create with cheiron

distress color combo cards + a IG giveaway

Hi there crafty friends! Today I am sharing a little idea with you on how I come up with color combos for my cards and projects. If you know me, I love a pop of color, the brighter, the better. I love all of the colors of fall, and when Tim announced Crackling Campfire last week, my head began spinning with all kinds of color combos. I usually pull pages from magazines like Real Simple and Domino and stick them in a folder, but keeping them organized is not easy for me. As I began looking through my fall magazines and catalogs I was seeing this color in so many things! 

When I got my package of Crackling Campfire in the mail, I immediately tore the wrapper off and swiped in on a piece of paper and fell in love! I thought it would be fun to explore what other colors of Distress would look good with it, so I took a sheet of Distress Watercolor card stock and cut into 8 pieces (2 3/4 x 4 1/4). You could do this with any paper, but I stamp my Distress on Distress Watercolor card stock the most, so that's what I went with. I picked a small stamp from the Stampers Anonymous Etcetera stamp set , and pulled some Oxide pads that I thought might look good together. And then I started stamping out some color ideas. Once I was done, I picked a few backgrounds and put them to the test. This really seemed to work out for me and I will definitely do it again in the future with new colors and maybe some older ones too! 

Here are the projects I made, and a closer look at each project below with it's corresponding Color Combo Card. 

For the first card, I used the new Simon Says Stamp Detail Petal Cover die and stamped a greeting from the Just Because Word Mix 2. I added a Clustered Leaves die cut that I cut from vellum and adhered a few clear droplets to finish it. 

For the second card, I used a fall combo that I just love. This card uses the Simon Says Stamp Outline Leaves Background Cling. I stamped and embossed it in white then colored it in with DIstress Ink Reinkers and a waterbrush. I added a clean and simple CZ Design Thank You die to complete the card.

For my third card, I made a 'guy card' using a fun color combo. I stamped the Simon Says Stamp Plank Background onto a piece of DIstress Watercolor Cardstock using Black Versafine Ink and embossed it with clear embossing powder. Then I used DIstress reinkers to color in the planks. I completed the card with a CZ Design Dude die and a reverse Thinking of You sentiment strip.

And one final project I made for this week's Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge, a set of ATCs. Here I combined both Distress Inks and Oxides for a fun mixed media look, stamping with the Mini Media Marks stamps from Stampers Anonymous. 



I've also been working on some ideas for how I can store these cards for easy reference in the future, and I'll be sure to share that here soon as well. I think I will do these combos for each new Distress Color release so be sure to subscribe if you'd like to see them. 


GIVEAWAY

One last thing- I was very generously gifted a set of Crackling Campfire Distress products, and I had already pre-ordered one and it arrived today...so I am giving one away over on my Instagram account. If you are not following me there, please follow me @cheiron, that is where I share projects most often! And be sure to enter to win there :) 

SUPPLIES: 

simon says stamp monday challenge: oodles of doodles

Hi crafty friends, welcome to this week's Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge! Thank you for joining us us for last week's Beautiful Botanicals Challenge and we hope you will join us again this week for the Oodles of Doodles Challenge. This week I have created a set of ATCs exploring color with the newest color in the Distress Line, Crackling Campfire...

To create these cards, I laid down a wash of Crackling Campfire, Cracked Pistachio and Fossilized Amber onto cards cut from Mixed Media Heavystock. I did this by putting a drop of Distress Ink Reinker in Each of these colors and creating a wash with a very wet paintbrush and let the cards dry. Once they were dry, I added stamping (doodles) by stamping images from the Mini Media Marks set onto each one using Black Soot Archival DIstress Ink. 


I stamped more marks onto the cards using DIstress Oxides and inked the edges of the cards. 


To complete the cards, I added a Big Chat sticker to each one, and then added some Black Soot DIstress paint with a splatter brush. 

The lovely folks at Simon Says Stamp are generously giving away a $25 voucher to shop at the Simon Says Stamp Store! All you have to do is take our your crafty supplies, make something following this week's prompt and add your project to the InLInkz at the bottom of the post on the SImon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog :) All winners are chosen randomly, so anyone can be a winner!!! 

So now it's YOUR turn, Happy Crafting

 

 

Follow Simon Says Stamp on Instagram

 

 

Do you use Instagram ?  If so please add  #sssmchallenge so we can see your entries there too

 

 

You have until Monday 8am Ohio time. 1pm UK time, 2 pm CET to join in!

 

SUPPLIES: 

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tim holtz/stampers anonymous halloween: creepy eye card

Hi there crafty friends! Today I am sharing a card with the new Tim Holtz/Stampers Anonymous Halloween stamps. This may be just about the creepiest card I have ever made in my life and I really love it. The image from the new Dearly Departed stamp set and the Idea-ology Creepy Eye just pair so well together. Let me walk you through how this card came about. 

First, I created a panel of DIstress Watercolor Cardstock using Distress Spray Stains in Antique Linen and Frayed Burlap. I dried the panel with my Ranger heat tool and then stamped the image from the Dearly Departed set in Distress Black Soot Archival Ink. I also stamped the image on another piece of watercolor cardstock (that will be the one we are going to cut out). On the main panel, I stamped the little number image from the Examination stamp set. 


I colored the image on both of the panels with Distress Ink Reinkers and a Detailer Waterbrush. Then I added Layers of watercolor wash using Weathered Wood and Pumice Stone Reinkers around the image. I also added some splatters of water and Frayed Burlap. I carefully cut out the inside of the eye from the face image with an X-acto knife. Then I cut the rest of the image out with my small Tonic scissors. I used foam tape to adhere the image to the one stamped on the main panel and added a Creepy Eye to the center. 



Once the panel was complete, I inked the edges and added it to a piece of Blackout Kraft Core cardstock that I had distressed with a sanding block. Hope this card didn't creep you out too much, and that you loved it as much as I do! 

SUPPLIES: 

simon says stamp monday challenge: beautiful botanicals

Hi crafty friends, welcome to this week's Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge! Thank you for joining us us for last week's Grunge It Up Challenge and we hope you will join us again this week. This week our challenge is Beautiful Botanicals...and I've used this gorgeous bloom from the new Dearly Departed set along with an older sentiment from the Random Quotes stamp set, and I think they are perfect together. I colored the flowers in with a DIstress Waterbrush and DIstress Oxides and added a little splatter of Black Soot DIstress Paint. 






The lovely folks at Simon Says Stamp are generously giving away a $25 voucher to shop at the Simon Says Stamp Store! All you have to do is take our your crafty supplies, make something following this week's prompt and add your project to the InLInkz at the bottom of the post on the SImon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog :) All winners are chosen randomly, so anyone can be a winner!!! 

So now it's YOUR turn, Happy Crafting

 

 

Follow Simon Says Stamp on Instagram

 

 

Do you use Instagram ?  If so please add  #sssmchallenge so we can see your entries there too

 

 

You have until Monday 8am Ohio time. 1pm UK time, 2 pm CET to join in!

 

SUPPLIES: 

get cracking on christmas: august

Continuing along with my goal to 'Get Cracking on Christmas' all year long, by creating my Christmas cards with a few crafty friends throughout the year! If you want to see how it all started, go to my original post here.

I'm happy to be able to share a Christmas card this month along with my friend Jenn. Be sure to visit her blog to check out the fabulous cards she has made. If you are in the mood to make some Christmas cards along with us, be sure to post them on Instagram and use the hashtag #getcrackingonchristmas. This month a bunch of us are using stamps very generously supplied by Colorado Craft Company. I have not used there stamps before and I really enjoyed the ones I worked with. I made 2 different cards to share with you today. 

The first card used the Holly and Berries stamp. This is a large clear stamp and it is super fun to color. I embossed it in black, watercolored colored it in with DIstress Reinkers and added a bit of splatter to it and cut it out. 

For my second card, I used the Let It Snow set to make a fun wintery card for some of my friends that don't celebrate Christmas. I stamped and embossed the snow globe in gold and added in snow deer and trees all stamped in Distress Oxides. 

 

SUPPLIES: 

simon says stamp monday challenge: grunge it up

Hi crafty friends, welcome to this week's Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge! Thank you for joining us us for last week's Summer Memories Challenge and I hope you will join us this week as well. This week our Challenge is Grunge it Up. 

 

Today I have created a grungy tag featuring the Decayed stencil and Distress Matte Texture Paste. I put the paste through the stencil and once it was dry, I sprayed it with all my favorite grungy colors of Distress Spray Stains. I added an image from the Purveyor stamp set and colored it in with Distress Markers. To finish the tag I added some Vintage Flair, Type Chips and Ephemera and a lot of splatter!

The lovely folks at Simon Says Stamp are generously giving away a $25 voucher to shop at the Simon Says Stamp Store! All you have to do is take our your crafty supplies, make something following this week's prompt and add your project to the InLInkz at the bottom of the post on the SImon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog :) All winners are chosen randomly, so anyone can be a winner!!! 

So now it's YOUR turn, Happy Crafting

 

 

Follow Simon Says Stamp on Instagram

 

 

Do you use Instagram ?  If so please add  #sssmchallenge so we can see your entries there too

 

 

You have until Monday 8am Ohio time. 1pm UK time, 2 pm CET to join in!

 

SUPPLIES: 

 

tim holtz/sizzix: merry and bright frame tutorial

Hi there crafty friends! Today I am sharing a fun holiday project with you that I created for the Tim Holtz Sizzix Chapter 3 release. This is one of my favorite projects that I created from the release, and besides the frame it is made completely of paper! I'll walk you through the steps that I did today. I'll be sharing more of my projects and tutorials during the holiday season, so please make sure you sign up for my email to be notified about new projects, or follow me over on Instagram @cheiron. 

This project idea started with this $3 frame from the Target dollar spot. As a crafter, the first stop for me at Target is always the dollar spot and whenever I find any type of fun frames like this, I pop a few into the cart! Another great place to get these is to pick up seasonal decor pieces that are on sale at TJ Maxx, Homegoods, etc. when they are out of season and on clearance. You can always find pieces where you can cover up what is inside the frame. 

I'll take you through the steps today that I did to create this exact project. It does take a bit of time, but don't feel like you need to do it all in one sitting. A good idea might be to prep the background, and cut all the pieces one day, ink all of the pieces another day and then assemble at the end. That is what I did and it was very enjoyable to create. 

What you will need is the frame or substrate you are going to use, Distress Inks in greens and reds (and a brown), Distress Watercolor Cardstock and the new Merry and Bright and Holiday Brushstroke Sizzix Thinlits dies. 

First, I measured the inside of the frame and cut a piece of Distress Watercolor Cardstock to fit inside the frame and painted it with Black Soot Distress paint. I gave it two coats. 

Then I created a ton!! of Distress Watercolor Cardstock pieces that I colored with DIstress Inks by swiping them through the Distress Ink that I smooshed onto my Glass Mat sprayed with water from a Distress Sprayer. I added a few layers of ink, drying between each layer. I cut the watercolor Cardstock  into 4 1/4 x 2 1/2 pieces so they would fit into my Sidekick for cutting the leaves from the Holiday Brushstroke dies. I used a bunch of different colors of green including Crushed Olive, Evergreen Bough, Mowed Lawn, Bundled Sage, Shabby Shutters, Iced Spruce and reds in Candied Apple and Aged Mahogany. I inked the edges of all the pieces using Gathered Twigs Distress Ink and a foam blending tool. This really makes your pieces pop, so don't skip this step! 

For the berries, I applied Clear Rock Candy Distress Glitter using Distress Collage Medium in matte and let it dry. 

Then I cut 3 of the Merry and Bright dies out of Distress Watercolor Cardstock and glued them all together to give the words some dimension. 


I placed my paper on the Wendi Vecchi Make Art Stay-tion to hold it down while I figured out where my sentiment would go, and adhered it to the paper. 


Once my sentiment was centered and adhered, I added foam tape to the back of all my leafy pieces (don't pull off the adhesive on the back yet!) and placed them all where I wanted them to go on the frame. 

Once I was happy with the placement of all my pieces, I adhered them all down to the paper, turned the paper over and trimmed off any excess with my Tim Holtz Tonic Scissors, so the paper would fit into the frame. To finish it, I used Distress Collage Medium to adhere the piece into the frame. As the final step, I took a piece of chalk and rubbed it over the black paper for a chalkboard look and used my fingers to rub it in. 

SUPPLIES:

Altenew Mixed Media Ink Lovers Blog Hop + Giveaway

Hi there crafty friends! I am thrilled to be joining Altenew today in their Mixed Media Ink Lovers Blog Hop + Giveaway. You should have arrived here from the blog of the amazing Maryam Perez.

Today I have created a card and a canvas pouch with the new Altenew Mixed Media Ink Collection. This pigment ink is water-based and will leave a gorgeous detailed impression every time. Best of all, you don't have to worry about the ink fading. It becomes permanent once heat set with a heat gun or iron. It stamped beautifully on the solid heart images on my card, and also on the canvas pouch as well. I set the ink on the canvas with my heat tool once I was done stamping. 

There are currently 8 colors of Mixed Media Ink available and you can get them all here. Here is a swatch chart so you can see them displayed all together. 

SPECIAL OFFER 

• Receive a FREE Demystifying Mixed Media class(Value $8.95) with every order of the Summer Fun Mixed Media Ink Bundle from 8/13/2020 at 12:01 am EDT until 8/14/2020 at 11:59 pm EDT or while supplies last. Shop here --> https://altenew.com/products/summer-fun-mixed-media-ink-bundle The free gift will be added to cart automatically. Not valid on previous purchases

 

GIVEAWAY

Altenew is giving away a $30 gift certificate to 5 lucky winners! Please leave a comment on the Altenew Card Blog by 8/18/2020 for a chance to win. 

They will also draw a winner to receive a $15 gift certificate from the comments left on each designer’s blog on the blog hop list below. All winners will be announced on the Altenew Winners Page on 08/21/2020.

Thank you for stopping by today and be sure to head on over to the next stop on the hop, the very talented Therese Calvird! 

 

Blog Hop Order:

Altenew Card Blog

Maryam Perez

Cheiron Brandon

Therese Calvird

Laurel Beard

Tania Ahmed

Justine Hovey

Nathalie DeSousa

LauraJane

Nicole Watt

Jenny Colacicco

Virginia Lu

The Hedgehog Hollow

Norine Borys

Lydia Fiedler

Svitlana Shayevich

Audrey Yeager

Lilith Eeckels

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simon says stamp monday challenge: summer memories

Hi crafty friends, welcome to this week's Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge! Thank you for joining us us for last week's Happy Birthday Challenge to celebrate our 10th Anniversary. This week's challenge is Summer Memories and I hope you will play along with us. I have created a card featuring a favorite summer memory of almost all my summer vacations...tropical drinks! There is nothing like sitting by the ocean (or the pool) and having someone serve you a few of these. 

 

To create this card, I started with a piece of Distress Watercolor Cardstock. I created an inky background using DIstress Oxides in Squeezed Lemonade, Mustard Seed, Rusty Hinge and Ripe Persimmon. Once the panel was dry, I stamped over it in Ripe Persimmon using the Halftone stamp from the Halftone and Rings stamps set . I stamped and paper pieced the cocktail from the Cocktail Blueprints stamp set and colored in the cocktail using a paintbrush and DIstress Ink reinkers. I added a sentiment sticker from the Idea-ology Snarky Small Talk. 








The lovely folks at Simon Says Stamp are generously giving away a $25 voucher to shop at the Simon Says Stamp Store! All you have to do is take our your crafty supplies, make something following this week's prompt and add your project to the InLInkz at the bottom of the post on the SImon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog :) All winners are chosen randomly, so anyone can be a winner!!! 

So now it's YOUR turn, Happy Crafting

 

 

Follow Simon Says Stamp on Instagram

 

 

Do you use Instagram ?  If so please add  #sssmchallenge so we can see your entries there too

 

 

You have until Monday 8am Ohio time. 1pm UK time, 2 pm CET to join in!

 

SUPPLIES:

 

simon says stamp: let's connect blog hop day 1

Before I get into the cards I created for you today, I wanted to highlight a special code for a free Gina K Designs Dot runner...just use the code GLUE with your order. This promotion will expire on 8/9 at 11:59 pm EDT.

Today I have a trio of cards for you featuring the brand new Detail Meadow Butterfly Die...each with a different look. I hope you'll find one that suits your style...

For my first card, I created a slimline card with metallic butterflies. I cut the Detail Meadow Butterfly Die from rainbow colors of the Tim Holtz Metallic cardstock in Confections and and arranged them on my card using foam tape and added a greeting from the Greetings Mix 2 stamp set. 

For my second card, I cut the Detail Meadow Butterfly Die out of Distress Watercolor cardstock and painted it with DIstress Ink Reinkers. I finished the card with a CZ Design Reverse Happy Sentiment Strip. 

For my 3rd card, I cut the Detail Meadow Butterfly Die out of  and used the new pastel and metallic colors of Dina Wakley Media Gloss Spray to create shiny acrylic butterflies to add to my card. I created a background using the new Crackle cling stamp, and also lightly stamped the words from the Good Reading cling in Antique Linen and added some splatter to it. To finish the card, I added a sentiment from the Greetings Mix 1 set. 

 

Which one is your favorite? Let me know below :) 

Simon Says Stamp is giving away a $25 coupon to every stop on the hop to one commenter on each blog!  Simon Says Stamp will choose the winners over the weekend and post on the Simon Says Stamp blog on Wednesday, the 12^th of August. The winner can email Simon Says Stamp to claim their prize! 

The next stop on the hop is the amazing Lea Lawson! Please stop by and check out what she has made for you today! To start at the beginning of the hop, please go to the first link (which is the SImon Says Stamp Blog). All the blog hop stops are listed in order below. Thank you for hopping by today!!! 

Simon Says Stamp Blog   

Jennifer McGuire

Cathy Zielske

Nina-Marie Trapani

Nichol Spohr

Yana Smakula

Amy Rysavy

Lisa Addesa

Heather Ruwe

Kathy Racoosin

Suzy Plantamura

Sidnie Des Jardins

Bibi Cameron

Barb Engler

Cheiron Brandon

Lea Lawson

 

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