Mixed media card tutorial {feat. Dina Wakely stamps}

I wanted to share with you a card I made recently using mostly Dina Wakely stamps. I havent been purposely trying to use Dina products on everything lately. I have just been drawn towards her style. Its very free and flow-y and makes me think of summer.

So for this card I went for that feel and created different layers with contrasting colours.

The materials I used:

Stamps:

Script stamp from crafty individuals

Dina Wakely stamps : Scribbly birds, grunge circles from texture set ,star script, and tweet.chirp sentiment from the scribbly birds set.

Distress inks:

Antique linen, picked raspberry, old paper, broken china, and frayed burlap

Everything else:

Blue cobolt archival ink, grey archival, and purple archival

black onyx versafine ink

clear embossing powder, (its helpful to have a small pan for embossing)

 distressing tools and pads

Heat resistant craft mat

Heat tool

double sided tape

 Navy blue base card with envelope 6" x 6"

white top card for stamping 5 1/2" x 5 1/2"

colouring pens (I used grey and yellow copics)

scissors



Method:

1. First I used my distress tools to cover my white peice of paper with antique linen distress ink.

2. Then I went over the bottom half of the card with old paper distress ink and the crafty individuals script stamp.

3.Then I took the grunge circles stamp,used the broken china ink, and stamped it three times. I only inked it once though. The 2nd and 3rd stampings are a bit lighter and called ghost prints. This really helps give it dimension.

4. Now stamp a bird in black versafine ink, emboss, colour and cut out. set that aside

5. Now put down some picked raspberry distress ink on your craft mat, spritz with water and just run a little through on the other side of the card from the star.  This will add some compositional intrest to put the bird in front of. Now dry the card completely.

6.Stamp the script star in the upper right hand corner

7. Take a small bit of sheet music and rip a tiny bit to stand your bird on. Distress the edges with  frayed burlap ( you could use any brown or tan colour. i just had this handy) mount that where you plan to place the bird.

8. Now stamp your bird straight on the card (only his legs matter here). Take your cut out bird and cut off his feet (I promise it doesn't hurt him). Paste his body over the body of the one you stamped. Now  he has legs without having to fiddly cut all around the legs. Alternatively, use a craft blade to cut out feet. 

9. After that take the "tweet.chirp" sentiment and stamp somewhere on the card

10. Now just mount the white card to your navy blue base card and your all done.

Heres another look:

A sweet little bird card fit for any occasion, really. Really fun to make as well. No off to do the school run. We have rainbows tonight. Speak soon.

                                        Always,- Kass

Life update and art journal share: How meditation works for me

Hey guys. Ive been super busy lately. June is a very busy month for our family. We have my father-in-laws birthday, my fathers birthday, Steve's birthday, my birthday, fathers day, and our wedding anniversary. This is the card I made as copper is the traditional 7th wedding  anniversary gift.

We purposely kept all of the days pretty low key. On my birthday I binge watched criminal minds episodes, Steve did the school run for me, I had a NAP, and went out for a great meal. The perfect day for me. Here are a few cards from my lovely friends at card club:

 and out for dinner:

Now we are back to normality for a few weeks. I want to get the garden tidied up before my MOM COMES BACK FOR A VISIT! That's right, my mama is coming.  I'm really exited if you haven't noticed by my dramatic use of ALL CAPS. She will be here for the last week of school for Scarlett, and her last week we have booked a week in the Isle of Wight. None of us have been there and everyone tells us its beautiful. We booked a cottage about a 1/4 of a mile from a sandy beach. You better believe I will be blogging all about it.

Ive also been playing in my art journal. This has been a difficult page for me. By that I mean I really liked it, then I didn't, then I was annoyed with myself for overworking it, and then I fixed it. It has been a great learning experience though. That's the amazing part of art and art journalling. All those emotions over some paint on a page.  It can take you through a range of emotions and you come out the other side learning something about yourself.

I started by putting a few stencils down, and then completely white washed the back round using gesso. Then I just continued stencilling and layering. Paying attention to what colours are over what and keeping in mind the overall composition.

I put a prima stencil down and used a distress tool with a victorian velvet distress ink to outline a
flower towards the center of the page. I then just used a mixture of gelatos, white and black posca pens and even a red sharpie to get the flower how I wanted. Now, I'm not in anyway a professional and I dont claim to be with my colouring. Meaning, im not going for realism.

Then I coloured in a stamped image of a Prima bloom girls stamp with prismacolour pencils. I cut it out with scissors and a cutting blade for the fiddly bits. I pasted it down using studio multi medium.

Then.....I ruined it. I put some awful lettering right above the flower and it looked..bad. I was mad at myself for an entire afternoon. I even mentioned it to my husband about the page screw up over dinner. Of course he said it looked great. He always does, bless him. I had a mini temper tantrum within myself saying how much I suck and I should just give up on art journalling right before I went to bed.

I woke up the next morning and it was a Saturday. I had no rush so I like to start my day with some meditation. Whilst I was meditating I completely cleared my mind. It allowed me to shed all of my insecurities and get over my hurt ego.

When I was finished I approached my journal in a new way. I fixed it. I pulled some sheet music pages apart, and pasted it using white gesso giving a whitewash coat over it.  I took a script stencil and used some yellow distress ink over it, and stamped a Dina Wakely stamp using blue archival.  I used the archival ink as it stamps a more sharp image then the distress ink.

Ta-Da! I like it again. I mean I know its not perfect but I like the composition and I fixed it. That means something. I like the journey I went down with this page.  That's what its all about.. the journey.

speak soon lovelies!!

                                                                         Always, -Kass

Card share/feat Vera lane digi stamps

Every Friday I go to a card club in my town. It is run by a rad lady named Jo. Each week she designs a card for us to make, and one of the members designs another one for everyone to make. Between the tea, biscuits, and chin wagging, we manage to make 2 unique and creative cards (okay sometimes we have to finish one off at home.) Last week I designed the second card for club. I came up with this:

The materials I used :
Vera Lane digi stamps
Archival ink
Archival ink
spun sugar distress ink
worn lipstick distress ink
salty ocean distress ink
mermaid lagoon distress ink
Tando harlequin pattern stencil
Tando circle pattern stencil
2 kaiserkraft arrow stamps
2 different washi tapes

Tools:

mini ink blending tool/pads
craft mat
scissors
black fineliner pen
multi matt medium (or any glue)

Its no secret I love these images. Ive used them in other projects. To check those out click here and here . Thanks so much for taking the time to read this. If you have any questions feel free to comment. Don't forget to follow as well for updates. On the top right of the page you can find links to follow on twitter and instagram as well. Have a great day!

                                                                        Always, -Kass

Project share: With Vera Lane digi images

Hello my lovelies, today I have a quick project to share with you. I made this card using a Vera Lane digi image. You can shop for it here. Vera lane studio's etsy shop is an online shop that sells digital images for your use in mixed media art projects. The images are made by the very talented Janet Klein who also designs rubber wood mounted stamps for the company stampotique. Search their images here.

First I  applied cracked pistachio and tattered lace distress inks directly to my craft sheet, spritzed with water, and ran a piece of card through.

Then I grabbed various stencils and made designs roughly all around it. I like to use transparent paints so I can see the layers underneath.  I then thought the girls dress was fading in the background to much so I white washed a bit of Victorian velvet and white gesso behind where the image would be placed.

I then used tuxedo blue fresco paints and a lid to a spray can to form the circles.

I put some washi tapes in the upper right hand corner and under the image to anchor it.

 Then I went around the card with a fine liner pen first making straight lines. Then over some of the straight lines with squiggles and circles.

To colour in the image I used copic markers and  Ranger distress stickles for the bow and flowers. I then stuck the image on the page with glossy accents (its what I had handy), cut out the words "Focus on the good in life" and stuck them to the card as well.

I then mounted that all onto a brown 6"x6" card base.

I really like all of Janet's images in her online shop . I think because they are so fun to colour in and I am a big kid at heart.You will definitely be seeing more of these images on my blog to come. So come check back in soon!

                                                                             Always, -Kass

"Hello" card tutorial

      Sometimes theres no particular reason to give a card other then just to say "hello." Thats the inspiration behind todays project.
 

       I knew I wanted this card to be bold, bright, and contrasing.  So first applied salty ocean and squeezed lemonade Tim Holtz distress inks directly to my craft sheet. I spritzed water on it then ran my paper through. This technique is simple and can give excellent results on its own! I love how the colours run together and make new shades. If you dont think there is enough colour you can repeat the teqnique over again.

     I then heat dried the paper. This is important because if it needs to be completely dry for the embossing step. I took a "hello" stamp from a kaiserkraft set and stamped it with versafine ink. I then heat set clear embossing powder on it. The paper needs to be dry because if it isnt after the distressing part the emboss powder will stick to the inky water from that. No good. I then took a small arrow stamp from the same set as the sentiment and stamped it 3 times under the sentiment using salty ocean distress ink.

      I then went in with a swirly stamp from unity stamp company in momento ink. I used my momento because it is water based and wont smudge when coloured over with alocohol markers. I coloured in some swirls with complentary colours like green, yellow, and blue. Also with contrasting ones like orange and red. A handy tool to have around is a colour wheel. It can save a lot of time with making a guess with a colour and then it going terribly wrong. I speak from experience.

     Lastly I just went around the card with a black fineliner and made whatever line and squggle pattern took my fancy .It seems to be a common technique with my art these days. Super fun, fast, and creative. Thats what its all about!!

                                                                            Thanks for stopping by! x
                                                                                       

                                                                                              -Kass

Kids art:Thank you cards/featuring fingerprint art.

Hi guys! Im trying my best to get Scarlett in the habit of sending thank you cards for presents she receives. Especiallyfrom the family and friends we dont see often. Ask any grandma and they will tell you that whilst they dont expect it , it is nice to get a thank you now and then for that "cute top" they got for little susie while they were out. Kids arent going to think of it themselves either, unless it becomes habit. So I think its a nice habit to get into, reminding our kids of gratitude.

                                    These are some thank you cards from my 6 year olds birthday:

                                     

A couple weeks ago I was in the middle of a project when my daughter came up and wanted to get involved. Unfortunately, it was one of those projects that where her involvement would only....hinder the situation.Vaguely remembering a pintrest tutorial I once saw ,I grabbed a blank scrap of paper and used a few of my distress inks to put some fingerprints of different shapes and sizes. I told her to see what she could make. What she came up with was adorable:

I am hooked now! Fingerprint art is so adorable! How better to personalize a project then with
fingerprints? I picked up this book shortly after my "fingerprint epiphany" at the TATE London.

It has cute prompts and ideas to play around and have fun with fingerprints. I will leave that book review for a different post, but overall it gets two thumbs up from me and my 6 year old.

Here are some thank you cards we made with fingerprints:

You can really make these as easy or difficult as you want. Using a pen and some ink, to all different paints and mediums.

As you can see my freehand drawing needs some work. Lol however, I figured the people I send them to will be more intrested in scarletts little fingerprints then my un even lines.The important part is we had so much fun making them. Sure, you can go buy a card, but this is much more creative. The sky is the limit with what you can do with fingerprints. Mothers day is coming up soon in America. Perhaps you can incorporate fingerprints into your mothers day card/gift this year?

                                                                  Thanks for stopping by and stay creative!

                                                                                      -Kass