Where's the Orange and Pink??

Where in the world is the orange and pink today? Is it even legal to stamp without these colours--LOL. Well, I thought I would turn things upside down a bit today and make a simple, and elegant, card just for you. Enjoy.




Script was embossed in gold. Tombow markers were coloured onto the stamp, misted with water, then stamped; Stamps: Hero Arts, www.heroarts.com Card embellished with ribbon

Cardvaark Challenge - Lift It

What better way to brighten a day that is dreary and rainy outside, than a bright card. Yesterday I made five cards, and try as I might, I ended up with four were bright, bold, and vibrant cards. Really, folks, I do try to mix up my cards and offer a variety, but I just can't help myself and pick up the same colours without even thinking about it. This colourful card was inspired from the Caardvark Lift It Challenge. Check out their site to see more wonderful samples. Want a hint for tomorrow's card? Simple, clean and elegant.

Another RAK

This cute card came from Sherri (Iloveflipflops) from the Stamp Shack. The triple layered mouse image is holding down the ribbon in a very unique, and new-to-me way. Very summery with the colours.

Autumn Splendor

How is your weekend going? With a hint of cooler weather already upon us, we are reminded that school will be starting, sweaters will be worn, and the leaves will soon be changing. Yes, autumn is my favourite time of year. These two cards were prepared for an upcoming class that I will be teaching at Lasting Impressions suitably titled, "Autumn Splendor." If you click on the photo you will get a close-up view of the details (Thank you, Cathie, for making this suggestion. My sister, Cathie, is such a wonderful "silent partner" of my blog--ha ha. Seriously, she gives me loads of good advice such as tweeking here and there, and also reminds me that I need to upload something new on my blog quick--he he, which is why this is posted today).


Autumn colours were used on this Tapestry of Life technique, using Adirondak Stream and Cranberry on the background, and white embossing powder on top. Don't you just love the ribbon I used? It was pointed out by the owner of Lasting Impressions while I was shopping in her store. I guess everyone knows by now that I love ribbon and the more unique the better!

I have been spending a lot of time preparing for this Tuesday's technique on alcohol inks. You won't want to miss it. In fact, I have so many things to share with you, that the next two or three weeks' tutorials will be on alcohol inks/reinkers, so stayed tuned and don't forget to check it out.

Have yourself a splendid weekend!

Christmas Tags

Look what I've been up to. Christie003, from the Stamp-Shack, is hosting a Christmas tag swap. Since January I have been in almost 20 swaps. Can you tell I like participating in swaps?

Stamps are from Sunshine Designs. This particular stamp is a cube and has four cute little elves on it. Using Stazon, the image was stamped onto watercolour paper, coloured with Tombow markers, and blended with brush and water. Paper is Basic Grey's "Dasher" line. Tags were cut out with my Cricut.

Did you see the new addition to my bar on the right? Yup, that Christmas tree is counting down the days until Christmas. Have you started your cards yet?

More RAK's

Wow, look at all the stamping, my girlfriend, Sue did. The layout is very unique and has a metal charm holding the ribbon. I smiled when Sue told me that she used the metal on my card because she knew I would appreciate the added touch.

Sally's adorable card (Firefly) came with scalloped squares for me to use on my cards. Thanks Sally. Background is run through the Cuttle Bug. Image shimmers with stickles.

This gem is from Pat, who runs a lot of swaps, and of course I just have to join them! I love the whiteness of this card, and how the cupcake is 3D. There is even the sparkle of Stickles on the icing.

Thanh made this stylish card. The layout she used is one I like to use. I do love how she added the flower.

This cute card is from Joanie (CCstampin 12). I really like how she added the ribbon at different angels as well as the placement of her two images. Very unique card.

Cardvarks 1-2-3

Good morning. How is your week going? Mine is so busy with a project that will be submitted for a design team search, preparing for fall classes at Lasting Impressions (Sarnia's scrapbooking and rubber stamp store), making Christmas tags and cards for swaps I'm signed up for, and creating cards for competitions.

Today's card is my submission to Caardvarks 1-2-3 challenge. Rules were: cards to be made using two pattern papers, three flowers, and one embellishment. One embellishment! What are they thinking? That was a tough one for me. Caardvarks encourages the talent of paper crafting, which was another tought one for me. Stepping outside the box, I purchased an exacto knife for this project, and decided to leave all stamps in their drawers.



Using Basic Grey's "Dasher" paper, I carefully cut out the bird and flowers. As you can see, I decided to place the paper flowers on top of silk flowers. Both the flowers and the bird's tail were dampened with water and curled by rolling the paper around a pencil. The bird's wing was cut from a contrasting sheet of "Dasher" and glued into place. My one embellishment is the word "Forever." It seemed appropriate to use this phrase as my girlfriend is celebrating her 25th wedding anniversary.

I hope this inspires you to try paper art. If you do, I would love to see your project.

Tutorial Tuesday - Perfect Pearls

Good Morning. Tutorials will now be posted on Tuesdays because I like the sound of "Tutorial Tuesday." Don't you? I will do my best to post tutorials on a weekly basis. If you have any suggestions as to what tutorial you would like me to post, please leave me a comment, or e-mail me, and I will do my best to accomodate your request.

This first photo is an example of how your card can look so different just by the colour you chose to use. Painting on black cardstock will give you different results than if you painted on white cardstock. In today's tutorial, I will be using black cardstock, and a stamp specific to this technique. Images do not have to be specific for this technique, as you see with the sunflower cards, but my tutorial is designed for the stamp mentioned above.


















If you want an exact colour on your card, you should do a colour chart like the one in this photo. As stated earlier, colour often goes on different than what appears in the jar, although it is hard to tell because of the flash of the camera. The one good example, I would like to point out, is the pink--left row, third down. Can you see that the colour appears pink in the jar, but when painted onto black cardstock, it turns out purple-blue.






SUPPLIES FOR PROJECT
Stamp with distinct lines separating different areas of image (see photo below)
Perfect Pearls and/or Pearl-Ex powders
Versa Mark
Embossing powder
Heat embosser
Fine paint brush/water
Paper cutter
Palatte & paper towel

Using black embossing powder, emboss your image onto black cardstock. As you can see, there are detailed lines separating the different areas in the image. This stamp is perfect for this technique.

Look at your stamp to determine what colour you would like to start with, and put that colour on your palatte. GENTLY dip your brush into the water and then your powder. Do not just slap your brush right into your colour; results will be disaterous. Gently place your brush on the outside parameter of your colour, making a pulling motion. A small amount of powder will then be made. Redip your brush into the water and lightly blot onto paper towel. Now you can generously place your brush in the area that was separated from the main "blob" of colour. Continue in this fashion until you have your first area covered.

First colour has been added to this image.

Second and third colours have been added to this image. You don't have to limit your colours to what you have on hand. Play. Experiment by mixing two colours to create a new colour, or a streaky look. To do this, take a little amount of one colour with your wet brush and lightly dip into another colour and blend, adding more water as desired. You can blend these right on your palatte, or a scrap of paper. Don't be afraid to experiment.

Continue as above, until all areas are filled in. Finish by spraying a fixative to prevent smudging (found at craft stores).

Finish off your card as desired. I tend to not add embellishments to this style of card because it looks like a piece of "art." If I do add embellishments, it is very minimal, as seen in the sunflower examples above.

Good luck with this tutorial. Please let me see your finished card using this technique.

Christmas already?

Good Monday morning! Hope you had a great weekend. Did you know Christmas is just around the corner? Yikes! Normally most of my Christmas shopping is done by now, but I haven't done any shopping for this year yet. But, I do have my Christmas cards done, and even made some for my sisters to give away. For my sister, Cathie's, birthday, I enclosed this style of card, along with two other styles, and placed them in a box that I decorated with scrapbook paper and embellishments. Hope this gets you in the mood to start your Chrismtas cards.

I'm Tagged Again

Yah, the weekend is here! My weekend is starting off with a bang because my dear blogging friend, Maria, nominated me for two awards: The Nice Award and Thinking Blogger Award. Maria was nominated for these two awards also, and rightly so. She knows her viewers and acknowledges them by visiting their blogs and leaving such sweet comments. It was through this route that we became friends. Maria is a wonderful card artist who maintains two wonderful sites. Head on over to them: Card Inspired and Stamp'n Inspirations.
Thank you Maria, for your friendship.

Nice awards go to the following ladies who do not have blogs:

Corie who has been so sweet to me, following my blog from the beginning, and leaving regular comments.

Mochacupp5 is another viewer that has been following me from the beginning. She often e-mails me her comments, although she will leave the occasional comment on line.

Trailblazer, aka my mom, has been a fantastic supporter. Want to see something funny? Read the comments and you'll see her reminding me that she needs to be a "Nice" award winner too. Love ya mom. Sorry!


There are many bloggers who are nice and I'm going to list all the bloggers that have been so nice to me--leaving me compliments, actively participating, and basically inflating my ego.

In NO particular order:

Stacy
Kim
Lisa Zappa
Cheryl
Sarah
Jennifer
Marja
Ila
Pam
Jovi
Flossie



Please click here to be taken to the originator of this award.

The participation for nominees' rules are simple:


1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think. Please, remember to tag blogs with real merits, i.e. relative content, and above all - blogs that really get you thinking
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme,
3. Optional: Proudly display the 'Thinking Blogger Award' with a link to the post that you wrote (here is an alternative silver version if gold doesn't fit your blog).

With that housekeeping out of the way, I will now share my nominees:

Penelope is new to me. I found her by clicking on a comment she left on another blog, and boy am I happy I did. I am inspired by her creativity and even went out and bought watercolour crayons to try one of her tutorials.
My first thought when I found Nathaliewas Wow! This gal creates awesome cards and altered items using paper & embellishments. She has a wonderful style of fresh & fun that makes me want to work more with paper, and less with stamps.
Ethel is a fellow Shackie who I have been following for a long time. I first met Ethel on Two Peas in a Bucket. Ethel has talent for all sorts of work: altering puzzels, circle journals, vintage, and a whole lot more. She offers lots of tips to her readers that really get the creative juices flowing.
Have you heard of the wonderful Technique Junkie newsletter? I newly subscribed to it and love it! Pat is the creater of the newsletter and recently started her own blog. This lady inspires one to try techniques they never heard of before.
Julee is a fun blogger who loves to challenge her readers to games of Bingo, and all sorts of other challenges. Active participation is what she is all about!

RAK's

Over the past several days I have received some lovely RAK's from my fellow Shackies at the Stamp Shack. It is such a friendly community of rubber stampers. I wasn't going to mention it was my birthday, but now that I am proofing I realize that the birthday cake cards will give my secret away. My birthday was yesterday, and how did I spend it? I made cards for my fellow Shackies for the months of August, September, and October. Upon receiving so many cards, it made me feel special, and wanted to share that feeling with others. The cards are sealed with the date of their birthday in the spot where the stamp will go, so I am reminded of the date the card needs to be mailed.

My daughter, Sarah, spoiled me with a 90 minute pedicure at the spa, and my funny 18 year old son who is always thinking, gave me a Home Depot gift certificate because he knows we're always renovating. They also spoiled me with a delicious cake and gorgeous brightly coloured gerber daisies. Another favourite of mine! My daughter always remembers my favourite flowers.

Donnie spoiled me with a Cricut

last weekend. Last night we met our friends for the usual beer & wings night, and when I took the covers off my bed, hiding on the pillow was my birthday card. Guess what?! There was something inside the card! A "winning" lottery ticket and tickets to go and see The Rankin Sisters on December 9th. Oh my goodness, I have always wanted to see their Christmas concert, and this year they are coming back into town. The Rankin sisters are from Canada's beautiful east coast. When I asked why there were four tickets, he responded with, "I thought you'd like to take someone with us." Yippee. The only hard part is, who do I pick?

I do have more cards to share with you, and will do that tomorrow.

This lovely card is from Jennifer (Inkinupstamps). I like how she added stickles onto the cake and candles--I wish you could see it in this photo, and isn't that flower a cute addition. Take a peak at her blog Thimbles, bobbins, paper and Ink. She has lots of neat cards on her blog, and even has a piece of an altered puzzle.

This colourful card came from Joanne (Tojoco). It came with ribbon on the card front, and I love ribbon! I wonder how she knew this Basic Grey paper was one of my design favourite?

Nancy, directmailscrapper, enclosed clear stamps with her cute card. She stamped "Friends" which was a nice touch because Nancy & I have become great on-line friends. She is such a wonderful person who loves to send out RAK's to her fellow Shackies quite regularly.

This wonderful card had clear stamps enclosed as well. Isn't you stamped image gorgeous? The combination of pink & black is so nice. I like the way the white paper is scalloped. The background has flowers stamped which really adds to this card's beauty.

This card came all the way from Australia, and is from Sarah (Lobbylou). How appropriate that this card was made with bright colours. She knows my style, and added, "I enjoy your bright, funky style." Isn't that a boost to the 'ol ego! The embellishments of ribbon & prima flower are lovely.

Pans Labyrinth

Has anyone seen this "adult fairytale"? As I sit here typing this post I am listening to the hauntingly beautiful sound track. Pans Labyrinth is a Spanish film with English subtitles. Don't be scared away because of the subtitles; the words hang around on the screen longer than most sub-titled movies, which I watch frequently. This Oscar winning movie is pure delight. It is the first movie that I have been absorbed in, in a very long time; watching it at the theatre, buying the video, and rewatching the video over again. There is a director's cut, on the video, where Guillermo Del Toro speaks throughout the video and describes his view on why he directed the movie the way he did. Very entertaining! I would love to hear your stories about the movie. Both negative and positive comments are welcome. Posted below is a sample of the video. Enjoy!

Pans Labyrinth Video Trailer

Did Someone Say Sunflowers?

Look what image my Secret Sister, from the Stamp Shack, gave me. No sooner was it in my hot little hands, I was playing with it. I was so very excited to receive a stamp from my SS, but a sunflower--wow! Guess she peaked at my blog and saw I have a love for them. I can't share what company it is from because it came to me in an unmounted red rubber form. Lucky for me I just happened to have a gigantic clear block to mount this stamp on.

Image was stamped twice onto watercolour paper. Putting my Tombow markers to use, once again, I used yellow, orange, two browns and three greens. Next, I cut out three leaves and one sunflower and mounted them onto my card front with glue and with pop up dots. Unfortunately the photo does not reveal the layers very well, but if you peak closely at the following you might just see the layers: Green under top sunflower, right two leaves, and the full sunflower head on bottom sunflower. When I cut away the bottom flower, I also cut out several petals to give it that added dimension.

Upcoming Tutorial

I had a request to do a tutorial on my pearl-ex card (thanks, Sharon), and am pleased to accomodate your request shortly. I will be using Perfect Pearls and/or Pearl-ex. Other items you will need are: small professional paint brush, black paper, black embossing powder and mat spray to prevent smudging of Pearl-ex. If you are using Perfect Pearls, spray is not necessary.

I love hearing from my readers, and appreciate Sharon's request. If you have any other tutorials you would like to see, or a particular technique, please let me know and I will do my best to accomodate your request. Blogging is fun, and I'm here for you as much as you are there for me. Nothing makes me happier than seeing comments left, seeing a new subscriber join up, and seeing my "hits" go up. I don't want to lose you, as a reader, so please feel free to leave a comment. I like to know my readers.