Let's get Distressed with Stampendous!

Creating with a distressed look can still have happy and fun results as I've shown with my card today. Happy bright colors, with torn edges, smeared inks, piles of texture is so interesting...don't you think?

I've used my Stampendous Creative Palette, and added several drops of various Dreamweaver Color Solutions Alcohol inks, with several drops of blender solution, and let the colors swirl. I grabbed a few panels of Stampendous Mixed Media White cardstock, and placed them over the surface to grab the beautiful colors. A few more drops of blender between each panel keeps the solution wet enough, while the colors become more pastel.

Obviously, the panel I used for this card was my first, and the most saturated. When the ink was dry, I stamped the Cling Blossom Bunch in Black StazOn ink. The edges were torn and ink was smudged. A heavy sprinkling of Powder Blue and Purple Color Fragments with Shabby Blue Embossing Enamel over the top of them was heated from underneath for the Fran•tagé Encrusted Jewel Technique that is perfect with the distressed look. This panel overlaps a second panel which had been stamped with the Cling Vintage Note, smudged with gray inks, and ink-stenciled with the Dreamweaver Small Cathedral Window. This same stencil is used to add pattern to the purple card base, along with more ink-distressing around the edges.

For a bit of juxtaposition, bright yellow is added here and there, including on the clip with the sentiment from the Perfectly Clear Life Words...oh, and of course, a bright and happy silk ribbon bow from May Arts! Not the usual depressing distressing, eh?

Check out more...

Stampendous Blog

Amy Hurley-Purdie

Pam Hornschu

Jamie Martin

Janelle Stollfus

A Very "Distressing" Week with Stampendous

Who says that distressing your creations has to be stressful? Stampendous carries a perfect line of products, and fifteen amazingly talented team members, to help you create whatever look you want. From CAS (clean and simple), to distressed, to OMGeee over-the-top, we've got it all!

One of the industry's favorite artists, Andy Skinner, has designed some über-cool Cling Stamp images for Stampendous, and the distressed look is pretty much a given when using his designs. Below is a video where he shares his love of mixed media design:

I created the above mixed media piece using Andy Skinner's Cling Industrial and Nature sets. See the crackle edging all around the "frame"? It's just the crackle image from the Industrial set stamped in Rich Cocoa Memento ink on sage green cardstock. Period. How cool is that? What appears to be an artist's canvas is simply Core'dinations Vintage cardstock, sanded a bit here and there, and inked around the edges. The barn, fence, trees, and birds are all elements from Andy's Nature set, and were stamped in black ink, as well as a second tree on another piece of cardstock. All were colored with a wash of a wet paintbrush and Inktense Watercolor Pencils from Derwent, with more Inktense coloring and shading here and there.

Spoonfuls of Stampendous' Fran•tagé Spoonful of Rust mixture were added at the bottom, and heated from underneath to save all the yummy texture and color from blowing all over the workspace! All the essential elements for Fran•tagé-style distressing comes in just that one cool container...various sizes and colors of embossing enamels, Color Fragments, Mica chips, etc. You seriously NEED to have this product...well, and so many other products under the "Fran•tagé" category on the website. They're a distressing extravaganza! Oh, and all of those strange bits of ephemera that you've been saving for the perfect mixed media project? Just throw some Essentials over the top, and heat from underneath, and your ephemera becomes one with your project, just as you envisioned.

So, head on over to the other team members links, check them out, leave some love, order the cool stuff HERE, and begin to DE-STRESS yourself with a bit of DISTRESSING!

Stampendous Blog

Pam Hornschu (you're here)

Kristine Reynolds

Louise Healy

Woodware: Piecing Stockings with Care

Who doesn't love plaid for Christmas? It just goes with pine and fir trees, pine cones, snow, and all of the flavors of the Season. For this card, I used bits of various Dreamweaver stencils...the Stockings by the Fire (stockings only), the Ornate Christmas Tree (off the edges, and one upside-down), and the Happy Holidays sentiment. All of these were ink-stenciled with dark brown ink, except for the stockings. They were each traced and cut out from fun papers, with mismatched cuffs. They are hanging not off a mantle, but by small metal brad fasteners through the bottom of the matted sentiment. Be sure to visit the Woodware Blog all of this week for more paper-pieced perfection!

Tombow Hop Days Finale

We've been having a fun blog hop mixing Stampendous, Dreamweaver, and one of our favorite craft partners, Tombow, for the last few days. Today's the finale, but I have a distinct feeling that you'll be seeing more of Tombow's wonderful art products in the months to come from our team.

You know there will be prizes for this hop, so leave your kind comments as you go. Be sure to check previous days that you may have missed. All the rules and prizes, etc. will be found on the Stampendous Blog!

Tombow was generous (as usual) with each of us, and my new toys came in the form of their Recycled Colored Pencils. I was really surprised with these. I expected...ho hum...another set of pencils with so much wax in them that you can't get a good vibrant color, and can't layer color, and blend nicely. I was SOOOO wrong! Here's my project:

Check out the beautiful color on this darling House Mouse Carrying Mints image from Stampendous! You really feel like you can steal one of his mints from the pile! I added just a hint of Micro Crystal Glitter to them, but they were yummy all on their own.

The card base was created from a panel of Bazzill Dotted Swiss in white, to which I swiped some Tsukineko® Aegean Sea VersaMagic ink over the surface and around the edges.

I used the Dreamweaver Nested Frames Dies to cut the mat panels for the focal image, and ran them, as well as two more panels of red and green cardstock, through my Big Shot Pro with the Dreamweaver Christmas Borders Embossing Folder. These were all layered, and flipped to be opposite of the other. I swiped some VersaMagic Cloud White ink over the raised designs to highlight them.

Because the House Mouse Designs® image was too large for the die, I ended up with an extra mint, which I turned into a decorative button, and tied with twine over loops of May Art's Chevron Ribbon.

Don't forget to check out the other players links listed here, and in case there have been changes, double-check them on the Stampendous Blog as well! I hope you win, 'cuz you'll love playing with this great mix of Stampendous and Tombow product!

Stampendous Blog

Louise Healy

Latrice Murphy

Pam Hornschu

Lea Fritts

Tombow Blog

Stampendous, Dreamweaver, and Tombow Go Shabby and Chic!

The Stampendous team are hopping with Tombow all this weekend, playing with all of the fun goodies that Tombow has so generously sent to us, and mixing them up with our Stampendous and Dreamweaver products...and boy, has it been fun! Remember to leave comments along the way to be entered into a chance to win one of the prizes. You can find all the rules and details on the Stampendous Blog! Meanwhile, here's some shabby fun with the Zero Drawing technique...

For this card, I started with a panel of Bazzill Dotted Swiss white cardstock for fun texture. I daubed graphite dust over the paper before placing the Dreamweaver Mittens stencil on top. This was taped with removable tape, and then the magic happens! Using one of the Tombow Mono Erasers (I have the Non PVC eraser as well as the Zero Mono with it's small, pen-like tip), I erased the graphite from the stencil design. I also used the Dreamweaver Snowflakes background to erase and add those designs in the graphite as well. This same stencil was used to create the background of the pink card base by inking the design with Versamark ink, and embossing it with Stampendous Shabby Pink Embossing Enamel .

Using the Dreamweaver Southwest Snowflake, I used the Tombow Recycled Colored Pencils to color pink flakes on the mittens. These, as well as another flake, were paste-embossed in Translucent Paste over the top, and one of them was also sprinkled with Crystal Micro Glitter while wet.

The cuffs of the mittens were daubed with Regular Embossing Paste, and sprinkled with the Shabby Pink enamel, and heated until puffy and shiny.
I also covered a decorative pearl corsage pin with Versamark ink and coated it in the Shabby Pink as well, before melting it, and inserting it through a looped and crinkled pink organza bow.

All edges were inked and distressed, and a perfect sentiment from the Perfectly Clear Holiday Expressions was stamped and matted on pink ovals to finish this card.

Now, here's the list of today's team players...

Stampendous Blog

Pam Bray

Lyn Bernatovich

Jennifer Priest

Janelle Stollfus

Pam Hornschu (you're here)

Daniella Hayes

Alison Heikkila

Wendy Price

Tombow Blog

Cool Products, Cool Techniques, More Fun with Tombow

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qb01fGtd0FE

As we approach our exciting hops days with Tombow, we're hoping to get YOU as excited as we are! So we're sharing a very interesting and cool technique that artist Marie Browning has been teaching with Tombow products for a few years now...called, "Zero Drawing". I've shared Fran Seiford's tutorial above on her mix of Dreamweaver stencils with this technique. This is something Marie has done for several years as she and Dreamweaver's original owner, Lynell Harlow are friends, and had collaborated on this before. 

My version of this technique features the Dreamweaver Corner Flowers stencil. As shown in the video, I've sanded my Tombow Graphite Pencil a bit to create some "dust", and pounced this over my chosen paper (Canson textured). Placing the stencil on top, and taping it down with removable tape, I began to "Zero out", or erase the areas of the design using Tombow's Mono Zero and Non PVC Mono eraser. You can also use a kneadable eraser, as Fran demonstrates in the video, however I couldn't find mine, so I went with what Tombow so kindly provided for us.

Once I had erased the design areas, I stamped the Cling Dance in the Rain image in black ink on the panel. I loved the look of the pattern on her dress, so I only erased the pattern from her back and arms. Thinking that this very "grayscale" look need a pop, I used my Tombow Recycled Color Pencils to color the flower and her shoes in red, and added a bit of outlining with the black pencil.

For the card base, I used a panel of Core'dinations cardstock which I machine-embossed with the Corner Flowers stencil, and sanded to reveal the design. Once again, I added the pop of red to a flower, and outlined it as well. The focal panel was matted in red, and a black and white chevron ribbon from May Arts was the finishing touch.

I can hardly wait to see how my team members have been playing with these products. Let's go see...

Stampendous Blog

Laura Drahozal

Lyn Bernatovich

Jamie Martin

Kristine Reynolds

Pam Bray

Pam Hornschu

Woodware: One Colour Wonder!

Well...mostly one color anyway! This was an interesting experiment using the Stampendous Blossom Bunch stamped over the top of the Cling Floral Tapestry. On its own, the focal image would be lost (kind of like not seeing the forest for the trees...or in this case, flowers). Instead, I used several shades of purple markers to shade around the image, and the end result was the Blossom Bunch popping off from the card. Super simple, and super effective. With the addition of the Stampendous Lavender Glass Glitter added to the flower centers, and a simple sentiment from the Perfectly Clear Life Words, this monochromatic creation is a bit of purple perfection!

Be sure to view the team's posts with this challenge by checking out the Woodware Blog daily.