Thursday, May 31, 2007

More Bleach Cards

A few weeks ago I posted a couple of bleach cards and also a tutorial on using bleach, here are a few more cards I created or started to create way back then which are now ready to be posted.

The first card started out as a 8cm square card stock which I just folded in half and then used bleach with my solid butterfly image to stamp randomly over the front of the card. I then used the outline stamp which matches this stamp to over stamp over the bleached image using amber clay fluid chalks. I also used my stamp positioner so I would get the correct placement, I hate guessing and then not being satisfied how the image looks. I didn't want to add to much too this card because if I did it would take away from the butterfly background I had just created so I just layered the butterfly verse to the front of the card.

This lighthouse card using two bleach techniques. First up I stamped and embossed my lighthouse image on blue card and then I filled my aqua painter up with fresh bleach to paint the areas I wanted bleached. I like this look as is but if you wanted to you could then color in the various areas that you have just bleached. For the background card for this one, I filled a spray bottle with bleach and spritzed the blue card and this is the result.

Recipes:
Butterfly Card:

Stamps: Butterflies - Stamp It (Aust); Verse - Stylish Images
Paper: Yellow; White; Tobacco
Other: Black Ink; Amber Clay Fluid Chalk; Bleach

Lighthouse:
Stamps: Lighthouse - Stampin' Up
Paper: Nullabor Blue Outback Card; Black

Other: Black Ink; Clear EP; Bleach; Black Brads

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Walking the Dogs

I was determined this week to combine the color challenge and the sketch challenge from SCS and this is the card I came up with. The colors for the color challenge this week are: Garden Green; Cool Caribbean & Chocolate Chip. These are particular colors I would have put together but that is what I like about the color challenge it takes you outside of what you would normally do. I didn't even know I had garden green until I went looking at the color combo site to find out what green I had would match the best.

As the sketch had a squarish shape mounted on it I decided to use one of my "my favorite stamps" stamps and this is the one I decided to use as I liked the idea of coloring the ladies dress chocolate and caribbean and then reversing those colors for the background. The green panels are stamped using the weave background which I just love with brushed corduroy distress ink. Its hard to tell by the photo but I have also sponged the sky on the main image. The grosgrain ribbon has been colored using my tria markers again, I am loving how I can achieve the color I want without tooo much effort or mess and I have sooooo many shades of markers much better than ink pads.

Recipe: Stamps: Dogs - My Favourite Stamps; Weave B/G - Cornish Heritage Farms; Dots - Papertrey Ink; Woof - Missy B Designs
Paper:
Garden Green; Cool Caribbean & Chocolate Chip - Stampin' Up; White
Other: Brushed Corduroy Distress Ink; Black Ink; French Blue Fluid Chalk; Slider Cuttlebug Die; Sizzix Circles Die; Brown Brad; White Grosgrain Ribbon; Tria Markers; Foam Tape

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Wet Watercolor

These cards are for this weeks technique challenge on SCS. I was about to put my autumn verse away from my previous post so I could start playing with the wet watercolor technique when I had second thoughts about putting the stamp away and instead found my leaf stamp to create this card. Seeing I was doing an autumn theme it was easy to select the Kaleidacolor ink pad to use, what else by autumn leaves of course!
It kinds of looks like I created cards for this challenge using two opposite seasons - autumn & spring. This was the set I got out to play with before I decided to do my autumn card above, but the one above did get made first - I got side tracked. I used Berry Blaze Kaleidacolor Ink pad to create this one, using different parts of the ink pad for the bold flower and the outline flower. I thought there was too much white space when it was finished so I grabbed my splatter stamp and inked inked it with the same pad spritzed the stamp with water, stamped it off on scrap paper first and then stamped over my flowers - I like it better now. I used my slot punch to create the scallop border and added white stitching using my gel pen. I seem to be coloring grosgrain a lot this week as again I preferred this color to the colors I have. I stamped 2 additional flowers and cut them out and attached them to the lower left hand side.

Recipe:
Autumn:
Stamps: Leaf - PSX; Verse - Hero Arts
Paper: White, Black, Caramel XL card
Other: Black Ink; Autumn Leaves Kaleidacolor Ink Pad; Black Brads - Bazzill

Spring:
Stamps: Delight In Life - Stampin' Up; Verse - Papertrey Ink
Paper: White; Pale Violet Prisma
Other: Berry Blaze Kaleidacolor Ink Pad; White Grosgrain; Tria Marker; White Gel Pen; Slot Punch; Foam Tape

Autumn

I know it is almost summer in the Northern Hemisphere, but here in Australia we are almost at the end of autumn. Winter will officially arrive here on the 1st June which is this coming Friday. Up here in Queensland we don't have a traditional autumn that you can notice, we don't have all the trees with the leaves turning all those lovely autumn colors like they do in the other states and I am sure many of you are used to. I remember going down to Melbourne many years ago for a training and for the first time seeing what autumn looks like, I was very impressed it is pretty.

This card was made for a club I belong to where we are giving a theme and we have to stamp a card front which is sent to the person who picked the particular theme. The theme for this one was of course autumn so this is what I came up with, its a fairly simple design but I think it works.

Recipe:
Stamps: Verse - Hero Arts; All Others - Penny Black
Paper: White; Caramel XL card; Black; Chocolate
Other: Black Ink; Marvy Markers # 5, 6,7 & 96

Monday, May 28, 2007

Another Featured Stamper #16 card

I'm back again with another card for this week's featured stamper Kirsten DuBosque. Kirsten had a HM card in her gallery that I really liked and a few other people have also cased that card so I couldn't help myself I had to case it too. Here is her card "Hey Cupcake", as I chose the background paper I did I decided to go with bright colors for this card, I also figured this would count to this weeks ways to use it challenge which was to use yo yo yellow, which I don't have but this would be fairly close to it. I also layered all my layers onto black card as there is black in the background paper and I wanted this to follow through the rest of the card.

The verse says "How Mice of You" - I don't think the mouse about to pop the balloon is tooooo nice so maybe it is referring to the sleeping mouse LOL - I guess if Kirsten is the "naptime stamper" (as per her blog) then she appreciates anyone napping so she can get some stamping done. I doubt she would be waking them up in a hurry like this mouse though. One thing I did find funny, after I finished this card and taken the photo, I picked up the stamp to put it away and noticed on the side the name of this stamp - "Wake Up" - now for those who have gone to the Featured Stamper Forum and have seen how Beth titled this weeks post for the featured stamper, you will know what I am referring to. That wasn't why I picked this stamp to use, but is funny how things work out.

Recipe:
Stamps: House Mouse - Stampa Rosa; Verse - My Favorite Things
Paper: White, Red, Black, Yellow, Salmon, Rainbow Stripe B/G Paper.
Other: Black Ink; Black Brad; Word Window Punch; Red Grosgrain Ribbon; Paper Piercing Tool & Mat; Tria Markers; Foam Tape

Tutorial - Coloring Grosgrain using Alcohol Markers

Last week while I was creating a card for Allison's sketch challenge, I wanted to use ribbon but didn't have the right color I wanted to use to go with the card. In the past when this has happened I have colored my ribbon using an ink pad (I normally use my fluid chalk pads), this can turn out to be a little messy and you can't put it on your card straight away as the ribbon needs to dry otherwise the ink transfers to the card - yuk!

I got my white ribbon out and for some reason I used my tria marker that I had just used to color in something on that particular card and wow - it was quick and easy to color and looked great and was ready to go on my card straight away. I have had tria's for years so sat wondering why I hadn't tried this before!

Tria's are an alcohol marker, similar to Copic and Prisma which many of you are starting to buy to color with, which is why I thought I would include this tutorial.

You need:
  • Alcohol marker eg. Tria; Copic; Prisma etc
  • White Grosgrain Ribbon


  • Using the broad nib of your marker color over your grosgrain ribbon.
  • Once you have colored over the front of your ribbon turn over to make sure the marker has seeped through to the back, if there are places missed color these spots too.
Your ribbon is now ready to be used to decorate your card however you wish!

Featured Stamper #16

Yesterday was Sunday which meant it was time for another Featured Stamper challenge on SCS. This weeks featured stamper was Kirsten Dubosque aka KED on Splitcoast, Kirsten also has a blog named Confessions of the Naptime stamper. I have to confess that while I was creating my card yesterday I really did feel like a nap LOL - now is that funny or what!!!! I think it was really because I had been out visiting my eldest daughter at her home for a very nice BBQ lunch to celebrate her birthday and cuddling my grandpuppies. Even just checking up on what everyone had posted to their blogs seemed such an effect. Anyway by the time I had finished my 2nd card I was wide awake again.

The flower card above was the last card I created, and the inspiration for that card came from Kirsten's "Card of the Week 10". I liked the idea of using flowers in a row along a longish card, as I hadn't played with my Green Thumb set from Papertrey Ink as yet, I decided to use that set for my card. I used the tiny flower which is the same as the flower I used here to create the grass at the bottom of my card. I didn't have the right color grosgrain I wanted to so colored my own, and I used my oval punch for my verse which is from the same set and then cut that out using scallop scissors. In the centre of the flowers I added little purple gemstones.

Well as you can see, I have finally done it!!!!!! My ladybug isn't read it is blue!!!!!! yahhhhhhhhh. I received some of the au chocolat background papers from my secret sister I had with the other hostesses of VSN last week, so I wanted to use that for this card. I colored the white dots using a marker to make them blue and stamped my ladybug onto white card using ballet blue ink (it's the only SU blue inkpad I have at present to match my card stock which is what I wanted to achieve), I then over stamped the ladybug with dark brown fluid chalk and punched it out with my circle punch. Again I didn't have the color grosgrain I wanted so again I colored my own. I also decided to add the corners to my card. Here is Kirsten's card I used for inspiration Sweet Makenna.

Recipes: The Earth Laughs in Flowers:
Stamps: Green Thumb - Papertrey Ink
Paper: White; Old Olive - SU; Pale Violet Prisma card
Other: Wisteria & Olive Pastel Fluid Chalk; Black Ink; White Grosgrain Ribbon; Tria Marker; Lge Oval Punch - SU; Scallop Scissors; Gemstones - Hero Arts


Blue Little Lady:
Stamps:
Little Lady - Papertrey Ink; Corners - My Favorite Things
Paper: Ballet Blue & Au Chocolate dot paper - SU; White
Other: Ballet Blue Ink - SU; Dark Brown Fluid Chalk; White Grosgrain Ribbon; Tria Marker, Circle Punch; Scallop Circle Punch

Sunday, May 27, 2007

Beate's Sketch #3

How could I resist doing another of Beate's sketches! Of course I couldn't so here it is, this is the 3rd sketch challenge Beate has issued to date and I look forward to many more to come. I decided to play again with my new Papertrey stamps, so far I have only created red ladybugs - I know ladybugs are red so that is the color I immediately go and pick up when I am about to stamp them. I have seen some great cards using this set using various other colors which I do love - I might need to try a different color next time I use this set (maybe LOL!!!)

Recipe:
Stamps: Little Lady & Faux Ribbon - Papertrey Ink
Papers: White, Red & Black
Other: Black Ink; Lipstick Red Fluid chalk, Tiny Bubbles Cuttlebug Embossing Folder; Word Window Punch - SU; Black Brads - Bazzill; Foam Tape

Saturday, May 26, 2007

Another Teabag Card

I hope you aren't getting tooo tired of teabag folding, this is likely to be the last for the time being. While I was going through all my teabag folding stuff to take the photos for yesterday's post (as my old photos weren't up to much), I discovered this finished medallion using alota's daisy teabag stamp that I had stamped up a few years ago on vellum which I hadn't as yet made into a card. I decided it was about time I made a card for it to go onto so here it is!

For this card I stamped the daisy teabag stamp 8 times onto vellum and cut them out and I colored on the backside of the vellum and then folded. This particular stamp has on the one flower at the top of stamp which makes for easy cutting out. To create the card I used the octagonal template by planet punch, the instructions to create this star shape using this particular template I found in a book and was pretty easy to do. I used a tiny flower punch to punch out the flower pattern in each of the triangle and then using some of the punched flowers I glued one flower onto another and added that to each end of each triangle. The gold sticker lines help give this card that finished look.

Recipe:
Stamps: Daisy Teabag Stamp - alota rubber stamps
Paper: Certainly Celery - Stampin' Up; Yellow; White; Vellum
Other: Black Ink; Octagonal Planet Punch template; flower punch; gold line stickers

Friday, May 25, 2007

Tutorial - Teabag Folding (alota Style)

Since I featured the alota teabag folding stamps as my flashback Friday this week I thought I would do a tutorial on the folding of them.

A note on Paper: You need to stamp on paper not card to create the teabag folding medallions, the paper you chose is up to you. Try some of these ideas: photocopy paper; rainbow colored origami paper; vellum. Experiment and have fun!


Equipment needed:
Teabag Stamp from alota rubber stamps
Black Ink pad
Photocopy Paper or paper of your choice
Markers to color image
PVA Glue
Toothpicks





1. Using the black ink stamp your teabag image onto your paper 8 times.





2. Cut out all the images. You can do this two different ways either by cutting out all around all the intricate images on each side of the image or if you do not want to bother with all that cutting then just cut around the one image and then cut the other ones off square.









3. Lay one of your cut out images on your table so the image side is face down. Fold the shape in half diagonally.











4. Unfold the image and refold, folding it diagonally in the opposite way.
Unfold again.






5. Lay the image on the table again this time image side facing up.

Fold image in half (bee in this photo will be over the top of the other bee when folded & the two bees on each side of this image will be folded in half)

















6. Hold the image in both hands with your fingers placed on each side of the image holding the bees that have been folded (the valley fold).









Move your hands in so that they meet and then squash the image flat.









































7. At this stage I would color in my image, as only the front image will show when you have completed your teabag medallion you only really need to color the front image. However if you wish to color every image you can - do this after cutting out the images and prior to folding.



8. Take the right edge of the teabag shape and fold this underneath itself so it meets the centre.


Repeat this on the left edge.

9. Repeat steps 3 to 8 on the remaining 7 teabag images.






10. Assembling the medallion.

Use a toothpick to place a dot of glue on the flap of the teabag folded image.









Slide a 2nd shape into the 1st shape as per photos.


Continue doing this will all remaining pieces.















11. To place the 8th piece into the medallion. Apply glue to the flap as you did for the previous pieces and slide the shape into place.









You will now have the right side of this piece overlapping the first teabag piece you started with. Carefully apply glue to the flap as you did previously, lift up the 1st piece and slide it into place.
































12. Your teabag medallion is now complete and ready to decorate your card.

Flashback Friday - Teabag Folding

Today's flashback friday is focusing on teabag folding - alota rubber stamps style. I like doing a little teabag folding now and again, although being a stamper I hate having to buy the teabag papers and using those to create my cards, once I have used it for a card I don't have it anymore. I much prefer to incorporate rubber stamps in my teabag folding then I am doing what I love most, stamping!

alota rubber stamps created stamps especially to be used for teabag folding a number of years ago, at the beginning it was only a few images to chose from but the range of images has grown over the years. There are images to suit all occasions, and it doesn't matter if you need a card for male or female; young or old there will be an image suitable to use for them. What I have here is just a very small sampling of what is avail.

As you can see by the frog card above I have included the teabag stamp with my card. I only have 2 teabag stamps wood mounted the rest of mine are all unmounted and I have quite a few. On the frog card rather than stamp out 8 images to form a medallion as you normally would do when creating a teabag folded card I have only stamped out 3 image and made it into an umbrella. Not all teabag stamps are suitable to make into umbrellas - make sure the image looks like the one I have included with the card, if the head goes the other way on the image than it will be upside down when turned into an umbrella.

As I mentioned before there are all sorts of stamps for or sorts of occasions, here is a baseball teabag stamp. There are a number of other sport related & male relate teabag stamps also available.

Using a teabag stamp you also have the option of what type of paper you wish to stamp it on. On the red rose card above I have stamp my teabag stamp onto white photocopy paper. Yes photocopy paper is fine to use, in Australia I have also been able to find a photocopy paper that has a coating on it; it's called Nopa paper and is available at Officeworks. I am not sure if you have sometime similar in the US etc - I am sure if we have it other here you will be able to get something there. The coated paper does give a nicer finish to the completed teabag medallion. Once you have stamped your image it is just a matter of coloring it.
If you prefer not to color, then just stamp your image onto colored papers. In the colored rose card above I stamped my teabag image onto variegated origami papers.

This is another umbrella card using the strawberry teabag image.


Hey did I tell you I noticed while I was logging in to type this post that this is my 100th post - yahhhhhhhhh!

Thursday, May 24, 2007

Fly Little Lady ATC

Today I got the type of wake up call I never complain about, my Australia Post Parcel Delivery Lady calling out Australia Post! In the majority of times, this means there is a parcel of some sort for me (although there have also be a fair few for my DH in recent times), but today I wasn't disappointed as there was definitely a parcel there for me and also one for my DH so we were both happy.

I am sure by now you can tell what I received today - yes you got it, my Papertrey Ink stamps I ordered. These ATC's are for a swap I am in the theme is "Things with Wings", last night I had decided that I should get these ATC's made today and had something else in mind to do for them, but once these arrived this morning that idea flew out the window! Ladybugs have wings so of course I had to play with them instead! The word "fly" on the ATC is from the set I had planned to use by Impression Obsession, so it wasn't a complete waste getting that other set out last night.

Recipe: Stamps: Little Lady Set - Papertrey Ink; fly - Impression Obsession
Paper: White, Black & Red
Other: Black & Rocket Red Brilliance Ink

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

What's Up?

The girl image on this card was originally going to go on the Swell News card I made on Monday (obviously it wouldn't have been called Swell News if I had used it LOL). However before I completed that card I changed my mind entirely and decided to go with the Swell News stamp set instead. So I had this girl image sitting here on my desk all colored and wanting to be put on a card somehow. She is definitely skinny enough to suit this particular sketch design so I decided to cut the card she was stamped on down so I could use it for the sketch challenge as I did want to make a 2nd card for the challenge.

Recipe:
Stamps: Girl - MissyB Designs; Background Stamps - Andstamps
Paper: White; Marigold Morning & Certainly Celery - SU
Other: Black Ink; Amber Clay, Yellow Cadmium, Lime Pastel, Olive Pastel Fluid Chalk; Certainly Celery Grosgrain Ribbon

A Sketch Challenge

The sketch challenge on SCS today was to focus on a small panel in the centre of the card, Roxie's recommendation for the size of the panel was approx 3 1/2" x 1 1/4", I did convert this to cm so mine is a tiny bit different but not much. While I was looking through some of my stamps I have sitting on my table behind me I found this duck from MissyB Designs, such a cool duck I would think and as it fitted easier in the required panel I decided to use it. The background and colors are similar to another card I create a few weeks ago using another duck in the set but I thought seeing this was such a simple layout it was ideal for this one. I put the ribbon going up the card to hide the join in the cuttlebugging, I do wish the folders were just that little bit longer.

Recipe:
Stamps: Duck - MissyB Designs; Quack - Karen Foster Snap Stamps
Paper: White, Sun Yellow; Black
Other: Black Ink;White Brilliance Ink; Black Brads; Tiny Bubbles Cuttlebug Embossing Folder; Yellow Grosgrain Ribbon

How Mice of You

This card is for the Color Challenge on SCS, this weeks colors for the challenge were to use: Vintage Violet, Certainly Celery & Old Olive. These colors reminded me of grapes so I thought it was a great opportunity to play with this House Mouse stamp. I kept to Allison's sketch again (Stampin' When I Can), as I wanted something I could make fairly quickly as I should have been getting ready to go out with a friend today not stamping. I am not ready, but she isn't her yet so I can upload it too.
Tip: I didn't have the right color ribbon to go with my colors for this card so rather than try to color my white grosgrain with an ink pad I took my tria marker I used to color the grapes and used that. Tria's are alcohol markers similar to Copic or Prisma markers. I was surprised how well it colored my ribbon, soooo quickly and I didn't have to wait for it to dry.

Recipe: Stamps: House Mouse - Stampa Rosa; Verse - My Favorite Things
Paper: Vintage Violet, Certainly Celery, Old Olive - SU; White; B/G paper - Amazing Creations
Other: White Grosgrain Ribbon (colored with tria marker); Black Ink; Tria Markers; Foam Tape


Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Dino-Mite!

Allison from Stampin' When I Can posted a sketch to her blog site yesterday, I enjoy trying different sketches so I decided to try this one. I had some of this checked background paper left (her sketch said b/g paper) from the lighthouse box I created the other day which I thought would suit my new dino-mite set I got in the mail yesterday. This is a nice sketch suitable for the smaller stamps we often have but find hard to do things with. And yes Trish I have used my new oval punch already LOL!

Recipe:
Stamps: Dino-Mite & Behind the Scenes - My Favorite Things
Paper: Bashful Blue, Certainly Celery - SU; Black; White; B/g paper unknown
Other: Large oval punch - SU; Blue Grosgrain ribbon, Wavy ruler; Tria Markers; Foam Tape

Monday, May 21, 2007

VITALITY - Swell News


























It is again Featured Stamper
time and this weeks the featured stamper on SCS is Kyla Maestas aka Vitality. Kyla has some great cards in here gallery but the one I decided to case I was particularly drawn to because of the circle bits which she has punched out of her card and also the spiral punched piece the main image is layered to. It is also one she used in the Papercrafts Gallery Idol competition, you can find it here. It is hard to tell in the photo, but I have used Pearlescent Lime Brilliance ink to stamp the cheesecloth to the top and bottom celery pieces.

My changes included:
Changing the image used.
Changing the colors.
Using spots & dots cuttlebug embossing folder for the centre piece

Grosgrain ribbon

Recipe:
Stamps: My Favorite Things; Cheesecloth - SU
Card: Certainly Celery; Apricot Appeal - SU; White; Black
Other: Black Ink; Pearlscent Lime Brilliance Ink; circle punches, oval punch, spiral punch; spots & dots cuttlebug embossing folder; celery grosgrain ribbon