Embossed Peace, Love, Joy

Here's a card we made at my stamp club this month. The ladies wanted to try heat embossing and I wanted to show a Christmas card, so this is what I came up with. Although this image looks great coloured in, I thought I would show how simple and elegant it can be just embossed. We used gold embossing powder on Very Vanilla, and edged the panel with a gold leaf pen. It doesn't really show up, but we used Bella Toile and versamark on the background. That is my new favourite background stamp!

Thanks for stopping by.

All Supplies SU unless noted: Stamp: Holy Triptych, All Holidays; Ink: gold encore, versamark; Paper: Very Vanilla, Handsome Hunter, Bravo Burgundy; Other: scallop edge punch, gold embossing powder, gold leaf pen (not SU).

Christmas card stamp camp

Here's what's been keeping me busy for the last little while - I've had Christmas card stamp camps the last two weekends. Good times!

The ladies made 3 of each design, and we had lots of other treats on the go as well. For door prizes I gave away some ornaments from the Holiday Mini ornament kit, and little packages of gift tags that I made. I'll make some more and post them - I need to make some stuff for the Christams bazaar at church, and I think the gift tags would be good projects for that.

The Noel card was inspired by this card on splitcoast by akbride. Supplies: Stamps: Big on Christmas; Ink: Basic Black; Paper: Whisper White, Real Red, Old Olive; Other: markers in Brocade Blue, Real Red, Old Olive, ornament cuttlebug folder, red glitter pen (swirl accent).

The tree card was inspired by this card on splitcoast by jcslegs. I changed up some of the colours to suit my design and I didn't want to use heat embossing for my second camp as there were a lot of novice stampers, and I didn't want to overwhelm them with techniques, even though heat embossing is easy. It's just another step to remember. I like it like this one. The Naturals White adds a nice rustic feel to the card. The card shown uses Ski Slope dsp, but two of the three cards featured Kiwi Kiss dsp instead.

Supplies: Stamps: Snow Swirled; Ink: Brocade Blue; Paper: Naturals White, Ski

Slope/Kiwi Kiss designer paper, Real Red, Brocade Blue; Other: square rhinestone brads (ice), Top Notes die, red gingham ribbon.

This card was a bit different, more of a vintage feel. Although this card looks great coloured in, I felt that would be too time-consuming so I showcased how good the line art can look just stamped in one colour, with a hint of watercolour wonder crayons added here and there for accent.

Supplies: Stamps: Home for Christmas; Ink: Always Artichoke; Paper: Very Vanilla, Bravo Burgundy, Always Artichoke; Other: burgundy grosgrain ribbon, burgundy watercolour wonder crayon, aquapainter

This card was my favourite - I think I saw one like it somewhere, but I couldn't find it again to give the credit. If it's yours, let me know and I'll post a link to your original. That being said, there are lot of cards out there with variations on this theme.

For this card, we stamped an all-over pattern using the snowflakes from Snow Swirled (isn't this such a versatile set!) and then added some designer paper and a felt snowflake. The ladies got one snowflake in each colour and I did two red cards and one blue card for this design. It doesn't show in the scan, but the snowflakes have a lovely sparkle - I brushed on some Crystal Effects and sprinkled on Dazzling Diamonds glitter. I can't tell you how pretty that was. I am going to do that to all my snowflakes!

Supplies: Stamps: Snow Swirled, Heard from the Heart; Ink : Chocolate Chip, Riding Hood Red, Baja Breeze; Paper: Whisper White, Real Red, Chocolate Chip, Ski Slope designer paper; Other: small Felt Flurries, crystal effects, dazzling diamonds, scalloped edge punch.

Thanks for looking! And to the ladies that came to my Christmas card camps - a great big thank you! I had a lot of fun!!!

Pretty, pretty butterfly

This has to be my current favourite card. I love the colours, I love the sparkle, and I love the beads. It's just so pretty! I had a very special person in mind when I made it and I can't wait to give it to her.



I was on a mission to get some mileage out of this set before I sold it, and making two of these cards with individual flowers all coloured in different (6!) colours fit the bill. I love the set, but I could bear to part with it :-)


I used Tombows to colour the flowers in shades of turquoise, green, pink and purple. When I had it done, I realized it went perfectly with my Euphoria pack of patterned paper. (I'd like to be the sort of stamper that plans this kind of thing in advance, but I usually colour away and then try to find something to go with it. Oh well, I cook like that to - assemble the ingredients I have on hand and then hit google to find a recipe for hamburger, Dijon mustard, pickled beets and frozen corn. Luckily this card worked out better than the average dinner around here lol.)



This little butterfly was so pretty, it needed to be accented with some sakura glitter pen and seed beads here and there. The other details were added with a lot of layers (why have one layer when you could have 7?) and some pretty ribbons. The opening was scalloped and some coordinating Eurphoria paper put inside (it's scalloped too). This was not one of those cards that was finished in 10 minutes, but it's not for an ordinary person.

What follows is some chit chat from my life, so if you only want the card deets, skip to the bottom. If you want to read about our Thanksgiving weekend, keep going :-)

It's Thanksgiving weekend here and the weather is glorious. We had our big turkey feast yesterday at my brother's house. Mmmm it was fabulous. My sister-in-law's table was gorgeously decorated, she has such a flair for that sort of thing. Her meal was phenomenal, such a gift of time and love for all of us, as always. My mother made our family favourite, the world's best pumpkin pie. It puts all others to shame. Seriously. And I contributed the green salad. Lest you think this was a healthy contribution, it's a pale green foamy confection comprised mainly of cream cheese, marshmallows and whipping cream, with some pears and lime jello thrown in. For those of you who think you don't like jellied salad, you will be converted. But I can't share the recipe or my aunt's sister-in-law will have me whacked. The only thing I missed was stuffing with Mt. Scio savoury in it. I was an instant convert the first time I had it, years ago when my roommates from Newfoundland made it for me. DH is a Newfoundlander too so we always have Mt. Scio savoury in our stuffing, and I even add it to dumplings in chicken stew. (I'm actually not a bad cook, despite my earlier remarks.)



Today we took the kids to a local pumpkin patch. The car ride was hellish (DD2 should have been having a nap and was just rotten) but once we got there, the girls had fun. Their favourite thing was the pile of straw bales to climb on. (It did make me wonder why we bothered moving a van load of wood and reassembling the play structure when we could have piled up a dozen bales of straw instead....) They hoovered up a lot of apples and I turned a blind eye to the number of times DD2 (who is 2) dropped her apple and kept eating it. I figured the straw was a bit of extra roughage. We got some lovely squashes and the farmer assured me they would keep till Christmas if stored in a cool spot. I look forward to torturing my family with nutritious winter squash for several months to come....hehehehe..... (There do have to be some perks to motherhood after all! They can torment me in the car, but I am in charge of supper!!!! bwahahahaha )



Supplies: Stamps: Reason to Smile, Riveting; Ink: none - Tombow markers + SU marker in Rose Red; Paper: Whisper White, Pretty in Pink, Rose Red, Spring Moss (PTI), Euphoria (Basic Grey); Other: seed beads, sakura glitter pen, ribbon (SU, other), SU punches: scalloped edge, 1 3/8" circle, 1 1/4" circle.

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

Colour-blocked daisies

I celebrated World Card Making Day on Saturday with an Open House. This was also my new catalogue open house, and my first time having all my stamping friends over to the new house. My parents were visiting too, so it was a celebration all around.



One of the projects we made was this card, which was inspired by this card by cullenwr on splitcoast. I knew I wanted to do a sponged silhouette technique and had a great card planned out with Fresh Cuts, but at the last minute (as in the night before 14 people were coming to stamp), I decided to change the design. Much as I love Fresh Cuts, I thought it would be hard for people to get the square stamped straight the first time. It's much easier to stamp and then cut it out, but with that many people stamping, I wanted to minimize the steps.



I turned to Upsy Daisy for a quick and easy silhouette but I couldn't get the layout right with a deadline looming. When I saw cullenwr's card at work (it was lunch time!), I knew colour blocking was the answer. It's quick, easy, and has the wow factor I wanted for the Open House.



The silhouette is stamped using a sponging technique I learned in my Stampin' Up demonstrator magazine. You stamp the whole image with the lightest colour (here it's Baja Breeze) then you sponge on additional colours here and there (here we used Kiwi Kiss and Pacific Point). Everything is mounted on coordinating cardstock with Chocolate Chip as the grounding neutral. People could choose one of the three sentiments in this stamp set and stamp it in Chocolate Chip. A Kiwi Kiss/Vanilla ribbon finishes it off.



The other project was a gift tag, heat embossed in gold or silver on burgundy or hunter, using the scrolly frame stamp from Holy Triptych.



My Open House was a lot of fun - I met some new people and sent many retired stamps and accessories to new and loving homes. I'll miss them, but it's time for them to get the TLI (tender loving ink) they deserve. Thanks to all the ladies for coming out (and thanks to all my helpers for making it happen)!





Thanks for stopping by!



All supplies Stampin' Up: Stamp: Upsy Daisy; Ink: Baja Breeze, Kiwi Kiss, Pacific Point, Chocolate Chip; Paper: Very Vanilla, Baja Breeze, Kiwi Kiss, Pacific Point, Chocolate Chip; Accessories: dimensionals, Kiwi Kiss ribbon, stampin' sponge.

Silhouette Songbird

I'm back! I was out of town on a business trip last week, but it wasn't all work (and even the work was pretty fun I have to say). I was able to attend my cousin's wedding and visit with family while I was away. The wedding was wonderful. It was a lovely ceremony, the bride (my cousin) was breathtakingly beautiful, and the reception in my aunt's garden rivalled the Governor-General's garden parties (or at least what I imagine them to be, since I haven't actually been to one yet). And to gild the lily, I got to spend some stamping time with my aunt during the week. I got to go to her LSS too, and found some treasures that I can't wait to start using. I found out that Lisa Strahl (!) was teaching at that LSS the day I flew out. I almost changed my flight to attend, when I found that out, but I found out after I got home, so it was beyond my reach on the space-time continuum to do that. But if I coulda, I woulda.

Now, about this card. I needed a card for my boss who will be going on extended leave soon. I wanted to use a silhouette stamp, and this one was one of the first ones I found (things are still in slings in my stamping area). I had planned to do a quickie card with my brayer and an Adirondack spectrum pad, but my brayer is nowhere to be found. I hope I find it soon. I've lost my little brayer, and I hoped it would turn up in the move, but no such luck. Now the big brayer is missing too. I miss my brayers!

Anyway, back to the card. Plan B was to make my own multicoloured background using my Colorbox stylus and foam tips with chalk ink. I've used this colour combination a few times before, and I would have tried something different only my boss seems to really like these colours so I used them. I added a little branch stamp in the background with platinum brilliance ink and light blue chalk ink. The bird is embossed in black and I added a frame around the whole thing with markers. I dithered with the ribbon for some time, added it twice and took it off twice, even curling it once with my heat tool (don't heat it too much or it will get holes in it...sigh...). After deciding the holey ribbon didn't really add a lot, I cut it off, but after I had the whole thing put together, I felt it needed ribbon after all so I squeezed it back on, threading it under the image panel. I was going to add my trusty Espresso acrylic paint dots, but I could only find my bottles of the coloured paint, not the black one, so I had to use brads. They show on the inside, but not too much since they had to through five layers of cardstock.... (I know, in addition to being a brayer addict, I am also a layer addict). And that's it for the card!

This weekend is shaping up to be a good one. Today was a barbecue down by the river for work, which made for a very pleasant afternoon. It's nice to see colleagues outside the office. Then this evening after the mad-chore-dash, The Office season finale from the spring was on and I got to do some stamping! The fun continues tomorrow when we're going to the fair (my thrill-seeking 2-year-old is going to love the rides), and my elder daughter has her dear friend coming for a sleepover afterwards. Then on Saturday we get to play with our niece and nephew and then Sunday we clean the house (likely the low point of the weekend) because my parents come for a visit on Monday. I can't wait!

Thanks for stopping by.

Supplies: Stamps: Song Bird - Penny Black, In Full Bloom, Linen - Stampin' Up; Ink: Kiwi Kiss, colorbox chalk (warm violet, wisteria, lime pastel), aspen mist versa? chalk, versamark; Paper: PTI white, basic black, silver, kiwi kiss; Other: black embossing powder, black brads, orchid organdy ribbon (retired SU), Tombow marker, stylus, foam tips.

I'm back - then gone again!

Hi! It's been too long since I've posted. There have been a lot of changes for our household. We are moved in now, and all the essentials are unpacked. I can cook and bake in my kitchen, and more importantly, stamp in my stamp nook! I have 95% of my stamping gear unpacked, in arranged to allow some usability. It's not the final configuration, but I need to give that a bit more thought before I purchase any furniture or storage arrangements. I did sort through my Stampin' Up sets to decide which ones will got to new homes since if I kept all my stamps, I wouldn't have room for any new ones (collective gasps of horror are then heard throughout the nations!). (And before you think I'm being presumptuous about my readership, I get hits from the US, and from all over the world. Not in enormous numbers, granted, but enough to justify the little "s" on nation.)

In other changes, we have started with a new daycare since the move (it was very hard to say goodbye to the old one) and DD1 has started in a new school (Grade 1!). It's very nice to be closer to family, and I took advantage of being closer to the cinema and went to see Mamma Mia (soo, sooo good!).

When faced with the big box of stamps to find new homes for, I felt badly about selling some of them since they hadn't been loved enough here. I decided that I would play with those in particular to "get them out of my system" and to see if I really couldn't part with them.

This card was the first set chosen, a hostess set from a couple of catalogues back, Reason to Smile. I have loved this set since I saw it, but never stamped with it. I remember seeing an awesome card done with it by Julie Buhler (blog - Paper Pleasing Ideas) where she coloured in all the flowers different colours. It looked stunning. Not one to take the easy route when stamping, I wanted to give that a whirl. I coloured each type of flower (and there are six, all very tiny) a different colour. Various flowers are accented with stickles and my glitter pen. Once that was done, pulling the card together didn't take that long (mostly because I was tired and it was time for bed). The background flowers are from Polka Dots and Petals, stamped in Platinum Brilliance. The ribbon is retired organdy ribbon that I had out to cut lengths as a little gift for my stamp club members for filling out my new catalogue Scavenger Hunt. It's the orchid colour, and it matched quite well.

Thanks for looking and don't hold your breath for my next post. I'm leaving tomorrow afternoon for Victoria for a family wedding this weekend, followed by a trip for work, also in Victoria. The work trip sounds really interesting and I'm excited about it. And who would turn down a trip to the West Coast!?! It will be great to see my family too, a rare and special pleasure. My aunt is a stamper too, so I hope to have a little time stamping with her in her fabulous stamping room. I hope once the wedding dust settles we'll get a chance.

Thanks again for stopping by.

Happy stamping!

Supplies: stamps: Reason to Smile, Polka Dots and Petals; Ink: chalk ink - warm violet, French blue, platinum brilliance; paper: PTI white, orchid opulence, cool Caribbean; other: orchid organdy ribbon, flower brad (Making Memories?), Tombow markers, stickles, glitter pen, deep well of patience.