Noel Angel: A Study in Silver and Gold

Seasons' Greetings, Lost Coasters! Today I have a Christmassy piece of wall or table art for you featuring some of Lost Coast Designs' very coolest (IMO) stamps! (Oh, who am I kidding...I love almost all LCD images so much, it's like trying to choose a favorite kid.) Anyway, I dig the medieval/Victorian Gothic vibe of these stamps so much that I had to combine them, with metallics, for some holiday glitz and festiveness! Here's the piece:

But this "official" scan doesn't capture the depth and sheen of all the metallics very well, so here's a photo of the piece in different light too, so you can see what we're really dealing with here!

Here's how I made it.

First I took some acid-free scrapbook paper that was printed with a sort of linen fabric-looking pattern, then brayered on some thin layers of silver and gold acrylic paint diluted with iridescent medium. This gave a rich-looking shimmer to the background.

Next, I got out this awesome angel from the Fortune Women set, inked it up with black permanent ink, stamped it...

...and then cut out a mask of the figure. I placed the mask over the stamped image using repositionable glue, and got out this fab arch from the ATC Misc. Set 6...and stamped right over the masked image.

Next, I got out some (slightly used) washi tape and masked off the area below the gothic arch where I wanted to stamp this Clover Scroll border, which I love SO BAD:

Here's what those impromptu masks looked like before stamping. 

After adding the scroll border, I pulled out my trusty Rustic Alphabet Set with its strong period feel, composed the word NOEL, and stamped that once in my permanent black ink. Then I overstamped it with embossing ink, offsetting the word just a TEENY bit to provide a hint of shadow, and embossed the word in gold powder.

Now it was time to add silver and gold gel-pen accents to the angel, border, and arch. And the piece was finished...

...Except for putting it in a frame, like so.  😊  Et voila!--a shimmery angel in gold and silver.

Happy holidays to you and your family!

Dia de Muertos Skull

November greetings, Lost Coasters! 

I have for your amusement today a little project in celebration of the Day of the Dead, the Mexican holiday with Aztec roots that gradually came to be associated with All Saints' Day in the Catholic Church.

I wanted this to have a traditional Mexican look, and chose cheery colors in a palette of corals, golds, and purples.

First I stamped the Skull with Wreath in black permanent ink, and masked it off. Then I stamped the Black Flourish twice around it in yellow. Next I placed the words using the Rustic Alphabet set, using several colors of Distress Ink, allowing them to blend together on the letters.

 I colored the skull with thick creamy pencils in whites and grays, giving a matte, rich, chalklike texture to the skull. Then I got out several colors of Twinkling H20s, the wonderful metallic watercolors that can become pretty close to opaque when applied thickly. I painted the leaves on the wreath, then went over the yellow ink of the flourishes with a few tones of gold and orange. Suddenly the whole piece shimmered and sparkled with light and life, a wonderful contrast to the dead matte white of the skull.

There are so many fun things to do with these stamps. I was glad to make this spooky skull a little more friendly for the Day of the Dead...the glory of our ancestors etc.  😁

Happy stamping!

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