No Whining – Just Good Wine Here Cards by October Guest Designer Bobbi Lemanski

Hi there! It’s Bobbi Lemanski, the October guest designer for Newton’s Nook. Today, I’m sharing some cards using the stamp set, Wine A Little along with a few other sets. You certainly won’t hear any whining from me, because I loved working with this flavorful wine set!  

An Aging Wine is a Fine Wine!

Figure 1: Card features Wine a Little and Beautiful Leaves stamp sets and dies.

My first card pairs Wine a Little (and dies) and Beautiful Leaves (and dies) stamps sets together. Using purples, pinks and reds, I watercolored the background on Canson XL watercolor paper, mimicking the look of spilled wine. The leaves and wine images were colored using Copic Markers in colors that “age” the look of the bottles and their labels. 

Figure 2: A watercolor background mimics the look of spilled wine.

This card has an amazing color vibrancy from the watercolors that contrasts well with the gray-tones of the leaves. No perfection needed here…. spilled wine is good wine in this case!

Book Club Gal Pals

Figure 1: An oversized wine bottle, glass and cork makes fun of the amount of wine consumed at book club.

When I hear wine, I immediately think of my book club gals in my town. These amazing ladies love reading lots of books and drinking fine wine while we discuss each book. This card was completely inspired by them. The phrase from the set was perfect for this idea.

Figure 2: Combining two sets can create humorous and unique card ideas.

I used the lovely ladies in Classy Teachers and Holding Happiness to represent the book club gals. With a few minor modifications to the cake lady (in HH), I was able to create a gal holding a tray of books to go with the two gals from Classy Teachers. I created room for them to gather in using a few lines and a ruler.

Figure 3: Personalize your message with a white gel pen on a black chalkboard.

I love the idea of personalizing the chalkboard with any message. Think of all the things you can do with Classy Teachers! Even if your handwriting is less than perfect, don’t worry. A chalkboard is meant to be a little messy and imperfect (look at mine!)

Wine a Lot… Like a Million, Billion, Zillion!

Figure 2: Alcohol Inks on a transparency sheet create an artistic window.

My next card combines Wine a Little stamp set and dies with the Thankful Thoughts phrase set. One of the phrases in the set says, Thanks a million, billion…etc. I loved the idea of showing lots of gratitude not only in the words, but in the images (as you will see in the inside), too.

Figure 3 Wine a Little  stamps and dies were used to embellish the front.

I also used “You’re the best!” from Thankful Thoughts and “Here’s to you!” from Cocktail Mixer. Sequins accented the images from Wine a Little on the front.

Figure 4 Stacks of wine bottles visually portray the huge amounts of gratitude expressed in words.

I wanted to portray the huge amount of gratitude in the images to match the phrase, so I stacked the wine bottles up to create a wall of bottles in the inside that could show through the window.

The window is covered with an alcohol-inked transparency sheet I created. I find working with alcohol inks to be fascinating. I love how the red and pink inks mixed and blended on this one. I also used Alcohol Lift Ink from Ranger to remove the ink to match the design underneath. By placing the transparency sheet over the cardstock (I put the cardstock piece in a bag to protect it), I matched the bottles and lifted the ink.  You can see it here in this photo with the light capturing the lifted design. It allowed the images stamped in the inside of the card to really show through from the front.  

I’ll have another set of cards to share next week. I raise my wine glass to Newton’s Nook for these great sets and to you, for joining me today! 

- Bobbi Lemanski