This card was made for Sunday’s Featured Stamper Challenge at SCS, Kathyc. I’m a day late, but that’s OK. I have always loved Kathy’s work — what a great featured stamper!!! Here is her gallery. And here is her card that I chose to case. Here’s my card: Continue Reading »
I did this project for Jami’s monthly challenge to all Dirty Girls, present and alumni. This month’s challenge is called *Girls Just Wanna Have Fun*! We were to use a girl in our project, and something *sweet*, and it could NOT be a standard A-2 sized card. Well, I don’t have many girl stamps, so I used my Elzybell from our original challenge 2 months ago. And as far as *sweet*, well, let’s just say that Elzy herself is *sweet*!!! And this is not a standard sized card, it is a 5 x 5 pocket book that I made from scratch, and in the pockets are several dozen stamped images of Elzy and some sentiments to go with. I only have 3 Elzy stamps, and they are all related to the winter theme, thus the *Winter* on my book cover. This is a little gift for a friend who loves all the Elzy’s but doesn’t have any stamps of her own. Thought she might have fun with some images!!!
All of the uploads to this challenge will start coming in on Sunday morning, 1/20, and they will be coming in all day, so check back frequently for some fun cards. The keyword for this challenge is DCG108 (Dirty Challenge Girls January 08), and if you click here you’ll be able to see all the uploads.
I received a gift in the mail the other day and wanted to try it out, so this is my first project using the Scor-It. Yes, it is a scoring tool, similar to, but still quite different from the Scor-Pal which I have been using for the past couple of months. As soon as I received my Scor-It, I went to their site to check out the projects they showed. Wow, they had alot of projects and a book made in a similar fashion to this caught my eye. Well, wouldn’t you know it, but today when I went back there to read the instructions, I couldn’t find it anywhere, so I just winged it — LOL!!! — and it came out great. It works well, functions properly and I will definitely be doing a book like this again.
I do not have a tutorial here for you but I am sure I can find one for this type of book somewhere that I can come back later and link for you — but just basically the spine of this book is scored in 1″ increments and accordion folded. It is attached to the book front and back, and the way it is taped together it forms a really nice spine giving you nice tabs inside the book to which you adhere your pages. My pages are merely pieces of 2-sided DP, scored 2″ from the bottom, and then this 2″ flap is folded up to form the pocket. The covers of the book are 5 x 5″ pieces I cut from the backing cardboard that comes in the SU DP packages. They are a great weight for this type of project. They were then covered, inside and out, with the DP I used, Twirl Collection by Crate. I adhered the DP with Mod Podge.
And as far as my new Scor-It, well, it worked wonderfully for this project. It was used to score the spine of the book and the 2″ flaps to form the pockets of the pages. It is a 12 x 12 bed that is lined with a black rubbery pad that holds your paper very tightly. There is ABSOLUTELY no slippage at all!!! To make the score marks, there is one runner in the center of the board that you run the tool over to score. With this board you must move your paper for every score, but I found it to be quite easy to do. The ruler markings at the top of the board are very clear, giving you every marking, just like on a ruler, so there is no guessing at to whether or not you are on the right spot. And with the rubbery mat, there is never a problem with the paper moving or slipping. I will say, on my first pass over my test paper with the scoring tool, I cut my paper right in half — LOL!!! Good thing it was a test piece!!! It requires a much lighter hand than I had expected it would. In 2 or 3 passes I had the *feel* down pat. I really enjoyed the Scor-It, found it to make nice sharp score lines and feel it’s strong points (for me anyway) are the well marked ruler at the top and the non-slip surface. So, that was my first experience with my latest new toy!!!
OK, now back to how I decorated my book cover — well, I will be the first to admit that I am not at all pleased with what I did here — it is definitely a case of not knowing when to quit!!! I really debated not uploading this as I am so displeased with it’s outward appearance, but I buried my pride and decided to upload it anyway as I really do like the pocket book idea and how the book itself came out! It’s so fun to have all those little pockets to fill up with whatever!!! I will make another one of these as soon as I’m able and do a better job on the cover — and provide links and/or some mini tutorial photos to follow. And this was not a super time consuming project — it really does go together rather quickly!!!
Thanks much for looking! Please click here to check out the other uploads!!!
Challenge #18 - Keyword ssnotime18 - There is no time limit. You can play this challenge and upload your project at Splitcoast and/or your Blog, anytime at all! You can play as many times as you like!!! The point is to keep it simple, quick and have fun!!! Please link back here.
Today’s challenge is to have some portion of your paper torn. So, tear it up! When I started stamping years ago, I would often tear my paper. Love the look, but just NEVER remember to do it anymore, so we’re doing it today!!! Any kind of torn paper, anywhere, as long as there is torn paper on your project. No other rules — just have fun! But remember, the theme of my challenges in general is to *stamp simply*, so let’s just keep that in mind!
Remember when you upload to use the keyword above, followed by a comma. Please come back here to post (as a comment) that you’ve played, and provide a link so I can check out your card right away. You can find all cards uploaded for this challenge by clicking Gallery Submissions Here.
Some wanting to play said they have never uploaded before. If that’s you and you need help uploading, just go to my Challenge No. 1 here.
This is the sample I made. It’s the masculine sympathy card I’ll need for Saturday. I am also keywording it for Julia’s Ways to Use it Challenge on Thursday to use embossing powder. There are 3 different embossing powders used on this card. The trees are stamped in Versa Mark, then copper embossing powder is sprinkled over the lower portion of the trees, remove the excess powder, then sprinke silver powder over the tops of the trees, remove excess and heat to emboss. They look so pretty and wintery!! The sentiment is white embossed directly onto the designer paper. The main image panel is torn on the lower portion to expose the sentiment. 3 different ribbons were used on the top — wide SU grosgrain, narrow SU grosgrain and May Arts striped ribbon.
This is a really quick and easy card to make, but I think it is still pretty enough to catch someone’s eye! Hope so anyway!!!
That’s it for today! Hope you can find time to play if you are so inclined!!! As always, thanks much for stopping in.
OH, A QUESTION FOR MY FEEDBLITZ SUBSCRIBERS: Have you been getting daily notices of my uploads? I’ve uploaded each day this week, and it appears to me that the Feedblitz notices are not going out once again. You should have gotten one each day this week. Do you remember if you have? Thanks much!
I have 2 funerals coming up — so I need a feminine sympathy card for Friday, which is this one, and a masculine one for Saturday — which I still have to do. I used the new Harlequin set by Flourishes and I just love it. It is designed so the main grid design is one large stamp, and there are many, many smaller stamps to fit into the cross sections. I chose the ovals for this card. What a clever way to design a background stamp. You can have a wide variety of looks from the same background stamp, which is rather unusual and most fun!!!
I used Prism paper from the Prismatics line for this card. I’ve said it many times before, but they just have the best soft pastel colors. The Harlequin design is stamped with Colorbox Fluid Chalk ink in a color close to the paper color for a soft, tone on tone look. The piercing on top is done with an Ornare Piercing Template I got from Ellen Hutson. I think it is such a pretty design! The embossed piece is a left over from my class yesterday and it was already cut down to size. I colored the flower with a blender pen dabbed into the ink pad and then glazed over the entire embossed image with a Clear Spica Glitter Pen (thank you, Deb!) The edges of the panel are lightly sponged directly from the ink pad. It really doesn’t show up at all in the photo, but it is so soft and sparkly IRL!!! The flower center is a Black Spica Glitter Pen. They were a gift from my friend, Deb (DeborahLynneS) and she got them from Ellen Hutson. I know I’m going to love my new pens!!! Oh, the ovals on the Harlequin pattern were also gone over with the Spica Clear Glitter Pen.
Now, my Cuttlebug embossed image was left over from yesterday’s class, and it was already cut down to size. Well, I wanted to frame it in a scallop, but it was not the right size to fit properly in any of my Nestability scallop dies, so I chose the one that was the closest fit. It needed to be shorter, so after cutting and embossing the scallop, I merely cut the scallop in 1/2 horizontally, overlapped it so it became the size I needed, adhered my 2 pieces together, adhered the image on top, and it is almost impossible to tell that my scallop is cut. See if you can find it! (It’s between the 4th and 5th scallop) Very hard to see it IRL even when you are looking for it!! This made me so happy because even though a package of dies has so many sizes, sometimes you just NEED something a tad bit different — this worked so well!! The Nestability dies are made by Spellbinders.
Overall this card has a much lighter and airier feel than a lot of my work, but I think it is just perfect for a sympathy card — a rather heavenly feel! And it’s just what I was in the mood to make!
That’s it for this project! I still need to do a masculine sympathy and, of course, my Stamp Simply challenge will be up tomorrow morning. And I guarantee, it’ll be another super easy one!!! And thank you all so very much for all the warm and wonderful birthday wishes!!! I had a great day at home teaching classes, so I had a lot of friends in and out all day!!! And seeing all these well wishes from you all just topped it off so perfectly — THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!
Well, there is a lot to celebrate today — both old and good — LOL!!!
I am the Oldie!!! It’s my birthday today, so HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!!
And Flourishes offers the Goodies!!! Today is the grand opening of the Flourishes Member Company Forum at SCS. You can check it out here. You’ll find a thread offering some special prices on certain items and free shipping on certain orders. I’m sure there are going to be a lot of fun things in the works, so stay tuned so you don’t miss out!!!
Today is also the day I had planned to post some Oldies from my SCS Gallery for you to see, but in light of the fact that we are celebrating Flourishes becoming a new Member Company at SCS, I thought I would post some of my very first cards done with Flourishes very first sets — Cake Decorating 101 and Flourished Words. Now, I don’t have any details here for you today, only the photos, but I want you to realize that all of these cards were made with Cake Decorating 101 which is, of course, a cake set!!! Look carefully and you can easily see that both the lamp and the hat on the stand are made using the basic cake and different cake pedestals. I had so much fun with that set!!! I will include my SCS link to each card which will give you some detail as to supplies, etc. if you are interested. (Please note - if some of you click on some of the links and they don’t seem to work for you, it’s because I think 1 or 2 of these cards were uploaded into the Dare to Get Dirty Challenge last July, and I believe they will only appear to Fan Club Members. To learn about Fan Club Membership, click here.) OK, here they are:
I have a busy day today teaching classes and I want to pop in and see what is happening in the Flourishes Member Company Forum as well!!! Maybe I’ll see you over there!!! I should be back tomorrow with a new upload — thanks for stopping in!!!
I was so pleased to receive an envelope in the mail with some images in it from one of the newly released sets by Gina K. It’s called Just So Hippy and the stamp artist is Melanie Muenchinger, one of the Dirty Dozen Alumni from SCS. Here’s the link to Melanie’s New Blog and here’s the link to her SCS Gallery. This set is available for purchase from Gina K Designs.
When I started this card, I planned to make a baby card. Well, now when I look at the finished product, I think this would serve well as a baby girl card, but I think it could be used for other purposes as well for a girl of any age!!! Isn’t that *Hippy Giraffe* just the cutest?
I colored her with Colorbox Fluid Chalk Inks and a blender pen, and shadowed her with a Sahara Sand marker. I put her panel askew, just for some added interest. The gorgeously colored papers I’ve used on this are all from the Prismatics line by Prism Paper. They have just the softest, prettiest pastels anywhere — totally love them!! The balloon is up on a Pot Dot, with the string being hand drawn. The tiny white flowers on the right edge are SU Eastern Elegance Rub-Ons (very cool to use!). The brads filled in a dead spot and add interest. The pretty satin ribbon with picot trim is super soft, like the binding on a well worn baby blanket, and it is from Michaels (love it!!!). It is run under the main image through holes made with the Horizontal Slot Punch.
Hint about Rub-ons: I’ve had very little experience with rub-ons until I just recently got my new SU Rub-ons!!! What marvelous things!!! I find having the rub-ons to rely on to fill in dead spaces makes layout a breeze — if something doesn’t fit quite right, just push it over enough to make room for the rub-on of your choice!!! I’ve been using them a lot this past week and I am just loving them!!! If you haven’t tried them yet, you really must!!! Easy to apply, attractive to the eye, and very useful in planning layouts!!!
That’s it for today!!! I’m teaching classes all day tomorrow, so I’m thinking my next post may be an Oldie But Goodie — let me go and see what I can find!!! Thanks much for popping in!!! Hope you are having a great day!!!
Today’s Try a New Technique Challenge at SCS was to do a pocket heart — they provided a template and you can get it by clicking here. The moment I saw that template, I just KNEW it would be the right size and shape to house my beloved Lace Heart by Flourishes. And, YES, BINGO — A PERFECT FIT!!! What are the chances!!! And although I do not have the Heart Nestabilities by Spellbinders, I am told this heart is also a perfect fit there — how fun!!! Here’s my pocket heart, so fun and easy to do:
The style of this card goes right back to the roots of why I wanted to stamp in the first place. This is the style that first captured my heart. I have learned to truly enjoy and love many, many styles over the years, but still, a card like this just speaks to my heart!
I traced and cut my heart template on a piece of Prismatics Suede Brown Medium by Prism Paper (just love the texture to that paper!). I then scored on the lines marked as such. I used SU’s retired French Script with ColorBox Fluid Chalk Ink in Dark Brown to stamp the overall script on the exposed portions of the heart pocket. I edged the heart DTP (direct to paper) with another ColorBox Fluid Chalk Ink in Peach Pastel. I then edged again, just the very edges, with the Dark Brown. My Lace Heart by Flourishes was stamped with the above Dark Brown ink onto SU’s Blush Blossom cardstock and cut out. It is mounted onto the brown pocket heart with Dimensionals. A Vanilla Taffeta bow was adhered with a Mini Glue Dot, as were the half pearls from the Pretties Kit. The pin, also from the Pretties Kit, worked it’s way between the two hearts. The highly embossed DP is called English Floral Embossed by K and Co. from Michaels (just love it!!!). The pink organdy is Offray and the Taffeta is Vanilla by SU.
That’s it for right now!!! Fun, fun project — try this pocket heart –you’ll love it, too!!! As always, I appreciate you stopping in!!! Have a great day!!!
Not too long ago I did several cards using Nursery Necessities. A good friend of mine is expecting her first grandchild and she will be making the baby shower invites. This is the card that was chosen by the mother-to-be for the invitations. My friend will also be making all the thank you notes, and she asked me to come up with another design that will coordinate with the invitations. Here it is:
(That little fleck of black and the gunked up DD on the small star were fixed after the photo — gee, but I wish I would see these things before I take my pictures!)
This is another card I did for today’s Featured Stamper Challenge at SCS. The featured stamper is I’mVeronica and you can see her gallery here. This is the card I chose to case for this baby shower thank you. Knowing I needed to use this little sailboat, I thought the layout on Veronica’s card was perfect, so I went with it. I, of course, used a different image and different colors. I omitted her corners but used a moon/star instead. I also added ribbon. This was a great layout! Thanks, Veronica!!!
I colored the rubber with markers for the sailboat. Stars are punched with the star punches. The moon is first stamped on white paper, the inner portion is punched with the 1 3/8″ punch and then the outer portion is punched with a 2″ punch, or the Coluzzle would also work. The alphabet under panel was rolled with a jumbo wheel. Taffeta ribbon was used. All punched pieces were adorned with Dazzling Diamonds. I think it’s a cute boy thank you card and it does coordinate well with the invitation.
That’s it for this evening!!! Hope you all had a great weekend and are ready for a new week!!! Thanks for stopping in!!!
Flourishes has two new sets out, Harlequin and Mardi Gras, and WOW, what beauties they are!!! I made this card using Mardi Gras. Yes, this northern girl who has never been to New Orleans or even that part of the US is making a Mardi Gras card — LOL!!! Hope I got it kind of right!!! I got my new stamps and just had to try, so I started by stamping the mask and just kept on a-going. What fun!!! I felt like I was making a Halloween costume, and oh, I used to love to make costumes for my boys.
This was made for Sunday’s Featured Stamper Challenge at SCS, and today’s featured stamper is I’mVeronica. Here is her card that I chose to case. I chose this card because of the large square format, just what I needed to accomodate this mask. Thanks, Veronica!!! You have a lovely gallery!!! You may view it here.
I used the fun new Two Scoops 6 x 6 pad by Basic Grey — love it!!! And truly when I began this card, I had no idea where I was going. I first stamped the mask in the center of my DP sheet with Versafine Onyx Black. Well, I right away decided it should have been embossed, so I just went over my stamped line with an embossing pen (had I stamped with Versa Mark originally I could have avoided this step) and then I embossed it with a mixture of Black Detail EP and Iridescent Ice EP. It’s dark and sparkly!!! The eyes and wand are embossed in the same way. The feathers and dangles were all stamped with SU Classic Ink in Purely Pomegranate and Wild Wasabi. I then went over them all with a fine tipped glue pen and added unknown green glitter to the dangles and Dazzling Diamonds to all the feathers. The body of the mask face was also done in Dazzling Diamonds. The feather is from my neighbor’s chickens, attached with a Mini Glue Dot. The rhinestones are Twinkle Stickers by AMuse. The ribbon or bow type thing was made by wrapping 5 rounds around a 3.5″ piece of cardstock, then tying in the middle with a short piece of ribbon, cutting all looped ends and just arranging it how I wanted it, using Mini Glue Dots to keep the unruly ends in place. There is a small hole punched with the Cropadile and the tail ends of the piece used to tie the ribbon in the center are run through that hole and attached on the back. The main image panel is up on mounting tape. This image is super sparkly IRL, but that isn’t coming across in the photo at all — sorry!
This stamp set, the Basic Grey Two Scoops DP, and the dotted ribbon are all available at Flourishes.
Don’t know if I captured the feeling of Mardi Gras with this card, but it sure was fun to make!!! There are many other fun images in this set that I can’t wait to try out!!! Again, thanks so much for checking in!!!! Have a great Sunday!!!
Challenge #17 - Keyword ssnotime17 - There is no time limit. You can play this challenge and upload your project at Splitcoast and/or your Blog, anytime at all! You can play as many times as you like!!! The point is to keep it simple, quick and have fun!!! Please link back here.
Today’s challenge is (you guessed it) to make a card that is *tall and thin* — and by that I mean a card that is oriented vertically, such as one to fit a standard business sized envelope, SU’s open end envelopes, or anything along those lines. DO NOT orient the card horizontally like we did last week — I DO NOT want a long and low card, I want a *tall and thin* card — OK? Last week’s challenge to do a long and low card was the most participated in challenge I have run — so, thinking you all might like this size/shape card, I decided to continue with the same, only to orient it vertically this time, so hope you don’t mind. No other rules — just have fun! But remember, the theme of my challenges in general is to *stamp simply*, so let’s just keep that in mind!
Remember when you upload to use the keyword above, followed by a comma. Please come back here to post (as a comment) that you’ve played, and provide a link so I can check out your card right away. You can find all cards uploaded for this challenge by clicking Gallery Submissions Here.
Some wanting to play said they have never uploaded before. If that’s you and you need help uploading, just go to my Challenge No. 1 here.
I made my sample card to fit SU’s small open end envelopes. My card is 6 1/2 x 3 1/4. My card base was cut 6 1/2″ square and scored in half, creating a side fold card. This is an ultra simple card. The main image is stamped on black in Versa Mark, embossed in white and matted on white. The little flower and pearl are both attached with Mini Glue Dots and are from the Pretties Kit. The sentiment is rubbed on from SU’s new Eastern Elegance Rub Ons. The Groovy Guava is the textured. The ribbons are SU retired black organdy (oh, how I miss that!) and the dotted organdy is Offray.
That’s it for now!!! I am really loving this shape of card, whether it be long and low or tall and thin. Hope you all can play sometime this weekend — have a great one!!! Thanks much!!!