from my ink pad to yours

Kirsten DuBosque's Let's Get Together

Here's somebody I'd like to get together and stamp with, wouldn't you?  I just love Kirsten's mixture of colors and textures on this happy card.  This artwork was done for the 2nd Bloggers swap: Group #5 - any vendor.   Kristen Duboque's blog is Confessions of a Naptime Stamper. Details about her card can be found here but make sure you check out her whole blog.  She has some great stuff, even a tutorial on embossing brads.

That Sarah...

...she just doesn't want to stop playing.  Here are a couple of more cards with this sweet paper:

This was my first during yesterday's session.  While I like it, I think my flower and tag images may be competing too much.  One should have been more dominant than the other.  I was using this card by rohla, last weeks featured stamper as my inspiration. Somehow her's works better.  I wonder if my darker flower recedes more than her yellow flower or something.  Anyway, I thought her sketch, card  and execution were all right on the money!

This card was inspired by Amy Westerman's April 15th Super Sketch Sunday #11. I definitely will have to try this sketch again.  It really went together easily. 

I hadn't used the diamond pattern of the Sarah papers before this card.  It seemed to work pretty well as a "white" for my daisy.

The edges of the chipboard daisy and the daisy center are sponged for just a bit a added depth. The knot in the button is tied with a edge I cut from the white grosgrain.

To get my dots relatively even around my oval message, I made 4 on the top, bottom and sides, then did one in between each of those giving me 8, then one in between each of those giving me 16 total dots.

25,000 hits

I had my 25,000th hit today (!!!) so I'm going to package up some fun stamp-related blog candy for three of you who have left comments since my last blog candy in late March.  I thought it would be nice to send the blog candy to some of those who comment whenever the mood strikes, not just when candy is involved.  According to the random number generator those people are:

Dottie K #8
Heidi K #23
Judith Novak #53

Please send me an email with your address and I will get those off to you early next week!  And, thanks to all of you for your great comments and for reading my blog!

Julie Purdam, featured blogger

Here is the first of  many fantastic cards from the Blogger's swap I participated in earlier this month. Julie Purdam, of Rubber Room Ramblings,  is the creator.  I just love her fresh colors and the whimsical feel she gives this card.  You can read more about this specific card here, on her blog.

Playing with Sarah

Yesterday I noticed that Beate and Kimberly were having a challenge between themselves to create something with Big Blooms and Sarah paper.  I still haven't broken down and purchased the Big Blooms set yet but their challenge did remind me that I have 2 partial packages of Sarah paper that needed some playtime.  This card also works for this week's Technique Lovers Challenge which was to use "Levi" tabs.  It's also made up of the leftovers from my first card which I didn't like quite as well.  Funny how that happens!

The card base is So Saffron.  I really like the look of patterned paper totally covering the front of a colored cardstock card.  The flower from Love Is A Circle is stamped in Ballet Blue and cut out.  Circle punches and Sarah make up the flower center.   I had discarded this from the first card in favor of a blue patterned flower.  The Certainly Celery scalloped edge is made with the Stampin' Up! scallop scissors that is now retired.  This was also  a reject from the first card.  I decided that card needed the bigger scallops from the slit punch.  I'll blog that  card tomorrow.

"So thoughtful" wasn't a reject.  I stamped it on a scrap of white and then punched it with  the large square punch so that I could get the cutting straight on the 3 edges that show, trimmed the 4th edge later and mounted it under my main image.

Stamps: Love Without End, Just So  Sayings
Paper: Sarah, So Saffron, Certainly Celery
Inks: Ballet Blue
Accessories: circle punches, corner rounder, scallop scissors,

I lied. You're it!

I said I'd come back and add my tags but I lied.  While I do love to browse the blogs, keeping track of  who has been tagged or not isn't as fun as looking at artwork or reading about those who have been tagged so...

1. If you have a blog and haven't been tagged, leave me a comment and link to your blog where you can tell us 7 things about yourself.

2. If you don't have a blog I know we still like to hear about you so tell us a little bit about yourself  in a comment.  (Of course I know you'll keep it pretty clean so I don't have to learn how to use my edit button!)

OK? Good! This way I'll still have time to get my stamping stuff posted.

Tagged Again...

I've been tagged again, this time by StampOwl.  This time the tagging involves sharing 7 things about oneself. HELLO! I don't like writing about myself; I like writing about stamping.

Well, I must admit I do enjoy reading about others on their blogs so it's only fair to share a few more odds and ends about myself.  So, you all owe a big thank you to StampOwl for forcing me to do it...

1.  I can't eat crab meat.  Like it - well, the 2 times I tried it. Just can't eat it.  This probably isn't that interesting unless you looked at today's earlier post. I'm the last person who would  ever actually use a crab cookout invitation! But the little cartoon crabs are still so cute.

2.  I've always lived in MN.  Grew up in Duluth, college at St. Olaf in Northfield.  Mostly smaller communities since then.

3.  3 great kids: One in her first year in college at St. Olaf, one headed (out of MN!) to the University of Chicago, and one to be left at home to drive his mother nuts as she watches his football games. (3a I don't really get football - it looks too dangerous!)  Extra wonderful bonus: An exchange student from Brazil is a great addition to our household this spring and summer.  And my husband, well, he's perfect!

4. I'll be a "non-traditional" student for 16 months beginning this August as I go back to get a 2nd bachelors - in nursing and that means...

5. I HAVE to go to convention this year because next year I'll be doing clinicals most of the summer.

6.  My current favorite author is Louise Erdrich.  The Last Miracle at Little No Horse and The Master Butcher's Singing Club are the only two books of hers that I've read so far.

7.  I've been spending a lot of time sitting on fairly cold aluminum bleachers - 2 kids run track and a 3rd plays ball.  In fact, I'm running a bit late leaving to pick up DD#1 to go to DD#2's track meet, so I'll have to list the people I tag later.

Thanks for stopping by!

Crab, Crab, Crab...

This is the first in a pair of cards that I did a few weeks back for a Bloggers' Swap hosted by Sara Moore  - staramaze on SCS.  Sara offered 7 different swaps to choose from and I participated in two:
#1 - Newbie or Veteran Bloggers -  Stampin' Up! Spring Mini
#5  Newbie bloggers  - Any company's products or stamps

I got my swaps back yesterday so now I can start to share them with you.  Since I have the photos ready I'll start with mine  and post the others over the next several days as I get them photographed.  Both of these cards were inspired by a browse through the Shedd Aquarium Gift Shop during our recent trip to Chicago.  I checked to see if the products are included in the online gift shop but alas, they aren't.

First I saw some cookout oriented linens with blue and muslin colored stripes and Ruby Red colored crabs.  For my interpretation  I substituted Flannel Plaid on Ivory naturals for the stripes and added a few other images to complete a row of pockets across the bottom of the apron.  Watercoloring was done with Buckaroo Blue, True Thyme and Ruby Red ink pads along with my aquapainter. Stitching was drawn with a Night of Navy Marker.  The twill tape strap was added with Ruby Red brads. This was my all Stampin' Up Spring Mini swap (#1).

Stamps: Crab & Company, All Year Cheer II, Flannel Plaid
Paper: Ivory Naturals, Ruby Red
Inks: Buckaroo Blue, Black Stazon, Ruby Red, True Thyme, Night of Navy marker
Accessories: Twill tape, Ruby Red brads, 1/16" punch, Aqua Painter

The second group of crab products that I spied were some jewel encrusted crabs.  You know,  I don't recall whether they were hard or stuffed fabric - bean bag style.  What I was impressed with were the bright multicolored crustaceans covered with "jewels":

This is the original, prototype card.  I had colored a few crabs with markers on Whisper White carstock and cut them out  to play with while I designed the card.  Not wanting to cut out all the crabs for the swap once I settled on the design, I decided to emboss the crab directly onto the Gable Green cardstock.  After bleaching the crab (I have an aquapainter knock-off that I put bleach in which is good for almost 2 weeks)  and letting the chlorine dry,  I colored it in again with markers only to find that the bleached crab took the color of the markers much more intensely than the markers on plain Whisper White cardstock.  When I tried it again, watercoloring with inkpads, I was able to get colors much closer to the original crab shown above.

I applied Green Galore craft ink direct to the cuttlebugged swirls and then sprinkled a little Iridescent Ice embossing powder over part of it for just a bit of sparkle to the "sea" and to play off the sparkles on the crab. The Cheesecloth background adds dimension and contrasts the glitz of the rest of the card.

Stamps: Crab & Company, Cheesecloth
Paper : Orchid Opulence, Taken with Teal, Green Galore, Gable Green
Ink: Black craft, Green Galore Craft, Black Stazon - inside message; Classic Pads: Tempting Turquoise, Orchid Opulence - unrevised color; Gable Green marker
Accessories: Black Detail and Iridescent Ice embossing Powder, Bleach, Aquapainter, Cuttlebug, Ribbon, Hero Arts gemstones, Stampendous Geo Shapes Sparklers stickers, Stickles - Diamond

Kraft Pastel cards 1 & 2

Here is the first card I made with my kraft pastel pieces. It uses the layout from this week's Sketch challenge, SC120.

I knew I wanted to use one of the That's Nice messages with one of these cards but the trick was getting different colors of ink on the words without markers - which I didn't think would give true enough colors on the kraft cardstock.  Then I remembered a technique I haven't played with in a long time: Poppin' Pastels.   The words do show up better in real life.

I stamped the message on Kraft cardstock with white craft ink (Versamark would also work). Then I picked up chalk with a cotton swab and applied it to my image.  You kind of have to think in terms of rubbing the chalk onto the ink but not necessarily the cardstock .  I use a tissue to remove excess chalk from the cardstock  as rubbing it with your fingers would actually set the chalk into the cardstock somewhat.  The oils in your skin do this.  More how-to's  with chalk can be found here. Here's a snapshot of a partially chalked image:

The second card took me longer to develop.  I kept setting it aside and coming back to it.  Then I discovered how well the striped paper from the double sided Petals and Paisley collection looked with this.  No kraft color in it but it worked!

I added some scallops with my corner rounder, stitches, frayed ribbon and brads and Voila!  I omitted part of the message and put it in the inside of the card so that the outside reads: "A friend like you makes a friend like me" and the inside reads "really happy to have a friend like you!" This is from the set, In My Thoughts, which is part of the Say it with Stamps promotion this month.

One extra note about stamping with craft inks.  You might think they are stamping darker than your expected color at first but many colors, especially the lighter colors lighten as they dry.  Use your heat tool to dry them quickly and you will see how much the drying changes the color. If you haven't seen my comparison of craft(pigment) versus classic(dye) inks check this out.

Stamps:  Mixed Bouquet, In My Thoughts, That's Nice
Cardstock/Paper: Kraft, Petals and Paisley, Tempting Turquoise, Whisper White
Inks: White, Pretty in Pink, Certainly Celery and Tempting Turquoise craft pads
Accessories: White gel pen, Corner rounder, grosgrain ribbon, buttons

That's all for tonight and thanks for visiting!

I've been tagged too!

Bethany Paull has tagged me on her blog. Thank you Bethany! What does this mean?  I guess it means that I'm "it" until I tag 5 more blog I'd like you to go visit.  Not hard to do considering the number of great bloggers I have on my Google Reader.

So, I suggest you make some visits to these fine bloggers:
 
Marie McClellan at From Combat Boots to Rubber Stamps

Fances Byrne at StampOwl's Studio

 Judith Novak at  Gone to the Dogs

Jessica Canham at  Wild Rose Stamper

Jill Dunn at Inkgenius

Back to taking photos of my work from yesterday...