Saturday, October 31, 2015

Happy Halloween from the Sleigh Ride Edgelits

Happy Halloween Everyone!

I had this idea to use the sleigh ride edgelits for a Halloween card, because I thought those little houses would look so cute on an orange and yellow background.  This technique is done the same way as we did this card, only I used Crushed Curry as my first layer of ink, then Pumpkin Pie ink for the second layer, and Cajun Craze ink at the very top.  I think it is really great -- how versatile these little edgelits are -- I've even seen some beach scenes with the houses.  Fun stuff right here!  And, HOW did I make those darling little pumpkins????  Those are the apples from the tree builder punch!  Simply punch them out of pumpkin pie card stock, color the stems green, and use a stylus to add some lines, making it look like a sectioned pumpkin.

Ok! that's it for today!  Have a happy and safe and spooky Halloween.




Friday, October 16, 2015

Happy Scenes Bundle is so versatile!

The Happy Scenes bundle from the holiday catalog, is so incredibly versatile!  You can make winter, Christmas, Halloween, or fall cards easily with this stamp set and framelits.  I have seen so many gorgeous creations on Pinterest with this set.  For my last Stampers' techniques class, I used the same card pieces to make both a fall and Christmas card, so people could choose to make the one they wanted.  I used the new Black glimmer paper from the holiday catalog for the window frame, so the window frame is glittery!  The window box is cut from the corrugated paper.  It is a really fun textured paper, that is perfect for a wood kind of look.  We used an aqua painter and ink pads to color in the pumpkins and grass, etc.

Other products used on this card: Brick Wall embossing folder, gold and silver foil doilies, washi label punch, inks: pumpkin pie, old olive, real red, crushed curry, memento black, pool party.





Happy Day to each of you!!!

Thursday, October 15, 2015

Sleigh Ride Edgelits and a starry sky!

This card was inspired by Lydia from Understand Blue.  She does amazing stuff with coloring!!! and I was so incredibly inspired by her card, that I had to teach it to my peeps.

We started with a 4x5" panel of the thick whisper white card stock.  You do need to use the heavy wt card stock because you are adding a lot of color and moisture and lighter wt would not hold up.  We first sponged the entire panel with Bermuda Bay ink.  Put a lot of ink on -- not just a light layer.  Next sponge Night of Navy ink onto the top third or so of the panel.  Lastly, add Blackberry Bliss ink to the very top fourth or so.  Go easy with the Blackberry ink or your whole card will end up purple! :)  The final step is to splatter your panel with water -- dip your fingers in water and flick the water at the card stock OR you can spritz your panel with water to create a more even look.  The top card was spritzed and the bottom ones were "flicked".  At the class, some of the gals did a combination which looked really cool -- spritzed AND flicked. To me, this technique almost looks like Northern Lights in the sky.  Such depth of color.  I'm no color genius like Lydia, :) but I think the layers of sponged color gives you the depth of color when you add the water element.  We used a heat tool to speed up the drying process of the panel, then adhered it to a white thick card stock base.  We used the sleigh ride edgelits from the Jingle all the way bundle to create the winter scene.  If you do a Pinterest search for Sleigh Ride Edgelits, you will seriously HAVE to have these.  So many gorgeous cards -- and the new fine tip glue pen works great for adding a tad of glue to the little houses, sleigh, and trees when you're fastening it all down -- just sayin'!  In the first card, we cut the houses from silver foil paper.

Please excuse the poor lighting in the second photos here.  I took them when we were having all the forest fires in Montana in August, and this is truly how yellow it was outside!




Woodland Beauty

Happy Thursday, Everyone!

One of my very favorite things in the Holiday catalog, is the woodland embossing folder.  It is a 6" folder, so you can orient your card either horizontally or vertically.  Yeah!  I just love the natural birch tree kind of look it creates.  I saw a card similar to this one on Pinterest, and thought it was so pretty, so I gave it my own twist and used it for my Stamping Techniques club at my last class.  The little cardinals are from the White Christmas stamp set.  We stamped them on the tree branches, and then colored them in with a Real Red marker.  After embossing the Crumb Cake panel with the woodland embossing folder, we then used an Early Espresso marker to color in the "bark" openings in the tree trunks.  Next we added White craft ink to the trees with a sponge dauber.  We dried it with a heat tool to keep the ink from smearing.  Note: to get your white craft ink on the little branches without getting it where you don't want it, use a Q-tip! :)  We made  little snow bank for the bottom of the card, using the dazzling diamonds glimmer paper.  I simply cut a 2x4" piece of the glimmer paper, and cut it in a curvy line with my paper snips, creating two perfect snow banks for two cards at once.  The red border at the bottom, is the new red foil paper from the holiday catalog.  LOVE it! So beautiful!!!  I embossed it with the softly falling embossing folder -- also from the holiday catalog.

For the final touch, we added the wood snowflake elements -- another darling embellishment from the holiday catalog.  I love these little guys so much, I am using them on TWO of the cards we will be making at my Christmas card Stamp-a-stack.  Here, I just added the plain snowflake, but you can use a sponge dauber to color it and then add glitter on top -- Oooh la la!!!

For the final touches: use the new fine tip glue pen and add a little trail of glue on the branches.  Then dump a healthy portion of Dazzling diamonds glitter on top, and you get that kind of 3-D look of snow on the branches.


My kids don't have school today, and there are BIG PLANS!  Bryn is going fishing with his friend, and Sabina is having five little friends over for a tea party/play date -- "fancy dresses welcome, but not required."  I found a Frozen themed tea party set, and she has been working on the "tea party decorations" non stop since she got home from school yesterday.  Gotta love these little moments in their lives!  Each one is unique and special, and they all go by way too fast!!!

Saturday, October 10, 2015

Shabby Chick scrap book layout

Happy Saturday, Everyone!

I know, it's been a while. :)

Here is a layout we did for my scrap club last night.  I always try to taylor the layout to the person who is hostess, and this month, my hostess was Megan who loves everything shabby chick.  So, I reached for my Timeless Elegance DSP and had some photos printed in Sepia tone and Woo La La, here is what came out!







 I added a flourish in the upper left and right corners using Versamark and Iridescent Ice embossing powder -- just to add a bit of sparkle.  We used the awesome Triple banner punch to punch those perfect flags!  Love that punch and use it all the time!  It is kind of spendy, but so useful, in my opinion.  Other punches used: Pansy, Petite Petals, and Fun Flower punches. The Basic Gray strip was embossed with the brick wall embossing folder.  A great feature of this folder, is that it is 6x6, so it will emboss 6" at a time, not leaving a space in the middle when you try to emboss a 12" strip.  Pretty awesome!

That's it for today!  Off to watch Bryn do his very first jiu jitsu tournament!  Yeah!  Go Bryn!!!!!