Floral Heart

I love the Floral Heart die( DIE054-S) from Impression Obsession. I haven't used it for a while, so I thought I'd dig it out to make a CAS card for the IO challenge.

I cut the card base and the front panel with the die. I put vellum behind the front panel so I could put the die cut piece  back in after colouring it with TH Distress Inks. I sprayed it with Glimmer Spritz, gotta have me some shiny! :) I used the IO All Occasion set (CL307) for the sentiment. I heat embossed that with Liquid Platinum embossing powder. It was my first time using it, and it is really beautiful.
The Impression Obsession challenge can be found here : http://mitrafriant.typepad.com/impression_obsession_news/2014/08/impression-obsession-challenge-clean-simple.html
I am also entering Simon Says Stamps Monday Challenge : Anything Goes
http://www.simonsaysstampblog.com/mondaychallenge/?p=1837

OCC Bonus Day

One of the featured cards on OCC's Bonus Day in Stretch Your Stamps 2, showed mirror stamping. I thought it might be fun to try with an elephant from an old Hero Arts set that has never seen ink! I'm not big into cutesy stamps, but my Niece loves elephants, so since that stamp set has lots of elephants and the stamps are very simple line drawings, I thought it might work well for this technique. VersaFine ink was recommended for this, so that's what I used and it worked!

The elephant on the right is from the original stamp, and the one on the left is the mirror image. The mirror image did stamp lighter, so I went over it with a fine marker in the same colour. So glad it was a simple stamp! ;) My only balloon stamp was a solid image and after stamping the balloons, I decided they also needed to look more like coloured in line drawings. I don't think I did the best job, but I do like it better. So, after making the card, including Diamond Glaze on the balloons and elephants, I made the bad decision to add a sentiment. BIG MISTAKE ! I put it on an angle. *sigh* Lucky for me, my Niece is only six and may not be too critical.

OCC Day 1, Background Stamps

The first day of Stretch Your Stamps 2 was about background stamps. I lurve me some b'ground stamps. I used one of my Impression Obsession's Cover-A-Card stamps. I think their C-A-C stamps are wonderful, and I wish I could own them ALL! Okay, that's just crazy, I could never use that many, but they have the most amazing variety.

This card was inspired by one Kristina Werner did, not that it looks anything like her's, but the b'ground is stamped on watercolor paper and painted. I used my Peerless watercolour paints. I started with two values of a true blue, moved to two values of a turquoise blue and finished with green. The design is heat embossed in silver. I used two circle dies to cut my coloured piece and also cut a hole in my card front. I stamped and heat embossed a Simon Says Stamp stamp on 40lb vellum for the centre. I die cut the SSS 'you' from the leftover circle piece. It had looked really bare ( remember, I am not a big fan of 'white space' or CAS cards), so I cut a strip from the rest of the leftovers and added it to the bottom after I edged the bottom of the card front with a strip of silver embossing. I used Neenah Solar White 110lb cardstock for the base. Where had this been all my life? I can't find it here, so I order it from SSS, and it is SO worth it!

I think I should send this to the member of my dog club who hosted the most amazing barbecue and get- together for us today at her gorgeous hobby farm. The food was wonderful and the desserts were divine! I'm worried that I may have just put the twenty pounds I lost, right back on in one sitting!The scenery at her place,over looking the river, is stunning, and we had two bald eagles putting on quite the aerial display over the adjoining field. My dog got to play with some of her friends, so she had a great day too!

OCC Day 3 Alphabet Stamps

I was feeling a little burnt out, or bored lately so I thought that maybe another Online Card Class would inspire me. The class is Stretch Your Stamps 2 and the purpose is to expand the way you use various types of stamps. Day 3 was about using alphabet stamps.
I thought it would be nice to use some stamps other than my JustRite collection for a change. So for the first card I made inspired by OCC, I used JustRite stamps! LOL! I am a creature of habit!

I used my JR Alphabet stamps to make a white heat embossed background. Those stamps weren't seeing the light enough, and it's such a fun font. The ice-cream cone is also part of a JR stamp set called The Scoop Vintage Labels Four. I used Spectrum Noir pencils to colour it, and then I covered the ice-cream part with a slightly diluted coat of Diamond Glaze to secure the tiny beads. After a short argument with myself, I managed to use a Unity stamp for the sentiment. I used black card stock from Simon Says Stamp. I just got a package in the mail and I love it. It's smooth for stamping and has lovely weight to it. I may have to acquire a few more colours ! I used a shiny textured pink paper down the sides since the pink ice-cream was shiny as well. I've had that paper for at least five years and never used it before! Time to use up some of my paper stash! (Which is going to take forever, considering the size of the pieces that I use!)

JustRite Don't Be So Negative Challenge #126

One would think that after doing something over and over again without the desired result, one would be intelligent enough to give up. Apparently I'm not that smart! I can't seem to resist doing shiny cards for challenges, you know, the ones you just can't get a decent photograph of.
I got the beautiful JR Rose Garden b'ground stamp and finally got around to inking it up. I must be in a strange mood because I inked it up with Versamark and stamped it on black! I covered it with clear embossing powder which made all the black nice and shiny (my favourite word). I used Twinkling H2Os to paint in the flowers and leaves (more shiny). I used an Anna Griffin embossing folder on the front of the card base and sprayed it with Shimmer Spritz, yep, more shiny. I cut "with Sympathy" using a die from Simon Says Stamp. I realized that I have gone completely bonkers when I was crawling around on the floor looking for a minuscule piece of the die cut paper to put back in the letter "t". I discovered that a black Glaze pen could fix the problem. This after I had re-cut the die twice and lost the same piece two more times. *sigh* It's way easier to use the cut piece rather than the negative space when you're dealing with something so detailed. I finally finished the card with a die cut butterfly and a velvet ribbon.

I won't tell you how many pictures I took trying to get one to show all the shine. The Twinks also change colour depending on the angle, in this photo they look more blue, but they are really more pink!

The JustRite challenge is found here: http://justritestampers.typepad.com/justrite-inspiration/2014/07/justrite-friday-challenge-126-dont-be-so-negative.html

Just One of Those Days!

I have dog fur in my glue. I also have it in my inks, my paint, often in my tea and usually all over my clothes. Since I have a primarily white dog, it's best that I don't wear black... oh, and black makes me look like a vampire, but that's a different story.
So living with dog fur has never bothered me, it's a small price to pay for a huge return, until the other day. Now, I only have one dog and my mother's extremely hairy little dog likes to visit me a lot, but I had been looking after a friend's two dogs for two weeks and my parent's two (hairy) dogs for a few days as well. Are you keeping count? That's five. Five fur making machines! Everything was going great, I LOVE having lots of dogs, and my dog is a party girl, so she was having a blast! One day last week they were all partied out, and everyone was napping. I thought it was a great opportunity to make the card I had in mind for the JustRite Don't Be Negative Challenge without having five little helpers. I gathered together some gorgeous Xmas papers, my SB Poinsettia dies and my JR Festive Poinsettia stamp set. I carefully cut my precious, carefully hoarded, Anna Griffin paper with the dies, and planned to stamp in behind the negative space with my JR stamps. I opened the package and the smallest one was MISSING !! I didn't panic at first, I had used that set recently and figured it must still be somewhere on my desk, okay, so maybe it was still stuck to a block... maybe it fell in the top drawer, the middle drawer, the bottom drawer. I looked in a box with dies, one with embossing folders, looked under, over and around my computer. I crawled all around the floor under my desk, which was unusually clean.
Oh God ! NOOOO!!! THE FLOOR IS CLEAN!  PANIC! I had vacuumed not once, but twice since I had used that tiny one inch clear stamp.
I swore that there was no way I was going to go through the Central Vac canister, I didn't know when it was emptied last. But, I NEEDED that stamp, and it would take too long to get another set, so I asked my husband for help.
There was enough dog fur in that canister to make Cruella deVil orgasmic. It had the opposite effect on us! We took it out on the back deck and started going through it, handful by handful. Dust and fur flying everywhere. Then the phone rings. It's my friends, they are back a day early and are on their way to pick up their dogs. I had to leave my poor husband to go through the mess on his own while I rounded up the dog's stuff.
He never found that stamp, but I did. It was in the drawer where I keep my inks, still attached to a small acrylic block that fitted itself just perfectly between the stacked Distress Ink.
I never did make that card. I thought it best that that stamp stay lost for a while. There are some things that you should keep from your partner, you know, for their own good.

Okay, so here's what happened instead ! I still used the same basic idea, but only used the largest die and matching stamp. The sentiment is from the same Festive Poinsettia JR set. The paper is by Authentique. I cut and stamped on the same paper as the front panel, but coloured it green with Peeled paint Distress ink for the leaves. I used the back side of the paper (which was already red) for the flower.

I outlined the die cut negative spaces with a gold Krylon pen and the front panel is raised up with foam tape.
I'm so glad I found my missing stamp, this has got to be my favourite Xmas stamp set ever! I do think the original card would have been better, but I'll save that for another time. ;-D
The JustRite challenge is found here: http://justritestampers.typepad.com/justrite-inspiration/2014/07/justrite-friday-challenge-126-dont-be-so-negative.html

IO Nautical Challenge

I can't believe I almost missed this challenge. It's because of the nautical stamps that I fell in love with Impression Obsession. Seeing that I was running out of time, I thought I better keep it simple and then I went crazy with the IO Shells C-A-C background stamp (CC122). I used VersaMark and Ranger's Pale Gold Embossing Pearl first on white card stock. I then used a few Distress inks to rub over it, and then I sprayed Shimmer Spritz on it. When it dryed I covered it in Vesamark again, and heat embossed it with Utee. There is no way I can capture the depth of shimmer and shine on this paper. IRL it is AMAZING ! I cut a double frame with Spellbinders Labels Thirty-Five. I used a sparkly card stock and a shimmery card stock from DCWV. I used IO's Seashell dies (DIE077-W) to cut out the shells from the sparkly cardstock. The whole thing is mounted on a five inch Neenah 110lb top-folded card base.

Here's the challenge : http://mitrafriant.typepad.com/impression_obsession_news/2014/07/new-impression-obsession-challenge-nauticalbeach.html