Cards from New Year Masterboard

I managed to make six cards from yesterday's masterboard.  

Again, it was just a matter of putting the pieces of the masterboard against various colours of card.  Red was the first colour that clicked for me:

Then burgundy:

I came round to the teal last:

A close up of this last one:

All of the cards have 'Happy New Year' penned inside using gold ink and a calligraphy nib:

And one more snap of them all together:

Happy New Year!

A New Year Masterboard

I've been enthralled by the white fairy lights on trees and windows at this time of year, and so I decided to try my hand at a masterboard of whites and golds.  I really enjoyed the last one and have been itching to do another.

I started with white and buff acrylic paint pulled with an old credit card across a page of A4 prepped with gesso.  I then did a second layer with white and metallic gold acrylic paint.  It would have been good to snap a photo at this stage, but it did not occur to me until later... 😒

I then mixed a bit of golden yellow with white to make cream, and stencilled very small cream snowflakes over the gold bits.  I then stencilled very small acrylic metallic gold snowflakes over the white bits.  Finally, I used individual letters and numbers to stamp '1 Jan' and '2018'.  I also have a stamp that is slightly suggestive of a firework, so I also randomly stamped that all over as well.

These close-ups show a bit more detail:

Next, the tough part . . . cutting it all up:

This next photo show how the gold paint reflects the light:

So now to turn these into New Year cards ...

(...which are now posted here).

Last Cards from First Masterboard

My intention with this first masterboard was to stick with it until I made cards from all of the pieces.  Too often, my attention is drawn to something else before I really learn what I've set out to learn from the current project or technique.

I played with pieces of paper, card and masterboard and got stuck for awhile (my normal pattern).  Got unstuck today and put these last three together:

I'm still debating whether or not to add anything else to the one below.  Maybe the textures and colours can stand alone...

Not really keen on how this last one (below) turned out.  I tried a variety of things, and nothing really seemed to work.  Still, happy to have completed the exercise.

And the last three together. I've not made envelopes yet, and I actually don't have any gelli prints from my overflowing folder that would work.  So...must get out the gelliplate!

All in all, I like the masterboard approach.  I'll definitely be doing it again.

Card 4 from First Masterboard

Card 4 has involved stamping and painting over the top.  I received a Tim Holtz Stamping Platform as a belated birthday gift a few days ago, and it made this effort possible. 

I did learn something from my first attempt, which I'll pass along.  The stamp stuck to the paper, possibly from the amount of pressure I applied combined with the multiple layers of paint on the base page (from all that masterboard activity).  This resulted in pulling the paper out of its original position and the second stamping wasn't perfect (which is the point of the platform).  For the flower's stem (a separate stamp), I applied more ink to the stamp and less pressure, which meant I had to do a couple of pressings, but that was fine.

So I'm in the zone of using up old Gelli prints.  The size of this card required a larger size of envelop than could be made with a single piece of standard size paper (A4 here), and so I had to extend the top a little bit.  The brown is a little warmer than it looks, on my screen anyway, and the little butterflies are more visible.

And here are the two together.  The brown on the envelope is the same hue as the base of the card (the lovely colour of dark chocolate).  The two will be winging their way to the bearer of the stamp-platform gift.

The flower and stem stamps are from PaperArtsy -- JOFY Stamp Set 51 (also a birthday gift 😊).  

Card Number 3 from First Masterboard

Card Number 3 from First Masterboard

A  design similar to the last one, but with different coloured card layers, a wee effort at calligraphy, and an envelope made from a different Gelli-print.

A bit of edging and detail using a gold Uniball Signo gives it a bit more zip, the photo doesn't really pick it up. 

The colours of the card and envelop are far more similar than how it appears in the photos. 

Masterboard -- First Attempt 

Finally experimenting with a masterboard approach to card making.  I was particularly inspired by the Paper Artsy video tutorial on the technique (you can see it here).

So I picked out a gelli-print from several years ago, one that I liked but that felt incomplete.  I've got a tonne of these that I don't know what to do with, and so I was hoping that a masterboard approach would get me unstuck.  

Unfortunately, I neglected to take a photo at this stage.  I brayered on a few more layers of paint and then stamped and stencilled flowers, lettering and butterflies on top of that:

I've included a few close-ups as well:

I then cut it up into various pieces:

I pulled out a few different colours of card to get a sense of what to do next -- a bit like trying on clothes (but so much more enjoyable).  

I sometimes stumble on the colour that feels like the perfect fit.  I can't say that happened this time, but I'm relatively satisfied with the first two cards:

The rest of the cards made from this masterboard can be found here, here, and here.