Gettin' Beachy

I'm loving ALL of the new Make-It Stencils and Stamps from Ranger, but I confess that the Beach Vibes set especially appeals to me right now. I stamped a bunch of the elements from the set (the chair and surfboard; the umbrella and sand; the sun and the sentiment) onto my go-to Simon Hurley create. Stark White Cardstock, embossed in Ranger Black E/P and then "watercolored" them with some of my favorite beachy shades of Archival Ink. 

There are quotes around "watercolored" because you cannot technically WATERcolor with Archivals since they are oil based... (you know what they say about oil and water, right?!) ...but you can do the same sort of technique by using a waterbrush full of Isopropyl Alcohol. You can dispense Archival Reinkers into a palette and dilute them; OR just smoosh the colors from the ink pads onto your craft sheet and pick them up from there. I generally do the latter, and this tag was no exception.

Since I was working on a #8 Dina Tag, I found it helpful to cut apart the chair from the surfboard, and the umbrella from the sand, for a slightly more compact arrangement. I stamped and embossed the seagulls right on the tag, then painted the background using the same method as the rest of the elements.

Check out the entire Make-It Collection at Ranger.com, where you'll also find all the inks, tools, tags and papers you could possibly need for your next project and beyond!

Even MORE Roses!

Spring is officially here but it'll be a little while yet until we see daffodils in our gardens, much less roses; so here are some that I painted using three of my favorite new Archival Ink shades from Ranger: Sweet Treat, Avocado Toast and Sand Castle.

I used a waterbrush full of Isopropyl Alcohol to pick up Sweet Treat ink I had smooshed onto my craft sheet, swirled it around into loose, semi-circular shapes, let it dry and then "found" the layers and petals of the roses and used Wendy Vecchi's brilliant Wonky Double Outline Trick with a Black Letter It Fineliner. For leaves, a vaguely triangular shape with the hypotenuse tucked under the flower works pretty well and a little bit of tannish Sand Castle ink mixed with the Avocado Toast adds interest and the illusion of texture. 

As with most of my watercolors (whether done with water-based or alcohol-based media) I like to use up any extra pigment by splashing it as speckles randomly on top of my design. So I did.

Bunny Hugs

Eyelet Outlet Rabbit Brads, Colored Eggs and Mini Butterflies turn sweet stamps into an adorable Easter card that's sure to make some-BUNNY's day when it arrives in their mailbox!

The stamps in question are from Simon Hurley's Easter Bunnies set and have been painted with Sand Castle and Sweet Treat Archival Inks from Ranger.

Eyelet Outlet has all the embellishments you need for all the holidays you celebrate; and the EO Blog has all the inspiration you need to use them beautifully!

Perfect Pearls Winter Cheer Card

Ranger's Perfect Pearls add magical shimmer and shine to any project, whether used wet or dry. Hop over to the Ranger Tutorials Page and follow along as I mix them with water to create pearlescent watercolor effects on this sweet and snowy winter cheer card.

Enamel Accents Googly Eyes Halloween Card

What's more fun than a Halloween card covered in googly eyes? A card covered in googly eyes you've made yourself, in every size and shape you could desire, using Enamel Accents! Hop over to the Ranger Project Tutorials Page and follow along as I show YOU how to do it... then stay to see how I add the eyes to this fun and funky (pink!) Halloween card.

Spoiler Alert: Dina Wakley's Scribbly Ravens and Block Alpha Stamp Sets also play a crucial part in this project, as does Simon Hurley's Moroccan Tile Background Stamp, some fab Archival Inks, and a few shades of Ranger Embossing Powder, including Glow Up, which is very cool in two ways: #1 it glows in the dark(!); and #2 in ordinary light, it makes the perfect neutral, especially when used on Black Heavystock (just sayin').

Smooth Sailing Father's Day Card by Lauren Bergold

Shocking True Confession: I used to find masculine cards very challenging to make, but Simon Hurley has designed so many fabulous stamps and stencils that mix and match to perfection; now it really is "Smooth Sailing"! Hop over to the Ranger Project Tutorials Page and find my step-by-step process for the thoughtful and colorful Father's Day card you "SEA" here; featuring Ranger Archival Inks, Embossing Powders and more!

Texture Paste plus Summer Vibe

Ranger Texture Pastes add dimension and interest to cards, journals and more. Whether you're looking for gloss, matte, opaque, transparent or crackle, you can find the perfect option for every project. Add a few drops of a Ranger Reinker to any variety and your options expand even further. Head over to the Ranger Project Tutorials Page and follow along as I use Transparent Gloss, Opaque Matte and Transparent Matte Texture Pastes on this colorful card inspired by Summer Adventures... past and future! 

My childhood vacations involved my brother, sister and myself sharing the backseat of the family car (semi-harmoniously), spotting license plates from as many states as possible, and looking forward to our destination. The adorable critters in Simon Hurley's "Road Trip" Stamp Set capture that excitement and nostalgia; Ranger Texture Pastes and Archival Inks let me convey the feeling in full color!

Coincidentally these three varieties are available in a Texture Paste Sampler Pack in case you'd like to try them out before choosing full sizes!

Spring Stickles Card

Stickles Glitter Glue is the perfect way to add the twinkle and dimension of glitter to your projects; and glitter-phobes need not worry about shedding or mess! I'm up on the Ranger Project Tutorials Page with the step-by-step process in which I use multiple shades of Stickles (there are over 50 different colors!) in several ways (painting with them; using them dimensionally and making dew drops). 

See how I went from this...

...to this...

and find direct links to all of the papers, inks and stamps I used, 

on the Ranger Project Tutorials Page!

Mandala Monday: Painting With Archival Inks

It's a Marvelously Modular Mandala Monday featuring three of my favorite new Ranger Archival shades... Aubergine, Beach Cruiser and Mountain Lake. I painted one large mandala using my Archival Reinkers and a waterbrush filled with rubbing alcohol; added random patterns with Dina Wakley Coaster Stencils; did some outlining with Letter It Fineliners; used the leftover diluted ink to add splatters galore; et voila!

Did you know that you can use Archival Inks do many of your favorite waterbased ink techniques, including paint with them? The secret is to use 91% Isopropyl Alcohol instead of water; because, of course, Ranger Archivals are alcohol-based. If you "smoosh" an Archival Ink Pad onto your craft sheet or dispense a few drops from a Reinker plus a few drops of alcohol onto a plastic-coated paper plate, you can then pick up the result with a brush. Please note that Archival Inks ARE permanent, but they do clean off of your craft mat with Alcohol Wipes. If you take the same precautions from staining as you do when using Alcohol Inks, you'll be fine!

After I finished the one big mandala, I sliced it into four ATC-sized quarters, added a few color-coordinated mats and made them into four A2 cards. 

I hope your second week of April is off to a nice start and that you find time to do something creative today!

PS: You still have until this Wednesday (4/10/24) to visit SCT Magazine's New & Noteworthy feature on the new Ranger Archival shades and leave a comment on their post for a chance to win ALL the new colors (& coordinating Stickles) plus a $50 Ranger Giftcard!

New Inks + Flat Layers

I'm still fairly obsessed with the new Ranger Archival Shades (Wine Cellar, Cayenne, Mountain Lake, Beach Cruiser, Aubergine and Graphite) so it's probably no surprise that this Mandala Monday features all of them... plus the new Mountain Lake Stickles*.

The technique on this one is a little bit odd... I drew the outlines of all the big shapes first (using a .04 Black Letter It Fineliner on Watercolor Paper); then  painted them using drops from the coordinating Ranger Archival Reinkers, pretty seriously diluted with rubbing alcohol. When the panel was dry (which is FAST with alcohol; much faster than traditional watercolor!) I used a few Simon Hurley create Background Stamps (Bitty Botanicals and Handwritten) as well as several layers from Simon's Polka Dot Assortment Layering Stencil Set to selectively add more pattern and additional (undiluted) levels of the same colors.

 

At the very end, I added some white paint pen doodles (to sharpen the divisions between shapes), neatened up my outlines, and filled in a few more details before using a fabulously helpful Angled Brush to add Stickles, then calling it good. I hope this Mandala Monday finds you well and with lots of ideas for sneaking in creative time this week!

*Of course, all of the new colors are also available as Stickles; but this time I only used the deep blue of Mountain Lake.

It's a Broody, Moody, Bloomin' Mandala Monday...

...thanks to all of the fabulous blue and purple shades of Wendy Vecchi Designer Series Archival Inks from Ranger! I drew a semi-symmetrical flower/mandala shape with several sizes of black Letter It Fineliner Pens on an offcut of watercolor paper, then painted it by (sequentially) smooshing Sky Blue, Cornflower, Night Sky, Cactus Flower, Petunia and Violet Archival Inks onto my craft mat and picking the colors up with a waterbrush full of Isopropyl Alcohol. I also flicked various colors onto the wet or dry surface; and a couple of times when there was a lot of extra ink on the mat, I turned the piece upside down and randomly blotted up the color. At the very end, I added additional details with a white paint pen and finally chopped the whole thing in half and made it into a pair of 5.5" cards.

MM49: Poinsettia Mandala

It's a Very Vecchi Mandala Monday, thanks to Wendy Vecchi's gorgeous Archival Inks from Ranger (in Bluebird, Prickly Pear and Cactus Flower) and her brilliant technique of painting with Archivals! 

You can do this by diluting Archival Reinkers with Isopropyl Alcohol (Wendy's favorite) or (as I've done here) by "smooshing" your selected colors of ink pad onto a Craft Sheet and then picking up the color with a Waterbrush full of Isopropyl.

Admittedly these are not traditional Christmas colors, and I've never seen a purple poinsettia... but I love how this turned out!

PINK Christmas!

It's the first week of October and thus it's time for PINK CHRISTMAS at Jingle Belles; the annual event where we ask YOU to make and link up as many predominantly PINK holiday cards as you possibly can, because WE (Stephanie and myself) are each going to donate $2 per card to The Breast Cancer Research Foundation! 

So what qualifies as a PINK CHRISTMAS card? It's pretty simple: the cards should be newly made, with a winter holiday theme, and they should feature PINK prominently. Does your whole card have to be pink? Certainly not. Can you combine other colors with the pink? Of course! Should you have more pink than say two or three baubles on your green tree set against a snowy white background? Well, yes... that would be good, lol. But other than that, we'll leave it to you to decide how much pink, what shade, and how to employ it! Can you link up more than one PINK CHRISTMAS card? Yes, indeed, please do!

Here's what I made this week:

I built my card around my favorite pink ink: Wendy Vecchi's Rosey Posey Archival from Ranger, and thus it seemed like a good idea to also break out the gorgeous poinsettia from Wendy's awesome Doodle Christmas stamp set. I gold embossed the blooms and used a waterbrush filled with Isopropyl Alcohol to paint them with the aforesaid Rosey Posey and Leaf Green. I added Sunflower Liquid Pearls to the centers and made a larger flower cluster on top of a background featuring some ancient Prima pink plaid paper, torn sheet music and a few strips of washi tape. I have literally no idea where that little sentiment sticker came from, but it was the perfect size and shape, so on it went!

You have until 6pm (Eastern) on Wednesday, October 18th to link your PINK CHRISTMAS card(s) at Jingle Belles and I hope you will!

MM35: Wendy Vecchi Inks and Stamps

It's a Very Vecchi Mandala Monday, thanks to my well-loved collection of Wendy's Archival Inks from Ranger and her beauteous background stamps which I've used in quite a random manner. 

In the spirit of full disclosure: I sat down to paint the basic shapes in Archival shades with a waterbrush full of Isopropyl Alcohol and my little spritzer bottle of the same... and as I worked, my sketchbook page started to warp. This NEVER happens with rubbing alcohol, only with water, so I was a bit perplexed. As it turned out, my spritzer was NOT full of isopropyl, it was filled with water! I thought about starting over, but then decided to keep going, rolled with the slight patchiness of the color, added lots of grungy stamping and voila... this fun and funky mandala is the result.

"SMOOSHED" Archival Ink Coloring

This summer I've been using my favorite Wendy Vecchi Archival Ink shades a lot to make randomly "smooshed" backgrounds, then add flowers and other doodles on top. I also like starting with a stamped or doodled image and painting them with Archival Inks using a waterbrush full of Isopropyl Alcohol. But today I experimented with a new way of coloring with Archivals, that sort of splits the difference between the two.

I started with this pretty hydrangea image, stamped and embossed in black. I chose the main color for the hydrangea, smooshed that shade onto the craft sheet attached to my Stay-tion, spritzed it with rubbing alcohol in a Ranger Mister, and dipped the hydrangea area of the tag into the wet ink, moving it about a bit to soak up as much ink as possible. It's difficult to target ONLY the flowers, but that's ok, it adds interest to the tag to have little hits of color elsewhere. Then I smooshed a secondary color onto the mat and picked it up with the background area of the tag, taking care to choose something blend-friendly; for example on the tag with Cornflower hydrangeas I used Prickly Pear; for the Rosey Posey flowers I have a Tea Rose background; the Orange Blossom flowers are surrounded by Peachy Keen, etc. Then I used a waterbrush full of Isopropyl to paint the leaves in a coordinating shade of green, touching up the stems or any areas that had absorbed a lot of ink with a green colored pencil if needed. Finally I added tiny dots of Wendy's signature shades of Liquid Pearls, stamped a sentiment and tied a bow at the top. 

I really like they way this method splits the difference between Archival painting and randomly smooshed backgrounds, so you'll definitely be seeing it again!

ICAD, Week 7

The NJ weather is pretty warm, but the Index Card inspiration on Instagram (aka #dyicad2023 hashtag) is red hot! Here are my cards from the past week:

Day 40: Mandala Monday

It's an Ink-Over-Collage Mandala Monday, featuring some of my favorite, extra-vivid Simon Hurley create inks, including Clear Skies, Later Gator, Shooting Star, Remember Me, Prom Dress and Roar!

Day 41: Off-Prompt

A surprising proportion of my collages are composed based on color; in this case cerulean blue and sunshine yellow. On a vintage library catalog card.

Day 42: Off-Prompt

Freeform funky flower doodles on a smooshed background of  Wendy Vecchi Archival Inks.

Day 43: Patina

Quite a loose take on today’s prompt of #PATINA because usually rust isn’t blue… 

(Ok yes, busted: this is basically just an excuse to sequentially smoosh some of my favorite Wendy Vecchi Archival Inks, including Night Sky, Prickly Pear, Sky Blue, Leaf Green and Morning Glory; and doodle with Ranger's Letter It Metallic Markers.)

Day 44: Wabi Sabi

Several years ago, during ICAD, was the first time I had ever heard of Wabi Sabi (the Japanese ethos of embracing the inevitable decay and perfect imperfection of the physical world) and the first image that I consciously recognized as being Wabi Sabi happened to be a crumbling brick wall with some vines growing randomly out of the mortar. Since then, I think I've made a Wabi Sabi Brick Wall card every year; and here's the 2023 version: handcut patterned paper bricks, pink index card mortar and stapled on wonky leaves. Not gonna lie... I really love this one! 

Day 45: Repeat

Pretty sure the "REPEAT" prompt was not intended as an invitation to repeat my favorite technique of a random collage featuring a historical lady, a sewing pattern layout, S & H Greenstamps, sheetmusic and found text (topped off with a few sticker butterflies) but... that's how I chose to interpret it!

Day 46: Millefleur

Millefleur is French for a thousand flowers, and has its origins in Medieval tapestries, where the foreground would have figures, animals or structures and the background would be filled in with lots of tiny plants and flowers, usually surrounded by green. Nowadays a millefleur pattern can be taken more loosely to be any allover pattern with smallish plants and/or flowers. In Italian, Millefiori also means a thousand flowers and generally refers to millefiori glasswork which comprises a bunch of glass canes all fused together and then sliced to resemble a sort of mosaic, vaguely floral, pattern. My card has very loose fleurs painted in some of my favorite Wendy Vecchi Archival Inks (Orange Blossom, Cornflower, Violet, Night Sky and Carnation) then outlined and detailed with Letter It Fineliners.

Week Six: Index Card a Day

Summer always seems to fly by at record speed, especially in June and July when we ICAD-ians are knee-deep in index cards and inspiration! Here's what I made this week:

Day 33: Mandala Monday

This weekend, Tammy G reminded me how much I love One Staple Collages, so I decided to celebrate Mandala Monday with a One Staple Mandala! My mandala layers are constructed of a library catalog card painted by my friend Mary and gelprints made by Gina and Linda (which they used to wrap some pretty fab birthday presents) enhanced with the newest set of Dina Wakley Collage Papers, Jumbled Letters, from Ranger and the dragonfly is from the biggest and coolest sticker book that Stephanie gave me. 

(Of which more later...) 

Day 34: Summer

Fresh strawberries are one of my very favorite summertime treats; I don't think I could even count how many of them I ate during the month of June. So when I found this cool pattern for adding an appliqued berry to knitwear, I couldn't resist a strawberrycentric collage.

Day 35: Astronomy

Inspired by today's prompt, I was randomly blending some of my new Simon Hurley create. Inks from Ranger, going for a sort of Aurora Borealis effect... and then... it turned into an abstract doodle. 'Cause that's the way I roll! 

Day 36: Imaginary

I'm taking an #IMAGINARY trip to Oahu, thanks to this fun hibiscus doodle, painted with some of my favorite Wendy Vecchi Archival Inks... Peachy Keen and Rosey Posey; with a little Viridian added in on the foliage. Did you know that the official State Flower of Hawaii is specifically the yellow hibiscus? So these are just "backup blossoms" then, but they were fun to paint and doodle! 

Day 37: Off-Prompt

Would you believe I had already made this torn paper collage background BEFORE Stephanie gave me the Botanists Sticker Anthology, the amazing book I referred to on Mandala Monday, which has hundreds and hundreds of gorgeous realistic plant and flower stickers.  

Day 38: Zodiac

My western Zodiac sign is Cancer and it's not that I have anything against crabs, but I confess I prefer my Chinese Zodiac sign, the dragon! This one came from the amazing Pearl River Emporium in NYC's Chinatown, he... (or she? it's hard to tell with dragons!) ...is perched atop a repro library card, adorned with a page from a Chinese zodiac calendar, and a little postage on the side.

Day 39: Levels

Funky (dotty!) flower doodles, made with my Zig Clean Color Dot Markers, from that late great bastion of NYC crafting... The Ink Pad! I like that the gridded card makes them sort of look like the coolest bar graph EVER!

ICAD: Week 5

We hit the halfway point of the Index Card a Day project this week, we're rounding the corner and heading into July, woohoo. If you're still chugging along, well done, keep going! If you've fallen behind, no big deal... just re-start! No catching up, no judgement, no nothing; re-start and do as much as you can, when you can. I know we talk a lot about 61 cards and "daily art practice" but the important part (imo!) is the commitment, not the numbers. If you were having fun and found it valuable, just come back! 

Day 26: Mandala Monday

I've "stretched" this mandala a bit, horizontally... to fit the 3x5 shape; but it's more or less symmetrical, thanks to my gridded index card, from the big box office supply store, last year!

Day 27: Indigo

Is it just me, or does my free-range organic leafy doodle look a bit like an #INDIGO version of Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors??! Feeeeeeeeeed me, Seymour!

Day 28: Asanoha Pattern

Every summer there a couple of ICAD prompts that I have to Google, and this is one of those! I hadn't heard of an asanoha pattern and it turned out to be harder to draw than I had expected. It took me two tries: the denser one is more accurate but somehow harder to see; the looser one is not technically the exact repeat (the spaces between are uneven) but it's quite pretty. Both were made using my Zig Clean Color Dot Markers, from that late great bastion of NYC crafting... The Ink Pad! ♥

Day 29: Evergreen

Sometimes I have a pretty firm plan for ICAD, and sometimes I just wing it. 

(Can you guess which this is?)

Day 30: Carnival

I started with a very abstract idea of a carnival... bright lights, bunting, lots of color ...and had a lot of fun painting curvy shapes with half a dozen shades of Wendy Vecchi's Archival Inks and a waterbrush full of rubbing alcohol. Alternatively, this represents what my plumage would look like if I were a bird! :)

Day 31: Charcoal

A very literal take on charcoal: it's briquettes! If charcoal briquettes were multilayered and machine stitched and ummmmm... plaid? K, maybe not that literal...

Day 32: Off-Prompt

This vintage book of different types of knitting stitches is in Japanese and is printed in monotones, but instead of black and white the sections are blue, green, brown and purple. (The purple is my favorite.) That scrap of sheet music already had stars stamped on (in Antique Linen Distress Ink, I think?) Instructions for the Pekinese stitch came from a very tattered vintage embroidery pamphlet. I composed this by making the lines in the various papers intersect in interesting ways; but then it needed one more element. The butterflies were the right shape, size and color. And that's probably as close as I can get to explaining my process for making a collage!

♥♥♥

Week 4: ICAD Round-Up

Heading into the official start of summer, with lots more index card artistry!

Day 19: Mandala Monday

It's a vintage collage Mandala Monday featuring some beautiful Hindi text; a dandelion-related library catalog card and illustration from a gardening book; and punched circles from two different colors of index cards.

Day 20: Tranquility

O is for Ocean, which is the first thing that came to mind when I thought about the #dyicad2023 Day 20 prompt, #TRANQUILITY ...so I got out all of my blue brush markers and made some waves.

Day 21: Postage Stamp

Putting the "mental" into "experimental" on with a Glue-as-You-Go collage, featuring one cent stamps plus floral washi stickers plus a few flower illustrations cut from an old, falling-apart gardening book. It's not perfect... (wish I had left more white space on the card in the postage layer!) ...but it's not bad. The point of the "Glue as You Go" collage exercise is to work loosely, commit to each element without dry-fitting or having a firm plan for what's next. You don't always get a finished piece you love, but it helps you become more confident that you can fix/adapt/improve on the fly and it's a great way to learn how to analyze what works and what doesn't; which will help you out a lot the next time! Perfect for ICAD really... 

Day 22: Unexpected

Rating the elements of this ICAD for their Unexpectedness Levels:

Pink + Yellow Color Palette: 2/10 (pretty expected)

Jaunty Random Stacked Triangles: 7/10 (kinda unexpected)

Handcut Goldfish: 11/10 (did NOT see that coming!)

Day 23: Enchanted Forest

...or in this case... Enchanted Florist! More painting + doodling with my Wendy Vecchi Archival Inks. One at a time, I smooshed three of my favorite (blend-friendly) colors (Rosey Posey, Bluebird and Sunflower) onto a craft sheet... spritzed with rubbing alcohol... and dipped the card into the ink. I repeated a few times with each color until I had a nice mix of blended and unblended color. After it was dry, I "looked for" the centers of the flowers in the random ink splotches and outlined them. Then I added concentric, rose-like petals. Then (this is the vital part!) I did Wendy's trick for turning a simple line drawing into a fun and whimsical doodle, which is to ADD A SECOND SET OF LINES! Simple... but it really really makes all the difference. I'd write more but you probably want to go try this for yourself and I don't want to slow ya down...   

Day 24: Bubble

During a two month project like ICAD it's important to acknowledge that some days we have more time and energy than others. My strategies for low-energy days include: embracing my comfort zone activities; "copying" something I've made before; and revisiting my favorite prompts. Conversely, on high-energy days I tackle more ambitious ideas and if I'm really on a roll, I might work ahead and make more than one card at a sitting. But honestly, part of the point of a daily art practice is learning that it IS possible to make art on days you're not particularly inspired; and accepting the fact that a few days of making art you don't love is not the end of the world. In fact, sometimes that "spectacular failure" you were embarrassed about... it might turn out to be the doorway to a really great innovation, two weeks later. We're nearly halfway through ICAD and all I can say is KEEP GOING! If you've missed a few days, re-start without worrying about catching up. The exact number of cards you complete and/or the date you finish is not the crucial thing, I promise! 

(PS: My easy, peasy take on the Bubble prompt consists of handcut, stacked, patterned paper circles on a vintage library catalog card.)

Day 25: Dictionary

A super-simple card with just a few elements: An orange and the characters for orange from a very fun set of Chinese language flashcards my friend Liz gave me; a bright yellow index card; the definition of orange from an old, falling-apart English dictionary and from the same source... a total bonus... the "OPQ" tab from the dictionary which fell off its page while I was putting the book away!

(ALWAYS embrace serendipity, that's my motto!)

♥♥♥

I'll be back next week with another ICAD Round-Up, in the meantime, I post these daily on my Instagram Account and my previous Round-Ups can be found under the ICAD Blog Label.