Memory Thinking

This is my second card today I wanted to at least get one more entry for a couple of the challenges that are ending today; the Spotted Canary Spring Challenge at SCS, and the Green Challenge at Spotted Canary. I used the sketch from CPS #211 if it is still running I will enter it there. It may be like the one I did this morning for Stamping 411, when I went to post it, the challenge was closed. I’ll get back into the swing of things sooner or later……as soon as I do, I’ll have to go back to my non-stamping land, then start all over again.

For this card, I wanted to try something different, so I went to the technique page at SCS and jotted down a couple different ones by just randomly selecting them. One of the selections was Joseph’s coat…..I went upstairs to my craft room, got everything together to do this technique earlier this morning, brayered the colors onto the paper, and I’m still waiting for the ink to dry, I have made two cards since putting the ink to paper. My second selection and the technique for this card was Pastel Embossing. I had never done this before and it was really easy. I’ve had the blender pens a while now and never bothered to use them. I chose the SU set Close as a Memory for the main image. I’m still in a Use It Tuesday mode using stamps I’ve never used before. You need a solid image stamp, and that is the first one I ran across, and I had never used it before. I needed a dark color cardstock, and since I was making spring cards I went with a dark purple. I stamped the image with Versamark, sprinkled detail white ep, and embossed the image with my heat gun. Then I pulled out my SU chalk set and a blender pen and proceeded to color the white ep. I gave the yellow flowers a two-tone look by adding some red chalk around the edges. After coloring you are supposed to spray a Matte finish clear sealer on it to keep the chalk in place……I didn’t feel like going from upstairs all the way to the basement to see if I had any, so I spritzed hairspray on it. I then decided on what Nesties I wanted to use, the ovals won out, so it was cut and embossed with a Nestie oval, I ran a white gel pen around the inside of the die before removing……no more Soufflé’ pens for this after yesterdays mess that you can read about in my Mice Birthday post. I had to pick out some dp, so I went with a piece from a DCWV Flower Shower Spring stack, the yellow flowers are similar to stamped flowers. Then I decided to use green cardstock for the layers, the scalloped oval and the layer behind the dp. The base card is the same dark purple that the image is stamped on. The sketch is actually not this detailed, I just got went with the flow. A ticket punch was used on the dp corners, a corner rounder punch on the green layer behind the dp. I thought the MS flower border punch would look good, was trying to decide on what color to punch, when a light bulb lit up in my pea brain…….punch white, color with chalk & blender pen to match image. That same light bulb lit up again when it came to the sentiment, since I was working with a small space I again chose the SU set Teeny Tiny Wishes, I really wanted to stamp on the green, but I don’t like that paper…love the color though…..I guess you would say the paper is textured and I don’t find stamping results too good, mainly I use that paper for layering, so I went with purple, stamped the  sentiment with Versamark, embossed with detail white, colored it with the chalk and blender pen. I have started using some glue to put the cards together, since money is really tight and my ATG tape is getting low. I hate gluing the layers, it takes forever to dry, and usually looks like it would fall apart if touched, even though I stack heavy stuff on top of the card when gluing. My brilliant idea today after getting the card all together and wanting to add some bling and half pearls, but the glue wasn’t drying fast enough, was to heat up an iron, I knew it would melt the embossing if I held it on too long, I had a piece of scrap paper on the front and back was running the iron on the back, which may have worked, but nooooo I had to turn the card over and iron the front. Somebody should have been standing over me saying Don’t try this at home!! I ironed the embossing from the main image and the sentiment onto my scrap piece of paper and had to redo both purple pieces. Luckily the stupid glue wasn’t even dry and I was able to remove the main image. I redid both purple pieces, I just added the sentiment over top the old one. Then continued on my merry way to add the red flower centers (MFT adornments), the green half pearls on the corners and one lighter half pearl on the sentiment (Basic Grey).
 
Thanks for stopping by, I’d love to hear your comments.

Farmyard For You

Yesterday while trying to avoid climbing on a little stepladder, I looked in a box of previously stamped items and came up with the Neighborhood jumbo wheel image that I used, I also found a Farmyard jumbo wheel image ready to go. So I used it for this card also an entry for the Stamping 411 sketch challenge #196 (oops too late this challenge has ended), but my main object was to get a card done for the Use It Tuesday Challenge #4 to use the color red in honor of Japan, a donation to the Japanese Red Cross Society will be made based on how many participants. April 1st is the deadline.

For today’s card I used the SU Farmyard jumbo wheel image I had already stamped and colored. It has been done for a while, I just never used it, I believe it was stamped with jet black Stazon, because the black looks black unlike the SU black when you stamp it. It was definitely colored with Prismacolored pencils, I even went over it again yesterday with Goo Gone to try and blend it better. I added yellow Stickles to the sun. Originally picked a whole different red checked ribbon, since I needed red for the Use It Tuesday challenge, so I picked out some red cardstock to try and match the ribbon and the background paper. My background dp is actually a piece of vinyl wall paper, from a wallpaper sample book. I thought it looked countryish (is that really a word, I don’t think so, but you know what I mean.) I used a Tim Holtz distressing tool and distressed the edges of the wallpaper, and also distressed the two edges of the darker red layered directly under the image. By the time I had my image layered the original ribbon I had picked out was too wide, between the image and the ribbon most of the wallpaper was covered so that you couldn’t see the design, so I checked my ribbon stash which has grown considerably since I raided some from my Mother, and came up with this narrower ribbon – still red checked. Instead of placing three plain old brads, I opted for the red hearts….they match the wallpaper hearts. The sentiment is from SU’s Teeny Tiny Wishes, stamped with Versamark, embossed with detail white ep, then punched with a SU word window punch. There would have been a lot of empty space on the punched out sentiment, so I punched the sentiment closer to the left side, then after it was punched, placed it back in the punch through the bottom and cropped off what I didn’t want. After the card was put together, polar white Flowersoft was added to the clouds.
Thanks for stopping by and I’d love to hear your comments.

Lily Pad Cards

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Neighborhood Shower

Here is my second card for the day. My mojo is returning, at least I think so, I just don’t sit there staring dumbly at the desk thinking what do I do, what do I do?. (I repeat it just in case my conscious can’t here me.) This time I went with an all new sketch website to me Stamping 411 sketch #196, I’ve never participated here before, and the sketch lit up a light bulb in my pea brain, so I had a beginning. As a matter of fact I can also enter it in the Spotted Canary Spring challenge at SCS and the Green challenge at Spotted Canary.

When I saw the sketch, I thought of using some of my stamping wheels for the image. My box of wheels is on the very top shelf in my stamping room, and I have sort of hurt myself, I don’t know how, unless it was lifting something way to heavy and twisted something, but my left leg where it joins at the hip is making it hard for me to walk, especially if I sit for very long, and the wheels being on the top shelf meant I had to climb my little three step, ladder. Since I am home alone, I didn’t think this was a very brilliant idea, so I looked in a box of stuff I had stamped and colored before, but never used, and low and behold there was a stamped and colored image from the SU Neighborhood jumbo wheel. I would have climbed up there on a six foot ladder, but didn’t feel like carrying one up two sets of stairs. I had a hard enough time putting a sock & shoe on that left foot this morning. It has probably taken me twice as long to make the two cards today, because I get up every so often and walk around, or rather limp around. Enough about that.
As I stated earlier the main image was stamped from a SU Neighborhood jumbo wheel, since it was done a while ago, I don’t know what ink I used, but if I were to guess, it would be jet black Stazon. It was colored with prismacolored pencils, and I went over it with goo gone today, just to try and blend it some more. I went over the windows with a Versamark pen and embossed with detail clear ep, for a window glass look. The image was cut to size and layered onto a green that matched the grass. I considered using the MS grass border punch, but the grass looked like it needed to be mowed, it was way too high. I started looking through my dp for some paper with sky and clouds, instead I found clouds and rain in a DCWV Spring Stack, it worked for me. I would have preferred a more bluish tint, but I can’t have everything…….from the looks of this sky the people in the houses better get to safety a tornado may be coming. Since the dp had gray for the outlines, I used a gray layer behind it, three gray brads and a silver wired ribbon. The bow was made on a bow easy. I know my mojo is returning, because the ideas were popping….clear ep on the windows, white liquid applique for the clouds, and stardust stickles on the raindrops. For the sentiment I used the SU set Teeny Tiny Wishes, for your shower just seemed like it belonged there. I used a Marvy Uchida punch, quotation cloud balloon, and cut off the pointy part so it would look more like a cloud, stamped the sentiment in onyx black versafine, sponged the edges with dove gray Stazon and popped it with foam dots.

Thanks for stopping by and I’d love to hear your comments.

Mice Birthday

I’m back!! I’ve been here at my stamping land since Sunday, but today is the first chance I have had to play. I think I’ve lost my mojo, so I figured I’d start with an easy sketch to help get it back. My help was supplied by sketch #211 from CPS and I also had in mind the green challenge at Spotted Canary.

Since I won a challenge over at Use It Tuesday, I am supposed to be creating a card for a future challenge, but that doesn’t seem to be happening yet. If only I didn’t have to go to my non-stamping land, I could probably roll off one after another, but the lapse in time since I left has really done me in.
At least I started this card off right for a Use It Tuesday challenge, using a stamp I have never used before and image from a SU set called Say Something Mice. It was stamped with onyx black versafine on white cardstock, colored with prismacolored pencils & goo gone and  SU markers. I touched up the eye with a black glaze pen, after the candle and balloon was colored, I hit them with a versamark pen, dusted detail clear ep and embossed. The candle flame has yellow stickles added to it. The image was then cut out and embossed with Nesties Labels One. Now I can tell you what not to do…..I like to run an ink pen around the inside of the die before removing it, this time I decided to get a little fancy and used a green Souffle’ Pen, the ink in these pens comes out a little thick, therefore it smears real easyhence the green balloons on the two corners, they are covering up the worst spots. Needless to say I won’t be using Souffle’ pens for this anymore. I found the balloons in my stash and don’t remember where I got them, they are not brads more like buttons without the shanks or any holes to sew them on.  The main image is layered over what I would normally call a piece of lace, but since I just bought this I can tell you it is called Flexi lace hem tape, and it comes in all sorts of colors. I do not sew as you can probably tell from the sewing on the card…….I can’t even sew a straight line with the sewing machine, and I was trying so hard to keep it lined up with that foot thingy. Anyways the main image is separated from the yellow layer by the hem tape, the yellow layer had the same green Souffle’ pen run around the die and it also smeared in places. The next layer is a green dp from a DCWV Flower Shower Matstack, sewn onto another layer of the same yellow. The base card is green.

Thanks for stopping by and I’d love to hear your comments.