Carrie Shimmers

My friend Joan is hostessing today's Technique challenge on Splitcoaststampers.  Her challenge is to do heat embossing on dry embossing.  Joan explains it like this:

1. Dry emboss your cardstock with an embossing folder.
2. Run an embossing buddy over the dry embossed cardstock before applying the ink.
3. Ink up your brayer with Versamark and run it across the raised area of the dry embossed cardstock using a real soft touch...you only want the ink on the raised part.
4. Apply the embossing powder, shake off the excess, remove stray embossing powder with a small brush, and emboss with a heat tool.

This image is Carrie by Rubbernecker (SKU #494-05). I colored her with my Copic markers. I used my large polkadot embossing folder and heat embossed the dots with Stampin' Up's Iridescent Ice embossing powder.  I used my smaller polkadot embossing folder for the turquoise half circles. The brads in the corners are chocolate brown.

 I've taken two pictures here as the first picture with the lower light shows the shimmer of the Iridescent Ice better.

This second photo shows the true white and coloring of the card but, as you can see, the shimmer doesn't shine quite as well as it does with the lower light. 



The sketch design is an older one from SCS (SC175) that I thought was pretty cool the first time I saw and used it a few years ago on this card. 

Thanks for stopping by.  I hope you like what I had to share today!

Mass Thank You Cards

I need a bunch of thank-you cards, so I made several of these this evening. The first card I made is the one laying flat. I like it, but I think the addition of the striped baja breeze dp to the rest of the cards is much prettier.

I dropped Baja Breeze and Certainly Celery inks onto a Cut N Dry felt pad to stamp my images. This method works great when you have several cards you need to make and you want more than one color on your image.

The flower vase was made with Stampin' Up's decorative ornament punch.  The Weed images in the vase are by Rubbernecker (SKU #497-02 and #497-07).  The sentiment is also by Rubbernecker (SKU 04-06KK) and was stamped in Soft Suede.  The border punch is Doily Lace by Martha Stewart.  The designer paper is Stampin' Up's Elegant Soiree.

Okay....I gotta get busy writing and addressing my thank-you notes.  Have a great evening!

Warm Fuzzy Grass for Ralph

Meet Ralph.  Ralph is an old geezer available from Rubbernecker in their Old Characters line (SKU #78-05).  I had a lot of fun coloring Ralph's outlandish outfit with a watercolor brush and reinkers (Riding Hood Red, Elegant Eggplant, Soft Suede), and his hair, skin, and golf clubs with Copic markers.  I paper pieced his golf bag.

Lydia's Free for All challenge on SCS today is to make a warm, fuzzy card by using a warm color and something that resembles fuzzy in our design. 

Summer makes me think of walking barefoot in the fuzzy wuzzy green grass, and green, therefore, is a warm color to me, as is red. I started coloring this image on Tuesday for Betty's color challenge, but I never got back to it, so I'm combining Betty's and Lydia's challenges. Betty's colors were Elegant Eggplant, Riding Hood Red, and Soft Suede.

I got the idea to color my white Fun Flock with Garden Green (SU) and Lettuce (Adirondack) reinkers for the grass around Ralph's feet. At first, the Fun Flock and reinkers resisted blending with one another as the reinkers just balled up and rolled off the Fun Flock. However, I used a popsicle stick to stir up the ink and Fun Flock together and they finally got the message that I wasn't giving up! The two different colors of ink helped to provide shading of the grass.

My camera is giving me fits with not focusing properly when I try to take close-up shots; otherwise I would've provided a close up of how cool the grass looks.

I'm leaving off a sentiment for now until I decide for which occasion I want to use this crd.

Make It All White

I was a little nervous when Frances, our CCEE Stampers January challenge hostess, gave us the challenge to make an all-white card this week.  While I genuinely love the pure elegance and beauty of all-white cards, I've never attempted to make one myself.  After I gave it some thought, I decided to approach it from the perspective of making mine with a lot of texture and dimension.

I remembered that I had purchased some embossing paste and stencils several years ago, but I've never really used them.  I figured the white embossing paste would be the perfect choice for my design.  Embossing paste typically takes a good 24 hours to dry, so after I applied the paste to my stencil, I carefully removed the stencil and then applied dazzling diamonds to make the Let It Snow sentiment and snowflakes sparkle.  After this panel dried for 24 hours, I then lightly spritzed it with Stampin' Up shimmer mist for added sparkle.  I then created a border frame, adding these small punched flowers (I figured they also kind of looked like snowflakes) to the frame and adhering the main image panel to this frame with dimensionals.  I ran a 5 x 5 piece of white cardstock through my Big Shot with the dotted swiss embossing folder and then punched the border with my MS punch-around-the-page punch.  I adhered three white pearls to the top and very tiny white pearls to the four flowers on each of the corners.

All in all, I was pretty pleased with my first attempt at an all-white card.  I'd be interested in hearing if you've ever made all-white cards and any creative thoughts you have for making them, too.

If you'd like to see the magnificent beauties my friends, Shirley, Joanne, Tosha, Cindy, and Frances, made or play along with us, visit our CCEE Stampers blog.

Teapotters Come to My Retirement Party!

My husband threw me a fabulous retirement party, which also happened to be my birthday, this past Saturday, and the Teapot Tuesday teapotters came to help celebrate!  Well, one did in actuality and the rest in spirit with this fabulous box decorated with photos of teapots they selected and signed and filled to the brim with their fabulous cards!

Above we have Mothermark, aka da Mudder, (penguin), 101Airborne (radio); jdmommy (red teapot, of course!); artystamper (frog teapot); Cook22 (Eeyore/Tigger); patsmethers (pink roses)

On this side of the box above is Mutnik (Curt the Cow); Celisa (artsy middle teapot); Vickydee (brought real silver!)

Next up above is flowergal36 (penguins); hobbydujour (upper right); zgirlsgranny (this beautiful pink flower with teal and white teapot is a very special teapot that belonged to her mother); AuntieSusan (next one down to the right); Friel (grapes and pears teapot); cmsuto (kitty cats).

On the fourth side above is Yo Sam (Charlie Brown and Snoopy); RJP111 (Christmas floral); morningsun47 (brown teapot)

On the top of the box is Broom (copper teapot); pidgesmom (floral pink teapot); and salinelynn (red teapot)

The teapotters were given an m&m theme for my cards.  Here's an aerial view of all the retirement/birthday cards that were inside...

If you want to see them individually, you can go to Splitcoaststampers and do a keyword search on MMS4BERTIE.  It's awesome how clever and creative these ladies are! 

I was so touched by their thoughtfulness; it made me cry!  I have a video clip of my friend Lynn (fellow teapotter salinelynn aka Tenacious Tillie, when she gets a chance out of her hectic schedule to play), presenting me with the box, if you have a few minutes to check it out. 

Also, Lynn made two of these gorgeous floral creations that we had on display at the party:

It was a terrific retirement party!!

Time 2 Stamp & Penguin Awareness Day

Did you know that today is Penguin Awareness Day?  I must admit that I didn't, and I'm a penguin lover, too!   However, Frances (StampOwl), who is our January CCEE Stampers challenge hostess, knows that is is and chose to use penguins as our CCEE challenge this week in honor of my birthday and my love for penguins.  Thank you, Frances! 
 

I have been wanting a penguin-themed clock for my stamp room, but just haven't gotten around to trying to find one (yes, I can be so lazy at times--hee!) so, for now, I decided to make my own clock where the time is always TIME 2 STAMP!!! 
 

My stamp room walls are very close to the color of Baja Breeze (that's the wall backing my clock in my photo); therefore, that's the color I chose to work into my design. This cute little penguin image is from Denami Design.  I used a piece of grid paper, a ruler, and stamp-a-ma-jig to line up my stamped image at the 12:00, 3:00, 6:00, and 9:00 time slots.  I colored his hat with the Stampin' Up Baja Breeze marker and his body and beak with Copic markers.  I used Fun Flock on the balls of their hats.

I also love polkadots, so I dry embossed the Baja Breeze circular cardstock with my large polkadot embossing folder. The words "Time" and "Stamp" were cut at 1/2" height from my Cricut using the alphabet from my Life's a Beach cartridge. I also cut the numbers for the time from this same cartridge at the same height.  I pierced the seconds between each number.

The clock measures 7" overall. I used the largest setting on my old Creative Memories circle cutter to cut my white piece. I then traced a dessert plate onto black cardstock and VERY SLOWLY cut it so that, hopefully, it wouldn't appear that it was hand cut so I could use that for the outer section of the clock.  I used the Stampin' Up arrow punch for the hands of my clock.  I adhered the hands to the back of a 3/4" brushed gold circle.  I used this darling penguin brad that my friend, Joanne, sent me for the very center on the gold cardstock.  This gold center is popped up with a pop-up glue dot.

This design is now hanging on my stamp room wall where it is always TIME 2 STAMP!

If you'd like to play along with us and see the designs my friends Tosha, Joanne, Shirley, Frances, and Cindy made, please visit our CCEE blog.  We'd love to see what you come up with!

An Unusual Pick a Petal Bloom

Hi!  Just a quick post for now. 

Recognize this image?  It's from Stampin' Up's Pick a Petal that I haven't used in forever.  I used my stamp-a-ma-jig to line up and stamp the black outer lines first and then I stamped the solid image in Cherry Cobbler.  The stem and leaves are from Rubbernecker (Weeds #497-15) stamped in Old Olive.  After I stamped my images, I used a blender pen dipped in the respective inks to add shading to my images.  The sketch design is one Roxie posted on Splitcoaststampers today.  The polkadotted designer paper is from an old set called Bella Rose by Stampin' Up.

Thanks for stopping by my blog today. 

Let's Go Wild!

It's time for another CCEE challenge! This week Let's Go Wild! We are creating wild cards ... as in shape.

If you aren't sure what a wild card is .... basically it is an odd shape. Instead of having parallel sides you will have sides that are on an angle.

I came across this cool trifold angle card on the lavenderthoughts blog and wanted to give it a try for my card today.  They have a pdf file that you can download to get all the measurements.

I watercolored my Rubbernecker (RN)coffee images with Stampin' Up's Crumb Cake, Soft Suede, Cherry Cobbler, and Espresso inks.  The coffee beans on the right margin are actually from a RN coffee bean background stamp; I just used a portion of it for my design today.  The sentiment reads:  "Friends like you are like a great cup of coffee; never too strong and just in time!"

Here are a couple close-up photos that I took this evening when I realized that my photo taken early in the day (natural light) doesn't quite show all the detail with the scalloped piercing.  I left the center panel blank so I can write my message there.

If you would like to play along all you have to do is create a card using the above challenge, and upload it to your blog and/or to your SCS Gallery using the keyword CCEE1102.  You can also see the designs my CCEE team mates---Cindy, Joanne, Frances, Tosha, and Shirley made on our CCEE blog.


Stamps:  Rubbernecker Coffee Bean Background #201-01; Coffeetime Set #458; Coffee Time Inchies #424
Cardstock:  Chocolate Chip, Cherry Cobbler, Whisper White, Chocolate Chip dp
Ink:  Espresso, Crumb Cake, Soft Suede, Cherry Cobbler, Memento Black
Accessories:  Stampin' Up scallop border punch; Stitch, Doodle, Dot template; dimensionals; watercolor brush; ScorPal, Stamp-a-ma-jig; chocolate brad; Bazzill paper flower;Tim Holtz Sonic exacto.

Gold Stemmed Rose

It always saddens me to learn about others who are so young and dealing with serious cancer.  Such is the case for Katie, a fellow stamper, who is a young mom with Stage 4 cancer.  Cindy Motherway has chosen Katie for our Teapot Tuesday Destination Station this week.  You can get more details by clicking on that link.  Perhaps you'd even like to participate and send Katie a card.

Cindy's inspiration teapot is one with beautiful roses on it with gold threaded throughout.  Here's how I was inspired.

I used Stampin Up's Floral Fusion Sizzlit for my rose, separating the layers with dimensionals and centering it with a white circle punch from the double circle punch.  The flower stem consists of gold flower brads.  The certainly celery leaves were made with my Cricut and the smaller garden green leaves are from the In Full Bloom set.  I already had this brilliant blue deckled frame in my stash.  I used the Polkadot background stamp for my white card base.  You can see it in the photo, but I embossed the white panel with a Diamond & Stars Impressability.  I'm not getting a good impression with them with either my Cuttlebug or my Big Shot even when I add shims.  If anyone has used these and knows how to get a good impression with them, I'd appreciate your telling me how you do.

When You Wish

When you wish upon a star....
Makes no difference who you are!

The featured stamper star on SCS today is UKJem, aka Julie.  Julie has such a beautiful style with all of her designs.  I chose to case her beautiful Almost Amethyst card. 

Here's the inspiration I took from her card to make my own:

Here's a close up of the paper tole I did on the Rubbernecker wild flower (#496-06) image.  This flower is actually only one bloom from the larger stamp image.  I colored it with a marker, stamped it onto white cardstock three times, cut them out, layered with thin dimensionals.  The sentiment is also by Rubbernecker called Wishing Upon a Star text (#88-05).

Other supplies I used are Beaded Circle Nestability for my card frame, Octagon Nestability for the sentiment panel, leaf punch, Stampin' Up large star punch, pink gems, dimensionals, Pretty i Pink and Regal Rose inks by Stampin' Up.

I used SU's white cardstock, sponging it lightly in Pretty in Pink and then sponging with Regal Rose on the outer edges.  I used the large star punch as a mask to sponge over my sentiment.

I hope you're having a star quality day, and I thank you for stopping by and visiting me!

Life is Good!

My first week of retirement has been fabulous!  I've been busy each day and actually cannot believe how fast the day fills up with all the things I want to do!  I've met friends for lunch, had appointments, taken walks, stamped, reconnected with Facebook, feel like I'm almost on top of things with daily life at the house.....it's wonderful.  I count my blessings that I have been able to retire at such a young age while my health is good and I can enjoy it.

I took some time to participate in the Free for All challenge on SCS this evening.  Jeanne challenged everyone to make a card using purple (ooooo-weeeee!  my favorite color) and pink, as well as a heart(s) in our design.  This card was simple and quick to make.

The stamp is from Stampin' Up's Punch Potpourri set.  I colored the wild flowers with Stampin' Up reinkers and blender pen in Lavender Lace and Mellow Moss and sponged the background with Pretty in Pink and the edges with Regal Rose.  I then used my SU heart punch to punch it out.  I used the SU trio heart punch for my little pink hearts border.  This luscious, deep, rich, and GAW-jus purple cardstock is Bazzill.  The designer paper is unknown as I've had these pieces in my stash for quite some time and the name of the manufacturer is not on the back (sorry).  The top border was done with my SU scallop border punch.

They're Baaaaack!

The CCEE Stampers are back in full swing for the new year, and Frances Byrne is the January challenge hostess.  For this first Thursday in January 2011, Frances challenged the team members (and you) to create a card/project with checks in our design.   If you'd like to play along with us, you need to include checks of some type on your card .... be it a stamp which a check design; designer paper; embossing folder, ribbon etc. 

For my card, I used some pretty purple checked designer paper I found in my stash.  I also used it on my clear buttons so I could have a matching design on those.

I painted my Rubbernecker daisy images with Stickles, which happened to be a technique challenge issued by Joan Ervin on Splitcoaststampers (SCS) this week.  I've included the link in case you'd like to check out Joan's tutorial on how to do this.  I apologize for the poor photograph, but I find trying to capture the pretty dazzle in anything with sparkle to it difficult to do.  I used Ranger's Lavender and Turquoise Stickles to paint my daisies. 

I used this week's SCS sketch challenge by Roxie for my layout.

Please swing by our CCEE Stampers blog and take a moment to gaze upon the fabulous creations of my team mates:  Joanne, Frances, Shirley, Cindy, and Tosh.

By the way, it is day #4 of my retirement, and I am so happy and thankful that I didn't have to drive to work since our roads are snow covered and slippery this morning!  

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

From Fairies to Cowboys

Okay, it's only day two of retirement, and I can't believe how busy I've been, but it's been a fun busy.  I think I'm really gonna get into the groove of retirement!

On Sunday, I had a chance to make a card in honor of the Queen for the Day, 101Airborne (Kathy), at Splitcoaststampers.  Kathy is very supportive and encouraging to other stampers, and she has a fabulous gallery.  I cased her beautiful fairy card.

This is a Lizzie Anne Singles stamp.  Using Memento Black ink, I stamped the image onto watercolor paper.   I watercolored the image with Stampin' Up reinkers and watercolor brush.  You can achieve the shading by using a drier brush than when you first apply the ink with the wet brush.  I added Martha Stewart Smoky Quartz glitter to the fairy's wings and Crystal Effects to her crown and the star on her wand.  This is the Classic Diamond Nestability.  The designer paper is from Stampin' Up.

Okay, so as the title of my post indicates, I'm going from a pretty little fairy to a handsome little cowboy for my next card.  If you are a follower of my blog, you've probably figured out how I love to participate in Mothermark's Teapot Tuesday challenges.  Not only do we have a lot of fun comraderie among the stampers who participate in the challenge, I like the fact that Mothermark always has a Teapot Destination to where we mail our cards, which is purely optional. 

This week, our cards are going to another stamper, Jamie, whose firstborn (a boy), is due any day.  She is the daughter-in-law of Pat Smethers, who is a fabulous stamper, and is so excited about being a grandma!!!

You can check out the inspiration teapots in the Teapot Tuesday forum.   I used this adorable Cowboy image from Rubbernecker.  Rubbernecker currently has an End of Year Inventory sale going on, too!

Isn't this widdo buckaroo adorable?  I colored him and the fence with Copic markers.  I sponged the sky with Bashful Blue and Buckaroo Blue, using my cloud template.  I sponged Barely Banana closer to the ground; and sponged Certainly Celery and Old Olive on the ground.  I watercolored Old Olive and Always Artichoke on the grass sprigs, adding shading, as well.  The faux stitching was done with a Stitch, Doodle, Dot template my friend, Joanne, sent to me (thanks, JoJo!)

Well, that's about it for now.  Thanks for swinging by!