Hi crafting friends and welcome back. Sandi MacIver here and today I’m sharing Polar Bear Pals, and in keeping with the Distressed Oxide Theme for this month, I did a quick Blended Distress Oxide background for my cute little bear.
The My Favorite Things Polar Bear Pals is a fun stamp set with a great selection of sentiments covering many occasions. I love the fact that I can use it for a winter birthday as well as the holidays.
I started the card by borrowing the snowflake stamps from the Warm and Feathered Hugs stamp set, also from My Favorite Things. I white heat embossed them on the card front.
Next I used my Ranger blending tools to add Mustard Seed, Broken China and Blueprint Sketch Distress Oxides to my card front. This is the Embossed Resist technique as the embossed snowflakes resist the ink and pop from the colored background.
After that I mixed a little white paint and water and spattered onto my card base to create more snow.
To create my snowy mountain I cut another piece of card stock and then die cut it with the MFT Stitched Basic Edges Dies. I added a sentiment stamped in black ink before attaching to the bottom front of my card.
Finally, I stamped my bear on white cardstock. Coloured his scarf and skates with my Prismacolour Pencils before die cutting him with the coordinating Polar Bear Pals Dies. I added small pieces of Foam Squares to pop him up just a bit.
My only embellishment is I used my Signo White Gel Pen to add lines to his scarf.
Thanks so much for stopping in today. I have linked all the products I used below for you. Simply click on the link to see a larger image and to shop through our Scrap ‘N Stamp Store.
Hello and Happy Wednesday my crafty friends. Nancy F on the blog today with a fun Thanksgiving-inspired card. Always a good time creating for Scrap’n Stamp Canada
Being that our October challenge on the Scrap’n Stamp facebook page was to create using distress oxides, I decided to stretch it out a bit and use the regular inks along with one of the oxides. I thought this was the best way to colour in these adorable little images from My Favorite Things. I stamped them out using Versa Clair nocturn ink and heat set using some clear embossing powder and then went to town painting them in with the inks. I ended up mixing and layering colors to get the right shades and look.
The distress inks I chose to use were wild honey, rusty hinge, carved pumpkin, brushed corduroy, ground espresso, both in oxide and regular ink, as well as tea dye, pine needles, and aged mahogany.
Once I was finished painting all the images in, I fussy cut everything out as I did not have the coordinating dies. Good news for you, however, Scrap’n Stamp does carry the die set and I highly suggest purchasing the coordinating die if you get the set. Makes things a lot easier.
I decided it would be fun to create a little bit of a different card than my usual, as I felt a little bit stuck in a rut so I decided to create a gatefold card to really bring this scene to a whole other level.
To create the gatefold card I cut down a piece of 12 x 12 orange cardstock to 4 1/4 x 11 and scored each end at 2 3/4. I then need to figure out my layers and scene for the card. This took me a bit of time but I am really happy with the finished product.
I really wanted to play up the colours I used for the little girls and pumpkin and managed to find pattern paper that really worked well. I used the Lawn Fawn Fall Fling pattern paper as well as some green shimmer cardstock and metallic coooper cardstock.
I cut down three layers for both the front panels and the inside just to add a little extra dimension, stability, and interest. The front panel measurements are as followed, Cooper panels (2) @ 2 1/2 x 4 Green shimmer (2) @ 2 3/8 x 3 7/8, layer 3-pattern paper (2) @ 2 1/4 x 3 3/4.
The inside panel measurements are as follows Copper 4 x 5 1/2, Green Shimmer 3 7/8 x 5 1/8 the Green leafy pattern paper is 3 3/4 x 4 15/16. I also added in a white panel which was die cut from the MFT wonky stitched rectangle dies. While I was die cutting I thought it would be fun to add a little more interest and create not only a scene on the outside of the card but also finish off the inside with a similar look. To accomplish this I die cut the picket fence from Kraft cardstock which I edged with some ground espresso distress ink.
I repeated this on the outside of the card which was the anchor for the rest of my little scene. I cut green cardstock down to measure 1 1/2 x 5 1/8 and layered on a piece of copper 1 1/4 x 4 15/16 and then added a strip of that same pattern paper from the inside which measures 1 1/8 x 4 7/8 on top of the metallic paper. I die cut a white banner strip and stamped the sentiment once again using ground expresso. Before I attached everything to the front of the card I decided to add in that Behind Second die cut fence. this really pulled the scene together. I added each of the cute little girls to the flaps of the card. One in front of the fence, she was popped up with a bit of foam tape and the other girl behind the fence flat to the card. I added some leaves and pumpkins to both the flaps of the card as well as the inside with the little squirel.
I was really quite happy with the way this card turned out. I hope you enjoyed it and come over to the Scrap’n Stamp Challenge page to share with us some of your projects using distress oxides.
If you are just starting out I recommend the set of 24 which give you a great selection of colours at a fair price point.
Getting started:
For today’s card I pulled out the Birth-yay stamp set from MFT. I stamped it with VersaClair Nocturne Ink onto some Canson Cold pressed water colour paper cut down to 4″ x 9″.
The Technique:
I am using a wet on dry technique. Start colouring with your lightest colour. You can then go back after to add a darker shadow or shading. It is always easier to cover lighter colours then try to mute darker ones!
Take time to swatch your mediums so that you have a better idea of what colours you would like to use. You can see I did not do this in the video…but decided to take time to do it once I was done. This will make colouring on future projects much easier and quicker!
Zig Clean Color Real Brush Set of 48 colour swatch
Once I achieve the shading I like I will go back over with my darker colour and use my Aqua Flow waterbrush to pull the colour out.
To avoid getting a “muddy” look with the watercolours (and because I am impatient) use your heat tool to dry the image in between.
A few of my thoughts:
The Zig Real Brush markers are very user friendly. I shared with you in a previous post my experience with Nuvo Aqua Flow Brush Pens and to me they are night and day. I love both for very different reasons. In my opinion, I found the Nuvo Aqua Flow Brush Pens to be very juicy and heavy pigmented.
You may find as a beginner to watercoloring that the Zig Real Brush markers give you a bit more control and are more forgiving. The look is more translucent and in keeping with a more “traditional” watercolour look.
To create the blue wash background I scribbled the Zig Real Brush marker onto my Tim Holtz Glass media mat. Then I picked up the colour with the Aqua Flow water brush and applied it direct to the watercolour paper.
Finishing Touches:
Once the image was dry, I trimmed down the panel and matted it onto some Lawn Fawn Black Licorice carstock and adhered that to the card base. My card base measured 9″ x 8″ and was scored it at 4″ creating a unique business envelope sized card.
I stamped the coordinating sentiments from the Birth-yay stamp set onto Lawn Fawn Black Licorice cardstock. Then using Versamark ink I heat embossed with white embossing power.
By using foam squares to pop the sentiment strips up I add a nice layer of dimension and interest to the project.
I added some highlights to the card with a white gel pen. and stamped a few images onto the envelope itself and coloured them with Copic Markers.
I was so excited to send this card in the mail I forgot to take nice close up pictures of the finished product. 🤦🏻♀️ So I apologize for the grainy look of this photo.
The Video:
Remember you can watch the video of how I painted and put this card together by clicking below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLU9ows7gBY
Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers
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