Watercoloring with Distress Oxides

Posted in Cards by My Empty Nest Creations

Have I told you before how much I love Distress Oxides? They are so incredibly versatile and the colors are just fantastic! They are so easy to watercolor with that I find that I’m rarely using my traditional watercolors.

My Empty Nest Creations Watercolored Flowers with Distress Oxides This card uses two watercoloring techniques. The background was made using, as Kristina Werner says, ink smooshing. I added Worn Lipstick, Fossilized Amber and Abandoned Coral on a piece of acrylic and spritzed it with water. I grabbed a piece of Tim Holtz watercolor paper and placed it upside down on top of the inks and smooshed it around—Voila…an ink smooshed background!

After letting that dry, I stamped (and masked) several flowers from Simon Says Stamp’s Watercolor Friendly Flowers using Versafine Onyx Black Ink. Using a waterbrush and some more Distress Oxides (Worn Lipstick, Broken China, Wilted Violet, Seedless Preserves), I painted the flowers with a few layers of ink. I added some Black Soot Distress Ink to the flower centers.

I stamped the sentiment from Hero Arts Made With Love stamp set with Versafine Onyx Black ink. I knew that I wanted to use one of my new favorite papers from My Favorite Things Black & White Stripe 6×6 paper pad on the left side of my card, but I thought I needed a little more black accent to balance it out. I found a small stamp set by Simons Says Stamp called Merry Trees that had 3 small filled in circles. They were perfect. I placed various black dots around the flowers to complete the card.

I hope you like it!

Computer Signature

18Mar2018

Neat & Tangled’s Oak Leaf Stamp Set

Posted in Cards by My Empty Nest Creations

I have loved this set since it first came out. When I first looked at it, I only saw it as a seasonal set…you know, colored with oranges, golds and reds, but now, I see how versatile it is. Now that spring is quickly approaching (some places faster than others) I decided to use yellows and greens for my color scheme.

My Empty Nest Creations Neat & Tangle's Oak Leaf stamp watercolored with Distress Oxides

I started by white heat embossing the leaf image onto a piece of 4″x5 1/4″ Bristol paper. Since I’m still very much a beginner with watercolors, I decided to use my Distress Oxides with water. I used Squeezed Lemonade, Twisted Citron, Peeled Paint and Evergreen Bough and loosely painted on the color, not worrying about staying in any lines. Once that was dry, I stamped the sentiment with Versafine Onyx Black ink using my Misti.

All that was left was to mount it to my card base. I knew that I wanted to pull the green out of the leaf, so I found a piece of matching green card stock in my scrap stash (I just love it when I can use up some of my scraps!). I also knew that I needed to balance out the black from the greeting, so I pulled out one of my new favs—My Favorite Things Black & White Strip 6×6 Paper Pad. I cut a piece just large enough to mat my card front, but small enough to let the green card base show.

Thanks for visiting!

Computer Signature

13Feb2018

Concord & 9th’s Love Always

Posted in Cards by My Empty Nest Creations

I just love the cascading hearts border stamp in this set, and I’ve been wanting to use it for a long time. Today is the day! My original plan was to have the hearts cascading from the center out of an A2 size card front. Just as I was about to implement my plan, I realized that it would mean that the top portion of my card would have upside down hearts 😦 So, I had to come up with something else.

My Empty Nest Creations Cascading Hearts Love Card

I decided to stick with original plan and have the center of my card be “heartless”, but to avoid having upside down hearts, I just stamped the border stamp in the same direction–once on the top and once just below center. Next came my favorite ink blending. I used Candied Apple, Picked Raspberry and Worn Lipstick Tim Holtz Distress Oxides. My Favorite Things Love die is one of my favorites. I die cut that out of the center, and attached my pink card front onto an A2 top folding card using foam tape. I just love the recessed look of the letters (unfortunately, the photo doesn’t show that very well.) The sentiment is from Simon Says Stamp Handwritten Borders stamp set. The stamp actually has the word love at the beginning. I just wiped the Versamark ink off of the word love, so that I could have just “everything about you”. The greeting is white heat embossed onto black card stock. After trimming out the black piece, I thought that it seemed too wide and covered too much of the love die cut area. To get around that, I just fussy cut around it–perfect!!!

Thanks for visiting!

Computer Signature

21Jul2017

Unity Stamp Co. Hugs, Kisses & Birthday Wishes

Posted in Cards by My Empty Nest Creations

I love clear stamps for a multitude of reasons, but I will never give up on my cling stamps. Their clean, crisp stamp images are fantastic! Some of the best cling stamps come from Unity Stamp Co. They have several sets with an adorable owl that I just can’t resist. The Hugs, Kisses & Birthday Wishes is a large set that includes many different birthday sentiments along with this adorable owl surrounded by a large bouquet of balloons.

My Empty Nest Creations Unity Hugs, Kisses & Birthday Wishes Stamp Set

I stamped him on Bristol paper using Memento Tuxedo Black ink (Copic friendly), and colored the image with various Copic markers. When cutting it out, I didn’t worry about the balloon strings because I knew that I could just draw them on the card at the end.

I just received the My Favorite Things cloud stencil, so I used it to create a soft cloud/sky background with my ink blending tool and Distress Ink. I used fun foam to adhere the owl image and added a very thin pink strip of card stock to each side. For a little bit of color balance, I glued a bright blue piece of card stock to my card base.

I chose one of the many wonderful birthday greetings from the stamp set and added that to the top. To finish it off, I used my clear Wink of Stella marker on the balloons (unfortunately, you can’t see that in the photo).

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies Used:

Stamps: Unity Stamp Co. Hugs, Kisses & Birthday Wishes
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black
Markers: Copic Sketch Markers, Clear Wink of Stella
Paper: Neenah Solar White 110#
Other: My Favorite Things cloud stencil

26Jun2017

Just Loving the Stampendous Fronds Stamp Set

Posted in Cards by My Empty Nest Creations

I have had this set for quite a while now, and I just love how versatile it is. For this card, I used several of the stamps to create a wreath. First, I lightly drew a circle using one of my circle dies as a template above center on an A2 size piece of white card stock. I chose a few of the stamps in the set giving the wreath a little more unique look and stamped in various shades of Distress Ink (Fossilized Amber, Abandoned Coral, Pine Needles, Forest Moss and Crushed Olive). The berries stamped in Abandoned Coral looked a little washed out, so I took a black fine tip Sharpie and outlined those.

For the circle die cut, I decided on using Crushed Olive and the watercolor “smooshing” technique. I pressed the ink pad on my mat and sprayed it with water. I “smooshed” the circle die cut around until I got the coverage that I wanted. After it was dry, I sprayed a little more water on it to give it a more distressed look. To define the circle, I used my ink blending tool and blended some Vintage Photo lightly around the edges.

I popped the circle die cut up with some fun foam, and used the My Favorite Things Many Thanks die to cut out my greeting. I twice gold heat embossed the die cuts to get complete coverage, and glued them to the circle die. The card front need a little more balance, so I trimmed a little off of the top and bottom of the wreath card front. I gold heat embossed the top and bottom edges of a new A2 sized card front and glued the wreath card front on top. I think that last step just finished it off nicely.

Thanks for stopping by 🙂

18Jun2017

Reverse Confetti’s Bear Hugs Stamp Set

Posted in Cards by My Empty Nest Creations

I just recently purchased this set with the matching dies during the recent Reverse Confetti sale, and I’m so glad that I did. Koalas have always been one of my favorite animals ever since my husband and I held one during our honeymoon in Australia. They are just so adorable!

I started by painting some rainbow stripes on watercolor paper using my Gansai Tambi watercolors. While that was drying, I stamped those adorable koalas onto Bristol paper using my Versamark black ink pad. I heat embossed those images with clear embossing powder. (I love the way that gives me boundaries for my coloring.) Using my Zig Clean Brush markers and a waterbrush, I watercolored the bear images and cut them out with the matching dies.

I used my My Favorite Things Blueprints 13 large pennant die to cut the watercolor piece. For a little bit of dimension, I adhered the bear with the flower with fun foam and glued the other bear die cut with liquid glue.

For the background, I clear embossed a piece of Bristol paper with the Hero Arts Designer Woodgrain wood stamp and ink blended over it with Weathered Wood Distress Ink. I don’t think that I’ve ever used that color before. I love the blue/gray color! I balanced it out with a strip of black striped paper (I used my MFT striped background stamp and black heat embossed a large piece of paper to use for a bunch of cards.)

The sentiment is from the Avery Elle Simply Said: You stamp set and is white heat embossed on a stripe of black card stock. I added a few black Nuvo drops to finish it off.

Thanks for stopping by 🙂

9Jun2017

My First Cutsie Critters Card

Posted in Cards by My Empty Nest Creations

For the past few years, I’ve seen these incredibly adorable “critter” cards all over the internet. I have admired/loved them, but never had any darling animal stamps of my own. Thanks to Butterflyreflectionsink and her tremendous sale, I was able to purchase some sets (and the matching dies) from W Plus 9 that I’ve had my eye on. They are the Friends for all Seasons sets, and they are just the cutest.

My Empty Nest Creations card using W Plus 9 Friends for All Seasons stamps

I started with a 4.25″ x 5.5″ piece of Bristol paper. Using Hero Arts Soft Sky shadow ink, I stamped several of the animals in all directions on the paper. I stamped them again slightly offset with Memento Tuxedo Black thinking that I was going to use Copic markers. Once I saw just how cute the stamping was with the black and white, I decided to leave them as is and just do a light blue watercolor wash using Tumbled Glass Distress Ink and my waterbrush.

I stamped a couple of the animals on Bristol paper and colored them with my Copic markers, and cut them out with the matching dies. My original thought was to just pop up the cut images with foam tape and place it on the black/white/light blue background. It was just too busy. The colored images didn’t really stand out, so I decided to cut a piece of velum using the Avery Elle Wonky Stitches die to place on top of the black/white/light blue piece. (Before I cut it out, I ran it through my laser printer with a cute “from all of us” greeting.) It softened the background just enough to let the colored images shine. Because velum is such a tricky paper to adhere, I just placed some liquid glue behind where the colored die cuts were on the back side of the velum. To finish, I white heat embossed the “Happy Birthday” greeting from My Favorite Things Birthday Bears stamp set onto black card stock. As usual, I thought the card needed just a little bit more, so I added some Nuvo drops in a few matching colors.

Thanks for stopping by 🙂

24Jan2017

CAS(E) this Sketch #205

Posted in Cards by My Empty Nest Creations

Another one of my favorite card sketch challenge sites is CAS(E) this Sketch. Their sketches always challenge me to try and think outside the box (which is a pretty difficult thing for me).

Here is their latest sketch…

and here’s what I came up with…

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I started off with my favorite size card base–A2 4.25″ x 5.5″ made from kraft card stock. I then cut my patterned paper from 2 different 6×6 My Mind’s Eye paper pads by eyeballing it. I have to get better at being more precise when it comes to cutting paper 🙂

Using the Pierced Heart Stax dies from My Favorite Things, I cut the hearts out of the top kraft layer, the blue layer and the yellow layer, leaving the red layer alone. I adhered all of the layers so that the hearts lined up.

After seeing it all put together, I thought it looked a little dull, so I added the black strips along the outside cut edge because I knew that my greeting was going to be black. I triple cut the love greeting from the Simon Says Stamp Love die set and glued them together to give a little dimension to the greeting. Even after that, it still looked a little plain, so I pulled out my newly acquired black Nuvo drops and added those above the heart and below the greeting. I also added the small kraft heart in the center from the Pierced Heart Stax smallest die.

I hope you like it!

21Jan2017

Freshly Made Sketches #271

Posted in Cards by My Empty Nest Creations

Once again, I’m enjoying the sketches from Freshly Made Sketches. I just love how they are simple, but allow for a lot of interpretation. It truly is a great site. Be sure to check them out!

Here is the most recent sketch…

and here is my interpretation…

I used two different stamp sets for the floral piece—Altenew’s Adore You and Stampendous’ Fronds. I stamped them in Versafine Black (my favorite crisp black ink), and did just a little Copic coloring. I didn’t intend to do such a large gray outline with my Copic marker until it decided to just leak on my image. I’m not sure why that happened, but it has definitely happened before. Oh well…I think I camouflaged it pretty well.

I then cut my piece apart to allow for my greeting. I knew I wanted a white embossed greeting on black, so I played around with various greetings until I decided on this one from My Favorite Things Delicate Pretty Poppies. I cut my black mat and then cut a little more off of my floral image in order to fit the greeting. Using my powder tool to help define the area, I stamped with Versamark ink and embossed with white embossing powder.

You can’t tell from the picture, but I adhered the white floral image sections with foam tape to raise them up from the black greeting area. For final touches, I added some white dashed lines to help define the greeting and some Nuvo Crystal Drops in Red Berry. The card base is a light gray to compliment the gray floral outline.

I hope you like it!