Make a Wish

I'm so sorry I haven't blogged in so long. It's been a busy month...I've been to Florida for a much needed vacation and since then I've been getting ready for a craft supply consignment sale that I'm hosting this weekend. I signed up for another card swap some local stamper friends of mine and this is what I came up with. This is a birthday card swap, and it's due next week. Since my weekend's going to be very busy, I had to get these done this week!

This color combination is a new one for me, I saw it in one of the recent Stampin' Up! magazines: Cocoa, pink, and turquoise. I just love the "She's All That" stamp set. I hope it is put into the next catalog so I'll have more excuses to use it in my classes!

Stamps: She's All That, Paisley (background)
Papers: Close to Cocoa, White, Pretty in Pink, Tempting Turquoise
Inks: Close to Cocoa
Accessories: Cuttlebug Embossing folder, turquoise rhinestone brad, Boho Blossoms punch, scallop punch, circle punches

April Technique Class: Watercolors & Chipboard

We had a lot of fun last night making cards in my monthly technique class. I'm just so grateful for this group. All the ladies are so nice and eager to learn new techniques. This month we did a litte watercoloring and used chipboard to make a simple "non-girly" card.

This card above uses the "misting with markers" technique. This can be considered a watercoloring technique because it involves the use of water with the ink to create a flowy watercolor image. For this technique you need to use a solid image stamp. The first step is to color the rubber on the stamp with various colors of markers. Then spray a couple of times with a water spray bottle. Finally, you can stamp your image on cardstock and you'll notice how the colors flow into eachother and sometimes fade a little bit in places due to the water.

You can also use this technique with watercolor crayons. Same idea: color on the rubber with the crayons, spray, then stamp. I've found the the colors are more vibrant when you use markers, but both effects are just lovely.

Here's the recipe:
Stamps: Live your Dream
Inks: Cameo Coral, Garden Green, Mellow Moss, Chocolate Chip, Versamark
Papers: Soft Sky, Chocolate Chip, White, Afternoon Tea DS Paper
Accessories: Soft Sky Ribbon
Notes: The white cardstock and Afternoon Tea paper are sponged on the edges with chocolate chip ink.

This next card is a traditional watercoloring card using shimmery white cardstock. The shimmer doesn't show up too well in the photo, but I just love that litte sparkle that remains across the entire piece even after coloring the image in. For this card we watercolored with watercolor crayons and blender pens. I typically use aquapainters only when I watercolor on watercolor paper. For this project I just added a little color here and there and then used the blender pens to spread the color around.

Stamps: Summer by the Sea
Inks: Stazon Black, Garden Green, Tempting Turquoise
Papers: Soft Sky, Wild Wasabi, Shimmery White, Black
Accessories: Paper piercer
Notes: The butterfly was stamped on shimmery white paper using turquoise ink, cut out, and adhered with a mini glue dot. The edges of the Soft Sky were pierced along the length of both sides.
This last card is a very simple "non-girly" card that highlights an easy way to use chipboard to complete your card. The background was created using a cuttlebug dry embossing folder which I think is so busy that you don't need much more to complete the card.

Stamps: Big Bold Birthday
Inks: Chocolate Chip
Papers: Kraft, Chocolate Chip, Tempting Turquoise
Accessories: Chipboard Star, Orange grosgrain ribbon

Cards, Challenges, and more!

Thanks to my amazing husband, I actually got some time yesterday to sit down and make a bunch of cards. The only minor distraction that I had was my youngest daughter sitting on my lap while I worked for some of the time. She was very well behaved, so I didn't mind at all! I had taken notes about a few challenges that I could use to get me started and I'm so happy that I was able to satisfy many of them!

The first card satisfies 2 challenges- yeah! The layout is using Beate's Weekend Sketch Challenge (WSC41) and the colors are from a Splitcoast Color Challenge (CC159): Whisper Soft Gray.

What I like about this card is the focal image which I coated with Irridescent Ice (hard to see in the picture). The image sparkles so much in real life that as I was finishing the card, I realized that I wanted to keep the card fairly simple so as not to detract from the sparkly flower.

Stamps: One of a Kind
Papers: Soft Sky, Basic Gray, Whisper White
Inks: Tempting Turquoise, Basic Gray, Versamark
Accessories: Love & happiness Rub-ons, Basic Gray Taffeta Ribbon, Irridescent Ice
Notes: To make the flower sparkle, I covered the flower with versamark ink by wiping it on the pad. I then added the Irridescent Ice and heat embossed. To color the flower in I used tempting turquoise ink and a blender pen to get a Soft Sky shade....still haven't bought the pad!

The next card was for color challenge CC158: Krafty Orchid Shadows. I just received my "She's All That" stamp set and I couldn't wait to use it!

Stamps: She's All That
Papers: Kraft, Chocolate Chip, Sage Shadow, Very Vanilla,Orchid Opulence
Inks: Chocolate Chip
Accessories: Ticket Corner Punch, Cuttlebug Embossing Folder, Scallop & Circle Punches, Orchid ribbon, Chocolate Chip Twill Ribbon

The last card here was another using the One of a Kind stamp set. I was trying to use the Weekend Sketch Challenge for this one, but just couldn't make it work. So here's what I ended up with...a little more simple than I had envisioned, but still nice.

Stamps: One of a Kind
Papers: Chocolate Chip, Whisper White, Rose Red, Berry Bliss DS paper
Inks: Chocolate Chip, Pretty in Pink, Rose Red
Accessories: Pink brads, Chocolate Chip wide grosgrain ribbon, Pretty in Pink Taffeta Ribbon, Ticket Corner Punch, Brown Button

I actually made 3 more cards yesterday, but they're for my Technique class so I won't be able to upload those until after the class next week. Stay tuned!

March Scrapbook Layouts

Here are the pages we made last night at my monthly scrapbooking class. The layout above uses the page elements that we created in the class. I was so excited to make a page for spring!

Stamps: Fabulous Flowers, Big Deal Alphabet, Best Friends Upper
Inks: Summer Sun, Rose Red, Pumpkin Pie
Papers: Rose Red, Summper Sun, Pumpkin Pie, White
Accessories: Flower Slide from Styled Silver HodgePodge set, Pumpkin grosgrain ribbon, Flower Fusion felt flowers, Orange Rhinestone brad

This next layout was a "boy" themed page using those fun animals from Zoofari again. I used my Cuttlebug to add some dimension in the orange pieces.

Stamps: Zoofari, Best Friends Alpha Upper, Big Deal Alpha

Inks: Glorious Green, Ballet Blue, Chocolate Chip, Only Orange

Papers: Pumpkin Pie, Glorious Green, Ballet Blue, Chocolate Chip, Bashful Blue

Accessories: Chocolate Chip Twill Ribbon, Cuttlebug Embossing folder, Creamy Caramel watercolor wonder crayon, blender pen

Notes: To color in the monkeys stamped on the blue cardstock I used a blender pen with a caramel watercolor crayon.

A lot of my friends still have some Christmas pictures to scrapbook so they requested another Christmas layout. Fortunately, I hadn't yet scrapbooked the pictures of my Mia on Christmas Eve posing in ther Christmas dress. I used the colors in her dress as inspiration for the layout.

Stamps: Season of Joy, Typeset Alphabet lower

Inks: Real Red, Basic Black

Papers: Cerise DS, Real Red, Very Vanilla, Basic Black

Accessories: Real Red grosgrain ribbon, Black Wide organdy ribbon, Red Rhinestone Brads, Cuttlebug embossing folder

Notes: I dry embossed the background black paper of the title block using a swirly Cuttlebug dry embossing folder.

February Scrapbook Layouts

Here are the scrapbook layouts that I designed for my monthly scrapbooking class last month. This first one is a winter themed page that I used to display some sledding pictures of my kids.

Stamps: The Snowflake Spot, Big Deal Alphabet, Best Friends Alphabet Lower
Papers: Close to Cocoa, Pretty in Pink, Purely Pomegranate, Berry Bliss DS
Inks: Close to Cocoa, Rose Red
Accessories: Brown buttons, Purely Pomegranate Double stitched ribbon, white gel pen, square punch, pink brads.
Notes: I used the "direct to paper" technique to darken up the edges of the 12x12 pages before stamping snowflakes on the corners.

The next layout was designed to be used for a "year in review" series of photos.

Stamps: Priceless, Best Friends Alphabet lower, Big Deal Alphabet
Papers: Certainly Celery, Old Olive, Soft Sky, Elegant Eggplant, Fall Flowers DS
Inks: Old Olive, Elegant Eggplant
Accessories: Flowers and half pearls from the Pretties Kit, Soft Sky Double stitched ribbon, Photo Corner punch, Corner Rounder

This next layout was made using the "page elements" that we created with a boyish/animal theme. Stamps: Zoofari, Best Friends Alphabet lower, Big Deal Alpha

Papers: Old Olive, Soft Sky, White, Certianly Celery, Sahara Sand, Fall Flowers.

Inks: Old Olive, Sahara Sand, Certainly Celery, Basic Gray, Not Quite Navy

Accessories: Photo corner punch, Celery Ribbon, Soft Sky Double stitched ribbon, Vintage Pewter brads, Cutter Kit

Notes: I used the cutter kit to roughen up the edges of the cardstock (as shown on the right). Since I don't have the soft sky ink pad, I used a blender pen and the Not Quite Navy pad to color the birds a similar shade of blue.