PaperFections

12 Days of Christmas - Day 3 on the CLASSroom

Today is the Third Day of Christmas over at Ellen Hutson's CLASSroom. Pop on over for a visit and I'll show you what three products I used to create this project that you could enter for a chance to win! Be sure to check in over at the CLASSroom each day and enter for a chance to win that day's product(s) and also to see that day's creative project! Image credits: Sweet Spring stamp set by Kim Hughes for Cornish Heritage Farms, Cornish Heritage Farms Scrapblocks: Fine Houndstooth, Perfect Plaid & Scroll -- all available from Ellen Hutson LLC. Read more →

Fall Sympathy Sneak Peek

I recently found myself in need of a masculine sympathy card, so join me over at the CLASSroom today and I'll show you this fall-themed one I created! Stamp Credit: Kim Hughes Silhouette Blooms I by Cornish Heritage Farms. Spellbinders Assorted Leaves die template. Read more →

Copic Direct to Rubber

Earlier this year, Gina K posted on her blog that she tried (with success) using Copic markers to color directly on rubber stamps and then spritzing the stamp with rubbing alcohol so that the ink would "reactivate" and stay wet long enough to stamp with it. Normally the Copic ink dries very quickly, so by the time you are finished coloring on the rubber, the ink is dry and you can't stamp with it! I'd been meaning to try that technique for a while and finally did. Here are the results: I did discover a few other things, so I wanted to point those out. I was very pleased with the shading I achieved on this beauitufl Leaf & Acorn stamp by Cornish Heritage Farms (<=it's the current stamp of the month at CHF, so scoop it up while you can!). Here's how I went about doing it: First, I used the YR04 to color the center of the leaf, then E09 to color the outer edges of the leaf. E47 was used on the lower part of the acrorns and E79 was used for the acorn tops and swirls. Then I used E15 to draw in the veins of... Read more →

Thankful Fridge Photo Frame

I have a post over at the CLASSroom today, showing you how to make this seasonal functional keepsake. I hope you'll check it out! Stamp image credits: Cornish Heritage Farms Kim Hughes stamp sets Making the Grade & Fall Silhouettes. Read more →

Two for Tea

I thought this card might be a good one to send a friend who needs comforting or is ill -- somehow the tea theme seem comforting to me. Since I already had this Cornish Heritage Farms Victorian Pattern backgrounder stamped and laying on my desk, that's where the black and white inspiration came from! I used this week's CPS#83 sketch for the layout. The Lockhart Teapot image was stamped onto Cryogen White shimmer cardstock and in keeping with my black/grayscale color theme, colored with various neutral Copic markers: T3, T5, C1, C3, W1. I mounted the image onto a black mat cut with Scalloped Rectangle Nestabilities, so it would fit the sketch better. Mini Foof-a-la pearl buttons where added. The Lockhart Teabag was stamped onto more Cryogen White shimmer cardstock, trimmed and mounted to an Inchie Arts Black Inchie Square. Then I used my paper piercing tool to punch a hole thru the Inchie Square and tie a bit of string from a real teabag thru it. I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to pierce thru this sturdy Inchie matboard! If you are looking for some more Inchie inspiration -- Lisa Lee, the owner owner of Inchie... Read more →

Masking

I've written a few articles in the past few days on some fun Masking techniques. To view the instructions on some general masking I did on the card above, please see this Masking article over at the CLASSroom. The card above shows a Reverse Masking technique I wrote about in Ellen Hutson's In Touch Newsletter that should have arrived in your inbox yesterday (15th). The card below was also included, showing you how to Mask to Omit. To view the article, please see this post. To make sure you receive Ellen's future newsletters, you can sign up to join her mailing list at the bottom of her home page here. There's usually a discount code included for your shopping enjoyment and this newsletter was no exception ! Image credits: Cornish Heritage Farms. I'll be back tomorrow with that 500k hits blog giveaway! Read more →

Stamped Image Shading with Copics

I wanted to share a few details about a scrapbook page I've been getting some questions about that was shown in Ellen Hutson's emailed newsletter on August 15th. If you are not signed up to receive Ellen's newsletter, you can do so by going to her home page . . . scroll down to the bottom and enter your email address to join her mailing list. The schoolhouse from Kim Hughes' darling Making The Grade set (from Cornish Heritage Farms) was stamped with Ranger's Adirondack Red Pepper dye ink onto Neenah Classic Natural White cardstock and then shaded with Copic markers W3 under the roof eaves and T5 for the door and round window. And no, mixing the two inks will not cause either to bleed -- a very nice discovery with lots of possibilities! The bell was colored with silver Copic Spica glitter pen and the white parts accented with Ranger white opaque pen. The schoolhouse was cut out and popped up on dimensional foam tape above an area I sponged with Vintage Photo Distress Ink. I was also asked about that cute little book worm: He was colored with Copic R27 and then the 0-Blender pen was used... Read more →

Strutting Rooster

This rooster is certainly strutting his stuff and I thought it would make a good congratulatory card to send when something special happens in someone's life. Karen Lockhart's Rooster was stamped onto Neenah Natural White cardstock and colored with Copic markers. The background was still a little too white for me, so added Vintage Photo Distress ink with Ranger's Blending Tool. I also distressed the edges of the image and matted it with black cardstock. The yellow layer is MemoryBox Sweet Corn stamped with Cornish Heritage Farms' Pretty Pattern backgrounder in Ranger Adirondack Butterscotch dye ink. Vintage Photo Distress ink was also added to this layer . . . Do you see a pattern here? I was in a distressing mood today, LOL! The card base is a MemoryBox Paprika notecard stamped with Cornish Heritage Farms' Victorian Floral backgrounder in Adirondack Red Pepper dye ink. The red and yellow layers were all sponged with black ink. Now for that pretty black strip -- that's Spellbinders' new Victorian Pierceabilities (available next month) cut & embossed from MemoryBox Licorice cardstock. The nice thing about MemoryBox cardstock is that one side is colored and the other side is white. I used that to... 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 →

DDA Inspiration Challenge

I'm back with another challenge amongst fellow SplitcoastStampers Design Team current and alumni members (affectionately named the Dirty Dozen). This month's challenge was an inspiration challenge, using this photo as our inspiration. Beautiful, soothing room and colors, I thought! The rest of the inspiration guidelines were: Challenge Focus: Inspiration photo from BH&G 100 Decorating Ideas Under $100 magazine. Required Element: Make an Inspiration Journal for yourself or as a gift. It can be any size from tiny to huge. Restricted Element: No markers (SU, Copic, or any other brand), no watercolor crayons. . . . did you see that last restriction? NO COPIC MARKERS? That challenge leader, Ms. Jami, is out to get me, I tell ya! Last month I couldn't participate because we were on Spring Break, but the restriction was no die cuts and this month it's no Copics? But I survived, LOL! (Copic also makes glitter PENS)!! :D Here's the color palette I chose to work with: And here's my sketch journal I finally got around to covering for this challenge: Supplies: Stamps: Lockhart Butterflies, Cornish Heritage Farms Paisley backgrounder, Papertrey Ink Simple Alphabet Paper: Prism Sugar Cream, Suede Brown Medium, Nautical Blue Light Ink:... Read more →

WSC44: Spring Fashion

Are you ready for another weekend sketch challenge from Beate? Here's this week's: Here's my sample that uses that pretty pink paisley piece I showed you last night: All colored cardstock is Stampin' Up and all ink is Ranger Adirondack dye ink. In addition to the Paisley backgrounder (Pink Sherbet ink on Pretty in Pink cardstock), I also used Scalloped Lace (Willow ink on Celery cardstock), Climbing Floral (Cloudy Blue ink on Bashful cardstock), Geometric Flowers 2 (Lemonade ink on Banana cardstock). If you are not familiar with background stamps, check out my tutorial below on how I use them. Karen Lockhart's Roses & Daisies La Fleur Couture is unmistakable Lockhart style -- everyone recognizes it when they see these crazy but elegant concoctions of flowers, leaves, fruit and vegetables turned into high fashion! This is the first one I fell in love with and purchased. It was stamped with Adirondack Pitch Black ink on Neenah Classic Solar White cardstock and colored with these Copic markers: No, your eyes aren't fooling you, there are two cards ... we'll get to the other one in a minute! The image was cut with Spellbinders Nestabilities Classic & Scalloped Petite Ovals and then... Read more →

Background Stamps

Cornish Heritage Farms' Backgrounder Blitz begins tomorrow (Apr 18) and runs thru Apr 25, when they will release a whole new batch of backgrounder stamps! Check out that link above, where you can find the details on how to enter to win some free new backgrounders! In conjunction with the Backgrounder Blitz, as a reminder, Ellen Hutson's store will have their own special going on backgrounders Apr 18-25 ... you should have received your coupon code in her e-Newsletter that should have arrived in your inbox on the 15th. Let me know if you didn't get that newsletter and I can give you some instructions on how to get your code. If you've never heard of or used backgrounder stamps, I thought I'd show you a quick tutorial on how I use them. The thing I like most about backgrounders is that you can have patterned paper in any color scheme under the sun and never run out! I begin by just laying the background flat on my stamping surface. These CHF backgrounders come either wood-mounted or unmounted with Smart Cushion cling mount. I prefer the unmounted simply for the ease of storage & space. You can put the unmounted... Read more →

CPS56 - Hummingbird Glory

My sweet friend and fabulous artist for Cornish Heritage Farms, Asela Hokins, sent me her latest release of wonderful stamps and I wanted to use just about my favorite image from her Bird Sampler set, the hummingbird. I used CPS56 for my layout and choose Memory Box's new Aerial papers to work with. Here are the results: The CPS layout was actually portrait but I had to turn it landscape to fit in this beautiful scene! The bird is stamped in Adirondack Pitch Black on Curious Iridescent Cryogen White shimmer cardstock (my fav!) and colored with Copic markers. First, I airbrushed the background with Copic B00-Frost Blue while the image was still in my Spellbinders Nestabilities Petite Scalloped Oval die -- that will leave you with the white around the edges that looks like a mat. Then I colored the hummingbird, using these Copic markers: The blending technique I used on the whole scene is this . . . I start with my darker shade, in this case, B24-Sky and lay down the darker blue where I want the darkest shading: Then I came back with the lighter blue, B21-Baby Blue to blend the two colors together: Easy Blending 101!... Read more →

Divine Design-March

Warning . . . I'm going to get a little sappy on you today but there's artwork involved, so stick with me! One of my mottos in life has always been a famous line from one of my favorite movies . . . "Tomorrow is another day". I think what helps me shrug off the small stuff in life and think that tomorrow can only be better is knowing that I have faith in the Lord to take care of all my worries. One of those big worries in life happened in January with my blood clot and that really made me take another look at life. It made me think of all things I had wished I had done or that I'd always meant to get around to but hadn't . . . 10 days laying around in bed recuperating will do that for you, LOL! I also had a lot of down time to talk with friends and to reflect upon their impact on my life. Some of those sweet friends started a monthly venture this January to try and spread the Word of God through their artwork. You can check out their first blog posts on this... Read more →

CHA News: Cornish Heritage Farms

Elvis is out of the box (and lying on the show floor at CHA) -- sorry, I couldn't resist!! That's right, Elvis is living at Cornish Heritage Farms, with this brand new CHA release of Elvis-licensed rubber stamps, available only at CHF. Here's the first look at this new line: I love the sentiments -- I'm all shook up!; Love Me Tender; You're the King; Elvis Lives; Thank you, Thank you very much!! The ELVIS one is in tiny light bulbs (hard to see in photo). Wonderful images, aren't they? I'm not sure when these will be available for purchase, but I'll update that information when I find out. Above are samples from Kim Hughes' line of fresh, funky and also elegant stamps. It was a great pleasure to finally meet Kim there in person . . . such a sweet soul! The Rummage Bin is a new line of stamps by CHF designer, Lesley Langdon. I adore her shabby style of eclectic stamps. Here are some more samples using her stamps: Thomas Kinkade display at CHA: Thomas Kinkade samples: More Thomas Kinkade: And here's some additional awesome news from CHF: Can you believe it? You'll be seeing Thomas and... Read more →