from my ink pad to yours

Tale of Two Flowers

 

I was inspired by this morning's SCS Color challenge to remake a card I designed for my stamp club this last spring. That card was inspired by the beautiful wedding invitation that we had received to my niece Kessia's and her (now) husband Nate's wedding. I used the posie type stamp from Bloomin' Beautiful with Real Red  for the first card. I embossed the Floral background stamp (Kessia's invitation was wrapped in a folder that was like kraft metallic printed with a black floral pattern much like the Floral background stamp) on kraft for the lower border. The layout itself comes from another floral card I did. 

In today's card for the challenge I just changed the flower to the more traditional looking rose from the retired Flower Garden set, used Rose Red instead of Real Red for the flower. I also added and additional layer of ribbon, using black organdy over a strip of grosgrain. 

Both cards are done on a base of Ivory Naturals cardstock. 

Intricate Dry Embossing...NOT

I saw this done at convention a few years back but never tried it until I saw it as the Technique Challenge on SCS this morning. Why, oh why, did I wait to try this?! I used the border stamp I hadn't yet inked from Beautiful Borders, stamping first with Baja Breeze on Baja Breeze cardstock. Then I took out my stamp-a-ma jig and stamped just a tiny bit higher and to the right with Whisper White craft ink. I used the same technique with the message but maybe next time I would just do that in white. Mount on white card and tie an indispensible white taffeta ribbon.  I can't wait to try more of these. Alas, I'm heading off to take care of school stuff...

Thank you so much for stopping by my inkpad!

I never knew...

that I could have so much fun with the Big Shot.  Frankly, I invested in it knowing that Stampin' Up! would eventually be adding tools for dry embossing but how fun are these die cuts! Add some Bella Rose designer paper along with some luscious Red Riding Hood taffeta and Voila!

The message is from the hostess set Best Yet.  I dry embossed the stripes with my Fiskars cutter/scorer. Scallops are with the scallop border punch. I sponged the edges of the Red Riding Hood flowers and curled them a little with a pencil.

Torn Paper

When I first saw Julias' Ways to Use It challenge on Splitcoaststampers yesterday I thought of this old favorite.  But a challenge shouldn't be to repeat something I've already done but to try something new. Right? Anyway, I thought about it awhile and decided that I would use torn paper to make my card without actually incorporating the paper itself. 

I decided I wanted to try some torn edge stems but didn't trust myself to tear just the way I wanted to so I painted the curve I wanted with a wet paintbrush on a quarter sheet of copy paper. Then I tore along the watermarks and taped the pieces back giving the stems the width I desired. A late thought was to add the leaves which I did the same way, painting them and them sort of punching them out (with my fingers while the paper was still wet) to form a small leaf shaped stencil.

I used the flowers and words from Happiness Always and Summer Sun and Pumpkin Pie markers along with Kiwi Kiss, Old Olive and Chocolate Chip  inkpads. The corner is punched with Stampin' Up!'s larger retired corner rounder. The olive ribbon is also retired from Stampin' Up! The card base is Kraft.

Nature's Sillouettes

We spent part of last week up along Lake Superior, near Lutsen, MN. I grew up in Duluth and there is nothing like going to sleep and waking up to the sound of waves crashing on the shore. Next best is a sunrise coming up over the lake. Luckily, I'm an early enough riser that I enjoyed a couple of those too. The sunrise over the lake was the inspiration for my first "Zindorf style" card. Though I do love using the brayer, this card was done   with just sponging.

It really helped to add the white gel pen to help catch the light on the lake though I need to use a lighter hand with this.  There are other improvements I could make as well. But, alas my stamping time seems too short - I need to move on to some of the other ideas. And, I'll never match the real thing!

This card features a new Stampin' Up! set, Nature's Sillouettes, Baja Breeze, Not Quite Navy, Cameo Coral and just a touch of Only Orange. I used the grass from Inspired by Nature to lend some texture to the background layer.

Photo Albums and Other Housekeeping Notes

My photo albums in the side bar are, of course actually little galleries related to the stamp set or topic named in each title. I will be removing those albums related to retired sets so that I can more prominently display the current sets. Check the albums out in the next few days. After that most will be gone to make room for new albums. 

I've also added a link to a page that shares some blog posts that have caught my eye, all stamping related of course.  It's the first link listed: "Google Reader: Shared items". I just started marking things to share but I'll try to do that each time I surf my Google Reader. 

Art Deco Borders

This is one of the first cards I made after tearing into my first order from the new catalog. Though this gorgeous border set really lends itself to very simple elegant cards I needed to design an accessorized card to use for a swap. A ribbon trick I shared a year ago would work but it needed something more. A flat finished black button would be too country and a little black flower didn't make sense. So I pulled out a small stamp from the Eastern Blooms set I'd just put together (gotta love die cut rubbah!) and made my own little embossed button with a vintage black brad in the center. 

The color combination comes from one of the first cards I ever posted to SCS, which is actually a remake of another favorite card that was inspired by an Stillwater, MN bed and breakfast suite we stayed once visited. The name of the suite was Art Deco and the color scheme was Blush Blossom, Mint Melody, and black. I think the furniture was even shiny black so the embossing fits. If I remember correctly the arches connecting the rooms even matched the art deco punch Stampin' Up used to carry. Alas, it was almost 8 years ago that we stayed in this bed and breakfast and I can't  find it online at this point.  Mint Melody has also since retired but Sage Shadow, with it's newly introduced grosgrain ribbon, fills in nicely.

 Before I actually finished the card, I saw Sharon's Stamp Simply challenge to base a new card on an old favorite and realized this fits her suggestion perfectly. One of the hardest things when Stampin' Up comes out with a new catalog is saying goodby to so many favorite stamp sets and colors. I usually do keep keep an inspiration basket of "retired" cards that I'd like to update with current products.  But, I don't think I'll ever get them all replaced...

I'm ba-aaa-ack!

Well, I'm sort of back. I'm on my last leg of a 2 week break from school. Perfect timing for the release of Stampin' Up!'s Fall-Winter 2008 idea Book and Catalog. I've got lots of new samples to share but I must admit that stamping is the easy part.  Putzing with photos to prep them for posts is my downfall. I do have photos ready from the first batch and we'll see how long I can keep posting before I get bogged down with school and the fall sports schedule. 

Here is the make and take I used the day my customers stopped by to pick up their new catties. We used the new Wow Flowers along with Pink Pirouette, one of the new In Colors, along with Pretty in Pink and Whisper White. 

When you look at Pink Pirouette by itself it is hard to realize how much it lighter it is than Pretty in Pink. Hopefully it shows on this card. The two pinks have just enough contrast to make a great monochromatic card! The dry embossed dots at the bottom are done with my crop-a-dile. The Dazzling Diamonds glitter is added with a mini glue dot. Oh, and did you notice the textured Pirouette layer just beneath the scallop? I love working with this so much that I placed my last  Great Rewards (Stampin' Up! demo stuff) order for the textured cardstock in the 48 regular colors. 

By the way, since I take my pictures with a 6 year old 2.0 megapixel Olympus that I'm wondering about replacing, I'd love to hear comments if you have a relatively inexpensive camera that is easy to use for card close-ups. 

Hopefully, I'll be back soon with more fun stuff. I'm anxious to share the cards I made with Lynda and Liz, two dear friends and members of my downline who were here to stamp with me yesterday. Wish me luck with my camera!!!