It's February?!

Here's February's calendar.  As you see, I used one of the papers I created at the marbling class I took last year.  

A bit of brightness for winter days.  

Marbling Paper

Last year I attended a workshop on marbling paper taught by the amazing Brittani Locke (The Soft Asylum), sponsored by the School for Bookbinding Arts and the National Sporting Library and Museum.

I'd seen marbled endpapers in old books and understood the basic concept of laying paper onto pigments that are floating on a liquid.  But until this class it seemed to be one of those arcane arts that required knowledge out of the reach of mere mortals.  

How wrong I was! 

We learned about patterns, size - a solution of water and carrageenan that allows the paint to float on the top - and how to treat the paper so it accepts the paint without it washing away.

Our first pattern was Stone, a basic one that you can build on to be more complex.  Stone is drops of paint flicked onto the surface of the size.  I chose yellow, green, black, white, and black and learned for myself the lesson that the colors are much brighter on the paper than they appear on the size.  

Although I was going for a subtler effect, I'm glad in the end because I would have missed out on a great paper otherwise!

If you want, you can run a bamboo skewer through the stones to create swirls and currents as I did here.

The next pattern, Nonpareil, involves combs.  I didn't take any pictures of the process, but here is my first result, using yellow, red, blue, green, and white.

Dark and light blue with white Nonpareil, lightly swirled with a skewer.

This next one shows how you can build on a pattern with another combing technique to create a Bouquet pattern.  I loved how the colors looked in the Nonpareil and couldn't give them up, so I decided to do only part of the paper.

The idea is to create elements that are the same shape as the eye on a peacock's feathers or rows of bunches of posies.  Mine are more like waves on the sea, but I hope to work on that.

After this we were set loose to play with whichever patterns and colors we wished.  I continued with the Bouquet, changing colors to begin to learn more about what works and what doesn't.  I realized that I like to include some white to lighten the composition.  This next one would be very muddy to my eye if I hadn't.

 

I got closer to the ideal shape here.

My final version was black and white, which came out even better than I imagined.  More like ocean waves than posies, but I really like the sense of movement.

I had a wonderful time and am looking forward to marbling papers on my own in the next year.  In the meantime, I'm beginning to use what I created in cards and calendars.

Thank you Brittani and Judith!

Happy New Year 2024!

A new year, a great time to branch out with new techniques to be more creative.  

Instead of using printed designer paper, I painted the background in shades of pale blues and greens metallic watercolors.  The shimmer of the paint doesn't show up in the photograph.  

I was able to stamp the calendar using inks of similar colors, Lost Lagoon and Blueberry Bushel (both from Stampin' Up!).

The snowflakes are from a retired Stampin' Up! stamp set.  I stamped them with Versamark and used white heat embossing powder.

Speaking of branching out, I'm no longer a Stampin' Up! demonstrator, so I'll be able to bring you the results of my playing with other companies' items.  While I love Stampin' Up! products, there have been so many others calling to me and I finally gave in.

Looking forward to a creative year!

Pine Boughs and Glowing Lights for December

December's calendar is inspired by childhood - the excitement of bringing in the Christmas tree, untangling the lights, and stepping back with unfocused eyes to appreciate the colors and the glow.

I die cut the pines from a green cardstock and added the brown for the branches and dabbed darker green on the needles to give some texture.

The background is blotches of inks applied with a blending blush to keep it soft - Polished Pink and Pear Pizzaz (both retired), Crushed Curry, and Balmy Blue.  

I hope you enjoy this final calendar of 2023.  Despite not blogging very often, I've been busy creating and I'll try to catch up in the new year.

Cheers!

November 2023 Calendar

November is all about hospitality and what's more hospitable than a bottle of red wine and a cheese to share with good friends. 

I get an Italian vibe from this stamp.  I think it's the grape leaves.  Then again, it could just be wanderlust.  

Either way, happy November!

Playing with Tone-on-tone and Monochrome

I love tone-on-tone and monochromatic cards, so I've been experimenting with both.

This first set uses the large die from the Two Tone Flora bundle.  I cut out two in white and layered one on a Night of Navy card base and the other on a white card base.  

Both of them remind me of a lace overlay and I like the simple, yet elegant effect, especially the navy one.  I'll add a sentiment to the navy one when I get ready to use it.

But I felt the white card needed something more, so I stamped and cut out flowers and leaf branches from the coordinating stamp set and layered them into a bouquet.  The colors are Fresh Freesia, Daffodil Delight, Old Olive, and Polished Pink (ret).

Two-Tone Flora on White

  Much better!

October 2023 - Swirling Leaves

We're experiencing a late surge of summer weather, though rumor has it fall will make an appearance next week.  But until then, I have my October calendar.

I fell for the swirling leaves of the Leaf Fall embossing folder the instant I saw it in Stampin' Up's catalog.  

After embossing the paper, I used blending brushes to add autumnal colors to the design - Cajun Craze, Crushed Curry,  and Old Olive. 

You can purchase the embossing folder on the Stampin' Up! website (as an online exclusive) and the inks are always available.

Happy fall!

September's Calendar - A Field of Flowers

 A simple one this month that relies on the pretty paper for interest.

Enjoy!

A diversion into flowers

In July I was finally able to travel to Jennifer Dontz and Sugar Delites in Michigan for a week of instruction in sugarpaste flowers from the amazing Robert Haynes.  This class was rescheduled several times over the past three years, but flower makers are a patient lot.

During the week Robert taught his techniques to make a Cabaret Rose, Dusty Miller leaves, hypericum berries, a Dendrobium orchid, a Northern Magnolia blossom and bud, and a Darwin tulip.  I’ve been puttering with sugar paste for a few years now, but this will take my abilities to a new level.  I learned so much about both what to do and what to look for.

Cabaret Rose, Dendrobium orchid, hypericum berries, and Dusty Miller leaves

 

Darwin Tulip and Northern Magnolia

The very center of the magnolia is molded sugar paste, but we made the stamens ourselves. 

You can't see it in the main photo, but this is the inside of the tulip petals.  (I usually forget to take 'in-process" photos, so I'm pleased to have this!)  The original color of the paste is a dark burgundy, which we overcolored with the dark purple and the sky blue.  I wasn't expecting how well Robert's dust would cover a darker base.

 

This is a picture of the tulip's anther and stamens.  Another great exercise in crafting even the smallest things in sugar paste and I'm looking forward to trying this again and making the stamens look even more lifelike.

Jennifer Dontz sponsored the class.  She owns and runs Sugar Delites, which makes and sells the most amazing botanically correct cutters and veiners.  She generously let us students shop the “store” where she has her inventory for all of her online orders.  It's a bit like letting a kid into a candy store and we had as much fun!

Robert Haynes is an amazing teacher and is always thinking up new methods and refinements to his existing ones. Some of these were brainstorms in the middle of the night that he taught us the next morning.

I'll definitely be making roses and tulips again and will probably tackle the magnolia; Robert even taught us how to add the little hairs to the flower's husk.  However, my nemesis in this class was the orchid.  I have the impression that there are easier orchids to make and this one should have appealed to my ability to master finicky details, but mastery eluded me this time around.

August's Calendar - Looking at the Summer Sky

Sorry for the delay, but I've been travelling - more on that in a future posting.  However, here's my August 2023 calendar.

The base is from a past Paper Pumpkin kit called Summer Nights.  Behind it is white cardstock I shaded with the same ink colors with blending brushes to frame and echo the main image.  I love these purples and blues together!

The child is from an old stamp set called Silhouette Scenes.  My idea was to recall the awe of being a child looking at a starry sky.

Happy August!

July Calendar

Happy July!  This month's calendar took inspiration from my love of travel.  

I die cut the globes from silver foil and roughened up the edges of the printed paper to give it a bit of a well-used feel.

No stamping or playing with inks on this one, but I promise some in next month's!

Cheers!

It's June!

How on earth is it already June?  

Here is this month's calendar page.  I was inspired by the roses in Stampin' Up's Hues of Happiness paper (now retired, of course!) to capture my sense of June.  The roses have begun blooming here and will continue throughout the summer.

I die cut the flowers and leaves and arranged them around the calendar.  It's a fun process, though it took me a while because I want it to be perfect so I tried all sorts of combinations to get it right.  There's a lot to be said for going with your first thought!

One great thing about this arrangement is that you can even use the incomplete flowers that are on the cut edge of the paper, as I did with the yellow one.  All of the gorgeous flowers get their spot!

This is the one I kept for myself.  Each one of these came out differently, thanks to all the blooms I had to work with.

Have fun creating!

Tra la, It's May!

I've been humming that little tune since I realized it's May.  Here is the calendar I created for this month using some of my favorite colors.

It's a simple layout as you can see.  I used the paper piecing technique to add interest to the teacup.  If you've not come across this before, you stamp the image on your cardstock of choice (White in this case) and again on a piece of patterned paper.  The next steps are to cut out the bit you want and adhere it to the stamped cardstock.  I finished this by coloring the rim of the saucer with a very pale purple alcohol marker.

Too simple?  If I were doing this today I'd probably add a tea biscuit of some sort to the left of the saucer and a bit of string with a teabag tag hanging off it.  

That's the fun of this hobby - you never stop seeing new ways to create!

Simple and Elegant

I love creating simple cards, with the wow factor coming from texture and color.  Today's cards have both, with a textured layer and a colored paper or element providing the POP.  

I used a circle die to cut an aperture in the top layer of these cards and glued a piece of designer series paper beneath.  The texture on the top white layer is from the Subtle embossing folder (unfortunately retired!).  It lives up to its name, adding texture without overpowering the card.  

The lemon paper is one of the pages from the Tea Boutique DSP.  Three dark green colored pearls in the corner balance the composition.

Here's another where I colored flowers from the black and white Perfectly Penciled DSP with red and green alcohol markers.  The bling is on one card is black faceted gems, the other pearls I colored dark green.

The final touches are faceted black gems or pearls I colored with a dark green alcohol marker.

This one uses the same concepts, but the image is from the Blessings of Home stamp set, which I die cut and set so it emerges from the circle.

Most of the products are retiring from Stampin' Up! and won't be available much longer.  If you see something you want, let me know soonest!

Tea Boutique DSP

Perfectly Penciled DSP

Blessings of Home Bundle

It's April!

 It's time to post my April 2023 calendar.  

This is from this year's calendars that I gave to folks I treasure in my life.  I dug into my stash and used a retired Stampin' Up! stamp and the soon to be retiring Pacific Point ink and paper to create this toile.  The ink and paper are still available to purchase, but not for long!

Here are the previous three months as I play catch-up with this blog.

Happy Spring!

One Stamped Image, Two Versions

Another retired stamp set, this time In the Country.  I made two cards with it, using alcohol markers to color them with different results.

The image reminded me of pictures of Italy or Greece.  Soooo, my first version takes us on a trip to Sicily. 

However, Greece called to me (perhaps it was the blue door?), so I took a much lighter approach with the second one.  The houses on islands in Greece are whitewashed and they're visually intense, especially on a cloudy day.  Instead of coloring the image, I decided to bring out the white by highlighting the details on the walls and stairs in a light blue, which you might be able to make out.  A darker blue for the door and dabs of green and red for the plants completed the look.  I left it simple and didn't fill in a sky this time.

Which do you prefer?

The set includes a second stamp of a hillside with trees and a dirt track.  New England, perhaps?  I might try to capture fall colors in those trees for a future card.

I should have taken a picture of it before I colored in the sky, which really made it pop.  I mounted it on some Early Espresso cardstock to bring out the browns.  As usual, I'll add a sentiment later on.

Hello, Little One

A friend commissioned some baby cards, the perfect opportunity to break out the (unfortunately retired) All for Baby stamp set and accompanying dies.  

It's a fairly simple layout with just that bit of color to frame the whole thing.  The only fiddly bit is getting the hangers to "hang" on the linen thread.

There is so much you can do with this set.  I went with pink and blue for the first run, but got on a roll and cut out some onsies from designer series papers and other colors to have on hand.  Green, yellow, florals, stripes....let your imagination roam!

Welcome!

Welcome to Whitney Babash Papercrafts!  

To mark the occasion, here are some snapshots of my most recent project, a pop-up card that collapses to fit into a regular-sized envelope.  The technique is from Vy Tran at Crafting Daily Dose.

  

Spring in the Netherlands

A view from the side

The stamp set is a retired Stampin' Up! one, Winds of Change.  This set is one of my favorites and always takes me back to the Netherlands.

I hope you enjoy what you see here.  I'm certainly looking forward to sharing my projects!