins by The Ton Stamps.  They are 3mm size called Glass Slipper, the clear ones. They are really small but perfect for this. 

I made a couple other stenciled oxide backgrounds so now I have those to use for cards later on.  

By the way, did you see my LIVE FACEBOOK VIDEO on the ZIG SCRIBBLING Technique?  OMGosh, I'm not afraid to do anything anymore after doing that.  If you missed it let me know.  I actually made TWO but I deleted the first one because it somehow ended up being 38 minutes!!!  How is that possible?  The second one is about 15 minutes.  I have to warn you that I made an oops and put my phone on the stand backwards after I finished talking with the camera pointed to me.  It was my first one so I get a pass right?  :)

Thanks so much for stopping by and have a great day!


Regina

Fresh Cut Sunflowers With Zig Markers

Hi Everybody,

After discovering watercoloring and Zig Markers, I asked myself the question, why would I want to color with Copics when I can put a wash of color over these flowers in one minute's time?  I'm kidding of course, I love Copics and Prismas but when you don't have a lot of time, this is one way to do it.  I've done three previous blog posts on scribbling the Zig Markers on the Bristol Smooth paper and spritzing with water and I had planned on moving on to a new technique but I've been busy the last couple of days so I find myself turning back to this quick technique. 

Someone asked to see what this looked like right after I finished scribbling before the water and here it is....  I kind of scribbled the colors where I wanted them on this one but I think everyone liked the first I did where I scribbled all over the place but both ways look good I think. 

Again, you don't have to even scribble the ink how you would normally color, put it anywhere because when you HEAVILY spritz with water, the ink will run all over anyway.  

I spritzed heavily and moved the paper around

I took a flat paintbrush and put some of the ink that had dripped off around the corners and edges. 

That's it!  If you aren't happy with how it looks at this point, spritz it again and you can even add more ink and spritz again. Make sure you are adding darker colors or they won't show up because the paper is already saturated with the water. 

Here's my card... I probably should've added some light blue that would flow around on the background.  I can do that next time lol.  

I love sunflowers and this set by The Ton Stamps called Fresh Cut Sunflowers is perfect, especially if you love masking and making bouquets.  I was going to make an actual bouquet and decided to stamp and mask it out this way.  I should've put a little space between the middle flowers but that's okay and where is the stem for that top sunflower LOL!  

I used Zig Real Brush Markers on Bristol Smooth Paper, spritzed heavily with water after scribbling on some color.  I had embossed in white using Hero Arts white embossing powder.  I embossed the word hello in Zing Chestnut embossing powder.  The greeting is from The Ton Stamps called Large Peony 1. I lOVE the huge peony in this set.  Check out this card I made with it in a previous post, here's the LINK

 I distressed the sides of the paper with a Tim Holtz distressing tool. This works so easily because the paper is weakened from being wet.  I went around the edges with Tim Holtz Vintage Photo distress ink and the corners with Gathered Twigs to make them a little darker. 

I finished it off with some dew drops from The Ton Stamps and I put Glossy Accents in the middle of the sunflowers to give them some dimension.  I thought the card stock I used was pretty with the wood grain texture, from Close To My Heart. The brown layer is from Gina K Designs called Chocolate Brown.  

I hope this inspires you to know that you can make a card even when you don't have a lot of time using Zigs and water.  You get a colored look without coloring.  Nothing in the world wrong with coloring!  Just do it when you have time and can relax.  

By the way I do take Copic and Prismacolor coloring classes from www.KitandClowder.com  Check out their website.  There are even some free classes on there if you want to see what they're like.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!


Regina