Masked cards with Lydia Fiedler

I went on a bit of a masking spree last weekend. It's weird how certain techniques stay around for a week or two, and then flit off to be replaced by something else. 

This week it was masking.

I decided to do two different versions of masked ink blending for my final spot with Neat & Tangled this month.

First, I wanted to do a layered image that would remain uncolored, with an ink blended background.

Layered masking is a challenge for me - figuring out which image to stamp and mask first, etc. I usually pile the stamps on top of each other and then take a few notes about what goes first. I know it comes more naturally to some people. But I'm a problem child. :)

So for this first card, I put the mammoth down, then sat the boy on him, and positioned the talk bubble. So that showed me that the first image stamped and masked had to be the little boy, because he would be blocking out the wooly mammoth image. I actually picked up the whole stack on my MISTI once I got the boy positioned right, and then just removed the mammoth that was stuck underneath. Then I stamped the boy, and stamped him again on masking paper, cut that out and covered him. Then I did the same with the talk bubble and the mammoth. I used my brushes and Peach Bellini, Key Lime, Sea Glass and Lovely Lavender inks for a soft rainbow background. Then when that was done, I brushed on a little shadow with Kraft.

I removed all the masks and left the images white to let the background be the star, and stamped the sentiment. The images and sentiment are from this set, below.

For the second card, I wanted to have a colored image on blended background, so I stamped this image in Morning Mist, stamped a second one on masking paper, and masked it. Along the side, I stamped these florals in the same ink, and cut masks for them as well. Yes, even those teeny berries. I'm crazy like that. Then I brushed on Sea Glass ink in a swath across the larger image, and then closer to the image, I added Blue Raspberry.

The reason I did that first, is so that if I spent 30 minutes coloring the main image and then somehow messed up the ink blending, I wouldn't be mad. I'd rather do my coloring last, as I'm a very slow colorer.

I colored the image with Blick Studio pencils, which are sort of my go-to these days. The cardstock is Neenah Solar White. I think that this set - it's hard to choose - is my favorite Neat & Tangled set. The sentiments are funny and the images are so incredibly sweet. I don't consider it just a fall set - I use it all year. The sentiment is from the floral set I used.

My friends at Neat & Tangled are still offering you a discount for shopping from my blog - so don't forget there are only a few days left to shop with my code.

It's been so much fun guesting with them this month, and as I said - Danielle is a stellar human, a hardworking mother of young kids, and I love any opportunity to support her with a shopping spree.

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Mixed Media Magnolia with Lydia Fiedler

Hey everyone - Lydia here for my second guest post - I'm happy to be here! I have some mixed media goodness for you today!

I've been working on creating structure in my prints with some experiments in masking, and I finally got it to where I wanted it and could recreate what I was doing, so that is what I have for you today.

First, a card with the technique. I stamped the Magnolia image and die cut it with the matching dies. Then I cut a circle from glitter paper to go behind it. 

I had used this stencil in the Gel Press printed background, and it was perfect for curving a small sentiment from this set on my MISTI and stamping in one of the openings. As you'll hear me say in the video, the white space is important for making this technique work. I love the zentangle look of this stamp set - it's bold and perfectly suits a bold, colorful background.

Here is the video on how I did the background.

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Introducing our July Guest Designer - Lydia Fiedler

We so very excited to be welcoming Lydia Fiedler to the blog today as our July guest designer. She really almost doesn't need an introduction as she's a very familiar face in the industry, but here's a little more about her:

My name is Lydia Fiedler, and I live in Austin, Texas with my husband and two tiny feline overlords, Maddie and Splotchy. I'm employed full time as the Community Manager of Splitcoaststampers, and also do lots of freelance work in social media and marketing. I've been stamping since my early teen years, and still find more wonder and delight in paper arts every day. It's a joy to be a part of such a creative industry. I describe my style as CAQ - clean and quirky - and when I'm creating, I usually have a small black cat perched on my shoulders, and a true crime podcast playing. My favorite thing about papercrafting is that I believe it allows me to serve others in that small, magical way that only sending a handmade card to someone can do. I blog at www.understandblue.blogspot.com and I'm understandblue on Instagram, YouTube and Twitter.

We know you're going to love seeing what Lydia creates this month.  Here she is with all the details about this week's card:

Hey everyone! I'm thrilled to be a guest of Neat & Tangled this month. I met Danielle a few years ago, and have an immense amount of respect and affection for her, so her amazing stamps and dies are really just a bonus on top of our friendship. She's seriously an awesome person.

Anyway - let's talk about today's card. A lot of people when they create art, they listen to music, or stream their fave Netflix shows. I can't do that. Visual content and music are very distracting for me for some reason, but I have found that audiobooks and podcasts are perfect. I can concentrate on the story and also they keep me from overthinking my projects because I am sort of engrossed in the story.

My favorite genre is non-fiction, especially true crime, and I love the True Crime Sweden podcast, because the host gives a fun fact about Sweden at the end of every episode. A recent episode's fun fact was the Dala Horse, which I used on my card today. I fell in love with these little horses as a child - my next door neighbor was my pastor, and he was Norwegian, and had all sorts of Scandinavian art in his home, included Dala horses. 

I love Scandanavian design in general, and these little horses epitomize the best of that design. I love the clean lines of this stamp & die, so I kept it simple with Copic coloring and a white gel pen. I used the Lucky Stars die to add some sparkle.  The sentiment is from the Magnolia set.

I hope you have a great weekend! If you want to see my favorite podcasts, I have them all listed here. 

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