Dyan Reaveley Collection

Hello Spellbinders friends! It’s Allison Frazier, and I am so excited to be sharing these fun projects that I made using the new Dyan Reaveley Collection. As soon as I saw these products, I was instantly reminded of my art journaling days. I actually spent time art journaling before I discovered cardmaking, so being able to combine the two like I did with these projects was so much fun.

Because I started art journaling before becoming a cardmaker, I still have a bunch of those supplies in my stash, including many from Dyan’s Dylusions collection. So that is where I started for all of my projects today. All of the playful, bright color that you see is from Dyan’s Dylusions Ink Sprays. These are very similar to Distress Sprays, as they are both manufactured by Ranger. While each of these product lines has their own formulation and reactive properties, I use them both the same. I just spray the colors onto a piece of multimedia cardstock (or watercolor paper) and then follow up with a spray of water with my Mighty Mister. I don’t do anything fancy other than that. If you don’t have sprays in your stash, you can just ink blend some happy, bright colors of ink onto cardstock to create your backgrounds.

The colors of Dylusions Ink Sprays that I used include: Pure Sunshine, Rose Quartz, Funky Fuchsia, Vibrant Turquoise, London Blue, Fresh Lime, Crushed Grape, and Laidback Lilac.

After creating my sprayed backgrounds, I used some of them for my card bases and the rest to stamp and die-cut (or fussy-cut) elements for the cards.

Mostly Just Fabulous

For my first card, I chose one of my favorite ink-sprayed panels. I wanted to incorporate just a little bit of that feeling of art journaling, so I used an old stencil of Dyan’s called “Holy Birds” – how fitting, right?! This stencil is just a bunch of randomly sized circles, and I pounced white pigment ink to stencil part of the pattern here and there. To achieve this look, you don’t want to just stencil the whole thing – you want it to look random. Use whatever stencils you have in your stash!

Next, I used one of the stamps from the No Place Like Gnome stamp set to add a little bit of fun detail in the corners. This little stamp has a bunch of squiggles, and I used black pigment ink. I love that all these stamps are rubber cling stamps because you can get all of those fine, little details.

Time for the star of the card – the bird! This bird is from the Robin Couture stamp set, and although this set comes with matching dies, I chose to fussy cut so that I could do a bunch of paper piecing. As I mentioned above, I used all of my colorful panels that I created with the ink sprays for my elements today. So, I stamped the bird with black pigment ink several times onto different colors. One for the main body, one for the beak, one for the legs, and so on. I just fussy cut these out and attached them back together with my Bearly Art Glue. For features such as the legs, I took a white colored pencil to color in the polka dots. For the shoe soles, I stamped those onto white cardstock and fussy cut to add on to the shoes. I admit I got really carried away with the paper piecing, but I think it was all worth it in the end. And it was a lot of fun! I adhered the bird to my card panel with a combination of liquid glue and thin foam squares and then glued this onto a 4.25” x 5.5” black card base.

As for the sentiment, I again went with one of Dyan’s old Dylusions products, which is a small booklet of “Colouring Sheets.” This booklet contains some funky border designs and quotes, some that are quite a bit snarkier than the ones I chose today! I used quotes from this little booklet for all of my cards – I just love how they give the feel of art journaling to the projects. To finish this card, I added Spectrum AB Color Essential Gems to the crown. Because, how can you be fabulous without a sparkly crown??

Caution – Mood Swing

For my second project, I again chose one of my sprayed panels for the background. The star of this card is one of the adorable mushrooms from the Toadstool Tales Stamp and Die Bundle. I stamped both the base of the mushroom and the adorable cat head onto a colored panel and then used the matching dies to cut them out. I used a white colored pencil to add back in some of the features of the cat and to add highlights to the mushroom base. This card has a surprise that you can’t see in the picture, and that is an action wobbler behind the cat head. So, when the cat head wobbles back and forth, the snarky sentiment has a lot more meaning! And, if you’re of a certain age like me, you can relate to mood swings – haha!

As for the detail on the background, I used the Stampendous Leafy Lines cling stamp for the upper right corner. This stamp has an overall design, as well as a pre-cut corner, and I used that corner part for my card. I stamped it with black pigment ink and then filled in the solid leaves with my black OLO marker. I then took a white gel pen and added polka dots for a funky detail. Again, this just goes back to some of the fun of my art journaling days.

To create the feeling of grass, I used the tallest shape from the No Place Like Gnome set. This is a large vertical cluster of what I guess you can call a set of trees. But, use your imagination! I stamped it horizontally on the bottom of my card panel. The lined detail on this shape is very fine, and I did color in some of those lines with a thin black marker just to cut down the contrast. I also added a little bit of shading with some Mowed Lawn Distress Ink because the bottom of this inked panel was bright green. I also ended up fussy cutting the entire bottom design so that I could adhere it over the bottom of the mushroom.

I glued this card panel to an A2-sized black card base and then finished up by adding some little white dots here and there with a white gel pen. I could have splattered it with white paint, but I didn’t think of it until after the card was finished. So, adding the dots with a gel pen is a good alternative.

Be You, Be Happy

For my last project, I just couldn’t resist the flowers with the little happy faces from the Gnome Sweet Gnome Stamp and Die Bundle. I stamped the flowers onto various colors of inked panels and then die-cut them with the matching dies. There are dies for the center happy faces, but I just fussy cut those and glued them to the flowers. I chose one of my larger inked panels for the background and cut that down to 8.25” x 3.25” to make the slimline card.

For the “stems”, I used the smaller cluster of “tree” shapes from the No Place Like Gnome set. I just stamped that over and over along the bottom of the inked panel, making sure not to ink the very upper part of that stamp. The one place where I did ink the upper part of the stamp is on the left side of the card where that happy little round flower is. I adhered all the flowers to the panel with glue and foam squares. I splattered the entire scene with Splatter White Opaque Watercolor, and then I added one of the least snarky quotes from that little Dylusions booklet.

I hope these cards bring a big smile to your face and inspire you to have fun with your supplies. Dyan Reaveley’s products are so playful, and I really enjoyed the reminder of my art journaling days. Thank you so much for joining us today!

Spellbinders Supplies:

Other Supplies

Multimedia Cardstock, Dylusions Ink Sprays, VersaFine Clair Nocturne Ink, White Pigment Ink, Foam squares, White colored pencil, White gel pen, Stencil, Dylusions Quotes/Sentiments, Action Wobbler