March 2017 – Lori's Cards and Creations

Hello all,

Mondays are often a stressful day for me at work so I often like to unwind with a simple card or project. This simple creative time allows me to settle and does a great job at bringing the happiness back into my day! It is amazing to me how therapeutic a little paper and color can be. Keeping this in mind, I thought I would start to post these simple Monday projects so that they might inspire you to find your happiness at the end of a stressful day.

One trick to keeping things simple is to limit your supplies. Here I just used watercolors, a white colored pencil. twine, a few beads and 1 stamped image. I love watching the watercolors flow over the paper! And the message on this stamp was terrific; I can’t wait to send this card off to my special friend.

Materials:

White Card stock

Ranger Distress Watercolor Paper

Grumbacher Watercolors

American Crafts twine

Pepperlonely antiqued bronze beads

Stampendous “Friends Cup” rubber stamp

Ranger Archival Jet Black ink

Happy Simple Monday!

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Art Journal with Homemade texture paste

March 26, 2017 Lori's Cards and Creations

Hello all,

In this post I wanted to show you the result of the Homemade smooth texture paste that I made from a recipe by Gabrielle Pallacco that I found on Pinterest (see Webster’s Pages Blog for original post). This recipe is just a mixture of talcum powder, white glue, acrylic paint and water. It is super easy to make and works wonderfully.

The texture paste was used below in the upper right and left corners of this art journal layout to create a leafy foliage element; that reminds me of leafy full trees.

This whole page makes me long for warm summer days! I love the long stemmed flower stamps used here as well as the wispy heart wreath image (both from The Angel Company).

To create this page I started with a coat of Gesso and then applied the smooth texture paste over a Dina Wakley leaf stencil by Ranger. I then built the color layers with a combination of Gelatos and spray acrylics/watercolors/glimmer mist. The focal stamp images were stamped with Archival Ink on tissue paper, colored, and then adhered to the page with Modge Podge. The background stamped layers were applied directly to the page with Archival Ink.

I also added some additional interest to the page by applying Leaf Green Archival ink over the Pixelated stencil by Americana. Also, at different points in this process, I sealed the page with a Matte Medium to eliminate the loss of the different layers as I added a new dimension. Lastly, I used a Pitt artist pen, Dark Sepia, to create shadows on the page as well as around the edges.

This smooth texture paste recipe was a great find and I really enjoyed using it on this layout. I hope you all try it and find success using it as well.

Materials list:

Stencils:

Pixelated by Americana
Leaves by Dina Wakley – Ranger

Stamps:

Heart Wreath & Bird house – The Angel Company
Long Stemmed flowers – The Angel Company
Moroccan Spice – Club Scrap Inc.
Flower Power – The Stamps of Life
Monarch – inque
Beauty words background stamp – The Angel Company

Ink/Paint:

Gesso – Pro Art
Archival Ink, Jet Black & Leaf Green by Ranger
Mixed Media Art Spray – Apply by Marabu GmbH & Co Kg
Plane Jane Simply Sheer Matte Mist Watercolor – Saffron by My Tattered Angel
Glimmer Mist – Rich Mocha by My Tattered Angel
Pitt Artist Pen – Dark Sepia by Faber-Castell
Gelatos – Butter Bream, Caramel, Mango by Faber-Castell
Alcohol Markers – by Spectrum Noir
Matte Medium by Liquitex
Gazing Medium by Liquitex

Embellishments/other:

Metal Button by Bead Landing
White Twine by American Crafts
White Pearl Sticky Gems by Bead Landing
Tissue Paper
Homemade Smooth Texture Paste

Happy day!

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First blog post

March 25, 2017March 25, 2017 Lori's Cards and Creations

This is your very first post. Click the Edit link to modify or delete it, or start a new post. If you like, use this post to tell readers why you started this blog and what you plan to do with it.

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Mixed Media Bunny Card

March 19, 2017 Lori's Cards and Creations

Hello all,

Last week I spent some time making my own spray inks by mixing one part acrylic paint with 3 parts water.

So, today I created a mixed media Easter card with the inks I made.

The egg framed background was made by double mounting stencils (Swirl pattern by Folkart under an egg stencil by Dreamweaver) onto heavy watercolor paper. Once masked off, I then sprayed with my home made acrylic spray ink.

Stamps from the “Literature” stamp set (by Club Scrap) along with Lime Rickey ink (by Catherine Pooler) were used to build up the background. The edges were distressed with Tim Holtz/Ranger distress ink/tool and the Bunny (Tim Holtz Alterations) was also ink sprayed (over the swirl stencil) and then distressed. To finish the card, I embellished with flowers, paper doilies, lace, string, brads, gems, Distress Glitter and a Grungeboard element. The main focal panel was then mounted to a Card (over a 1/2 layer of metallic gold paper at opening edge of card).

These home made spray inks worked really well and were very economical to make. Especially when I found spray bottles at Amazon for a really good price. 🙂

Happy day!

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Art Journal – Four Leaf Clover

March 14, 2017 Lori's Cards and Creations

Hello all,

I was so excited to use the Mister Huey’s Color Mists that I got this weekend at the American Crafts Warehouse sale. They were super cheap and I got 6 various colors. Then last night, at about 3 in the morning, I thought about a half finished journal page that I had sitting around and thought…wouldn’t that page make great four leaf clovers?!? So tonight, I combined the two into a St. Patrick’s Day themed journal page. I just printed a template of a four leaf clover off of the internet and then hacked away at the half finished journal page. Ended up being a great way to re-purpose a journal page that I had lost focus on. Lots of stencils, stamping, and spray inks on this page…even used bubble wrap to stamp some texture onto the back ground.

St. Patrick’s day always makes me think of my late Step-father. He was a wonderful father and was such a major positive influence in my life. Tonight I thought of him as I made this page…which made for a pretty great evening of crafting.

Hope you all have a great week!

Happy day,
L

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Easter Cards With Distress Oxide

March 12, 2017 Lori's Cards and Creations

Hello all,

I have been spending the day making Easter Cards made for my friends and family. Have you tried Tim Holtz‘ Oxide Inks by Ranger yet? These inks are super cool to use and produce some amazing results. They provided the perfect back drop for these Easter cards… a soft blending of inks with distress style and the added look of texture. I have provided a link to a Demo that Tim Holtz provided at Creativation 2017. Check it out and then check out these oxide inks…so awesome!

Supplies:

Stamps by The Angel Company

Die cut by Echo Park Paper Co.

Tim Holtz Oxide Inks by Ranger (Vintage Photo, Worn Lipstick, Peeled Paint, Fossilized Amber, and Iced Spruce.

Tim Holtz Watercolor Cardstock by Ranger

Derwent Inktense 24

Grumbacher Deluxe Opaque Watercolors

Bead Landing Button

Bead Lanidng Sticky Gems

American Crafts Vanilla Twine

Cheeseclothe

Pepperlonely Antiqued bronze charm

JudiKins Diamond Glaze

Offray Ribbon Flower, White

Bazzill Basics Paper, Lily Pad & Marshmellow

Happy Day!

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Art Journal – Low Key

March 7, 2017 Lori's Cards and Creations

Hello all,

Today was a pretty tough day at work. After getting home late, I received my first bright note of the day when I found that my daughter had made dinner for us. She is a wonderful girl! Still, even after a nice dinner, I couldn’t shake the keyed up feeling that I had from my shaky work day,

So, I decided to work on an Art Journal page. Funny thing (without even thinking too much about it) the journal page ended up with a “key” theme. Get it? Keyed up…key theme. Ha! Makes me laugh. Which, by the way, is the point. By the time I was done with the journal page I was feeling much lighter and happier. Craft therapy…it is a wonderful thing.

No recipes or extra notes tonight, now that I am feeling relaxed and happy I am going to see if I can get some much needed sleep.

Hope you all have a great week!

Happy day,

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March 3, 2017 Lori's Cards and Creations

Hello all,

Just thought I would post a card I made using Catherine Pooler inks (with brayer) to build a vibrant background. I also used the same inks to stamp the script and distressed dots to further build in the layers.

The poppy image was embossed, sprayed with Glimmer Mist, and then colored in with Derwent Inktense Ink pencils. I then adhered this panel to a card that was short cut on the right edge so that I could add the Scrollwork die cut along with some pretty mulberry paper. A sentiment and a bit of metal embellishment was then added to finish up the card.

I was a little bummed that I trimmed the left edge of the panel a bit to close to the sentiment but, it is what it is. Guess it goes with being hand made, right?!