Jerome and Yvonne's house

When I showed this card to DH, he said it would be perfect for his aunt and uncle, who are Jerome and Yvonne. DH cracks me up. It's a lot of fun being married to the funniest guy around. (BTW, he now claims that he knew all along that the doors spell "JOY".) I do think we should send this to Jerome and Yvonne though. I tried out some rock candy here and it has a very snowy twinkle, without being glittery.

This was another of my stamping binge cards. I coloured it up last night with this Eskimo Kisses paper in mind. I kept the layout pretty simple - my brain was tired after a big day at work learning all about multilevel modelling for longitudinal surveys. This sounds harmless enough, but it was a full day workshop on 136 (it's true!) power point slides displaying the mathematical proofs and obscure syntax for calculating some sort of something to do with longitudinal surveys. It's the sort of thing that comes with a warning label on the text book and should only be attempted by a trained professional on a closed course (in other words by raving math geeks in a padded room!). It was just as well I had large doses of high-test stamping to look forward to at Krista's classes!!! Anyway, I will blame the peculiar combination of green trees and a snowscape on my temporarily addled brain. (And I will maintain to the last that any addling is only temporary.....)



BTW, Krista's classes were fantastic, beyond fantastic. I had such a lovely time. There were wonderful stampers there, and a real highlight was getting to meet IRL one of my blog fans, possibly my only blog fan who is not related to me by marriage or blood. I'm not sure what the netiquette is on being a fan of blog commenters (seems like it could be bordering on the immodest, but I won't dwell on that being someone whose blog exclusively contains her own creations and ramblings), but if I am allowed to be a fan of blog commenters, I am a big fan of Nimmy's! She has such lovely things to say and always makes my day. Thank you Nimmy! It was such a pleasure to meet you IRL. Just like my cards, you are wonderful in real life :-)

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies: some non-SU, including stamps, buttons and paper. SU: soft sky ribbon, bravo burgundy paper, old olive (kiwi kiss?? it's dark and I can't tell) paper.

Oiler Ornaments

I have been on a stamping binge! To reward myself for a lot of recent hard (ahem) work prepping for stamp classes, I have gone on a just-for-fun stamping binge! A fellow instructor at my LSS inpsired me with her stack of Christmas cards in various stages of completion so I have been stamping feverishly, with reckless abandon, and heedless of vendor, but just lots of fun images to colour in. Fun, fun, fun! I am also so excited because tomorrow the fall series of Krista Schneider's classes starts at my LSS. I absolutely cannot wait!!!! This creative binge almost feels like the stamping equivalent of carbo-loading before a marathon (but without all the yucky running).

Here's one of the things I have been working on. I have been doing a lot of traditional Christmas colour combinations for my classes, so I wanted to do something out of the box. That DH hates non-traditional colour combinations like this is beside the fact (and the icing on the cake hehehehe).... I'm not sure why I picked orange and blue, possibly due to ornament shape triggering some vestigial after-effects of growing up watching the Oilers in their heydey. Either that or I wanted to use my pack of Marrakech paper in blues and orange. You decide....

[I just spent way too long trying to photoshop this card with the Oilers' logo superimposed on the ornaments. It didn't really work very well (and I learned I would make a terrible internet hoax artist) and I was also worried about getting in trouble with the internet police and the Oilers' lawyers for having illegal images on my website. I am sure this is a totally reasonable fear. And furthermore it seemed like a good enough reason to quit trying to photoshop it and get back to stamping. I will trust that you can picture the effect I was going for, and no one will be driven crazy trying to learn to use photoshop or get hauled off to internet jail for some sort of copyright infringement....] On the upside, I now have the perfect card to send to Wayne and Janet!

Colourful Birthday

I am on a colourful card kick these days! I needed a card for a little girl's birthday party so I thought I would do one using some as-yet uninked rubber. This is Kenya Ketto - so cute, and really lends herself to multiple colours. Uncharacteristically, I found the papers first and then coloured her to match. (Usually I do it the other way around, but I was in a hurry tonight. I have a hot date with DH, Survivor/The Office and the couch.)

She's stamped with india ink, coloured with prismacolour pencils (unblended because I like the texture, and also too rushed/lazy to root out the OMS). Because it's a flower theme over at SB this week, and because it's for a 7-year-old girl, I added some flowers, embellished with rhinestones. Also a rhinestone on her wand. I will add some glitter now, but wanted to scan it in and I will be in trouble if I get any more glitter on the scanner....

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies: I am not allowed to post most of them here under the rules of my demonstrator agreement but if you want to know, email me and I will answer. Paper: whisper white, basic black and rose red (SU).

Alcohol Ink Splatter Card

Here's something I came up with after being inspired by Tim Holtz's video clip on alcohol ink splatter technique. I thought it looked like a really cool thing to try, so I got the few supplies together (compressed air, glossy paper -not photo paper - and alcohol ink), put on an old shirt, and sat down to play. I can't quite recall all the colours of alcohol ink I used, but if I were to guess: citrus, lettuce, denim, sailboat blue, red pepper, cranberry, lemonade, and currant. I am a big believer in using lots of colours! But you knew that about me already.

This background was my second attempt, since it does take a bit of practice. I used a variety of colours, some bright, some deeper, just fooled around a bit really. DH was not at all impressed with the initial (pre-stamped) background, and to be fair, it did look a bit blobby and messy (but to be fair back again, this is the point).

I thought my grungey-collagey stamps would be perfect for this. I got them in Victoria (BC) when I was there last year and my aunt took me to her LSS. They're Australian (Stamp-It) and are really useful for this kind of thing - very pretty background stamps in interesting textures and shapes. I used the corner mesh with a flourish and the large flourish and stamped with black India ink. The sentiment is embossed in black and sponged in yellows and greens, with a bit of navy around the edges. It's more vibrant in real life. (I couldn't get through a post without saying it looks better in real life, now could I!)

Normally I have a hard time figuring out what to do with this kind of background (generally being loath to cover up the splendid colour, but I took a deep breath and went for it. This one looked great on an early try with black and real red. I thought the sentiment panel being fairly plan balanced things nicely. I had some flowers in my stash, with some brads to finish it off. As an afterthought I pried off the sentiment panel and added the cord, and stuck it down again. This card also has a side hinge. If you're going to go outside the box, go all the way I say. Nothing says "wild and crazy stamper" like a side hinge card......

Here's a better shot of the alcohol ink (at the expense of washing out the sentiment panel and flowers). There's quite a lot of colour going on. It's so pretty that I want to try this again!

I highly recommend this type of card for late-night NVR (no vendor restriction) stamping therapy. The bright colours will really cheer you up and you will feel extremely clever and pleased with yourself for very little effort. Plus you get to use the canned air that has been kicking around the office for ages!

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies: Stamps: sentiment - Full of Life set (Stampin' Up), background - Laura Koh set (Stamp-It, code sisetoo8lk); Ink: versamark, India Ink, citrus, yoyo yellow (yes, I used yoyo yellow on a card!), gable green, tempting turquoise, night of navy (yikes - did I really use that many????); Paper: whisper white, glossy, basic black, real red; Other: Adirondack alcohol inks, black embossing powder, silver cord (SU), Making Memories flowers (Fifth Avenue collection), BasicGrey brads.