Would you like a glass of wine?

Hello! Here's a birthday card I made recently.  The recipient has been taking a number of wine tasting courses in the past couple of years so we got her a gift certificate for some more classes (or some special vintages to enjoy).  I thought this would be a nice card to go with the gift.  The stamp image is by Stamps Happen and I coloured it using the Tombow marker watercolouring technique using the image on the stamp block as my colour guide.  Next, I spritzed it lightly with Goosebumps and when they were dry, I sponged lightly with Antique Linen distress ink.  The image is matted on black linen paper, then mounted on a burgundy card base with a mustard fleck accent strip.  The card base and accent strip are edged with Memories Art Print Brown.  Inside it says, "Hope this is your best 29th birthday yet!"  I love that stamp!  It's from Impress Rubber Stamps.  On the envelope, I stamped the glass ring marks and splatters from Stampers Anonymous (Tim Holtz) in burgundy.  Don't you love it when a theme comes together?

Happy stamping!

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!

Golden Anniversary 2

Hello!  Here's a second golden anniversary card because I wanted to make something a little different to give the person who asked for them some choice.  The main inspiration for this one was that the couple celebrating their 50 years of marriage really love music so I wanted to incorporate music somehow.  I got out my music-themed stamping things and was trying out various embossing powders when I came across this one - Gilded Gold (Ranger).  Not to exciting on light coloured paper, but when used on black, it is stunning!  It's hard to describe, but basically it's only just gold, but definitely gold.  Like second generation stamping with gold ink only shiny and raised and in embossed form.  I think I have a new favourite embossing powder!

Most of my cards start from a focal image and go from there, but due to my new pash for Gilded Gold, I started with the background on this one (music notes scrap block - Cornish Heritage Farms) and decided to build up a little collage of sorts. I rummaged in my scraps bin and found some button paper and a piece of textured metal from a class I took at Heather's Stamping Haven (this only encourages me not to throw anything out.ever.bad.very bad.).  I remembered I had some lovely Darkroom Door photo chips and sure enough, I had a whole sheet to choose from.  I selected this piano one, and enhanced it with some Antique Linen distress ink and a scroll stamp (Stampers Anonymous) in Delicata gold ink (heat set it or it will smudge). The final touch was a little message that says "Happily Ever After" (Stampin' Up - Fancy Flexible Phrases), punched out and beribboned with seam binding and a bit of gold cord.  I matted on a cream gold, then a darker gold and put the whole thing (approximately 4 lb by now) on a cream linen base, also edged in Delicata gold and sponged with Antique Linen.  A few drops of Liquid pearls in bisque were the final touch.  Though now that I look at it, I am debating adding two more drops at the top left of the collage for balance.  I might wait till after I've had coffee though (I am writing this first thing in the morning) because I don't want to spoil the card with a misjudged squeeze of Liquid Pearls.  On the inside of this card, I put the sentiment "Once in a while, right in the middle of an ordinary life, life gives us a fairy tale" (Stampin' Up).  A nice message for an anniversary!

Thanks for stopping by!

Golden Anniversary

Hello!  I was asked to make a card recently for a golden wedding anniversary (50th) and here's what I came up with.  I was completely uninspired to make something traditional, so I rootled around in my stamps and found this one (The Stamp Barn by Frog's Whiskers Ink).  I thought there was plenty of scope for adding gold, and I liked the "two birds" element for the anniversary part.  The card base is a gold-fleck confetti (the ugly splotches have been added by Sauron the Scanner, aided and abetted by Paint Shop Pro - it doesn't show in my edited version, only when I load it here for your viewing pleasure).  I stamped the bird image and embossed it with gold, and used my Tombow markers to "watercolour" it.  I painted the ribbon with Solar Gold Twinkling H20s for extra oomph.  The sentiment (Stampin' Up) is also embossed in gold.  The panel behind the images is a soft gold, the sentiment is matted with a brighter gold and the bird image is matted on a brown gold.  This card has enough gold on it to qualify for the High Roller Discount on the Vegas Strip.  Go big or go home, I always say.

Thanks for stopping by!  Hope you're enjoying your summer/winter (don't want to be hemispherically biased here!).  We sure are - lots of swimming and barbecues and generally enjoying the break in the weather.  (We had a terrible heat wave last week.)  I've been doing some jamming and some quilting and some stamping and some knitting and some crocheting.  Good times!

Happy Stamping!

Father's Day

 Hello!  Now that Father's Day cards have been distributed, I can blog about them here.  The top one was for my husband, and the bottom one was for my dad. 

The top card is done with a coloured panel that has a Hero Arts background stamped on watercolour paper and embossed in white and then coloured with Distress markers and blended with a brush and water.  I gave it a small accent strip on one side, from my treasured stash of iris cardstock, which is now discontinued (can you believe it?  I couldn't - it was the best almost purple-almost blue cardstock ever).  It was mounted to a blue linen card base (which Sauron the Scanner has auto-corrected into something very peculiar) and stamped with "Happy Father's Day" (A Muse).  I stamped it in Chipped Sapphire and accented it with a Sakura Glaze pen.  It turned out that it was a white Sakura Glaze pen, and this treatment rendered the stamping almost invisible so I traced over with the Chipped Sapphire Distress Marker and took the liberty of adding some kisses underneath.  My younger daughter felt strongly that there should also be "o's" with the "x's", but I wasn't really seeking design input at this point.   I added white opal liquid pearls to the dots at the circles' intersectins. 

The card for my dad was a fun one. We used this stamp (Impression Obsession) in Krista's classes recently, so I did a different take on it and stamped it in white on kraft cardstock and coloured it with Bryunzeel pencil crayons.  I put it on a Bordering Blue card base with some Stampin' Up paper that coordinates with these two papers.  Some mushroom adirondack dimensional pearls completed the look.  I asked hubby if it was too feminine and he said, "It's just feminine enough."  You would think I would know better by now than to ask him, but there you go.  I might just have learned my lesson. 

We've had a great Father's Day - a trip down to Brockville to see the tall ships, and a lovely dinner out. 

Thanks for stopping by!  Hope you got some stamping in this weekend too.

Mixed Media Poppies

Here's where I was tonight!  At Heather's Stamping Haven taking a mixed media class from Krista Schneider (standing).  We had so much fun.  These poppies were a blast to make.  We created them on birch panels with Copic and Tombow markers and Inktense pencils.  All this after a day of doing wonderful watercolour painting with Tombow markers.  I'm worn out, but in the best way.  Thanks Krista, Heather and all the ladies in class for making today such a wonderful day! 

Now I'm off to pack up my Copics for tomorrow' class!  If you are interested in seeing the class samples, the Tombow class is here and the Copic class is here.  There are also another couple of great classes on Distress markers and Inktense pencils. 

Meadow Birds

Hello!  Here's a card I made last night and finished off this morning.  I fell in love with this stamp when I saw Krista Schneider's sample here and wanted to try it out.  I stamped on the super smooth watercolour paper from Heather's Stamping Haven using India Ink.  The birds, flowers and leaves (stamp by Impression Obsession) were done using the watercolouring with Tombow technique that Krista teaches.  (I am so excited about her upcoming classes!  I love this time of year!)  The birds are accented with stickles too, and there are some dots of Adirondack dimensional pearls in Bottle.  I also edged all the panels in the same green.  I like the look of edged panels and the shadow ink gets a beautiful soft edge to it.  It's crisp enough for a good image, but it also softens ever so slightly.  I quite like the Tide Pool shade on the chartreuse with the background stamp (Hero Arts) - a little edgy and introduces yet another green.  I like to build up a number of shades of the same colour on a card, especially when they are a bit strong on their own.  Somehow having more variety of strong colours lessens the overall impact.  Then adding in a bit of red (opposite on the colour wheel) really makes everything pop.  This is a bright and juicy card! 

Actually, I think all three layers of green are her new greens.  I am really liking her new colours, even if I am sad that they (whoever They are) retired Citron without so much as a by-your-leave.  Time to branch out and try some new things! 

Thanks for stopping by!  I'll try not to be such a stranger.  The real reason I haven't been posting much is my elder daughter has had a big school project to work on and Blogger wasn't letting me log in to my blog - it would go to her account unless I rebooted.  I didn't want to close all her windows (or figure out a fix...let's be honest) so I just avoided Blogger.  Today I tried out Firefox and discovered it works just fine for blogging!  That's great news.  I will be blogging more often now, especially now that the tv shows we've been watching are winding up/over.  Mad Men is a particular favourite, and this season has been really good. 

Thanks (again!) for stopping in to this little corner of blogland. Hope you get some good stamping time.