Color Throwdown #153

Aren't these colors fun together? The ladies over at The Color Throwdown put together yet another great pallet this week: Whisper White, Old Olive, Pool Party, & Crumb Cake. I've been wanting to make a "custom ink pad" card to demonstrate at an upcoming workshop & thought this would be a great chance. All you need are re-inkers & a baby wipe. It's so simple! Just dot your "ink pad" with the different colors and you can create your very own designer paper. You get a unique result each time. (Hint: I find that you need to clean the stamp between each inking otherwise all the colors start to blend.) I think this one will be a crowd pleaser for even experienced stampers.

I was busy yesterday designing cards for my "Buttons, Paper, Ribbon Oh My!" classes and I can't wait to share them all with you. It's great fun to have time to spend crafting again!

Lace Ribbon Punch Frame/ Color Throwdown #148

I've been playing with my new toys, especially the Lace Ribbon Boarder Punch. Last time, I used it to create a band around my Fancy Favor and this time I wanted to create a frame/pendant out of it. So, I started playing with dimensions. Truth be told, it works best with a 4 1/2" x 4 1/2" square. However, that doesn't fit on a standard card, so I decided to try it out on a 4 1/4" square. Not bad! The corners are a little different, but I still really like it. I also really wanted to play with some of the new In Colors, but I wasn't sure what to do with my color pallet. I turned to the Color Throwdown for some inspiration & there it was! They had Cameo Coral, Pacific Point, & Garden Green as their colors. A quick substitution of Calypso Coral & Island Indigo gave me a great selection that used two of my new colors! Thanks to Barbara over at Color Throwdown for picking "old" colors that I could make new again. :)

Springetime Vintage Vogue/ Mojo Monday 181

Have I told you lately how much I enjoy Mojo Monday? Thanks again to Sharon for first hooking me up with this sketch challenge! It's just such a great way to start the week. I'm especially fond of this week's sketch and a bit proud that I interpreted things a bit this time around. Doesn't this card just shout "spring"? It's a good thing the card does, because the weather outside is still insisting that it's winter! I haven't used Vintage Vogue in a while, so I decided to play with it this morning. I don't think I'll ever tire of these flowers & leaves. It's kind of fun to use five stamps from the set & not even use the sentiments! Thank goodness I got it at the SU regionals last year. I don't think I would have been brave enough to get it on my own, but I've made some of my very favorite cards with it! I think this one may add to the list!!

Lucy Tutorial #4/ Vintage Vogue Butterfly

Well, since mom wanted to know what ELSE we can do with Versamark, I broke out my Stampin' Pastels. It had been a while, I'll have to admit. I had already shown her how Versamark can be used all on its own on colored cardstock to do watermark stamping. Now it was time to stamp using Versamark on white (actually Very Vanilla) cardstock. After stamping my images on the strip of Very Vanilla, I chalked over the flowers & leaves using Bravo Burgundy and So Saffron chalks. The result was fun, but not quite all that I wanted. That's the last mom saw of this card since it was time for my parents to head back home (luckily before snow flew). I, of course, kept tinkering with the strip of Vanilla. I decided to stamp over it using Always Artichoke and that was a good start. Then I wondered what it would look like if I embossed the whole deal with Glassy Glaze a couple of times. Bingo! It created just the look I was going for and did great things with the Stampin' Pastels. All that remained was for me to create a card that fit it. :) The whole thing shouted "vintage" at me...and not just because of the name of the set. So, I knew I would need torn edges & my Distressing Tool. A butterfly from Beautiful Wings seemed like a good idea and it was an even better one when sponged with Bravo Burgundy. I got to use my little Jewry Tag Punch again (yeahy) and finally found a good use for the strips of pears on each Basic Pearls sheet. A nice card to end my mother's lessons, don't you think? Especially since it shows how you can start with just one element & end up with a full creation.

Love Helps PCC

The ladies over at PPC picked another great color combo for this week: Pink Pirouette, Perfect Plum, and So Saffron. Lots of great possibilities! This was another little happy accident of mine. I knew all week that I wanted to make a card for this challenge that centered on the heart stamp from "Punch Potpourri", but when I made the punched hearts with the Vintage Wallpaper embossing folder, I just knew I needed to use the bird image instead. So, a quick switch of focus ended up here!

PPC #16/ Vintage Wallpaper Thank You

Whew! I spent all morning straightening up my studio and just stopped to give myself a little gift of time to create. Since I hadn't yet done my PPC Color Challenge for the week & since organizing all the new colors/weeding out the retiring ones was part of my job today, it felt great to make something using one of the new colors.

The color combo for this week is Regal Rose, Pacific Point, & Sahara Sand. At first, I was in a bit of a quandary because I wanted to let Sahara Sand take center stage, but I didn't know how to do that when all I had was the ink. Then, I remembered that it is a member of the new Neutrals family & I just got a pre-view pack of that paper. Having all of these new colors & returning In Colors is like having a big batch of new toys to play with! I can't wait to use them all & we can explore them together.

House Inspired

As its title indicates, this card was inspired by a house. My friends and I joined in the Bike Longmont ride last night through old town (I of course was on my full sized trike since I never learned to ride a bike...) and as we went past one home, I knew I found my next card. I think I even said "Crushed Curry, Rich Razzleberry, and Barely Banana" out loud.

The banana looks a bit too orange in this photo, but works well in the real world. You'll have to trust me on that one. It was also fun to not have the "something missing" feeling at the end of this project. It's a keeper.

Mombo/Sage Combo

Have you ever watched a Food Network show where the cooks are battling against not only each other, but also the clock? The crazy cake show comes to mind for me. That's sort of what this card felt like this morning. I know it's missing something, but I don't have time to figure out what that something is! :)

My color combo came to me while cutting extra bits at class last week. A scrap of Melon Mambo came in contact with a bit of Sage Shadow and Viola! I find that some of my favorite combos introduce themselves to me that way.

It doesn't show up super well in the photo, but there is a special little bit of bling on this one. The center brad has been coated in glitter--- just enough to give it a little sparkle. It's a fun technique I saw on the SU website yesterday and couldn't wait to try out.

Polished Stone Frame

This is one of those projects that didn't turn out at all like I expected. The plan was for a polished stone Top Note with the center removed by the Movers & Shapers die. That's not quite how it worked out though, as you can see. Sometimes you keep what you thought you would toss & toss what you thought you would keep! It's good to just go with it though & not try too hard to force what clearly isn't working. Some days that is easier than others though...

Circle a la Card/ PPC #8

Well, it has finally happened. I logged on to Mojo Monday this morning & just didn't feel it. For some reason the sketch didn't click with me & I decided not to force it. Instead, I took a sketch from my latest Stampin' Up demonstrator magazine. They call their sketches "a la card" and I haven't really used them before. I also hadn't submitted to the PPC color challenge yet, so I thought I would combine the two.
I think the card still needs some tweaking, but I like the idea. To be honest, I haven't adhered everything yet because I still want to play with it, but I needed to get a post in before I head out on my day. :) Perhaps I'll texturize a few of the circles? Then again maybe not. If I make any huge changes I'll post them later. Happy Monday!

Karen's Page

I've been running a science day camp for kidos on Spring Break all week. Whew! I'm totally exhausted. Between that & commitments in the evenings, my blogging has been more like slacking. Sorry! Today's project is near & dear for me. My friend passed away last week & I wanted a way to display her smile in my studio. This little page fits in a lovely frame (that refused to photograph well) so that Karen can always be smiling with me while I work.

Shimmer Paint Emboss Resist

Today I utilized our Frost White Shimmer Paint & mixed it with reinkers to make a shiny inked background. I have been wanting to test this technique since regionals last month. It's a little hard to photograph, but the effect is pretty spiffy. I was excited to learn that all of our Shimmer Paints from the Holiday Mini Catalog are still available & wanted to learn new ways to put them to use. This is my favorite so far.

Of course, I also did some Emboss/Resist on the cardstock first. My Boho Blooms background is embossed in white so that the ink (plus paint) doesn't stick to the images. I love anything in stamping that feels like magic & this process definitely qualifies!

Vintage Vogue Marble Background

Sorry for the lack of post yesterday. Whatever bug I've picked up knocked me out for the count & I was literally in bed all day. I thought it was just going to take my voice & then be done, but it had much more fight left in it than that. So, I am hopefully on the mend now. At least I felt well enough to putz around in the studio a little bit.

Today's project uses both the Very Vintage Wheel as well as the Vintage Vogue set. The background for the flowers were made using reinkers & several marbles. A good bit of fun there. However, it did take some experimenting with the technique to get a result I was happy with. I recommend sticking with light colors for this one. I found the tutorial on Splitcoast Stampers. For the wheeled section I tried out my new cartridge which is inked with Versamark. That way you can keep using the wheel on both colors of cardstock without having to clean it. I think that will be a great help at class!