Wednesday, July 24, 2013

New In Colours

Stampin' Up has gone all pastel with the new 5 in-colours.  I had a big pout with the recent colour revision, as they got rid of MANY of my favourites.  The replacements aren't making me happy, but I am trying to work with them none the less.  Here is a card using 3 of them: Crisp Cantaloupe, Pistachio Pudding and Burnt Brown Sugar.  While I was in the UK, I picked up a magazine, Simply Handmade, which came with a set of stamps.  The dressform stamp comes from that set, as does the pistachio gingham paper used to spotlight the dressform body.  The argyle background is a Tim Holtz.  The ribbon is a scrap of Certainly Celery, which is far enough away from the Pistachio to look related.  This is an uncharacteristically clean card for me.


We had a lot of retirements at school this year, and this card is one that I made for a retiring VP.  It uses a technique that I learned from another UK magazine, PaperCrafting.  It involves outlining the stamped image with a really soft black pencil or charcoal.  It gives a shadow to the image, and really makes it pop.  The stamps are all SU: Everything Eleanor, Papaya Collage and You're a Gem.  Colours are Pool Party, Crumb Cake and Early Espresso.  I spritzed the card first with water and lightly dragged a sponge loaded with Crumb Cake into the water droplets to give the background some texture.  A single line of embossed cross stitches gives the edge some definition.


Thanks for looking!

Saturday, May 4, 2013

Published In the Catch Up Issue!

You may remember that I posted all of my bottle cards that I was submitting to Stampers' Sampler.  Then, the issue came out, and....none of them were published :(  Darn!  Though, the ones that were picked were very fine.

Then, in my mailbox this week, was a complimentary issue of 400 More Ideas (formally known as the Catch Up Issue).  And three of my bottles are in there!!

So, the message is...submit your ideas!  You never know -- you can be published, too!

Sunday, March 24, 2013

Mojo Making

I love making cards and collages.  But like everyone, I get into slumps.  I don't like my stamps (ANY of them!!).  I don't like my inks!  And my forest-worth of paper....all garbage!!

So, I take a class in anything but card-making.  I try new techniques, I meet new people, and sometimes, I even make something I like :)

Yesterday, I was at Sandra Spanuolo's class. She's an amazing collage artist and painter who generously shares her secrets with students. I attended her classes when she lived in |Milton, but now that she's literally around the corner from me, I find I am attending more.  We did a sweet little bird house.

Now, Sandra warns us -- for a long time, it's going to look ugly.  Then it gets better.  You just have to keep working.  It was my day to be ugly yesterday.  I was sorely tempted at one point to gesso over the whole thing and start over.  I was surrounded by masterpieces!  (Note to self: sit elsewhere next time)  But, with her encouragement, I persevered, and here's the result!
The little ball of wool at the top is a nest, but I need to sew it together.  The verse is, "The woods would be quiet if no bird sang but the one that sang best." (Henry van Dyke)  It's happy and spring-y.  Time to put away my brown and saffron and pale teal palette, and go with pinks and yellows and greens, I think!

Saturday, March 23, 2013

desk clean up

I was cleaning my desk.  I found some re-inkers, and so that meant digging out the ink pads they match, and topping up the ink.  While doing that, I poured a blob of mahogany distress ink on my desk.  The handiest thing to grab was a sponge.  Now I have a sponge loaded with ink!  So, I swiped it across a sheet of Whisper White and let it dry.  Then, I spritzed my desk surface to wipe up the last of the ink.  It beaded up on the craft sheet, and I swiped a piece of  Very Vanilla through it.  Now, I have two pieces of unexpected paper.  What to do?


This is what i did with the splattered paper.  I stamped my favourite stamp, Nature Walk, in Staz On.  I rubbed ink in Pool Party, So Saffron, River Rock and Crumb Cake over the image and the edges.  Long ago, I sliced my In Stitches wheel apart, so I used the straight stitch stamp to stamp the stitch lines. I crumpled a piece of First Edition, swiped it with River Rock and layered it under the paper.  I used the Trinkets brads at each corner.  I wrapped the panel with twine.  Under the twine, I layered three Tiny Tags, stamped with Friends from Tiny Tags, and a key and butterfly from a retired Hostess set.

As for the former Whisper White paper...


This really was a desk-cleaning project!  I ran the paper through a Tim Holtz embossing folder with an alligator pattern, and then sanded it.  I stamped a Certainly Celery card base with the Distressed background stamp and Soft Suede.  I applied a rub-on (K and Co) to the edge of a First Edition scrap, and layered it underneath.  The bee is some paintable sticky canvas from Little Yellow Bicycle, painted with Bordering Blue, Daffodil Delight and Soft Suede markers.  The Hello stamp is from the spring catty, and the Petite Curly Label punch is from Sale-a-Bration.

Sunday, February 24, 2013

Collage box





These DIY collage boxes are so much fun?  What a great way to use of all of the flotsam and jetsam I've been saving for years. My biggest problem was committing to  gluing things down.  What if I want to change my mind?  But once I started, I had a great time. I only reworked two of the boxes :)

Turns out I have a lot of birds and butterflies!

Friday, February 8, 2013

Tunnel Card

Today is a snow day -- a play day!  I NEVER use Snow Days for housework, even if my house is a dump.  Snow Days are rare.  I live in southern Ontario., after all, and it snows here in the winter.  We're supposed to cope with it, not hunker down.  But this was too big of a storm, so school buses are cancelled, school doors are locked, and I'm home.

In the latest Cloth Paper Scissors, they show a tunnel card.  So cool!  I had to make one.  Warning!  This is not a 10 minute card, least not the way I did it.  This is Brian's Valentine's card, so I wanted to do that "little more".


And here's from the top:


Try one for youself!