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I painted an inexpensive frame from Michael's with Martha Stewart High Gloss Beetle Black acrylic paint. I stamped and white-embossed Tim Holtz stamps on black cardstock. Then I added the ribbon and Recollections stickers, both of which I've had kicking around for two years or so. I like it and it's nice to use up things, too. ;-)
~ Laura
My daughter is home sick today after a low grade fever and respiratory symptoms cropped up yesterday, but is well enough to be happily puttering around with her toys at the moment. So, craft time for Mama!
I think kraft works well with the warm tones I like to use in the fall and I'm pleased to finally be using a piece of Making Memories matting paper I bought probably two years ago. The stamped piece was made with a base of watercolor paper inked with Wild Honey Distress Ink, Versamark ink, white embossing powder, and Hero Arts stamp (Classic Bloom, H5481); then it was misted with Perfect Pearls. I believe the sentiment is from Papertrey Ink's Everyday Button Bits set; that piece was just floating around in my scrap bin. :)
Thanks for visiting!
~ Laura
Two woodblock Hero Arts stamps, stamped with Versamark and embossed with white Zing embossing, and colored with either Distress ink or Distress stain, and misted with Perfect Pearls mist. I really like this effect. I just got the Perfect Pearls mist today and may have oversprayed it a bit. I am used to Glimmer Mist, which is more iridiscent; this seems to need fewer sprays for a good amount of coverage.
I've been having a lot of fun trying new things while participating in Jennifer McGuire's Inspiration Showcase online class! In some cases, her examples combine things I've tried before, as in this tag above. I had dry embossed acetate before (on one of Tim Holtz's 12 Tags of Christmas) and I had tried making a rosette before. This combines those two concepts along with a great trick for making leaves using a circle punch. I am also having a lot of fun with mists. I resisted the trend for a long time because of the messiness factor, but I'm finding that the ability to add lovely glimmery color to things is worth the trouble. I use a box (or the cover to a copy paper box) to mist in and it works fine. Here, I misted the flowers yellow, misted the rosette and the cardstock background behind the embossed acetate with the peachy orange.
Here are some of the items I've made during the class so far using various resist techniques and dry embossing techniques. I didn't have any sticky-back canvas, so cut pieces off an old painting dropcloth, just to be able to try the techniques.
[Box tops also make nice places to dry your various creations. I line one with paper towels and it can easily be moved around as needed (if your space is relatively small like mine is.)]
Supplies: Black cardstock (Recollections); White glitter paper (Colorbok); Spider Web Deep Edger punch (Martha Stewart); patterned paper (I believe this was K & Company); Green cardstock (American Crafts); Trick or Treat double craft punch (Martha Stewart); Lilac twine (The Twinery)
Halloween is a relatively minor holiday for us, except of course for the fun for our daughter of dressing up and trick-or-treating around the neighborhood. But while she is young (and my nephew and nieces, too) I am having fun with colors and icons of the holiday, on cards and decorations.
Check out the Card Play challenge details over at Moxie Fab World, if you want to play along! :-)
Here are two layouts I recently made, both of which are about (and incorporate) playing cards. In the first, the cards house the title. They are part of the focal point of the layout, because I don't have any pictures from my childhood of playing cards at my grandmother's house. (The playing cards were scavenged from a deck that got spilled all over the cellar. Sometimes you get inspired while you're doing the laundry -- ha, ha.) The second layout is all about my daughter playing cards with her grandparents -- our Uno deck contained some cards that are blank on the other side, so I was able to use actual cards on the layout.
"Favorite Memory"
"All's Fair in Love and Cards"
I'm trying to be better about trying out new things more often. I decided to try this technique of stamping first with the flat side of a clear stamp and then stamping over that with the actual design (i.e. the part you normally use). I used scrap pieces of cardstock and a Hero Arts set I'd bought on clearance at Michael's, along with pastel chalk inks and Jet Black archival ink.
You can see here that I've inked the smooth back of the clear stamp.
This is what it looks like when you stamp it -- pink dots or circles.
Then I inked the side of the stamp that had the actual design and stamped with black ink. This "look" of seeing the background color as a halo around the image is part of the desired effect. It will be more pronounced with certain brands or styles of stamps than others.
Here is the same technique done with three additional colors and three different stamps.
I punched many of the circles out with a 1 3/8" scalloped circle punch, some with a 1" circle punch, and I also cut one by hand, just to see what effect I liked better. Rather than have this be an experiment where at the end I just dumped all these circles into my to-be-used bowl, I decided to make some cards.
The patterned paper is My Mind's Eye and the gingham ribbon is from American Crafts.
I used Distress Stain applied using punched-through cardstock as a stencil and patterned paper from Imaginisce.
This delicious patterned paper is from Basic Grey's Kioshi line.
This one is probably my least favorite. I adhered the ribbon a tiny bit crookedly, which resulted in being able to see a bit of the white edge of the card. Horrors, right? ha, ha So, I put the yellow flower on there to hide it. Except that the only way to hide it is for the flower to go off the edge. Ah, well. If this is my biggest problem, I have no problems. For sure.
This card features more Basic Grey Kioshi paper and a flair button from American Crafts.
Supplies: Blank card (Recollections); Friend Definition cling stamp (Hero Arts); Sentiment clear stamp (Papertrey Ink); Peeled Paint Distress Ink (Ranger); Magic of Oz patterned paper (Graphic 45)
I received some new goodies in the mail and immediately opened up the Friendship stamp and Oz paper to make a birthday card for my good friend. I was originally going to simply put the sentiment under the square focal point tableau, but since the ink color and cardstock colors matched the background, it didn't show up. That's why I added the strip of ruby slippers paper behind it. Well, and that helped to hide most of the little bit of smudging I had going on in the lower left corner. :)
Happy Sunday!
Today's post is in honor of Janelle Hayes, a kind, loving, creative woman whose blog I have followed for ages and with whom I've enjoyed the occasional email conversation. Janelle is facing a very serious illness and she is in my prayers.
I wanted to do something, from afar, that might have some meaning to her. Two themes came to mind:
So, I made the card below to send to my husband's parents who will celebrate their anniversary soon and I'll also share a Bible verse below.
The stamping on the card was inspired by the 2nd card in this post of Janelle's, which showed how you can use the stems from PTI's Everyday Button Bits set along with tiny blossoms from another stamp set (instead of buttons.) My blossoms are from Hero Arts Trees, Birds & Messages clear stamp set. I handcut a fringed edge on the music paper to make it look like grass. I used Ranger Distress inks (Faded Jeans, Peeled Paint, Barn Door, Tumbled Glass) and Jet Black Archival ink.
One of my favorite Bible verses is Psalm 118:24: This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. It reminds me to be grateful and to sing praises to God for all He has done.
Please take a moment to visit Kelley Eubanks' blog today, too -- she is also posting in honor of Janelle.
