Meeting New Friends!!

What a beautiful weekend we finally had here on the west coast!  I couldn't believe that I went from wearing a turtleneck at work on Saturday morning to wearing a t-shirt outside on Sunday!  Yessssssss!!!
On Saturday morning I was able to finally meet a new friend I've made from Blogland!  Her name is Nancy and she's from Courtenay which is approximately 1/2 hour south of Campbell River on Vancouver Island.  We met at one of my favourite shops, She Runs With Scissors in Campbell River!
First off, I'd like to say that Nancy is such a beautiful person, inside and out!  Not only is she extremely talented...she's a real gem and I am so lucky to have met her!
Nancy brought me a present made up of hand made flowers, which you can see a photo of on her blog,!  They are sooooo beautiful!  One is quilled and it turns out she is a quilling instructor!
I enjoyed our visit which lasted over an hour!  Nancy is going to keep me posted on classes in Courtenay so that we'll be able to visit again soon!  I can hardly wait!
Have a great week Nancy ... I'm looking forward to keeping in touch!
Hugs,
Sheree
Check out Nancy's blog: Crafting Passions  Her creations are gorgeous!!

Stampscape Tutorial - Rocky Mountain Foothills

Good Evening!

It's Friday night and there's a hockey game on so I headed off to my little corner of sanity to play with Stampscape stamps and colour!

I've been asked a few times how I colour different scenes so here's another one we'll play with.  I started out stamping the mountains and then added the pine tree in the foreground stamping it at varying heights.  I have more stamps on order but wanted some trees just a bit smaller to fill in the center of the image so used pines and rocks but used tape to mask off the rocks, ink the stamp, remove the tape and stamp the trees twice at different heights to show depth of field.  The last stamp I used was of the tree cluster and masked off the bottom of that stamp as well.  Once the trees were in order I needed a filler for all the gaps!  My most used and favourite stamp of the set is sedge filler.  This was stamped everywhere there was a space and also behind the trees to make it look like there was even more depth.

 First off I used my clouds stamp and Adirondack Aqua to do the sky. This is the first thing I do for all of my scapes.  For me, starting the sky seems to ground everything I'm doing when colouring the rest of the scene.

This third photo shows where I usually start when colouring.  Everyone has their own way of doing things but I always like to start light and gradually go darker.

I started with Lemonade and using the stylus I tapped it onto the trees, grass and gently tapped a bit in the sky above the mountains.  If you look closely you'll see where I've lightly tapped a tad of Lemonade on the Mountains as well.  Next time you look at the horizon you will see that it's always (from what I've seen) lighter.

The next colour to be added is Willow.  This is a lovely colour for lighter trees.  Once again I tapped it on the trees and on the grasses.  Try and keep the tips of the grass lighter but it you can't... we can lighten that up later on!

Now comes the fun part!  We're going to create our forest!  Using Adirondack Meadow you can tap in colour on the trees.  For the fir trees I load my stylus with colour and tilt the stylus so I'm only lightly tapping on the edge of the foam pad.  doing it this way keeps you from having trees look 18 feet wide!  Once you've given the trees some colour you can gently tap in some colour on the grass as well.  Don't add meadow to everything.  Look for the spaces between the grass tips.  These spaces are the lower end of the grass.  Grass is always a deeper shade closer to the ground (unless you live on the prairies or the desert... then the grass would be shades of brown!).

I love using Distress Ink in Burlap.  Using the edge of the stylus pad again, tap touches of colour onto the mountains.  During late spring, summer and early fall there is definitely snow on the mountains but... enough has melted so you'll see rock faces and greenery.  You can tap touches of Burlap in the grass here and there and especially in the foreground.  Forest grass is very sparse.

 Now we are going to refine everything and work on depth of field along with adding more colour to everything ...

Starting with the Cantelope, Tap in a bit of colour here and there on the grass tips.  Add a touch to the deciduous tree.  The Potter's Clay can be added to the tree, touches on the mountain...lower down, and touches on the grass.  The Cottage Ivy (green) will darken your forest.  Gently tap some on the fir trees, between the trees and on the darker deciduous tree.  On my sample I overdid the darker colours a bit so brought out my Adirondack Lemonade and tapped it over places where I wanted it lightened up a bit.

Alrighty... Now comes the sky and shadows!  Using a Q-tip or pointed sponge nibs you can start adding a little bit of Adirondack Aqua to the sky.  Follow the Aqua that is already on the sky from stamping and just deepen the colour between the clouds.  Once you're finished doing that you can lightly load a stylus with Aqua and gently tap in colour from the top edge downwards to just above the mountains.  I was in a hurry to finish this last night so my sky isn't exactly the way I wanted it.  Sometimes it's a hit and miss until I perfect my colouring!

Lightly load a stylus pad with Pitch Black and lightly tap in some shade around the base of the fir trees.  If your sunshine is coming from the left, then your tree shadow will start at the tree base towards the right side of your scene.  If your sun comes from the right, your shadows will go from right to left.  Depending on the time of day and how high your sun is above the horizon dictates how long your shadow will be.  Add some birds in the sky and voila!

Now, I'm going to show you my MISTAKE!!  I have seen highlights done with a white ink craft pen as dots on objects in the scene.  I was questioning myself prior to adding them and should have stopped there.  I'm going to show you my mistake and you can be the judge.  Myself, I won't use it again unless I'm doing a night or winter scene.  What I do use is... a jellyroll star pen in platinum.  When you look at the scene dead on, you don't really see the highlights.  When you tilt the scene, which is what people do when they open cards, you can see the subtle highlights.

Now you can see what I'm talking about!  Ewwwwww!  I'm not happy with this at all!  Hindsight is 20/20... How true!  Always go with your gut feeling!

One other thing I'd like to mention is... Adirondack inks will fade a bit if not sprayed with a laquer finish.  I let this scene sit overnight and it lightened up to where I really like it!  Too bad about the white dots!!

So, I hope I was able to give you some tips with this post.  If there's something you'd like me to do next just leave a comment!  This is also a learning process for me as well.  I've only been doing Stampscapes since January.

Stamps used in this scene:

023A  Duck trio in flight

267E  Pine & roscks small

196F  Pine tree

188F  Rocky Peaks

244E  Tree cluster

251C  Sidge filler

Thanks for looking!!

It would be greatly appreciated if you leave a comment to let me know how I'm doing on these tutorials.  I'm a newbie!

Just For Fun!

Hi Everyone!

Just a quick post of what I worked on tonight. I'll write more details tomorrow night after I get back to town. It's late and I'll be getting up at 4 a.m. to go work down island tomorrow.
This card will be entered at Heart Song Inspiration blog and I'll check around for others tomorrow.
Have a great evening... what's left of it!!
Talk to you all tomorrow...

I am back!!
On Wednesday I was asked to enter a challenge at Heart Song Inspirations so after I finished dinner I went to work trying to think up something that would work with the sketch there... this is what I came up with.  I am the first one to admit that I am much better at Stampscape scenes but I will give anything a whirl!  Thanks to all the Heart Song girls for leaving such wonderful comments on this post while I was at work!  You all boosted my spirits so high!!
The plaid paper is from G and the others are miscellaneous from my stash.  The stamp is from Stampin Up! and the bow made from Michaels ribbon and I used the Bow Easy which is one of my favourite tools.  Stickles were use to highlight the fairy and the flower.  My cutter must be wearing out because I had one heckuva time getting even cuts so.. used my Fiskers scissors to deckle te edges which hid all crooked cuts!!  WooHoo!  That was the first time I have touched those!!

Thanks for looking!!

Challenges I've Entered:
Heart Song Inspirations - Sketch
Simon Says Stamp Challenge - Anything Goes

Mothers Day Card - 2

Good Morning Everyone!

I'm loving Tim Holtz' Perfect Pearls at the moment!  I started playing with the copper and bronze last night along with a fern frond stamp from Stampin' up!  I wish you could see how the Perfect Pearls glisten in the light!

First off I used my anti-static bag for embossing and it helped quite a bit with getting the pearls only where I wanted it.  Next, I put Perfect Medium on the stamp and stamped it randomly off the page.  You need to recoat the stamp with Perfect Medium every time you stamp.  This medium is clear but does have somewhat of a sheen to it so if you tilt it towards the light you'll see where you need to fill in.

Once the stamping is finished it's time to dust on the perfect pearls!  For the fronds I put copper towards the tip and bronze closer to the bottom.  If you were here to see the card for yourself you'd see that there is a subtle difference!  Next, take your larger fluffy brush and gently get rid of any excess powder.  Spritz your work lightly to set the pearls and that part is finished once it dries!

After that... it's up to you what type of dp's and embellishments you use.

The sentiment is from an old Stampin' Up! set and says...

"A mother is someone who can take the place of all others but whose place no one else can take."

Good luck and have fun playing with this fantastic medium!

Thanks for looking!

Stampscape - Dream

Good Afternoon Girls!

It's blowing a southeaster with horizontal rain today so thought I'd play in my room after the chores were done! (Didn't get them all done because I'm solar powered and it's rather dark with all the heavy clouds)
I've had Ranger Perfect Pearls in my drawer for a while and finally thought up a use for them! I didn't want to be like other Stampscape artists using the pine stamped multiple times and fades into the background. So once again I thought outside the box and this is what I ended up with!
I used the small lakeside cove stamps and didn't put the pearls on until I was finished stamping. I thought doing it that way I'd get a crisper image using the perfect medium.
The tops of the trees and the water are done with the pearl finish to simulate moonlight kissing the tree tops and playing on the water. The rocks were done in gold and the tree bottoms were coloured with copper. I thought the bronze was too dark to use on black.
Once it was all dusted off I added some stars with a Jelly Roll star pen along with a few more ripple kisses in the water. Stars were added last and if you look closely you'll see a couple of constellations!
The scene was layered on gold shimmery paper and my Martha Stewart photo corner punch finished it off (Hmm I think they are now my signature on every Stampscapes piece!)
The dream stamp was from 'G' and stamped with Brilliance white and then embossed with Stampendous Pearl.
A bow with generic ribbon was made and topped off with a real jewel... just kidding! The background cardstock is quite a deep brown but I tried to use the dining room light to make the Perfect Pearls shine and ended up making the background look lighter with my fantabulistic photography skills!
Hope you like it!

I have entered this card in the following challenges:
Simon says Stamp! - Anything goes
Craft Us Crazy - Be ONE With NATURE