3-D TV Screen

I tried this concept before, but it went horribly wrong. See, then I didn't know that crystal effects was waterbased. So, if you attempt to glaze over dye ink, guess what, you'll get some serious bleeding issues. Anyway, since the Thursday challenge was to use Crystal Effects, I decided to try this out again. This time, I embossed the TV image, as well as the message I placed on screen. The only problem was the long drying time of the glaze. It takes a while, and you know , when you have an idea, you want it done. Moral of the story, don't consider putting eyelets on a card where you should let key components dry for over an hour, at least, not until that hour is up. I salvaged it however by setting the eyelets with 3/4 of the card hanging off of my table.

In other news, after much hair pulling and frustration, I personalized my page. I had no problem creating the banner, took all of 5 minutes. However, figuring out exactly where to place the image source into the html code, and overcoming some of the more annoying blogger 'blips' was not my idea of a super time. I hope you like the sandy, beachy feel to it. Although, now that I have my base template, I will likely change it frequently :D

More clear cards

I tell you, making this kind of card is becoming an obsession. There's something really satisfying about using the clear medium as a base, not sure why.
In case you are wondering what I use, here's a mini product review:

I went to Staples today to pick up the slightly sturdier acetate. This was not the easiest of tasks. All of the boxes say they are .10mm thick. However, some are sturdier than others.

• The write-on acetate is very flimsy. This type works well for making shaker boxes and doing mirror stamping. It is also the cheapest. For about $14.00CDN you get 100. I would not recommend the write-on transparencies for use as a stand-alone card.However, you can use this type of transparency if your design has a reinforcing cardstock fold.
• I bought the box that is intended for use in a copier. These are $32.00CDN for a box of 100. These transparencies, although also .10mm thick, are way sturdier. They score nicely and stand up just fine. They also are embossable (that was the first thing I checked once I was home). I also just ran the copier transparency through my laser printer, and it turned out beautifully! Just remember to open up the feed so that it goes straight through.
• The store had ones that are designed for laser printers, they are even more expensive. For 50 it was $24.00 CDN. They had boxes of the copier and laser open, and honestly I could not tell the difference. One did not feel any different then the other(i.e no special coating, equally sturdy, etc.).
• As far as comparison with Stampin' Up!'s window sheets? These are the heaviest feeling transparencies that I have found. I believe these are also embossable, however they are not nearly as cost-effective as buying a box of 100. Also, I think they are temporarily unavailable.

This card measures 6-1/4x3-1/2. I rolled my Bodacious jumbo wheel through the white stazon a few times, then rolled it onto the cardfront. The white piece (which is 2-1/4x5) was decorated with the small leaves and the swirls from Bodacious Bouquet. Then I stamped and cut out the bigger flowers. The biggest flower is regal rose stamped off once, then rocked/rolled in rose red. That one is also popped up on a dimensional and the little dots in the center are covered with glitter. I put a piece of regal rose on the interior (this piece is 5-1/2x2-1/2). Just a brief note about doing clear cards like this, attach your interior piece first so that you can center the front piece easily overtop of it.

Sketch Challenge Fun!

First off, my stamping get together was loads of fun. I think everyone really enjoyed the cards, and they all made them their own, which is so cool to see.

I squeezed in the sketch challenge tonight. I really like this layout, and I'm happy with how my card turned out. I was in the mood for something not at all winter-y. Go figure, it snowed at least a foot of snow and I made Christmas cards all evening with my guests, so I don't feel like making more holiday greetings.

Clearly, she has returned!

Sorry for the brief hiatus. I was a little more swampled by work then I expected to be (the word swampled has been brought to you by my sister Tamara). Anyway, I'm back now, and I should have time these next few days to be creative.

Don't you love it when a card just comes together. This one took no more than 10 minutes, and I love it. I finally broke open my thicker acetate ( I need to get some more of that stuff, add it to the growing list of stuff to pick up from Staples...). I wanted a clear card that would actually stand up and stay folded decently and this worked out great. I had my spectrum pat, Blue Frost still on my work table and the other day I had been thinking how pretty the dove from Wishing You would look in those blues. I stamped that first, then sorted through my backgrounds. French Script offered the classic touch I sought. I stamped that with the white stazon on the acetate. I attached all the pieces with glue dots, they provide a clean, close to invisible way of adherance (is that a word??). Then I finished it off with some white organdy and silver cord. Voila, one simply elegant card. I would love to do this for the Christmas card, but the knot would require extra postage, and thicker acetate isn't the cheapest medium. I suppose I could make this one for my non-mailing group.

Oh man, I cannot wait for January right now. I'm planning on getting the Carte Postale set and the matching French Flair, and I can just see the same card design with those stamps. Top that off with the fact that a friend mentioned wedding invitation design...too many things swirling in this head of mine, but that's a good thing.

Look Familiar??

So, here they are! I finally found the time to finish my other set of ATCs. I took my inspiration from a card I made back in October. I really liked how that one turned out, so I just scaled it down. The brown piece is covered chipboard. I pierced it to give it a bit more texture. The background is the fun, retro, and retired Linograph. The other stamp set is Bodacious Bouquet (love that set!!). On the olive I sponged around the edges to give it a bit more definition. There's also a bit of chocolate ribbon hiding on there. I really had fun making these, I hope the other swappers like them!!

Quick & Easy Holiday Cards!

I decided to offer a free holiday card class, and so far I am receiving several confirmations of attendance. I am very excited, since in the past I have been amazingly well at choosing the worst possible day for all the people I know. I'm doing 3 projects. They are relatively simple because I want to showcase designs that are great for "mass production". These cards don't require a lot of supplies or cutting, and they still look pretty. I'm also showcasing 2 of the holiday mini sets because the workshop is near the end of that order period. I want to put those sets out there as a "last chance, if you like, get it know". Anyway here they are. The sets I used from the holiday mini are Wishing You, as well as Snow Flurries. I also used Glad Tidings on the navy and blue one. The other card was actually designed by my up-upline. It uses glossy white, a spectrum pad, and the Holiday Print background. I modified it a tiny bit, to speed up the process for a group setting.

Shiny Snowflakes

This card uses Lumiere. Lumiere is a kind of paint. It is a pearly white, really shimmery acrylic paint. For the background paper, I started out doing the faux mother of pearl technique. For this I combined some blue pearl ex and the lumiere and sponged it all over. After seeing the colour blue it produced, I then set out to match the Basic Grey Blitzen: Jack Frost papers {check that out here}. I sponged a few different browns, and stamped on plently of snowflakes. After all that work of creating this pretty neat background paper, I didn't want to cover it. So I stamped and tore some vellum to give it a frosty winter look. Then added some eyelets and some sponged twill tape to finish it off.

I don't normally do this...

Sorry for the lack of updates. I've been re-organizing my stamping area. It was LONG overdue, and I am trying to be ruthless. I almost have a bluebox full of recycling. I did take time today (once I reaquainted myself with my tabletop) to make a card from the 3 challenges that have been posted so far at SCS. The technique challenge was faux wood. The colour challenge was olive, cranberry, and bashful blue. And the sketch challenge, well, that's obvious, that's where I got the layout. For the leaf, I inked it up in olive first, then stippled cranberry overtop. This created an almost mustard colour between the 2, which I thought was pretty.

Monogram Keychain

I bought the Colorbok chipboard bundle because it had an interesting variety of shapes. However, there were several shapes that I already had. A few of those shapes fell in the "what the heck am I ever going to do with this?"-category. The shape in particular, a long rounded rectangular tag. This tag isn't the right proportion for most of the cards I make, and I don't do that much scrapbooking, at least not right now. So what to do?? How about make a personalized keychain. With some Basic Grey Hang Ten papers and matching letter stickers, some Mod Podge, and a few jump rings, this cute little keychain was created. After creating the keychain, I also saw how this exact design would work well on a scrapbook page. A group of them (without the jump rings) would make a cool title.

Party Dress Card

When this card began, I didn't know where it was going. I started by covering a piece of chipboard and piercing the edges, then attaching the cut out flowers. Then I decorated the caribbean paper by using the brass template as a stencil. Then I wanted to add some velvet ribbon and do something different with the bottom two thirds. I tried various things with vellum. Dry embossing it didn't turn out so hot, then I tried using pink vellum, again not good. Finally, I decided to wheel the bodacious pattern in versamark and embossing it. Just a note about embossing vellum, keep your heat tool a fair distance away. It takes a lot longer to emboss, but you don't get burnt vellum!!

Anyway, the finished product reminds me of a little girl's party dress. The layout and the variety of textures seemed to mimic that clothing kind of appearance.

Overlay tutorial!!

I promised that it would be up sometime this week, and here it is!! The tutorial can be found here: Invisibly Attached Overlays and here is the card I made to go with the tutorial. Hope that helps for any visual learners out there.

Copper Fairy

First all, yay, new stamps!! Tamara and I went on about an 8-km roundtrip walking expedition to the Stampers! store in Victoria. The store is quite overwhelming, you are bombarded with SO MANY different stamp styles and types. We walked up and down the aisles quite a few times. I hemmed and hawed over several things. This silhouette fairy stamp caught my eye, and I knew it'd be perfect for this Thursday's "use copper tones" challenge. For the main image, I picked perfect pearls with clear embossing powder. There is also a vellum layer stamped with French Script and I did the poppin' pearls technique: i.e. stamp with versamark then lightly brush some mica powder overtop. To finish it off, I placed some copper brads in the corners.

Chipboard Flower

Just before heading out west, I happened to go to Michaels. They had a new Colorbok assortment of chipboard shapes and other goodies! This flower was one of them. I covered it with the Summer Mini petal patch paper, and then used those colours for the rest of my card. I didn't have any ballet blue ribbon, so I marker-dyed it. It worked wonderfully, just the perfect amount for my card.

Pocket Love Notes

This cute little pre-scored and cut cards are adorable. They make really cute little valentines. For this set of 4 I used a variety of products. On the firs one I used some chipboard and dressed it up with the Loves Me paper, then I wrapped it with some silver cord. The next one I watercoloured the heart with markers on confetti white paper. I also mixed the Sweet On You with Warmest Regards. I liked the different fonts together. For the postage stamp look I used the double hole punch because I could easily measure the spacing. The 3rd also uses some of the Loves Me paper and the Sweet Nothings accents and elements (the 'ribbon'). For the last one, I stamped the heart on the designer paper and popped it over the love note accent. It's lots of fun working with such a small medium.

Beaded Snowflake

Sorry for the brief hiatus. I'm visiting my sister, so I had packed all my vital stamping stuff and it was inaccessible until last night. We each did 6 of the VSN challenges at SCS. It was a lot of fun! This is one of my creations from this morning actually. The challenge was to use beads and have your birthstone colour as the central colour. So here's my garnet snowflake card. I glued the beads on the bigger spots of the snowflake. I did a fallback layout. It's nice to have layouts in mind that you know work to fall back on. Once again, I had fun setting the scene for this photograph :D

Also, I will be doing a visual tutorial for the transparency overlays in the next few days. I think a visual might help some people with it.

Big and Little Pieces

This set is such fun to work with. It actually makes me want to scrapbook (not that I have started that up again...) I've seen some awesome overlay transparencies using white ink, as soon as I saw this set I wanted to try that. Back before I could even order the winter mini goods, I put together a digital prototype. You know, when you really want a set, you have this great idea for it, but it's frustrating because you can't make it? Well, I wanted to know if what I had planned in sketch form would work in actuality, and it did. I don't think I can show you my prototype because that's probably against copyright and all that jazz. But I can show you the final product! I made 18 of these cards. They are 4.25 square cards. Trust me, if you haven't tried transparency overlays using white ink, you must! Especially combining big and little pieces!! So much fun!

Yay for embossing!!

I made this card following the layout of the SCS sketch challenge. I don't usually do layouts like this because I have a tendency to make them too busy or too lacking. I was really happy with this one because I solved the bare background problem by embossing it! This card is going to go to my friends, Carly and Arron who just recently bought a house!!

Cherish the butterflies!

So here's my first creation for an ATC swap I'm in. I really didn't think I'd get them all done today, but I did!! There were a lot of steps involved in these, but I'm really happy with them, and I hope the recipients will be too! I did masking, sponging, watercolouring, cracked ice, and a little bit of faux hardware.

In other news, my winter mini stuff is due to arrive today!! It isn't here yet, and I have to go to work in 30 minutes. How cruel! I just know that as soon as I leave, the delivery will happen. I either get my stuff before 11AM, or sometime after 1:00. I was planning on doing the SCS sketch challenge, but I already designed what I wanted to do based on the new stuff!!

A Tuesday off...

So here is the first of hopefully many items I will make today. I kind of got off to a late start. I wanted to make a really unique layout, but the elements I wanted to add didn't look right. Instead I want with a slightly longer than usual format (6x4.25), and I did triple ribbons behind the central image, which is something I don't normally do. There is actually a vellum overlay on here and it is stamped with the Aida Cloth in white stazon. In person, it gives the card a very fabric-like texture. I didn't have any mustard ribbon, so I coloured some pale yellow grosgrain, then ran it firmly through a towel to take out any extra ink. This is a great way to get small amounts of matching grosgrain. I ran it through the towel at least 5 times, basically until no more colour comes off the towel. It's a relatively quick process and less messy than dyeing. And, if you like the colour, and think you'll use it all the time, then you might want to consider dyeing a couple yards.

Bad Stamping Day...

This card, I had high hopes for and I had lots of really inspiring cards in mind, but it just didn't work out completely. I decided to give photo corners a try. I like how those turned out. I really liked LodiChick's idea of flipping the petal print flowers and grouping them, and that worked out alright. I got the photo corners placed, and then I didn't know what to do with the birthday greeting (it had to be a birthday card, by request). So the greeting is there, but it seems like kind of an afterthought. I was also going to put some hodgepodge hardware on here, but then the whole thing dumped on the floor. (Keep in mind I have only used about 2 pieces from this set of hardware, so yeah, over 100 metal embellishments falling onto a berber carpet, not a good time). Amazingly, everything BUT the brads fell out, so it wasn't too much of a pain to pick up. And then, after that was cleaned up, the whole Amazing to Zany set jumped ship. I wasn't even near it, and boy did those pieces scatter! It's crazy, things I've had stacked for weeks are suddenly decided to randomly collapse. Perhaps it is a good thing that I am leaving for work in the next 25 minutes... Anyway, here is the card.

Whimsy Holiday Planner

I was at Dollarama today, it's nice to actually go to a dollar store where everything is actually $1.00. I saw the composition notebooks there, so I picked one up with the intent of covering it. Then I went and bought some gorgeous Paper Salon papers. Their "Dazzle" collection is really fun and whimsical (check it out here: Paper Salon: Dazzle Collection). I thought it'd be great fun to make a holiday planner out of the paper. I covered the notebook with mod podge, slapped on the fitted piece of designer paper, then designed my title in Photoshop Elements. I used the 2 Peas font High Tide, and I screen-captured the paper so I could match the colours. I applied a drop shadow and an inner glow effect to the font. It looks so cool. I really like it when my colour printer works properly! The inside tabs are painted chipboard. Amazingly I had paint that matched the colours quite well, so I didn't even have to experiment with mixing today!. I'm not sure what I want to label the sections as, so I just put in a little piece of the designer paper for now.

A different style

Every once in a while I like to try something that goes beyond my usual style. I borrowed this set from a friend and I wanted to try the aged, collaged style of card with it. I actually pulled out some watercolour paper. I don't know why I was avoiding the stuff, it really doess make painting easier. The focal butterfly was embossed then painted on the watercolour paper. For the sponged background on the white, I tore a rectangular template out of a piece of cardboard. Using that as my mask, I sponged and stamped to my heart's content. I also took out some stress on the chocolate paper. I used my homemade distressing tool, a v cut into a fake plastic credit card, works quite well and gives your nails a break.

Shake it up with Pink!

I've finally made a shaker card that I'm really happy with. These cards always take me at least an hour to make, but they are just so fun! For the shaker frame, I used the On Board Chipboard Accents. The little heart accent with the bow is also chipboard. I painted the frame with pink paint, stamped Paisley over it, then pierced a frame around it. The shaker is filled with microbeads.

Quick and Cheery!

Everyone's been talking about these fabulous Fabriano notecards. I love the look of them, but for now I will just try to replicate the look. (I'm too afraid/too cheap to get dinged with customs and duty charges from U.S. shippers). I recently got a pack of the confetti white cardstock and noticed its watercolour paper like qualities. I wanted to make a quick and simple card that had a watercoloured image front and center, but then I realized, I really don't have that many line-art stamps that work for this simple and elegant style. Most are bold or print-like. So I made do with what I had, and since Bodacious Bouquet was still on the table, I used that. I added in a slight shadow with Sahara Sand to give it a bit more definition. I also distressed all the edges for that cool Fabriano look. The organdy was dyed using positively pink reinker (which is quite similar to Regal Rose, so I'm surprised they didn't coordinate better). A note about dying organdy, it doesn't take the ink nearly as nicely as grosgrain. You need to really move it around (my hands are now a lovely shade of pink). It also doesn't retain the colour as well, but it still looks nice once dyed.