How Were Those Made? Orient Enchantment Projects for Lost Coast Designs

Hello again, my stampy and mixed-media friends! Today's post will tell you how I made each of the projects that were posted to the Lost Coast Portal to Creativity as part of my design team role to inspire participation in this month's Orient Enchantment event.

Using stamps from Lost Coast Designs's India Set, I made three ATCs. The first, "Do More Than Exist," has the simplest directions...

I started with a gelli print (there's tons of information about how to make these on the Interwebz, so for space reasons let me refer you to Google if you don't already know what gelli prints are). I stamped the god from the India set directly onto it, then colored him with creamy colored pencils (leaving some of the background showing through) and with white and shimmery copper gel pens. Then I affixed stick-on copper gems to the card and outlined the pattern with more white and copper gel pen. Oh, and added a text label, of course!

For "Talk To The Hand," I scraped some white gesso onto heavy cardstock with a palette knife and let it dry. This gave a bit of texture and a nice base for the next layer. I got out some Distress Crayons, scribbled some color here and there, and blended it with my fingertip (the gesso helps the Crayons smear more evenly than they do on plain paper).

Using permanent black ink, I stamped the Calligraphy Square from Carmen's Veranda for a little background interest. Next I stamped the mehndi hand from the India Set, colored it with gel pens in fluorescent and glitter greens as well as metallic golds and white, and cut it out and collaged it to the card along with the computer-generated sentiment.

To finish the card, I scraped some black glitter paste through a stencil to get the little ball effects on the sides...added 3D dots made of shiny white Enamel Accents and metallic gold Pearl Pen...and edged the whole piece in more black glitter paste. This added dimension and texture to the finished ATC.

For "I Is For Indian Peafowl," I first stamped the peacock from the India Set onto white cardstock and masked him off, then stamped the Taj Mahal behind him and masked that off. Next I applied Distress Inks with a mini blending tool around the masked images, then used the spritz-and-flick method to forcefully apply water droplets to give a mottled effect to the ink background.

Next I stamped the Clover Scroll Border along the bottom of the ATC and embossed the image with silver powder. I colored the clover scrolls with colored pencils, and added a border of dots made with metallic blue, gold, and white gel pens.

I painted the peacock with various colors of Twinkling H2Os--the shimmer on him was amazing in real life! Since the famous mausoleum is white, I left the Taj Mahal uncolored, revealing the plain white cardstock underneath the mask.

Lastly, I stamped and embossed the capital I from the Old Typewriter Alphabet, collaged the genus label onto the card, and edged it all in black chalk ink.

And there you have three very different ATCs, but all with a touch of exotic India. As always, I welcome any questions or comments below...I love chatting with you!

New Art-Stamping Contest/Event: Orient Enchantment

It's time for another fun art challenge/contest over at the Lost Coast Portal to Creativity! The theme this time is "Orient Enchantment"...submit your artwork using rubber stamping (any company's stamps, though entries using Lost Coast Designs rubber count double!) with an "Oriental" theme for your chance to win fun prizes, including a gift certificate for LCD stamps! Details here.

To get your appetite whetted for the theme, here is "I Is For Indian Peafowl," an ATC made with the peacock and Taj Mahal images from Lost Coast Design's India Set, as well as the I from the Old Typewriter Alphabet and the Clover Scroll Border.

Looking forward to seeing your entries!

Step-By-Step: When I Am King (or: February Is For Lovers)

Hello stamplings! Today for your creative delectation I'm going to walk you through "When I Am King," the piece I made for the Lovers event over at the Lost Coast Portal To Creativity.  (You have two more days to enter your lovers-themed art --until midnight, February 25th--for your chance to win cool stuff! Click on the link in this paragraph and find out the deets if you haven't already entered!)

So, as I was thinking about the lovers theme and looking through my catalog of fabulous images from Lost Coast Designs, I spied the king and queen from the Chess Set, and immediately the children's rhyme "Lavender's blue, dilly dilly" started going through my head! I decided to use the color lavender and a chess board as my jumping-off ideas.

So here's a step-by-step breakdown of how I made this piece!

Using permanent (waterproof) ink, stamp the awesome king and queen onto hot-press (for a smooth surface) watercolor paper. Stamp and cut masks for the figures, and place the masks over the stamped images.

Sprinkle blue, purple, and gray Nuance powders liberally about! At this point, your piece will look approximately like this:

Now go town and mist the powders with water to your heart's content. Watch the magic happen as they bloom and blend! I like to leave them a little dry in spots for texture, but you're the boss here.

I next used a checkerboard stencil to suggest a chess board, and spritzed some more color through the stencil. (TIP: Did you know that you can use the Nuance Powders to make your own sprays? Yep--just put a bit in a mister, add water, and you're good to go! Mix any color you need, for pennies!! These powders are so economical and give you full creative control!)

Let dry, and stamp the words "king" and "queen" with the Old Typewriter Alphabet, and emboss with silver EP. I outlined the letters in black artist pen to help them stand out, which also has the advantage of giving the letters more of a funky handmade look. The other text was computer-generated and collaged on.

With the masks still in place, drizzle and splotch some white and silver acrylic paint to bring light to some of the dark areas and add a little dimension to the piece.

When dry, remove the masks, and paint the figures with pale washes of lavender, blue, and purple. Accent the figures with sparkly silver glitter gel pen to further catch the light.(Wish this photo showed the sparkle and shimmer better! Use your imagination--sorry. LOL) Edge the piece with lavender chalk ink.

You are done! Admire the fruits of your labor...and don't forget to enter the Lovers challenge!

Hey, Valentine--New "Lovers" Art Challenge/Contest!

Happy Valentine's Day to all you lovers of stamps and art out there! I have a project here to inspire you to enter the Lovers challenge over at the Lost Coast Portal to Creativity if you haven't already done so--your chance to win a gift certificate to spend on the fab rubber images by Lost Coast Designs!

Do you know the children's rhyme "Lavender's Blue Dilly Dilly"? It got stuck in my head as I was looking through my LCD rubber stamps for "Lovers" project ideas--I was fixated on how to use these awesome king and queen chess pieces from the Chess Set for Valentine's Day. (I just love the wacky/elegant collage of every chess piece in this set!)

My fave Old Typewriter Alphabet also came in handy for stamping "king" and "queen" (the rest of the letters are computer-generated).

Stay tuned for a little tutorial on how I made this piece, including masking tips and creating the background using Nuance Powders--plus I'll offer a couple of tricks for nifty techniques for using the Nuance Powders creatively! (My grandmother used to say "nifty" all the time...)

Can't wait to see your entries for the Lovers challenge. Make lots, and tell your friends--the more entries the better the prizes! Happy Valentine's Day!

Edgar Allen Poe Appreciation Blog Hop: Ghostly Edgar

Hi Poe lover! Thanks for stopping by to check out my offering for the Poe Appreciation Blog Hop 2017! (See below for how you can join the hop and win PRIZES!)

Lost Coast Designs and Carmen's Veranda are sponsoring this hop in conjunction with Poe's birthday and the release of some wonderful new stamp images...some of which are used in my project below. (Check out the pages of Lost Coast Designs and Carmen's Veranda to see the rest of the new stamp images!)

Here's my offering--a reversed-out effect made by embossing the images with platinum powder on dark paper, with special "text effect" on Poe's face:

The stamps I used were Edgar Allen Poe from Carmen's Veranda, Blackletter text from ATC Text Set 1 at Lost Coast Designs, the License Plate Alphabet Set from LCD, and the Left Zentangle Raven from LCD.

How I got the text effect on Poe: I inked up the image as usual, then pressed the blackletter text stamp onto Edgar's inky surface...then simply pressed the text stamp (which had picked up only the shape of his face) onto the paper. In other words, the text stamp had ink transferred to it only where it had come into contact with the "positive" image of the face. Cool, huh?

Thanks for your visit! I'd love to chat with you in the comment section below!

An InLinkz Link-up

New (Weird) Stamp Release at LCD!

Hi stampy friends! Just wanted to tell you about a release of some new stamp images over at Lost Coast Designs. These guys are WEIRD and I like 'em that way! Look:

Above is a detail shot so you can see the yummy bizarreness of these guys...You can see the whole piece I made below.

I started by brayering metallic and black acrylic paint onto paper, then stamping the squares from ATC Misc. Set 3 here and there for a little background interest.

Next I used the License Plate Alphabet to compose the word STRIDE and embossed it in gold.

Finally I stamped these three Aud Creatures and collaged 'em down onto the prepared background. Weird, yeah? I wouldn't have it any other way!

Click here to visit the Lost Coast Portal to Creativity to see some of our other designers' work featuring even more of these weirdos (there are eight stamps in the series!), plus other new releases including Kukla, Fran, and Ollie puppet stamps. :)  Enjoy the madness!

Oh, and if you have a chance, visit The Three Muses to see their challenge Words for 2017! My word for the year is STRIVE, but STRIDE was so close I thought I'd enter this piece in the challenge. Some gorgeous eye candy awaits you there--have a peek!

A Pair of Blue-and-Silver Angels for "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas"

Season's greetings, art buddies! Today I have for you not one but TWO festive projects as part of the "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas" contest going on over at the Lost Coast Portal to Creativity. Wanna play? Enter your rubber-stamped Christmas- or winter-themed projects by January 6, 2017 at 5 to midnight for the chance to win a gift certificate to spend in the Lost Coast Designs and Carmen's Veranda rubber stamp stores!  The more entries the better the prizes, so round up all your friends and join the most festive art party of the year. Check the RULES to ensure your entries are eligible to win!

The first blue-and-silver angel I have for you is this 6.5" x 10" piece called "Pax Hominibus." You may recognize its text, especially if you're Catholic, as being from the "Gloria" in the Latin Mass. It means "And peace to people on earth."

It was made by stamping the Angel with Globe stamp from Lost Coast Designs and embossing it with superfine detail black powder.

The globe the angel is standing on was cut from marbled paper and pasted in...

The text above and below the stamp was handlettered...

The angel's robe was colored in shades of creamy blue pencil...the lettering was painted with Distress Ink in Chipped Sapphire...the border was colored with silver glitter gel pen, and the hair with metallic gold colored pencil and gel pen...

...while the wings and globe were underpainted with silver acrylic and topped with Twinkling H20s in Icicles, a holographic-glittery white. This was super-hard to photograph, so here is a detail shot that hopefully hints at all the sparkle (you know I love me some sparkle!):

And a closeup of the whole piece, which I have also entered in The Three Muses' "Frame" challenge:

My second angel project is an artist trading card.

This piece was done entirely by stamping and masking, using gray inks for the whole card. First, I stamped the angel from the Fortune Women set and masked it off. Behind her I stamped the blackletter text from ATC Text Set 1, then overstamped the corner with the Black Flourish stamp. Down the right side I stamped the Clover Scroll Border, and along the bottom used letters from the Old Typewriter Alphabet to stamp the word "Hark" (she's a herald angel--get it?).

After the stamping was done, I colored the angel's robe with Distress markers in rich shades of blue. When it was dry, I went over it with dimensional gloss medium to give a 3D clear raised (and/or permanently wet?) effect. The scrolling on the border I went over with dimensional metallic silver paint to give a raised effect there as well. I edged the whole card in metallic charcoal pigment ink, and it was done!

Hope you get a chance to enter--and WIN!--the holiday challenge at Lost Coast Designs! Go check it out, and good luck.  :)

Noel Angel: A Stamped Study in Silver & Gold

Seasons' Greetings, arty friends! Today I have a Christmassy piece of art featured over at the Lost Coasters Review blog as part of Lost Coast Designs’ “It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas” rubber stamp art contest. Just enter your holiday-themed art featuring rubber stamps from any company, and you’ll be entered to win a gift certificate for MOAR STAMPS from the incredible catalog of Lost Coast Designs rubber! I am a fan!

So...on to the project and How To Mayke It.  ✨

I love the medieval/Victorian Gothic vibe of these Lost Coast Designs stamps so much that I had to combine them, with metallic silver and gold, for some holiday glitz and a bit of historical feel! Here's the piece:

↑  This is actually a scan of the piece, which doesn't capture the depth and sheen of all the metallics very well, so here's a photo taken in different light too, so you can get more of a feel for how the piece looks in person, when you move it in the light.  ↓

Here's how I made it.

First I took some acid-free scrapbook paper that was printed with a sort of linen fabric-looking pattern, then brayered on some thin layers of silver and gold acrylic paint diluted with iridescent medium. This gave a rich-looking shimmer to the background. (You guys know, if you read my blog at all, that I love me some shimmer on almost every piece! Right? You KNEW that.)

Next, I got out this awesome angel from the Fortune Women set, inked it up with black permanent ink, stamped it...

  

...and then cut out a mask of the figure. I placed the mask over the stamped image using repositionable glue, and got out this fab arch from the ATC Misc. Set 6...and stamped right over the masked image.

Next, I retrieved some (slightly used) washi tape from under the table where I’d stuck it (don’t judge me) and masked off the area below the gothic arch where I wanted to stamp this Clover Scroll border, which I love SO BAD:

Here's what those impromptu masks looked like before stamping. I threw in this photo just because some people do find weird pix like this to be helpful, and I’m a helpy kind of girl. 

But enough about me. So after adding the scroll border, I pulled out my trusty Rustic Alphabet Set with its strong period feel, composed the word NOEL, and stamped that once in my permanent black ink. Then I overstamped the word with embossing ink, offsetting it just a TEENY bit to provide a hint of shadow, and embossed it in gold powder.

Now it was time to add silver and gold gel-pen accents to the angel, border, and arch. And the piece was finished...

...Except for putting it in a frame, like so.  😊  

Et voila!--a shimmery angel in gold and silver. Wishing you and your family a very happy (and shimmery) Noel!

Halloween BASH Party Invitation: Iron-Off Embossing Powder Resist Technique

Ghoulish greetings, art-pals, as we continue to celebrate the 31 Days of Halloween blog hop over at Lost Coast Designs!

Today my contribution to the festivities is this Halloween Bash party invitation, featuring several of LCD's bizarre and beloved character images, all tricked out for a wicked and weird party.

This piece features LCD's new gears background stamp, perfect for industrializing and steampunking up all your projects that need a little metallic edge. 

To start, I stamped it twice on a 9" x 12" sheet of white Arches Hot Press watercolor paper, and embossed it with white embossing powder to make a resist. Here's what that phase looked like--can you see?

Next, I wanted to play with the fabulous Nuance pigment powders by Magenta, which I sprinkled on randomly in shades of orange and gold. These dry powders blossom and explode delightfully when you spray them with water, making surprising and beautiful background effects. Here's what they look like dry:

...And after the first spritzing, here's what my page looked like.

I did want more color, so on went some purple powder, and I kept spritzing...

There! Now my background was mostly colored in. I left some drier, barely-spritzed texture at the bottom for interest.


Now that the embossing powder resist had served its purpose, I wanted to remove the powder so I could slightly grunge up the pure white paper underneath it for a less stark design. So I got my hot iron out, and used sheets of deli paper between the iron and the piece for the melting powder to stick to...

It can require ironing onto several layers of paper to remove all the embossing powder. You might save the sheets for use with other projects!

I went over the white gear design, newly denuded of its embossing powder, with a little Distress Ink in coordinating colors and a mini ink tool, and added some hand-drawn spider webs to a few of the gears with a white gel pen.

Next, I used the Black Skulls Border to block off an area of the page where I would stamp my text.

Then I used the Old Typewriter Alphabet, with its worn-looking letters reminiscent of old tombstones, to stamp the "Halloween Bash" sentiment.

Now it was time to add my characters. Onto glossy paper, I stamped images from the Anthropomorphs and Aud Animals and Creatures and Fortune Men sets, plus Norma from the Mini Flying Ladies set and the famous Lost Coast Designs Dancing Skeletons. 

I fussy-cut those bad boys out and affixed them to the page in "conversational" groupings. (The crazy skellies just wanna dance and not talk to anyone. Party animals. And the strutting bird and skulking monk-bug don't seem interested in idle chat either; no doubt they have their reasons.)

I trimmed the edges and declared this piece ready to reproduce as an invitation to my Halloween party! I still don't have a costume idea though.  :(

Happy Halloween!

Make a Splash...With Powdered Pigments

Hello colorful ones!

Have you ever used powdered pigments before? I just got some of the Nuance powders this month from Lost Coast Designs, and have been having lots of fun playing with them. Just a tiny sprinkle of powder and some spritzes of water = hours of entertainment! (OK, so I am easily entertained. But you probably will be too--these powders are COOL!)

The powders are already mixed with binders that are activated by the water, so they stay on the page after you wet them instead of just dusting right off. How convenient.  ;)

So looky here at what they can do! This colorful card was made with these very pigments--I both activated them as dry powder on the paper and used them as "ink" for rubber stamping. Here's how...

This was made by sprinkling autumnal colors of the powder onto white watercolor paper, keeping the sprinkles mostly to one side of the card. I then sprayed the paper with several spritzes of water. Where you use more water, the color runs and flows together, as in the big splash of fiery red and orange on this piece; drier specks of powder can also be seen moving away from the "splash" area, which gives an interesting textured look. (You might have to enlarge the pic to get a good look at this effect.) The amount you spray is up to you! Dryish or wet, these powdered pigments look fantastic, and the colors are beautiful.

Next I took two Lost Coast Designs stamps: an abstract background from the ATC Grunge Set, and the Gothic text block from ATC Text Set 1. To ink them, I stamped into the still-wet "splash" from the Nuance powders; I wanted to carry over the colors from the splash, so I stamped the abstract grunge set stamp into the white area of the card, then stamped the Gothic text block several times to add depth and interest to the splash area. It's OK that the text is wet and messy--it's just to add texture and isn't supposed to be legible. No need to be careful with this technique!

I then gave the whole thing a spritz of heirloom gold shimmer spray...you know, because I like shiny stuff. (Actually, it's super subtle in real life, the shimmer--I didn't use much!)

After drying this background with my trusty heat tool, I then composed the word "October" using the Rustic Alphabet Set from Lost Coast Designs and embossed it with a mixture of green and copper embossing powders for a sort of verdigris patina look. Then I used a bullet-tipped embossing ink pen and wrote the word "welcome" and embossed it too.

(Here's a detail of the embossing showing the two colors of EP...maybe you can even pick up a little of the shimmer here too?)

 

I edged the card with chalk inks...mounted it on a shimmery pale gold card that I edged with heirloom gold metallic ink...then mounted the whole thing on piece of green cardstock, which I daubed with chalk ink for a soft sort of suede-y look in real life. And that was it for that project!

If you have any love to leave me, I always look forward to your comments below.  ;)

Paula <3

Technique Tutorial: Cracked-Glass Effect

Greetings NetPeeps! (My teen daughter just cringed as I wrote that.) Today I have a little tutorial for you on how to achieve a cracked-glass effect on small pieces of art like this ATC I have featured over at the Lost Coast Portal to Creativity, where they are currently running a contest--submit any art of yours that uses rubber stamps and be entered to win a gift certificate to buy MOAR STAMPS. What have you got to lose? Nuthin'. But to gain? Shopping spree! So take a picture of your stampy art and go over and enter! Rules here. Deadline September 25. GO!

So...cracked glass! Here's my ATC (entitled "Progress") so you know what we're talking about.

See all those crackledy lines and cracks? This looks pretty cool in person...cooler than on the screen (photos have SUCH a flattening effect, don't they)...and you will definitely want to try this technique.

Here's how I did. First, I will tell you about the background and composition of this card, although the cracked-glass technique will work on top of just about anything you want to do.

So. I took a mini ink-blending tool and swirled some Distress ink in three or four colors onto the card.

To add interest and a bit of surrealism to the background, next I took some Nuance pigment powders by Magenta and sprinkled some onto the card. I used yellow, orange, and magenta pigments. TIP: A tiny bit of powder goes a long way--once you wet it with water, the pigment blossoms and balloons out pretty bigly, depending on how much water you add.

Before I spritzed the powder with water, the card looked like this. Tiny quantities of powder, yes?

(Sorry for the color difference between the first and second photos--I think I used flash on the second one so the powders would show up better.)

While the card was drying after the powder spritzing, I got my stampin' stuff out. I used two cool images from Lost Coast Designs--this awesomely bizarre sort of monk-bug from the Isle of Aud Creatures set (for which I have nothing but profound respect--every one of the images in the set is SO great):

...and this Large Perspective Background that I just love. It's like a surreal Italian Renaissance piazza.

I stamped the monk-bug in waterproof ink (TIP: you want the ink to be waterproof so that the next steps don't smear your images) and then masked him off to stamp the background. So that part was easy-peasy. The composition was done.

NOW comes the cracked glass part. [drumroll....]

I took the ATC and pressed a clear embossing ink pad all over it. I then covered the card in several coats of clear ultra-thick embossing enamel. This stuff is just embossing powder that has very large grains--horrible for detailed images, but great for melting over your entire pieces. It kind of looks like table sugar--here's how my card looked with the unmelted first coat adhered and ready for the heat gun:

One melted coat of the ultra-thick embossing enamel will probably yield a pebbly appearance, which can be a cool look. But for this technique, you want to apply several coats, MELTING each coat before you apply the next. Three coats will probably be enough. (See my post Step-By-Step: A Glasslike ATC for more details on this process.)

Once you have three or so coats of the melted powder on, your art will appear as though it is encased in glass with rounded edges. I tried hard to capture the look for you here:

See the shine in the lower right-hand corner of the above pic? See how the card looks thick and glossy there?

How about here? It's an effect that is just durned hard to photograph.

But just trust me. It will look pretty cool at this point...so cool that you might be tempted to stop here. And I would be sympathetic to you. HOWEVER, if you wanna crack that "glass," here's what you do next...

Put that sucker in the freezer for an hour.

When the resin is thoroughly chilled/frozen, take the ATC out and gently bend it back and forth in several places until the resin cracks. It's fun. You don't want to bend the card so hard that you are creasing it--just stress the cold resin so it has to sprick. (<--Hmm...that may be a Swenglish [Swedish-English] word...but it's just so perfect for the sound and feel that your card will have as you flex the resin in various spots.)

When you're done, your cracked glass surface will look like this:

Cool, ja? (Swedish again.) Talk to me below and let me know if you've ever tried this technique and how your results were...or let me know if you're planning to very soon. Make some art today and feel better!