All That Glitters...

...doesn't necessarily show up well in a photograph. Case in point: this card, made for our Glitter Me Happy challenge at Shopping Our Stash, has three different shades of Stickles Glitter Glue on the watercolored flowers and foliage, plus a mat of salmon pink glitter paper. Can you tell that from the pic? Nope! It's still a pretty card, though, and a nice reminder that you still have a week to participate in the current challenge.

This card is a triumph of stash-usage in that nearly everything on it is not only elderly, it was mostly leftover bits that were ready to roll. I used Distress Oxide Inks to make an ink-blended sunset; placed the (leftover, white glossy) Honey Bee Palm Frond panel on top and matted on the salmon glitter cardstock. I added Stickles to the pre-diecut Lawn Fawn Happy Hibiscus and Tropical Leaf (in Sunburst, Wine Cellar and Garden State) and cut stamens from a scrap of bright yellow glitter paper which... you guessed it... doesn't show up either! The sentiment is from an older set of Paper Rose Studio Sentiment Sheets and the small scattering of bright pink sequins are from Eyelet Outlet.

SOS539: Glitter Me Happy runs until the evening of Monday, January 27, 2025, so join us today!

MM02: Snow Far, Snow Good

It's the second Mandala Monday of 2025 so here's not one, but TWO, snowy watercolor mandalas to start off a week that I hope will be equally bright and colorful but not feature any actual snow...

...Unless you're longing for actual snow, and then, I hope you will see some this week; unless you live in Central New Jersey where I will be voting for its absence. 

Putting the "Mental" in Ornamental! :)

'Twas the Mandala Monday before Christmas and all through the house, shiny, sparkly ornaments of all varieties... vintage, new or even hand-drawn... are making spirits bright as we prepare for the Big Day!

Drawn with Letter It Fineliners; watercolored with Tombow Dual Brush Pens; highlights of golden metallic marker

Mandala Monday #50 of 2024

Getting straight to the POINT(settia) this Mandala Monday with a funky, splashy, zendoodle-y holiday bloom that I made into a 5.5" square card on a base of adoringly hoarded Hambly transparency from the Olden Days of papercrafting.

Watercolor effect with Tombow Dual Brush Pens; Outlined in Letter It Fineliners; gold details via ancient metallic paint pen. 

Banner Holiday (Week 2)

It's the second week of holiday cardmaking inspired by our Jingle Belles Blog Header:

And here's my card:

This week I've made a less literal version, but I've still embraced the colors, the florals, and the red glitter and golden metallic accents. My florals are Hero Arts' Christmas Roses, embossed with Ranger Gold Embossing Powder and watercolored. The diecut sentiment is Penny Black. The tiny star sequins are Eyelet Outlet.

You have until next Wednesday evening, December 4th, to link up with us for this last 2024 Jingle Belles challenge. There's even a little poinsettia-centric prize which will be randomly awarded to one lucky cardmaker. Read all about it at Jingle Belles!

Wet and Wild

It's a splishy-splashy, super-colorful Mandala Monday thanks to my Tim Holtz Distress Watercolor Pencils from Ranger. My current favorite way to use them is to both draw and fill in the shapes with the DRY pencils (adding more color at the edges and lighter towards the center of each shape); then take a waterbrush and "activate" the awesome watercolor blendiness (yes, that IS a word!) taking care to work from light to dark and rinse the brush whenever it starts to overblend the shades. 

At the end, it's fun to apply the wet brush directly to the pencils, create a little puddle of color, and then flick it onto the piece. As with most watercolor products, you get a lot of variation depending on: 1) how much color you pick up; 2) how big your brush/drop size is; 3) whether the piece is wet or dry when you flick at it; and 4) whether or not you blot the splatters off or let them dry on their own. With a bit of practice you can definitely learn to "steer" the piece, but there will always be a very fun serendipity factor that I love!

I used rainbow colors from Sets One, Two and Three of the Distress Watercolor Pencils; and added the outlines and details with three sizes of Letter It Fineliners after the panel was completely dry.

SOS533: Birds of a Feather

This fortnight at Shopping Our Stash is for the birds! Or, more accurately, about them. Because we'd like to see cards that feature our fine flying friends OR their feathers OR both! 

I have A LOT of bird stamps... and dies... and vintage bird books; but as I was deciding which of those to choose from, I realized I've had a beautiful set of Jane Davenport Feather dies for at least a couple of years and NEVER used them, so this seemed like the perfect time. I diecut the feathers from a "rejected" Alcohol Ink background (no idea WHY I didn't use it at the time but happy to find it now!) and then used the cut out feathers to position the dies on a watercolor background and cut out the shapes so I could back the apertures with deep blue cardstock and inset the feathers. The sentiment comes from Dina Wakley's Scribbly Birds Stamp Set which I've had for probably close to a decade and used many mannnnnny times; I don't think I've ever used the sentiment WITHOUT the birds before, but I thought it was just right for this card.

The SOS Crew have been working hard to inspire you, so there are plenty of birds and feathers flocking together at Shopping Our Stash; why not fly on over and check them out? Then start planning what you will link up with us between now and Monday evening, November 4th.

Unbe-LEAF-able!

It's time for Challenge #531 at Shopping Our Stash. This one's called, "I'm LEAF-ing It Up to You" and, as you may already have guessed, we'd like you to create a card that features leaves. This being the first week of Fall here in the Northern Hemisphere, you may well choose to make a card that features the rich seasonal shades of browns, reds, yellows and oranges. Or... maybe not...?

The other night I happened to stumble upon a folder full of watercolor paper panels: some were painted a single shade, some had splashes or blended colors, others were obviously just using up whatever paints I happened to have been using that session; which I'd saved to use later for stamping or diecutting. The best thing I discovered was this 5" square which was painted half sky blue and half grass green. There was also a set of chunky Altenew diecut letters painted similarly half and half. I have NO idea what I'd intended to do with them or why I never did whatever it was, but I was excited to find them and instantly shifted gears to favor tropical foliage instead of the autumnal sort I had been considering. I used my beloved Lawn Fawn Tropical Leaves die set and got to work... et voila! A few tiny flowers, coordinating mats and a secondary sentiment later, I was finished.

Head on over to Shopping Our Stash to see the unbe-LEAF-ably inspiring cards from the rest of the team and start planning what you'll link up with us this fortnight. SOS531: I'm LEAF-ing It Up to You runs until Monday evening, October 7th.

MM34

It's wet and wild Mandala Monday featuring watercolored shapes courtesy of my Tombows, lines by Letter It Fineliners and accents in a few shades of Posca pens.

It's a Broody, Moody, Bloomin' Mandala Monday...

...thanks to all of the fabulous blue and purple shades of Wendy Vecchi Designer Series Archival Inks from Ranger! I drew a semi-symmetrical flower/mandala shape with several sizes of black Letter It Fineliner Pens on an offcut of watercolor paper, then painted it by (sequentially) smooshing Sky Blue, Cornflower, Night Sky, Cactus Flower, Petunia and Violet Archival Inks onto my craft mat and picking the colors up with a waterbrush full of Isopropyl Alcohol. I also flicked various colors onto the wet or dry surface; and a couple of times when there was a lot of extra ink on the mat, I turned the piece upside down and randomly blotted up the color. At the very end, I added additional details with a white paint pen and finally chopped the whole thing in half and made it into a pair of 5.5" cards.

Wavy Gravy Weekend

Here are a couple of funky watercolor panels that are almost too simple to post but... I did use my Simon Hurley Dye Ink pads in a new way and I so enjoyed making them, I figured I'd just roll with it. The "new" inking technique is basically just a funky version of the good old Direct to Paper method: I chose a bunch of analogous colors, then used the corners of each to draw a swoosh across the paper. I experimented with more/less pressure, and varied the angle at which I held the ink pads against the paper to see what sort of marks could be made. When I had a "base" of color... (there were still white areas of paper showing, but the basic idea and shapes were there) ...I took a waterbrush and dragged the colors into, around, and over each other. When the paper was completely covered with ink, I let it dry before coming back in with white and gold paint pens to add a bit more structure to the lines. Then I used two sizes of black Letter It Fineliners to outline the paint pen areas, and also to create the impression of more dimension within the various colors. Finally, I flicked the whole thing with clear water and let it sit for five minutes before blotting off the excess. Proof of how much more fun this is to DO rather than read (or write) about: I made the second panel before the first one was even fully dry!!! 

It's somewhat important to use a palette composed of colors that all blend well together. If you don't know which shades will fuse into cool new colors and which will make mud, I highly (HIGHLY) 

recommend purchasing (or bookmarking online) a color wheel! In the meantime, the junior high school acronym we learned to memorize the colors of the spectrum in order : ROY G BIV ...which stands for Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet... is most helpful! Colors that are directly next to each other on the wheel (and in the acronym) are analogous and basically guaranteed to blend well; this includes looping around from Indigo and Violet to Red, btw. If this sounds like a boring limitation, remember that within each color, there are MANY different hues and they're all fair game!

Bring On the COLOR!

It's a Deeply DYLUSION-al Mandala Monday, featuring a rainbow* of Dylusions Ink Sprays which I've used as liquid watercolors by spritzing them onto my craft sheet and picking up the color with a paintbrush. Lines and dots via Letter It Fineliners in black. Detail added with a white paint pen. Water drops splashed on and blotted off randomly at every stage.

The Dylusions Sprays in question are: Bubblegum Pink, Squeezed Orange, Lemon Zest, Cut Grass, London Blue and Funky Fuchsia; all of which (plus 30 more!) can be found at Ranger's Online Store!

Diamonds Are a Mandala's Best Friend

The other day I came across a mandala from last winter, which started with a diamond motif in the center, rather than a circle and thought, "I should try that again!" so I did!

This time I made the diamond larger and more dramatic, then kept the other shapes fairly traditional and more or less symmetrical. I colored it by outlining each shape with a different pink, orange or yellow Tombow Dual Brush Pen, then used a waterbrush to spread/diffuse the colors. All the outlines were done with my Letter It Fineliners from Ranger, which are beautifully and reliably water-resistant!

Now I have ideas for mandalas with other shapes: hexagons, squares, maybe even triangles! Stay tuned... :)

Snow Far, Snow Good

Since my favorite place by far to see flakes of frozen precipitation is in artwork (the least favorite place being on my driveway!) here is a Super Snowy Mandala Monday with a wish that your week is off to a warm and cozy start. Scroll down to see a few fun digital manipulations. (Original artwork created by watercoloring with my Tombow Dual Brush Pens; digital fun perpetrated with filters from PSE9.)

and finally... back to the original:

Mandala Monday Round-Up

The last official Mandala Monday of 2023 kind of crept up on me, so this seems like a good time to choose a few of my favorites for the year. So here they are, in no particular order:

MM13: 

A collaged mandala from back in March... featuring a particularly lovely (to me, anyway) bit of vintage map and (of course) a tiny car!

MM12: 

It's a well-known fact that I consider the phrase, "too much color" absolute nonsense, and this super-stripey marker mandala (coincidentally also from March) made with about a zillion shades of Tombow Dual Brush Pen is proof of that!

MM46: 

I was surprised to find that I only made a couple of sticker mandalas this year, must do better in 2024! Meanwhile, I do love this one (which admittedly is LOOSE in terms of mandala structure) composed mostly of ancient Mrs. Grossman's stickers from last month. 

MM18:

I suspect that anything made with Dina Wakley Collage Paper and Typed Ledgers is automatically going to be fairly awesome, but I (immodestly!) confess to being extra-proud of this collaged mandala. 

MM01:

Going all the way back to January to include this ink-over-collage mandala colored with some of my favorite shades of Wendy Vecchi's Archival Inks from Ranger.

♥♥♥

To see ALL the Mandala Mondays of 2023 you can click this link to see them in blogpost form OR head over to my Instagram account for the complete compilation in convenient Flip-a-Gram form! 

Brand new Mandala Mondays will resume on January 1, 2024.

MM49: Poinsettia Mandala

It's a Very Vecchi Mandala Monday, thanks to Wendy Vecchi's gorgeous Archival Inks from Ranger (in Bluebird, Prickly Pear and Cactus Flower) and her brilliant technique of painting with Archivals! 

You can do this by diluting Archival Reinkers with Isopropyl Alcohol (Wendy's favorite) or (as I've done here) by "smooshing" your selected colors of ink pad onto a Craft Sheet and then picking up the color with a Waterbrush full of Isopropyl.

Admittedly these are not traditional Christmas colors, and I've never seen a purple poinsettia... but I love how this turned out!

It's a Many-Splendored Mandala Monday

It's been a bit grey and bleak here in New Jersey, but since it's such bad karma to complain about RAIN in DECEMBER, I'm just brightening things up on my own, thanks to Simon Hurley's gorgeous palette of create. Dye Inks from Ranger!

SOS510: Splish, Splash

This fortnight at Shopping Our Stash we're celebrating wet media, such as watercolor, acrylic paint, etc; but if that isn't your thing, you could swap out and use an image featuring water.

I made a vibrant watercolor background by spritzing my craft sheet with Dylusions Ink Sprays in London Blue and Cut Grass, diluting them slightly with clear water, then placing my watercolor panel face down to absorb the colors. When my background dried, I stamped, in collage style, portions of some of my favorite older Wendy Vecchi Studio 490 Backgrounds, including Herringbone (embossed with Ranger Turquoise Powder), Perfectly Plaid and Botanical Register (embossed in White). Around the edges I overstamped the stars from Wendy's Doodle Holiday Stamp Set embossed in Blue Neon. I added Night Sky Archival around the edges and machine stitched the panel to a white 5.5" square card. The focal flower is from Wendy's A Million Thank Stamp, Die and Stencil set; it's been stamped once in Leaf Green and once in Rosey Posey, with the additional shades of Prickly Pear and Pink Peony Archival added for detail.

The "Splish, Splash" challenge runs at Shopping Our Stash until December 4th. Be sure to check out all of the inspiring cards the Crew have made, then start planning what you'll link up with us this time.

Multi-Week Mandala Mashup

After several months of remembering to post my Mandala Monday entries every week on the blog, I suddenly hit a little patch of forgetfulness and skipped two weeks in a row, so here are THREE mandalas to start your Thanksgiving week:

MM46: Distinctly Dotty

Lindy's Magicals background, Letter It and Posca Pens... with a little bit of Tombow detail

MM45: Super Sticker-centric

A little stash of ancient, rediscovered Mrs. Grossman's animal stickers

MM44: Predominantly Purple

Lindy's Magicals, Letter It Fineliners, Poscas and Tombow detail

Pumpkin Pandemonium

It's a Perfectly Pumpkin-centric Mandala Monday... though clearly I'm stretching the definition of "mandala" to include a pumpkin shape filled with mandala-inspired zen doodling... which seems like an excellent idea on a Mandala Monday which happens to fall on the day before Halloween, right?

Shout out to my sister Amie who reminded me about doodling inside shapes and to Stephanie who brought her Lindy's Magical Pigment Powders and ninja-skills for using them when she came to visit a few weeks ago!