Orient Enchantment Event: In-Depth Look at Projects

Hello again, Lost Coasters, and welcome to a post where I'll tell you how I made each of the projects that were posted to the Portal to Creativity in the hopes of inspiring you to participate in our Orient Enchantment event.

I made three ATCs using stamps from the India Set ...the first is "Do More Than Exist," whose directions are the simplest...

I stamped the god from the India set onto a gelli print, then colored him with creamy colored pencils (leaving some of the background showing through) and with white and shimmery copper gel pens. Then I affixed stick-on copper gems to the card and outlined the pattern with more white and copper gel pen. Oh, and added a text label, of course!

For "Talk To The Hand," I scraped some white gesso onto heavy cardstock with a palette knife and let it dry. This gave a bit of texture and a nice base for the next layer. I got out some Distress Crayons, scribbled some color here and there, and blended it with my fingertip (the gesso helps the Crayons smear more evenly than they do on plain paper).

Using permanent black ink, I stamped the Calligraphy Square from Carmen's Veranda for a little background interest. Next I stamped the mehndi hand from the India Set, colored it with gel pens in fluorescent and glitter greens as well as metallic golds and white, and cut it out and collaged it to the card along with the computer-generated sentiment.

To finish the card, I scraped some black glitter paste through a stencil to get the little ball effects on the sides...added 3D dots made of shiny white Enamel Accents and metallic gold Pearl Pen...and edged the whole piece in more black glitter paste. This added dimension and texture to the finished ATC.

For "I Is For Indian Peafowl," I first stamped the peacock from the India Set onto white cardstock and masked him off, then stamped the Taj Mahal behind him and masked that off. Next I applied Distress Inks with a mini blending tool around the masked images, then used the spritz-and-flick method to forcefully apply water droplets to give a mottled effect to the ink background.

Next I stamped the Clover Scroll Border along the bottom of the ATC and embossed the image with silver powder. I colored the clover scrolls with colored pencils, and added a border of dots made with metallic blue, gold, and white gel pens.

I painted the peacock with various colors of Twinkling H2Os--the shimmer on him was amazing in real life! Since the famous mausoleum is white, I left the Taj Mahal uncolored, revealing the plain white cardstock underneath the mask.

Lastly, I stamped and embossed the capital I from the Old Typewriter Alphabet, collaged the genus label onto the card, and edged it all in black chalk ink.

And there you have three very different ATCs, but all with a touch of exotic India. I hope you have fun with the India Set (there are many more wonderful stamps included with it than shown by these three projects!), or check out the Persian and Asian stamp sets from Lost Coast Designs as well for a little more Eastern flavor.

It's a Party !

It's that time of year ... the season of the (dreaded !) Christmas party ...

This gorgeous gal from the Mini Manga set by Lost Coast Designs is certainly looking the part, heading out for the first party of the season :

The girl is stamped and colored with alcohol markers, then her dress and boots are clear embossed. She has been fussy cut.

The gorgeously rich background is made with Nuance powders by Magenta, and when it was dry, I stamped 'It's a Party!' from Party Words by Lost Coast Designs and embossed them in white. I added a little red washi tape and matted the ATC front onto red card stock.

Hugs and best wishes for the season, Nikki x 

Who Says Poe's Raven Was A "He"? (Besides Poe?)

Gothic Greetings, Lost Coasters!

Are you in the Halloween spirit yet? Well, you will be when you take part in the Lost Coast Designs Portal to Creativity spooky stamped art contest! Enter YOUR Halloween-themed art that uses rubber stamping (any company) for a chance to win one of TWO gift certificates to spend at the Lost Coast Designs store! See here for details.

As you are no doubt aware (clever reader as you are!), Lost Coast Designs is also participating in the 31 Days of Halloween Blog Hop, for which I am contributing a few projects. This one right here...

...is my own take on Poe's famous poem "The Raven" (visit my blog to read the full text of this sad and spooky Gothic classic!).

Now, Poe tells us that his raven was a boy. "PAH!" I say! Balderdash, even! Who needs your sexist raven-tropes around here? Not I! My raven is a WOMAN, do you hear? And not any slinky hot sexy young chick (<--see what I did there?) either. Mine is a GRANNY RAVEN and she has zero darns to give if you are shocked by this!!

I made this card by collaging the image of Lost Coast Designs' fabulous Old Lady Raven (that's what I'm calling her) from the Big Anthropomorph Birds set onto a background that I printed on my (beloved) Gelli plate. There's a bit of washi at the bottom and a hand-drawn spiderweb (with artist's pen and glitter gel pen) on the card too...and a single word, lovingly rendered in Bodoni for that Poe-period feel.

I hope my little piece gets you in the spooky spirit, and that you enter lots of art in the contest. We want you to win some of these fabulous Lost Coast Designs images!

Love and monsters, 

 

Anything Goes...with Nuance Powders :)

Hiya Lost Coasters! Today I have two quick projects up for the "Anything Goes" challenge that I wanted to tell you a little bit about and hopefully get your imagination and hands busy creating.  :)

I just got some of the Nuance powdered pigments this month and have been having lots of fun playing with these. Just a tiny sprinkle of powder and some spritzes of water = hours of entertainment! (OK, so I am easily entertained. But you probably will be too--these powders are COOL!)

The first project I wanted to share with you is this card to usher in October:

This was made by sprinkling autumnal colors of the powder onto white watercolor paper, keeping the sprinkles mostly to one side of the card. I then sprayed the paper with several spritzes of water. Where you use more water, the color runs and flows together, as in the big splash of fiery red and orange on this piece; drier specks of powder can also be seen moving away from the "splash" area, which gives an interesting textured look. (You might have to enlarge the pic to get a good look at this effect.) The amount you spray is up to you! Dryish or wet, these powdered pigments look fantastic, and the colors are beautiful.

Next I took two Lost Coast Designs stamps: an abstract background from the ATC Grunge Set, and the Gothic text block from ATC Text Set 1. To ink them, I stamped into the still-wet "splash" from the Nuance powders; I wanted to carry over the colors from the splash, so I stamped the abstract grunge set stamp into the white area of the card, then stamped the Gothic text block several times to add depth and interest to the splash area. It's OK that the text is wet and messy--it's just to add texture and isn't supposed to be legible. No need to be careful with this technique!

I then gave the whole thing a spritz of heirloom gold shimmer spray...you know, because I like shiny stuff. (Actually, it's super subtle in real life, the shimmer--I didn't use much!)

After drying this background with my trusty heat tool, I then composed the word "October" using the Rustic Alphabet Set  and embossed it with a mixture of green and copper embossing powders for a sort of verdigris patina look. Then I used a bullet-tipped embossing ink pen and wrote the word "welcome" and embossed it too.

I edged the card with chalk inks...mounted it on a shimmery pale gold card that I edged with heirloom gold metallic ink...then mounted the whole thing on piece of green cardstock, which I daubed with chalk ink for a soft sort of suede-y look in real life. And that was it for that project!

Now, for the second project that I made for "Anything Goes" using my new Nuance powders.  :) What is special about this ATC is the "cracked-glass effect" that I used to make it seem like the card is encased under a piece of...well, cracked glass.  :)  If you want to learn how to do this easy and fun technique, go have a look at the tutorial up on my blog and tell me what you think!

Here's the piece:

Happy creating...and happy fall!

--Paula

Mystery ATC

Hi Nikki here on the blog today, sharing an ATC I made for this months challenge at the Lost Coast Portal to Creativity. I recently bought Yupo paper and just had to play with alcohol inks on it. I thought the bright vibrant colors and patterns worked really well with this quirky image from Lost Coast Designs. This is one of the Mini flying ladies : 

 

I stamped one of the stamps from the ATC borders set onto this scrumptiously rich background and clear embossed it. Then I cut it to size. I stamped the Mini flying lady on to this paper too, and clear embossed and fussy cut her. I added white details and the word is from the awesome set, Misc words. If you haven't checked out Misc words yet, you should.

There is more ATC inspiration at the Lost Coast Portal to Creativity, and there will be a second inspiration post on 15th ....

Unrequited love ATC

There are a few things going on over at the Lost Coast Portal to Creativity, there is our new challenge which is to use something see-through (like acetate) and the Skellie-Fest. I have created an ATC that fits both of the these challenges/events.

Here is my make, an ATC featuring the awesome Winged Skeleton from Carmen's Veranda : 

For my main focal image, I stamped the winged skeleton onto the acetate in black versamark and embossed it in clear powder. I then coloured the back of the image with alcohol markers. I went around the edge in dark grey and added the punched out red hearts. 

Here is a close up : 

There are so many layers here .... The base is a playing card with acrylic paint in black and red. Then I added some white splodges of paint. Next I added a layer of vellum with butterflies on it. Then finally I added the top layer which is acetate. I made the frame from stamping the Swirls and Dots border from Lost Coast Designs onto black card stock and embossing it in a pewter colour. I then cut it down and distressed it and made it into a thin edge border. Finally adding brads and sentiment. I had a happy accident with the sentiment. I typed the words 'unrequited love' on my type writer and when I came to add some of the pewter embossing powder around the sentiment, it also adhered to the typed letters so I was able to embossed them in a matching colour.

Here is a pic of the light catching the front of the ATC, you can more clearly see the detail, layers and texture : 

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you will check out our events and challenges :)

Be you, bravely

Recently we had a fun event over at the Lost Coast Portal to Creativity, where we showcased some of Lost Coast Designs cracked critter stamps. If you missed that event, you can go HERE to view the DT makes. 

Kim made this ATC, using one of the adorable critters from Mini Cracked Critters Set 1 :

The background is made with various stencils, modelling paste and acrylic paint.

Why not pop over to Lost Coast Designs and check out what other critters there are :)

Diamonds ATC

Nikki here and I would like to share an ATC with you today, featuring the gorgeous gal Manga Goth Dots from Lost Coast Designs. 

Our challenge at the Lost Coast Portal to Creativity this month is to add a splash of neon or bright color. I think the pink is pretty bright here, it makes the flowers in her hair appear even bigger !

This gorgeous gal is colored with copics and gelli roll pen for her dress. I wanted to give it a PVC, leather sort of look. She is pretty sassy wouldn't you agree? Hence the words from the song 'Single Ladies' by Beyonce :

"If you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it"

See the bling on her finger ? Looks like someone 'liked it' ! LOL

For the background I have used two background stamps. Firstly I stamped Grunge Black Swirl from Carmen's Veranda in a taupe color. Then I stamped the Fourth Dimension stamp from Lost Coast Designs in peacock feathers distress ink and embossed with iridescent ice embossing powder.  I don't normally use much bling, but really thought this ATC was calling out for it. 

Finally I added a few more gems to the background, the words which I typed on my typewriter and I edged the ATC in black ink.

Thanks for stopping by and please go and check out our challenge.

Have a lovely day, Nikki x

We're not in Kansas anymore ATC

Howdy all, for anyone who follows our Events and Challenge Blog, the Lost Coast Portal to Creativity, you will know that we recently had a Wizard of Oz themed event.

Who is your fave character in the Wizard of Oz ? Dorothy ? Tin man ? The Wizard ? There are so many great characters to choose from. But there is one group of critters who don't get much airtime, so I decided to honour them .... The Flying Monkeys. Here is my ATC : 

This is one of the monkeys from Three Monkeys by Lost Coast Designs. This one is the speak-no-evil. Its open to interpretation obviously, but I personally think he's laughing about all this freaking people out business ... LOL.  He is stamped in Memento black ink and coloured with copics and gel pen, then I fussy cut him.

The tremendously large and imposing wings (arent they gorgeous) are from Carmen's Veranda. I stamped them onto velum with stazon and clear embossed them. I coloured the back of the wings white with a faber castell artist pitt pen and fussy cut them. And finally glued them to the monkey.

The background was painted with acrylic paint using an old credit card, then I added white lines and dots, and edged it in white. I glued on the flying money and cut off the section of wing that overhung the ATC. Finally I typed the words on my typewriter.

Hope you will pop over to the Lost Coast Portal to Creativity and visit Lost Coast Designs or Carmen's Veranda online stores to get a better look at these stamps :)

Have a lovely day, Nikki x

JOY ATC by kim

Hello!

Thanks so much for stopping by today! It's kim today :)

I have an ATC to share with you today, "Joy". I used the new Grunge Border 3" stamp and the Dictionary Words with Joy set.

This new border stamp is amazing, so many scenes inside it. Really lots of fun for so many things! The border is about 3 inches high and it is an amazing 11 inches long, perfect for Art Journals and any mixed media projects. I loved this particular section with the royal crow and clock, it does bring me "Joy".

I have more stamping details on my blog.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!
~kim

The ocean is my home

Hi, Nikki here. It is no secret .... I am a big fan of Artist Trading Cards (ATC's), and with all this cold weather here where I live, I thought I should create something warmer and what could be more appropriate than a mermaid swimming in the ocean on a warm sunny day.

To create this ATC I used one of my current fave background stamps, Whitecaps, coupled with Star Mermaid with face from Lost Coast Designs.. Have you seen the awesome selection of mermaids, go check it out at Lost Coast Designs.

Here is my ATC : 

The card stock was painted with various blue acrylics, then I heat embossed the whitecaps with pearl white embossing powder, adding some white gel pen to accentuate the white caps. The mermaid is stamped and colored with copics and fussy cut. Her tail and the star she is holding are glittered and the pearl she is holding is dimensional, using liquid pearls. With a craft knife I cut across the waves and slipped part of her tail in. The wording is handwritten. I think she makes a very beautiful focal point in this background.

Reminder that there are monthly challenges at Lost Coast Designs, they start the first Monday of each month at our event and challenge blog. This months challenge is 'Clean and Simple' and here is my make, featuring Cracked Party Cat :

Nikki x

Dia de los Muertos

At the Lost Coast Portal to Creativity this month, we had a Day of the Dead event, or Dia de los Muertos. This means it's All Soul's Day, celebrated in early November in various European and Latin American countries, especially Mexico. The holiday focuses on gatherings of family and friends to pray for and remember friends and family who has passed, and help support their spiritual journey.

I made some Dia de los Muertos ATCs, and I really liked the monochromatic look, with a splash of color : 

Here is my make, 3 ATC's featuring the Skull Flourish from Lost Coast Designs :

For these ATC's I wanted a very textured background. I used molding paste and colored it with grey acrylic paint. Then I applied it to the ATC base with a pallet knife and stamped into it with the skull flourish while the now grey paste was still wet :

 I then left the molding paste to dry and went to clean my stamp. I just used an old toothbrush and bar of soap. Its important to wash the stamp before the paste dries on it :

I sprayed the ATC background with black and white dylusions and let it blend and drip. Then I left it to dry. When it was dry I tore the edges, and sponged lightly with grey ink.

I stamped the skull flourish in black ink onto La Blanche card stock, and added a little embossing powder while the ink was still wet and heat set it. I fussy cut it and glued it onto my textured background. I used a C3 copics to go over some of the shading on the skull to add dimension.

See the texture : 

I typed the words on my typewriter and added the flowers and embellishment.

Finally I matted the textured ATC front onto grey card stock that I had edged in grey ink and stamped the mini skulls. It is very faint, but if you look closely you can see them along the edges. 

Here are individual pics of the three ATC's :

Don't forget that we have our monthly challenge on the Lost Coast Postal to Creativity. 

This month we are asking you to make Mail Art. I love mail art, there is nothing nicer than receiving a wonderfully decorated envelope in the mail, stamped and addressed to you.

Here is my creation, using one of the mini flying ladies, circle frame, Old Typewriter Alphabet SOPA from Lost Coast Designs and Carmen's Veranda background stamp, Postcard background.

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you found some inspiration here, Nikki x

Halloween ATC by Bibiana

Hello My dear "Lost Coast" Friends:

Here Bibiana....

Halloween ATC are very Fun to make and give away...
Lost Coast Designs, has several ATC stamps so do not forget to visit their main website.
Today I used the Rabbit paired with some other fun stamps...
This card is being  featured at the  "31 days of Halloween " event,  at "Lost Coast Portal to Creativity" blog.

For the background I used a "trellis" stamp that belongs to a set of stamps called "ATC misc. 5 set"....
This set comes with a "honeycomb background" and a "frame"...all designed to be used for ATC.

I tucked underneath some party hats and 2 mini skulls!
a last view

Enjoy the rest of this month's event: 

"31 days of Halloween", 

at the Blog "Lost Coast Portal to Creativity" 

with so many projects posted there 

every day for this "hop" sponsored by LCD!

Thanks for the visit

you can find me at my blog:

"stamping with Bibiana"

Supplies; Lost Coast Designs Stamps: 
Rabbits, Cat Face, Hatter;
ATC misc. 5 set;
Party hats 2 set; 
6 mini skulls;

 

Artful Artist Trading Cards (ATC's)

Hello Again!!! 

It's Tera, Here to show you some super fun ATC's! 

( I LOVE Artist Trading Cards!!! They are so fun to make and collect!! and Now you can even add the to Pocket Letters!!) 

Stamps Used:   

Queen 

Day Of The Dead Lefty

Tree Of Life 

To Create these ATC's I started with some Scraps of painted art journal paper given to me by my mom (Her blog is HERE). They were created with Dylusions paints and various stencils. I cut 3 pieces to 2x3in for stamping on and 3 pieces to 2.25 x 3.25 in to matte on. the final layer is black card stock in standard 2.5 x 3.5 in. I stamped my images on the top layer of each and set them aside to dry (ink on paint can some times be temperamental... although this paint plays well with stamps)

While the tops dried I glued the bottom and middle layers together. 

Next I glued the stamped images to their bases and used a fine tip black pen to draw on some faux stitching.... (I love that it pulls the layers together). 

Lastly I added a few hints of color to small parts of each card to help different features stand out a little more :D   Detailed photos below 

 I hope these inspire you to create some fun pieces too!! I Just love how these came out!!! :D 

A trio of ATC's

Hello everyone,

Corrie here, and today I have a  trio of ATC's inspired by Alice in Wonderland to share.

The backgrounds were coloured with Distress Inks and a blending tool after which I randomly stamped the cards. I doodled around the edges and added some washi tape. The images were stamped on white card stock, coloured and cut out. I adhered them to the cards. Lastly I created the sentiments with my old typewriter. They are (parts of) quotes from Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Caroll.

I used the following stamps :

Love Dictionary 

ATC Backgrounds

Rabbits, Catface, Hatter plate

Thanks you so much for stopping by today !

Corrie x

ATC Envelope by Bibiana

Hello dear Lost Coaster fans:

Here Bibiana....

This set of ATC (envelope and card) was made for the "skull appreciation day/event" that we had at the beginning of June at the NEW blog for Challenges and events called :
 "Lost Coast Portal to Creativity"

I made two envelopes...perfect to give away on "The day of day", which is coming in November 2nd

using a border punch ...
I glued 2 panels and made the envelopes for the ATC...

I colored the image, previously stamped on vellum, with "Copic" markers...

and here it is the ATC,
the stamp from "Lost Coast designs" is a skull called "Picado Skull" which was stamped in vellum
to mimic the tissue paper that Mexicans use to decorate their  altars during this feativity..

to know more about this festivity visit my blog..."stamping with Bibiana"

Thanks for the company 
and you can find me at my blog:
"Stamping with Bibiana"

  

SUPPLIES

Lost Coast Designs stamp: "picado skull"

Goddess of the stars

Hi everyone! It's my second post here and I am excited to share with you what I made for this month's challenge, ATC's!

For this ATC I used the stamp 'profile with stars'. It is one of my favorites of the Art Nouveau range at LCD. It was a pretty challenging one to make and when I started I did not know it would turn out like this. Am very pleased with the end result though! 

This is how I made it:
The background is made with distress stains aqua lagoon  and spun sugar on a light green paper base. I stamped the circle of the stamp with versamark on the background and embossed with stampin' up stardust embossing powder to give it that starry night effect. Another back ground made with distress stains wild honey, fired brick and vintage photo on green paper. Stamped 'profile with stars' on it with Staz-on rustic brown. Used a versa-marker on some elements I wanted to emboss with Top Boss Honey Gold. Then accentuated with a copic too tone marker in brown. The inner circle I removed with a tiny 3D Card scissors. To finish it off I added a bit of black soot rub on pearl at the edges of the ATC. 

 

 A Close up of the textures on the ATC.   

Hope this inspired you to play along with our challenge this month.

Thanks for stopping by!

Namaste.

Tarah xo