Tagged! The Middle Name Game

I've been tagged by Jamie (she's got a great blog, especially for technique lovers).



The Middle Name Game

These are the rules:

-You must post the rules before you give your answers. You must list one fact about yourself for each letter of your middle name. Each fact must begin with that letter. If you don't have a middle name, just use your maiden name. After you've been tagged, you need to up-date your blog with your middle name and answers. At the end of your post, you need to tag one person for each letter of your middle name. (Be sure to leave them a comment telling them they've been tagged and need to read your blog for details.Ok here goes!! )


{Ack! I have such a long middle name!!! I could lie and say it's Eve, but it would still have two E's, which are really hard, and it would always bug me that I did it....maybe I should change H to Honest....}

E is for Exploring - I love to go places I've never been before


L is for Loving - I love my husband and my two little girls to bits


I is for Interested - I'm interested in diverse subjects and like to learn all I can about each one


Z is for Zany - I will admit to a certain quirky sense of humour....


A is for Amazed - by the beauty of creation


B is for Busy - I have a 5-year-old and a 20-month-old - c'est tout!


E is for Educated - I have a Master's degree and part of a PhD in developmental psychology


T is for Tuneless - I can't carry a tune in a bucket


H is for Happy Stamper (you knew you'd see it somewhere!)


Now I have to tag 9 people: my friend Laura (I love reading her insights into family life), Connie (my friend and downline), and the following fabulous bloggers who've left me comments: Pam, Godelieve, Michelle, Julia, Sara (sorry I don't know how to make an umlaut with my keyboard), Jeanne, and Lisa.

Cherry Card

A friend of mine from work asks me to make cards for her from time to time. She likes to have them custom made and I like the challenge of meeting the specifications. Recently she asked me to make a couple and this is one of them. She wanted a birthday card for someone who really likes cherries and for whom red is an auspicious colour. I don't have any cherry stamps (which is actually a bit astonishing given the number and variety of stamps I do have...) so I put out a plea with my local fellow demonstrators. My fantastic up-up-up-line had the Fresh Fruit set to lend me (thanks Josee!!!).

I drew the layout inspiration from this card on splitcoast and changed up the colours and embellishments. I like the offset image, but it did mean I had to use a bigger envelope. The sacrifices we make for Art! lol The background panel for the cherries is made with crimson Lumiere paint, dabbed on with a balled-up handful of plastic shopping bag. I've really been enjoying experimenting with these Lumiere paints lately. If it hadn't been a borrowed stamp set, I would have used the paint on the stamps and it would have looked fantastic! But, the paint does get on the wood and it won't come off. This give me happy memories on my stamps, but I didn't think it was such a great idea for borrowed stamps....

Back to the card. To make the cherries, I coloured directly on the rubber with watercolor wonder crayons, shading Real Red and Bravo Burgundy together, and Garden Green for the stem. I lightly misted the watercolour paper and the rubber before stamping. You want to hold the stamp down for a few seconds and let the paper absorb the pigment. Misting the rubber activates the pigment in the crayons and misting the paper lets the pigment bleed a little bit for a very soft look. Obviously the more water, the more bleeding, so a light touch is a good idea. You can always add another mist or two, but you don't want puddles.

Stay tuned tomorrow for the other custom card, which is finished but for a few final touches.

Thanks for looking!

Supplies: All supplies Stampin' Up unless otherwise noted. Stamps: Fresh Fruit, Sincere Salutations; Ink: Palette Noir Black (Stewart Superior), versamark (Tsukineko); Paper: real red, basic black, watercolour; Accessories: watercolor wonder crayons, wide red grosgrain ribbon, Adirondack Acrylics in Espresso, crimson Lumiere, fine spray mister

A scrapbook page

My LSS, Paper Paradise, posted a January Challenge to use a sketch from Pagemaps. I thought I'd give it a whirl so looked for something to scrap. I found some nice pictures from an autumn walk to the Nut Grove in Baxter Conservation Area. (This is a beautiful walk through the woods!) I used a kit (also from Paper Paradise) which took all the guess-work out of coordinating the papers and accessories. I'm new to this style of scrapbooking, but I still kind of like how it turned out. DH doesn't like it at all. You win some, you lose some.

I've blurred the photos of my girls - I'm a bit weird about posting pictures of my kids on the big, bad Internet.

The deets:

We were supposed to use an acrylic embellishment on this layout, so I used the A for Autumn and tinted it with some lumiere (russet and burnt orange). I adhered it with embroidery floss and a photo turn. The tree is a die-cut from a sheet of coordinating die cuts and so are the letters. The background scallop paper was too white so I coloured it with my creamy brown chalk cats-eye pad (direct-to-paper in a swirling motion). I added a bit of walnut brown distress ink to give it a bit more depth. The brown scallop was cut with my Fiskars shape template and gussied up a bit with more lumiere. (It was at this point that I noticed my kit came with copper scrapbook glaze so I shoulda-coulda-woulda used that instead.) The R in Rambling is dotted with my gel pen to coordinate with the narrow brown-and-white-polka-dot ribbon that I forgot to add before the photo was taken.

Supplies: Stamps: Touch of Nature, Season by Season - Stampin' Up!; Paper: chocolate chip 12x12 textured, really rust, chocolate chip - Stampin' Up, patterned paper - BasicGrey; scalloped paper - unknown; Ink: really rust - Stampin' Up, Colorbox creamy brown fluid chalk, Tim Holtz walnut distress ink ; Other: lumiere (Jacquard), BasicGrey die cuts, Fiskars scallop template, embroidery floss, acrylic letters, Stampin' Up Hodgepodge Hardware photo turn, white signo gel pen.

VSN Part III

I'm so excited!!! I just found out this card made the honours gallery!!! Jen, the challenge hostess for Hats Off To You picked my card to go in the Dancefloor. {grin}

I've just been busy checking out the others and they are really, really good. It's amazing what people can do in 45 minutes. I haven't been able to check out all the VSN submissions - I heard there were well over 1000!

So if you want some good eye candy, head out onto the Dancefloor and get jiggy :-) I don't see the Dancefloor open yet, but all the cards are listed at the top of this thread. The Dancefloor should open soon - go to the main page of the Gallery, look down at the bottom for Special Collections, click through and click on Virtual Stamping and Scrapbooking Nights. Jan 2008 should be there soon.

The Deets:

The challenge was to make a card with a hat on it somewhere, somehow. I have always loved watercolouring and those types of line art stamps are always a favourite so I reached for my Summer by the Sea set and watercoloured this little girl using watercolor wonder crayons and an aquapainter. I like those when I need a quick, fabulous watercolour. Other watercolouring media have their strengths, but when I want something quick that matches my paper, I go for my WWC's. Once I had her painted, I added some layers and embellishments (including some hodgepodge hardware I vowed to start using instead of hoarding) and I was done!

Supplies: Stamps: Summer by the Sea, Warm Words; Ink: black stazon, mellow moss; Paper: watercolour, elegant eggplant, pale plum, mellow moss; Accessories: hemp twine, eggplant grosgrain ribbon, pewter hodgepodge hardware, watercolor wonder crayons, aquapainter

Card Tin

Sorry I didn't post yesterday. I didn't get time to stamp, but I did get to go out to a crop and got quite a few layouts done while having a hoot with the other ladies.

I made this tin for my sister-in-law for Christmas since she wanted somewhere to keep her cards before she sends them. She also asked for some handmade cards, so I put a bunch of cards from my stash inside (I even managed to part with nice ones LOL!).

This tin was quite easy to do, and I've only made these a couple of times before. This was my first one using Mod Podge to stick down the paper. I started with a tin which my friend gave me (thanks again!). I used several coordinating papers from the SU's retired Recollections pack and drew my colours from there (bravo burgundy, cranberry crisp and chocolate chip).

To apply the paper, I put a thin coat of Mod Podge directly on the tin, and then another thin coat over the paper. Many thin coats gives a better finish than fewer thick coats. For the tricky bits around the latch and handles I used a custom acrylic pattern that I got from The Cardladies. They have patterns for several styles of Provo Craft tins. Before I sealed it, I sponged a bit of chocolate chip, cranberry crisp and bravo burgundy ink around here and there to "age" it a bit in spots. The paper was similarly patterned in places, but in some places was cut off to fit on the tin, so I just replaced it for a more even look.

I added some ribbon embellishment, which I stuck down with Sticky Strip, and also stamped a panel saying "CARDS" so she doesn't try to put anything else in the tin. Since I had broken the hoarding seal by parting with my beloved Recollections paper, and my favourite cards (well some of them anyway), I was able to go all out and part with ribbon from my pack of Flirty Ribbon Originals *and* a hatpin and beads from my Pretties kit. It actually feels great to use these things and it's actually way more fun than hoarding it. And I haven't used it all up so there's still some around to gaze lovingly at whenever I wish to. I really love the Pretties kit with all the pearls and rhinestones and beads. I have a bit of a New Year's Resolution to use it this year. Now that's the kind of resolution that's going to be fun to stick to!

Anyway, back to the embellies. I finished it off with some prima flowers accented with some Liquid Pearls. I see that I forgot to do pearls on one of the flowers so I will need to bring my Liquid Pearls next time I visit my SIL or I will be haunted by the spectre of unfinished primas... Isn't that every stamper's nightmare?

My SIL really liked this on Christmas morning and was quite surprised because when she asked for a box for her cards, she was picturing something in the vein of a photobox from M's.

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies Stamps: Letterpress Alphabet - Stampin' Up!; Ink: chocolate chip pigment ink, cranberry crisp and bravo burgundy dye ink; Paper: Recollections, very vanilla, chocolate chip - Stampin' Up!, Accessories: provo craft lunch tin, acrylic pattern, mod podge, sponge brush, burgundy grosgrain ribbon, Flirty Ribbon Originals and Pretties Kit - Stampin Up!, Liquid Pearls - Ranger, Prima flowers

Nephew's birthday card

I needed a birthday card for my nephew who is turning 2, so I thought I would make him a card for the daily challenge on splitcoast. Today's Ways To Use It Challenge was to use paint on your card or project. Last night I'd been fooling around with my Lumiere paints (shimmery metallic paints made by Jacquard). I was experimenting with stamping with them on cardstock. This worked out so well last night that I thought I'd use the technique today.


To make the circle background strip, I used a foam paintbrush to apply Halo Blue-Gold lumiere to the circle side of my Dots cube. Once I had good coverage on the stamp, I just stamped it directly onto brilliant blue cardstock and repeated until I had enough length.


With that piece set aside to dry, I stamped my truck in versamark on naturals white and embossed it in black. I painted him using Twinkling H20's in nice bright primary colours. I try to use at least two shades of each colour as I find layering colour gives better vibrancy and depth, as well as leaving some room for shading. I do need to remember to leave white spots, but I find that really difficult (as you can see by their absence on this card!). The focal image is mounted on basic black, then real red. All the coloured paper on this card is from the Bold Brights SU colour family and it's so nice how they work together so well, especially for a kid's card.


All the layers are mounted on a tempting turquoise card blank. The focal image is popped up on dimensionals. I felt it needed a little something else, so I added some dots of cranberry acrylic acrylic paint (Adirondack).


Now all I need to do as add a birthday sentiment inside and some crystal effects on the eyes. (I was too impatient to load this card that I didn't want to wait for the CE to dry. As it was I took a chance on scanning this with wet cranberry paint, but I checked and the dots were below the level of the focal image and my scanner platen is unpainted and my card is unsmudged - whew!)



Notes on Lumiere: I got a package of a bunch of small bottles of Lumiere at my LSS in a lumiere starter kit, and I've also ordered the larger pots from www.stampandscrapcanada.ca. Stampin' Up! used to carry the white lumiere, which can be tinted with re-inkers. Lumiere can be used on a number of surfaces and is easy to clean up with water. I wouldn't leave it to dry on a stamp though. I've used it on acetate and it can be used on fabric as well. The colours are just yummy and so, so shimmery!


I can't believe my nephew will be 2 in less than a week! It seems like just yesterday that he was born. He's such a great little guy and I love him to bits. And cute, man he is just *the cutest* little boy ever! (I'd post a picture, but I'm a little weird about posting pictures of my kids, or other people's kids, on the internet.)





Supplies Stamps: truck from Little Trucks set, Stampin' Up!, background from Dots cube, Sunshine Designs; Paper: naturals white, basic black, real red, brilliant blue, tempting turquoise; Ink: versamark; Accessories: black embossing powder, twinkling H20's, Adirondack acrylics, lumiere paint (Jacquard).

How sweet it is!

How sweet it is... nap time that is! I'm a SAHM (stamp-at-home-mom) on an extended maternity leave from my job. Nap time is one of my favourite times of day when I can steal a few moments of creativity for myself.

When I don't have a lot of time to stamp, I like to jump-start the ideas, usually with one of the daily challenges from splitcoaststampers or by using a new stamp set or something I've gotten recently. For this card, I went with today's sketch challenge on a Valentine's theme. I started off by making the pink background layer by wanding shades of pink from my fluid chalk queue (how nice to have various shades in one easy spot!) and adding the small swirl from Priceless, which I just got, in three shades of pigment ink. I heat set it with the iron and then moved on to the focal image. I wanted a horizontal image, but nothing was jumping off my shelf. Then my eye lit upon my jumbo outline alphabet and I thought that would do the trick. I used my stamp-a-majig to get the letters (mostly) straight and coloured them with the lid of my purely pomegranate ink pad and my aquapainter. These panels were mounted on a sheet of rose red designer prints, on a pomegranate card base. The accent is a flower and brad from my Pretties kit, which I have vowed to stop hoarding. I tinted the flower to match with more pomegranate ink and my aquapainter. Isn't that nice to have perfectly matching embellishments!

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies Stamps: Jumbo Outline Alphabet, Priceless (both Stampin' Up!); Ink: Palette black noir, purely pomegranate, fluid chalk rose petal queue, color box pigment ink (velvet, pink, peony); Paper: papertrey ink white cardstock, purely pomegranate, rose red designer prints (SU); Accessories: stylus and foam tip, Pretties kit (SU)

Stampin' Up news

The Spring/Summer Collection is fantastic and is now available for sale. Check it out on-line or get your own catalogue from me. Note that SU made a few changes to the catalogue since publication:
- all catalogue items are sold for 7% off the printed price
- minimum qualifying sales for hostess benefits is now $200

So what are your favourite new sets? I am in love with Riot of Petals (that is definitely going on my first order), and I'm going to have to get the dinosaur one for my dino-nut-daughter. I also really love the big flower in the hostess benefits. SU has outdone themselves on this catalogue for sure, especially with the accessories. I can't wait to try the new glitter and sticky letters. and the rub-ons. And the felt flowers.... so many projects... so little time :-)

VSN Part Two

I was able to do some more VSN challenges (see previous post for more info on VSN) yesterday, a whopping eight projects! I'd be hard-pressed to pick a favourite, but I think it would have to be my brother's birthday card (the brown, ferny one front and centre), with the watercoloured girl running a close second. Unfortunately I didn't get time to do the panty card and apparently there's a five-page thread on splitcoast about how funny/outrageous the submissions were. I'll have to check that out.

If you would like more information on any of these cards, they're posted in my splitcoast gallery along with the supply details.

Thanks for visiting my blog!

January '08 Virtual Stamp Night

This is VSN weekend! VSN is Virtual Stamp Night on splitcoast, where there are new stamping challenges every hour, with only 45 minutes to do each project. I love these weekends and find that the rapid pace really gets my creative juices flowing. In a way the short time allowance is a bit liberating because there isn't time to dither about stamps, colours, designs, etc. You just have to go for it. There are always great chat threads in the VSN forum and it's fun to meet other stampers on-line. One VSN I even got to be a challenge hostess!

This weekend I've gotten to try some fun techniques like polished stone, stamping on black, and criss-cross cards. I also took the opportunity to make a birthday card for a friend (he's a Simpson's fan - can you guess which card is his?). It's been a lot of fun and I hope I can get the chance to do some more challenges. So far these are the 7 challenges I've been able to complete. The challenges run this afternoon and evening, but you can upload to the challenge galleries until 11 pm (EST) tomorrow night.

If you would like to see the cards with more details, please see my splitcoast gallery. I've listed all the supplies there.

French Flair "Merci"

Today's Limited Supplies Challenge on splitcoast was to focus on background stamps. The limitations were 1-2 background stamps, no designer paper, no dry embossing, limited embellishments, 2 colours plus a neutral.

I took a look at my background stamps and chose French Flair. I love how it coordinates with my Carte Postale set too. I wanted a soft colour scheme and I haven't used plum in a while, so I went with Pale Plum (the lighter shade) and Perfect Plum (the darker shade). French Flair was stamped in Perfect Plum and the swallow from Carte Postale was stamped in white pigment ink and heat embossed. I thought the card needed a sentiment, so I stamped "Merci", also from the Carte Postale set, in Perfect Plum and punched it out with my word window punch. I accented it with a mini rhinestone brad from my Pretties kit. The final touch to this card was a length of white taffeta ribbon, tied with a simple knot. Easy-peasy!

This card didn't take more than about 15 minutes from start to finish. What a great warm-up for VSN tonight! (VSN is Virtual Stamp Night on splitcoast, with different stamping challenges every hour, on the hour, and only 45 minutes to complete each one. It's a blast!)

Thanks for looking!

You're So Sweet

I made this card for today's Ways To Use It Challenge (149) on splitcoast. The challenge was to incorporate heat embossing creatively. I chose to emboss one of my new stamps from my Valentine cube from Sunshine Designs. These were part of my prize package for the contest I won in November {thank you Sunshine Designs!!!}.

I started off by making the heart background using the emboss-resist technique. I embossed the hearts on Naturals White using clear embossing powder and then added various shades of pink from my new fluid chalk queue (rose petals). It's nice to have various shades of the same colour. I find it gives the background more interest and depth. I matted the background on a piece of whisper white, with just a narrow border showing.

For the focal image, I embossed the candy dish with black embossing powder and coloured the candies with my Tombow markers, and a bit of the chalk ink to tie in the colours. The sentiment, another one from Sunshine Designs, was embossed on pomegranate paper with white embossing powder. The sentiment panel seemed to need a little something so I trimmed the bottom with my scallop-edged scissors. The ribbon accents are from the Flirty Ribbon Originals package that's been mostly hoarded until now. The last little bit of embellishment was some Fruit Punch stickles on the pink hearts. I just love how the stickles draw the eye to the focal image and give it that extra pop.

I think this will make a nice valentine card. My DH has been known to grumble that he doesn't get cards, which is actually true. It's a bit of a case of the shoemaker's children not being shod around here.... Maybe I'll make this for him. On the other hand, I bought several valentine stamps when I was in Edmonton with a view to making him a valentine and this card doesn't use any of them! I'll just have to make a few cards and see which one I like best. This one is a bit pink for a guy-card.....

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies Stamps: Sunshine Designs; Ink: versamark, black pigment ink, fluid chalk ink (rose coral, rouge, warm red, warm violet); Paper: watercolour, Purely Pomegranate, Whisper White, Naturals White; Accessories: clear embossing powder, black embossing powder, white embossing powder, Flirty Ribbon Originals (Stampin' Up!), Tombow markers, scallop-edge scissors (Fiskars), stickles (fruit punch).

Button Snowman

Here's a card I made just before Christmas. I needed some cards to go with gift subscriptions and I just love this little button snowman from Sunshine Designs. The snowman is stamped with Palette ink and painted with twinkling H20's, and the buttons are highlighted with diamond glaze. I finished it off with some Stickles here and there for some extra shine. The sparkly snowflakes in the background were created with a snowflake stamp (no maker's identification), a glue pad, and glitter.

Supplies Stamps: snowman from Sunshine Designs, The Stamp Barn, "celebrate" from Old Island Stamps, snowflake unknown; Paper: watercolour paper, soft sky, blue bayou; Ink: Palette black noir; Accessories: glue pad, diamond glaze, dazzling diamonds glitter, twinkling H20's, stickles

Welcome to my new blog!

Hello! Welcome to my new blog! I called it The Daley Stamper because I love to stamp and I stamp almost every day. And, being a Daley (as well as someone who can't resist a pun) I thought that would be a good name.

I've been thinking about starting a blog for a long time now, and have finally decided to take the plunge. It's taken me a while for a couple of reasons. First off, it always takes me a while to catch up with the trends, whatever they are. I'm much more of a trailing-edge person than a cutting-edge person, but I'm ok with that. Second, the whole technical aspect of blogging didn't really appeal to me. However, my mother is a very tech-savvy person and has really helped me out with all the behind-the-scenes stuff. (Thanks Mum! :D)

So here I am, another voice in the stamping-blog world. I hope you enjoy what you see here and I hope it inspires you to make something special for a special someone in your life.

For my first post, I thought I'd share something I made on my visit out west. My mother and I took a class at Western Educational Activities Ltd. (stamping swoon!!!) in Edmonton, taught by the amazing Cathie Allan (yes, it's true! I got to take a class from Cathie Allan and it was fantastic, another stamping swoon!!!).

In the "Back to Basics" class, Cathie taught us how to make gorgeous backgrounds using fluid chalk and pigment inks. The trick to the pigment inks is heat setting them with an iron. Who knew! I will definitely be using this technique in the future. Not only is it a lot of fun, you can really get some gorgeous colour combinations.

I love this card - I don't usually make them so big (it's 5.5x7"), but it was fun to try something new and this technique really works well on a large palette. I made it a pocket card, with a tag insert that's big enough to be a book mark.

Notes on the card: I won't go into a lot of detail about the technique since it was from a class and I don't have permission from the store or instructor to share. Basically, the panel is created by layering colours and uses pigment and chalk ink, and resist techniques.

Supplies Stamps: Daisy - Old Island Stamp Company, "Magic Happens" and dandelion - Serendipity Stamps, "Life is the flower" - Paper Inspirations; Paper: whisper white, basic black, taken with teal; Ink: colorbox fluid chalk (lavender, aquamarine, blue lagoon), colorbox pigment ink; Accessories: clear and black embossing powder, Dove blender pen, flower brads, Tombow and Marvy markers, eyelash yarn