Spring Has Sprung

Welcome to Sparkle N Sprinkle's 

April 1, 2015 Reveal.

We have FOUR new stamp sets to share with you this month and these sets are 20% off their regular price, until April 3rd.  All the new reveal sets are available on Cling Mounted Rubber and as a digital image.  Friendship Flowers #702 is the stamp set featured in  This Month's Technique Video.

The sets are:

Get Well Friends #701   (digi version DIGI701)

Friendship Flowers #702   (digi version DIGI702)

Old Well #703  (digi version DIGI703)

Spring Window #704   (digi version DIGI704) 

Hi Everyone. I am so glad that Spring is here. We have had some pretty days in between the rain. I chose to use the Friendship Flowers stamp set because this set reminds me so much of Spring. I am ready to start planting flowers! The frame on my card is an svg. I used Sparkle embossing powder EP107 on the pink edges for shimmer. I also used it on some of the flowers. I colored the watering can with copics and used Clear Detail embossing powder EP280 on it so that it would look shiny.

All the layers are popped up to give the card dimension.

This is the end of the hop. I hope you have enjoyed hopping with us.

  Thank you so much for stopping by. Have a wonderful day!  

On April 3rd,  one Grand Prize Winner will be selected from the comments left on the designers' blogs listed below.  The Grand Prize Winner will receive

all FOUR of the new rubber stamp sets (or digi sets, if you prefer)

The winner of the blog hop will be announced on April 3 on Facebook, the SNS blog, and on our blogs.  In addition to our regular designers, we are happy to introduce you to two of our new Guest Designers.  Diane and Ashley will be the Guest Designers for the months of April, May, and June.  This month's Blog Hop order is:

Shona 

Diane 

Eret

Anne

Ashley

Marie

Belinda

April

(Tip: if you have a problem with a particular link, try clicking on the person's blog title to send you to their Home page.)

Don't forget to leave a comment with each Designer to be eligible for the Grand Prize.  We love reading your comments and hope we have inspired you as well.  If you absolutely can not leave a comment for some reason, please email icinganne@yahoo.com with your comment and the name of the blog or Designer you are commenting about.

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Love You A Latte

Hi Everyone! I hope you are having a good day. I want to share a card I made using one of Sparkle N Sprinkle's new stamp sets called Espresso Yourself 699. I do not drink coffee but I sure do love the smell of it brewing!

I had so much fun making my background using white stencil paste and embossing powders. Here is a short tutorial.

I used very dark brown card stock and taped my stencil over it to hold it down well. ( TIP )

I covered the whole card stock and stencil with white stencil paste.

When the stencil is lifted off it looks like this.

This is the fun part. I sprinkled Sienna Star EP425, Tuscan Star EP426 and Log Cabin EP397  embossing powders over the wet stencil paste. I then heat set the embossing powders with my heat tool. I got this beautiful shimmery and textured background!

I also used Brown Fizz EP381 embossing powder for the "coffee" in the cup and on the saying. Diamond Glaze was used on the coffee cup to make it look like porcelain. You can see some of the shine on the edge of the saucer.

Thanks so much for stopping by. Have a wonderful and blessed day!

April

Challenges entered:

Simon Says Wednesday Challenge: Anything Goes

Top Tip Tuesday:  Buttons or Bows

Oldies Technique #5 -- Joseph's Coat With a Twist

Hi Everyone! Welcome back to another Oldies Technique. I hope you are having a good day. A lot of you might remember Joseph's Coat, but instead of sponging my backgrounds I have used patterned paper instead. I used Spellbinders Big Scallop Circle die to "cut" out the bird. The leaves are svgs.

Here are the supplies you will need:

patterned paper

background stamp 

clear embossing powder

heat tool

black ink -- I used Memento Tuxedo Black

Versa Mark ink 

paper towel

Ink up your stamp with Versa Mark ink and stamp onto the patterned paper.

  

Add clear embossing powder.

This is what it will look like before heating it. 

Use the heat tool to heat set the embossing powder. Now take your black ink pad and rub it all over the patterned paper to cover it very well.

Take the paper towel and start wiping off any excess ink that is on the embossed areas.

This is what it looks like when you are finished. The embossing powder acts as a resist to the black ink.

Here are two more samples I made using burgundy and blue inks. You do not have to use black. I also used sparkle clear embossing powder on these; although the sparkle is hard to see.

Thanks for dropping by. I hope you have been inspired by a new twist on an old technique. Have a wonderful day!

Challenges entered:

Scrapy Land: Spring and/or Easter ( Spellbinders Big Scallop Circle Die)

Spring's Song

Hi Everyone and welcome to my blog. Thanks for stopping by today. Here is a card I made using an Impression Obsession stamp Bird Collage 4 (E13046) that a dear friend gave me recently. I love birds and Spring, so I really enjoyed making this card. This bird is so pretty with the music on it. I have had my windows opened these past few days and my cats are loving sitting in the windows watching and listening to the birds too! I used the spellbinders Eloquence Card Creator die to cut from an alcohol polished stone piece of card stock. The lavender leaves were cut using the Memory Box Fresh Foliage die. I fussy cut the bird and popped it up over the frame.

I hope you have a wonderful day. I hope Spring wins out over winter soon! LOL!

Challenges entered:

Impression Obsession:  Think Spring

Penny's Paper Crafty:  Ribbons and Bows

Simon Says Monday Challenge: Animals

Simon Says Wednesday Challenge:  Things That Fly

Shabby Tea Room: Beautiful Blooms

Stamp & Create: Is It Spring Yet?

Spring

Hi Everyone and welcome to my blog. Here is a tag I made with a Spring theme. I am so ready for Spring as I know most of you are. As most of my stamping friends know, I love birds and birds remind me of Spring so I had to use them on my tag.

I smooshed my background using acrylic paints and spritzs of water. I added music and bird washi tape randomly on the tag. I stamped the image and used black embossing powder to accent it more. I used Tim Holtz's Bubble stencil and white matte stencil paste over some areas of the tag. Sparkle embossing powder (courtesy of Sparkle N Sprinkle) was sprinkled over the stencil spots and heat set.

Thanks so much for stopping by. Have a wonderful day!

Challenges entered:

Simon Says Monday Challenge: B is For ( Bird, Butterfly )

Simon Says Wednesday Challenge: Things That Fly

Stamp & Create: Is It Spring Yet?

Tim Holtz:  12 Tags of 2015 March

Here's Looking At You!

Hi Everyone! I hope you are enjoying your day. I want to share a card I made with one of Sparkle N Sprinkle's new release stamp sets called Glasses 698. These reminded me of the eye glasses my mom and I used to wear in the 50s/60s. My mom had a black pair with clear rhinestones all around the frames and I had a pair of pastel colored frames with glitter in them! I am glad my dad was an optician because he kept me stylin'. LOL! So I had to glam up my glasses on this card with sparkly embossing powders.  I used Flashy Flamingo EP452, Cerulean Star EP433, Moss Star EP430 and Sparkle EP107.

I could not resist using wiggly eyes! You can see it better here that I used White Liquid Applique around the clouds. I hope you have as much fun with this stamp set as I did!

Thanks so much for stopping by and have a great and sunshiny day!

                                                                            April

                                                                

Bokeh With Alcohol Inks

Hi Everyone! Welcome to my blog. I hope you are having a nice day. The bokeh technique has taken off lately and I tried a new spin on it. I started off by doing the polished stone technique with alcohol inks on glossy card stock. I used Currant, Slate and Denim alcohol inks. I spritzed the felt with 91% alcohol (or you can use Ranger blending solution) and tapped the applicator all over the card stock. It is best to make several layers of ink on the card stock, because when you start lifting off color the bokeh is more distinct as you will see.

Here is the finished polished stone background.

Now take your stencil and lay it where you want on your background. I found that larger simple designs work better with this. Use a small finger dauber sponge and spritz some alcohol on your craft sheet. Rub the dauber in the alcohol and blot it a little on a cloth. Hold the stencil down very firmly with your hand. Now rub the dauber LIGHTLY around in the circle stencil. If you press too hard alcohol will run under the stencil. I found that rubbing around in one direction and then the other worked best.

You will begin to see the circles turning whiter because the color is being lifted off by the alcohol. That is why you need several layers of the alcohol ink on the card stock to start with. Some of the color will move to the edges of the circle to form a distinct edge.

Here is the finished bokeh background. I really love the look of this!

This is the card I made with the background. It is SO hard for me not to add loads of things to my card. I made this one simple so that you can see the bokeh background. 

I hope you will have fun making some of your own backgrounds this way. I hope you have a wonderful day!

Oldies Technique #4 -- Rock N Roll

Hi Everyone! I hope you are having a good day. I want to share another easy Oldies technique called Rock N Roll. The name comes from kind of rocking and rolling your stamp around in an ink pad.

Supplies needed:

two colors of pigment ink pads

solid stamp

white or cream card stock

Ink up your stamp with the lightest color of pigment ink. Pigment ink stays juicy longer and this is helpful with this technique as you will see.

Do not stamp yet. Take your second color and roll the stamp around the edges on the ink pad. You will see that you have a border around the inked stamp. The ink is still wet even though you haven't stamped yet. Yes, your pad may get a little muddied, but you can lightly wipe off the top ink and usually it fades away after stamping off on paper a few times.

 Stamp your image onto the card stock.

I really like the artsy look of this. Here is another picture of this image using teal and red.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope your day is wonderful and I hope to see you back here again on  March 19th to see another Oldie!

Challenges entered:

Scrapy Land:  Anything Goes/Die ( Memory Box - Victorian Frame )

Simon Says Wednesday Challenge:  Special Lady/Girly