Time for another Design Team Thursday! This week we’ve got a fantastic tutorial for you from our wonderful Micheleabella, sharing how she creates a beautiful brick background for her stamped images.

Hi everyone! It’s Michele here today. I had quite a few questions regarding how I created a brick background on a recent Stamping Bella card so I thought I’d share with you how I created that background.

I used new flowersbehindmybackABELLA from the new Bella 2.0 line (LOVE), a couple Post It notes and removable tape, brick stencil, two inks and a blending tool.

Stamp the image and color with desired medium.  (I used Copic markers.)  Adhere two Post It Notes together then stamp the image to use as a mask.

Carefully cut out the image, cutting directly on the stamped outline. In the areas such as the flower bouquet, it is not necessary to cut in between each flower. (I’ll address that issue in a bit.)..

Using removable tape, securely adhere the masked image to scrap paper. Align the stencil over the image and adhere securely with additional removable tape.

Using the desired base ink color (I used Natural), begin blending ink over the stencil. I achieved the best results by beginning the blending motion over the mask and moving onto the surrounding area using circular motions. As I moved further away from the image, I applied less ink to create the faded edges.

With just a bit of a second color of ink applied to the blending tool (I used a light pink), lightly sweep the blending tool from right to left, applying more ink close to the image. The goal is to apply color to the left side only of each open area to create depth.  Additional colors can be applied if desired.

Remove the stencil and mask. There were a few areas where my mask wasn’t exactly aligned but that’s ok. (See the left edge of the dress and left edges of flowers.) I had planned to add shadow around the image anyway to create depth.
In the areas between the flowers where it was too difficult to cut the mask, I used a Copic marker, matched to the brick color, to fill in those white areas. No one will ever know.

To create additional depth, I decided to stamp the skirt a second time. I colored, added some dots then adhered the top edge directly to the full image and placed thin, clear foam squares beneath the bottom edge.

Over To You!

We hope you’ve enjoyed checking out Shelabella’s tutorial and are feeling inspired to try it out yourselves. If you do, make sure you drop by and share with us! You can get in touch in all the following ways:

• On our Facebook page – tag us, post your Stamping Bella creations on the page.
• In our Facebook Group Stamping Bella Sistahood – share your creations, chat with other sistahs!
• On Instagram – tag @stampingbella and view our feed HERE.
• Here on the blog – share your thoughts and links to your Stamping Bella creations down in the comments section!

Happy Stamping!Save

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Time for another dose of inspiration from one of the Bellarific Babes. It’s Design Team Thursday and this week Faye-WJ-abella has a fun technique to share.

Hey Peeps, it’s Faye here today 🙂

Sponge. Perhaps I’m being a little presumptuous here. But. Sponge. Not just for washing baby arm pits. I know, it’s an overwhelming thought. So, while you let that sink in for a moment, let’s talk about backgrounds.

My style is very clean and simple. But every once in a while, I fancy a little ‘pop’ of colour behind an image. Sometimes, if I feel like getting ink all over my hands, nails and desk, (that’s with scrap paper in place, by the way. If I didn’t have the paper, well. Nuff said.) I’ll get the Air Brush out. And sometimes, I like to get a different fix of Messy. I know, the shocks just keep coming, don’t they?

So, let’s take Thinkingofyouabella, who, is perfect for a little Arty Farty Background Moosh. Now, before I tell you that I am going to colour around the edge of the image with RV91 and R81, as rough and messy as I like… You want to do this part first. Trust me, colouring the background first is a must.

You’ll notice I have already decided my Light Source will be Top Right, which is why I have more of the R81 on the left hand side.

Now, you’ll want a plate, or a Craft Mat, or something you can squirt some Colourless Blender on. Dip your piece of Sponge, (or in fact any fabric with some texture to it, (Put the Bath Towel back please!)) in the Colourless Blender and then apply your Sponge, to the background ink. One pink elephant. Two pink elephants. Three pink elephants. Stop. Move around your image until you have Mooshed the whole lot with the Sponge. You may need to re-dip your sponge as you go.

It’s worth noting that you get different effects by:

• Using different fabrics.
• Varying the amount of pink elephants you count.
• Changing how much Colourless Blender you start with.

I used a lot of wet as that was the effect I wanted, but if you use less, the texture of whatever you are pressing against the paper shows more. So play around.

Now the Mooshing is done, we can colour the image.

Finally, I doodled some and called her done. But that’s only because I chickened out of doing the thing I had planned to do. Maybe I’ll show you that another time 😉

Have a great day.

Faye x

Over To You!

We hope you’ve enjoyed checking out Faye-WJ-abella’s tutorial and are feeling inspired to try it out yourselves. If you do, make sure you drop by and share with us! You can get in touch in all the following ways:

• On our Facebook page – tag us, post your Stamping Bella creations on the page.
• In our Facebook Group Stamping Bella Sistahood – share your creations, chat with other sistahs!
• On Instagram – tag @stampingbella and view our feed HERE.
• Here on the blog – share your thoughts and links to your Stamping Bella creations down in the comments section!

Happy Stamping!

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Hey everyone!

Steph here! Today I’m sharing some inspiration on how to give your stamping a fun 3-D decoupage effect!

I’ve made a couple of 3-D decoupage effect cards before- see my card below with Tiny Townie Bonnie Loves Bows

This time I’m using Uptownie Winnie Looking Out The Window…

Firstly, you need to look at the image to see what you need to stamp out to create the layers. Here I decided to stamp out:

1. The complete image for the base of the image
2. The complete image
3. The window box and foliage

On the 1st image, I coloured the entire image and paper pieced the curtains. I didn’t worry too much about the quality of colouring on the frame, window box and foliage as these will be covered by other layers.

On the 2nd image (see left here), I coloured the frame and the window box and foliage (not worrying too much about the quality of colouring on the window box and foliage as this will be covered by a final layer). I then cut out the frame and the window box and foliage.

On the 3rd image (see right here), I coloured the window box and foliage and cut out. I then cut out a piece of acetate to fit the window

I then made the rest of the card and stamped out the accompanying sentiment. I attached the acetate to the second layer of window frame using very thin (3mm) double-sided tape and assembled all the layers using 3-D foam pads

You can see the layers here. I just love the effect it gives. Doesn’t she look so dreamy??!!

Hope you enjoyed this week’s tutorial and have fun creating your own 3-D scenes! x

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AliceWERTZabella!

Alice made a GORGEOUS card for us today with her amazing NO LINE technique!  She uses ANTIQUE LINEN Distress Ink and Copic markers.. and she works her magic!

On this card she used our Tiny TOWNIE ANABELLE needs your ADDRESS

Anabelle is such an amazing stamp because as you see, you can put a die cut message in it.. you can use your favorite stamp sentiment in it.. you can even use it in your journal with your thoughts of the day!  So versatile, ifidosaysomyself

here’s the closeup just showing you the detail and how beautiful it is.. kind of like watercoloring no?

and here is the final card… I just love it! I hope you do to0!

MWAH

Em

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Welcome to Stamping Bella’s Design Team Thursday!  Today I’d like to show you a little project that helps us get more use out of our smaller stamped images.

I’m working with two stamp sets.  For my main card images I’ve used the Mail Chick set with it’s coordinating dies.

I’ve also cut a piece of red cardstock and a slightly smaller piece of vellum.

The second stamp set I’ll be using is the Mr. Postie’s Mini Envelope Accents and some Versamark ink

     I couldn’t find my regular powder tool so I just grabbed some talcum powder and used a little on the vellum to get rid of any static.  I used a paint brush to spread it all over.

     Next I stamped a couple of the images from the Mr. Postie set, the small letter and air mail airplane, randomly on the piece of vellum and then sprinkled on some white embossing powder.

     After heating the embossing powder with a heat gun my vellum panel was ready.  I then attached it to the red cardstock with a few little dots of glue here and there.  I went back later and added a couple more embossed imaged along the top edge to balance out the panel a bit better.

And here you have the finished card with a fun background created from those little accent stamps.

There are other stamps in the Stamping Bella collection that would make awesome backgrounds like the cherries in the Cherry Chick set, the cloud in the Edna Blows a Kiss set, and the Easter Eggs in the Row of Bunny Wobbles set

     Don’t let those little treasures gather dust.

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Hi Everyone!  Tracy here.  Today I am sharing a quick and easy technique to make a watercolor  background.  You can use whatever watercolor inks/paints you have but today I am using Tim Holtz Distress Inks.

Here is what you need to get started.  I’m using Budding Chick Stamp and Budding Chick “Cut it Out” Die. You will need a 4 1/4″ x 5 1/2″ piece of watercolor paper. For backgrounds I use a cheap paper – Artist Loft. For Images I use Canson or Strathmore. The inks that I used are: Tim holtz Distress Inks in Broken China, Faded Jeans, Peeled Paint and Bundled Sage.  You can use the pads or reinkers. If using the pads just stamp onto a piece of plastic or something non-porous so that you can lift the ink with your brush.

Because I dry my paper between layers – I have this piece of board I use so the heat doesn’t damage my table. You can do whatever you normally would do.  I then tape the edges down. This helps in keeping the paper flat and not getting wonky when adding water to it. You can use painters tape, I just use some old washi tape.  I like washi because it doesn’t tear the paper.

After you have your paper adhered, wet the paper with plain, clean water. Then lift some of your Peeled Paint ink and start dabbing onto your paper to create the “grass area”. Do the same above with the Broken China.

After you add in your inks – heat your paper to dry it. You could just let it dry naturally but I’m antsy and when I work on something, I want to complete it. If you do not let your layers dry in between your inks will get muddy!! You have to dry in between layering.

Now you can go on top and add in a couple of dots of the Faded Jean and Bundled Sage. If it’s too harsh just add some water to the top and let it spread out a bit. You can also take a paper towel and dab it.

On my final background you can see that there are couple “bleached” out spots. After I added my 2nd layer of colors, I dried it again.  Then I took my brush, added some plain water to it and flicked it onto my paper.  Let it sit for 10-30 seconds and then took a paper towel and dab the background.

Now onto Coloring the Budding Chick. Below are the colors I used. Sorry for the blurry pic….my camera did not want to cooperate!

After your image is all colored you will then cut it out using the Budding Chicks “Cut it out” Die.

Add some foam squares to the back to “pop” it up.

I finished off my card by cutting out the background with a stitched border. Then used a heavy adhesive, like scor-tape, all around the edges to adhere my background. Watercolor paper can get a little wonky, taping it down as we did in the first step will help though!  Just use a good strong adhesive.
Next I added a small flagged sentiment and finished it off with a button.

Here is the final card:

Thanks for stopping by!

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Please read with an English accent. Thank you!
Every once in a while, I like to give the Copics a rest (I figured they deserve it.) and dig out the Pencils. (I used Polychromos here.) I love colouring with Pencils, (Sssssssh, don’t tell the Markers!) I enjoy how the resulting rough texture of Pencil on paper, is so different to the buttery smoothness you get from colouring with Copics. Ummm, mmm.

Anyhoo. Instead of just colouring with Pencils, I thought I’d play around with colouring in Pencil, on different coloured card and comparing the results. I know. Far out!

So, first things first. I used white card, (booooooring, in a coloured card experiment, I know, but, we need a base line, Peeps.) kraft card and black card.

In the case of the white and kraft cards, they both had a bit of tooth, or texture to them, which is great for Pencil work. The black card was lovely and thick, but it was smoother and so didn’t take as many layers of Pencil before the fibres broke down.

I used the exact same Pencils on each of the images, but, on the kraft and black card, I put down an initial layer of white Pencil First. Who said that was cheating?!

Alrighty then, here’s Tiny Townie Penelope has a Pencil on white card…

Isn’t she adorbs? Luuuuurve her. Here she is again, this time on kraft card…

Oh my, she’s sooooooo cute. Let’s just have another little peek at her…

Did you notice how I stamped the image in different coloured inks on each coloured paper? Yep, I live life on the edge. Rock ‘n’ Roll, Baby!

So, you can’t have three Penelopes sitting on the desk with no party to go to. Better sort that out. Look, all the same, but different. Oooooooooh…

Thanks so much for stopping by today. Well done on keeping the English accent going all the way though! Have a great day. Hugs xx

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