Saturday, September 7, 2013

The Craft's Meow September Blog Hop

The Craft's Meow

It's the 7th of the month, and that means our traditional blog hop at The Craft's Meow!  Our theme this month is Anything Goes, using a favorite technique.  You should have arrived from Larissa's blog.  If you just happened across me today and want to start at the beginning, here is a listing of all blogs participating:

Lin Brandyberry (you are here)

One of my favorite techniques is called Layered Stamping.  It involves building up various stamps and inks, all on the same level.  Maybe seeing my card will help explain, and then I'll go into detail


To begin, I stamped the Amazing Grace quote from our Beautiful Hymns set, in VersaMark ink 4 times down the center of my watercolor panel, offsetting it to the right slightly each time.  Then I clear embossed those words.  Next, I used an acrylic block and inked it directly with some distress inks: rusty hinge, scattered straw, and peeled paint, splotching on color almost all over the block.  The block was spritzed quite a bit with water to encourage the inks to blend, and then I stamped over my sentiment panel with that acrylic block and allowed the wet inks to soak into the watercolor paper.  After removing my block and blotting up any puddles of excess ink, and using my finger to move some of those puddles into areas that didn't take any ink, I then allowed the panel to dry. The heat embossed words resist the inks and stand out from the background.  I like the uneven edges that this method results in, and you won't ever get the same results twice!

Next I overstamped this beautiful flourish from our Fancy Flourishes set, in opposite corners of my panel, first in rusty hinge and then in peeled paint.  The panel was then added to my rust card base.  To finish I chose 2 Prima resist canvas flowers and colored them with distress inks and water.  I smooshed some of the inks on my kraft sheet, spritzed with water, then used my finger to transfer the ink color to the canvas flowers.  Again, since the canvas has some resist script already on it, the ink settles around the resist.  After allowing them to dry, I added a button and some twine and popped the layered flower above my card as you see it.  Here's a close-up of the finished flowers.


The Layered Stamped Background technique is one I learned from Sharri Carroll, and if you'd like to see a video of it, HERE's one from You Tube.  Like I said, you will never get the exact same results each time when you ink that acrylic block, but that's the beauty of it!

ETA: I'd like to enter this card into the Moxie Fab World's Handmade Cards Week: Color Media Challenge, for the distress inks and techniques I used on it.

Here are the stamp sets I used today:

Beautiful Hymns

Beautiful Hymns

Fancy Flourishes

Fancy Flourishes

Now it's time to hop on to Nina's blog!  (Coincidentally, Nina is the designer of both of the stamp sets I used today!)  I know that she'll have something extra special to share with you!

Would you like to win a $15.00 gift certificate to The Craft's Meow Store?   Make a card using at least 1 TCM stamp by Sunday, Sept. 15 at 8:00 PM PDT and post it at The Craft's Meow Blog.  The theme is "Anything Goes", so it's wide open!  Can't wait to see what you make for us!

23 comments:

rcwidow (Linda) said...

This is gorgeous! Love the layered stamping!

Stacey Schafer said...

stunning, Lin!

Laura Sterckx said...

Gorgeous card! I love the Fall colors and the fun embossed sentiments!
Have a lovely weekend, Lin!

Maureen Chandler said...

This is a beautiful card - I love how it turned out. Thanks so much for explaining all your steps!

Sunshine HoneyBee said...

Like the canvas flower look. Bought some canvas at Hobby Lobby yesterday so I'll be giving this a try.
Melissa
"Sunshine HoneyBee"

adele holcomb said...

What a beautiful card! I love your trick with the clear block and will have to try it.

Dotty Jo said...

Stunning card Lin, fabulous layering of colour and images, Jo x

Barb said...

It's one of my all-time favorite techniques and your card turned out beautifully, Lin! LOVE your Prima flower and fab colors!

LauraJane:) said...

BEAUTIFUL fall colors!

Maureen Morton said...

I love this stamp - my favorite hymn of all time! And this technique takes such patience (something I'm sort of). All those great layers result in such richness of colors. This is a real masterpiece - truly amazing!

Pam said...

This is fabulous! Love the stamp, the colors, the flourishes, just everything!

quilt4fun2 said...

I have not seen this technique and it looks awesome...love the colors. Beautiful job.
quilt 4 fun 2 at hot mail dot com

Greta said...

Love the hymn & the flourishes & your colors & the flowers--think this is my favorite "Lin" card! I surely would love that stamp set so will try to get a card made for the challenge. Thanks for the inspiration!

Unknown said...

Gosh this is lovely, Lin, and SUCH a great idea! Love the fall color palette you used, too! I can almost smell the pumpkins and crunchy leaves! :)

Teresa Godines #6857 said...

I love all of the great color you achieved. Fabulous card. TFS

Lagene said...

Beautiful card & beautiful flower, thanks for the instructions!

Emily H said...

Ooh! This is super neat!

Larissa Heskett said...

LOVING this!! Such a GREAT design and those colors are so Beautiful!! THANKS for sharing and have a Fabulous Week!! =)

Cynthia said...

This is lovely, Lin. The colors and canvas flower are fabulous!

Virginia L. said...

What a spectacular card, Lin!! The flower is gorgeous and your background is beautiful!!! You sure make TCM stamps shine!

My Paper Epiphany said...

This is a masterpiece!

Nancy Penir said...

Words fail, Lin. Wish this was mine so I could frame it and keep it near. Thanks for the how to, but it still takes your brilliance to put the right touches together!

Paper Crafts & Scrapbooking Editor said...

Hey Lin! Thanks for linking this up to the Color Media Challenge in the Moxie Fab World! I'm so glad you joined in on all the fun! :)