Stacey's Stamps

I hope everyone had a wonderful and safe Memorial Day weekend. The past few days I have spent working with some new stamps and dies. I just wanted to play and not do any challenges! I used my Grand Nestibilities die behind the baby lion. Isn't he the cutest? I used some card stock that I had in my stash where I had dabbed green, brown and yellow acrylic paint on it. For the log look at the bottom I ran some brown card stock through a Tim Holtz tree bark folder and enhanced it with darker brown ink. Then I cut it with my Grand Nestibilities die and cut it to fit the bottom. The ferns and lion are from a Stacey's Stamp set.

A few weeks ago I took a Stacey's class with some of my stamping friends at Scrapbook Creations. We learned to make these pansies using a Stacey's stamp set. You stamp the pansies on 2 different colors of card stock, cut them on each side to the middle and interlock them.  This bunny from Stacey is so cute too. I made a tag to pull up out of the "pocket".

Girlie

At Penny Black, challenge 153 is asking for girlie cards. I had this fun hedgehog and I just had to use him. The pink paisley background was done by inking up a Provo embossing folder with brown ink and then running pink card stock through it. I added blue jewels, and glitter to the flowers to add bling. At Clearly Inspired Stamps The challenge is critters, so I am entering this card into both challenges. You can click here to see them.
http://pennybfriendssaturdaychallenge.blogspot.com/

http://clearlyistamp.typepad.com/my_weblog/

Party

At Cat's Pajamas this week we have a sketch for a challenge. I decided to use some new birthday paper and make a shaker card. Thanks Leigh, for the fun sketch! Here is the link to the challenge.  http://dancinginpajamas.blogspot.com/

Rebuild Your Life

I must say I really enjoyed doing this challenge. At Sparkle N Sprinkle the challenge is "rebuilding your life" and one way to do that is to create something for yourself. There are no rules to this challenge, except to use SNS stamps. It was fun to create something out of the blue with no restrictions. I seem to have water -- beach on my mind lately. I guess because it is 93 degrees here today and will be through Thursday! Yikes! It seems like it is mid- July instead of the end of May. I love this cute crab from SNS. He seems so happy. Loving the cool water I guess. I also wanted an excuse to use this wonderful cord that was given to me last weekend. Thanks again, Cheryl! For the sand I used cork paper and then sprinkled mica glitter over top of it. To see the challenge you can click here --http://sparklensprinkle.com/gameinfo.php

May Flowers

At House Mouse and Friends, the challenge this week is May Flowers. I love flowers and was happy to use my new ribbon flower maker that my good friend gave me last weekend.  Thanks Cheryl, and thanks to your husband who made it! Here is the box I used to make the pink ribbon flower. I added a Velcro strip to mine to keep it closed so that parts would not fall out in my drawer. I just knew I would lose them and be looking for them for hours! LOL! This was a fun challenge. I love using my House Mouse stamps!  Here is the link to the challenge. http://housemouse-challenge.blogspot.com/

Old Wive's Tale

At Simon Says Stamp and Show, the challenge is to stamp a card about an old wive's tale. The one I thought of is -- if you touch a frog you will get warts! I had this cute frog from Sparkle N Sprinkle -- he is too cute NOT to touch! LOL! I used my sizzix bathtub die for him to sit in and then used small paper flowers to fill in and around the tub. I made the dragonfly by stamping on acetate and using glitter glue on the wings. I really had fun making this one.

Handmade Flower

I just had to make another card using another handmade flower that I learned to make this weekend. I just love them! We used the Rose Creations Spellbinders die to cut the flowers. Then we spritzed them with water and painted Twinkling H2Os on both sides. We let them dry and they curl up. I then layered the different sizes to make the whole flower. I am going to see how the Tim Holtz Tattered Flowers die does to make these. I also used this beautiful vellum that I found in Pigeon Forge a few weeks ago when visiting with my aunt. We went to a fabulous Scrapbook Super store. Not only do they have a huge store, but they also have a huge clearance store right beside it. What fun!

Flowers Everywhere

I had fun this past weekend stamping and learning with some stamping friends! I learned to make these beautiful flowers. Thanks, Bonnie. I love them! I am entering this card in the Just Rite color challenge 055. The colors are light-medium blue, ivory and kraft. I used a flower stamp form the Just Rite -- The Greatest Joy set. I had this lovely paper from K&Co. and decided to make a window card. I used my new Sew Easy tool to make the swirl design on the right side of the card and then I covered the piercing marks with pearls that I colored with alcohol inks to make them a kraft color. You can click here to see the challenge -- http://justritestampers.typepad.com/

Kissing

Here is another old technique that is fun to do. It is called "kissing" since you ink up 2 stamps and "kiss" one stamp to the other. You will need a solid stamp -- I used a pear from Posh Impressions. Ink it up with a lighter color of pigment ink -- I used an aqua color. I took 2 more smaller solid flower stamps, inked them in another color -- I used red pigment ink on one and yellow pigment ink on the other. Take the smaller stamps and stamp them onto the large inked stamp in several places and turn the stamps each time you stamp so as to have enough ink to stamp on the first stamp. THEN take the large solid stamp and stamp it on your card stock. I hope this sounds clear enough to you! LOL!

Happy Mother's Day

I want to wish all you mothers a very special and blessed Mother's Day!

Crayon Resist

I have been making Father's Day cards and they have been such a challenge for me! I guess after all the frills of Mother's Day cards these cards seem so plain. Anyway, at the Two Peas in a Bucket stamping board, we have been discussing old techniques, so I decided to use the crayon resist technique on this card. I used torn paper to mask where I wanted color on my card. I then made a collage using different stamps and then took a crayon to highlight areas. You can see white on the areas I highlighted. You can use any color crayon because the wax is what resists the ink color. I then brayered over the collaged piece using the Waterfall Big and Juicy ink pad. When this dried well I took a kleenex and rubbed over the colored piece to rub off the wax so that the white areas would show up.

Easy Watercolor Technique

I really like techniques and I hope to be putting up more on my blog. Some are old techniques, but I haven't used them in a long time and they seem new again! Maybe these will be new to some of you and to some you will remember these and try them again. On this card I stamped the pear using the Kaleidacolor stamp pad -- Creole Spice. I then spritzed the inked stamp with water to blend the colors and then stamped the pear onto my card stock. The background is a cuttlebug folder that I ran through using color core paper with green under the  black. I then sanded the core paper to have the green show through. I hope you will have fun trying this easy technique!

Lattice Card

At Joan's Gardens the challenge this week is to show a lattice on your card. I had one of those stencils that you can make a lattice look with, but I haven't used it in a long time and have forgotten how to use it! LOL! So I made my lattice with strips of paper. We were to use lime green and pink, leaves and butterflies. I made the flowers using Tim Holtz's Tattered Flower die -- using the smallest flower. This was a fun challenge and so summery!