Happy Halloweeds with Lisa

 

Hello, crafty friends. Lisa with you today, and I'm so excited to be back on the Whimsy Stamps Blog.

I don't know about y'all, but I'm ready for Autumn crafting, especially Halloween. And because I'm so eager to get going on Halloween, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to give you an early start on your Halloween cards.  Directly below, I have a step-by-step tutorial with photos. 

 

Start with a 4" x 5.25" piece of white heavy-weight cardstock; using the Whimsy Stamps Cutie ABC Die Set, randomly cut out the word creepy. Be sure to hang onto the E's, P's, and R's centerpieces. 

It doesn't have to be creepy use any word that you like. 

Using Distress Ink Walnut Stain, I grunge up a piece of 4" x 5.25" Neenah Desert Storm cardstock with a blending brush. You can use any brown ink and applicator you have on hand. Just make it grungy. 

Using Distress Oxide Black Soot and Vintage Photo, I cover the white panel. (I'm going to be 100% honest here. I really just wanted to play with some of the supplies that I don't use regularly. So bare with me!)

Press Press N Seal over the die-cut background, including the centerpieces of each letter. Once the background is secure, flip it over and add mounting foam. 

You can skip the mounting foam if you don't want dimension.

Adhere to the grungy Neenah Desert Storm cardstock.

I'm using Distress Oxide Sprays in Peeled Paint, Spiced Marmalade, and Wilted Violet to spritz the background. Once I'm happy with how it looks, I add white and black splatters with my favorite cartoonist pens. 

Use any spray inks or ink refills to create splatters to your background. Set aside to dry.

 In the meantime, stamp and color the Whimsy Stamps Halloweeds image using your favorite coloring medium. I stamped onto Copic Express Blend It Cardstock using Memento Tuxedo Black ink and colored with my COPICS. Run the image through a scan n cut or fussy cut. 

Die-cut a piece of Vellum using the Whimsy Stamps Stitched/Pierced Round Nesting Dies. Adhere colored image to the vellum using glue, tape, or mounting foam.

Flip over and add mounting foam to the back of the vellum, making sure to hide it under the image.

Center over the dried background. Add glue or tape to the backside of the background and center on an 

A2 white card base. 

Thanks for spending time with me today! Leave a comment below, letting me know your favorite time of year to craft and have yourself an amazing day! 

Halloweeds 3x4 Clear Stamp Set 

Pierced and Stitched Circles Dies Set

Cutie ABC Die Set

Tuesday Tutorial - Mixed Media meets Clean & Simple

Hello Whimsy Friends & Welcome to our Tuesday Tutorial. It's Iris here today and I want to show you how I made this Clean & Simple Mixed Media style card. I love to incorporate a bit of mixed media into my cards and no, it does not always have to be messy. ;-) Today I want to show you how to take a more clean and simple approach to mixed media but still get that mixed media style look.

Here is what we will be creating today

The card has a mixed media background. I layered several stamps and kept everything in a vertical row to rather than stamping all over the background panel. This gives the CAS look to the card. The focal point is a large embossed and cut out butterfly. This could easily be substituted with two smaller butterflies, a butterfly and a bee or whatever other element you would like to use.

This is what I used to create my card:

Stamps: Circles Circles Circles, Distressed Backgrounds and Ink Splats, FA Doodles, FADoodles Too, Butterflies Fluttering, 

Paper: A2 size card, top fold from white cardstock , white mixed media panel 4" x 5.25",
white cardstock (Copic friendly) to stamp butterfly and sentiment

Tools: Stamp positioning tool or acrylic block, heat tool, anti static powder, scissors for fussy cutting, tweezers

Copics: RV52, RV56, RV66, BG32, BG15, BG18, 110

Other: Versafine Clair Nocturne ink or Versafine Onyx Black ink, Versamark ink, Distress Oxide ink - Peacock Feathers, white gel pen or white POSCA pen - fine, metallic gold marker,  gold glitter embossing powder, black embossing powder, Stickles Glitter Glue - Stardust, foam tape, glue, sequins

I started out with the Circles Circles Circles clear set and the 4" x 5.25" mixed media panel.

With Versafine Clair Nocturne ink I stamped several different circles onto the mixed media panel.

More or less in a straight vertical row with some of the circles overlapping.

Next I chose an ink splats stamp from the Distressed Backgrounds and Ink Splats clear set 

and stamped with Distress Oxide ink - Peacock Feathers. I stamped over the circles

always trying to maintain a vertical row of stamped images.

For the next two steps I used the burlap stamp from the same set and stamps form the

FA Doodles and FADoodles Too sets:

To stamp just part of the burlap I am folding the stamp over:

It's time to use some elements from the FA Doodles and FADoodles Too sets

This is how my background looks after I've finished stamping. I am trying to keep that vertical row

 for the clean look.

Now on to some details. I used a white Uni POSCA pen to add some dots to the solid black circles,

breaking them up a bit. A white gel pen works as well.

With a metallic, gold DecoColor marker I colored the hearts from the FADoodles Too elements,

to add some shine.

I still wanted a bit more gold so I stamped some more ink splats from the 

Distressed Backgrounds and Ink Splats clear set with Versamark ink, 

added gold sparkle embossing powder and heat embossed. 

The finished background:

Next step is to create the focal point. I chose a large butterfly from the Butterfly clear stamp set. Unfortunately this set went out of stock while I was creating my card. But it will be back in stock soon. Alternatively you can use the Dove Art Butterflies Fluttering set and/or the Bee-utiful Bees stamp set. 

I stamped the butterfly with Versamark ink and heat embossed with black embossing powder. You can also stamp with a black pigment ink, like Versafine Onyx Black ink, and then emboss with black or clear embossing powder. So you have some options here depending on what items you have available.

After stamping and embossing the butterfly I fussy cut it. I cut as close to the image as possible because 

I do not want to have a white edge this time.

Using a black Copic marker I went all around the butterfly to cover the cutting edge. This will cover and hide some areas 

where I did a poor job cutting the butterfly out. Especially on his antennas and hard to reach parts.

Time to color the butterfly. I used the following Copics to color:

RV52, RV56, RV66, BG32, BG15, BG18
I wanted part of it to match the turquoise color in my background and one contrast color.

I colored the outside darker and went lighter towards the butterflies body to achieve a glowing effect.

To assemble the card I popped the background layer onto a A2 size top fold card base using foam tape. 

If you don't want that extra layer of dimension you can just glue it on.

Before adding the butterfly I needed to have a sentiment and see how I can incorporate that.

I used a sentiment that is included with the Butterfly clear stamp set. 

Alternatively you can use the You're Too Kind clear stamp set.

This is how the card looks after adding the butterfly, sentiment and three sequins for just a little bit more bling. Butterfly and sentiment are popped up on foam tape as well and I've added some sparkle to the butterfly wings using Stickles Glitter Glue - Stardust.
Voila! - Mixed Media meets Clean & Simple!

Shot from another angle:

Here is a link list of Whimsy products used -
I've also linked the alternate products you can use:

              

                

    

Thanks for stopping by and visiting us here today on the Whimsy Inspirations Blog.

 I hope you've enjoyed the tutorial and that I could inspire you to try and add a little bit of mixed media in your next project.

I would love to see your take on a clean and simple mixed media card. Share your creation in the Whimsy Facebook Inspiration group and feel free to tag me.

Germ-free hugs and stay healthy!