Quiet Weekend

It was a quiet weekend. After an incredibly, unusually stressful week at work, I was in the mood to first get physical and then just "veg." After spending all day Saturday on yardwork (spring finally seems to be here in Delaware!), with every muscle in my body aching, the stress from the week was gone. That left Sunday for quiet crafting time. I dug out this old stamp from Magenta, which I have to have had for about ten years but haven't used in ages. It's stamped in Adirondak Caramel ink then highlighted with colored pencils. I cut out the insides with an Exacto knife and layered a small square behind so the rust color would show through. The tag on the bottom is just a rectangle with a corner punch done on each corner. (I didn't have the energy to dig out the die cutting machine.) I didn't add a sentiment. I'll keep this card in my stash for an emergency card and will add the appropriate sentiment then. I hope everyone else had a wonderful weekend with beautiful spring weather!

Happy Easter!

Here's my Easter card, made with a stamp by Magenta. The image was stamped in Colorbox Dune and then colored with pencils.

Christmas Thank You Cards

Since I took down the Christmas cards yesterday, and the daffodils are blooming, I decided it's also time to take down the snow themed thank you cards that I used this year. This first one is a Magenta stamp, colored with Copic markers. This was a fun image to color. I only wish the blues on the bird had blended a little better. I'm still filling out my Copic collection, so right now, the colors are limited.

This was a super fast card, with barely any stamping. I wanted to use some of the beautiful Memory Box papers that I have. The two patterned layers are Memory Box paper, with the edges shaded with dark green Colorbox Chalk ink. The snowflakes were already printed on the paper, so the only stamping was to stamp the tiny "Thank you" on the tag that I cut with a Spellbinders die. It took me longer to design the card than it did to make a dozen of them.

Watercolor with markers

I've taught a class on how to do watercolor looks using markers. You simply color the rubber directly with various markers (variety adds much more depth and realism), then spritz very lightly with water, and then stamp on watercolor paper. The spritzing of the water blends the colors subtly. This technique even works with detailed stamps like mos of those below.


This is a a very detailed hydrangea stamp.

This is also a detailed stamp, from Printworks.



This one isn't terribly detailed. It's a Magenta stamp and is a lot of fun to do with various colors. The trick is to not use complementary colors (red/green, purple/yellow, blue/orange) next to each other. If you do, when the water blends the colors, you get a horrible, muddy brown.