Bursting with Fall Colors with Versafine Clair Inks

Happy Monday, friends!  It's Walter on the blog with you today.  Fall is in full swing where I live in the New England area.  The colors are as beautiful as it gets and full of bright shades of yellows, oranges, reds, and browns.  It's truly spectacular and it was my inspiration for today's design.  Our Design Team theme this week is a very broad one - inks - and it worked in my favor as I used Versafine Clair Inks to create a fabulous autumn colored card.  It took just a few quick and simple steps to create it - let's jump into the process.

I used a cream A2 cardstock panel as my base layer.  I thought that cream would be better than white because any bits of the panel that peek through the ink wouldn't look so stark.  I began by taking my Versafine Clair Carrot Orange ink pad and just randomly swiping it onto the cardstock.  No rhyme or reason as to where I swiped it - just random swipes.

I repeated this with my Versafine Clair Strawberry ink pad.

I repeated it yet again with my Versafine Clair Lemonade ink pad.  This time I went over the entire panel with it to make sure that much of it was covered with ink.  I applied a little pressure in some areas and just lightly swiped in others.

The result was this beautiful tapestry of vibrant autumn colors.  The next step was to take the Aall & Create Autumny Falls stencil and add yellow, orange, and red leaves to the panel.  The yellow and orange leaves are more subtle but you can see indications of them as you tilt the panel.

I added a part of the tree by stenciling the PS450 Stencil from PaperArtsy and Versafine Clair Fallen Leaves ink and went over the edges of the card panel with some of the ink to distress it a bit.

I could now do my stamping onto the panel.  I used Versafine Clair Acorn ink, a lighter shade of brown with a slight red tinge, to stamp various small falling leaves and a sentiment from the All & Create Falling for Fall stamp set, as well as a beautiful sparrow with text elements from the All & Create Sparrow stamp set.  I also stamped a second sparrow onto a scrap of cream cardstock and lightly blended ink remaining on my brown brush over it.  I proceeded to fussy cut the sparrow, put some double-sided foam tape onto the back of it, and adhere it down to the panel.  I purposely placed it a little offset from the stamped sparrow to create a shadow-like effect.  A few randomly placed small Hunkydory Gold Precious Pearls were added to finish the design.

Here's a few closeups of my favorite elements of the design:

As you can see, the Versafine Clair is so pigmented and bright and just swiping the pads onto the cardstock created such a brilliant background.  An added bonus is that there wasn't a need for coloring any images as the background provides all the color that you need.

I hope that you enjoy today's design.  Post a pic of what you create using this technique in the comments - I'd love to see it!  I'll see you here on the blog again next week.  Until then . . . be well!

Topflight Stamps Products Used:

Versafine Clair Carrot Orange ink pad

 Versafine Clair Strawberry ink pad

Versafine Clair Lemonade ink pad

Versafine Clair Fallen Leaves

Versafine Clair Acorn ink

Aall & Create Autumny Falls stencil 

PS450 Stencil from PaperArtsy

All & Create Falling for Fall stamp set,

All & Create Sparrow stamp set

Hunkydory Gold Precious Pearls

A Little Mixed Media Halloween Creepiness

Hey there, friends!  It's Walter on the blog with you today.  The theme for our team this week is anything goes and I decided to have a little mixed media fun.  We're just a month away from Halloween and I thought it would fun to create a Halloween card that is both creepy and dramatic.  I think I achieved it - let me know what you think!

I began by die cutting all of my pieces from the Aall & Create Film Drips Die Set: the photo frame, the deckled insert and three of the splatters.  I decided that I would use the splatters as embellishments in this design instead of gems.  Once cut, I took the deckled insert and started to apply color to it.  I wanted a sense of heaviness to come through on it and used a blending of Black Soot and Hickory Smoke Distress Oxide Inks to achieve it.  I used the Black Soot around the edges and Hickory Smoke in the center.  I then put the Aall & Create Vector Spin Stencil over it and added it to the design with Lost Shadow to provide a little lightness.

This is the exact mix of background colors that I wanted!  I blended some Vintage Photo Distress Ink around the edges to add some grunge, and then lightly spritzed the panel with water to create additional texture from water spots.  Once dry, I sprinkled just a little Lavinia Dinkles Paynes Grey around the panel and then spritzed again with water.  The result is this cool explosion of this darker color that looks like splatters.  I love it!

I wanted a darker gray/green color for the splatter ephemera pieces.  I decided to sprinkle and spritz them with the Dinkles as well to get the gray aspect.  Once dry, I colored on top with an Olive Green Alcohol Marker to get a spooky green shade!

It was now time to add some stamping to the design to add the creepy factor.  I used the small text and eye stamp from the Aall & Create Time Heals All set and stamped the text in several places using Lost Shadow Distress Oxide Ink.  I stamped the eye with Hickory Smoke Distress Oxide Ink.  I then stamped Paper Artsy EM37, the hand from Seth Apter, in white pigment ink on each side of the panel and then the word Creepy in black ink on one of the hands.

I assembled it all together with glue and the card was finished.  It's such a fun and different kind of style for a Halloween card than you'd normally find.  Nothing cute about this one - it's all about the creepiness!  Thanks for spending this time on the blog with me today.  I'll see you again next Monday.  Until then . . . be well!

Topflight Products Used

 Aall & Create Film Drips Die Set:

Aall & Create Vector Spin Stencil

Aall & Create Time Heals All

Paper Artsy EM37

Lavinia Dinkles Paynes Grey

Leave it AALL with Walter

Happy Monday, friends!  It's Walter on the blog with you today and this week's theme at Topflight Stamps is leaves, which is appropriate since the first day of Autumn is this week.  There are so many wonderful choices to use for such a broad theme.  I wanted to be a little quirky in my design and my mind automatically turned to AALL & CREATE!  I pulled the Falling for Fall Stamp Set and Autumny Falls Stencil from my stash and got to work.

I began by choosing my color palette for my cardstock.  Since I'm going for a funky vibe, I decided to create a tan & orange checkboard pattern for my background.  I simply chose a muted shade of orange that pairs perfectly with the tan.  I cut the tan cardstock into strips and then into squares; adhered the squares to the orange panel to create the checkerboard.

I chose a set of leaves from the Autumny Falls stencil that would fit nicely and allow me to ink blend several around the edges.  I wanted the leaves to be a little on the lighter side and didn't want to use a heavy pigment ink to blend them.  I used a yellow ink, orange ink, and a little bit of red ink to create them.  I then ink blended a little Antique Linen around the edges of the panel to add some age to it.

An oval die was used to cut a piece from the center and turn this into a frame, which I adhered onto a cream cardstock panel.  I could now do my stamping!  I selected the delightfully adorable flower-eyed girl from Falling for Fall, as well as three leaves and a sentiment.  I arranged them in the inside of the oval and stamped them with Versafine Clair Fallen Leaves ink.

I colored the stamped images with alcohol markers and stayed with all colors from the Autumn color palette.  I think all of them work so well together and definitely give off a funky Fall vibe!  The last two steps were to use some Wink of Stella on the leaves to give them a little shimmer and then add some Glossy Accents around her eyes.  It's these little details that really make the design pop!

And, just like that, my card was complete.  I think it's a really fun design that definitely makes me fall for cozy!  Thanks for spending this time on the blog with me today.  I'll see you again next week.  Until then . . . be well!

Topflight Stamps Products Used:

AALL & Create - A7 - Clear Stamps - 1282 - Janet Klein - Falling of Fall

AALL & Create - Stencil - 6x6 - 177 - Janet Klein - Autumny Falls

Tsukineko - Versafine Clair Ink Pad - Fallen Leaves

 

Notes of Love with PaperArtsy

Hi, friends!  Welcome back to the blog.  It's Walter with you today as I kick off a new week's theme, which is . . . anything goes.  I really enjoy the designs of Mags Woodcock.  I first came across her work in Somerset Studio magazine and was so excited to see her products with PaperArtsy on the Top Flight Stamp website.  This week, I used two of her coordinating products, PaperArtsy - Mags Woodcock - EMW004 - Rubber Cling Mounted Stamp Set and PaperArtsy - Stencil - Mags Woodcock - PS517 to create my card.  Let's jump into my process!

I began with an A2 sized piece of watercolor paper that I spritzed with water. Instead of painting with watercolors, I decided to paint with Distress Oxide Ink smooshed on my craft surface and mixed with water.  Using the oxide inks mixed with water gives an opaque, almost paint-like look.  I used a mop brush to first move Tattered Rose around the inside of the paper and then Antique Linen around the edges.

Once dry, I stamped the heart stamp onto the panel using Versafine Fallen Leaves ink.  I also stamped the large heart and small heart onto masking paper and set that aside.  I then stamped the image of the word Love repeated several times using Ground Espresso Distress ink.

I fussy cut each of the heart masks from the masking paper and applied them to the images.  I wanted the brown color of the stenciling to be lighter than the dark shade of Fallen Leaves so I used Ground Espresso Distress Ink to add that contrast.

I removed the masks and added spots of a varying pink color to the hearts and did that with a mixture of Spun Sugar Distress Oxide ink and water.  I then tapped the entire panel with a brush loaded with Tea Dye Distress ink to some vintage grunge.  Some subtle shine was added to the panel using the ovals on the stencil and Delicata Golden Glitz ink.  I also added some splatter using Old Paper Distress Spray Ink.  In order to add further age to the panel, I used a plastic knife to distress the edges and then ran Ground Espresso Distress ink around them.

Some kind of a floral element was needed to truly complete the design.  I stamped three of the small flowers, colored them with alcohol markers, Accented the petals with a gold gel pen, added grunge with Tea Dye Distress ink, and fussy cut them.  They were adhered with double-sided foam tape and embellished with acrylic drops that I colored gold using a Studio Light Gold Metallic Martker.

I'm really happy with this design.  With elements of love, nature, and music . . . it truly strikes the right note!  Thanks for spending some time with me on the blog today.  I'll see you again next week.  Until then . . . be well!

Top Flight Stamps Products Used:

PaperArtsy - Mags Woodcock - EMW004 - Rubber Cling Mounted Stamp Set

PaperArtsy - Stencil - Mags Woodcock - PS517

Tsukineko - Versafine Clair Ink Pad - Fallen Leaves

Studio Light - Essentials - Metallic Markers - Silver & Gold