Thursday, December 29, 2016

On the Fifth Day of Christmas...Peace on Earth!

Hello Lost Coasters! How are your Twelve Days of Christmas unfolding? Even if you don't celebrate Christmas, hopefully you are enjoying a lovely break before the New Year.

On this Fifth Day, by way of encouraging you to participate in our "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas" challenge (you have until January 6 to submit!), I wanted to share with you a piece of wall art that I made called "Pax Hominibus":



This was made with the gorgeous Angel with Globe stamp from Lost Coast Designs, whose image is most probably from a Renaissance tarot deck engraving of a card called "The Eighth Sphere." (Ptolemy held that the Eighth Sphere was the sphere of fixed stars that surrounded the firmament, outside of planetary orbits; more info about early cosmology is here if you're a geek like me who digs this stuff!)

I used this celestial imagery as a starting point for adding my own holiday sentiment to the piece--"Et in terra pax hominibus," which, if you are familiar with the Latin Mass, means "And on earth, peace to mankind."

If you want to learn more, you can find out the details of how I planned and made this piece over on my blog here. And good luck with this month's challenge! You ARE entering, right??

Peace be with you this holiday season and always!



Thursday, December 22, 2016

Spread Your Wings

Good morning everyone!  I hope your December is going great and that Santa leaves a lot of gifts under your Christmas tree this year.

Since this marks my return to the team after being off several months, I wanted to share a couple of ATCs I completed.  These were fun to create and can be done with a minimum of fuss or muss!

 This bright and sunny ATC called Spread Your Wings was created with one of the larger stamps from the Large and Small Square Tiles Set One.  I stamped it on a separate piece of card and colored with with markers.  I created the background using inks and strips of tape, masking strips of the ATC until I had my pattern.  Then I added the stamped image about a 1/3 of the way down.  I used rubons to added the marks to the edges and the words directly under the image.  The black butterfly was an acrylic piece I painted.

 
For Use Your Wings I colored the background with ink then stamped Flagstone Background in a different colors.  Then I stamped around the edges with Tire Tracks Border.  Finally, I stamped Flora from Mini Whimsical Birds 2 onto a piece of card, colored her with markers, then fussy cut her out.  I positioned her so she was "standing" on the bottom border and added the Use Your Wings word sticker.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Until later....................
Smiles~
Marilyn

Monday, December 19, 2016

Naughty or nice????

Merry Christmas to all you crafters out there !!!!  

Darlene here today to share with you a card I made using the Flying Ballerina stamp.  For this card I stamped her onto cardstock and fussy cut her out....and I did remove the wings  :(   But I did add the Christmas hat from the Part Hat set two.....
The dress is coloured with some chalk.  Then popped her up to give the card some depth.



Some nice bright cardstock for the base - then ripped corners with some music cardstock.  Added on the Snowflake and ribbon  and of course - the saying....She does have a bit of a mischievous look don't you think?

Come check out Lost Coast for other great Christmas ideas !!!


Friday, December 16, 2016

Noel Angel: A Study in Silver and Gold

Seasons' Greetings, Lost Coasters! Today I have a Christmassy piece of wall or table art for you featuring some of Lost Coast Designs' very coolest (IMO) stamps! (Oh, who am I kidding...I love almost all LCD images so much, it's like trying to choose a favorite kid.) Anyway, I dig the medieval/Victorian Gothic vibe of these stamps so much that I had to combine them, with metallics, for some holiday glitz and festiveness! Here's the piece:



But this "official" scan doesn't capture the depth and sheen of all the metallics very well, so here's a photo of the piece in different light too, so you can see what we're really dealing with here!



Here's how I made it.

First I took some acid-free scrapbook paper that was printed with a sort of linen fabric-looking pattern, then brayered on some thin layers of silver and gold acrylic paint diluted with iridescent medium. This gave a rich-looking shimmer to the background.

Next, I got out this awesome angel from the Fortune Women set, inked it up with black permanent ink, stamped it...



...and then cut out a mask of the figure. I placed the mask over the stamped image using repositionable glue, and got out this fab arch from the ATC Misc. Set 6...and stamped right over the masked image.



Next, I got out some (slightly used) washi tape and masked off the area below the gothic arch where I wanted to stamp this Clover Scroll border, which I love SO BAD:



Here's what those impromptu masks looked like before stamping. 




After adding the scroll border, I pulled out my trusty Rustic Alphabet Set with its strong period feel, composed the word NOEL, and stamped that once in my permanent black ink. Then I overstamped it with embossing ink, offsetting the word just a TEENY bit to provide a hint of shadow, and embossed the word in gold powder.

Now it was time to add silver and gold gel-pen accents to the angel, border, and arch. And the piece was finished...


...Except for putting it in a frame, like so.  ðŸ˜Š  Et voila!--a shimmery angel in gold and silver.


Happy holidays to you and your family!


Tuesday, December 13, 2016

X-mas Wreath with Whimsical Sylvie

Hi there, is Granne here feeling all Christmassy,


(colored with Prisma Colors) and Party Words.
Wreath is made using 2 different bunches and some droplets.

Such  a bright card it turned out, what do you think?

Happy, happy X-mas time for you all!


P.S. If you'll find time to stamp and create, please do link
to our December challenge: Party Critters, as you can use any
stamped image that goes with the theme.

Saturday, December 10, 2016

"It's a Crow Party" Re-usable Dinner Party Place Holders

Happy Holidays Everyone!
It's getting so Christmasy over at Lost Coast Portal to Creativity with our Xmas celebrations underway....see my Day 1 of It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas projects if you haven't stopped by yet!

This is also the season for lots of dinner parties and guests need to know where they are sitting so how about making some fun place holders that are re-usable by adding banners die cut from Dry Erase White Board tape by Scotch!  I made these for our new LCPtoC Challenge #31 for December...this month's theme is Party Critters!
I used the following Lost Coast Designs stamps:
 and
I used Nuance pigment powders by Magenta to create the yummy colourful background.  I love the feeling of celebration they bring to my place holders, the burst of colours look like fireworks...perfect!  I used 3 of the newest colours to the Nuance family:  Aquamarine, Rosebud and Wisteria.  
 You'll notice there's some extra colours mixed in there too...that's a little surprise you can get with the powders.  Sometimes a speck of powder from another colour gets in by accident during production so you never really know what you're going to get until you start creating.  But it doesn't always happen so each time you use the powders each result will have a different effect...I think that's fun and quite magical.  You can get the Nuance powders at Lost Coast Designs too!
The crows were all stamped with Onyx Black Versafine ink and the Loopy Calligraphy background stamped with Aged Mahogany Distress Ink.  I added touches of colour to the Crow's hats with Prismacolor pencils and embellished with tiny assorted pompoms and tinsel pipe cleaners.  I used a Marvy corner rounder punch on the edges and doodled the black and white borders with Dylusions paint pens.  I made folded cards from green cardstock and adhered the everything with Scotch Quick Dry adhesive.

Thanks for stopping by to see my project today!
Have a fabulous weekend!
Leigh S-B
THE SHARPIE DOMINO QUEEN

Wednesday, December 7, 2016

Party Dog Birthday!!

Hello Everyone,
Karen here today to share a fun Birthday card I made for my nephew.  I used one of the Party Dogs and He is ready to PARTY!  This card also fits the December challenge theme-- which is Party Critters.  Be sure to enter your project.


Stamps used: Party Dogs, Party Words, and Large Filmstrip

For more pic and info, check out the full post on my blog here

Hope you are having a great day and see you next time!
Karen McAlpine
Dreaming and Creating

Sunday, December 4, 2016

It's a Party !

It's that time of year ... the season of the (dreaded !) Christmas party ...

This gorgeous gal from the Mini Manga set by Lost Coast Designs is certainly looking the part, heading out for the first party of the season :


The girl is stamped and colored with alcohol markers, then her dress and boots are clear embossed. She has been fussy cut.

The gorgeously rich background is made with Nuance powders by Magenta, and when it was dry, I stamped 'It's a Party!' from Party Words by Lost Coast Designs and embossed them in white. I added a little red washi tape and matted the ATC front onto red card stock.

Hugs and best wishes for the season, Nikki x 

Saturday, December 3, 2016

DECEMBER NEWS!

Happy Holidays Lost Coasters!
We have a fun packed December planned for you😃
It's beginning to look very festive over at Lost Coast Portal to Creativity!
We are celebrating the season throughout December and into the new year in LCPtoC style🎉
 We're sharing LCDesigner projects all month long so join us, spread the holiday cheer and enter your rubber stamped Christmas or Winter themed projects in our Xmas Linky Party at the bottom of Dec 3rd's Day 1 post by January 6, 2017 at 5 to midnight for the chance to win LCD/CV Bucks to spend in our Lost Coast Designs and Carmen's Veranda stores!  The more entries the better the prize so round up all your friends and join the most festive party of the year🎉

Farewell to a LCDesigner😢
We are very sad to say farewell to Karen at the end of the year!  Karen has been with us from the beginning and we will miss her dearly!  We do hope she'll be back in the future so until then we wish her much joy and success in her new endeavours!
Stay crafty my dear friend!


NEW STAMP RELEASE!

On a happier note, a new stamp has joined our Lost Coast Designs line today....stop by LCPtoC to see our new cool kitty, the Snowcat, in action😉

Plus we have lots of fabulous Christmas and Winter themed stamps in both of our stamp lines to suit every taste and style!  Stop by and check them all out, you'll find holiday treasures in pretty much every category!
Lost Coast Designs collection
Carmen's Veranda collection 

 

Upcoming in December!

 Our monthly Challenge starts on Dec 5th so stop by to see what fabulous inspiration the LCDesigners have in store for you!  To ensure everyone gets to enjoy the holidays our Dec Challenge will end earlier than normal on Dec 20th!


 Did you all see our 2 fabulous FAN FEATURES we showcased in November?
See them HERE and HERE if you missed them!
 
FAN FEATURES is our new segment over at Lost Coast Portal to Creativity where we will showcase projects created by our fabulous Event and Challenge Winners!

If you've won one of our past events or challenges then we would love to see what you created with your prize rubber stamps!  Submit your projects for Fan Feature consideration to Leigh at LeighSBDesigns@cox.net or via Facebook messenger!

December is going to be fabulous so STAY and PLAY with us!
You can even sign up for blog emails and get our projects and news delivered right into your inboxes!
Also join our Facebook Fan Group too!
Happy Stamping!

Leigh S-B
The Sharpie Domino Queen
LCD/CV DT Leader