Grungy Steampunk Light Bulb Card

Autumn with you today to share some techniques for a grungy steampunk card.  I simply adore this stamp set.  There are so many options for making your own backgrounds, as well as focal points.

I sponged the perimeter of my card base with Walnut Stain Distress Oxide, then flicked it with water to give some color variation.  I stamped the stripes with Vintage Photo over the sponging all the way around my card.

I created a second layer with different colored inks and stamped the dots in the same manner, but in the end didn't use it for this project.  For the top layer I tapped my inks onto my craft mat, spritzed with water, then dipped my panel repeatedly until I achieved the desired color.

I chose the Numbers stamp for this panel and stamped it with Fossilized Amber.  The trick to stamping with Distress Oxides is to lightly mist your paper after stamping to activate the chalkiness of the inks.

I dipped another panel in Fossilized Amber to stamp my lightbulbs.  I fussy cut each one and mounted the larger with double foam tape for additional dimension.

I dipped the die cut gears in my Oxides and glued them to my background.  TIP: Use dark colors of Oxides first then layer with lighter colors, as they will stand out more.

For my sentiment I dipped a panel in watery Vintage Photo and then stamped and fussy cut each line.  What fun this was!  I hope you are inspired to make some backgrounds of your own today.

Purchase your Shine Bright stamp set and Collectors Edition Numbers stamp today!

CAS Distress Stain Ombre Silhouette Card

It's summer time and the livin' is easy!  Autumn with you today to share a simple silhouette card design featuring our lovely new Victorian Garden stamp set.  Here in the US, we've gone wild over Distress Stains, so I created an ombre sunset background with those.  I simply dabbed them onto my craft mat in rows of color then smooshed my watercolor paper into the ink, dabbing any drips.

There are so many color options you could use for this card design, but I chose a sunset palette.  I layered some fabric washi tape at the bottom for a punch.

To get my sentiment just perfect, I first stamped it onto my background panel, then onto the cut circle and matched up the font.  This sentiment is from our new Shine Bright stamp set with the lightbulbs - another must have!

Purchase your Victorian Garden stamp set HERE today!

DIY Designer Paper with Acrylic Paint

Autumn with you today to take you on a fun little journey with the new range of paints, Skin Tones Acrylic Matte.  I absolutely love this range from apricot to rouge to porcelain - they are gorgeous!

I thought I would test them out on my new Gelli Plate.  I definitely need more practice with the plate, but it was fun nonetheless.  You could replicate these techniques with a brayer DTP if you don't have a plate.  I printed the pink you see on the left, then loaded my plate with a lighter color of paint.  I stamped this soon to be released numeral stamp into the plate and stamped onto my pink panel repeatedly.  After, I did another press with the paint left on the plate, which reverses the image as you see in the finished product below (left).

I cut the best sections that would make great bases and then used the scraps with dies.  For my first project today I am showing you what I did with this center layered panel.  You can see the number printed paper worked great to cut my doily.  The numbers don't show, just the color variation on such an intricate die.

I made one more sheet of colored paper by dropping a little paint onto my craft mat and spraying with water then smooshing my paper into it.  I used it as the base to stamp these butterflies from the Victorian Garden set repeatedly in pink and brown ink.

I gave everything a splat of Metallic Goldfinger Acrylic to finish it off.  The photos don't show the color variation and depth, but trust me it's there!

The next day I picked up one of the other panels and decided to test out Distress Oxide inks over the paint.  Just as I had hoped, the paint did resist the ink in a way.  The ink soaked into the unpainted sections of my paper.  I decided to overstamp and make a pattern, similar to designer paper.  So I embossed the butterfly repeatedly.

See there the number stamping coming through the butterfly?  This butterfly stamp is just soft enough to make a beautiful pattern without being overwhelming.  LOVE!

Here you can see the resist I was referring to.

I layered up some dies and our fabulous Flutterby stamp, which I stamped in brown over some leftover smooshed paper.  Finally, I added one of the sentiments from the set, stamped in the same DOX and attached with the Tiny Attacher.  Thanks for reading to the end!  ;0  I hope you are inspired to make some paper today with your IndigoBlu stamps.  Until next time...

Preorder your Victorian Garden Stamp Set HERE today!

Purchase one or all of the new Skin Tone Matte Acrylic range HERE today!

Take the Moment & Make it Perfect Card

Hello IndigoBlu fans!

Emmy here today with a new project to share. This month is all about fireworks on the IndigoBlu blog and I've decided to create a card featuring the Chemistry Lab Red Rubber Stamp - after all there are no fireworks comparable to the big bang!

As you can see I used a lot of different IndigoBlu products on this card. To create the background I had a 10 x 14 cm piece of white cardstock, which I stamped using the Chemistry Lab Red Rubber Stamp and FlitterGlu. After I was satisfied with my design I added Megaflake Royal Peacock on top.

To give extra glimmer & glam to the big bang "fireworks" I added some Unicorn Sparkles - Magical glitter to them. 

To colour my background I used a mixture of Slap It On - Super Thick with a little bit of Luscious Pigment Powders - Silver and Luscious Pigment Powders - Blue. Once you've applied the colour, rub gently the images with your finger to remove the slap it on medium from them. 

For my sentiment I used Floral Fantasy Red Rubber Stamp with silver embossing powder. Once the image has cooled down, I coloured the panel with Artist's Acrylic Paint Vodka Martini.

I hope you enjoyed today's project!

Come back soon for more inspirational creations from our design team!

Emmy

Colourful Festive cards with Giovanna

Hello everyone, Giovanna here, with a bunch of supercolourful cards. I confess, cardmaking is not my cup of tea, but when I start, nobody can stop me! I have a new fave set of stamp, the "Peace on Earth": is a festive one, but for me it can be used all year round, and in this post I hope to inspire you to use it in different ways:

Magical Unicorn Sparkles! I would eat them :-)

And the world...spins!

A bit of classical style:

And can you believe..you get an ice cream (a bit crazy) out of an English pudding ;-)

I hope you enjoyed this post and its thousands of colours!

Products used:

September Challenge - Autumn Wildlife

Good morning all,

Today we have a new challenge for you, it's our September challenge and it's 'Autumn Wildlife'.  Any IndigoBlu animal, bird, butterfly stamp etc will do, we'd just like to see your take on this theme.  If you don't have any of those stamps, you can always stamp your Indigoblu pattern's or backgrounds and die-cut them into animal or butterfly shapes!  Think outside the box..

So first we need to congratulate our Random Winner from August's challenge - All things Bright and Beautiful.

Congratulations Amanda, we will be in touch shortly to arrange your prize.

Our Top 3 this month, as chosen by the DT, and who get a Guest Designer spot in our Challenge reminder post are:

1. Carolyn's Creations
2. Leanne C Harris
3. Pat Moore

Congratulations to you all, we will be in touch shortly.

Now for the inspiration from our very own DT, and our fab winner from August, Sheila, who has created this beautiful piece for us:

Sheila had this to say:

It was amazing to win the IndigoBlu blog challange and been able to add to my IndigoBlu stash.  I used the country house for my design card as it was one of my prize choices it's a stamp that's for all seasons.

Sheila doesn't have a blog, but does log in to the IB blog every day, and is a loyal IndigoBlu fan, so please leave her lots of love in your comments below, I know she will see them and appreciate them all.

And here are our brilliant DT's pieces, just love these!  And there is a very sneaky peek of a new stamp here - can you tell which one it is?

Julie

Lydia

Sue

Claire

Rachel

Maxine

Wenda

We have prizes up for grabs each month,  Indigoblu stamps of your choice as follows:

3 options to choose from:
1: 2 Large stamp plates (A5)
or
2: 4 Small stamp plates (A6)
or
3: 1 Large and 2 small plates

There’s also the Winner’s Badge, and one for the Top 3, to display proudly on your blog, and the WINNER of the challenge will also be invited to do a GUEST SPOT on a future Challenge Launch post. That’s right, your work will be on the Challenge Blog alongside the Design Team!

Also the Top Three each month (chosen by our lovely DT) will all be invited to do an inspiration piece to be included on the reminder post that goes live mid challenge. So, if you’d like a chance to be featured on the IndigoBlu Challenge Blog get those stamps out and get creating!

You’ll find all the information on how to enter the challenge, the rules (don’t worry, there’s not that many) and get to meet theDesign Team in the tabs on the sidebar.

So all that's left for you to do is... well... get playing and enter!

Best Wishes,

The IndigoBlu Challenge DT Team

& Challenge Winner Sheila.