Fruit Stand Speed Demo sample

The countdown to Stampin' Girls Convention is on!!! Only 2 more sleeps till the big day. My up-up-upline hosts a really fabulous stamping convention each year for her downline. She really goes all out and we get great speakers, lots of swaps and displays, a yummy lunch and wonderful make and takes. One of the fun things she does is set aside some time for speed demos, where lots of great ideas are shown from start to finish in two minutes or less. This means lots of swap-outs along the way, but that just makes me feel a little bit like Martha Stewart, which is a good thing ;-)

I'm demo-ing stamping on painted cardstock for my speed demo. Basically, you paint some acrylic paint on dark cardstock (and admit it, you have some in your craft drawer!) and let it dry. It won't take long. Then, stamp your line art image with black stazon and colour in with markers. Because of the paint, you won't get great blending and the colours will lighten quite a bit as they dry. For my card I overstamped with Weathered once it was coloured. Then finish your card as desired. For this one I went a bit crazy with the matting, but I think I like it. The background is kraft, stamped with Canvas (in sahara sand) and the Itty Bitty Background spatter (with heavier concentration at the bottom) and the stitched exotic leaf (my current favourite stamp for adding the perfect finishing touch) in burgundy. (I'll re-make this card using my Judikins mosaic background for a non-SU event - I think it would be perfect!)

Thanks for looking!

All supplies Stampin' Up unless otherwise noted: Stamps: Fruit Stand, Weathered, Canvas, Itty Bitty Backgrounds, Stitched Exotics; Ink: black stazon, sahara sand, bravo burgundy; Paper: always artichoke, bravo burgundy, blush blossom, kraft; Other; sahara sand eyelet, mellow moss ribbon, slit punch, acrylic craft paint (Plaid).

So Kind Swap Card

Stampin' Girls Convention was today (and last night for the more senior demos)! It's the stamping event of the year around here, hosted by my upline (a few levels up) for all her downline. People come from all over and I had a great time last year meeting people, even a few scs'ers. It was really great this year to reconnect with people I haven't seen in a while. It's fun to spend a day with like-minded people and Josee (the host) always great speakers and fantastic projects for us to do and today was no exception!

I got to pick up the Wow swap items for my upline and there were so many inspiring things. It's amazing what people can come up with.

This is the card I swapped. I got some fantastic swaps back that I can't wait to show my club. Lots of great ideas and things to try.

This card was a quick and easy one to do. I did a whole sheet at a time of the saffron, stamping it with various images from Stitched Exotics and in various colours. Then I did a whole sheet of the mustard using my jumbo It's Beautiful wheel (which I got for free when they had the promotion!). The main flower is also from Stitched Exotics and I stamped it in versamark, added Heat-and-stick powder, heated it, added fine cosmo glitter, heat set it, and cut it out. It's popped up on dimensionals. The sentiment is from Priceless.

Thanks for looking!

All supplies Stampin' Up: Stamps: Stitched Exotics, It's Beautiful jumbo wheel, Priceless; Ink: versamark, Apricot Appeal, More Mustard, Elegant Eggplant; Paper: So Saffron, More Mustard, Elegant Eggplant; Other: Heat and Stick Powder, Fine Cosmo glitter.

New toys!

I had a great time playing in my stamp room tonight. It's been waaaaay too long since I've had a chance to just sit down and play. And to make a great time even better, I had new toys to play with! I had a nice balance in my account at my LSS from teaching classes so I splurged on a Cuttlebug! (I am always so far behind on the trends....what can I say...that's just me.) And of course I had to get a couple of folders to go with it, and there were a couple of new stamps that I just couldn't resist. All these elements came together for me on this card. (And thanks to a further moment of weakness, I have more 'Bug folders coming to me from PaperWorks.co! It's a great source for lots of cool things and I had really good customer service from them too.)

I started off with my new Sunshine Designs stamp - I just fell in love with those flowers in the mailbox. It's such a pretty image and it could be coloured in so many different ways. For this card I went with blues and reds and pinks. I coloured with Tombow markers and blended with a wet paintbrush (too wet in some spots!). Good thing I'm scheduled for a refresher class on this technique. (I can't wait!!!) I will stickle the image too, but it takes so long to dry that I wanted to scan it in first before I go to bed.

The other elements are a postage cancellation background stamp, a diecut/embossed "love" stamp (that's me playing with my new Cuttlebug), a sentiment (a new HSH stamp) and some paper piercing. I don't know if I like this card or not. One minute I do, the next I don't. It might be too busy, too colourful, but then that's what I like about it. I'll sleep on it and see about it in the morning. I have a purple-flower-gray-mailbox version that I coloured at the same time that I'd like to turn into a card too.

Thanks for looking!

Supplies: Stamps: Mailbox - Sunshine Designs, Sentiment and cancellation mark - Heather's Stamping Haven; Ink: black stazon, wild wasabi; Paper: watercolour, groovy guava, sparkley red, brilliant blue, teal, wild wasabi, soft sky; Other: cuttlebug postage set, Tombow markers, paper piercer.

It's a dinosaur pop-up party!

Here's my unsuccessful entry to the monthly demonstrator stamping contest at Stampin' Up. This was entered in the 3D project category. There were a couple of months where nobody won due to nobody entering, so I thought I should give it a whirl just in case I could win by acclamation. (The prize is 3 free stamp sets!)

This card was fairly easy to make, just time-consuming. The little scene is actually a square, scored in the middle in both directions, and cut on one score-line to the centre point. You then adhere two of the quadrants together to form the "ground". (I got the idea from this VSN challenge from March 2007 that challenged people to make a 3D room card.

Unlike the VSN challenge scene, I added another score line on the diagonal to allow this to fold flat to fit in an envelope. The dinos are popped up in traditional fashion using wild wasabi paper strips to camouflage in with the background. I'll try to put together a tutorial to explain how to do this. It's not tricky and it's so cute how they pop up!

This little scene needed something in the foreground so I made a pond with some greenery that's actually the the treetops cut out. The t-rex is holding a birthday flag for the birthday dino (the one in the hat). I was quite pleased with this effort, and it was quite cute IRL.

Thanks for looking! Let me know if you try a scene like this too. There are so many possibilities!

All supplies Stampin' Up: Stamps: Prehistoric Pals, Amazing to Zany; Ink: Pumpkin Pie, Bravo Burgundy, Blue Bayou, Wild Wasabi, Handsome Hunter, Chocolate Chip; Paper: Whisper White, Soft Sky, textured Wild Wasabi, Wild Wasabi, Chocolate Chip, Summer Sun; Other: 1/2" circle punch, Stampin' Snips.

Quick collage

Sorry I've been incommunicado lately but it's been really crazy around here. I keep reading other blogs by ladies manage to juggle fantastically busy lives and still find time to make the most amazing creations. I, on the other hand, am dropping balls all over the place and am finding no time to stamp anything. This is my first week back to work and it's quite an adjustment. I tell you, a full-time job really cuts into the day.

This card was in my stash and it was actually quite quick to make. The collage is all one stamp, with the butterfly stamped in violet chalk ink on lighter paper, popped up on dimensionals and highlighted with my glitter pen. I used chalk ink and a foam tip on my stylus to make the background for the stamped image. The main card is stamped with a favourite background stamp. It's an old-fashioned handwritten letter, over-written at right angles to get the most mileage from precious paper. There's a bit of vellum there too, torn diagonally, and the focal image is double mounted on some purple patterned paper (from stash) and some perfect plum. More bits and bobs from my stash in the form of sheer ribbon and a flower charm.

Thanks for looking!

Supplies: Stamps: Collage stamp - Hero Arts, letter stamp - Stampers Anonymous; Ink: black palette, various chalk inks, cool Caribbean; Paper: whisper white, purple pattern, perfect plum, cool Caribbean, vellum; Other: purple sheer ribbon, rose charm, Sakura glitter pen.

Baptism card

My friend's baby daughter will be baptized on Sunday so I wanted to make her a special card for the occasion. I cracked open my new Papertrey Ink set called Everyday Blessings as well as another new (to me) Easter polymer set. I had a bit of free time this afternoon (well, not really, but I took it anyway) so I let myself play with my inks and stamps. This card is the last of several iterations and my recycle bin is looking fairly colourful at the moment :-)

I did the background with my stylus, foam tips and chalk inks, and just stamped the small filigree circle image here and there in a couple of shades. The cross is stamped in Blue Iris on some orchid lava paper (from Heather's Stamping Haven) and cut out. I mounted it on a panel of soft sky on which I stamped The Lord's Prayer from my Easter set. It's a bit cobbled because the original cruciform stamp was smaller than my panel, but I just wanted the effect anyway. "Blessings" is also from the Easter set and I only inked that portion of the "Easter Blessings" stamp (sneaky!).

And, yes, I know the brads are off centre, but this was the fourth time I dismantled the card front and I wasn't going to do it again. The ribbon was tinted with Lime Pastel ink to match and heat set with my iron. The card itself is one of my Memory Box duplex sheets that my aunt brought me from Seattle. Now I only have half a sheet left (sniff, sniff). I'm not sure what colour it is, possibly chartreuse or similar.

Thanks for looking!

Supplies: Stamps: Everyday Blessings - Papertrey Ink, Easter Sentiments - My Sentiments Exactly; Paper: soft sky, blue bayou, orchid lava paper, chartreuse Memory Box duplex cardstock; Ink: chalk ink (Colorbox and Versamagic in shades too numerous to remember but lime pastel, spring pansy, Aegean blue, warm violet, ice blue, and blue iris come to mind); Other: sheer ribbon, square brads, colorbox stylus and foam tips.

Diorama card - Love gives us a fairy tale

Here's a diorama card I made. It was quite difficult to photograph, what with all the layers, just believe me that it looks better in real life. For the outside of the box, I used River Rock and stamped with Stazon and coloured the image with inkpad lids and an aquapainter.

For the middle layer, I used brocade blue and mellow moss, and stamped the grass from the little girl scene (same stamp set, different stamp) on the dunes. I tore and and wrinkled the edges to distress it a bit, so that it would look like the couple is sitting on the dunes, overlooking them onto a lake.

For the layer farthest in, I created a scene of a sunset on a lake. To do this I brayered glossy paper with Summer Sun all over, then masked a horizon and the sun and brayered on various sunset colours. For the lake, I drew waves with a white crayon to get a resist effect and sponged extra Summer Sun in the area below the actual sunset. It doesn't really show here, but it did look like sunset on water.

I gave this to my husband hidden in his lunch box and he really liked it, despite the fact that my nice message that I wrote on the back was upside down. That gave him a good laugh. It gave me a laugh to give it to him too because he always complains when a card doesn't open and this one definitely doesn't open!

Thanks for looking!

All supplies Stampin' Up!: Stamps: Summer by the Sea, Full of Life; Ink: Black stazon, pomegranate, blue bayou, chocolate chip, creamy caramel, summer sun, not quite navy, more mustard, pumpkin pie, ruby red; Paper: River Rock, Blue Bayou, Mellow Moss; Other: brayer, white crayon, aquapainter, 1 1/4" circle punch, sticky notes.

Yo yo yellow!

Wow! I used Yo yo Yellow! This is one colour that I very, very seldom use. I tend not to reach for the bold brights at all (but a new stamping friend is helping me get over that!), but this card is for a dear little boy who is turning 2.



I used my all-time favourite little-boy stamp set - Little Trucks. I stamped it in Stazon on some nice Fabriano watercolour paper in my scrapbox and coloured it with Tombow markers, blending with a wet paintbrush. I accented the eyes with crystal effects and added a few yellow stickles here and there. The image is matted on basic gray (I thought black would be too harsh) and pumpkin pie. The little row of barricades is also stamped in pumpkin pie and the sentiment is basic gray too. This card turned out to be a bit of a retired-stamp-special, but I have a few sets that are old favourites.



Thanks for looking!

P.S. Sorry not to have posted much lately. A couple of weekends ago I was on a scrapbooking retreat, which kind of used up a lot of my creativity all in one go. Then last weekend we went on a little family get-away. I haven't had a lot of time for stamping lately and my cache of emergency blog fodder still hasn't been stamped.

All Supplies Stampin' Up unless otherwise noted: Stamps: Little Trucks, Favorite Teddy Bear; Paper: Fabriano watercolor, basic gray, pumpkin pie, yo yo yellow; Ink: Black stazon, pumpkin pie, basic gray; Other: yellow stickles (Ranger), crystal effects, Tombow markers.