from my ink pad to yours

Easter Blessings

Easter Blessings is a single stamp from Stampin' Up!'s Spring catalog.

• I've used it here on a background piece that I made while playing around with a mixed media challenge (Water you doing) to use water with some form of ink.
• I used markers to ink Vine Street embossing folder and then spritzed water on the folder before running it through the Big Shot with my white card stock.
• I used the embossed framelit technique for the oval.
• I did the same type of thing on an acrylic block except I used re-inkers instead of markers. The acrylic block then became the "ink pad" I used to stamp the butterflies from Papillon Potpourri.
• Yes, I do finally have my own butterfly punches and stamps!
• The Easter Blessings stamp is really big enough to carry it's own weight as the focal point. The butterflies might have been a little over the top with this card but they are on there and they aren't coming off.

Playing with Watercolor Pencils

I haven't played with colored pencils in a long time. Using pencils is a great way to add more color to colored card stock.

Plus, the pencils gave me a new way to play with the Swallowtail stamp. You can't always get away with "just" embossing it. Well, I guess you could...

Most of the blending is just done with the pencils themselves. I like to add at least a little bit of white when coloring on Crumb Cake or kraft. Though I had planned on a a tone on tone layering it seemed that a little bit more white would make the butterfly pop a little more.

Before the Academy Awards were over last night I finished a second card on Marine Mist:

This was done with watercolor pencils too. Just a bit of blender pen on the espresso colored parts. I need to use these pencils more often

Thanks so much for your visit!

 

 

River Rock Swallowtail

 Isn't River Rock an awesome color?

Stamps: One in a Million - clear / One in a Million - wood, Swallowtail Clear, Swallowtail Wood

Ink: Whisper White Craft (applied to Swallowtail with a brayer)

Paper: River Rock

Accessories: White Embossing Powder, Heat tool, Whisper White 5/8" Organza Ribbon

There are so many great techniques to try with this stamp but it looks so lovely on it's own. 

I'm on my way home, back to Minnesota snow and my stamp studio. Guess which one I'm looking forward to the most...

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Simple Swallowtail on Crumb Cake

...that makes you one in a million!

Very Vintage Birthday

Climate change is definitely a more accurate term than global warming. I have always remembered my birthday as being on the warm end of winter. But 2 years ago we had a snow storm that almost left me stranded at work. This year it is 11 below 0! But I am not spending the day in my cozy stamping studio. Nope. I'm going to Disneyland. Isn't that what most 55 year olds do on their birthday? It's stil chilly here in L.A. but I better not complain.

Anyway, I've been saving this card since early January and I think today is a good day to post it.


 

I think if I could have only one embossing folder it would be this Delicate design border. I love it!

Stay warm, wherever you are!

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Sneak Peek for Sale-a-bration 2013: Vintage Artisan Lace Poetry

Wishy Washy Tape Challenge

This week's technique challenge on SCS is to use Washi tape or make some. I had picked up a few patterns of tape while exploring some shops in Des Moines with my daughter last November (Small Business Saturday!) As of Monday I had not started to unroll any of them so I vowed to try them out this week.

This simple card uses up the last of the butterflies that I had stamped with Liz's Papillon set which she shared with me last month. I really need to order this set for myself today! The greeting is from Teeny Tiny Verses. It's not a card that has any particular recipient in mind but someday I'm sure I'll be glad it's in my card stash.

Quite the picture, huh? I think I chose this tape because the background color to the roses looked like Pool Party and I was right. It was a great match. The gingham came along because I wanted to make sure I had something to go with the roses. I ended up moving the tape around a little and wrapping the gingham around the bottom edge card stock so that it didn't overpower the rose tape.  The Real Red trim above the roses is from my Tasteful Trim die. I adhered the trim to another piece of paper so that I coud use my paper trimmer to cut it down the middle.

Here's  close-up of my Pool Party embossed Secret Garden Flower. What do you think of my leaves?

 

 

 

Vine Street Clout

I stamped this for the Featured Stamper Challenge on SCS today. Mary's card is perfect and it was tempting to CASE it as closely as my supplies allowed.

1. Since I already had pink, gray and oval framelits out on my counter I decided I'd challenge myself to use pretty much just the group of supplies I was already using for some upcoming class preparations.
2. I decided to mimic the stripes in Mary's card by brayering Basic Gray ink onto the Vine Street embossing folder before running my white card stock through the Big Shot. (I was a little worriedd how it would clean up but I rinsed it off right away and it ended up clean as a whistle.) This Vine Street layer ended up a lot bolder than I expected.
3. The ovals and most of the framelits didn't really play well with the vines.
4. The big gray ribbon worked better than pink. Hint: Keep your scissors clear of glue gunk or the glue will fray your ribbon as you cut it. Ask me how I know.
5. I did manage to hold onto the greeting I intended but this was the third version, using a different tag. You know, I think you buy Blooming with Kindness for the gorgeous flower and then you never put it away because the five greetings that are part of the set work on just about every card you make...

It ended up very different than I imagined. But, I like surprises!

Hooray...without Henry

Here's a quick and easy card. I keep a drawerful of Tasteful Trim die cuts handy for a quick finish on a very simple but striking card. The paper trim is inexpensive and a snap to mail. No knots to upset the post office! Our schools colors are red and black so I think it will start this year's graduation card stash.

I really like that this set is so versatile and the sketchy line style kind of tells me not to fuss too much.
I've used it for Valentine's Day, Birthdays and now graduation or other reasons to celebrate. No matter what you choose it's always fun.

Stamp Set: Henry Says (Spring Catalog p.15)

        

Ink: Stazon Jet Black (Main Catalog p.157)

Papers: Whisper White, Crumb Cake, Basic Black, Real Red (Main Catalog pp 153-156)

Accessories: Tasteful Trim die, Big Shot basics.  (Thought it's good to have the Exended Cutting pads to use with the long Tasteful Trim die if you are mostly a cardmaker you can get by with the regular pads. Scrapbookers, however, will appreciate the ability to cut the longer pieces of trim that the extended pads allow.)

 

Hello Rose!

I jumped in on a couple of challenges over on SCS tonight. Yesterday's Technique Lovers Challenge was to dry emboss patterned paper and today's color challenge was to use Lucky Limeade, Tangerine Tango and Whisper White. The first two bright colors almost scared me away but then I remembered I could tone them down with the white. I resisted the temptation to make another card with Secret Garden so that I could break out another set I haven't tried yet, Oh Hello which I purchased as a bundle with the Oval Framelits, also featured in this card.

I made this and photographed it during the State of the Union speech so it wasn't taken in the best light.

The technique for the dry embossed framelitl is here. Just a hint: if you are using a new framelit for this technique, make sure you remove any extra adhesive from the tape holding the framelits in place. I thought  had pressed my post it on to tightly until I realized there was adhesive on my new framelit. When you are using them the normal way this adhesive doesn't make a difference but when you are embossing with them you have the reverse side against your paper.

Secret Garden Cut-away

I mentioned in my last post that you will be seeing more of what I've been working on with Secret Garden. Here's a start. When a few members of my downline were here last month, I made a couple of cards that, well, I kind of awed myself with. I've been keeping them under wraps as I've have been developing a class around them.

Today I noticed that the Dynamic Duos Challenge includes the colors that I feature in the class so I used it to finalize the last card for the class. (There are 6!)

I had been working with this layout but had not done it in the colors for the class. Though I usually use dsp on the side I wanted to use the stamped background that I'd already been using for the class. It is similar to the background I did on my last post.

I've found that these soft colors aren't always the esaiest for me to capture with my simple photo set up but I hope you get the idea. Can you tell that there is glitter on my flower center? Aside from Pink Pirouette and Pool Party, I used two neutrals: Very Vanilla and Basic Gray.

 

Here are a few of this card's cousins. Three of these cards have the flowers stamped right on the card with a strip cut away to reveal the pattern. The Tangerine Tango version is actually a flower that has been cut out with the framelit and attached to the card. I corner rounded the top corners but didn't do that to today's card.

I did the "miracles happen" card for a SCS color challenge that was almost two weeks ago:

It called for Lucky Limeade, Island Indigo, and Daffodil Delight. The "dessert" option was to include a button and though my first card like this did include a button I didn't have a Daffodil Delight button on hand.

Back to working on the class...

 

Secret Garden meets a Classic Color Combination

Nothing against Glorious Green but if I had it to do over again and could only start with three colors these are the three I would start with: Basic Black, Crumb Cake, and Very Vanilla. And that, my friends, is the Color Challenge on Splitcoaststampers today. So I grabbed a couple of my favorite current sets and went to work. Here's what I came up with:

• Since I was using ultrasmooth card stock with my Basic Black ink I embossed all the black words adn images with clear embossing powder. For some reason that particular color doesn't dry real well on the ultrasmooth. The embossing is quick and easy and adds a subtle shine to the fine line images anyway.
• I think that I've used all the other greetings in the One in a Million set but this one. It's so small but SO meaningful. Now that I've put it on paper I've seen it in a new light and can see so many instances when I might have used this. Like the other stamps in this set it has an inside partner: ..."and one of them is me".
• I was not comfortable with this Secret Garden the first few times I inked it up but my appreciation of its possibilities has grown immensely. Some of you who have attended my workshops have heard me say that it is easy to possess a stamp set but you don't truly "own" it until you have played with it and have an understanding of what it's limitations and possibilities are. This is a set that I truly feel that I own. Be prepared to see more of it.
• A couple points about this set for now: I love how well the solid and outline images mix and...
• ...once I quite trying so hard I've found the outline images to be very quick to color.

Stamps: Secret Garden, One in a Million

Inks: Basic Black, Crumb Cake    

Paper: Very Vanilla, Crumb Cake, Basic Black

Accessories: Clear embossing powder, Secret Garden Framelits, 1 3/4" circle punch, Big Shot, Paper Trimmer, heat tool, dimensionals