Roses with Embossing

I was really inspired by the way Jackie used the new Painted Blooms set in her recent projects, creating fabulous backgrounds and building up dimension with layered images. I decided to have a go myself and printed out the single rose three times at different sizes and with one of the images flipped so they wouldn't all look exactly the same. About 15 minutes of fussy cutting later and I had all the elements ready for my layered card.

Stamps:
Painted Blooms

Tutorial: Undertones

When I colour a group of items, such as these three roses, I often like to distinguish between them without making them completely different colours. I want to end up with three red roses, but I want them to be subtly different. One way to do this is by adding undertones.

An undertone is simply a base colour that is laid down, before you start colouring, to give a different tone to the end product. You can vary the "temperature" of your image by using "cool" or "warm" undertones... blues and purples are usually "cool", while reds and yellows are generally "warm".

Start by adding three undertone colours to the roses - red, peach and yellow. When using pencils, make sure you use a light touch when adding your layers or the pigment won't lay down evenly.

Now I colour over the top with the same red pencil. You can see the tone still showing through the pigment. As I add layers of colour, the different tones will become more subtle.

Even though I have ended up with three red roses, you can still see a subtle difference, particularly with the front rose which has definite yellow tones.

You can use the same technique for foliage too. In this case, I'm adding a bright yellow green to the new growth and the leaves that are positioned in the front of the image. Light, bright colours appear to come forward, while dark colours recede.

After adding a layer of the same green to all the leaves, you can still see the bright areas where I added the undertone colour. Notice how those areas catch your eye?

This technique works with most colouring mediums, including pencils, paint and markers. (Watercolours are a little different given their unique qualities.) As always, practice makes perfect... and it's always fun to play!

Stamps: With All My Heart

Photographs and written instructions are copyright Beccy Muir.

All rights reserved

Colouring

"With All My Heart" is one of the clear stamp sets that was recently released in digital format. I stamped these images and all the sentiments in my homemade catalogue and coloured them with Prismacolor pencils.  You can check out the time lapse over on Instagram.

Stamps: With All My Heart

clear stamps

digital stamps

Digital Release: With All My Heart

This year, we'll be gradually releasing our line of clear stamps as digital sets. They'll be available in store alongside the other new releases for the month. For January, we're starting with a beautiful floral set called "With All My Heart". It's perfect for birthday cards, Mother's Day, friendship, weddings, anniversaries and Valentine's Day greetings.

With All My Heart

digital stamp set

Available in Store Now

With All My Heart

clear stamp set

Available in Store Now

Water Colour Roses

I stamped some of the images from the Nancy's Garden set onto watercolour paper and used a brush to move the ink around. I love the end result, particularly the way the watering can has turned out. You can achieve the same result by stamping just the "shadow" image of the watering can and feathering out some of the edges with a water brush.

Stamps: Nancy's Garden

Colouring Project - day four

This is the final image for the floral colouring project I've been working on. Now all I need to do is get all four images into their little frames and hung on the wall.

Stamp: Wild Rose by Beccy's Place

Tutorial - Altered Double Display Card

I had an email from a lovely lady named Ann, who wanted to create a card based on a picture she found on the internet. After much fiddling, researching, measuring and many failed attempts, I think I finally managed to figure out the design, which to me, looks like an altered version of a double display card.

As you can see, it stands open beautifully making it perfect for those extra special occasions where you want your cards to be displayed for all to see. And believe it or not, it will still fold into a nice 6" x 4" card that fits perfectly into a standard envelope.

TEMPLATE

1. Begin with a horizontal piece of card stock measuring 12" x 6". For this particular card, I find it much easier to do the scoring before the cutting so I'm going to start there.

2. Following the template above, lay your card horizontally on your score board and start scoring 1" from the left hand side but just 1" down. Score again at the bottom, coming just 1" up. 

3. Now score at 2" from the left hand side, all the way from the top to the bottom. Score again at 4", all the way from the top to the bottom.

4. Start scoring at 5" from the left hand side, starting at the top and coming down just 1". Score again from the bottom, coming just 1" up.

5. Now turn your card around 180 degrees so that the left hand side is on the right. Repeat steps 2, 3 and 4 so that you have the same score lines on both ends of the card stock. Refer to the template to make sure all your score lines are in the correct place.

6. Time to cut. Using a trimmer or craft knife, make a cut between the bottom of the first score line right through to the bottom of the fourth score line at 5". Your cut should be horizontal and measure 1" from the top edge. Refer to the template for correct placement.

7. Make the same cut at the bottom of the card, starting at the top of the first score line and ending at the top of the fourth score line.

8. Turn your card 180 degrees and repeat steps 6 and 7 so that you have the same cuts on both ends of your card.

9. Time to fold along all the score lines. Use the photograph below to determine the placement of valley folds and mountain folds. It doesn't matter if you fold the wrong way, just push the fold back in the other direction. Press all the creases firmly with a bone folder.

10. Cut two strips of matching card stock measuring 2" x 6". These will be adhered to either end of your card to make solid panels.

11. Decorate the two strips of card stock as desired. I used some white card and pretty patterned paper.

12. Use glue or double sided tape to adhere the strips to either end of the card, taking care to keep the adhesive only on the panel indicated below. If the adhesive is placed on any of the other sections of your card it will not open properly.

13. That's it, you've completed the base! Now all that's left is to decorate the centre keeping in mind that the card is designed to stand open and show off whatever is inside.

Stamps:

Forever and Always

I wanted to create a CAS style card with a single, long stemmed flower as the focal point. The single rose from the "With All My Heart" stamp set was perfect, except that the stem wasn't quite as long as I wanted. To add a bit extra, I stamped the image, except for the very tip of the stem, which I kept free of ink, then used a pen to add a couple of lines until I got the size I was after.

Stamps: With All My Heart by Beccy's Place

Yellow Roses

I absolutely love yellow roses, and of all the yellow roses in the world, my favourites are Peace roses, which have a pink edge on each petal. There really wasn't too much decision making needed when it came time to choose colours for this rose bouquet image... a few yellows, some pinks and some greens and I had the perfect palette. 

Stamps: "With All My Heart" by Beccy's Place

New Release: With All My Heart

Create gorgeous cards for special birthdays, Valentine's Day, weddings, anniversaries and little notes of love with our newest clear stamp set, "With All My Heart". The set contains a bouquet of roses with buds, a single rose, and five sentiments to mix and match. Everything you need to create cards and projects for the special people in your life...

With All My Heart

Clear Stamp Set

Available in Store Now

I'm thrilled to share the work my talented designers have done with this stamp set, their cards are absolutely beautiful and the images are coloured perfectly.

Petra created three beautiful cards using a combination of stamps from the set. She has kept her designs quite simple to allow her exquisite colouring to shine. The last card was created by stamping the single rose in a repeating pattern with green ink, then layering three panels together.

Carla made two beautiful, romantic cards with both of the images from the set. Her first card is feminine and pretty with lots of beautiful embellishments and a perfectly coloured rose. The second card uses much stronger colours for a gorgeous, striking project. 

Anesha coloured the bouquet of roses with fabulous yellows and greens. She included a watercolour background that compliments the image and really makes the colours come alive. The embossed, pearlised paper gives her project a lovely, romantic flavour.

Negative Colouring Cards

I finally took some photos of the cards I created with the images I coloured last week (click HERE for a link to the post).  I really enjoyed the negative colouring technique and am hoping to experiment with a few other base colours for a different look... and hopefully something that's a little easier to coordinate with!

Bullion Roses

Don't forget this month's special deal!

Bullion Roses Set

50% off

WAS $10.00

NOW $5.00

This special price is available from the 1st of May 2016 until the 31st of May 2016 (AEST).

Beccy Muir reserves the right to extend or reduce the duration of the sale period for any reason or at any time.

Negative Colouring

I've been in the mood for colouring lately, but didn't really feel like going through the motions of choosing colours and making sure I had coordinating papers to create cards, etc. etc.  To get my fix, I opted for some negative colouring instead, which is where you colour the highlights in the image rather than the shadows.  I have a little tutorial HERE if anyone is interested in having a go.

EDIT:  The images in this post are digitals, printed on dark brown cardstock with black ink and then coloured over with white pencils.  You could use any colour cardstock as long as there is enough contrast between the colour you choose and your white pencil.

A close up of the poppies.  As you can see, I printed these in two sizes for a bit of variation.  It was a lot easier colouring the larger image because I had more room to work with, but on the down side there was a lot more colouring to do!

Wild Rose

Pink Iris

Sweetpea

After colouring the images, I sprayed them with a light coat of matt sealant to prevent the soft white pencil from smudging.  I'm hoping to use them on some cards during the week.

Digital stamps available for purchase from Beccy's Place

Poppies

Wild Rose

Iris Set

Sweetpeas