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!)