Watercolor Blossoms 50% Off!

Now that signs of spring are finally here, I have to revisit some of my favorite floral unmounted rubber stamps - Watercolor Blossoms!

The sentiments in this collection are the perfect companion to the floral images.

Using Gelatos with these stamps will create an added watercolor art look.

1. Mist rubber stamp with water.

2. Starting with the darkest color first, apply Gelato directly to the rubber stamp.

3. Stamp onto card a panel and allow the panel to dry. Mist the same stamp with water without adding more color and stamp once again. You can get many panels from just one coloring!

These stamps work well with many techniques. Below, Karen first stamped with India Black Ink and then filled in with watercolor pencils and a waterbrush.

The card below has an Autumn look after Karen stamped the image with Earth Ink, then masked the outside of the rectangle before applying ink with a sponge applicator.

The Watercolor Blossoms Stamps are 50% off today through Wednesday, April 2, 2014. This is our little way of celebrating that spring is finally (sort of, almost) here!

Enjoy the sale!

Kay at Club Scrap

Part 1: Black & White 3D Stamping

While browsing through Pinterest the other day, I came upon a beautiful hand drawn image. It inspired me to create a similar creation with my collection of Club Scrap® unmounted rubber stamps. I was amazed by the three-dimensional effect of this masking technique! The finished 3D panels can be mounted on a card or used as embellishment on a scrapbook page.

Follow these steps to create a Black & White 3D stamped image.

1. Choose stamps with simple shapes that can be easily cut for a masking technique.

2. Stamp a foreground image onto plain white paper with CS® Hybrid India Black Ink.

3. Stamp the same image onto the sticky edge of a Post-It note with CS® Hybrid India Black ink.

4. Cut the image from the Post-It note to create a mask.

5. Mask the corresponding image with the Post-It. This image will appear to be "on top" of the images stamped next. See?

6. Create additional masks for every layer stamped onto the panel. When stamping, be sure that a portion of the stamp lands on the mask.

7. Create a shadow around the outside edges of the stamped images with a black Gelato and water brush. Check out my innovative paint palette!

Scribble a small amount of black Gelato onto an acrylic block to use as a paint palette.

2006 Interior Designs stamps

2013 Lock & Key stamps with 2006 Interior Designs flowers

2011 Papillon butterfly, 2006 Interior Designs flowers, and 2013 Time of Your Life clock

2004 Fossils

It's hard to believe that all of the above images are stamped onto just one piece of paper!

Be sure to check out Part Two: Full Color 3D Stamping. I'll feature the gorgeous Hydrangeas stamps from April.

Until then, I hope you have a great weekend.

Julie


Additional supplies used:
2011 Versailles Swirl Masking Stencil
Silver Smooch Spritz
2013 Bookshelves Self-Adhesive Pearls
2011 Raku Sentiment Stamp

Hydrangeas Reveal

A brand new Club Scrap collection will be hitting your doorsteps next week! We are all ready for the fresh, clean, spring-like colors and textures of Hydrangeas. I've put together a few images for you to check out as a sneak peek of what's to come on April 1st.

If you are not a member, it's not too late to give us a call or join us online.

Images of Club Scrap Hydrangeas Collection

Thanks for taking a moment to see what's around the bend. I certainly hope April showers bring some blossoms into the yard. You know me . . . I love flower season. Hello, Hydrangeas!

Enjoy the anticipation . . .
Kay at Club Scrap

Trees Blog Hop

I haven't done much scrapbooking lately. Actually, I think the last scrapbook page I made was for the Fire & Ice Blog Hop in November! How sad is that? (It's especially embarrassing when I work for a company that makes scrapbooking materials.)

I decided it was time for a change, so my Trees Blog Hop "project" was finishing my Trees Club Scrap Assembly Line Scrapbooking pages . . . all fourteen of them!

My father purchased a new camera last fall, and since then he's been taking hundreds of pictures. He walks the nature trails in our local park almost daily and has frequent encounters with the local flora and fauna. I thought the Trees collection would showcase his photographs perfectly!

Snow covered trees in Heesakker Park. We have had near-record snowfall this winter.

If you're ready to Hop, you can get started right away--the rest of my completed ALSB pages are below the Hop list, if you're interested. :0)

We have a wonderful line-up of talented bloggers for you. Each blog will link you to the next, but if you get lost along the way, you can always stop back here at Club Scrap Creates for the full listing.

Julie at Cape Cod Scrapper

Ink Stains with Roni

Deb Duz Scrappin'

Jill's Place

Tricia at The Efficient Crafter

Hetty at Craft Chaos

Kay's Keepsakes

Cathy at The Artful Gamut

Anne Marie at Artfully Balanced

Anne at Crzymom's Tidbits
Shona Scraps

Debby at Masculine Inspirations

Dishing with Janet

Tiare at iClassy Girl

Lisa at Carpe Memoria

Marya at A Notebook Novel

Annette at Digital Musings
Donna at The Crafty Colonel

Made by Wendy Bellino

The bridge that connects the main park to the island crosses over a canal that leads to the Locks.

Backyard birds at Dad's feeders. My parents live on a beautiful wooded lot next to the park.

Bald eagles are making a huge comeback along the Fox River. We are blessed with sightings almost daily.

Mute swans swimming in the open water in the Fox River just East of the dam.

Lots of deer live in the park and the surrounding woods. It's not unusual for Dad to see 10-12 at a time.

Snowy owls spotted in fields in the nearby town of Freedom. Sightings were being reported on our local news.

I hope you enjoyed this little nature-walk with my dad and his camera. I can't wait to show him the pages in person! (All photographs courtesy of Michael Chaffey.)

Wishing you a creative day!

Faux Landscape Technique

I was inspired to create a layered landscape for my super-cool Trees stamp, but I didn't want my card base to get super-heavy with lots of paper layers.

Instead, I devised a pretty easy way to create a highly dimensional look that utilizes the texture of the Light Green paper in our Trees collection.

You'll need the following supplies:

• 4x5.25" Light Green Panel
• 4x5.25" Dark Green Panel
• Scrap Paper
• Cutting Mat and Craft Knife
• CS Ink Applicator
• CS Earth, India Black and Ash Inks
• Black Oil Pastel
• Cloth or Paper Towel

Next, take less than two minutes to watch this video:



And there ya have it! I hope you enjoyed today's video tutorial.

Happy Landscaping!
Tricia

Digital Framed Art

When I saw the collage stamp in March's Trees Digital Kit, I knew that I wanted to create some art suitable for framing. You can do something similar with the actual rubber stamp and gelatos, ink, or watercolor pencils, but creating this digitally lets you make it in different sizes. I'm making mine roughly 8 x 10 - a nice size for a home decor project, but it can also be resized to fit on the front of a card!

1. Create a new document; give it a white background.

2. Drag the collage stamp image onto it and resize as needed.

the collage stamp

3. Command+Click (Mac OS) or CTRL+Click (Windows) on the thumbnail in the Layers Palette. You'll see 'marching ants' around the stamp image.

4. Click the eye icon in the Layers Palette to hide the stamp image.

'marching ants'

5. Create a new layer.

6. Select a round fuzzy-edged brush and a color of your choice and start coloring the image - only the areas within the 'marching ants' will change color.

start coloring

7. Switch colors as needed to complete the image.

add more colors

Tip: Create a new layer for each color - this allows you to delete a layer that you don't like and also lets you play with opacity for each layer to help refine your finished art.

8. Once finished, Command+D (Mac OS) or CTRL+D (Windows) will stop the 'marching ants.'

9. Add additional elements for added interest: a background layer, a stamp image or two, a matted sentiment and fiber, for example.

finish with a background, sentiment, stamps & fiber

Print out your creation and frame it. Hang it on a wall or give it as a gift. Resize it to fit on the front of a card, print it out, matte it and adhere it to a card base.

Bonus idea
After Step 3 above, Shift+Command+I (Mac OS) or Shift+CTRL+I (Windows) will inverse your selection, so that when you color the image, you'll be coloring the background and the image will remain clear. This results in a 'stencil-like' effect.

stencil technique

I hope you'll try these ideas and make your own framed art or cards.

Until next time, thanks for stopping by,

- Ron