Walking in a Winter Wonderland...Not!

Brrrrr! Good morning!

I awoke this morning to a bone-chilling two...that's 2...degrees! As my friends from the North Pole might say, "It's not a fit day out for man nor beast!" I can't remember the last time we were so cold. I thank God that our furnace is still working. I do wish it could keep up a little better though. I had to give the munchkin (a.k.a. Winnie the mini-dachshund) a blankie, along with darling husband, of course. ;-)

While we're only expected to reach 29 degrees today, I'm looking forward to the coming week, which will attain upper 60s by Friday! Hoorah!

So, in keeping with the current situation, I'm posting a card I made a while back with a digital image from Angel's Landing. The original black-and-white illustration is the work of Judi Maddigan, and I produced the color and finished product. This is one of my all-time favorite cards!

I just love these sweet little penguin babies! They make my heart laugh! I colored them with Copic Sketch markers, and then fussy cut around the images and popped them up with some Stampin' Up dimensionals. I had some beautiful winter-themed designer paper for the background. I hope they make you laugh, too.

Well, my office is in a cold part of the house, and I'm about to seek out my own blanket. Thanks for visiting, and please come back again soon. 

You can view some additional cards in my Etsy shop (link above right), if you'd like to pay a visit. I have additional sets ready (including Valentine's Day) and will be posting them there soon.

Stay safe and warm!

Live in the Sunshine

Hello!

I awoke this morning to a beautiful day filled with sunshine...and a fresh blanket of snow here in eastern North Carolina. Winter Storm Grayson deposited about 4 inches of lovely powder on our yard last night. I sat at the window and watched it pouring down around midnight. I'd say "drifting," which is my favorite speed, but it was coming much too quickly for that. Still, so beautiful!

My favorite thing about snow is "listening" to the quiet when it falls. What a joy to hear the world get still. It doesn't, of course. It just seems that way, and I love the feeling of peace.

Today, the storm is gone, and the sunshine is here in abundance. That made me think of a card I made recently. It uses a Stampin' Up stamp with a Ralph Waldo Emerson quote to "Live in the sunshine." There's also an image from Serene Silhouettes - one of my favorite sets. I made a circle mask and sponged on a couple of Stampin' Up inks to make a sun, and then used black embossing ink for the birds in the tree. Easy-peasy!

As the new year gets underway, I think "live in the sunshine" is a really positive message - and one I'd like to adopt. In spite of the world's ugliness at times, there are many opportunities to feel blessed! I hope you feel that way today, too.

Thanks for visiting, and do come again!

Artistic Year Ahead

Hello, dear friends! Happy New Year 2018!

Three years on, and I'm back online. I can't believe time has passed so quickly! It's January 1, and I'm already fulfilling New Year's resolutions: get back online, post on my blog, build my Etsy shop, and start thinking about what's ahead once I retire from my day job.

A lot has happened since I've been away. There have been health challenges, passing of friends, birth of new family members, family weddings, and all sorts of other normal life happenings. I'm sure you've had them, too.

While I started my blog to share craft projects and artistic endeavors, I expect to branch out a bit in 2018. I'll still be sharing some photos (and possibly videos) of what's on the craft table, but I also want to share more of what's happening in life.

I hope you'll join me as I continue life's journey. For now, it's back to work tomorrow after 11 lovely days of leisure. Oh my! Where DID I put that pesky alarm clock!?1? And my winter coat! Highs in the 30s this week in North Carolina. Brrrrr! On the bright side, the days are getting longer. 😊😊

The card sets below are now active in Etsy at www.etsy.com/shop/NCKarenArt. I'd be so pleased if you'd help spread the word! Additional card sets and other items are complete and will be posted in the coming days and weeks.

 

Happy New Year! May God bless you and those you love richly in the coming year! 

Brayering - Quick and Beautiful

Welcome.

Today I have something new for my technique toolbox: brayering. When my friend Lisa came to visit, she brought her brayer, along with some lovely ink pads - and access to a YouTube video tutorial on how to make this gorgeous card.

Now, I was completely new to this technique, and I found it quite fast for the effect it achieved. The first task was to punch a circle mask and adhere it to the card stock where we wanted our sun.

Next, we cleared the table top to avoid ink splattering on any other papers, and then rolled the brayer over the first ink pad. We started with the lightest color first (Crushed Curry) and rolled the entire surface of the card stock (white). Then we cleaned the brayer and applied a second ink color (Dusty Durango), rolling horizontally to leave some of the light color at the bottom; we took the darker color (Bravo Burgundy) all the way to the top in successive rolls.  A few horizontal striations just above the mountains give you a sense that all was not perfectly blended. Still, the effect is not distracting.

The next step was to tear some scrap paper to form the mountains. This was placed on the image above the area to be rolled, and the bottom area was brayered in a brown color (Close to Cocoa) to form a mountain. We then moved the torn paper and slanted it a different direction to form a mountain range - and brayered once again.  I was really excited at this point, as this technique was pretty close to idiot proof! 

Once the ink had dried to a large degree, the sun mask was removed and a bit of additional color was sponged on the sun to match it to the rest of the card. Then, the reeds were stamped using Stampin' Up's Inspired by Nature stamp set. We used simple black ink (Tuxedo Black Memento), although we might also have used Versamark and then black embossing powder.

Finally, a number of birds were drawn in with a black Sharpie pen. This was a fun finishing touch, as we were both able to decide for ourselves where our birds wanted to fly! The whole image was layered with a light-colored mat (More Mustard) card stock, and then taped to Bravo Burgundy.

It seems to me that it took longer to type this post than to make this card! So, never believe that beautiful has to mean complicated or lengthy. I'm very pleased with my result, and I will surely use this technique again.

Please also drop by my friend Lisa's blog to see her matching card. Lisa loves to scrapbook and has become a real YouTube sensation!

Thanks for stopping by today.  I hope you'll join me again.  Blessings to you and yours!

A Rose Blooms in Summer

One of my favorite stamp sets is Fifth Avenue Floral from Stampin' Up. My favorite stamp from the set is a beautiful rose. It's taken me quite some time to figure out how to color it with Copic markers, but I'm getting better now, I think.

I thought it might be interesting to see the progression of how I colored the rose to make this colorful birthday card. I hope you enjoy seeing it come together.

 

 

Here is the uncolored stamped image:

 

 

The uncolored image provides very little dimension. If we've seen a rose, we know of course that it has a number of layers and delicate textures. In order to start providing some of that dimension, I began the coloring process by underpainting the image with a neutral gray color (Copic N2).

 

 

 

 

Already, it seems the rose has become multi-layered. The underpainting provides just enough contrast to start showing layers - and also serves to provide some guidance about where shadows will fall in the finished image. In this case, the light source is assumed to be coming from the front right of the image. All shadowing should be consistent with that light source.

 

 

 

Now the rose is a beautiful pink (R81 and R85). Areas that were previously underpainted in gray have now been accented in a dark pink color. Some blending of color has been done, but dark areas continue to be dark. The rose continues to have dimension, but it is once again unclear where the light source is. Additional work is needed to restore a sense of light.

 

 

The final bit of "coloring" is shown in the image above. Actually, this effect was achieved by using the colorless blender marker (0) to move color around on the rose petals. Some people erroneously believe that the colorless blender marker removes color from an image; this is not true. The colorless blender simply moves color away from the marker tip to surrounding bits of the image. It is then important to do further blending to avoid dark lines where the ink has moved.

 

Finally, one last technique was used to bring dimension to the rose. The final image is actually two roses that were colored identically and then cut apart. The center and outer edges of the rose were cut from image 1, and then the middle section of the rose is from image 2. The pieces were then re-assembled using foam dimensionals to pop each piece up from the surface of the card.

 

The card uses Bazzill cardstock, Spellbinders ticket die-cut in two sizes, Mister Huey honeydew misting spray, and Heidi Swapp's 6x6 lattice spray stencil. Finally, the birthday greeting is from SU!'s Itty Bitty Banners. 

 

I hope you enjoyed this brief explanation of how this lovely rose bloomed this summer. Thanks for stopping by, and stay tuned for some scrapbooking fun!

 

On Becoming a "New" Scrapbooker

Hello, friends.

I've been a scrapbooker for more than a dozen years, but recently I was given a simple tip that literally re-energized my scrapbooking. For years, I've used post-style albums, and one of the things I've always found frustrating is the need to de-construct my whole album if I leave something out of its proper spot in the book, or get something out of order. Well, no more.

My dear friend, Lisa, who is a marvelous scrapbook designer/creator, fellow blogger, and YouTube sensation, mentioned that she had made the switch some time ago to ring-binder scrapbook albums. One of the major reasons was to avoid the whole "de-construction" thing. Instead of spending time organizing, positioning, and doing all the pre-planning that post-bound albums demand, she could simply do her pages one at a time and place them in the album where she wanted them. Now, I'm sure something in me must have realized this all along, but her few words had bells going off in my head!  Of course - what a perfect solution!

So, now I've made the switch to ring-binder albums. No more "posts" for me!  I've settled on We R Memory Keepers albums for my collection (although there are many choices one might make). I've purchased an album, as well as photo sleeves in various configurations. The link given above is the least expensive price I've seen, particularly if you prefer to shop online, and there are several shipping options.  Or, if you like to shop the big box stores, such as Michael's, A.C. Moore, etc., there are often coupons for 40-50% off one regular priced item.  (For the record, I make no money from promoting these products.)

Keep in mind that photo sleeves are only one option for making scrapbook pages. I'll also combine this technique with true 12" x 12" scrapbook pages, designed and constructed, as my time allows. These can be inserted into the full-page photo sleeves easily and will give my albums a lot of variety. They'll also feed my desire for creativity.

I'm having a marvelous time just making my pages - rather than pre-planning exactly where they'll fall in my albums.  This is incredibly liberating - and no small feat for someone with decades of photos to put into albums.

For today, I prepared a recent layout from the last week of May. This was an especially memorable trip to me for two reasons: (1) we spent time and fell in love with my husband's first cousin and her husband from Michigan; and (2) I made my first-ever trip to North Carolina's Outer Banks. I can hardly believe that it took me, a native North Carolinian, more than 50 years to get there! It was beautiful and definitely worth the trip.

Today I want to share my Outer Banks page and talk about a few changes I'm adjusting to as a "new" scrapbooker. Let me name a few of the most obvious things:

• Today we have tons more products, tools, and choices. Time-saving is a big deal, so album styles have exploded. I've made the switch from post-bound to ring-bound.
• Moving to a ring-bound album means that the photo sleeve options will sometimes constrain my design choices. I'm okay with that if it saves me a lot of time. I can still make a fully-constructed 12" x 12" traditional layout if I choose.
• Photo sleeves may limit the types of embellishments I can use for my pages. Again, if I want something particular, I can revert to 12" x 12" construction.
• I've begun to use the computer to complete my journaling.  I have lots of album pages with my handwriting, and I may continue to handwrite some of them, but the time savings is immense.
• Using the computer for journaling means that different types of embellishments may be needed; for example, the journaling box at top right (below) has a stamped-off image to add interest to the page. I have to plan embellishments more carefully, as journaling on the computer and leaving just the right space for stickers, brads, buttons, ribbons, or other items may be tricky.

 



 

For example, once I had the journaling box printed for this layout, I realized it was just too plain. I dressed it up with a stamped-off image from SU!'s Summer by the Sea (retired) rubber stamp set. My ink of choice is Hero Arts Shadow Ink in mid-tone Wet Cement. This required a bit of experimentation as a full-strength stamped image was just a bit busy. Stamping off once before applying to my journal block did the trick.

Full-strength stamp in Hero Arts Shadow Ink
 



Stamped-Off Image

The difference between the full-strength and the stamped-off image is fairly subtle, but it made all the difference on the journaling block. It added a nice finishing touch to the page. These types of challenges seem fairly minor, but they can mean a big adjustment for an "old-timer." It's worth the effort though.

 

That's it for today. Please join me again for scrapbooking and card making fun. Thanks for visiting and may God bless!

An Anniversary Card for June

Hello, friends. I'm so glad you've stopped by today.

June has been a very busy month. My husband and I hosted his first cousin and her husband for several days at the end of May and into June. What a happy, blessed time it was! They've only been gone for a very short while, and we miss them already. Here's hoping they trade the cold wintry North (Michigan) for the warm Southern hospitality here in Carolina. That was the purpose for their trip, really, so we're encouraging them to take the leap of faith!

Meanwhile, June is traditionally the month for weddings and all things "love"ly. We have dear friends who are celebrating their 12th wedding anniversary this month, and today's card is for them. I cased this card from yellowrose46 in Split Coast Stampers' challenge 183.

 



 

I've also taken a note from Cindy Lawrence, a regional Copic instructor and the person who taught my certification class, by adding some additional images on the inside of my card.

 

I kept the inside images soft by stamping off once before applying them to the card. The main image is from Stampin' Up's Summer by the Sea rubber stamp set; it's retired. I recently purchased this set on ebay, so I'm still working with various media to get a perfectly colored image. Rather than color this one, I simply stamped it with Ranger Distress Ink in pumice stone color. 

 

I chose Bazzill card stock in French Vanilla color for the base and Herbal Garden Dark for trim. The designer series paper is from the 6x6 My Mind's Eye Indie Chic "Citron" collection. The bluish-green paper at right was a little plain, so I used my new Simon Says Stamp Flower Friend Clear Stamp Set and one that I can no longer identify (sorry!) to stamp in Perfect Medium and finish off with Perfect Pearls Green Patina powder. The shine is minimal, so it's almost impossible to see in the photo.

 

Embellishments include a palm tree charm from K&Company Sea Glass metal art, and pebble brads from Making Memories Flowers Lemonade. I realized too late that the brads are such a perfect match for the background colors at left that they fade almost entirely into the background.

 

I popped up the main image on the front of the card with some Stampin' Dimensionals and finally added a sentiment on the inside from Fiskars Lasting Love Quotes.  Despite a few missteps, I'm really very pleased with my results.

 

Thanks for stopping by and may God bless!

Clean and Simple Color Blocks

As much as I love to fuss over my cards, sometimes it's the clean and simple designs that speak to me most. This crisp color block card was so simple that it seemed almost impossible that it came out so well.  It's a little like life, isn't it?  Sometimes, we just need to chill out and go for the obvious.

The image for this card is from the Serene Silhouettes set from Stampin' Up! I used a plain piece of white card stock for the color block base. I cut three strips of complementary blues and greens, taped them to the base and trimmed them out. Then I stamped the image with Versamark ink, embossed in white, added three star-shaped brads, and taped it all to another white piece of card stock with the sentiment. Finally, I taped the constructed piece to American Crafts wave colored paper. Simple!

I may have to re-think my aversion to clean and simple styles. I've had trouble in the past with making them pretty enough to suit me. Maybe I'm getting the hang of it!

This card is posted to the Split Coast Stampers' Color Blocking with Cardstock challenge. The tutorial by Beate Johns was really lovely. Check it out!

Thanks for visiting, and I'll see you again soon.

Happy in the Moment

Hi - and Happy Memorial Day!

Today is a special day in the United States. This is the day that we honor our fallen men and women in service to our country. When I think about those who have fought for freedom around the globe, particularly those who didn't live to see that freedom for themselves, it reminds me how precious each moment of life truly is. Today I'm reminded that I should lay aside petty problems and just be happy that I can breathe, see, hear, taste, and feel. So, in honor of today, I offer this simple card:

Today's sentiment is from Stampin' Up. The flowers are also from SU!'s Playful Petals set. The oval rings are from an old set of pre-cut, purchased shapes. They are fastened together by a brad at the bottom end and fanned out. I used Versamark ink to stamp the flowers, and then used pastel chalks to color in the detail.

The two flowers are fastened together with a small blue button and white twine. I glued the ovals flat against the background, and popped up the flowers with Stampin' Dimensionals.  Finally, the contrasting paper on the lower half is edged with the Fiskars Sunburst border punch and mounted on brown cardstock.

Please remember to count your blessings today - and thank the families of those who lost someone in service. And even though it's a day for fallen heroes, please thank those who have served and are blessed enough to still be with us.

Thank you for visiting, and may God bless us each and every one.