Feeling crafty

Well here we are another beautiful morning in Central California.  Fog is burning off and it looks like it is going to be a gorgeous day.  I had one of those super productive days yesterday and it looks like today is going to be the same.  I was wide awake at 5:30 a.m. so I have already made some cards and cleaned the oven and it isn't even 8 a.m.  Well here are some of my fun makes, I am doing my best to try new techniques whenever possible, so here are two that I think worked out well.

I had already posted a picture of the first card I did like this but the tree was stamped with olive ink.  In this one I got brave and decided to try something new for me.  I started by loading up a dauber with honey ink and daubing randomly on the stamp, then I went in with autumn terracotta, next was olive and finally just a touch of chocolate (for the base of the tree).  I think it looks great, I was really happy with the result.  I will be honest though the first one didn't look so great.  I made the mistake of too much olive and chocolate and it was to dark.  I found if I depended more on the honey (rich yellow) and the autumn terracotta (beautiful fall orange) I got a better look.  The tree and sentiment are from the Always Grateful (C1559) stamp set and I use them all the time, the set has a great evergreen for Christmas as well.  I will definitely be using this technique some more.  

The next technique was something I saw on You Tube when I was looking for some new ideas for embossing folders and velum and I hit the jackpot, using them together.  I love the look, it was very rich and I got a beautiful result.  I do still need to add a sentiment to them but I found words don't do well stamped directly onto vellum so I am going to do them on some coordinating card stock and add them to the cards.  

These were so much fun.  I embossed the vellum first (I found I needed embossing folders with a large void area to color in) and then I colored them in using my Close to My Heart inks.  To achieve a watercolor affect on the velum I took one of my acrylic blocks and just swiped it across the ink pad to pick up some of the ink.  I then dipped my blending pen (which I had purchased from Close to my Heart without knowing anything about how to use one, LOL) into that ink and colored directly onto the vellum, adding more ink as necessary.  I think they are beautiful.  Next time I would like to play around with acetate and see what I can do with that.  I hope you liked these new techniques, I had a great time and I learned to give something new a try and who knows what you might create.

Until next time Happy Crafting!!!