Welcome to my creative space where I share my joy in living a full life After 50. Come in and enjoy the results from my studio, my garden and my kitchen as I share all this and occasionally a bit of the wisdom I have garnered over the past half century.
All of the cards, layouts, handmade items and art work displayed on this website are copyright to me, Lynne Mizera. Of course I hope to inspire and encourage you and would be morethan happy for you to use any of my work to that end; however, please respect me and my work and do not directly copy any of my projects without crediting me or enter any of my work into any magazines or competitions without my express written permission. All my cards, layouts, projects and art work are not to be used by any commercial enterprise for any financial, marketing or commercial gain.
Showing posts with label Christmas Cards. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christmas Cards. Show all posts
Hello and Happy CHRISTMAS everyone!! I love that I am ending this year of snarky, card-making fun as a Sister in the Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers with the (now) traditional Naughty Christmas Challenge...and isn't it just fitting that this is also our 100th challenge!
And here is my creation using the JJ Christmas Box digital stamp from Bugaboo Digi Stamps - where they just happen to be having a 50% off EVERYTHING sale until December 31st (just Sayin').
This was a pretty easy to make card since all I did was print off the image, color it in using my Copic markers and cut and mount it on a card base... and of course I added a wee bit of glitter with my gold gel pens... I think she kind of looks like me! (grin)
This challenge is open for an entire month so the design team can spend the holiday eating and drinking well into the new year... so you have until Friday, January 19th to link up your Naughty Christmas creation, and please do consider joining us because we love seeing your creative, snarky brains in action. Also, don't forget to pop on over to the Sisterhood to see what Naughty creations the team has made for us as we ring out 2017!
Thanks for popping in today to see what I am up to and wishing you and yours a WONDERFUL Christmas and holiday season. Lynne Mizera for the Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers
Happy Day everone!! Today I am excited and honored to be participating in Tracey McNeely's 25 Days of Christmas Tags event and also to be showcasing some of STAMPlorations new products for the 2017 holiday season. Here are just a few of the tags I created for Day 22 of this event: (Note - find all the tags from November 1st forward at In My Creative Opinion)
My first set of tags were inspired by the new Christmas Flower stamp from STAMPlorations... which I stamped, heat embossed using a black, fine detail embossing powder and then painted using my Kuretake Gansai Tambi watercolor paints.
Cut out and mounted on a shimmery white card stock tag cut from the CUTplorations Nesting Luggage Tag dies, this image is so beautiful that the tag did not need anything else.
A gold metal eyelet and some shimmery gold cord to match the gold embossed greeting is all that was needed to finish off these simple yet elegant tags.
For my second collection of tags I used the new Christmas Tree #1 die from CUTplorations mounted with foam tape onto the largest of the luggage tag nesting dies to create some dimension.
Embellished using every kind of sparkly bling I could find, the bigger and blingy-er the embellishment the better the tag looked. Now THAT is my kind of Christmas tag!
Creating these tags was so fun, and they came together so easily I kept thinking "What a great family project this would make because even the little ones could help with the decorating."
And there really is no limit to what you can use to decorate these wonderful Christmas tree images. And as an added bonus, all the bling for these particular tags was purchased from my local dollar store for very little money (a definite Win, Win)!
So that's my inspirational post for this year's 25 Days of Christmas Tags event, I hope it was both enjoyable and inspiring, and please do leave me a comment if you liked what you are seeing. And, if you haven't yet, do pop on over to Tracey McNeely's blog today to see all the other wonderful tags my team mates created to inspire you.
Lynne Mizera for the STAMPlorations Design Team Note: Please use my personal discount code:
STAMPGIRLLYNNE
to receive an additional 20% off your entire order, even sale items.
I think the entire design team WAITS for what is now our annual "Naughty Christmas" challenge, and I am no exception. This year I am introducing "Holly Jolly" the Grumpy Christmas Elf, a new digital stamp "card character" to pair up with Dudley the Sock Monkey!
He is a wonderful digital stamp created by Christine Grove and down-loadable from Buddly Crafts where it just so happens they are having a 2 for 1 sale on all their Christmas digis. Of course I couldn't just make one card with this grumpy elf face, so I made six cards!
And I wanted to share how quickly and easily you can create some pretty awesome cards by printing out six or more digital images, coloring or painting them all at once and then mounting them on some pretty simple backgrounds.
Using Pre-printed Christmas papers that match the image or the quote...
Using Embossing folders on plain white cardstock so your image and the quote are the focal points...
Keeping the embellishing simple with ink and Rangers Stickles and a few gems...
You can have a lot of lovely, original, hand-made cards finished up quite quickly to send to those really special people in your life.
So I hope you enjoyed my new addition to my Card Character family... I can see many, many more interesting words of grumpy wisdom in his future... And don't forget to pop on over to the Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers to see what Naughty-ness my design teammates have created for this years NAUGHTY CHRISTMAS! Lynne Mixera, Mixed Media Artist for the Sistherhood of Snarky Stampers Design Team
Today I am sharing with you how I created these wonderful Christmas cards using a heating embossing technique and my Magenta Nuance Dye Ink Powders. What I like the most about this technique is that no two stamped images come out the same so every card is an original.
Now, before I start I want to establish that I do not work for Magenta and have never been given any of their products to endorse - (but I can WISH...grin). Everything I am using I bought and paid for with LOTS of my own money - I just LOVE this product, that is all!
And now on to the tutorial...
For this technique you will need:
A stamp set with images that create "cells"
Heavy white card stock (100 lbs or more and not watercolor paper)
Clear embossing ink
White enamel embossing powder
A heat gun
Pigment powders
a fine mist spray bottle (or two)
Paper towels
I used a Close To My Heart stamp set called Ornate Ornaments. These lovely baubles have designs that create cells where the water/color can pool and which keeps different colors of powder separate from each other. This gives the loveliest of effects, so look for a stamp that has similar features.
Important: Take the time to create several pages of embossed images so you can practise and play with different color combinations. Use a paper that will not fall apart when wet, but also will not absorb the water too quickly, you will need to be able to use enough water so that it pools.
Do NOT
use water color paper, it absorbs water so well that this technique
totally fails. I am using my current favorite paper, the Staples brand of 110lbs white card stock. It is smooth as glass, ultra white, heavy enough for my fussy-cut images and it takes water very well.
Once the embossed pages have cooled down, have your water bottle (or two) and your pigment powders ready. I have tried them all - Brushos, Ken Oliver's Color Bursts and Magenta Nuance Dye Ink powders, Luminarte Primary Elements, Perfect Pearls and my favorite are the Magenta's.
This is for a lot of reasons, but especially because they act like a watercolor when wet but are almost permanent when dry so they do not reactivate when you wet them down again. Also they are translucent, which means they act like a stain rather than a paint, and everything underneath still shows through rather than being covered up. Besides the colors are mouth-wateringly brilliant without being overpowering... How did they do THAT?!
Here is an eight minute process video I created showing you how to get this effect ... (it's my first attempt so please be kind...grin)
First EVER, Process Video Part 1 - The Technique
Process Video - Part 2 - Close Ups
(and probably sharing too much - Grin)
To re-cap here are the Steps:
1. Stamp and heat emboss the image using a white, glossy enamel embossing powder.
2. Wet paper and sprinkle on powders - WAIT
3. Add second layer of powders and mist again
4. Blot any excess pools of water or color
5. Allow paper to dry and cut out images
6. Create Cards
Now for the rest of us here are everything written out the old fashioned way. Using a spray bottle, wet your paper until the water begins to pool in the cells created by the heat embossing and start sprinkling your powders. Do this part quickly... My favorite method is to have two or three warm colors to start with (warm meaning oranges, yellows, pinks, reds and magenta purples).
Using colors from the same warm or cool color families means that when these colors touch and blend they will remain pretty colors. Now slow down and be patient - allow the colors to touch and blend and soften on their own for a little bit - try counting to 100. Then you can dab up the excess water using a paper towel, but be gentle so you don't dab away all your color!
While the paper is still wet you can sprinkle in additional colors. At this stage is when I introduce my complimentary color - so if I used warm colors initially I will add in just a sprinkle of cools - like apple green and turquoise and soft bluey-purple.
This time you will sprinkle and then mist with your spray bottle to activate the colors. Start small, with just a sprinkle or two and watch carefully to establish if you like what is happening. You can blot away stuff you don't like and move color around with a paint brush.
It takes a bit of practise to figure out how much water is enough but not too much and when to add more color and when NOT to... grin. Which is why it is a good idea to start with more than one embossed pages ready to go to allow you to experiment. Start one page with warm colors and then add cools, and then do up a page with cool colors adding in some warmth. Do this just to see the difference it makes when certain colors touch.
The longer you let the pigments sit in the wet the more they will soften and blend on their own. You can use your heat gun to dry your page rapidly but go carefully with the heat gun because I have discovered that too much heat will compromise the enameled embossing and it has a tendency to fall off after the paper is dry. (which gives it a kind of distressed look... so maybe you will like it!)
Once the Nuance powder decorated pages have dried, cut out all the images and get ready to assemble the cards. I stamped and heat embossed the hangy bits in gold and cut those out too (can you tell that I like fussy cutting?).
I used embossing folders in various patterns on the same Staples 110lbs white card stock to create the card bases and layered my baubles using foam tap to add some dimension. A gold embossed sentiment was all I needed to complete these cards, well, except for the layer of Ranger's Stickles I have to add to every card because I think Christmas card should sparkle and shine!
So That's It... a really fun technique that will allow you to create quite a few cards if you use four pages of stamped images like I did! I love how these non-traditional colors pop right off the white embossed background which has just enough texture to make it interesting.
You can leave the edges plain or ink them in a complimentary color...
or add the front to a coordinating colored card base... it all looks Great!
So that's it for today! Thanks for popping in to see what I am up to... and please do leave me a comment if you like what you see! I love sharing everything I do and I would appreciate if you would direct people HERE to this blog post if you are sharing too! Lynne Mizera, Mixed Media Artist Creston, British Columbia, Canada
Happy Wednesday everyone... today I can't wait to share my desk, more of my Christmas cards and a few photos of this wonderful corner of the world I live in for What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday... (Go HERE to find out all about what it is and HERE to find out how to join in.)
This is the area I am sharing today. I call it my "messy space" which means the space where I do all my messy, inky, painty, mixed media stuff, but also it always seems to be a bit of a mess... Grin
And for the next few weeks I have converted my stamping table into my "card drying table" since every Christmas card is being made all glittery with Stickles. Now, here is a sneak peak of some finished cards...
If you read last week's post you might remember that I shared that I make as many Christmas cards as I feel like making - and then I stop.
To date I have made 30 cards and I am still going strong (which means I am still having fun) so you can expect to see more card reveals next week.
And finally I will be doing an entire blog post about these cards (I made 10 of them), created using my Magenta dye ink powders (similar to Brushos)... and a stamping and heat embossing technique...
Totally worth an entire blog post don't you think?
And I got the idea when playing around with my powders produced this lovely card background. Which I am hoarding until I find just the perfect card idea to use it on.
And now for those photos: this is the river valley view from my backyard now that the leaves have fallen, the rain has stopped and the mist is rising.
We have been having an unusual amount of rain this week, but it stopped briefly yesterday and the sun came out and lit up the entire yard until it sparkled like it was covered in diamonds...
I grabbed my camera and just got carried away taking photos and trying to capture the light and the sparkle and the beauty...
and then I just had to see how close I could take a close up of the drips on the red rowan berries...
And finally some shots of our 50 year old willow tree which has finally turned yellow and decided to start dropping its leaves...
So that's it for me this week... thanks for popping in to visit and if you are new to this event you will want to pop on over to the Stamping Ground to visit a few other desks!
