Flower Power

Saw a couple of great ideas recently while looking around the internet while at work home the last few days. So I had to try them, of course.  Before I share, though, I have to plug Pinterest.  A friend turned me on to it a few months ago.  I absolutely love it for helping me keep track of things I see to give me ideas for cards, or clothes, or recipes, or....Anyway, I didn't use it for these because one I saw pre-Pinterest, and the other one I just knew I'd remember.  So I'm afraid I don't know where the second one came from to give credit...probably Splitcoast Stampers ultimately.  Ok.  Now to the cards...

These stamps are by Melanie Muenchinger for Gina K. Designs.    I was looking at Melanie's blog for ways to use her great set, A Year of Flowers.  I just love Melanie's designs!  Anyway, she showed how she made coneflowers out of her daisy stamp by using just a part of it.  How brilliant is that?  Versatility of stamps makes me very happy!  So, I stamped the flowers on my cs, and colored them with my Bic markers (can't afford copics, and if you check out Gina K's site, StampTV, she does a video on using the Bic markers instead.)  The background is done using my airbrush tool (an often forgotten tool) and my Stampin Up! markers. In the process, I made a mask for the flowers and liked the look so much that I colored in the masks and popped them off the base a little.  I also trimmed out the sections for the back petals so that the bottom layer shows them instead, creating a little more depth.  Then I used my swiss dots cuttlebug folder to emboss both the purple layer and part of my base.  I layered everything together, added some bling, and there you have it.

I've called these Manhattan Flowers because they are from the Stampin Up! Manhattan Flower embossing folder.  I know, I know, my creativity for naming has you overwhelmed.  :)

This was done by coloring the raised portions of the folder with markers (water based). When finished, you need to spritz it with water:  more like spritzing the air and waving the folder through the mist.  This is more effective than trying to huff an entire folder! Then run it through your embossing machine.

I did find this to be rather time consuming, so if I were to do it again, I'd use a folder with less surface area.  I'm thinking maybe I should try this with some of my border folders. Ooh, since I just thought of that, I know what I'll be playing around with today!

Go create your own garden, now!

Hanukkah CASE

So, in my last post, I talked about CASEing.  I decided to do it again with my Hanukkah cards for this year.  Although I am not Jewish, I work at a Jewish temple, and my sister converted to Judaism about 8 or 9 years ago.  Thus I have a need for Hanukkah cards.  Last year I made several different designs to sell on my website and to give away.  This year I decided to just make multiples of the one.  This being back to work full time nonsense has made my crafting a little more difficult the last 6 or 8 months, so I haven't had time to play with my own ideas as much as I'd like.  Thus the need for CASEing.

I CASEd (o.k., borrowed, purloined, stole, flat out-copied) this idea from one I'd seen on the Rubber Cafe blog.  The blogger had gotten her idea from Tim Holtz's 12 Tags of Christmas (although I still fail to see the relationship between hers and his...).  I basically took her idea and turned it from a tag into a card.
(<----Rubber Cafe)


                              (Mine ---->)

The image stamps were all  from royalty-free, copyright free images and made with my Theresa Collins Stampmaker.    The Happy Hanukkah is one I picked up at a local craft store last year, I think.   The background stamp is from Club Scrap.  The menorah was stamped using silver ink to ink the menorah itself, and blue marker for the candles.  Gold glitter glue was used for the flames.  The silver glitter embellishments were made using the Scribbles,Swirls Sizzlit die and glitter paper from Stampin'Up!.   The card stock and all the inks, except for the silver, were also from SU!.   The rest is probably pretty self-explanatory.  The insides were stamped with one of the following sayings: (my son's first reaction: "Ugh! Papyrus!"  My kids insist that the papyrus font is for old people!  Too bad, that's how I found the sentiments, so that's how I used them!)

CASEing a Card

CASE stands for "Copy and Share Everything".  Generally when you CASE a card, you change something slightly: the color, the size, the stamps used, the embellishments.  I like to CASE because I am better at adapting a design than creating my own.

I recently saw this card online.  I thought it was beautiful.  So last night I CASEd it. Here is my result:
I wish the colors showed better.  They're really closer to the colors in the original.  But you get the idea.

I thought the colors would be good for a winter card.  I used my snowflake embossing folder and inked it up, then embossed, giving the snowflakes a light blue color.  The second layer is a snowflake/flower stamp.  On the sentiment I used blue gems instead of pearls. I'm going to have to try this with other colors now.  I'm thinking maybe grey, black, and red.

Here's one I made a few days later in black and ivory.  Elegant!

Time flies

Can't believe it's been so long since I posted!  Guess that's what getting a job does to one!

I have been steadily stamping, just not posting.  For our wedding anniversary, my husband got me a Theresa Collins stamp maker, which I love!  I'll post some samples of things I've made with that in another post.

Right now, there's a chill in the air that makes me realize autumn is right around the corner.  Here is a card I've made a number of times.  It's beautiful and fun!

The  leaves for this card are made with....bleach!  I started with a  greenish colored paper.  From Stampin' Up, but I don't remember for sure what color.  Then, using a paper towel wet, but not dripping, with bleach, plop it down on the paper.  Pick it up and plop it again.  Do this until you're satisfied with the amount of color left showing.  Then apply ink direct to paper.  I used SU! Dusty Durango and Pumpkin Pie. Using a maple leaf template I downloaded years ago, cut the leaves out, then used my scoring tool to give them veins.  To make the viens more prominent, I used a colored pencil to go over them just a bit.  The leaf stems are from left over paper, cut very thin, then folded in half.



That's all for now.  I'll have to go back through things I've made in the last 6 months, as well as finish some of my projects from my homemade stamps, and get them posted.  Hopefully it won't take another 6 months to do that!

It's been a while

Well, I haven't been blogging, but that doesn't mean I haven't been stamping!  I've been playing with some new techniques/styles.  Here are a few:

 On StampTV, Gina K had done a card similar to this using gold card stock for the background and a cross stamp for the focal image.  I hate wasting the expensive metallic paper, so I made mine by using versamark and embossing powder just around the edges of plain white card stock.  I didn't have a cross stamp, so I used two die cut labels instead.  For the cross piece, I cut it in half and overlapped them a bit behind the top piece to make the proportions better. Then I used a filigree stamp to stamp the whole thing at once wit hversamark and embossed it with gold embossing powder. Then I added pearls and an embossed sentiment.

This black and white card uses a technique shown on Splitcoast Stampers.  The center is kept smooth while the rest is embossed. I think it gives a great look.  I forgot I used it in the above card, too, but it's really hard to see.  The butterfly is also embossed, and the flowers are heat embossed.
 The pink and brown butterfly card uses the same technique, although also difficult to see. (Hopefully, when I get my new camera, I can make a light box so I can take photos instead of scanning my cards).  The butterfly here is stamped rather than embossed.  The flourish is stamped, then it and the butterfly body are embellished with my new fun toy, the i-rock.  It's really easy and lots o fun.  Sure beats brads and eyelets.  I got mine for cheap from Scrapbook Steals and I love it!  Gotta get some more colors and styles!

This card uses more i-rock gems.  It uses a waxed-paper background technique that I also learned on StampTv.  It did take several coats of ink to get the design to show up clearly, but it was worth it.  I love the way it looks.  I also used stickles on the bee wings.  The white paper is embossed using the same Cuttlebug folder I used for the waxed-paper technique.

Yet another technique from StampTv.  I used it a long time ago and recently tried it again and love it. It is an embossed line design created using rubber bands on a brayer, then inking in the background.  I did another similar one using gold embossing powder and red, green, and brown for the ink colors.  Beautiful!

The background paper here is done with a "smooshing" technique.  I've seen several variations of this online.  For this one, I split open a sandwich bag so that it would open flat.  On one side I scribbled with 3 different colors of marker, then misted it with water and closed it back up, smooshing the two sides together.  Then I opened the bag again, laid the cardstock on top of one side of the bag and gently rubbed the back of it to settle it into the ink.  I love the watercolor effect of this.  I made several different styles of waterfall cards, all with the same message, which I'll put in another post.

Hiatus

Wow!  I can't believe how long it's been since I posted.  Things have been so busy with a trip to Florida (all fun, no business!), and moving my daughter to Texas.  Plus for some reason I haven't been in the mood to make cards.  I did do up a few Valentine's, but that's about it.  Yesterday I started in on my New Year's resolution to start working on scrapbooks instead of cards.  Let's see how long that lasts!  The good part is that the pages are already put together, thanks to Assembly Line Scrapbooking from Club Scrap, to which I used to belong.  So all I really need to do is make sure I have my pictures and mementos gathered and start sticking stuff down.  I'm about 4 or 5 years behind on my son's and about 7 years behind on my younger daughter's. It would be nice if I could get at least a few years closer to being caught up!