Hot Days of Summer

Hi Everyone! Welcome to my blog. I hope you are enjoying your day. These August days sure are hot and I am so looking forward to Fall! I want to share a card I made using hot simmering colors of Summer. I used my new Color Burst powders and made the red flowers free hand for the background.

I cut the cute hedgehog by Penny Black using the Spellbinders Labels 4 die. The butterfly is from the Exotic Butterfly die set by Cheery Lynn.

I love using these shiny polymer glue dots to add interest to my cards.

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

Challenges entered:

Cheery Lynn:  Anything Goes/dies

Dies R Us:  The Great Outdoors

Penny Black:  Hot Summer Colors

Stamping Sensations:  Anything Goes With a Stamp and a Die

Sweet Stampin':  Spots and/or Stripes

Oldies Technique #15 -- Polished Stone

Welcome back to another Oldies technique. I love using this polished stone technique because no piece ever looks the same. I also want to thank Debs Smith for joining my blog!

Supplies you will need:

several colors of alcohol inks

white glossy card stock

felt applicator

91% alcohol or blending solution

I wanted an old world look on my card so I chose Current, Slate, Ginger and Latte alcohol inks. Apply the inks to the applicator. I just cut a small piece of felt to fit the applicator and applied my inks side by side in a row.

Spritz the applicator a few times with alcohol or blending solution ( I used 91% alcohol ) and start pouncing the applicator over the glossy card stock. You will also want to make sure you are in a well ventilated room!

Here is the finished background!

You can also do this same technique on plastic or acetate. In fact you can used this on any non porous surface. I love the look of it done on plastic as shown below.

Thanks so much for stopping by. I hope your day is wonderful!

Challenges entered:

Crafting From The Heart:  Always Anything Goes #73

Penny's Paper Challenge:  Anything Goes

We Love to Create :  Anything Mixed Media/Creative Goes

Looking Forward to Fall

Hi Everyone! I hope you are having a good day. I am looking forward to Fall, how about you? I am looking forward to less humidity and cooler temperatures!  Here is a Fall card I made using Impression Obsession stamps, Pumpkin Patch F16031, Cover-a-Card Gingham CC006 and Cover-a-Card Birds in Trees CC102.  I made a frame by using Martha Stewart's border and corner leaf punches.

I put acrylic paints on a craft sheet, spritzed them with water and swiped my watercolor paper through them. I then stamped the pumpkins on the paper when it was dry and fussy cut them. I popped dotted them over the stamped background and birds.

Thanks so much for stopping by. I hope you have a wonderful and blessed day!

    Challenges entered:  

Impression Obsession:  Fall Colors

Artistic Stamper:  Anything Goes

Chocolate, Coffee and Cards:  Frame It

Simon Says Wednesday Challenge:  Food/Drink

We Love 2 Create:  Anything Goes

Butterfly Tag

Hi Everyone! I want to share a tag I made using the butterfly die from QuicKutz. I cut out 3 butterflies and adhered patterned paper behind the "negative" dies on the tag. I then covered the whole tag with a light coat of white matte gesso to add a distressed look and then wiped off the gesso from the butterflies so that the patterned paper would show through better. I had stamped the script on the tag before adding the gesso.

I cut another butterfly from the patterned paper and popped it over the center cut. I also randomly added some "crocheted" stickers to the tag.

I just love these paper bows that I have seen on many cards lately. This bow is an svg that I added to the bottom of the tag.

Thanks so much for stopping by for a look. I hope you have a great day!

Challenges entered:

Stamp & Create:  One For The Girls

Sweet Stampin':  Anything But A Birthday

Tim Holtz:  12 Tags of 2015 -- August

Oldies Technique #14 -- Bleach

Hi Everyone! I hope you are having a good day. I have another Oldies technique that I would like to share with you today. We will be using bleach to bleach out a stamped image.

Supplies needed:

fresh bleach

water pen or small paint brush

dark card stock ( I used dark brown )

black embossing powder

Versa Mark ink

heat tool

embossing buddy

TIP: The very first thing to do would be to "test" your card stock before stamping on it, to see if the card stock bleaches out. Not all card stock will bleach well. I just took my brush and went over a small space on my card stock to check it.  

Take the embossing buddy and rub over the card stock so that the embossing powder will not stick to where you do not want it.

Ink up your stamp using Versa Mark ink and stamp onto the card stock. Then sprinkle on the black embossing powder and melt it with the heat tool.

Now take your water pen filled with fresh bleach and begin to color in the unembossed areas. If you do not have a water pen you can use a paint brush, fold up some paper towels on a non porous surface, pour a little bleach onto them and dip your brush onto the wet towels. This keeps the bleach from dripping everywhere. You can see how the bleach bleached out the center stripe on the zebra here.

Continue "coloring" until the image is complete.  I then cut out the zebra using Spellbinders Labels 4 die. The leaves at the top of the card were cut using the Sizzix Leaves die

Here are samples of other images I bleached. 

Here you can see where I tested the bleach first before I stamped. I was not sure if the bazzil card stock would work, but it did great as you can see. I will cut that part off before using it on a card.

You can also color your image if you want. This also makes for a neat look!

I hope you enjoyed this technique. Have fun playing. P.S. You might want to do this in a well ventilated room!

Have a great day!

Challenges entered:

Scrapy Land:  Anything Goes/die

Simon Says Wednesday Challenge:  Tie It Up (cord)

Sparkle N Sprinkle:  Anything Goes With Loose Glitter, Embossing Powder, Flocking

Stamping With Spectrum Noir Markers

Hi and welcome to my blog. I am always looking for new to me techniques and I am happy to have stumbled onto this one. On the Artsy Inkers stamping board there was a discussion about trying to stamp using copics. Someone suggested that maybe by coloring on the soild stamp and then spritzing alcohol on the stamp that this would activate the copics ( the copics dry fast ) and you could stamp the stamp. Well, I immediately tried it and it turned out great! I stamped on matte card stock first and it looked good. It gave a marbled effect kind of like when you do the polished stone technique. Here is the example on matte card stock.

THEN I tried it again on glossy card stock and boy was I impressed! Here is the card I made with my image. The flowers were stamped using Spectrum Noir markers.

Here are some more examples on the glossy card stock.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope your day is wonderful!

Challenges entered:

Artistic Stamper:  Anything Goes

Chocolate, Coffee and Cards:  A Flower in Your Image

Love to Scrap:  Anything Goes

Mod Squad Challenge:  Anything Goes Plus a Die

Penny's Paper Crafty:  Ribbon or Twine