A Small Saying Disaster
Stella Ruby Baby!
This card uses the beautiful new Basic Grey Stella Ruby paper. I just fell in paper love! If I only had the Wild Rose stamp set, I'd be in stamping heaven! :) I received this flower image from Jojot on the CCRAK (Challenge Chaser RAK) chain over on SCS. When you receive the chain card, you also receive two images. You then make two cards with those images and send two RAK's out each with two images for the next person to join in on the fun. This is the first card I made and I thought the image matched my paper pretty well. Sorry, I have no clue who makes the image, so if anybody knows, please clue me in!
ETA: Thanks to Jan J. for the name of this image: Funky Cone Flower by Embossing Arts Company.
I started by coloring the image in with prismacolors and mineral spirits and then accented the swirls with my gold gel pen. I then used some new Fruit Punch stickles on the flower petals, Ice stickles on the flower center and Crystal stickles on the stem. Next I mounted the image on Chocolate Chip and cut around it.
For my punch challenge I used one of my favorite punches - the Stampin Up notch punch. When I first saw this punch in the catalog I thought, what a dumb punch! But now, I think it is one of the classiest punches around. Everytime I'm searching for just a touch of elegance I pull it out and wrap some gold cord around the notches - and voila instant frame. I also used my scalloped square punches for this card. One of my favorite techniques with these squares is to piece them together. I punch one full one and then line up my punch to overlap the punched out shape, so I end up with a perfectly fitted rectangle (one full and one partial) that are very hard to tell they are pieced together.
For the final touch on this card, I added some organdy ribbon around the scalloped rectangle.
Party Animal Punches!
Blogger RAK Club
I joined the Blogger RAK club over on Splitcoastbloggers last week and already received my first card! And what a beauty. Kendra's blog is one of my favorite blogs to read. I just love her stamping style and it's so cool to have one of her creations to admire in person!
This is the card she sent me. Isn't it just beautiful??? Her cards always have so much dimension, and loads of beautiful ribbons! Thanks Kendra - you made my day! I'm so glad to have you as a bloggin' friend!
I had such a lucky weekend. I won blog candy on both Kendra's and Rachel's blogs this weekend! I never win, so I quickly ran to the gas station to buy a lottery ticket before my luck ran out! I only won $4, so I guess I won't be re-outfitting my stamping room anytime soon, but it sure was a great weekend!
Geisha Friend
This card measures 5.5 x 5.5" and all papers are from the DCWV Far East paper pack. I covered the round coaster with the floral paper, randomly stamped the butterfly from the Oriental Plate 1 in Cranberry Crisp, sanded off the excess edges and stained with a Ranger Tea Dye Distress inkpad and a sponge. Next I stamped the Geisha in Black Stazon and colored in with prismacolors, mineral spirtis, markers and crystal effects. I cut her out and glued her down with pop dots.
I used the slit punch for the top strip and did some faux stitch doodles around the edges. The twill tape is stamped with the friend stamp from the Oriental Plate and then highlighted with hodgepodge hardware and inked up with tea dye distress ink. Used my Creative Memories circle cutter to cut a mat for the coaster and pierced the edges with a paper piercer. Most edges are inked up with the tea dye ink. Hopefully it's not too bland - I struggled over whether or not to embellish heavily. I wanted the geisha to really stand out.
Big thanks to Lisa who sent me this adorable kitty RAK card and some delicious little Dove chocolates! Happy mail days rock my world! Thanks for thinking of me Lisa!
An Asian Detour
Next I took a 2 x 5" strip of the patterned paper and used my stamp-a-ma-jig to line up and stamp the Vertical Characters in Ultramine Stazon. I then matted this piece with Night of Navy Cardstock and glued down. To continue my doodling challenge I used the Chatterbox Whimsical Doodle Genie and instead of drawing in the lines I just dotted them to add swirls to the patterned paper with my Night of Navy Stampin' Write Marker. I love the Doodle Genie. This line of plastic templates are a great way to add flourishes and doodles to your pages and cards if you're like me and stamp because you cannot draw! :) The flower is an Imaginisce Azure Tiger Lily that comes in a package of 10 pieces with 3 petals each. This card uses two pieces for a 6 petal Tiger Lily. I absolutely love these - asiatic lilies are my favorite flowers! The flower is secured with a Making Memories Jumbo Brad that I embossed with VersaMark and Stampin Up Navy embossing powder. To finish, I punched two rectangle punches in the top to thread my ribbon through and tie a bow. This Navy ribbon is from an order I just made from Really Reasonable Ribbon.
So what do you think? Is the card off, or am I just being too critical of my work? This concludes my doodling challenge for the week. Hopefuly I gave you a few ideas and tips to inspire you. Here are a few ideas for next week's challenge, please let me know what you would most like to see...
Enabler Alert: Another Pink Cat
I stamped the parisian kitty on Whisper White with Stazon Black and colored her in with prismacolors and mineral spirits. I then stamped her again on the Blitzen paper and cut out just the scarf and glued it on, so she has a fashionable coordinating scarf! Next I took a negative punch of the Stampin Up Small Oval Punch and used my grey prismacolor pencil and mineral spirits to give her an oval shadow beneath. I thought this was a pretty clever idea I had! LOL! :)
For my doodling challenge I tried something new. I used my mat pack to pierce all around the cat panel and then used a Micron .03 black pen to doodle semi-circles connecting each hole to form mini scallops. I drew curly cues in each corner and then dotted in each scallop.
Next I used my Stamp-a-majig to stamp in a semi meandering path along the side of a 5.25 x 4" piece of the Blitzen paper. I then added some black L'il Davis Designs stitched ribbon (secured with Terrifically Tacky Tape) and matted alternating panels with Basic Black. Accented with a prima and Making Memories rhinestone brad and highlighted her glasses and the center of each paw with a mixture of Dazzling Diamonds and Crystal Effects. Doesn't she look classy?
OH... and I want to give a big shout out to my girl Cindy over at My Inky Fingers (Her blog is awesome, so if you haven't, you should check it out! ETA: And she's giving out a triple scoop of blog cany-liciousness this weekend, too!). I got not one, but two amazing RAK's from her this week! The first one is just gorgeous and came complete with my very own box of chocolate covered espresso beans! These are my absolute favorite treats and they're really hard to find in my neck of the woods. She has assured me that they grow on trees in her back yard so I just have to go visit her! :) Isn't this card delish??? I just love the yummy papers, the textures, and the fabulous ribbons and hardware....oh and who can resist chocolate covered espresso beans?
And since she does have a chocolate covered espresso bean tree..... I booked my ticket! I'm gonna go VSN with my pal Cindy and her friend Jennifer! Woohoo! To celebrate she sent me this adorable penguin card! Isn't it awesome how the fiber exactly matches the grass skirt on the penguin? So cute!
Introducing Pink Cat
This card features LilyKate Basic Grey and Loves Me Stampin' Up patterned paper. I just love the polka dots and thought they would be the perfect accent for this fashionista kitty! I started by stamping the Hat Box Kitty in Stazon Black on Whisper White cardstock and coloring in with Prismacolors and mineral spirits. I then accented with my pink Sakura Stardust pen. I'm not sure if the photo shows it, but the rose, all the stripes and the bubbles on the scarf and hatbox are accented with Crystal Effects and Dazzling Diamonds. This kitty SPARKLES in real life! In keeping with this week's doodling challenge, I doodled a frame around the cat image with my Chocolate Chip Stampin' Write Marker. This frame is just straight lines, two little V's and then straight lines all around. Then I used little hash marks to break up the lines. This helps make it less noticeable that the lines are crooked and not evenly spaced! LOL! I then matted with Chocolate Chip cardstock and doodled around the edges with dots using my white gel pen.
Next I stamped Glamour Puss in Timber Brown Stazon, directly on the polka dot Loves me paper. I'm not sure why I changed ink color, just seemed wrong to stamp in in black! :) I then rounded two corners and matted with Rose Red and Chocolate Chip (with white gel pen dots) to make a tab. Then I glued the whole thing on a polka dot mat. I then folded a piece of the polka dot paper in half and punched a half circle on the open edge with my Marvy Super Jumbo Circle Punch. This gave me two matching halves, which I placed at opposite corners of a 5 1/8" square of gorgeous LilyKate Basic Grey paper. Accented with primas and Making Memories rhinestone brads. Tied a ribbon across and glued down the cat panel. Finally, I matted the whole thing on a Regal Rose card base.
Retail Therapy!
Okay, so I didn't do any stamping yesterday. I've been feeling kind of down and creatively blocked lately, so I decided to treat myself to a day of retail therapy! A trip to Michael's, JoAnn's and the local scrapbook store recharged my batteries, and filled up my car with stamping goodness. Here is a peek at what I got. Delish 12 x 12 paper from Bohemia, Basic Grey, Wild Asparagus, Signature,Reminisce and others. Three wood mounted stamps, 10 Rhonna Farrer acrylic $1 stamps, and 14 new Michael's $1 stamps. I also picked up a few extras for some future blog candy! :) What a load of goodies! Then when I got home, my order from Pink Cat Studios had arrived!!! Woohoo! I'm so excited to make some cards with these awesome new stamps. The gal who makes these is such a sweetie! The company is Canadian, but shipping was very reasonable and it only took a week to get here! I'm so impressed. Go check her out, as she has tons and tons of cool images available. She also has a great rewards program, so if you buy something, be sure to tell her Julee Tilman referred ya! Here's a peek at the two plates of rubber I got. You can definitely count on seeing some cards made with these beauties in the near future! |
Friendship Blossoms
I started this card by stamping the Rubber Stampede Cherry Blossom in VersaMark on Whisper White and heat embossing with black embossing powder. Next I colored in the blossoms with my Real Red marker. When I went to trim the image, the marker smudged! EEEEK! So I decided to sponge the entire layer with Real Red ink from my inkpad. Next I went back over all the branches with a gold gel pen and painted the flowers with a mixture of Real Red reinker and Crystal Effects. Matted on Basic Black, adden pop dots, then matted with Brushed Gold and Basic Black.
I stamped the Friendship stamp from Symbols of Solicitude in VersaMark on Brushed Gold and embossed with black and then matted on Basic Black and glued to the blossom panel. I then stamped Weathered background in VersaMark on a Real Red card base and embossed in black. The final touch was a ribbon tied around the card under the raised cherry blossom layer. Voila - Asian fusion.
To answer the question about what Cat's Pajamas stamps I bought... You can look forward to cards featuring Through the Shamrocks, Bold Happy Easter, Tree of Love, Kite, Lovebirds, Caldron, Party Hat, L'il Party Hat, Medium Whirlygig, Shaken not stirred, Fill er up, Wand, Small Whirlygig and Small Compass in the future
Dreams & Doodling
This week's personal challenge is doodling suggested by Linda. I am NOT a master doodler, by any stretch. Actually, I was secretly hoping there would be some other suggestions, because doodling is something I really struggle with. LOL! For this card, I used one of my favorite doodle techniques...dotting. Dotting is so easy! The main thing to remember is to use straight up and down motions. Any angles and you're going to get uneven dots. For the dots around the Dreams circle I used the 2.3mm end of my Black Stampin Write Journaler. For the dots on the bottom panel of the Basic Grey paper (hopefully they show in the picture), I used my Stampin Write Basic Black Marker. Glitter dots are all made with a round stylus and Crystal Effects and Dazzling Diamonds mixture.
I started by stamping the flower from Happy Harmony on Basic Grey Sublime paper in Black Stazon. I then used my Stampin Write Black marker to just ink the Dreams portion of the stamp and stamped over the flower stems. Next I used my Creative Memories Circle Cutting System to cut out the image and matted onto a Basic black Giga Scallop Circle punch. Then I stamped the entire Dreams sentiment in Black Stazon and cut out and used the ticket corner punch and matted on basic black cardstock. I used my 1/8" hole punch to make a hole and tied some black grosgrain on to make a tag.
For the background panel, I used two different papers from the Sublime Basic Grey collection and added ribbon and a slider to cover where they meet. I then glued the dreams circle on with 2 layers of pop dots and added all sorts of glitter with my stylus. It's pretty glitzy, but I had fun!
To distress this card, I used my Black Stazon ink directly on the tag panel, swiping on the edges and lightly across the top in a few places. I sanded around the edges of the flower circle with a sanding block, to soften the colors a little. I used my Tonic paper distresser (love this tool!) on the edges of the main panel and did a little light sanding as well.
If you have ideas for future weekly challenges, please either email me or leave me a comment. I'd love to hear what you'd like to see in future posts!
New colors and new stamps!
Thanks to all who left links to websites for stamp companies. I have enjoyed looking at them and will be updating my shopping links within the next couple weeks. After many hours of Internet shopping I finally gave in to my Cat's Pajamas weakness and ordered 14 new stamps, which will hopefully arrive this week. With my remaining Valentine's money I bought the 27 prismacolor pencils I needed to complete my collection of the 60 colormatches to Stampin Up colors! I ordered from Dick Blick, which at $0.92 per pencil was the cheapest I've found them anyplace. I can't wait for them to come - "bouquets of sharpened pencils" - what could be better? Anyone still reading and know what movie I'm quoting? :)
French Vanilla
Supplies are all Stampin' Up unless otherwise noted.
Stamps: Carte Postale, Small Sayings, French Flair, French Script
Ink: Stazon Black, Cranberry Crisp (inkpad & reinker), Blender pen
Paper: Basic Black, Very Vanilla
Accessories: Thermoweb foam dimensionals, Black grosgrain ribbon
To begin I stamped French Script in Black Stazon on Very Vanilla and then overstamped it with French Flair in Black Stazon. I then stamped the bird from Carte Postale on Very Vanilla and highlighted his breast with Cranberry Crisp reinker and a blender pen. I matted this panel on a Basic Black mat, then stamped my heart is with you from Small Sayings in Cranberry Crisp on Very Vanilla. Adhered the bird with foam dimensionals and matted on basic black and adhered to the background panel. Glued the whole thing with mono-adhesive to a Basic Black card base and tied a bow around the top with black grosgrain ribbon.
Happy Friday!
Online Stamp Stores?
RAK Winner & Carte Postale
Okay, enough chit chat. The winner of the Little Princess RAK card is Amy who blogs at ZoeLife Creations. Congrats Amy, please email me your snail mail addy so I can send off your RAK. Thanks everyone for your comments. You guys keep me smiling every day!!!
Today's card features the Stampin' Up Enchante papers from the Winter Mini. I just HAD to have these papers and the Carte Postale set for Christmas, but I've been a little intimidated by it. By the time I actually received the set and got it mounted I'd seen so many cards on SCS with it, that I couldn't think of anything original to do with it. Today I think I finally came up with something unique.
I started by stamping the filigree stamp from Carte Postale twice in Perfect Plum on Pale Plum paper. I then cut and rounded two corners of each piece and matted on Perfect Plum Cardstock. Next I stamped the flower square on the Enchante paper with Perfect Plum ink and matted with Pale Plum and Perfect Plum cardstock. I painted the stamped images with a mixture of Crystal Effects and lavendar glitter and then mounted everything on the Enchante paper. I then cut two 1/2" strips of the double-sided paper and flipped them so the other design showed. The Thank You sentiment is from the Fancy Flexible Phrases and is stamped on a small oval punch of the Enchante paper. I added two Forever Flowers from my stash with a brad and finished off by dotting around all the edges with my Perfect Plum Stampin' Write Markers.
A Cute Little Blog Thing...
Your Candy Heart Says "Hug Me" |
A total sweetheart, you always have a lot of love to give out. Your heart is open to where ever love takes you! Your ideal Valentine's Day date: a surprise romantic evening that you've planned out Your flirting style: lots of listening and talking What turns you off: fighting and conflict Why you're hot: you're fearless about falling in love |
Okay all you Glitter Girlz!!!
Here's the secret... I have a little plastic paint pallette I bought at the craft store for $1. I fill one of the holes with Crystal Effects (picture shows Diamond Glaze - they work the same). The amount you use depends on how much mixture you need. If I'm just doing accents, I usually use about a dime size amount of Crystal Effects. Most times I use a clear mixture, but if I want a color I then add the desired re-inker (usually only one drop or it gets too dark) and a pinch of ultrafine glitter (I use Dazzling Diamonds)... okay, I'm glitter happy, so I usually use more than a pinch! ;) I mix it all with the end of my paint brush and then wipe the brush off with a paper towel before it dries. (If you look closely at the pic you can see I'm not so good at remembering this step! LOL!) Anyways, you're looking for the mixture to have a stickles-like consistency. If it's too runny, add more glitter. Too thick add more Crystal Effects.
I am not so good with getting an even flow using a bottle applicator, so I prefer the precision of a paintbrush or stylus. To apply on an image like Sprinkle's crown I use a very fine detailed watercolor brush. (Make sure it's one you can devote just to this technique, since it's never going to lose all of it's stiffness after you've used it with the Crystal Effects.) The trick when painting with this mixture is to work from the larger areas to the smaller ones. For the dotted accents on my scallops and around ovals, I usually pierce where I want the glitter to go, so it has a guide to kind of settle into. Then I use a double ended stylus and dip the larger end into the mixture and then dot on each piercing. For the Sprinkle card, I was too lazy to find my stylus, so I just used my watercolor brush. Either way works just fine, but I think the stylus makes the dots look more uniform. You want to use enough mixture that there is a ball of it on the paper so when it dries you can't see the piercings.
I suppose you could clean out the pallette while the mixture is still wet, but I'm usually in the thick of things, so I let it dry and then it peels off in one big glittery clump. There you have it - homemade stickles. Happy glittering, sistahs!!! :)
Happy Valentine's Day RAK!
Live Big
Okay...I'm officially a dork! LOL
And the Blog Candy goes to....
Birthday Emergency
SCS to the rescue! I mentioned my dilemma to a fellow SCSer and she sent me an emergency kit with some stamped Loads of Love images! Woohoo! No need to call off birthdays this year! LOL! :) So this is the card I made for my dad. He's red-green colorblind so I have a hard time picking colors for his cards. I've always wondered what my cards look like to him. (Hopefully they look GOOD in any color! LOL!)
I colored the truck from Loads of Love and the presents from Loads of Love Accessories with my prismacolors and mineral spirits. I then cut out the presents and used my craft knife to make a slit in the truck bed to slide the presents in behind. Next I doodled a frame around the outside and matted onto an orange piece of Crate Paper. I accidentally put the mat through my Xyron with the wrong side up, so to fix the stickiness I placed the truck image and then poured Dazzling Diamonds on the whole thing to give it a sparkly border. (Errr, I MEANT to do that! Hahaha!) The layout for this card is from the SC110 sketch challenge. In keeping with my patterned paper challenge, all paper (except the watercolor paper the images are stamped on) are from the Cowboy Collection line of Crate Paper. I cut two stars out of the paper and attached them as accents and then used a mixture of Dazzling Diamonds and Crystal Effects to paint highlights all over the card for some extra sparkle.
Yeehaw! Time for Blog Candy!
The Paper Fiasco
To start things off, this morning I made two cards using some of my stash. These cards feature delish papers by Cloud 9 and Heidi Grace. I also broke out my (until now) untouched Big Blossom. I got the idea to stamp on the back of the patterned paper and cut out the Big Blossom from Cindy Lou Who. The centers of the flowers are Basic Grey chipboard flowers that my hubby put in my stocking this year. Isn't he a sweetie? (He said he had a blast in the craft store picking out embellishments for me!) Both cards measure 5.25 x 5.25". I think Big Blossom is a really hard stamp to use. It's so big it's hard to know what to put with it. I started the first card thinking I would have room to put some punched out letters down the side, but it just looked so crowded and busy that I left the letters off. For the second card I went with a little simpler design, but it looks unfinished to me. So... tell me what ya think... Does it need something? Maybe a little ribbon across the top? Which card do you like best and why?
Irish Kisses
The first project is a modified coaster box. I was inspired by this project by Stampinsilvia. I'm not sure how she did hers, but here's what I came up with. The project uses two 4" coasters for the front & back, two 1.75" x 3.5" coaster strips for the sides, and a 1.75 x 2.75" coaster strip for the inside bottom. I cut a 1.75" x 9.75" strip of Glorious Green CS, scored 2.75" from both ends, ran it through my Xyron and stuck the coaster strips to it to form a U shape. Next I covered the two full coasters with Glorious Green and used UHU twist and glue to adhere them to either side of the U shaped coaster strip to form a box.
While that was drying I cut two 3.75" squares of Whisper White and randomly stamped with the Shamrock image from Purple Onion designs (this was one of several images included in my February Self-Addressed kit) in Black Stazon. I also stamped the Kiss Me stamp at this time. I then colored with prismacolors and mineral spirits and added a few dot doodles next to each stem and then painted all the shamrocks with a mixture of crystal effects and Dazzling Diamonds.
To finish, I rounded the corners of the squares and applied them to the front and back coasters. I then cut the Kiss Me image out with my Creative Memories circle cutting system and layered onto a Basic Black Mega Circle punch and then onto a Glorious Green Giga Scalloped circle punch. Glued down with pop dots and added some organdy bows with some extra strength Zots glue dots. Couldn't resist filling it with kisses! LOL!
I'm trying to experiment with making some simpler cards. I'm pretty happy with how this one turned out. It is 4 x 9 inches folded and will fit in a regular long envelope. Used the same focal image and layers as on the box and cut out three already colored and glittered shamrocks with a 1" circle punch and layered onto Basic Black circles and affixed with pop dots. Used a 1.75 x 9" strip of the Chatterbox polka dot patterned paper. I LOVE polka dots! They're getting harder and harder to find though! :) Finished off with some organdy ribbon across the length of the card.
Isn't this AMAZING???
Prismacolor Bear
Cat's Pajamas Spotting
The Big Pieces Funk
And the WINNER is....
Since I know you're all dying to know who the winner is, I won't draw this out. :) The randomly selected winner of my first blog candy giveaway is Jenny W who left this comment...
Congratulations Jenny! Here's what you won...the So Very lunchbox filled with Scalloped Chipboard Plain Janes, 2 Rhonna Farrer clear stamps and some pink and brown striped ribbon from Starlit Studio. Please email me your snail mail address so I can ship off your goodies. I can definitely relate with you on the joys of staying employed. My husband and I have been down the lay-off-with-no-job-prospects path twice too many. We now thank God everyday that he has an amazing job with amazing benefits and as much job security as is possible in the turbulent tech industry."I love the lunch box! My reason would be my wonderful husband and daughter for
both my husband and I still being employed through the rough economical times in
Michigan."
Today was a bittersweet day here in Boise. My favorite scrapbook store closed their doors today. They were the first store to bring exciting and innovative scrapbbooking products to Boise, and I will definitely miss pleasant afternoons spent oohing and ahhing over the latest and greatest from Rusty Pickle, Basic Grey, Tim Holtz, Heidi Swapp, Heidi Grace, Karen Foster, Rhonna Farrer and Chatterbox, to name a few. The chain stores in our area just don't get the kind of variety and selection that a small privately owned store does! So since everything was 50 percent off today, I ventured out for one last shopping adventure.
The line was 1.5 hours long!!! I debated over and over if I really wanted to stand in line or not - I was only purchasing a few items. (There were people buying entire shopping carts filled with just cardstock!) But I really wanted the boxes I have only been able to find there that are perfect for giving card sets. So I decided to wait it out. So after an hour and a half of snaking around the store, I am finally the second person in line. Then a lady I have never met walks up to me and says, "I don't have time to wait in line, so I won't be able to use it, please have it." And she handed me a $25 gift certificate!!! Pretty AWESOME, huh?! I ended up getting $50 worth of product for FREE!
Here comes the Easter Bunny!
More VSN!!!
For this card I began by stamping Love Puppy in Basic Brown and accenting with my pink stardust pen and Pretty in Pink watercolor crayon and aquapainter. Also did a swipe with the Close to Cocoa watercolor crayon for his dirt pile. Next I dotted all around the image with Rose Red, Pretty in Pink and Chocolate Chip Stampin Write Markers. Cut out with scissors and sponged the edges with Rose Red Stampin Pastels.
For the next layer, I cut strips of Chocolate Chip and glued them on to Rose Red and cut out to border the puppy image. Used my stardust pen for some doodles on the edges. Just got a new embossing folder for my Cuttlebug with my 40% off Joann's coupon so I had to test it out! Ran Pretty in Pink through the Cuttlebug and then highlighted diagonal squares with Rose Red pastels and a dauber. Made a few highlights with the gel pen and added some random pink jewel stickers for some bling.
Next I cut the pink edge with my Creative Memories Wavy Cutting System and then cut one more time about a 1/4" over to get the wavy strip at the bottom. Glued the Pretty in Pink piece on to Chocolate Chip randomly stamped with the Medium Heart Circle in Chocolate Chip. Then I highlighted with my stardust pen and added some adhesive rhinestones. Added some doodles to the wavy strip and glued to the bottom and then cut a slit in the edge of the card for my ribbon to go through. Tied the ribbon, adding a padlocked heart charm and then used my heat gun to do the heated ribbon technique. Had never tried that before...boy was it fun! Finally glued the puppy layer on with pop dots.
The next card was for the Diamonds & Pearls challenge to use both glitter and Pearl-Ex. I had never tried Painted Pearls and I think I found a new addiction. This was so fun.
The background piece is Very Vanilla painted with a mixture of Crystal Effects, Micro Pearl-Ex and Cool Caribbean re-inker. Before it fully dried, I poured Dazzling Diamonds over it and then stamped with Ronna Ferrer's Swirls in Black Stazon.For the black rectangle, I stamped the swirls with a mixture of cool caribbean, Lumiere, micro Pearl-Ex and water and then poured Dazzling Diamonds over it while it was still wet.For the scalloped oval, this is Very Vanilla painted with Cool Caribbean reinker, Lumiere, micro Pearl-Ex and water and then overstamped with Happy Harmony in Black Stazon. Glitter mixed with Crystal Effects was applied with a paint brush to the flowers and swirls and around the perimeter of the black oval.
VSN is HERE!
First I wrapped the bar in Chocolate Chip Cardstock (cut the ends with scalloped decorative scissors) and secured in the back with Terrifically Tacky Tape. Then I placed a piece of this fabulous SEI Granny's Kitchen paper down on the top panel and sanded the edges. wrapped the two ends with some coordinating ribbon and some Bazzill Wings flowers secured with Making Memories brads.
Next I glued some SEI paper to a lightweight coaster and stamped the Designer Label in Chocolate Chip and then punched out with the Designer Label Punch and sanded the edges. Attached a Making Memories charm with UHU twist and glue, punched holes with my crop-a dile and threaded through with some cocoa ric-rac. All that chocolate smell is making me hungry! Don't forget to leave me a comment in the post below to be eligible for my Blog Candy drawing on Monday!
Celebrate February with a little BLOG CANDY!
- I have a wonderful husband who is my best friend and appreciates and encourages my stamping hobby/addiction.
- I am (for now) able to stay at home and enjoy the afternoon sun streaming in on my face as I craft to my heart's content.
- I have met so many wonderful stampers and friends through SCS who inspire me and keep me coming back for more.
- VSN (Virtual Stamp Night) starts tomorrow!!! :)
Do you want to celebrate with me? Do ya, do ya? What better way to celebrate than with some BLOG CANDY!? Remember this little old lunch box from a few posts back? Just leave a comment on this post telling me your reasons for celebrating life are and I'll pick a random winner on Monday. The winner will receive this box filled with some stamping goodies!!!
Now on to the project of the day. Since I'm celebrating I wanted to make something more than just a card today. When I read that the Ways To Use It challenge on SCS was to use sanding blocks, the first thing I thought of was this coaster gift box project that was in the SCS newsletter a few weeks back. I used the tutorial by Taylor VanBruggen.
To begin I cut five 4x4" squares of the BoBunny Valentine paper and ran them through my Xyron. Then I stuck them on my lightweight coasters (I got mine from Stampinsilvia) and sanded the edges with a sanding block. Next I applied a thin coat of modpodge over the coasters, because I was worried that sanding the edges might cause the paper not to stick as well. With my Crop-a-dile I punched 5 holes in each side of 4 of the coasters and then tied them together with red, turquoise, black and pink grosgrain ribbon. I used some UHU glue I got as a freebie and am testing (look for a future review) to adhere the bottom coaster to the others. Next I used Glue Lines all around the top and bottom of the box to adhere some turquoise ric-rac.
I stamped Cupid Sprinkle (The Cat's Pajamas) in Black Stazon on Whisper White paper and colored with my pink Stardust gel pen. Next I cut Cupid out with my Creative Memories Oval Cutting system and dotted around the edge with my black glaze pen. Also used my green glaze pen to give Cupid her sexy green eyes! :) Next I layered onto a Real Red Mega Scalloped oval and a Basic Black Giga scalloped oval (with holes punched in the scallops with my 1/16" punch) and stuck on the box with foam squares. I then stamped the Medium Heart Circle in Regal Rose (stamped off once) on Whisper White and then stamped Lovestruck in Black Stazon through the center. Cut out circles with my Creative Memories Circle Cutting System and glued to the corner of the Sprinkle oval with UHU tape runner. Finally I cut three hearts out of the leftover BoBunny paper, highlighted them with Coffee Ice Stickles and stuck them on the box using different heights of pop dots. Inside the box I put a bag of Hershey nuggets into a Valentine cello bag and tied with BoBunny ribbon. The perfect Valentine for my sweetie! :)