Thursday, November 16, 2017

IO Challenge- Tis the Season


Greetings friends.  Today's theme is "Tis the Season, and I was inspired to use a tree that reminds me  of the Charlie Brown Christmas tree.  That in turn makes me think of my brother and watching "A Charlie Brown Christmas" over and over.

To make the card, I used the Linus Tree C19633 and added the Comfort and Joy D19660 sentiment.  For the tree, I wanted to add a bit of color, so I colored it  with a bit of green watercolor pencil and softened the color with a Dove Blender pen.  To embellish the tree, I added a gold metallic marker to the star and a red gel pen to accent the ornaments. To finish the card, I colored the word "comfort" with the same green watercolor pencil and the word "joy" with the R32 Copic marker.

Don't forget to visit the other designers for more inspiration!


Chris Dayton
Chris Dayton

Monday, November 13, 2017

New Dies from Memory Box


Hi guys.  I posted on the Memory Box Outside the Box blog today and talked about their new deep edge dies.  I am in the process of making felt snow bunny ornaments for Christmas, and the new deep edge dies allow you to cut for more than one ornament at a time.  I am all about saving time!

To read the full post, visit the OTB blog.  There is even a chance this week to win a new deep edge die of your choice.  Good luck! 

Thursday, November 2, 2017

IO Challenge- Falling Leaves


Greetings friends.  I am not exactly sure how it got to be November, but here we are.  I loved today's theme because leaves are so much fun to stamp.  For my scene above, I used the Country Lane image and chose to make the leaves red with a little yellow and orange, but you could just as easily color it with greens to make a spring or summer card.

To make this card, I used my MISTI stamp positioner and colored the leaves with various Fall colors of Tombo markers and then stamped the leaves onto my paper.  I worked on small sections of the stamp at a time so that my markers diddn't dry out before I had the chance to stamp my paper. I continued adding more and more colors without removing the stamp or paper from the MISTI.   After the leaves were colored, I added a brown marker to the trunk and branches and stamped the image again.  I added green to the trees in the back and stamped it onto the paper.  I repeated the process until everything on the stamp was colored and stamped.  I must have colored the markers onto the stamp and closed the MISTI lid about 20 times to get of the colors I wanted. It was a bit time consuming, but the process itself is really easy.  Plus, I liked that the detailed stamp looked more like a small painting when it was done. 

Once all of the coloring was done, I cleaned the leftover marker off of the stamp then inked the image with Versamark ink and stamped it onto my card.  The clear ink ended up on top of all the marker work I did.  I was then able to emboss everthing in clear ink.  Here is a close up:

The close up allows you to see the embossing.

When you stamp this image, the sky and the road are blank areas.  Once I colored and embossed the image, it worked as a resist so that I could quickly add a little blue Pan Pastel to the sky and brown Pan Pastel to the road to color them without interfering with the colors of the leaves, trees, branches, etc.

Want to see more fall leaf inspiration?  Don't forget to visit the other designers!