Monday, December 31, 2007

Scrappy Time Well Spent

More Time Well Spent blooms! These were watercolored with Purely Pomegranate and Regal Rose, and the green dots were colored in with a marker. This entire card was made up using scraps from my scrap bin. The flowers are stamped singly and cut out (obviously) and then mounted on dimensionals.



We'll be making a card very similar to this one for January's stamp camps. I'm going to work up some faux buttons.

Artful Cracked Glass


This weekend I stamped up a storm (a tiny, gusty storm, but more stamping than we've seen in these parts in quite some time) and I wanted to use my Artfully Asian set and some more hardware - I'm trying to learn not to hoard things I buy. I was admiring a card given to me by my friend, Jeanine, on my birthday where she used the cracked glass technique and it made me want to do some "glass" cracking of my own. I had to stamp two of these central images because I dragged my pinky (or something) across it and smudged the original beyond get-away-with-it-ability; after the first botched try, I went and washed my hands and then heat-set the color after every addition of a new color.

For this technique I used Ultra Thick Embossing Powder, and heated/layered/embossed it probably 4 times and then I popped it in the freezer for about 15 minutes - but it doesn't necessarily need that long, I just kind of forgot about it when I got distracted by something else; once the card kind of curls on the ends and feels brittle, yank it from the freezer and twist it so you get these little cracks running through!

This card is very similar to one that we'll make at my January Stamp Camps. Everything except the ribbon (Martha Stewart) and the hardware (We R Memory Keepers) are Stampin' Up! supplies.

Pomegranate watercoloring


This card showcases the new Level 3 Hostess set from the upcoming Stampin' Up! catalog. It was sent to demonstrators as a gift and as a preview.

I really enjoyed watercoloring this image with reinkers. That's how I got such a deep Pomegranate color. I did the outlines of each of the flower blossoms and some of the interiors with a very saturated color, and then brushed over it with a damp brush without picking up additional color and spread the tint around.

There's a slit punched on the spine of the card for the ribbon to slip through.

Sunday, December 30, 2007

Fast thank you notes


This is a shot of the quick (one layer) thank you notes that I'll be sending out for my Christmas gifts this year. The card and envelopes have been stamped to match one another. It was refreshing to remember that stamping doesn't have to be difficult or intricate. And in this case, I just needed to get it done so that I can get them out. I have a personal rule that I can't use my gifts until the thank you notes have gone out, and there are a few great things that I'd like to use! :)
Sets used for this were Snow Burst and Wonderful Words. The inks are Blue Bayou and Soft Sky. The cardstock is Whisper White.

Saturday, December 29, 2007

A Little Birdie Told Me ... Get Stamping!


I'm having a hard time having any stamping mojo right now, but this was a good, quick project to do as a warm up! This new set, A Little Birdie Told Me, is available in the new Stampin' Up! catalog available January 1. Demonstrators were able to purchase this set early to start working on samples, and I knew I had to have it as soon as I saw it. The striped paper is some of the retiring Wintergreen paper and the bird is colored in with markers.

Thursday, December 27, 2007

Christmas (post) catch-up!

If you'd noticed I wasn't posting, you may have been wondering where I was. I've been swamped at my day job and trying to get ready for Christmas. In the meantime I had a stamp camp and a stamp club meeting that I made projects for.

The gift card holders are Stampin' Up!'s preprinted holders that I embellished with a scallop punch done twice in different colors and then added grosgrain ribbon in either Old Olive or Real Red. These came out cute once I figured out what to do with them. I don't know if others were confused by them too once they had them in hand, but when I went searching for inspiration, there just weren't many examples out there!

The color is way off in these photos, but I'll show you the layouts just the same. The first is a catalog case as requested by my stamp club hostess for the month. All I changed was the use of rhinestone brads down the belly and the background stamping is a little different.

This second card is also a stamp club card. I'm so sad this set will be retiring so quickly! It hardly seems like it got a chance! The stitching was done with the cutting kit tool used for perforating - I just ran it over the Old Olive pad and then wobbled my way around the edges of the main image a couple times to replicate stitching. The star was colored in, covered in Crystal Effects and then doused in glitter.

Thanks for hanging in there with me! I cleaned off my stamp table and hope to show off more samples (more often) as the new year gets under way. :)

Monday, December 24, 2007

Blessed Christmas

I wanted to send out wishes to you and yours for a blessed Christmas.

Christmas is a time for feeling blessed and being blessed. I wanted to share a few of the things that have been so poignant for me this year.

We had Christmas already with Ky's family, and had a wonderful time. We felt particularly blessed by our quality time spent in particular with our niece and nephew (10 and 13 respectively) and not to be too sappy, but I just really enjoyed our interaction with them and my heart felt warmed to have them as family. It really renewed my intention to try to spend more time with them before they hit the true teen years and lose interest in us! One particularly sweet moment for me came when my nephew asked my husband if he would be willing to teach him to throw pottery like he'd offered a while ago.

Earlier this month we had Ky's Christmas work party at one of our favorite restaurants and the company was wonderful. I was so pleased to get to see Ky be recognized for his efforts. He has been working long days and evenings and hiring really wonderful staff to make things work like they should, and in the president's speech, he mostly focused on Ky and his appreciation for him. The night was topped off when 4 of us (me, Ky, and Ky's co-worker that Ky initially followed to the current company and his wife) were left wrapping up the evening with the president of the company after everyone else had left. We mentioned that we're going to Hawaii in December 2008. At that point, the president said how happy for us to have that as something to look forward to and went on to say that because Ky has worked so hard to make things work better and run smoother for his company, he wanted to give us a Christmas gift and pay for our airline tickets. He told us when we buy our tickets, to send him the bill! I think at that point, my mouth may have actually fallen open.

Then yesterday, we donated our 1996 Jetta to charity (a bittersweet memory, as this is the first car Ky and I bought together before we were even engaged, and it's seen us through getting married, finishing college (for me), moving a couple of times, and over 9 years of marriage). The tow truck driver that came to pick it up came around dusk, and with Ky being the chatty fellow he is, he stepped out to talk to him. I glanced out the window, but didn't go with Ky. Later her related this story to me:

Ky greeted him with a Merry Christmas, and thanked him for coming to get the car. He said the man's face was transformed at the warm words and said Ky
was the first customer to wish him a Merry Christmas this season. They talked about how God and Jesus have been pushed from the season by political correctness, and that it almost feels rebellious to wish someone something other than Happy Holidays. They talked about how the driver was trying to get his own business started and that he donates his time picking up vehicles that were being donated to charity. Then the man turned to go to work putting the Jetta on his truck. Ky went inside to the box of new leather work gloves that I'd given him the day before when we opened presents with his family. He pulled out a pair (of the Costco three-pack) and took them outside. He handed them to the towtruck driver and again wished him Merry Christmas. He said the man nearly teared up seeing Ky's gift of the gloves. He turned his gloved hands palm-up and showed dirty, holey gloves and thanked Ky earnestly saying that he couldn't afford new gloves.

When Ky told me this story, I truly felt happy that we could help someone less fortunate than us, but I also feel so blessed to be married to a man who would give away part of his gift to someone who needed it more.

I hope you and your family have what you need this holiday season and that you can take time to note those things that are extra blessings.

Friday, December 7, 2007

Stamp club card and candle

These were the projects for November's stamp camp. I can tell I'm REALLY far behind because I've had our DECEMBER stamp camp since the last time I posted! I'll just have to do my best to post those soon.

The candle we altered started out as a plain vanilla pillar candle. We progressively layered paper, wrapping it around the candle and securing it with red sticky tape. The branch and flowers were stamped and the flowers and leaves were watercolored using ink from ink pads. It was then colored and attached with Crystal Effects. The ribbon is held in place by the brads that were pushed through it after poking a starter hole with the paper piercer. When everything was where we wanted it, and how we wanted it, the flowers and leaves were dabbed with Crystal Effects.

This card is the second project for the club. It relies on texture and dimension for its impact. I think this is a great way of showcasing how a few details can give a lot more visual excitement.

The three smaller leaves are on one layer of dimensionals, while the larger leaf has a double-layer of dimensionals to make it sit just a little bit higher and stand out more. The eyelets were placed using the Crop-a-dile, and the sentiment was positioned with the aid of the Stamp-a-ma-jig.
Thanks for looking!

Sunday, November 25, 2007

Stamp-a-Stack - Round TWO!

I had a very small group of customers come for round two of this year's stamp-a-stacks, but I had a great time. I got to meet one new customer who found me through the demonstrator locator on the Stampin' Up website, and I also had time to sit and stamp a set of cards for myself while lending a hand with tying ribbons for others, and stamping series of images. It was just a very relaxing, but productive time with some of my stampers.

This card was a quickie using some of this year's Stampin' Up! Dashing designer paper. The trees are colored in with markers and spritzed using the Color Spritzer. The ribbon is given a festive twist by using a flat piece of 3/8" red grosgrain, and tying just a small strip of Always Artichoke 1/4" grosgrain around it. The real cheat is that if the green ribbon wants to slip, just add a dot of Crystal Effects glue to keep it in place!

The second card was also a quick one (as most should be for a stamp-a-stack), and it was previously described and the faux silk idea was credited in my "it sure is snow-bling" post.



I do have to admit though, because of the number of rhinestone brads that would have been necessary for the number of flakes, I did go with plain, glass rhinestones in place for the event. They looked great, and I explained to the ladies that it just wasn't cost-effective for me to do the brads.



Also, I know I said I'd post more of my back-dated posts, but I've been fighting off this crappy cold that's basically taken me out of commission, so I didn't get it done. I'm hoping a full day of work tomorrow, after being off for 4 vacation days because of Thanksgiving, doesn't flat out kill me. Keep your fingers crossed for me, will you?

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you had a restful weekend of family, food and fun.

Friday, November 23, 2007

Niece's Halloween card

Sorry I haven't been posting! I've been busy creating banners and watermarks for customers of my design services. I'll be posting a few of my posts from my drafts folder today.


This card went with a candy apple for my niece when I went over there for dinner on Halloween. I thought the soft, fuzzy yarn (from the $1 spot at Target at least a year ago) would be something she would like. This card also used up scraps that I had sitting around on my desk. When I cleaned up recently, I realized I hadn't been USING scraps, I'd just been making them. The pumpkins are striped in Crystal Effects. She really liked the card and told her friend that I always make her cards, I never buy them. I felt so proud that she noticed and that she likes them. She is such a sweet girl!

Saturday, November 17, 2007

Santa Claus is coming! And he's bringing presents!


Santa's hat and coat are paper pieced and glued on and the presents are from the set, Punch Pals. His belt is made from a piece of ribbon and the buttons on his coat are black brads. Before stamping Santa, I made a reverse mask using my large oval punch for the "rug" on the floor so he'd have something to stand on. I just colored over the blank in the mask with my marker, and then "stitched" around the edges with my white gel pen.

Then, I had a happy accident when the designer paper I wanted to use as a mat highlighted those cool blocks of color behind the main image. I've taken a picture so you can see what the paper under Santa looks like. The white line is a representation of what the main image covers.

Monday, November 5, 2007

Scrap pumpkins


This card is made all from scrap pieces - even the pumpkins were stamped on a scrap and then cut out. I did add three of the jumbo eyelets to the piece stamped with the Sanded background. I really like how this turned out, and worked the pieces together based on colors.

Sunday, November 4, 2007

Dashing quick cards

These cards were made with Stampin' Up Dashing designer paper and scraps. I also wanted to use the set Punch Pals. This little snowman is one of my recent favorites. I think his cheery little scarf is so cute, and the way he's wearing it is inspired by co-worker Adrienne. Can you tell we spend hours together every day? Her name pops up here a lot!


This next card uses the scallop punch and is so clean and FAST!

Finally, a little penguin couple out enjoying the weather together. These guys are so fun to color and they're ADORABLE. The letter brads were just extras that I had in the stash!

All the white paper used is Stampin' Up's Shimmery White paper. It lends a holiday holiday shimmer and prettiness. Thanks for looking! And happy early holidays!

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Co-worker candy and candy alternative

Happy Halloween! Last night I made some treats for my co-workers that I handed out this morning. Most of my co-workers got a 2-pack of Reese's treats wrapped in Stampin' Up designer paper (4"x6" was a perfect size to cover each). I wrapped them in some of the now retired copper cording and tied on a tag with a Booglie Eyes character or saying on it. Other than the tags that had marker-colored characters, this was a quick project and I got a lot of happy reactions to them! I wrote on the back of the tag that they were from me.

Then, for my department co-worker who is a die-hard chocolate lover, I gave her

cheddar cheese! These were individually wrapped cheese packages that were at Target (why doesn't the cheese sound good when I add in the Target part??). Anyway, in spite of her affinity for chocolate, she is on a low-carb diet, and I didn't want to thwart her plans. I do know though that she loves cheese, and knew she'd understand how happy I was that the cheese's orange color fit in with the theme. These packages were each stamped with Autumn Apparitions characters, popped in the refrigerator until they dried, and then tucked in a cellophane bag that I topped with more designer paper and some eyelets and ribbon. This package was extremely well received. :) Makes it always fun to give things to her!

I hope you and all your friendly ghosts and goblins are having a hauntingly good day! Thanks for stopping by.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Ho ho ho - gifts to go

This card was based on this card made by Laurie Schmidlin. I loved the non-traditional, bright colors. :) This card uses sets Punch Pals and Naughty or Nice. These sets go really well together because they're both done in line-drawing style. They're also great for coloring in, but I think the open expanse that is Santa's body is also really wonderful for paper piecing.

I also go to use my snowflake embossing envelope with my Cuttlebug. His beard is covered in Liquid Applique and Dazzling Diamonds glitter. I've used Liquid Applique before, but WOW, did it ever puff up this time! This photo below is a side view of his beard and hat after I heated the applique up.

Then there's a closeup of the beard and dry embossed piece behind the main image.

Paper Pumpkins - They're everywhere!


I have seen these paper pumpkins on SO many blogs in the last few days that I KNOW I'm not the first to come up with the idea of turning paper lanterns into pumpkins, but in case you haven't been cruising the blogs like I do, I thought I'd show my version using the current Stampin' Up Halloween paper. These are so easy to do, and if you don't have enough patterned paper for your strips, don't be afraid to supplement with solid cardstock strips - take advantage of the fact that Stampin' Up designer paper features the EXACT same colors as the solid cardstocks. I did this on the largest pumpkin shown above as well as the pumpkin in the back.


You can also make different sizes of pumpkins, based on the length of your paper strips, but keep in mind, as you increase the length of the strips, you'll need increase the quantity of strips to have enough volume to fill out the circle. And while I like the look of the "solid" pumpkin, I also like the one on the right NOT being solid so that you can see the pretty paper on the INSIDE as well.

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

It sure is snow-bling today!

For this card, I used a technique described on Nicole Heady's blog as Faux Silk. I won't go into the steps of the card too deeply, but basically, you stamp your main image, crumple a piece of tissue paper and then glue it on over your main image. This gives a really soft, textured look that's pretty cool!



I liked the textured effect, but it was still too flat for me. I got out some of my new taffeta blue ribbon and some of the new rhinestone circle brads from Stampin' Up. Now I was already feeling pretty proud of myself for using up some of the accessories that I've been hoarding, but I didn't want to overwhelm to card either. So instead of using all rhinestone brads, I also glued on some tiny diamond-like glass pieces. I love the color contrast between the blue rhinestones and the white shimmer of the "diamonds" as they're sprinkled over the card. You can click on either of the images to get a closer look at the texture on this card.

The sentiment was stamped with the help of my Stamp-a-ma-jig and is from the set, Many Merry Messages.



Sunday, October 21, 2007

Another Halloween cat card


The main image on this card was a leftover of the Boo Kitty card immediately below this one. Once it didn't make it into the lineup for this weekend, I was able to put on some retired Stampin' Up black organdy and some More Mustard-ish Joann organdy. The words are from Everyday Flexible Phrases, and I changed the lower case 'h' into a capital 'H' when I saw that it looked a little lopsided as the first word with a lower case letter. While I was able to make the words line up using my Stamp-a-ma-jig (even WITH the ribbon already ON), I wasn't able to make it centered on the piece from side to side - so I doodled a bit to help trick or distract the eye into thinking it was more centered than it is. :)

Friday, October 19, 2007

Kitty boo!


I believe this is the third card in this month's stamp camp lineup...but don't hold me to it. :) I have been so indecisive on projects for this month, and I've left planning off to the end (even more than usual).

It doesn't help that I've been having issues with making a card, not liking it, showing it to others, and they like it. Or, I make it and don't like it, look at it the next morning, and suddenly it's an ok design. Luckily, I'm not someone to rip up elements just because I don't like them, so usually, they get a new life in the new perspective; whether it's mine or someone else's varies. :)

This set uses the sets Autumn Apparitions and Dots are Hot with my Coluzzle and circle cutting templates. I carried the circle/dots theme throughout the card, with my black rectangle to balance it out and also to weight the main image visually.

What do you think? Do you like the card? Would you make changes? If you'd change something, what would it be? When you get stuck creatively, how do you get un-stuck?!

Happy Friday to everyone! Thanks for stopping by.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Boat Catalog Case


I was looking for some inspiration last night for stamp camp, and I knew that I wanted to use the Boatloads of Love set because I wanted to use the Crop-a-dile to put ADORABLE (can you tell I'm really proud of this look) eyelet "tire" bumpers on the side of the boat like I'd done in an earlier card.

I don't think you can see their impact on this shot, but man, oh man, do the little puffs of steam really "make" the card. I also liked the added ribbon with the eyelets run through along the bottom. I hope my stampers like this!

Side note - I am so mad at myself. I went back to link to a photo of the previous card - AND I DON'T HAVE A PHOTO of it! It was adorable, too! (if I do say so myself). Humph! Moving right along...

For my card I used the Fall Flowers designer Stampin' Up paper, because I didn't want to use the red/green combo shown in the sample on p. 53 in the Idea Book & Catalog (and shown below). I will have other sentiments that they can put in their "word window", but I used "friend-ship" which is available in the set. I was trying to move away from watercoloring because I wanted to showcase other techniques at stamp camp - which is what I was hoping to be inspired to create samples for - but markers just don't do coloring in like watercoloring does.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Thankful Watercoloring


This Friday and Saturday I'm holding my monthly stamp camp. This is one of the cards that we'll be making. Watercoloring is always a hit!

When I saw this set in the current holiday mini catalog, I knew I wanted to watercolor it. They highlighted watercoloring techniques at this past summer's Stampin' Up convention, and what I really brought away from it was the need for white space within the watercoloring. I also realized the importance of actual watercolor paper, and using enough water to move the color around. I hope that I can help pass along some of my insights onto my stampers/painters.

I stamped the sentiment with the help of my Stamp-a-ma-jig and even with that, I held my breath while I pushed the inky stamp down on top of my newly painted image. :)

I am very pleased with the softness of the Groovy Guava paper behind the striped paper and liked that it was an unusual color choice that tied right in.

Sunday, October 14, 2007

Sympathy CASEs

Ky's bosses' (two brothers) mother passed away this week and I needed to make a card for each of them from us. Thankfully it's so rare that I have to make a sympathy card that I needed some inspiration. So I turned to Splitcoast and searched the gallery for "sympathy" - and what a wealth of cards came up as a result! I based my cards on shelart's beautiful card and I'm so pleased with how they turned out.

Both cards are watercolored and use the Define Your Life set as well as flowers from the hostess set, Oh, So Lovely, and with visual texture provided by the Sanded background stamp on both the main image and the card base.


For watercolor choices I used ink from Purely Pomegranate + Ruby Red (yes, really!) for the berries and blooms, Wild Wasabi + Always Artichoke for the stems, and did a background/surrounding wash of River Rock. The little tags on the side are Close to Cocoa on River Rock cardstock.

Saturday, October 13, 2007

A sweet treat for Halloween

September's stamp club host wanted to focus on Halloween. We're making 2 projects at each club, and these cute little bag toppers are going to be one of them! I don't know what candy she's supplying to fill them up, but I think I'm going to have to check out which candies either coordinate as they are, or have coordinating wrappers to go with the topper. :)

Because these were my samples, the Frankenstein piece and the Boo piece were both watercolored to show different versions of Booglie Eye sets, but the Boo sample was done on Whisper White cardstock, while Frank up there was watercolored on watercolor paper.


I created the Boo topper first, and I should have started with the watercolor paper because I KNOW that it is so much better to watercolor with. However, for some reason I did not do that, and then I was going to create a new image piece on watercolor paper and switch it out with the original, but I think I'll leave it so the stampers can see why they would want the watercolor paper instead. That's what they'll be supplied with, but I feel like it might help them see why there's a difference.
ETA: This project never got to make its debut to the stampers because the September hostess had her baby! Does this mean I can eat the candy now? ;)

Monday, October 1, 2007

Stamp-a-Stack card 2

This is the first time I've gotten to emboss with a mixture of clear embossing powder and Dazzling Diamonds glitter. I discovered it's almost irridescent on a dark background, but sort of rainbow/holographic-y on a light background. I do love that the glitter doesn't fall off when done this way, but it's also not at all the same as using 2-way glue with the DD glitter.


My stampers will make 10 of these on Saturday at my Stamp-a-Stack for World Card Making day. I'm excited and I know my stampers are looking forward to it, too!


The following photo is a close-up of the main image piece on this card so you can see the glitter effects a little better. :)

Stamp-a-Stack card 1


This is card #1 for Saturday at my Stamp-a-Stack for World Card Making day. We will make 10 of these in addition to 10 of a second design. There was no way for me to photograph the main image piece of this card to show it off, but it's so pretty in person! It's stamped on Shimmery White card stock. This paper is so pretty! I don't think we've ever used it for a stamp camp project, and I'm excited to show it to my stampers.


The main image is stamped in Blue Bayou and is from the set Season of Joy except for the snowflake which is from Punch Pals, and is stamped in Soft Sky and punched out with a 3/4" circle punch. That piece was then mounted on a dimensional. The Wild Wasabi strip was inked up in same-color ink and wheeled with the Whimsy wheel which reminded me of swirling snow.


I absolutely love the untraditional colors and clean lines of this card. I hope my stampers do too!

Sunday, September 30, 2007

Ornamental CASE


I was over on kwerner's blog. She was advocating simple card creation, and I had to give it a try when I saw one of her cards using the Hung Up on the Holidays set! My card is a very similar design to hers. She laid hers out so it was a vertical card - where mine is horizontal - and hers was on kraft cardstock with a larger sentiment that I didn't have. I loved her circles over/around the instruments and that the card was a one-layer piece. I whipped out 10 of my cards as a gift set for this year.

This is where I found the card I cased: http://kwernerdesign.com/blog/2007/09/just-the-basics-please.html. She has many really cute cards over on her blog. Be sure to check in on her site where I'm sure you'll find inspiration, too!

Friday, September 28, 2007

Highlighting a 50th birthday


This card was commissioned by a co-worker friend for her friend who is turning 50. My co-worker wanted a cheerful card, as opposed to a black and white, over-the-hill style card. I really liked the white gel pen highlighting that finishes off this card. I thought it came out as a very happy card and my friend who requested the card was happy, too!

The word happy on this card come from the Stampin' Up set Hugs and Wishes, and because the usual sentiment on this card is "happy anniversary" I simply used a marker to pick up only the "happy" portion. I inked it once and stamped it three times to get the color variation. The "50th" was handwritten. The light blue ric rac ribbon is from a ribbon set from last year, as is the 1/4" Regal Rose. The 1/2" chocolate chip ribbon is current from this year.

Thanks for looking!

Friday, September 21, 2007

Under a harvest moon


This card is a take on the Workshop Wow featured in the October 2007 Stampin' Success, a magazine sent to Stampin' Up demonstrators as part of their demonstrator benefits. In their card they showed multiple moons in different colors (that I didn't like because, well, Earth only has one moon...unlike Jupiter). However, I really appreciate their card because it's another reason to own the Dots Are Hot set, and I happen to own it AND the wheel featured on this card. Hooray! No purchase was necessary - I even used a spare scrap of Pumpkin Pie ribbon that was on my desk - and I like how my card turned out better than the one in the magazine. :)

Happy (early) boo to you! Have a great Friday!!

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Nine years! Whoa.


I can't believe that today is our nine year anniversary. Time has just flown by during the time that we've been married. I can't imagine anyone better for me than my husband. He's so supportive of me and only wants what's best for me. He's really a wonderful man, and I'm so lucky to have him share my life.

Maybe tonight we'll go out and buy our co-anniversary present to each other... a new dishwasher. One that really works! Not a traditionally exciting gift, but we've discussed it, and well, we would both be really happy to not have to fight our existing dishwasher any more. Maybe we'll be more excited, well, ok, willing to do the dishes if there's a better chance they'll ALL be clean at the end of the cycle.

I hope you're having a good day today and that you can take a moment to be thankful for those who mean a lot to you.

No, not stamping related...

This is so very NOT stamping related, but it really had me laughing when I saw it linked from Cute Overload - the face at the end is the best.

I picture the covers making little ticked-off noises and the air being filled with "@#$! Why can't I get out of here?! What the...? @#%*!!"

Not that my dogs are ever in bed under the covers long after everyone else has gotten up....


Sunday, September 16, 2007

Cover your boo-boos with glitter!


This main image idea for this card was showcased by Brent Steele, Vice President of Creative Services at Stampin' Up at this year's annual convention. He is a VERY entertaining presenter and always has fabulous ideas. His presentations also tend to include at least one "bird card." I thought it was so cute that the penguin was dragging along a tree and gifts to share.

I EVEN thought ahead and got out my Stamp-a-ma-jig for the sentiment from the Many Merry Messages set. I marked up the first line of the sentiment and got it all lined up, huffed on the ink to rehumidify it, and, unfortunately, the stamp wasn't totally clean. :( Wah! Hate that.

On the photo sample of the phantom wording above, I tweaked the contrast so you could see the faint imprint that was causing so much consternation. Grr. What to do, what to do? Especially since I'd already re-stamped and colored my main image piece for the second time when the Real Red ink smudged! I thought I'd camouflage it with my Color Spritzer and see if that did enough. I picked out blue because I thought it might look "snowier."
That helped, but didn't solve the problem. Then I wondered if I could add a flurry of glitter? Of course the 2-way glue pen was my natural choice, but it doesn't fit in the spritzer... So, I just leaned the glue pen tip on the outside of the spritzer air outlet tube with my non-dominant hand and held them together.

I worked the air pump bulb with my dominant hand and I got just the spritz of glue that I was looking for!! (You can see the drops of glue below - they're the shiny droplets that I've circled below. Click on any photo for an enlarged image.)

I sprinkled some glitter over the top and tapped off the excess, and, voila! A wintery flurry of snow that "just happens" to cover up my phantom words. :) Hopefully this tip will help YOU out of a jam sometime, or at least help you to pretty-up a project.

Have a great afternoon! Thanks for looking. :)