PTI’s “Create Along With Us” Challenge, September 2018, & MFT Sketch Challenge #402

This month’s Papertrey Ink release was heavily Christmas-themed, but since I’m not yet in the mode of making Christmas cards, I looked for inspiration that I could use for a more generally autumn- or winter-themed card for the Create Along With Us challenge.

What first drew me to Michelle’s card was the color scheme, but the reason I ended up choosing it as my inspiration piece was the background, since I could emulate that with the large pine branch stamp from PTI’s “Winter Woods” set. I love the Ocean Tides ink color, but I haven’t anything like it (I’m going to have to get the cube during PTI’s anniversary sale next spring). The closest I could come to the color was Hero Arts Forever Green, and that’s definitely green, not greyish blue-green. Still, it works well for pine needles. In hindsight, I think perhaps the card would have been more cohesive if I had stamped the wood of the branches in grey rather than brown and if I had chosen lighter colors for the background, but at least the color of the branches is realistic.

Although I have a fox stamp from a Stampin’ Up set, it’s horizontal, so I chose the chickadee from “Winter Woods” since it fit the vertical layout I was following from both Michelle’s card and this week’s MFT sketch challenge. Since the chickadee faces right, I flipped the sketch to accommodate it. The solid pine trees behind the chickadee are from the aforementioned SU set; I fussy-cut them and colored them with an alcohol marker to make the focal point bolder than the background.

For the banner, I smooshed a strip of cardstock against the Field Greens ink pad and let it dry overnight. It was still a bit splotchy when I went to stamp the sentiment, but at least it coordinates! The finished card is busier than I prefer; if I ever have time in the future, I’d like to tackle the design again with much lighter ink in the background. It might be fun to use the other birds from the same set—perhaps softer green pine branches for a background for the cardinal or pale grey snowflakes behind the bluejay.

Supplies
Stamps:  Papertrey Ink “Winter Woods”, “Vintage Picnic Sentiments”;  Stampin’ Up “Life in the Forest”
Dies:  Papertrey Ink “Winter Woods”;  My Favorite Things “A2 Stitched Rectangle STAX Set 2” (3 9/16” x 4 13/16”; 1 7/8” x 3 1/8”)
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Grey Flannel, Toffee Crunch, Northern Pine;  Hero Arts Field Greens;  Simon Says Stamp Fog
Paper:  Papertrey Ink Stamper’s Select White, cheap lightweight grey cardstock from my stash
Miscellanea:  Scotch Permanent Double-Sided Tape, Bic Marking Forever Green

Dimensions
4.25” x 5.5”

MFT Summer School: Primary Colors

For the second challenge of the My Favorite Things Summer School, I used varied shades of primary colors to give the image more visual interest than it would have had if I had used markers with the same bright saturation. A lighter red value helped keep the color scheme from seeming juvenile, and a dark yellow took the place of orange for the beaks.

Since Memento Tuxedo Black ink isn’t an intense black and I was using a wood-mounted rubber stamp and couldn’t ink the image twice, after I colored the birds I went over the lines again with fineliners to darken the outlines and give the image more definition. To finish off the card, I added a bit of shimmer to the heart.

In addition to submitting this to the MFT Summer School: Primary Colors category, I’m linking up to Simon Says Stamp’s Wednesday challenge “Red, White, and/or Blue.”

Supplies
Stamps:  Stampin’ Up “For the Birds” (image), Hero Arts “Stamp and Cut: Hello” (sentiment)
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black
Copics:  R22, R27; Bic Yellow Blaze, Moonstone Yellow, Blue Skies Blue
Paper:  Papertrey Ink Stamper’s Select White
Miscellanea:  Scotch Permanent Double-Sided Tape, Pigma Micron 0.45 and 0.25, Spectrum Noir Sparkle clear

Dimensions
Card: 4.25” x 5.5”
Panel: 2” x 3”

MFT Summer School: Complementary Colors & MFT Sketch Challenge #392

This week, I’m participating in the My Favorite Things Wednesday Sketch Challenge #392 as well as the first 2018 session of MFT Summer School.

The fourth Summer School challenge is to use complementary colors. Everyone else seemed to be using bright primary and secondary colors for their complementary pair, but the range of complementary colors covers so much more than just those six, and I wanted to do something different. I gravitate towards tertiary and quaternary colors, earth tones, and desaturated colors, so I tackled the project with those in mind. I pulled up a color wheel and messed around with combinations, tones, and shades for a while, then narrowed down my options.

My ink and marker selection is fairly limited still and tends towards the brighter end of the spectrum, which didn’t suit the vibe I was going for, and the sketch seemed like a good way to use a bit of my profusion of 12x12 patterned paper. I bought several pads online years ago and only realized when they arrived that the reason stores sell 6x6 pads is because 12x12 patterns are enormous and don’t usually fit on A2 card fronts. Online, there was no indication that the pattern scale differed; I thought I was just getting more paper! Now I don’t know if I shall ever use it up.

In flipping through my paper pads, I was smitten with the notion of pairing a dark, desaturated red floral pattern with the green as well, so I went ahead and made two cards, using the patterned paper first as a prototype to figure out what I wanted to do with the sketch.

For the second card and my main complementary color pair, I chose dark red-violet and light yellow-green, then threw in a bit of gold since the papers read more purple and green together. I broke out my VersaMark cube and created my own tone-on-tone floral pattern, and since I had a better idea of what I wanted out of the layout, I was able to simplify things more to my tastes.

Supplies
Stamps:  Papertrey Ink “Happy Trails” (“just a note”), WPlus9 “Fresh Cut Florals” (“thinking of you”), Stampin’ Up “I Like You” (flowers)
Ink:  Brilliance Galaxy Gold, VersaMark
Paper:  Papertrey Ink Vintage Cream (bases), The Paper Studio “Affinity” pattern paper pack and “Affinity” textured paper pack, Stampin’ Up Blackberry Bliss, Recollections “Paper Flowers” cardstock pack (gold cardstock), cheap layering-weight cream and dark red from stash
Miscellanea:  Scotch Permanent Double-Sided Tape, Papertrey Ink “Double-Ended Banners” die

Dimensions
4.25” x 5.5”

Papertrey Ink April Blog Hop Challenge

Last Tuesday when Papertrey Ink posted the inspiration photo for their blog hop, my first thought was that I had no tea-related stamps — oh well! But after I moved on, I recalled that I did, in fact, have one tea image: an old Stampin’ Up wood-block stamp from the very first set I ever got, a Christmas gift about fifteen years ago. I rarely use the set anymore since the sentiments are wrapped around the images, limiting their versatility, but when I pulled out the stamp I realized it wouldn’t be hard to fussy-cut the image.

I wanted to follow the color palette of the inspiration piece as closely as possible, but once I began swatching colors I realized that the simplicity of my image required more flexibility. Magenta and aqua were just too stark when paired together, so I ended up going with one image in cream and rose and another in white and soft aqua.

When sifting through my sentiments to find ones to pair with my focal images, I almost settled on “You’re as sweet as can be” from PTI’s “Just Desserts Sentiments” set — a current favorite — but then I spotted “Find beauty in each day” from PTI’s “Spring Hills” set, and that was perfect to go with a tranquil cup of tea. Equally ideal was “His mercies are new every morning” from Stamp Simply, which I’d been wanting to use on a card for my mother.

In an attempt to match the Copic color R22 that I had used for the flowers on the cream-and-rose image, I layered several Hero Arts inks for the sentiment, starting with a double-stamped base layer of Fresh Peach, then a layer of second-generation Pale Tomato, followed by a final layer of Cotton Candy.

I gave the “mercies” card to my mother for World Juggler’s Day — I don’t know how she manages to do all that she does, but her success amazes me — and I’ll be sending the aqua card to my paternal grandmother soon.

Supplies
Stamps:  Stampin’ Up “Nice & Easy Notes” (image);  Papertrey Ink “Spring Hills” (“find beauty...”);  Stamp Simply “Farmhouse Scriptural Thoughts” (“His mercies...”)
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black;  Hero Arts Fresh Peach, Pale Tomato, Cotton Candy;  VersaColor Celadon
Copics:  E0000, E30, R22, YG45, G12, BG000, W00, W1, and the colorless blender;  Stampin’ Up Stampin’ Blendabilities: Costal Cabana Light
Paper:  Papertrey Ink Stamper’s Select White
Miscellanea:  Scotch Permanent Double-Sided Tape, Uni-ball Signo UM-100 0.8 mm in gold, Sakura Pigma Micron 0.25 mm in black

Dimensions
Aqua card:  4.25” x 4.25”
Rosy card:  4.75” x 3.5”