Victorian Christmas Northern Lights

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I've told you before that I lived in Maine for a summer, and saw the Northern Lights there. And I thought it was aliens or the end of the world. 

I had always imagined the Northern Lights to be rainbow colored, so the shimmery, solid green, moving lights were a huge surprise to me, and will forever be what I think of when I think of the Northern Lights. My aversion to cold weather *probably* means I won't see them again, unless they move south! However, I STILL might see aliens, so there's that.

I thought it would be the perfect background for a Christmas card with a lot of red on it, so I chose this Victorian style Christmas set that has such sweet little details, and I colored it mostly red with Graphit Markers. I put some little shadows down on a torn piece of paper that I used for snow. What I do when I'm adding shadows to die cut images is I set the die cut onto the card and draw a faint pencil line underneath it. Then I remove the die cut, make the angled shadows, and then glue the die cut down.

I did the stars with a Posca pen, and while the paint was wet, flicked two stars "legs" out with a white gel pen.

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I will have the video for this background in the coming weeks, so stay tuned for that. There's some more REALLY beautiful holiday things that you'll be seeing me work with soon here.

Loveyameanitbye.

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VIDEO: Extending Tree Dies + Giveaway

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I came up with a super fun way to SUPER SIZE your layering tree dies this week! I refuse to buy tags for gifts - probably all that exposure to fun Tim Holtz techniques on tags have ruined me for storebought tags - I prefer to go all out, so that's what you'll see in the video, despite how easy what I'm doing is. I used the asymmetrical tag die for the base, with cold press watercolor paper (caution - I use this as a "water friendly" paper, not a true watercolor paper, because it does not state that it's 100% cotton - but it's perfect for mixed media techniques and very inexpensive. I've had the same pad for years.) I cut it again from a book page and glued those together. I used the same dies to cut Christmas from glitter paper. I used this gorgeous tree die with the same watercolor paper and did wrinkle-free distress ink smooshing with Oxides (colors listed in video). The tree die is meant to make smaller trees but you'll see how I extended mine in the video. The garlands are from dies in the set and I used the same book paper.

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Here's the video - be sure to watch on YouTube because there's giveaway info in the description.

Hope you have a great weekend planned! I'm trying a new recipe so I'll let you know how it is!

Loveyameanitbye.

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VIDEO: Halloween Collage & New Collage Workshop!

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Howdy friends! If you've followed my lives for a while, you KNOW I love collage! And today I am SUPER excited to announce two things. I have moved all my online classes to a new website. Over the past two years, I've used Facebook for my online workshops and classes, but that no longer feels like a good option to me, for lots of reasons I'll save for another day. 

So I'm adding my back-catalog of classes slowly on the new site, but today I've added a new collage class that I'm really excited about! In college art classes and art history classes I first got bit by the collage bug. My art teacher had us spend several weeks on surrealism and we did a lot of surrealist collage, which is something I do almost weekly - and do not publish. I just do it for my own enjoyment, and now I'm sharing that with you! So the new class has NINE lessons and you will learn how to organize your supplies, learn basic collage skills, learn surrealist collage, tips, techniques, and finally an advanced painting style of collage. 

My other previous classes that are there - so please be sure you haven't already taken those before registering :). Here is my classroom!

So to celebrate my new collage class, I have a collage video for you today with a fun Halloween vibe.

I used two vintage Halloween books - this one and this one - for the skeleton, Raven and the Poe sheet. 

I accented the skelly with ultra fine gold glitter.

In the video, you'll see me have some fun with a beautiful wax stamper as well - I was going to use it on the card but ended up not having room.

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Fun, right? Here's the video

I hope you join me in an online class soon!

Loveyameanitbye.

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Veggie Love + Perfect Hashbrowns

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I was flipping through my watercolor sketchbook the other day, and I realized that the VAST majority of my sketches are veggies and fruits. Why are they so pretty? One of my fave sketches I've ever done was an orange. I used this tiny detail brush to add the teeny segments and it was so zen and fun. 

I think the textures and colors of plants is just so interesting. I can't imagine sitting down to paint a chicken breast hahah.

Anyway, I was woken up at 3 AM by a cat and never got back to sleep so I just got up and watercolored. The thing about watercolor is that it's a VERY quiet crafty activity that doesn't bother people who CAN go back to sleep after catnanigans.

Luckily, I had die cut these beautiful veggies on Friday, but had only stacked them up with their matching foliage because Friday was insane. 

So I grabbed my Daniel Smith splits and went to town. All the colors are from the Lydia Split except for Hooker's Green which is in the D split - and is the PERFECT jalapeno pigment.

I did wet on wet watercolor, and that's how I got those fun shadow blends - I HEART the radish one - so pretty. 

The set has a matching sentiment, but I liked the very bold sentiment from this set because I used SO many of the die cuts that it needed balance. These dies are so very realistic.

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If you were in my Gel Press live Friday, then you saw this pretty brayer cleaning sheet I used with this big Thank You die. It's a triple cut die, so you have lots of possibilities. I went for the outer die and the second layer die, leaving the third layer out so it was left white. The paints are golden open - that's why they look so glowy.

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Want the best hashbrown recipe EVER? My friend Bev gave me a tip that is a game changer, and I just realized when I pulled up this recipe that I haven't made these in a year - I need to fix that!

If you have a Kitchen Aid, it's super easy, but a box grater or mandolin with a grater blade would be just ducky. Here's the recipe!

Loveyameanitbye.

CASE Me a Christmas Card with Michelle Lupton

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I'm back! Today is my day with my friend Michelle Lupton in her CASE me a Christmas Card series - a holiday tradition around here. It's a just for fun series she does every year with amazing guests!

The idea is that each of us picks a card from each other's blog to CASE (copy and share everything) and turn it into a Christmas Card. 

For my card, I chose this darling vintage holiday image, and I colored it with colored pencil, adding the details back with a Micron pen. I created the "floor" with this stencil, a brush and blue raspberry ink, masking it off with Post-It tape and doing secondary light blending over the stenciled area to create a solid surface. 

Here are the things I incorporated from Michelle's incredibly adorable card you will see below:

• Pink and blue as the dominant color scheme
• Checkerboard style "floor" using this stencil (coupon below)
• CAS design
• Right centered focal point with left positioned sentiment
• Angled shadow
• Vintage art style

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Here's Michelle's post with her adorable card - shared with permission here. She drew her "floor" which on her card is a gingham tablecloth. So, so sweet. If you are not already following her on Instagram and YouTube, please do so - she's amazing. 

Now this is a two way process, so today she picked one of my cards to CASE.

See Michelle's card HERE where she CASEd ME :) or by clicking the graphic below.

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Hope you have a great week!

Loveyameanitbye.

Winter Scene Building with Small Stamps

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Today I am bringing you some simple wintery ideas, and a few fun ways to use those smaller stamps to build scenes. The first idea is so simple - it's repetition! We often use small stamps on clean & simple cards - as a small focal point with a clean background, but as you'll see with the small tree and deer from this month's Hero kit - you can fill a card by repeating images. I started with Soft Granite Ink - with the tree on an acrylic block, and I stamped the grey trees you see in the center at full strength, and moved away to stamp again with the leftover ink, repeating this process maybe a dozen times - I wanted a prominent row on the middle section and lighter trees above and below.

Next, I did the same, but with black ink - so that a few trees really popped and became focal points - stamping the leftover ink trees among the grey trees as well. It gives the feeling of snow in between you and the lighter trees doesn't it?

Then I took the deer from the kit and stamped him in black in the foreground.

I used an OLO Marker to create shadows for the trees and deer, leaving the top of the card white to look like an upsloping snowy hill. The placement of the trees adds to that vertical feeling as well.

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Here's what the full kit looks like - it has a snowy cling stamp too! Love the village.

Here are all the add-ons this month - and I have a card with one of the dies. They have a sentiment strip Christmas tree! And dies that cut the strips - so if you want just greetings, this is a great combo, but it also makes super cute cards with the tree, as you will see today.

Yesterday's card (details here) used the tree again from the kit to make a tiny subtle rainbow.

Two books about winter made a BIG impact on me as a kid. The Snow Queen, and The Chronicles of Narnia. I remember so vividly the sleighs in both! And, for the Frozen generation, the Snow Queen - incredibly dark, as per Hans Christian Andersen's style, is what that is loosely based on. I've never seen it - I'm not a big Disney fan, and the song is so annoying I think it could be fatal. But anyway, you should read the book. The sleigh is basically a character in the fairy tale - an alluring character. As it is in Narnia, driven by the White Witch and pulled by the white reindeer. Yet another reminder that winter is objectively terrible!! Narnia must be out in the universe this week too - because one of my food groups posted a recipe for Turkish delight! I've never made it myself so I might have to try. This recipe site never fails me so maybe I'll try their version.

Anyway, all that to say, this sleigh die  reminded me of those bewitching sleighs! I decided to make it as alluring as possible, with silver and pink glitter paper. The background uses the birch trees stencil (I'll be using this in my Stamp-Along class, if you are attending!) with Splash ink, and over that, I used the new snow stencil and acrylic paint to add snow. The colors give it such a 50s feel. The sentiment is from the strip tree.

Want to see more inspiration? Start at the Hero Arts Blog. Leave me a comment, as well as the other inspiration blogs today for your chance to win a $50 shopping spree! Enter by October 9th, and the winner will be announced on the Hero Arts Blog the following week!

Loveyameanitstayawayfromladiesinsleighsbye.

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SUBTLE Rainbow Winter Trees + World Cardmaking Day Live Hop!

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Happy Caturday! I have two fun things for you today - a little sneaky peeky of this month's Hero Arts kit, and it's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas!

I'm keeping it simple this month, taking advantage of the detailed silhouette images in the set and using shadows to give them dimension. 

For this card, I used one of the trees from the set and using a small acrylic block, I stamped them in Hero Hues, just SLIGHTLY overlapping to create tiny pops of orange, green and purple! Like a little hidden rainbow - look closely!

I did flicking with an OLO marker at an angle to create shadows underneath, which instantly makes them look dimensional. SO simple and quick. The large sentiment is from the set as well.

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There are more fun peeks today with some of the other images from the kit on the Hero Blog.

And - since it's world cardmaking day - please join me in a fun LIVE YouTube hop! They are short, 20 minute sessions and you will be automagically redirected throughout the hop as each live ends. I do NOT pretend to understand how that's going to work. I will be doing a quick Gel Press technique! I'm not on till 11 Central, but you can start the hop HERE at 10 AM Central. There's also a zoom party afterwards and giveaways!

Whatever you decide to do today - make it CRAFTY!

Loveyameanitbye.

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