PaperFections

Wine Label

How about dressing up a bottle of wine for a gift? That's what I set out to do with Spellbinders Antique Bookplate 1 die: I cut & embossed a piece of Ten Seconds Studio copper sheet with the die and then rubbed a Stazon Timber Brown ink pad over it, to bring out the embossing and age it a bit. Next, I stamped Karen Lockhart's Itty Bitty Grapes & Millinery Ribbon Vine onto Cryogen White shimmer cardstock and colored with Copic markers. The edges of the white Inchie were sponged with Ranger's Vintage Photo Distress ink. I cut out the image just shy of 1-inch and then adhered it to Inchie Arts' black matboard Inchie Square: The matboard gives the Inchie image a really great dimension and gives it more presence on the label, I think. The Inchie was adhered to the copper plate with a glue dot. Holes were punched on each end of the bookplate with my Crop-A-Dile and ribbon ties it to the bottle of wine. You could go a step further and write or stamp the recepient's name or a greeting on the bookplate, if you wish. I hope this project will spur some ideas of... Read more →

WSC50: Get Well

Another weekend means it's time for another of Beate's Weekend Sketches and here's this week's! Here's my interpretation of it . . . I wanted to try and use this Spellbinders die, Antique Bookplate 1, as my horizontal strip and just added the wide aqua grosgrain (Michael's) ribbon to match the aqua in the BasicGrey Boxer paper. Stampin' Up's soft sky cardstock is the card base: Copic Spica Glitter Pen in Olive was used to highlight the embossed areas of the bookplate die cut; it is popped up on dimensional foam tape. Karen Lockhart's Tissue Box image is a great one to have on hand for any "Get Well" occasion you might need. I never seem to have those kind of cards on hand when I need them and the person is usually well or out of the hospital by the time I get around to making a card for them -- how about you?!! The image was cut out with Spellbinders Nestabilities Classic Rectangle and colored with these Copic markers: You've probably seen this done a few times by my buddies Ellen, Trudee, and Debbie, but it's also the first thing I thought of when I saw this image... Read more →

Fishing Anniversary

Here's the anniversary card I made for my husband this week -- I couldn't show it to you before Beate's Weekend Sketch Challenge was posted yesterday, because I liked it so much, I used it for this card: Hubby's only "hunting" sport he enjoys is fishing (thank goodness!), so I thought he'd enjoy this Fishing Vest by Karen Lockhart . . . along with the humerous sentiment, What a Catch! I chose these BasiGrey papers from the Archaic line -- I thought they were very manly and the bottom pattern reminded me of river rock while the top green (hubby's favorite color) plaid matched well with the shirt. The jacket was stamped in Ranger's Adirondack Espresso on Poison Ivory shimmer cardstock and colored with these Copic markers: The fishing lures and keys were colored with Copic Spica Glitter Pens in red and silver. Spellbinders Nestabilities Classic Circle was used to cut out the image and the embossed edge was colored with Copic BG72-Ice Ocean because it matched the blue in the plaid paper. Image is matted with Stampin' Up's Chocolate cardstock, which was also used as the 5.5" square base for the card. SU's Ticket Corner punch was used to... Read more →

WSC49: Jumping For Joy-Take 2

Are you ready for another one of Beate's Weekend Sketch Challenges? Here's this weekend's. And here's my card using Melanie Muenchinger's (for Gina K. Designs) new set, Jumping For Joy. I stamped this for my Kindergartener that will have her graduation ceremony next week at school. When I asked her to pick out her favorite of these precious little animals, she chose this sweet seal. Oddly enough, I couldn't make up my mind which was my favorite animal in the set and was torn between the zebra (my older daughter's favorite) and this seal! I stamped her with Ranger's Adirondack Espresso dye ink on this solid paper from BasicGrey's Sugared 6x6 pad and colored her with Copic markers in W1, W2 & W5. She was cut out with Spellbinders Nestabilities Classic Circles die (small set) and matted with the Classic Scalloped Circle (small set). The circles are popped up on dimensional foam tape and tied with Stampin' Up's Chocolate Taffeta ribbon. That sweet sentiment is part of the one in the set that says "Hope you make a big splash" -- I just inked and stamped a portion of it. I thought it would be appropriate to give my daughter... Read more →

Jumping For Joy!

A few weeks ago, I finally got to meet fellow SplitcoastStampers Dirty Dozen Alumni Melanie Muenchinger at our Texas Stamp Day. Melanie has been drawing stamp images for GinaK Designs for a while now and she asked me if I'd like to play with her newest set, Jumping for Joy, that was just released this Tuesday . . . of course I said yes! My girls LOVE any kind of animals, so I knew they would love Melanie's new stamps. I asked them to pick out their favorites (so I could secretly make something for each of them!). My 8-year old chose the zebra, so this is what I came up with for her: I'll give this to her next week when my youngest has her big Kindergarten graduation party at school and I know she'll kind of be feeling left out of all the party happenings. I liked the sentiment, "Kick up your heels", so I'll tell her that we'll be having lots of fun this summer and hopefully that will cheer her up! I stamped this darling zebra (how cute is that heart-shaped stripe in the middle of her forehead?!!) with Ranger's Adirondack Espresso dye ink onto Poison... Read more →

Flourished Lilac

Here's another sample from Flourishes' new Lilac set that was released last week. I chose to use SplitcoastStampers.com's weekly Color Challenge #167 (soft green, soft pale blue & navy) and Sketch Challenge #177, so almost all the choices were already made for this card except choosing the papers I wanted to use! I was delighted to find Memory Box's Inspire paper pack has most of these colors! I added Stampin' Up's Night of Navy as a 5.5" card base and matting around the image I stamped onto a more solid sheet of this paper pack's colors. I used Ranger's Adirondack Espresso dye ink to stamp the image and then quickly clear heat embossed it while the ink was still wet. This gave me a good outline to add the Dark Blue Stickles for the lilac flowers. Here's a closeup, so you can hopefully see all the sparkle this lilac has -- there's actually a lot of purple in it: I used these Copic markers to color the leaves & branch: G24, G28, E25, E27; and T3 for shadows. The sentiment is from Flourishes' Siberian Iris set. The edges of the focal image and mat were distressed using Tonic's Edge distresser.... Read more →

DDA Challenge: Who-Hoo June Calendar

The 20th of the month brings another Splitcoast Dirty Dozen Design Team/Alumni Challenge. This month's challenge was this: Challenge Focus: Owls. If you don't have an owl image you may use any flighted fowl to play. Required Element: Texture. You may interpret this any way you like Restricted Element: No crystals/rhinestones or dew drop type embellishments. Since I hadn't inked this darling Pretty Birds set by Kim Hughes for Cornish Heritage Farms yet, this was the perfect opportunity to use her sweet little owl from this set for my monthly calendar 6x6 page: Printed paper is from BasicGrey's Sugared 6x6 pad. I had cut the Spellbinders Nestabilities Petite Scalloped Circle from the sheet for this project and loved the pattern so much, I hated for the whole sheet to go to waste so I used the negative space and layered another negative cut of Prism Razzleberry Light behind it for a mat. The corners of the paper were cut with Stampin' Up's Ticket Corner punch. These are layered onto a base of Stampin' Up's Old Olive cardstock. Sweet little owl was stamped onto Cryogen White shimmer cardstock with Ranger's Adirondack Espresso ink and colored with these Copic markers: Owl is... Read more →

Teacher Appreciation

Only 10 more days of school left here and last week was Teacher Appreciation week. Here are some cards I made for our teachers. Ironically, both of our teachers' favorite dessert is ice cream, so we filled the cards with ice cream gift certificates for them to use over the summer! Karen Lockhart's Pencils, on Neenah Natural White, were colored with these Copic markers: I chose these bright, happy papers from BasicGrey's Oh Baby line to coordinate with the bright pencils. The images were then cut and matted with Spellbinders Nestabilities Classic Rectangles and popped up on dimensional foam tape (Scotch brand). Here's a full view of the yellow card that's hiding in the top photo: My favorite Thanks a Bunch sentiment is also by Karen Lockhart. These fabulously bright Card Buttons (Summer) are a new line Ellen Hutson is carrying that coordinate perfectly with the Memory Box line of cardstock and notecards (and also these brights from BasicGrey)! You get a combination of 5 colors in 3 different sizes in each package! Ellen also lists the Memory Box cardstock colors at her site that coordinate with each package of buttons -- in 3 different color families. I always like... Read more →

Divine Design: May Flourished Magnolia

May magnolias -- I love them! And they currently ARE starting to bloom in Texas . . . I'll try to get a photo and post a little later today. Since they are just about my favorite flowering tree, imagine my pleasure when I first saw this beautiful set from Flourishes! The set is actually called "Lilac" but also includes this branch, leaf and two different magnolia blooms, so you can build your magnolias as you see fit. I ran out of time to post my Divine Design last week, so here it is! <=You can click on that link to learn more about this challenge and here to view the gallery of other participants' projects. (To see my other months of Divine Designs this year, you can either click on the "Divine Design" text in the footer of this post or under the Categories list on my right sidebar.) After "building" my magnolia blooms by stamping them with Tsukineko's Memento Rich Cocoa ink (and Adirondack Lettuce dye ink for the leaves) onto Poison Ivory shimmer cardstock (it's looking a bit washed out in the photo above, but the background is actually a lovely ivory), I colored them with these... Read more →

WSC48: Inchie Grape Birthday

Beate's Weekend Sketch Challenge provided me a great place to sneak in an Inchie! Karen Lockhart's Itty Bitty Grapes were stamped directly onto an Inchie Arts' white Inchie Square with Tsukineko's new Memento Rich Cocoa ink and then colored with these Copic markers (even the pink background!) and accented with Copic Spica glitter pens (all performed beautifully on this museum-quality preservation matboard): The edges were inked with the darkest RV17-Deep Magenta Copic marker and the same cocoa ink as above; it is popped up on dimensional foam tape. Island Blossom Dew Drops balance out the Papertrey Ink Birthday Basics sentiment: A Memory Box Raspberry notecard base matched perfectly to the dark pink in these BasicGrey Sultry papers. All paper edges were inked in the same cocoa ink. Karen Lockhart's Vine Millinery Ribbon adorns the vertical strip in this sketch. All supplies except PTI sentiment available from EllenHutson.com. I hope you will check out the samples made by these talented ladies (I missed stamping with you all last week!): Beate, Cambria Turnbow, Charmaine Ikach, Jenn Balcer, Laurie Schmidlin, Lori Craig and MaryJo Albright. When you're over at Lori's blog, be sure to wish her a happy birthday this weekend! It's been... Read more →

Flourished Baby Boy

Here's another sweet baby card from Flourishes' beautiful new vintage baby set, Rock A Bye -- this time geared more towards a boy -- did I say how much I love this set?!! I used SplitcoastStampers.com Sketch Challenge #176 for the layout. The image was stamped with Tsukineko's Memento Rich Cocoa ink onto Cryogen White shimmer cardstock and then airbrushed with Copic's Airbrush System and Y02-Canary Yellow while still in the Spellbinders Nestabilities Classic Scalloped die. The die acts as a stencil, leaving the white border around the scalloped edges of the circle. The focal image was colored with these Copic markers: Clear Stardust Gelly Roll pen was used on the moon's night cap and baby's clothes -- I liked the silvery sparkle, it looks like the twinkling moonlight! The hand-cut sentiment was stamped and airbrushed the same way as the moon image; both are popped up on dimensional foam tape. Light blue velvet ribbon (Michael's) looks like it's suspending the sentiment. Patterned paper is from BasicGrey's Oh Baby Boy collection -- it was faux stitched using a paper piercer and Ranger's new white opaque pen. Notecard base is Memory Box Iris. Supplies: Notecard, Copic markers & Airbrush System, Spellbinders... Read more →

Flourished Baby Girl

It's another new release day for Flourishes . . . and here's that cutest baby set ever I mentioned the other day, Rock A Bye: This set is available for purchase beginning today. I adore this vintage style line art -- it begged for this scratched olive and floral vintagey paper from BasicGrey (Sugared collection). I really liked Papertrey Ink's Spring Moss satin ribbon to tie this card all together. I used CPS #64 for the layout. The image was stamped with Tsukineko's new Memento dye ink in Rich Cocoa onto Cryogen White shimmer cardstock, cut out, then colored with these Copic markers: As others have raved about this new ink, I found it worked fabulously with Copics -- no smearing whatsoever! The moon image was popped up on a floral circle cut with Spellbinders Nestabilities Petite Scalloped Circles and was mounted to a Sugar Plum Memory Box notecard. Island Blossom Dew Drops help balance out the sentiment that was also stamped in the Memento Rich Cocoa ink. I'll be back a bit later to add a link to a news release with a fabulous announcement from Flourishes! ETA: Here's a link to the news release! Be sure to check... Read more →

New Piercing Templates

I attended a SplitcoastStampers.com stamp/swap day gathering in my area this past weekend and had tons of fun hanging out with old friends (not that they are old, but you get my drift!). One of those Texas sweethearts (even though she's about to move out of our great state, we'll still consider her a Texan!), Jody Morrow (aka TexasJodyLynn) brought the coolest tool I've seen lately. It's just the plastic canvas that you can do yarn/needle work crafts on, but she put it to a totally different use . . . as a paper piercing template/guide! Here's what I mean: You know how hard it is to pierce holes around circle shapes? Using the normal square piercing guide, you have to constantly turn it around the circle, hoping to keep somewhat within your circle shape. But Jody found the plastic canvas in circle shapes AND with these shapes, you can just select whatever size will fit the circle shape you want to pierce around! The only thing is that the holes are larger than your piercing tool, so you'll want to select a certain spot within the hole, to use consistently around your shape. You'll see the smaller round template... Read more →

Flourishes Wedding

Today's card is a quick, simple wedding card. I made it for my cousin's son's wedding a few weeks ago, sent it off, and totally forgot to post it! It's made with Flourishes' Wedding Essentials set. I heat embossed the rings with Versamark and gold embossing powder onto shimmer white cardstock and cut them out with Spellbinders Nestabilities Classic Scalloped Squares. Then I did my inlaid trick by cutting out the same scalloped square from gold metallic cardstock and laying the white square into the gold piece. The Mr. & Mrs. was also heat embossed in gold onto the gold cardstock. This whole layer is popped up on foam dimensional tape. Black brads finish it off. The black mat is flush against the white shimmer card base (A2-sized). Speaking of Flourishes . . . are you ready for another new stamp release from them? I just started playing with some new sets that will be released next Wednesday, May 14 and I know you will love them! Some more gorgeous flowers are coming your way, along with THE cutest/elegant baby set I've ever seen! I'll be back in a bit with a cool new tool/trick I learned about this past... Read more →

WSC46: Best Cupcake Inchie

Wow, it's been all week since I posted something -- sorry about that! I've been busy stamping for deadlines and I hope to be able to show you some of those things soon! How do you like this long, skinny sketch Beate put together for her Weekend Sketch Challenge today? Lots of neat possibilities! Here's what I came up with: I was excited to get my new Spellbinders MegaNestabilities Long Scalloped Rectangles this week, and knew they'd be great for this sketch. Here, I used the largest of the Small set, which is 5.75" at the widest point (My card turned out about 6.25" x 3.25". I suppose I'll be making an envelope for it, LOL!). All papers used are from BasicGrey's new Cupcake collection. I popped up the squares on the left (cut with Spellbinders Nestabilities Classic Squares) and added some beautiful bling Gemstone Crystals to each corner. <== Check those out ... Ellen has a bunch of new colors of crystals in the store. The smallest ones in the sets are the same size as A Muse's Creative Candy Mini Dot Twinkle Stickers and then there's a larger size in the set, too (I used the larger ones... Read more →