Fredly Feather

Hello!  I had a few stolen moments this evening and a few minutes' quiet time at my stamp table seemed the perfect way to decompress after a long day and tiring commute.  I thought I might sift through my stash of pre-cut card projects from my days as a Stampin' Up demonstrator.  I have a few of these around, leftover from classes or workshops.  Well, the intended project is lost to the mists of time, but it's fun to think of something else.  Actually, I think this project was from a Father's Day card workshop from years ago and I think this one was some sort of sunset safari scene.  I no longer have those stamps, but I was inspired by this piece of glossy cardstock to get out my brayer and a multicolour ink pad (Winter Sky - Adirondack ink pad from Ranger) and add some colour.  The colours have run together somewhat, so I added some extra green in the way of Oregano (Adirondack from Ranger) at the bottom.  Because these are all dye inks, they were dry in no time and ready to be stamped on.  I wanted a solid image I could emboss and what better place to turn than my drawer of Fred B. Mullett's stamps from nature prints.  I chose this beautiful feather and embossed it with Hematite, Liquid Platinum and a bit of Antique Gold at the top.  It's on a True Thyme card base with a scrap of some sort of patterned paper that happened to be on my stamp desk at my finger tips (despite a massive tidy last week).  It was meant to be on this card I guess!  The card base is stamped with a script background stamp from Stampers Anonymous, also stamped in Oregano ink.  I edged the pieces of cardstock with that same Oregano ink.  I thought this card might be suitable for a masculine birthday or a sympathy card so I have left it unglittered (if you don't count the little bit of white gold glitter in my gold embossing powder - a great tip from Heather Hayley).

This went together so quickly I think I might see what else is in that drawer of "ripening" projects.  I'm sure there are some treasures waiting to be stamped.  Why don't you have a rummage in your scraps and make a quick card.  It can be fun to see what you can make with just a few things you might have on hand.

Happy stamping!

October Stamping Challenge #7

Hello!  Wow - has a week gone by already?  Must be, if this is #7 of my stamping challenge.  This card was really quick to put together, since I found that lovely tag ready-made in my scrap box.  It features some Distress Ink resist and sponging through sequin waste.  That nice quote is a Stampin' Up stamp and the scrolls and flourishes are Stampers Anonymous.

I cut a fresh piece of card for the base,but used scraps of textured mustard and brown linen for the accent strips. The ribbon was also a scrap that was loitering on my desk.  I used an as-yet uninked background stamp (Stampers Anonymous) on the card base, but I think I used too light an ink (Pale Tomato Hero Arts Shadow Ink) because it doesn't seem to be showing up.  I also used a little spiral clip that was in my stash of spare odds and bits.  I think they might be a bit out of style, but then again, so am I.  I am justifying it on the basis of legwarmers coming back into fashion.  (I know - I can't believe it either.)  Here's my rationale:  if legwarmers can return to fashion, then anything can make a comeback.  So there - my spiral clip is not out of style, it is ahead of trend! 

Thanks for stopping by and a happy long weekend to my Canadian readers.

Just for You

Hello!  Happy Hallowe'en!  We had a nice time out trick-or-treating with the girls.  There weren't a lot of kids out in our neighbourhood, so people were quite generous and gave out handfuls of stuff and were quite pleased to see some cute little girls at the door. Hubby even did a quick jack o'lantern for the front porch.  Some people had some good decorations out, and one house had a ghouly-skeleton with glowing red eyes that waved its arms and moved its mouth and talked about the haunted house.  My five-year-old's eyes were like saucers.  I hope it doesn't give her nightmares!  After the kids were in bed, I wound down with my stamps, and thought I'd do a couple of cards in the same vein to save design time.  I'd seen a card like this at Heather's Stamping Haven, with the various diamonds cut out and popped up, but I couldn't remember exactly how it went.   I started by stamping the image (Stampers Anonymous) on some cream linen card stock using India Ink (Stewart Superior), once on the card itself, and a second and third time on a scrap of the same paper.  Then, I cut out the scrap piece, the full image, and then a couple of diamonds.  I also cut away a couple of diamonds to look through to the base layer.  To add colour, I used a moist paintbrush and lifted colour from Distress Ink pads.  For the top one I used: Pumice Stone, Scattered Straw, Forest Moss and Stormy Sky.  For the bottom one I used:  Antique Linen, Pumice Stone, Victorian Velvet, Seedless Preserves and Gathered Twigs.  I really like those last two special issue colours.  I coloured each layer the same, then assembled usinging dimensional foam tape between the layers.  To finish it off, I highlighted some diamonds with Rock Candy stickles for some non-glittery sparkle.  The sentiment is a stamp from Quietfire Designs.  I wanted to make these cards all-purpose so that seemed like a good choice. 

Thanks for stopping by!

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.

Inkurable Stampers June Challenge

Here's my entry for the June challenge at Inkurable Stampers, which is Spots, Dots and Circles.

I recently took a great class at Heather's, featuring Glimmer Mist and I used that technique here, misting and spraying and bleaching out selected portions. I coloured some back in with pencil crayon too. I chose the bird image (Hero Arts) for the circles on it. I also added some paint circles, and the background has a circular motif on the stamp (Stampers Anonymous). The message (also Stampers Anon) is embossed in black. The paper is from a Tim Holtz pack, two sides of one sheet. And a little round clock brad to finish it off. In real life it's quite sparkly. I'm not sure about it - maybe the square is too square. Still, needed to get my entry in before the end of the month, which arrives early due to time zones in Australia being several days ahead of us here in Canada. (I love to say things like that to hubby, who is an engineer and immediately starts to explain the quantum mechanics of time zones and how it's not actually time travel, it's to do with the curvature of the earth and Sir Sanford Fleming trying to catch a train. It's at this point I normally tune out so I can't exactly say how time zones work, other than it's either much earlier or much later somewhere else, and will always be the wrong time to call.)

Thanks for stopping by!

Steampunk Challenge

I made this card for this challenge on Hels Sheridan's blog. The challenge is to make something in the steampunk theme, and since her Sunday challenges are always based on a song title, this week's is "Sheena is a Punk Rocker". Since I am listening to nothing but The Ramones lately, I just had to play along. (Side note, DD2, age 5, always requests Rockaway Beach! I'm so proud...) I figured Sheena would want steampunk in shades of pink, so I used a pre-done Glimmer-misted sheet. (Hey, if people can turn Swiffer into a verb, I think the least I can do for the Queen's English is to turn Glimmer Mist into a verb too, and I think I can safely say I'm not the first and I won't be the last).

Anywho. Glimmer-misted sheet, cut with Tim Holtz edge, and stamped with Eiffel tower (Stampers Anonymous) in worn lipstick and socme clock faces (Stampers Anonymous). The glimmer sheet has a clock face (Tim Holtz) mask on it, to add to steam punk theme, though it's obscured and/or trimmed off, so you will just have to take my word for it. I think the Eiffel tower is steampunky- so many rivets! Beautiful lines, all made of metal, all it needs is some method of self-propulsion and it would be steam punk all the way. So there you have it. This might be more punk rocker than steampunk, so I added some fake rivets to the word panel (Stampers Anonymous). Also, what makes something more steampunk than sequin waste (cogged wheels and dirigibles aside)? Nothing. That's what. So sequin waste is sponged with tumbled glass here and there.

Hope you have a great weekend! I'm soon off to Heather's to teach a class and then figure out what to do for Father's Day tomorrow. Hubby asked for something "adventurous" that we'd all like. Tricky as these two categories are mutually exclusive in our family. I suggested river rafting as it would meet the dangerous criterion, since when my friend went, the river guide broke his arm when they capsized. Hubby said he asked for "adventurous" not "dangerous". I guess in his mind there is a distinction. You may begin to see why I am stumped. Wish me luck!

Inkurable Stampers April Challenge

Here's my card at literally the eleventh hour for the April challenge at Inkurable Stampers. This was a tough challenge: 3 stamps, 3 colours (including neutrals), and the number 3 somewhere on the card. I thought I would go with a vintage typewriter theme, since I have a Stampers Anonymous stamp (Going Somewhere set) with letters and numerals on it, satisfying that condition. I stamped the typewriter (Cornish Heritage Farms) on vanilla paper and embossed in a lovely green (Topiary) and trimmed out. The "missing you" is from the same Cornish Heritage Farms set (On the Desk), and embossed in white, tinted with Copics, which was probably a mistake since it seemed like it rubbed off a bit on the tip. I just don't have vanilla embossing powder (must be the one colour I'm missing!). These bits and pieces were layered up and matted on black and put on a dark green card base (Pinefeather, by PTI), on which I stamped the same letters/numerals in Memories Pine Tree ink. The typewriter is popped up on dimensional tape. This was a tricky challenge and took all month to percolate in my mind. I like how this turned out, crisp and clean and beautiful colours. Tricky challenges are always the most fun!

NSR (RWR): Not Stamping Related (Royal Wedding Related)

How about that wedding!!!! I got up at 5:15 to see the arrivals at the Abbey, and got the girls up at 5:30 to see the families arriving. It was so exciting. What a beautiful service. I found it very moving. You will get all the fashion commentary elsewhere, but I will say that I agree with millions of others that the Duchess of Cambridge looked incredibly beautiful. I will also note that someone at work observed that a certain royal cousin looked like she was wearing moose antlers. Probably her head gear was intended to be appreciated on a different level, perhaps like jazz music or Booker Prize novels. The girls and I had a great time watching the ceremony and processions, etc., and breakfasted on English muffins, crumpets and tea. I thought the Bishop of London's address was very inspirational, and the music was incredible. That said, I do love to hear bagpipes and I did miss them today. The trumpet fanfare was lovely, and the orchestra was too, but still, it doesn't seem like a proper "big do" without bagpipes. But I would hate to criticize an otherwise spectacular celebration of marriage.

Birthday card

Hello! How are you? I'm great - it's been a really good day. Great day at work, lunch with a friend, met a friend after work, nice time with the kidlets in the evening and my mother came over and we had a great time stamping together. It's my brother's birthday soon, so we were making cards for him. Here's my effort - with Marci and Mort has a Pin Curl from Stampotique. I started by making the background, which is a piece of smooth white cardstock that I used to blot a colourwashed & misted piece of watercolour paper. I ironed it and then stamped and embossed this pair in black and coloured with Distress Ink (accented with Distress stickles). The "to brother sister" are Stampin' Up! stamps and the "from" is Karen Foster snap stamps. The grass is Stampotique and the rest of the stamps are Stampers Anonymous (Tim Holtz collection). I did some sponging of Black Soot around the edge, created a frame with markers and then added a grey mat and some black enamel accents. I really love this card. This pair really cracks me up and it's a bit unexpected. I like that Marci even looks like a big sister. She looks after her little brother and makes sure he brushes his fangs - I even whitened them with pigment ink to show what a great big sister he has.

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you had a great day too.

PS I discovered that mixing Dusty Concord and Aged Mahogany gives the most wonderful plummy reddish purple. Gorgeous! I will be using that colour combination again. Dusty Concord also combines beautifully with Chipped Sapphire. I love that about Distress Inks - if there isn't quite the right colour, you can mix them together for beautiful results, and because they don't break down when wet, the colours really go well together.

? of butterflies

Hello! Does anyone know what the collective noun for butterflies is? Flock? Swarm? I have no idea. If it were up to me, it would be "a drift of butterflies". What do you think?

I woke up early this morning (coughing, not personality transplant) and thought I would spend some time stamping. I had this panel leftover from various stages of trying to find something to do with it. Much like a butterfly, it has gone through many stages before it emerged onto this card. It started out as a page in my new booklet for a class at Heather's Stamping Haven, but it wasn't going to work for that purpose. Then I stamped some more on it. Then I stamped some more on it, then I stamped words and tried some distress crackle paint (rock candy). Then stamped the butterflies. Then it was time to go to bed last night. This morning it found a home on a black mat, some sequin waste really spruced it up (man, that stuff can rescue any project), as did some punched butterflies from another discard from the class project. I also doodled a border with my black Micron (also another guaranteed rescuer of ailing designs). I quite like this now - lots of texture, colours, etc.

Some details: I stamped that grungeflower frame (Hero Arts) and embossed with Old Paper Distress embossing powder, sloughing off the release crystals. Then I sponged on various colours of Distress Ink with my ink blending tool. I stamped on the ship's register stamp (Heather's Stamping Haven) and the butterflies (Stampers Anonymous) and the words (Stampin' Up!). The punched butterflies were from another image (Sunshine Designs hydrangea) that had been sponged and crackle painted, also with rock candy. The butterfly punch is the one with three butterflies on it (Martha Stewart). The ribbon is the two-tone kiwi kiss/vanilla ribbon from Stampin' Up. The card base is PTI (#enchanted evening).

Well - now it's time to click on "publish post" and go get ready for work! This was definitely a better way to spend an hour than lying in bed coughing and trying not to sleep in.

NSR: So, here we are, two weeks into January. How are your New Year's resolutions holding up? Mine are hit and miss. I have been hitting the sack before midnight (usually with just minutes to spare, but sometimes as early as 11) and eating more fruits and vegetables. I have been more patient with the children, but it's early days yet. On the miss side, we haven't had any friends over, I have one basket, two hampers, and one dryer full of clean laundry and #flashmobs seen=0, though apparently there was one at daycare when the kids had a big dance party to "I gotta feeling" by The Black-eyed Peas (I cringe as I write that, even though this blog isn't exactly good grammar's last bastion). BTW, the muffins from last post were disliked by the children, despite the chocolate chips. Apparently they took exception to the fig seeds, which, I thought was the best part (other than the orange-spice-chocolate-fig taste). Sigh. Good thing I resolved to be more patient! In other news, I'm reading a very interesting book about the history of the English language (The Mother Tongue: English and How it Got That Way, by Bill Bryson). It's a fascinating collection of facts about English and how it got to be the way it is, and if history is anything to go by, there is no last bastion for good grammar and "I gotta feeling" will soon worm its way into the canon by virtue of popular use. Ain't nothing like the English language!

Farewell Card II

I made this card for someone at work who is leaving for Paris very soon, so I chose a French theme. The Eiffel Tower is a Stampin' Up stamp, as are the filigree puffballs and floral sprigs (blue). The sentiment is by Darkroom Door, and was really my only stamp that had a suitable message that fit that spot. There are some background stamps by Stampin' Up and Stampers Anonymous (Tim Holtz). This is my go-to technique for a fancy card - lots of chalk ink brayering, lots of stamping over top, embossing, hits of black, a coordinated tag. This is a heavy card, and large, and I made it with an insert so that lots of people could sign it. I went with blues and golds, which seems like a very French colour palette, and the ruffled ribbon, gold cord, and swallow brad add some texture and interest. I like to frame things with some lines drawn with the bullet tip of a marker and a ruler. I tend to do a few lines, with ruler at different angles, which makes a nice border without having to be precise. Since it's the last step, any imprecision would show and ruin the whole thing, so I go for the feel of straight lines, but ones that are actually crooked. How fiendishly clever! Another tip is to use Heather's 130lb cardstock. It really accepts the chalk ink beautifully and withstands all manner of embossing and ironing and stamping without any ill effects such as warping etc. I love that stuff, especially for projects like this. You can see that I stamped the flourish in gold ink, which adds a very nice rich effect.

Thanks for stopping by!

Gothic Arch #1 Butterflies

This was the first Inkurable Stampers Gothic Arch Challenge theme - Butterflies. I joined the challenge several themes in, and have been working my way back. Now I'm caught up in that direction, and will resume at #13, Christmas, but that will be another post.

For this arch, I took some watercolour paper and sprayed it with Butterscotch and Lettuce Adirondack sprays, heat setting and spraying to get the intensity I wanted. (I used some water too, to move the colour around.) Then, I stamped the sprig (Stampin' Up) in India Ink and 'painted' the flowers with bleach. The word stamp Papillon (Quietfire Designs) is stamped in Wild Honey. THe other word stamp is a Tim Holtz - Stampers Anonymous image. The butterflies are punched out of a glossy black scrap that I had been experimenting with a Hero Arts stamp and some mica gloss. That experiment didn't work, but they look nice punched out here. Lastly, I doodled a border around the edge with a fine point pen. Quick and easy! I am really enjoying those spray colour washes. They are fun to do. I did another one, that I'll be using for one of the other arches. I'm going to binge out on arches tonight since work is about to get totally crazy. I want to stockpile some good stamping vibes before I go under. It's going to be emergency stamping rations only for the foreseeable future. It's a vicious circle though, since the crazier it gets at work, the more stamping I need as antidote, but the less time I have for stamping but the more I need it. So, raise your ink pad to toast an evening of stamping. How many arches can I get done?

Thanks for stopping by!

Gothic Arch #4 - Hands

This arch is for the Inkurable Stampers Gothic Arch Challenge #4 - Hands. I am on a bit of an arch binge this weekend! I am trying to get a little less behind. I don't think getting caught up is a realistic goal in one weekend, but less behind is definitely within reach.

My first hand arch was completely revolting. I don't have a lot (any?) hand stamps so I found some mitten stickers and it went downhill from there. Suffice it to say that the Apricot Appeal base did the arch no favours either. However, it will be just the perfect thing to cheer up a little girl's lunchbox though, in the fullness of time.

Anyway, on-line I went to find a nice hand image, and the Graphics Fairy didn't let me down. This image made me think of love letters, so that's the theme I went with. The arch is made of Certainly Celery cardstock, stamped with a lovely handwritten letter background stamp (Heather's Stamping Haven) in Weathered Wood, then stamped down the side with a Tim Holtz image (Stampers Anonymous) in Aged Mahogany. I fell in love with this image - it nests on itself, looks great alone, it's a little vintage, a little bit hip, a little bit country and a little bit rock and roll. It's going to be on my desk all the time I think, right next to my sequin waste. I added a bit of decorative tape (there are actually more pieces underneath the panel, victims of the "planning? what planning?" approach). I trimmed out the image, and glued it to a piece of Bravo Burgundy, which I sponged with Aged Mahogany distress ink and stamped with that newly beloved image. In keeping with the love letters theme, I stamped "Amour" (Stampin' Up) in white paint, stamping several times without reloading. That got put on and I remembered I got out my nib stamp, for the letter theme, and added that stamped in Shabby Shutters. I thought about what words to add, and didn't have a "love letters" stamp, and dymo labeller didn't seem called for here. I went to my lone vintage novel, and despite its dreary content, it did have some letters in it so I clipped out the closing salutation and glued it down, feeling quite pleased with myself. Lastly, I added some pencil crayon to deepen the rose and some rock candy stickles to accent it. Then once again lastly, I added the gingham bow, Tim Holtz safety pin, and smudged the stickles (aforementioned feeling dissipated somewhat). Then finally lastly, I added the round brad at the top. I scanned it in, so it must be done!

Thanks for looking!

Ecoline pear

Hello!
Here's another card I made with that Ecoline background. This part was a bit more yellow and brown so I thought this lovely pear image would be a good choice. There are also some lovely gold blobs, which don't show up too well in the scan (they're near the little pears and the leaf). The colours seemed a little flat, so I sponged on some red (Aged Mahogany) in some blue (Broken China) through sequin waste (I get such a charge out of using that - must be some sort of "geeks are cool" thrill or something, since I tend to lump sequin waste in with plastic canvas in terms of its crafty desirability [hope I don't get waves of subscription cancellations and an inbox full of flames now...] ;time to end the punctuation madness I think: when in doubt, stop.)

Any....way..... I stamped the pear with Ranger black archival ink and coloured the leaf a little with a pencil crayon. I really loved the image at this point. However, I was stumped as to what to do with it. I hemmed and hawed and dithered for quite some time. I didn't want to wreck it or overwork it (see last post). Finally I realized it needed corner punches. So punched the corners, and belatedly realized it didn't need those corners at all. Still, I look beyond the offending notches to the inner beauty of the image, which I help the eye to do with the little sketchy frame lines. These are easy to do: just tilt the ruler a bit so the lines cross. It's way easier to do a frame like this than one that is all measured and even. Actually, this may not be true if you are a neat and tidy precision stamper. I know a few of them and they are probably having heart palpitations at the thought of making crooked frames. I will hazard a guess, though, that they are not lining up to make fling-and-blob backgrounds such as this though! :-)

I matted the image on some Early Espresso (SU) and curry tsumugi. This panel is popped up on foam tape and the piece behind it is a lovey dark brown and vanilla pattern from the Granola 6x6 pack (BasicGrey). The card base is 5x5" vanilla (PTI).

That's it! I have one more project from this piece of Ecoline to post. I'll try to get to that tomorrow.

NSR: Kidlets had a sleepover at the cousins' last night, so DH and I went out and played pool with my brother and his wife. It was great. We haven't been out as couples since before the kids were born. It was a blast. Hubby and I went out for a wonderful brunch at Stoneface Dolly's on Preston this morning. They have the best brunches. Yum yum! Homemade lemonade, homemade molasses bread, amazing omelet, yum yum yum. I wasn't hungry again till dinner! If you're in Ottawa, I highly recommend Stoneface Dolly's, especially for brunch. (Go early, I'm not the only one who feels this way - it was hopping!)

Gothic Arch #11 Paint

Edited to add: oops - accidentally posted this without the picture. Not sure what combination of keystrokes happened, but anyway, here is the photo. I didn't crop it down because I liked the weathered wood backdrop for this one.

Here's my arch for the Inkurable Stampers #11 Gothic Arch challenge, to use paint. I used paint in a couple of places: first, for the background of the door. I took a long time to paint various colours of watercolour crayon over it in shades of brown, adding green, blue, yellow and red to liven it up. It did look pretty good, but I always find watercolour crayons a bit subdued for my liking, so I sponged over with distress inks, and wound up covering up the "Art" quote (Quietfire Designs stamp). There is also paint on the grungeboard "hinge". Any carpenters out there, please don't quibble about the one-hinge door, which is likely to swing open and fall over, crushing the hapless visitor. Hinge-counting naysayers might also fault the lack of knob or latch, but I will point out the keyhole - this door opens by key only. And possibly by incantation (I haven't tried).

Back to the door: I coloured the background (described above) then added some lines and "nails" with a brown pencil crayon. Then I stamped on the image (Stampers Anonymous) and coloured it in with Tombows, accented with white gel pen. The keyhole diamond is popped up. For accents, I used the grungeboard fleur-de-lis, cut down from a longer length. It had been painted with brown and black Adirondack paint, and a bit of gold lumiere. When it was all done, I felt it needed something more, so I popped in the brad at the top and did a border of Dimensional Pearls (Espresso) all the way around. The brad was pewter so I coloured it with a Copic to fit in with the scheme a bit more.

I'm quite pleased with how this one turned out. It was fun to colour over paint - the markers really did well there. This is also a favourite image, and one I don't use as often as I'd like to.

Well, bathtime for the kidlets! Time to get the paint from daycamp this week off their arms....

Happy stamping!

Dance for yourself

I'm back! Sorry about the blog-post drought. I was on a business trip and in the week or so leading up to it, I had meant to do up a bunch of stamping and blog posts, but my family kept wanting to eat and wear clean clothes, and I had to shop (dearth of summer wardrobe) and pack for my trip. And DD2 also wanted a birthday party. Now I have semi-presentable summer clothes, I'm back from my trip, have six blisters from new shoes (and walking approx 5000 km with insane bionic android-type travelling companions), and the birthday party was a huge hit (won't dwell on fact that small children are very easy to please and they probably liked the cheesies the best out of all the entertainments and diversions I offered).

There's a fun contest over on Tim Holtz' blog where he's giving away some Distress Ink holders.
He's asked people to make a project with Distress Inks, and here's what I've done with my evening! {ooooh! Just got confirmation from Tim Holtz himself! I'm sure it's a generic one but still. His name is in my Inbox. ooooh!}

I've used a number of techniques, including Versamark resist (you can sort of see the music background - it's a subtle effect, but I like the fact that there's a bit of music "playing" in the background). I experimented a bit with "motion stamping" the people, but it wound up looking like they were some sort of crazy time travelling dancers trapped at a rave party so I had to settle for ordinary stamping instead. (I should mention these stamps are all from one Stampers' Anonymous set, Purely Random, which is one of my favourite sets. It has so many fabulous and useful elements in it, as well as these four dancing-related stamps. Actually, come to think of it, the music stamp is from one of the Christmas sets, but really every stamper should have at least one sheet music stamp, right? Right. A sheet music stamp was one of the stamps I got on my first trip to Western Educational (RIP, o stamping Mecca). Happy sigh of recalling love affair with stamps in first flush....)

Anyway, back to the card. After stamping the dancers (Pine Needles) and the footsteps (Stormy Sky), I made the tag. There was a nice scrap of soft yellow paper just sitting near my left hand, so I added some distress ink and turned it into a tag. I just blended on some shades of yellow to bring it into matching tones with the background and to stop it looking so flat. I also stamped the same sentiment on it in Scattered Straw. A handy tip: heat set with your iron so you can emboss right away. Another handy tip: don't forget to turn off the steam or the words will disappear in a puff of vapour and you will have to restamp them. Or at least I presume this is what would happen .... I also used my edge distresser (finally found it! yay! it was in my basket of stamping tools... grrr...who put it there???) I added an eyelet and some cord and presto, tag! I also used my tag corner punch for the corners since I am too impatient to measure, mark and cut corners like that. I'd rather cut corners with a punch! (Ha! Did you miss my bad puns?) I also spritzed the background with a bit of gold Smooch. (I'm liking this more and more. The first time I tried it, I used way too much. Now I give it two squirts and it's done. It is lasting a lot longer this way. It also fits in my little mini-mister stadium stand. Yay!) On the green panel is some Gala Glitz glitter in green, stuck to some Sook Wang tape (I hope, anyway - I had previously stuck down some microbeads but they looked terrible so I took them off but didn't change the tape). I don't think I'll be sending this off to anyone. I think I might give it to myself to remind me not to worry about conforming to the crazy world around me and if I feel like dancing, I should just go right ahead and do it.

I'm looking at this card and I feel like it needs something else. The layout isn't quite right. I think I need to get over my problem of covering up a background I just spent an hour making (longer if you count the one I had to throw out due to rave-dancing lunatics). Any tips on the layout problem? I have my visual triangle, I have my three yellow things, three green things, something stringy/ribbony, something sparkly, something metal. Maybe I should go read Tim's message again for inspiration....

Thanks for stopping by! It's great to be back, happily ensconced amongst my teetery piles and friendly stamps, listening to Vinney White and Studio 93, getting my fingers into the most dreadful inky mess. I had brought my Copics with me and some stamped images and logged in lots of happy colouring hours, but it's not the same as making a project from start to finish. That being said, I've made great strides with my Copics and am getting very comfortable with them, other than with blending very light colours into white. That still defeats me. Still, one needs a challenge and a reason to get out of bed in the morning!
Happy stamping :-)

Oooohhhh! New stamps!!!

Heather got her shipment of new Tim Holtz stamps by Stampers Anonymous! Needless to say, I left her haven slightly poorer in wallet, but much richer in spirit. After the kiddies were tucked in and DH installed with the opening ceremonies, I cracked open my goodies and had a great time playing. I'd pop up every so often to see what was going on in Vancouver, but I also had time to make this card.

I started with a 2 1/2" x 5 1/2" piece of 130 lb white cardstock and stamped it with the sentiment in black pigment and embossed it in black. Next, I stamped the flourish in versamark to give a subtle resist effect. Then I added a gradient of colour with distress ink and my blending tool. I believe the colours I used (from bottom to top) were: tea dye, spiced marmalade, mustard seed, scattered straw, broken china, faded jeans, pine needles. Then I stamped the flourish on again with broken china and added the botanical silhouette in walnut stain. Lastly, I stamped the two butterflies in Encore gold, flying their way up from bottom to top, left to right. For an accent, I stamped the same butterflies on some shrink plastic that I had tinted with Stream alcohol ink. I stamped in black archivers ink (Ranger) since I had used alcohol ink and then I shrank it with my heat tool. (I keep an old aluminum pie plate around for this use - the high sides keep little shrinky-dinks from flying out.) One jump ring and one untangled hank of jute later, the butterfly was attached to the bottom of the focal panel.

The tricky thing is always finding the right paper - you want to complement the nice colours, not drown them or fight them. This jewelly muted turquoise was just the thing and the mustard tsumugi paper always provides interest and it's so richly pigmented that it holds its own against any homemade colour panel. I stamped the card blank with versamark dazzle (champagne) using the same flourish stamp, and added the tsumugi strips to accent. They needed a little something so a few strategic dots of dimensional pearls in Stream finished it off. I really love this card. I think I'll drop it by Heather's this morning to see if she wants it for a sample for her delicious new stamps.

Note: all stamps used here are from the Shabby French set.

Thanks for stopping by!

NSR: So what did you think of the opening ceremonies. I thought they were good, but I took exception to the mangling of our national anthem. It should be sung as it was written, there's no need to torture it to death as though it were the final round of American Idol. I really enjoyed the fiddling and DH liked the special effects. I found the torches a bit unusual, reminiscent of an alleged pastime of British Columbians. I'm not sure if this was intentional or not.

My favourite part, without question, was the opening with the First Nations dancers. That was a monumental moment in Canadian history and really brought the whole affair a level of class and import. So I will focus my memories on that rather than Nelly's choice of wardrobe and the 8th-grade-dance-a-thon wannabes lining the athletes' procession. All in all, I found it very Canadian - quite pleasant, slightly goofy, earnest, unthreatening and with one or two moments of pure magic.

Sixth and Seventh Tags

Here are tags six and seven, inspired by Tim Holtz' 12 Tags of Christmas. Tag 7, with the Santa, used a masking technique, so the tag is all one layer, with lots of fun distressing and stamping, etc. I love the gold flourish (Stamp-It)! That was a stamp I picked up when I was visiting my aunt in Victoria and she took me to her LSS (yay!). The Santa is coloured with distress inks and a blender pen, accented with distress stickles.

Tag 6 uses the dictionary paper. Luckily for our French-English dictionary, DH reminded me that I could scan a page from the regular dictionary rather than using an actual page removed from the book itself. I thought the dictionary wouldn't have minded such a noble sacrifice and we hardly ever need the J's.... Anyway, I managed to get a good effect here, and I didn't even need to mail away to some paper supply shop across the border! The pear (Stampers Anonymous) is embossed in black and coloured with the blending tool and distress ink. The dictionary background is as Tim himself does it (or as close as I can come), the flourish is Stamp-It. The gold rick rack has shown up again, this time with jute. I love the warm tones of this, and it could be an all-purpose card, not just for Christmas. But I think pears can definitely be Christmassy. I didn't go with Tim's tree-on-car motif because (a) I only have bright yellow and lime green flock, (b) I don't have a car stamp, only trucks, (c) my only tree stamps are weeping willow and bare deciduous, which would look quite peculiar on my dumptruck stamp, flocked in lime green/yellow. This is sounding kind of funny, and I just might have to try it! 12 Tags of Christmas gone horribly awry.....

Well, I should sign off. hubby has finished tinkering with the various remotes and appears to have stumbled on the successful combination of buttons and pointers to allow us to watch another couple of episodes of The Border before bed. We have the whole fall season backlogged since we missed the first episode and haven't figured out how to watch it on the computer. I just saw it on Sunday and now we are catching up.

Thanks for stopping by!

Fourth Tag of Christmas

Here's my fourth tag, inspired by this one by Tim Holtz. I didn't have all the hardware and bits and bobs for this one, but what struck me from his was the little window vignette, so I went with that. I did a similar collage background (Stampers Anonymous), coloured in the same technique, but different stamps and colours. I chose the Santa face (Stampers Anonymous) for the window, and created a frame using a SU chipboard frame, painted with Espresso dabbers, then a bit of Snow Cap and lastly some SU shimmer paint to give it some shimmer. There are microbeads inside the window for some interest. Also it was high time for my cards to have an auditory element other than some colourful expressions when I smudge/fudge something or cut myself. This one actually looks better in the picture than in real life. Whooda thunkit!

The holly sprig (Sunshine Designs) is stamped on the back of botched Tag 2 and coloured with the sponge applicator in shades of yellow and green and red on the berry, accented with distress stickles in Fired Brick and Peeled Paint. There is also a bit of accent stamping on the edge, behind the gold rick rack in Aged Mahogany. I think it's more holly sprig, but I can't quite make it out.

Thanks for looking!