Inky techniques with Simon

Simon Hurley that is. Simon was our instructor at the #SCTbigboxevent for Ranger and he was working with his inks pads, large stamping foam, domed blender foams and another jar of lunar paste (Game Over). He is also working with Spellbinders too, so his Sedona stamp set had matching dies and we also got a really cool scene builder stencil called Sedona Scene Maker.

I have just Googled Sedona and "Sedona is an Arizona desert town near Flagstaff that’s surrounded by red-rock buttes, steep canyon walls and pine forests." That is too funny I live in Flagstaff, Hamilton, New Zealand.

Simon is an awesome teacher and I achieved all 3 cards for the class PLUS a bonus card. I've snapped as 2 photos of 2 cards rather than as a group of 4. Starting off with let's go to Sedona...

This card makes me laugh, fancy sending someone a prickly cactus with HUGS but it is perfect sentiment! Colours used were Soft Suede, Wild Wasabi and Old Olive (all SU!) and we used the domed blender to add some Lunar Paste to the cactus flower.

The scene builder was fun to build with the scene maker stencil. Starting at the top of the scene: Licorice (PFS), Blue Jay (PFS), Slumber (PFS), Melon Mambo (SU!), Mango Melody (SU!), Soft Suede (SU!), Warm Sunshine (ALT),  Olive (PFS).

And of course the moon in Game Over, this lunar paste isn't as vibrant as the one we received last year but it is very dramatic.

I know this stencil is available to purchase and I really liked making a scene with the stencil so it is worth keeping your eyes out if more are released. I know a lot of colours were used but it was actually very easy to create the background.

Then it was stamping foam fun time. 

After last year's play I bought for $2 from K-Mart a flax-coir sort of mat so knew I wanted to have a play with that for my background, ink colour used Slumber (PFS). We stamped onto a die-cut with the photopolymer stamps for the flower, I used Wild Wasabi (SU!) for the leaves and Warm Sunshine (ALT) for the flower centres. Lunar paste added to flower petals.

This was the bonus card and wow I love it, it's actually my fav from the class, the thin stripes were made using the side of the warm stamping foam block, which were pushed into your scoring board to make the impression. We used Wild Wasabi for the leaves and Melon Mambo, Mango Melody and Warm Sunshine for the rest of the stamping. I have used some glitter drops from PFS on this card and the one above  just some random sequins in my stash (?Studio Katia Majestic Confetti).

Ranger were every generous AGAIN and we got a heap of stuff in our class kit.

I really like the domed blender brushes so decided I am going to start using them for doing my Distress Oxide backgrounds as they are much faster to lay on the colour and blend with the oxides. We used them to make the night sky on our "plus one card" from the first day.

✿ Karen ✿

Out of this world

Guess what Santa bought me, an early present as I have so wanted this stamp set from Altenew called To the Moon for ages. I bought my set from Simon Says Stamp but you can buy directly from Altenew as well as it is often out of stock at SSS so it must be popular. If you're like me & go wow I want that moon, also look at buying Altenew's Shadow Play stamp set as well as it really co-ordinates with the moon.

 It is a really cool moon with 3 different moon stamps. I used Hero Arts Shadow inks for all the 3 steps. The solid base was silver, the 2nd  layer of moon I used soft granite & the 3rd layer I used charcoal (mid-tone). Having the 3 stamps/layers makes a really realistic moon. I then used a circle dye to cut out the moon, unfortunately my closest circle was a little bit smaller than the moon which is 2", so another thing to add to the wish list.

 I coloured in my night sky using Ranger Distress inks with their mini ink blending tool. I started off with Seedless Preserves, then Salty Ocean, then Peacock Feathers, followed by Broken China. At this stage it didn't look dark enough so I also added some Black Soot to the top as well. I then quickly dried before adding a background of tiny stars using Hero Arts Tiny Star Background and Stampin' Up! Illuminate ink.

The greeting is white embossed & used Greetings of the Season (Stampin' Up! - now retired). I thought the saying was perfect. I've added in a few silver glimmer stars which I made using the Confetti Stars Border punch from Stampin' Up!.

The base card is Midnight Muse (SU!) as I felt it blended the best with the night sky I had KReated.

I'll leave you today with one cool tip for storing the right foam circle for your distress ink (or any ink for that matter), place a grip spot on the base so when you're finished with the foam pad you can add it to the grip spot.

✿ Karen ✿