Sugar Pea Designs

One last post for SugarPea Designs - I hope I've encouraged you to think outside your box a little bit with these sets! When I saw all the small elements in the Beautiful Books set, my first thought was to do some wreath stamping. There are several ways to do this, but my favorite is just to use the corner of my stamp positioner, and rotate the card for even stamping in sets of four. 

I determined just to stick with a 4 colors and enjoy the process. The process took a couple of unexpected turns, but I went with it! If you'd like more ideas for wreath stamping, I do have a tutorial HERE.

Here's how my process started off - I stamped two of the florals at once, keeping my 5.5" square panel aligned in the corner, and rotating after each impression until the pattern was complete. From there, stamps are switched out and the process continues until the wreath is full.

 

Here's how the stamping portion looked when I finished. I added some doodles with colored pencil, and then used the teeny 3-dots stamp to add some more flowers and to add texture to the branches. I used hybrid ink for most of the stamping, but for the green dots I used Oxide ink so I could blend them out with a little bit of water.

My design took a turn at this point because I wanted to use the die cut glasses and the black was a little too harsh in contrast. To make it work I needed to add some black to the wreath, so I pulled out a liner pen and started scribbling, then used that 3-dot stamp again for some black accents. There are dots of white gesso as well as white matte enamel dots. That pulled it all together, though it felt a little crazy!

I used the scalloped rectangle die from the Card Front Element Builder set for my sentiment. I stamped the words first, then used a ruler to draw in some guidelines for aligning the die. I cut the long way first for the top edge, then used the other pencil line for straight placement of the die on the bottom, lining up the scallops and stitches on the sides. I made one more cut to center the sentiment on the piece. 

I didn't have the right weight of acetate for glasses lenses, so I just layered in some vellum there and added some reflection lines with a paint pen. That's it! 

SUPPLIES: 

Beautiful Books clear set 

Open Book die set (glasses) 

Floral Envie clear set (Hello word stamp) 

Card Front Element Builder die set

Hope you learned something from my process. Thanks again to SugarPea Designs for having me as a guest - I have enjoyed it! 

Sugar Pea Designs - Let's Stay Home

Happy Monday! If you know me at all, you know that I'm a shameless introvert, so the Let's Stay Home set from SugarPea Designs spoke to my very soul. There are sooooo many ways to combine the images into sweet and homey scenes! 

I decided to do some no-line coloring, so I started by building my scene, stamping the images with a pale grey hybrid ink. Since I'd be using colored pencils, I didn't bother to mask the images - the ink is pale enough that the overlapped lines don't show. (If you plan to use a wet medium like watercolors or inks, the lines of this type of ink will show through, so masking or selective inking would be necessary.) 

Here's my scene all stamped - I did reverse the chair image, so here's what that looked like! To reverse the image I needed to stamp it onto another stamp first, so below you can see my setup. I backed the chair stamp with a piece of acetate so I could remove it and put it back into the same position. I inked up the chair and stamped it to the back side of another stamp so it was on a solid base. (I used the book stamp, which you can see on the door of my MISTI below.) After inking and pressing the stamps together, I removed the chair stamp, and put in the foam sheet and my card panel. I pressed the inked back of the book stamp to the panel, and voila! The image was reversed. 

There was a bit of layering involved in the pencil coloring - I didn't document that process but these are the pencils that I used. Following my color wheel again, I used a color triad (3 colors, equidistant on the wheel) of yellow-orange, red-violet, and blue-green. I added in a few horizontal lines with a mechanical pencil (baseboards and molding), and then drew in the ceiling lines using a ruler.

Here are some details from the scene - they're quite a bit larger here than they are on the actual card, so be kind! They were very fun to color, and as you can imagine, my pencils had to be very sharp to get all those details in!

That's all I know today - I'd love to know what you think!

Sugar Pea Designs - Floral Envie

Hellooo! So happy to be sharing my first guest post for SugarPea Designs today!  I've got a mixed media project for you - this dramatic Floral Envie image called for all kinds of layers and textures!

I started off with a layer of watercolor (these paints are QoR watercolors by Golden, and they're my go-to!), beginning with the shadow around and inside the envelope and then adding color to the leaves, flowers, and butterflies in a light wash.

I've been using my color wheel more lately, so I used it here for my color combination - the yellow and green-gold shade are at the top, and I used the smaller triangle guide in the center to choose a split complementary combination, pulling in the red-violet and blue-violet as accent colors. (BTW, I just got this mini color wheel, and I love it - great size and for that price you get two, so now I have one for my desk and one for my clay table! Actually if we're honest, I need all 5 that I have right now because I'm forever losing them...)

I layered with more watercolor and then the colored pencils above, plus a darker brown to deepen shadows and add detail to the stems and butterflies. The small white dots were done with a white Posca paint pen, and then I added a little more dimension using Bearly Art glue - it dries raised with a sort of matte finish, and really holds these fine lines nicely. Here it is still wet:

...and here you can see how it looks when dried.

I embossed the sentiment in white on black cardstock, and shaped the little banner so it curves up at the end. The stitching and petite scallop on the die cut edge are just perfect! That die is from the Card Front Element Builder set, which has some sweet edge dies as well. 

Thanks for stopping by! Go leave me some love on the SugarPea Blog! 

SugarPea Guest Designer!

If you saw this week's updated Hanging Treat Box tutorial on Splitcoast, you saw me make this card on the updated video! This gorgeous palette die and the stamps are from last month's release at SugarPea Designs, and guess what?! I am their guest designer for June! I normally feel like I'm out on the dark fringes of the crafty world, so I was very excited to be invited even though June is a verrry busy month for me. Anyway, I'll be sharing on their blog June 7th, 14th, and 21st, so be sure to check over there for what's up! 
I focused on the box for the video, so here's a little more about the embellishments! I cut my layering panels, and then did my stamping on the white panel using my MISTI. I stamped 'your own rainbow' first, and then lined up the 'create' stamp, and colored in each letter with a Karin marker to stamp... I went all the way across with all the colors, then went back coloring and stamping one letter at a time to fill in where time had created some pooling of the wet ink. I added a light drop shadow with a colored pencil.

The palette and all the other die cut pieces were cut from hot press watercolor paper. I dragged two tan ink pads over the piece to create a little faux woodgrain. The paint splodges are colored with Copic markers (solid color, shadowed with N5 and then layered with the first color again), and highlighted with a white Posca pen. The brush was colored with Copics and colored pencils. 

Product links:

SugarCut - Paint Palette die set

Color of Life clear stamp set

Karin markers 

(use code DINA15 for 15% discount

at Marker Universe!)

That's what I know! I'm working today on a new commission (3 cats!!) and another project for publication that has me kind of nervous. More about that soon!

Splitcoast Tutorial: Topped Treat Bag + a DIY gusseted sack!

This week's tutorial is a fun and simple one - it's a Topped Treat Bag, with instructions for making a simple topper.

Our guest author had these adorable treat bags, and I... was snowed in and had a house full of sickies and no bags. So I had to improvise, as I often do, and I ended up making some cute little gusseted sacks! Here's what I did.

I started with a 12" sheet of patterned paper. This is from a pad I picked up on clearance at Walmart - it is lighter weight paper, and also has an extension above a dashed (but not perforated) line, so it's actually 12" x 12-3/4". I scored from the 12" side at 3", 3-1/2", 4", 8-1/4", 8-3/4", and 9-1/4". 

Fold the scored lines into an M on both sides - these are the gussets!

You can cut the sheet in half (6-3/8" for me) to create 2 bags after scoring and folding.

Run a line of glue down one short side, and all the way along the bottom, near the edge...

...then fold up the sack so the gussets sit flat (make sure you fold in the glued side last!). Optionally, you can put a little glue at the bottom of the gussets as well.

I created a topper from a quarter sheet of cardstock, and layered a piece of patterned paper (4" x 2-1/2") over it, then attached it to the sack with mini staples - you can see I have my stapler upside down - this puts the flat side of the staple on the back so nothing pokes out.

I layered my focal panel over that to cover the staples, and tied a little twine around the bag - my bags don't sit up like Becky's, but they'd be perfect for a big yummy cookie or something that lays flat.

This is a set from SugarPea Designs called Classroom Cupids - it has lots of mix and match sentiments and two-step images that are so cute. (Ohh - this set is retired, but there are a few left at a clearance price - if you love it, grab it!) Speaking of Sugar Pea Designs - they have a new release coming soon, and a giveaway on Instagram - check it out here!

Here's a closer look at my topper again - I stamped the bomb in grey, and did a little shading with colored pencils. Be sure to check out the tutorial for more tips and cuteness!

MIX-ability - Submarine Day

It's my turn today to host the MIX-ability challenge over on Splitcoast... I decided to go with a holiday theme, and also to veer from the expected... so today's challenge celebrates Submarine Day with underwater images and scenes...... and a little green, of course!

I made this card with many thoughts of Lydia, who wrote our tutorial for this background technique and also has a special love for seahorses... I did the background using reinkers (Adirondack and Distress).

The seahorse was colored with Inktense pencils... I added some highlights to the bubbles with a white gel pen, and used a little acrylic paint to add to the background. The seahorse image is somewhere in limbo - it was from a company I adored called I Love Rubber Stamps - the company was purchased by Creative Vision Stamps but at the moment those images aren't available online. If you love it, though, feel free to contact the company to inquire - I was told they still have unmounted rubber stamps that they sell at stamp shows.

The sentiment I used is from the Seaside Wishes clear set by SugarPea Designs - such a cute set.

I hope you'll join us for this week's challenge!

Splitcoast Tutorial: Stamp Selfies

This week's tutorial over on Splitcoast is such a fun one - Amy Lee is sharing how she makes her Stamp Selfie cards! I love her idea that stamp images have their own secret lives - hers went on a little vacation to London! So cute.

I skipped some steps from the tutorial and just used the negative cut from my frame die rather than cutting and masking a full panel - that works for me, and makes the boundaries easy to determine. This die is from Impression Obsession - it's a cute little set with photo corners as well.

I built my simple scene with the Seaside Wishes set from Sugar Pea Designs, and colored it with Coloursoft pencils. The little die cut "clips" are actually... wait for it...

Sheep feet! 

These cards are lots of fun - if you don't have a frame die, just find a rectangle die and a square die that can nest inside, and cut them at the same time. Hope you'll try it!