Thursday, February 28, 2008

Sorry

Sorry it has been so long since my last post. I swear I haven't forgotten about my blog. Last week was hectic, and this week I am sick. I promise I will craft soon and show you my projects. I also have some upcoming classes including an encore of my faux batik class, a floral Twinkling H20 class, a clear card class, and a Copic marker class. Stay tuned! I will return when I'm not hacking up a lung. My mom says I have a flair for the dramatic. I wonder why?

Sunday, February 17, 2008

Guest Artist

You didn't think I would only post my cards, did you? I thought it would be fun to post a couple of cards from one of my friends (with her permission of course). For today's post, I am sharing some cards made by my friend Mahnaaz. She and I got together recently to "play craft room," and she wanted to try out some of my new Impression Obsession images.

The first card is one of the new Leigh Hannan designs. The owl image was colored with Twinkling H20s and the stars were coated with a Startdust pen to make them sparkle. Once again, the picture doesn't pick up on the shimmer. A purple gel pen added color to the vines, and a blue Souffle pen added color to the owl's eyes.


The second card has three hearts stamped in black ink onto pink cardstock. They were cut out and popped up over pieces of ribbon. Thanks Mahnaaz for the inspiration!

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Happy Valentine's Day

I am posting this again now that Blogger is working for me. You can now click on the photos for a closer look.

Today's post is in honor of one of my friends who always seems to go overboard with her Christmas cards. She makes over 100 each year and it ends up being an annual December headache. I keep telling her that my cards dif
fer a lot depending on how many I need to send. A card made for a special individual differs greatly from ones that need to be mass produced.

With that in mind, I am posting three cards today that share a common theme (Impression Obsession heart stamped with Versafine Crimson Red onto white cardstock.) However, they differ a lot in terms of how much time it took to make each card.



The first card is the simplest and would be perfect to send to a lot of people. It is a monochromatic card with only two images and an ink pad. There are no extra layers or embellishments. Embellishments are an important thing to consider when mass producing cards. Not only do they take time to add to your card, but they can considerably add to the cost of your cards. Speaking of cost, I chose a standard size card because it won't cost any extra to mail. 100 cards cost enough to mail without having to pay extra for a square card.

The ornate heart by Leigh Hannan is a great choice for this card because it is detailed enough to add interest without having to do anything extra such as chalking, coloring, etc. When making quick cards, I often pick detailed stamps or collage images that don't require any extra work.

The second card would be great to send to 20 or less people. It is one of the cards I used in my 10 in 10 Valentine's Day class. It has an extra layer of cardstock as well as a 3-D banner on top of the heart. The banner really didn't take that long to make. I stamped my saying onto a white cardstock strip and clipped the edges to look like a bow. I then added a red strip and once again clipped the edges. I tried to take a picture of the card so that you could see the card was 3-D. It was hard to capture the shadows of the banner, so I took a close up shot of the banner edges.

The final card is one that I would make for one or MAYBE two people. It is in honor of my students who said, "you colored in the heart?!" Yes, I really did. It didn't take as long as I thought it would. I used my Copic markers which tend to spread out as they color. I was able to dot a little color here and there to fill in the hearts and leaves without having to outline and fill in each object. I also touched each of the dots in the image with a Stardust pen. It was a nice finishing touch to make the card sparkly. Again, I added a close up to show the stamp details and glitter.

My advice with a card that takes a long time to make, whether through coloring, cutting or embellishing, is to give it to someone who will truly appreciate it. That person is usually another stamper or your mom.

Friday, February 8, 2008

Another Prima Paintable


I meant to post this card a while back, but it has been MIA since December. I am glad I found it for two reasons:

1. A fellow co-worker/friend kept reminding (nagging) me to bring the card into Angela's as a sample (you know who you are).

2. It wouldn't make sense to post this card in June. Although, come to think of it, it was 70 degrees yesterday, so it really doesn't feel like February anyway.

For today's card, I used the snowflake Prima Paintables paper and a selection of Twinkling H2O paints. I started by brushing water all over the paper with a foam brush. I then created a wash to brush over the paper using a lot of water and a smidge of Twinkling H20 paint. The Paintables paper is great because the patterns are printed on watercolor paper, and you don't have to worry about your paper warping.

I let the paper dry and then painted more Twinkling H2Os on top. I used a higher concentration of paint to color the snowflakes, so you can really see the shimmer of the paint. I finished by adding a rhinestone, some glitter glue, and some Stardust pen. I apologize that my picture of the card really stinks. It is hard to get a feel of the sparkly quality of the card from the picture. I hope the close up shows it a little better.

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

So much to say

Once again, pardon me for my long post.

I originally thought my blog would focus only around my craft projects. I quickly found out that life isn't so easy to separate into easily definable segments. I have also discovered that all kinds of people are visiting my blog. There are the people who stumble upon it for various reasons and will never return, craft people who want to see my cards, and friends and family who want to hear about me. For my post today, I thought I would start with the crafting before blabbing on and on about myself. Feel free to tune out at any point.

I love this stick figure from Wordsworth (Now owned by Rubber Soul). I just feel like there is a happiness about the image that makes me smile. To color the background, I rubbed a Venetian Sunrise Fresco pad over the surface. Hardly anyone I know uses Fresco pads, but I love them. They give the appearance of chalk without having to seal the surface when you are done. They aren't "juicy" like other pads, so maybe people feel like they are too dry to use. I do recommend getting a reinker if you buy a Fresco pad. I tend to use the pads a lot for direct-to-surface and therefore need to frequently reink them. I added the dancing figure and AMuse saying with my Giovanni's Garden Fresco ink and finished the card with some strips of paper.

Okay, back to me. My friend Amy and I recently went into DC for an odd reason. We wanted to see the Stephen Colbert portrait hanging in the National Portrait Gallery. For those of you who aren't familiar with the story, Stephen Colbert had a segment on his Comedy Central show where he tried to get the Smithsonian to accept his portrait as it is "a national treasure." The National Portrait Gallery agreed to hang it for six weeks.....outside the bathroom and above the water fountains. Of course we had to see it! We were surprised be the number of other people who had the same idea. Who knew?


I am embarrassed to say it took a comedy bit to get me to the National Portrait Gallery for the first time, but I am so glad I went. It is a GORGEOUS building! I am including a picture of a hallway I liked as well as the enclosed courtyard where we had lunch. We even got to see the Katherine Hepburn exhibit that included her four Oscars. Fantastic!

Sunday, February 3, 2008

Valentini

At the risk of posting two "drinking" cards in a row, I decided to share another card from my first Virtual Stamp Night. The challenge was to create a card with an unusual closure. For this card, I punched out two hearts and mounted them so that they were perched on foam tape with one heart holding down some brown cording. I then wrapped the cording around the hearts like a mail enclosure.

In the first photo, you can see that the "Valentini" by Impresion Obsession was stamped onto white cardstock using black Adirondack ink. I then colored the image with Copic markers and cut around the martini. I finished the martini by cutting it out and gluing it onto some red patterned paper from Memory Box. I also added a little Diamond Glaze so that the glass looks shiny. If you do this to a card, give it a LOT of time to dry!


The second photo shows what the card looks like as it is opening. You can tell from this photo that I didn't use a typical card layout. Instead, I cut the patterned paper and scored it along the left hand side. I only glued the thin scored part to the underlaying card. That created a front flap for the card. I attached a heart to either side of the red patterned paper and then closed the card with the brown cord.

The final picture shows the inside of the card. The saying is also by Impression Obsession and was stamped with VersaFine Crimson Red. I just love that color. I promise my next card posting will not have any alcoholic drinks on it! Well, maybe...

Friday, February 1, 2008

St. Pat's and Copic Markers

For today's card, I am posting an image I received from Impression Obsession. I stamped the margarita glass with Adirondack Pitch Black ink onto white cardstock. It is important to let the ink dry completely or to heat it with a heat gun before you color your image with markers. I then colored the St. Patrick's Day glass with various shades of Copic Markers. I really like the Ciao version of the Copics because it has a wonderful brush tip at one end. I outlined the outside of the glass with Cool Grey #1. This is probably my favorite color in that I use it in almost every card for shading. I finished the card with some gold gel pen for the pot of gold and a clear gel pen to cover the liquid in the glass. I thought it gave it a nice finished look, but it is hard to see it in my photo.

I picked up some fun St. Partick's Day ribbon at Angela's, but it was too stark white to put on a white card. I decided to try coloring it with the same green Copic marker I used to color my margarita. It worked wonderfully! The marker didn't cover up the shamrocks of the ribbon, it didn't come off when I touched it with my fingers, and it matched my image perfectly. I really am in love with my Copics! I don't know if the Copic markers will work with all ribbons, but it is sure worth a try. I attached a picture of my finished card as well as a close up of the ribbon before I had colored it.