Happy New Year!

 Wishing you all a very blessed and  joyful New Year!  

I started this before Christmas but couldn't find the backdrop to make this image shine.  I finished it this morning and was hoping it could bring us joy in the new year! 

This is one of my favorite images and is an old stamp from Hero Arts in their ArtStamps collection. 

I spent a lot of time trying to frame it in a way that would make it shine.  I embossed the background of the tag with embossing paste and the gothic lettering.  I sprayed it with a mix of Antique Linen, Mica Spray, and Tarnished Brass.  After that I added random spurts of gold paint.  I die cut the frame and mixed the same colors.  I cut out the area for the stamped image.  I love this sentiment stamp as well which is from Memory Box and an older stamp as well. 

I then glitzed up the background with die cut snowflakes from tissue paper which were embossed with Ranger Queen's Gold.  I then sprinkled on snowflakes and gems.  

My wish for everyone in the New Year is a healthy pandemic free world.  :) 

Suzz

Christmas Cookies

Alas! Today is the day before Christmas Eve and nary a homemade Christmas cookie to be found in the house.   Instead I have been funneling my decorating into some Stars for the Vintage Journey "Star Light Star Bright Challenge".

My stars a mix of styles and designs because I had originally just started playing with stamps that I haven't played with in awhile to create a variety of star tags.

I then realized I only had a few days to wish all of you a beautiful Christmas. I decided to create a few stars to use as decoration on my Christmas dinner plates.

 I love this Artistic Outpost Santa and used him with a glaze of Seth Apter's Vintage Beeswax.   He is stamped on some very old ledger pages from a ledger book and glitzed up with some sparkle and gold bells.

I then pulled out one of my favorite Madonna and Child Stamps.  I have two which are both retired stamps.  This one is from Hero Arts.  I adore this stamp and the original artwork it replicates.

I created the same star with some slight variations. I colored them differently and added a different sticker. Both were glazed with the vintage beeswax and edged with gold krylon pen.

I started with this star just playing with the juxtaposition of the stamps and words.   The funny black strips of cardstock are there because I made this a two sided star with this funny fellow on the front:

The next one is just a mix of stamps highlighting happy memories.

 My last star is all about the twinkling and shining our on lights.  I love the look of joy on the little girl's face:

 My wish for you and your family is to have a blessed holiday with someone you love.  A very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Suzz

Glory to God

Merry Christmas! 

 I love layering images and stamps and creating the illusion of shadows. 

This card is a mix of stamps and a traced star from a spellbinder die.  I used my watercolor pencils to add shadows and layering of stamped images.

Merry Christmas!  Glory to God in the Highest!

Suzz

Joyeux Noel

Happy Sunday to you!  Linda at the Funkie Junkie 12 tags of Christmas is winding down.  We are on Week #11 and tomorrow she will post her 12th tag.  The challenge stays open til Dec. 19th with lovely prizes sponsored by The Funkie Junkie Boutique.  If you have some time you should join in the challenge!

Linda's tag this week inspired me with the strong colors and design.

I loved that she paired the white, and red with a strong black. 

I decided to pull out my favorite Artistic Outpost stamps and use them as the focal point of my card.
Linda's many layers on her tag had me layering up my stamps and papers.  I was so happy to ink up and stamp many backgrounds!!

The main image is from Artistic Outpost Snowy Woods as well as the sentiment. The background stamps are from retired Hero Arts stamps. (Map and Christmas Definitions) 

I used a new stencil I just received from The Funkie Junkie Boutique to give my pop of red in the background.

Thanks for stopping by!

Suzz

Joy, Hope and Wonder

I am back on the tags again to catch up in Linda's wonderful 12 Tags of Christmas... Seems I lag behind 3 weeks at a time and  have to catch up. Linda's challenge is hosted by The Funkie Junkie Boutique and there are prizes to go along with her challenge.  I truly don't do much online shopping but I do shop at  The Funkie Junkie Boutique regularly online.  The shop has great prices all the time and the customer service is wonderful.

Onto my tag for Linda's Week #9 tag.

 I am in love with what happened when I started playing around with the technique Linda did on her tag.  She painted the background with a hint of silver and then sprayed the Ranger Distress Stain Sprays over the surface.  I painted my whole tag with the paint making sure there was a thick coat of the paint. (Ranger Pewter)

 Then I sprayed a mix of greens, and blues and it looks so cool as it looks like alcohol inks on the surface after it dries. I used a heat gun and tilting the tag to get the pooling as the spray sits on the surface of the paint. 

 I thought that was so pretty I almost didn't stamp the branches over the surface but that got even cooler as I used a versafine ink which was very liquid on the surface and I had to heat set it.  To make sure it dried completely I then inked up the entire surface with versamark watermark ink and encased it in clear embossing powder.   What a beautiful effect all around and I can't wait to try this again with another metal paint and different spray colors!

The next tag from Linda used blue, silver and white!  Week #7 Tag had so many different pieces of it that I loved and I had fun trying to replicate some of the effects she put together. There was this yummy snowflake and accents at the bottom of the tag.  A little of everything all so lush and beautiful!

And then there were beautiful touches of snowflakes in white against a painted blue background. (I sprayed my background over painted white snowflakes and then added the deer stamped with silver and a silver snowflake behind him. 

The last tag for Week #8 tag from Linda went way off the beaten path and took me the longest to come up with an idea.  Linda's beautiful tag had all these lovely elements of which I had none!  So I decided to use the ideas of the sprayed background and the design and turn it into something very different. :O 

 Here is a close up of the main image. I love this Hero Arts stamp and always look forward to pulling it out for the holidays.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Suzz

Gold & Kraft

Hi!  I am working on three different projects right now and several of them are for Linda The Funkie Junkie 12 Tags of Christmas Challenge which is sponsored by the Funkie Junkie Boutique.  This tag is for week # 5 which is a gorgeous tag in kraft and gold.  I love how the gold glows next to the neutral of the kraft.

 My tag is a pretty close case of Linda's beautiful tag.

I love this Merry Christmas definition stamp.  This is a small stamp that comes in a set of 3 from Hero Arts.(retired).  I used the Sizzix Holly leaves to cut the reverse image as well as the individual holly.

That's all for me today... I hope to get another tag or two done today!

Suzz

Hero Arts Blog Hop

Hi and welcome to the Hero Arts Hostess Hop, featuring wonderful stamps from the new 2016 release and winter catalogue!  

If you’ve been following along, you’ve just arrived from the extremely talented Joy Taylor's blog!

Hero Arts will be awarding 4 prizes:
 
Today's hop:
1 $25 Hero Arts shopping spree
1 bonus prize on the Hero Arts blog

Tomorrow's hop
1 $25 Hero Arts shopping spree
1 bonus prize on the Hero Arts blog

 The more comments you leave, the better your chance of winning! Please comment by Sunday Oct 30 by 11:59pm PT for a chance to win.

If you find a broken link, you'll find a master list of the hop links at the Hero Arts Blog.

I love fall and using the new Grateful Leaves allowed me to create several cards highlighting the beautiful colors of fall. 

 I started by inking up the solids with a mix of distress inks in fall colors. I stamped them on white cardstock and cut them out.  I then stamped the veins using a brown ink.  I added a touch of tissue tape to the background and stamped the beautiful sentiment on the cardbase. 

A quick and easy Thanksgiving card to give to the hostess of Thanksgiving dinner.

 The leaves are so versatile because the lines are separate from the solids.  I decided to create a resist with the veins for my next card. 

I stamped all the veins using Versamark and heat embossed them with clear embossing powder. I then stamped the leaves using Saffron Archival Ink.  The sentiment was added last with a brown ink. I finished with a splattering of fall colors across the surface. 

I have to finish my post with a cute step card created to root on one of my home teams who are in the playoffs.  Hero Arts has the cutest sets of stamps from Kelly Purkey celebrating different cities and I couldn't resist the Kelly's Chicago set.

 I created a mini step card and added a few pennants to root on the Cubs!

Now it is time to head off to the amazingly creative Heather Doran and see what she has created to delight the eyes!

If you missed anyone else on the hop here is the full list:

Virginia Lu

Emily Leiphart

Sue McRae

Sarah Kapteyn Moerman 

Nancy Krueger

Tiffany Ervin 

Arlene Pagent McClung 

Joy Taylor

Suzanne Czosek --> you are here

Heather Doran 

Hero Arts 

Thanks for stopping by! 

Suzz

Un-finished Projects

Hi!  I have been a terrible blogger this month.  Things have been very busy at home and I have been creating but not finishing many things.  I finished this card last week but then realized it was very similar to a series of cards made previously with this stamp. :)

I also have a ton of half finished projects.  I start them and walk away because I don't know where to go with them next.

Like this attempt to play with a glaze resist over stamped text and color bursts.

or this a stencil outline with another stencil layered in with embossing paste.

 This was me still playing with the glaze resist. 

I have a bunch of ideas half started and not finished.  These will go in the backgrounds pile to hopefully re-surface into a finished project at some time.

Thanks for stopping by!

Suzz

Tags & Techniques

Howdy!  A blessed Sunday to you.  I have to say the beginning of the month when Tim posts his new tag for the month is always something I look forward to.  His techniques always inspire me to create.  Tim's September tag used the alcohol inks and yupo paper for one of the techniques. 

I am happiest when I am stamping.  I love mixing the stamped images together and creating a blend of stamps together into a cohesive design.

This month's tag and technique used a resist technique which game me lots of fun ways to play with my stamps and stencils.

I started with a patina background on the tag.

 I admit I ended up not using this tag in my finished project as I wanted to get close to the colors on my stamped background.  I will save this one for another project. I love how the patina looks and could have created many of these backgrounds in different colors.

Next I tried about 3 failed attempts with the alcohol ink backgrounds. I was trying to mix colors and they were beautiful but not cohesive to give a strong imprint and I also tried a few stamps that weren't solid enough in the image to translate well on the resist.

I finally settled on an alcohol ink background with a mix of slate, eggplant, and mushroom.

 Next I used an ultra-violet archival ink to stamp the butterfly and script onto the background. I stamped the butterfly first and cleaned it off following Tim's instructions and then I did the script.

I then tried on several scraps to use the blending ink with the stencil to get the numbers/words. The blending alcohol will bleed and I didn't like how I was applying it so I decided to sponge on the same archival ink through the stencil and was very happy with the crispness of the letters.

Another tip:  The Yupo paper is so wonderful that I was able to flip over one of my failures and use the reverse side for my card.  I also had another failure with the resist which I was able to just ink over again with alcohol inks and start again.  Like a magic eraser!  

I was having so much fun stamping with the resist that I decided to create another stamped collage.

 On the bottom  you can see some smearing this was because I didn't carefully remove the excess ink.  Tim talks about it in  his tutorial.  Just thought I would mention it because I did try very carefully but I am a very messy stamper and missed some ink. :)

Have a lovely Sunday!

Suzz

Products:  Memory Box - Dreams (Text), Stampers Anonymous - Butterfly, Stampers Anonymous - Branch, Inkadinkadoo - Birds, Wendy Vecchi - Stencil,  Tim Holtz Layering Stencil, Hero Arts - French Script, Ranger Archival Inks - Ultra-Violet, Alcohol Inks - Eggplant, Slate, Mushroom, Blending Solution, Ranger - Paints - Wilted Violet, Lavender, Gold, Picked Raspberries, Silver

Silvery Tag

Happy Saturday!  I hope all your holiday activities are going well and you are getting some time for yourself. :)  I was able to sit down and play a little yesterday.  (Yeah!)  I love color and the Words & Paintery color palettes have had me inspired to try so many different things.  This month's color palette is Gray, Blue and Silver. 

 I actually created a masterboard of these colors blended together and have been playing with different ideas using the pieces.  My first completed project was this tag:

 I started with Ranger Distress Stain Spray Tarnished Pewter, Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist - blue and a white mist.  I blended these together multiple times and this was one of my backgrounds.

I laid down some die cut snowflakes and sponged silver ink over the snowflakes. I then sponged on snowflakes using blue die ink over the stencil.

I then took a holly stencil and sponged over that the darker blue ink.  I outlined with black watercolor pencils and softened it with a water brush.  I stamped the deer using black ink and heat embossed him with black embossing powder to make him pop.

I finished with an old Hero Arts Definition stamp over the background.

Here are the inspiration colors form Words & Paintery:

Have a wonderful weekend!

Suzz

Rustic Heart

I am still playing along with Linda's The Funkie Junkie Tags of Christmas and I was late with last weeks tag and can't wait to work on this week's tag as it is a stunner.  Linda's Week # 6(sponsored by her boutique The Funkie Junkie Boutique)  is a charming tag with a gingham tie and pretty tree and holly.  It had me thinking of a rustic Christmas, I followed Linda's design and just swapped out some elements to what I had. I am also going to link this up to the Memory Box Challenge #6 Glitter.  ( I added a few heart gems to brighten up my little tree)

You can't tell it but I cut the hearts and the punched boarders from wood grain products.  I painted the hearts and the border I stained with a dark brown ink.

The background is Iced Spruce over a Memory Box stencil.  The tree is Hero Arts and stamped and then heat embossed with brown embossing powder.  The sentiment are Hero Arts and the music on the hearts is the 12 days of Christmas from Memory Box.

Suzz

Sympathy

I hate to have a reason to create Sympathy cards,  but I needed a few for later this week.  These cards are inspired by Birgit.  I love her art and can recognize her art because of her beautiful style.  I have been wanting to mask off a section and sponge in some color in the corner and then overlay the image and sentiment. For sympathy cards I like to keep it clean and focus on the words.

 The first features: Ranger Archival Ink - Black, Memento Plum Dye Ink, Darkroom Door - Garden Greetings, Darkroom Door Quote Stamp - Memory

The next two are the same concept with different stamps:

 Hero Arts - Bamboo, The Stamp Barn CHSH 304 M,  Memento Plum Dye Ink, Ranger Archival Ink - Black

 I swapped the bamboo stamped image from Memento Plum Dye ink to Ranger Archival Ink - Watering Can. This was my first version of this card and I decided the gray was too strong and switched to plum.  

Thanks for stopping by.

Suzz

Eat, Drink and Be Scary!

Happy Halloween!  A little creepy card made for one of my cards I share to you as your Halloween treat!

 I have had this fun Inkadinkado set with beakers, eyeballs and other fun images.  I decided to create a mad scientist scene for my son's card.

 I started with placing my beaker/tube on the front.  I then cut out the opening for them.  I laid the stamped images onto the front of my card and traced the location to sponge in the colors. 

I masked off the area and sponged the colors over the front of the card.  I used the Neon green and coral colors from Tsukineko.  I then stamped the Hero Arts background over the background randomly. 

I created a whole slew of eyeballs, colored them with watercolor pencils and then added glossy accents to give them a glistening rounded effect. EEWW!  I mixed them with seed beads in the shaker card. 

Happy Halloween! 

Suzz

Silver and Teal

Hi!  I am playing along with Linda's (The Funkie Junkie) Twelve Tags of Christmas - Week #3.  The challenge she hosts is sponsored by her boutique (The Funkie Junkie Boutique).  Her tag this week uses the cool knit sweater inspired dies from Sizzix.

I didn't have the die that Linda used.  Instead I thought about how I could replicate the look and feel of Linda's tag.  I went through all my stencils looking for ones that would work to emulate Christmas inspired patterns.

I wanted to have my background shimmer similar to Linda's so I pulled out a few Color Shines (Silver and Gold) and on my way to those I spied the pretty teal color.  I was looking at red sprays but none of mine give me the red I wanted so I decided to go the teal and silver route.

I masked off the tag with painters tape so it would lift off after I finished stenciling my stripes of different patterns. I then used scrap cardstock to mask off the other areas and I stenciled with white embossing paste my various patterns.  I did have to have drying time in between depending on the size of the stencil.  After I finished I sprayed the entire surface with the silver shine.

I came back and added in the teal spray in the areas that were stenciled.  This required masking again to keep the blue in the stenciled areas.

I then die cut a deer from a metallic paper and embossed a stamped music image onto the surface.  I finished him off with some antlers from Christmas sprigs purchased last year.

Products: Memory Box Stencil, Tim Holtz Layering Stencils, Memory Box 12 Days of Christmas, Sizzix Deer, Hero Arts Joy to You, Heidi Swapp - Teal, Silver Color Shine

Have a blessed Sunday!

Suzz

Fossilized Amber

I have been in quite the amber mood lately.  I am playing along with Linda The Funkie Junkie's 12 tags of Christmas - Week #2.  Her challenge is sponsored by The Funkie Junkie Boutique. I was inspired by Linda's beautiful tag by the stars and rays coming down from the sky.

 I tried about 5 versions of the rays and stars stenciled in various colors and materials.  I ended up using this tag where I started with a stencil that had very thin rays which I sprayed over onto the tag with the yellow sprays.  I then stenciled the stars over the top with white embossing paste.

Then onto my next problem no trees the right size for the tag. I almost bought the cool tree dies that Linda used but I ended up using my money elsewhere. :(  So I dug through my stamps looking for something to stamp beneath my lovely sky.  I found this Stampscapes scene which I used to stamp along the bottom. I finished off with some more spray in a lovely green color.  I added more highlights/shading to finish of the tag.

I then used my Fossilized Amber Dye Ink pad to sponge in a large moon on the background. I wanted to try using the Ken Oliver's Color Bursts to create flowers.

 I sponged in my moon with a mix of the yellow, orange, and brown dye inks.  After I finished that I stamped in the stems of my flowers.   I then very carefully tried to squeeze a little of the powder around the ends of the stems.  I then spritzed with water to activate the colors.  (This was my third version)  Each time the powders ended up a little different.

Well that is all I have to share today!

Suzz