October Stamping Challenge #14

Hello!  Here's my latest stamping challenge project - a quick little tag.  I used some leftover parts from my explorations in making my samples for my November class at Heather's Stamping Haven.  The class will be on November 30 from 2-5 pm. The class projects are show below and my class is called Wink of Christmas because I have been trying out the Wink of Stella glitter brushes! They are a lot of fun and add a different sort of shimmer than stickles or twinks.  I quite like them.  My class also uses a great set of Christmas stamps from Penny Black.  Hope you can join us!

The other stamping things I have been doing this weekend are Krista's classes!  I haven't taken a picture (yet) of all my projects, but you can see them on Krista's website here.  If you click on one of the thumbnails, it expands the picture to a see-able size and you can scroll through.  We had such a good time!  Krista teaches a variety of colouring techniques: Tombows, Distress markers, Copics, and Inktense pencils.  It was a blast and the other ladies always make it such a special time.  A great big thank you to Krista, Heather, and all the other ladies for a wonderful weekend!

Well, all this stamping goodness is the reason I have been away from my stamping challenge.  I gave myself a pass since I was spending so much time doing other sorts of stamping.  I think my family might have really rebelled if I had spent any more time stamping and blogging!

Well, time to dash off to work here.  Hope you had a good weekend too and found some time to get inky!

Happy stamping!

Moonlit Castle

This was in my drafts folder from waaaaay back.  Not sure if Heather will run the class again or not, but usually if she has enough people wanting to take it, she will run it.

I'm going to post this now because it's a cute little card and I am cleaning out my drafts folder!

This is a sample for my next class at Heather's Stamping Haven. I wanted to try to make a card in the style of Michelle Zindorf, a stamper whom I really admire. I've spent a lot of time reading her tutorials and looking at the various ways she makes her cards so special. I don't know if this card achieved the goal, but I quite like how it turned out, so I decided that was enough. Michelle loves her brayer, and I love mine, and I love making backgrounds, which I think is why I'm so drawn to her work.

This is a short post because if you want to find out how to make this card, you'll have to take the class!

Supplies: All stamps Heather's Stamping Haven or the Stamp Barn.

Class this Saturday

Hello!  Just a quick post before I head off to work.  I have a class at Heather's Stamping Haven (click here for link).  If you'd like to take it, give Heather a call at the store to register.

For a description of the class, time and other details, click here.  I love these fall colours!  The trees are just starting to change colour here.  I just love autumn!

Class sample - Distress Markers

Hello!  Here's a card I made for an upcoming class at Heather's Stamping Haven.  The class will be called "Fun with Textures" and will feature this card an another one, and some different techniques (creating texture with UTEE and the new Donna Salazar Mixed Media Inx).  The class is Saturday, May 5 from 2-5. 

The poppy stamp image and background stamps are all from Heather's Stamping Haven and the image is coloured with my .... (insert deep, sonorous, game show host voice here) Brand, New Markers!!!  (cue applause and raucous cheering).   That's right, I got my new Distress Markers and I was prepared to love them, and I do.  A lot.  I love my Tombows, I love my Copics, I love my pencil crayons, and now I love these markers.  The Distress colour palette will be a great complement to my Tombows from a watercolouring with markers point of view.  I'm looking forward to doing some experimenting with them and seeing what kind of things I can do with them.  Have you tried them out yet?

Happy stamping!

Almond Blossom Fairy and Weekly Menu Link

Hello!  Here's what I've been busy at in my stamp room for the past few days.  Not that this particular card took days, but arriving at this card did.  Heather got in some more flower fairy stamp sets. These are the famous Cicely Mary Barker flower fairies that I have always loved, and I have several now in my collection.  Heather asked me to do a class with them in March, so this will be one of the class projects for my class on Saturday, March 24th, in the afternoon (time to be confirmed).   The scanner hasn't quite done justice to the colours, unfortunately.  But then Sauron the Scanner and I have never been on particularly good terms. 

Thanks for stopping by!  I'm back to tidying up my stamp room and trying to figure out what to make for dinner.  Last night's effort was suffered in polite silence by my crew.  I found a recipe on line for salmon casserole with canned salmon, peas, peppers and eggs, sort of a crustless quiche idea.  This recipe was ideal because I had all the ingredients on hand and the exact amount of preparation time before dinner.  With this auspicious start, I knew that I had used up all my luck before dinner even started.  It was ok, they ate it (heavily bribed with the other half of their piece of cheese toast), remarking only that it was a dinner that didn't require chewing, only squishing through their teeth.  I don't have an exact quote as the daughter in question's memory is failing now that this is Going On The Blog.  Tonight I have less in the pantry than yesterday, and even less inspiration. Maybe we will have Pancake Day early!  Speaking of dinner, I did find a great website that does menu planning.  It's free, it includes recipes and it's nutritious, and the whole works.  It's put on by the government of Ontario and I would highly recommend it.  Had I been out shopping today, I would have the ingredients for numerous tasty meals.  Here's the link: Eat Right Ontario.  It's a bit wordy with a lot of links to get to a 40 page download (did I mention this was a government site? she said snidely), but it's top quality, full of great resources, and worth it in the end (did I mention I am a public servant? she said smugly). 

Thanks again for stopping by!

Calendar Class

Calendar - closed

Hello!  Happy New Year!  Hard to believe 2012 is upon us, isn't it.   Here is my first class this year at Heather's Stamping Haven - a 2012 desk calendar.  It will be a two-part workshop on Saturday, January 14th.  Please contact Heather at the store to register. 

In the morning, we will do the images and you will learn the essentials of Krista Schneider's popular technique for watercolouring with Tombow markers.  In the afternoon, we will make the calendar pages and assemble the calendar. 

Calendar open to January 2012



Calendar Pages











I really had fun making this calendar and I would be hard pressed to pick a favourite page.  I think I could narrow it down to three contenders: the bunny, the witch, and the poppy.  I used Sunshine Designs and Heather's Stamping Haven images as they lend themselves so well to the technique, but also because there is tremendous variety to choose from, seasonal and floral and birds...gorgeous.  This calendar also has two bonus pages for 2013, which presented some challenges to DH to understand (in his engineer's world, calendars have 12 months you see).  I said it was because years are only randomly selected points in time, roughly timed to include one trip around the sun and any old pope can make one up.  Plus, we are making this later in January, so the two extra months are to make up for that.  Also, a calendar that will go to February will allow people to purchase their 2013 calendars at deep discounts in February, thus offsetting the cost of the class.  He remained unconvinced.  I, on the other hand, thought it was great to be able to include the extra months, which is the whole reason you *make* things, not buy them, because then they get to be how *you* want them. 

Hope to see you at Heather's on January 14th!  It's going to be a great class and a lot of fun. 

ATC Class Nov 12th

Hello! Just a quick post this morning before I dash off to work. Here are the ATCs I made for an upcoming class at Heather's Stamping Haven. It's going to be from 2-5 on Saturday, November 12th. If you'd like to take the class, please register with the store.

I tried to make ATCs in several different styles, and I will also give people some sketched designs for how to use ATCs as card-starters.

I love all of them, but I think my favourite is the Snowy Day one, which has some surprises hidden inside.

Hope to see you on the 12th! In the meantime, I am going to be a parent volunteer on the kindergarten field trip. Naturally it's the coldest day we've had so far, 8 degrees, windy and rainy. Good thing I'm made of stern stuff. Then tomorrow and Saturday are the all-day classes with Krista Schneider at Heather's! Can't wait - two full days of colouring with Copics and Tombows, 18 projects over the two days. I love it.

Thanks for stopping by!

PS. Stamps: Heather's Stamping Haven, Sunshine Designs, Hero Arts (gold flower), Stampers Anonymous (butterfly ATC). Sorry about the formatting. Ran out of time and patience to get it any better.

His and Hers Monogram Cards

Hello! Here are the cards I'm doing for my next class, "His and Hers Monograms" at Heather's Stamping Haven. It's on Saturday, May 7 from 10-1. I'm also doing the Distress Ink book that afternoon from 2-5. Give Heather a call at the store if you're interested in signing up. I'm showing samples here in "E" and "K" (wonder why????), but you choose your own monograms for each card. We're using the gorgeous alphabet from Ten Seconds Studios.

Hope to see you there!

Thanks for stopping by.

Japanese Doll

I don't know how the colours are showing up for you, but in real life, this is a fresh celery green (like celery hearts) and cameo coral for the pink. It's gorgeous and I love it!!!!! That's extremely immodest, but I love this card. And look at the acres of hoarded Japanese paper I used! Acres! It's a lovely background, and I actually coloured her to go with it.

I have happy memories of colouring this doll - DD1 and I made dolls together one happy afternoon. She loves to blend and make colours with Tombow markers. I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree ;-)

The image (Hero Arts) is embossed in black and coloured with markers, and the message is Papertrey Ink. I struggled a bit with the layout, but settled on this. The card base is a lovely celery tsumugi square card, and the pale paper is more hoarded paper (Soft Sky). The girl is festooned with Stickles - yum yum!

Well, it's going to be a short post tonight. I've been slacking on my getting to bed early so it's time to fix that. Starting tonight!

If you're in the area, I have a class coming up at Heather's on January 29th called Lily Splendour. I also have my February class project done and it will be a great class - lots of fun. It will be Feb 19th.

NSR: I made a yummy dinner tonight - roast chicken with lemon and garlic. I got home, whipped it in the oven with a pan of potatoes tossed in olive oil and dashed out to work out. When I got home the kitchen smelled amazing, micro'd some veggies and dinner was delicious. I will have to remember that a roast chicken is that easy and self-minding. I used a great herby-salty-rub, Tuscan blend, to season the chicken. Very nice. I got it in the impulse purchase section next to the cash at LaPointe's (fishmonger) but I have also seen it at the Butchery. Great stuff to jazz up a meal. And really, nothing smells better when you come in the door than roasting chicken. Mouthwatering! As far as recipe went, I saw a bunch of variations on line and just did a version of those. If I were a Kitchen Jedi, I would say I used the Force, but then the Health and Safety vigilantes would close down my blog and start wittering on about inner temperatures and food safety. So I won't. (Besides, who are you going to trust - me, or the people who say leftovers only keep for two days?)

Moonlit willow

I made this card for a class at Heather's on April 11th so I won't be giving the details here. (You'll need to sign up for the class for that!)

I used a palette of my favourite colours of fluid chalk ink and a willow tree silhouette stamp (Cornish Heritage Farms). The swirl is by Sunshine Designs. I love the peaceful look of this card! I wound up adding a shimmery sheer ribbon to the left side, but not till after this was scanned in. You'll have to take my word for it that it looked better with the ribbon :-)

This afternoon I got to play with some stamps. I was experimenting with Polished Pigments. They're a lovely pigment powder, but boy-oh-boy, does that powder get everywhere. I will need to do a big clean up because my next experimenting was with watercolouring and misting and all the little flecks of pigment powder were dissolving in the water and spoiling my projects. The flecks are too small to see until you mist them with water. I usually avoid cleaning up my stamping area too thoroughly because (1) it never stays clean and (2) it cuts into my free stamping time. It's probably time for a big tidy up since my working space is getting smaller and smaller, and we want to swap the craft area and the tv area in the basement.

Tomorrow DD1 and I are going to see the Wizard of Oz at the National Arts Centre. We've been madly reading the novel in advance. I remember loving that book as a little girl. DD1 has been enjoying it, but she has also frequently let me know that she prefers non-fiction, because it's about real things and she learns something. It's funny because in so many other ways she's a lot like me, but not in this one. I really love a good story and don't often read non-fiction. (Unless you count stamping magazines!!!!! lol)

Have a great weekend.

Thanks for stopping by.

New class - Alcohol Inks & Geometric Blocks

If you're free on Wednesday evening and in my area, you might want to sign up for my next class - Alcohol Inks Meet Geometric Blocks. It's at Heather's Stamping Haven, and you can click on this link to see the card samples.

We'll be creating wonderfully vibrant backgrounds with alcohol inks then building two different cards with one very versatile stamp.

Hope to see you at HSH!
Karen