2019 #19 Cute Critters: Partridge in a Pear Tree with Squiggly Ink Egg and Nog {by Miriam Grazier}

2019 Topic 19: Cute Critters

Starting with a soft colours like Sage and Koala really allows the Blood Orange red to pop perfectly in this Christmas panel Miriam has made. A Squiggly Ink throwback for sure! And her partridge is the fitting cute critter taking centre stage! ~ Leandra

Hi everyone, it's Miriam with you today, and I'd like to share with you a Christmas card made using the wonderful Squiggly Ink Egg & Nog stamps.

When I first thought of the cute critters topic I immediately thought of this cute partridge. I decided to create quite a vintage looking card using rich colours.

The most exciting part for me was limiting my colour palette to 3 paints, two of which are colours that I don't normally use.

I wanted to keep my palette simple and chose Sage, Blood Orange and Koala. Blood Orange is translucent and I loved how this added just enough colour whilst showing the layers underneath it.

These were brayered using the amazing new PaperArtsy brayer - I think I have mentioned once or twice how this appears to be the perfect size for me!

The poinsettias looked really pretty stamped and painted on top of the brayered background.  

Squiggly Ink: Egg and Nog Plate 2 (SIEN2), Squiggly Ink: Egg and Nog Plate 5 (SIEN5)

The Blood Orange Fresco Acrylic paint looked just the right tone of red too.  It actually got me feeling quite Christmassy.

I also stamped and layered two poinsettias, giving them a bit of shape.  I added a star gem to the middle.  This poinsettia is a simple but effective - so pretty.

I wanted my cute critter to stand out and I certainly think it does that. 

I really hope that you like my cute critter and that I have encouraged you to have a go at this topic yourself.  There are so many cute critters in the PaperArtsy catalogue of awesome stamps.  It was so fun to use some of the older stamps that I have in my collection.  The Squiggly Ink range are so much fun and there are loads of images that you can colour in and make your own.

Make sure you pop over to my blog to see how I created this project.

Thank you for joining me this evening, and make sure you share your own cute critter projects.

Happy crafting!
Miriam

Blog:  Miriam's Creative Dreams
Facebook:  Miriam's Creative Dreams

2019 #19 Cute Critters: Christmas Humour with Zini's {by Nikki Acton}

2019 Topic 19: Cute Critters

Loving the fun and colour of these tags whipped up by Nikki. She's not only selected great zingy colour combos, but had fun with some stencilled layers too! Topped of with a zini critter, and we're good to go! ~ Leandra

Hi everyone, it's Nikki with you today from Addicted to Art, sharing some fun I had turning non Christmas images into Christmas ones.

I don't naturally do cute but I do love Elena's Zinski stamps - full of humour and character - so I enjoyed using her creativity to add my own bit of humour and Festive Fun! 

I picked a few of the mini stamps - the Zini's - that I thought I could add a little humour and sparkle to for some Christmas tags.

I created my backgrounds using Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylics, some stencilling (again not all Christmas images) with some stamping (I used Archival ink pads). I coloured my Zini images with a mixture of Distress Inks (using a waterbrush) and Zig Brush Pens. I used a white Posca pen for some doodling and Stickles for the sparkle. I typed the words on an old typewriter and used ballpoint pens to highlight.

I'm No Angel - This fella is bit grumpy about going on top of the Christmas tree! 

Stamp - Zini 06.

The background paints are Butternut and Granny Smith.  

The snow and Christmas words are from ESN29 and the background tree from HPXM08.

Too Many Again? Someone has been on the Christmas Sherry and is a little wobbly! 

Stamp - Zini 22

The background paints are Red Lipstick and Bubble Gum with Chalk used through stencil PS034.

  

Grrrr Christmas Cracker Hats - do they ever fit? I don't think he minds. 

Stamp - Zini 04

The background paints are Butter and Peachy Keen, 

I have also used stencils PS036 and PS102.

Really? I don't think he is too amused about being dressed as a snowman?

Stamp - Zini 13.

Background paints are Steel Grey and Blue Smoke with Peachy Keen and Aquamarine for stencilling.

 The pebble effect stencil is PS102 and the stars from PS018.

Of course there are some wonderful Zinski Christmas stamps - but I knew other bloggers were using these - so it was fun making these Zini's have a little Christmas fun. I am sure you can come up with some more humourous takes on these or other Cute Critters! I would love to see them.

Thanks for joining me today, I hope you have a creative week.

Nikki x

Blog: Addicted to Art

Instagram: @Nikki_Act

Pinterest: nikacton

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2019 #19 Cute Critters: Snowman Tag with EKC {by Jenny Marples}

2019 Topic 19: Cute Critters

Ohh, the GP texture Jenny manages below is astonishing! I thought she was working on textured paper, but no! She made it! how clever! ~ Leandra

Hi everyone, it's Jenny Marples (Pushing The Right Buttons) with you today, and I'd like to share with you a Christmas Tag featuring the cutest little snowman designed by Kay Carley.

I love using stamps, paints and scraps to create collages. Spurred on by the recent completion of a notebook using another of Kay Carley's stamp sets (see it here) I decided to give the techniques a go on a Tim Holtz Etcetera tag so it could be used for home decor purposes. Here's the finished tag;

I took photos of the steps taken to create the tag base ready to share with you today. Apologies for the lighting quality - the weather has been miserable here for what feels like a month! To start the tag was covered with white gesso before having Grunge Paste applied with a spatula in an uneven fashion. You'll see from the picture below that a smaller panel was altered in the same way before being stuck to the centre of the tag. You'll all know the quality of Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylic Paints - it only took one coat of Cloud 9 Fresco Finish Paint to cover the tag perfectly!

 

Bearing in mind the uneven surface and the addition of the central panel the only way to successfully add a couple of Kay Carley's beautiful willowy trees to the background was to stamp them in permanent black ink onto a single ply layer of tissue and stick them to the surface with Matte Distress Collage Medium. This technique also gives you the option of reversing one of the trees to face in the opposite direction. Then to 'grunge it up' a little and help define the surface texture I applied a wash of extremely dilute French Roast Fresco Finish Paint over the tag, dabbing away any excess with a paper towel.

When creating the notebook cover mentioned at the start of this post I discovered a wonderful way to make translucent coloured tissue for layering over stamped designs (so they can remain visible). Mix the tiniest amount of PaperArtsy Infusions with water and paint over tissue. You only need a single ply layer of tissue so you can imagine there will be plenty left over for future projects. Below you can see the four colours I played with - there are many more to try!

Having torn away the edges of a piece of the Rusty Car coloured tissue I applied it over the trees with more Matte Distress Collage Medium. I love that you can still see some of the wrinkles in the tissue when doing this.

Time to tackle the star of the show, the snowman - to replicate the feel of the main tag I added the Grunge Paste and Cloud 9 Fresco Finish Paint to a spare piece of thick white card. After applying a light wash of the dilute French Roast Fresco Finish Paint I stamped the snowman onto a single ply layer of tissue and stuck it onto the card. You'll see that baubles from set EKC31 were stamped onto his arms.

Having cut him out I added colour by painting over some of the snowman with dilute layers of Scottish Salmon, Peachy Keen, Waterfall and Toffee Fresco Finish Paints.

 

You'll see on the finished tag that the baubles have more of an orange tone to them - this is because I added a little of the Toffee over the Scottish Salmon before applying Glossy Accents to make them shine. Hint; if you are a little heavy handed with the paint in places (as I was) use a fine permanent black pen to draw in the missing lines.

At this stage I got lost in the process of adding the different textures and layers to the tag so here's a quick rundown of what was used. Apply torn pieces of the tissue coloured with In The Navy Infusions to a strip of white card (altered the same way as the snowman) and the edges of the tag. 

After sticking toile lace over the trees, add the card strip and a piece of cotton lace tinted with Seaglass Fresco Finish Paint. The snowflake remnant is a scrap of paper, painted with more of the Seaglass Paint and embossed in white with the snowflake from Kay Carley's stamp set. There's also a torn piece of teabag paper coloured with Golden Sands Infusions on top of a plain piece of calico fabric. To finish I added vintage sequins to the tree branches and the sentiment from the set, stamped on a strip of white card (altered the same way as the snowman).

Here are some close ups of the finished tag so you can see the detail more clearly. You'll see I added crushed silk effect ribbon to the top;

So as you'll see cute doesn't need to be 'girly' - you can go grungy too. I hope you've enjoyed seeing how effective those pieces of tissue coloured with Infusions can be when you need translucent layers - give it a try!

Thanks for joining me here today.
Jenny

Blog: http://pushingtherightbuttons.blogspot.com
Facebook: https://facebook.com/jenny.marples.73
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/jennymarples73/