Upcoming Class

Hello all. Is anyone thinking about fall and Halloween yet? I hope you can join me for my Memory Box Halloween class this Sunday, July 31st from 12:30-2:30pm. We will be making five cards using the latest Memory Box "What's in the Box" release. There are new papers, dies, and of course...stamps. Hope to see you there!

Day 7- IO Sneak Peeks

Well, today is the last day of the sneak peeks, and I wanted to show you perhaps the easiest of the cards to make. I often forget about making one-layer cards, but I really like them. They are definitely a great idea if you have to crank out a lot of Christmas cards!

For my card, I stamped the Hannah Davies Angel (H10014) onto a kraft notecard and embossed it with detail black embossing powder. I then colored the image with some Faber-Castell markers. They don't blend as well as my Copic markers, but they also don't bleed to the inside of the card. To finish, I added some pink pearls and a saying from the All I want for Christmas (CL304) clear set.

Want to see more new IO samples? Check out what Deborah, Dina, Julie, and Jeanne, created. Be sure to visit the various blogs since leaving comments on the design team blogs could win you a $25 Impression Obsession gift certificate.

Thanks everyone for spending time on my blog this week and for leaving all the wonderful comments. I hope you had a good time seeing all the new stuff!

Day 6-IO Sneak Peeks

Well, it is almost the end of my week posting Impression Obsession sneak peeks. I hope you have enjoyed it!

For today's card, I used the new Gail Green Martini (D7618) stamp. I love how the olive takes center stage. Personally, I can't get enough olives. Of course, I had to add green and red circles to look like an even bigger olive. To color the martini image, I used watercolor pencils and a blender pen. There is just a slight tint of red to the edges of the martini to make it look festive and to add a bit of color to the glass. To finish the card, I added the Reverse Damask Cover a Card background (CC082) and Cheers (A5500) saying.

Want to see more new IO samples? Check out what Deborah, Dina, Julie, Jeanne, and Jenny created. Be sure to visit the various blogs since leaving comments on the design team blogs could win you a $25 Impression Obsession gift certificate.

Cheers!

Day 5- IO Sneak Peeks

Time to take a break from Christmas cards and show you a little something for Halloween. The cat in the pumpkin stamp is a design by Gary Robertson and is called Cat in the Jack (E1842). I colored the pumpkin with some Faber-Castell markers, cut out the cat/pumpkin, and layered it on top of a circle I cut from cream paper. I edged the circle with a little Scattered Straw Distress Ink just to give it a little dimension. For the background, I stamped the Clouds Cover a card background with black Versafine ink onto grey cardstock to create a night scene. To create the ground, I just added a piece of plain grey paper that I edged with some Pumice Stone Distress Ink. Finally, I added the Purr-fectly Frightful saying (B5479).

Want to see more new IO samples? Check out what Daniela, Deborah, Dina, Jeanne, and Jenny created. Be sure to visit the various blogs since leaving comments on the design team blogs could win you a $25 Impression Obsession gift certificate.

Also, you have a chance to submit your own work for a chance to win another $25 IO gift certificate. Shirley posted all the contest information on the Impression Obsession blog. Good luck!

IO Day 4 and Color Challenge

I thought I would combine a couple of things into one card. First, I wanted to show you more of the new Impression Obsession stamps. Second, I wanted to use this week's color challenge to inspire the color palette of my card. Here are the colors I was supposed to use:

To make the card, I first inked my Cover a Card Swirl Lace stamp (CC086) with the Kaleidacolor Caribbean Sea ink pad. The colors of that pad match the color challenge perfectly! I then spritzed the stamp with some Sparkle Shimmer Spritz and stamped it onto white paper. I then stamped the Snowflake Tree (F8641) onto white paper with black Memento ink and colored it with copic markers. I tried to use both green and blue markers on the tree to make it look like a blue spruce, but the green overpowered the blue. Finally, I added a saying from the All I want for Christmas clear set (CL304). Here is a side view of the card held up to the light so that you can see the Shimmer Sprtiz, the Stickles on the branches, and the rhinestone on the snowflake ornament:

Are you too anxious to see more? How about a link to the new Impression Obsession catalog with all the new images? You can find it here.

Want to see more new IO samples? Check out what Deborah, Dina, Jeanne, Jenny, Julie, and Kathy created. Be sure to visit the various blogs since leaving comments on the design team blogs could win you a $25 Impression Obsession gift certificate.

Also, you have a chance to submit your own work for a chance to win another $25 IO gift certificate. Shirley posted all the contest information on the Impression Obsession blog. Good luck!

Day 3- IO Sneak Peeks

Today I want to show you one of the new Gail Green images. Gail often makes really detailed stamps, so I find that they stamp best with Versafine ink. Also, because there is so much detail, you can add just a smidge of color with Prismacolor pencils or watercolor pencils, and it looks like you did more work than you actually did. Therefore, her images are perfect if you need to crank out a lot of cards in a short amount of time!

For my card today, I used the Snowman with Treats stamp (G7636) along with the Merry Christmas saying (B10011). I colored the image with watercolor pencils and then softened the color with a Dove blender pen. I then layered everything onto some Memory Box dot paper.

Are you too anxious to see more? How about a link to the new Impression Obsession catalog with all the new images? You can find it here.

Want to see more design team samples? Check out what Need some purple inspiration? Check out what Daniela, Deborah, Dina, Jeanne, and Julie created. Be sure to visit the various blogs since leaving comments will enter you to win a $25 IO gift certificate. You can find more information about that on the Impression Obsession blog.

Want to play along? You can find all of the information Impression Obsession blog.

Also, you have a chance to submit your own work for a chance to win another $25 IO gift certificate. On July 21st, Shirley will be posting contest information on the Impression Obsession blog. As a heads up, the theme will be to make a card using only Impression Obsession stamps (in case you want to get started now).

Day 2- IO Sneak Peeks

Welcome to day two of the Impression Obsession sneak peeks. I am not sure that my picture shows some of the sparkle I added to the card, so I added a close-up picture:

Instead of using plain white embossing powder, I mixed some white ep (which really makes the snowflakes pop) with some Iridescent Sparkle ep (which makes the snowflakes sparkle). I also added a ton of rhinestones to the flakes as extra bling.

The snowflake (C10003) is another design by Hannah Davies, and the saying is once again from the All I Want for Christmas clear set (CL304). Isn't that a practical set?

Are you too anxious to see more? How about a link to the new Impression Obsession catalog with all the new images? You can find it here.

Want to see more design team samples? Check out what Need some purple inspiration? Check out what Deborah, Dina, Jeanne, Jenny, and Julie created. Be sure to visit the various blogs since leaving comments will enter you to win a $25 IO gift certificate. You can find more information about that on the Impression Obsession blog.

Want to play along? You can find all of the information Impression Obsession blog.

Also, you have a chance to submit your own work for a chance to win another $25 IO gift certificate. On July 21st, Shirley will be posting contest information on the Impression Obsession blog. As a heads up, the theme will be to make a card using only Impression Obsession stamps (in case you want to get started now).

Impression Obsession Sneak Peek Week

Hello! This is the week of the Craft and Hobby Association conference where companies unveil their latest and greatest products. Impression Obsession has a ton of new images to showcase as well as brand new stamp designers to introduce to you. All this week, the Impression Obsession design team will be posting sneak peeks of the new products. I hope you will stop by often to to take a look!

For my first card, I would like to show you a design by new stamp artist, Hannah Davies. When I saw Hannah's drawings, they instantly spoke to me. I just love their whimsical quality. I chose to use her Reindeer (F10007) image as well as one of the newer Cover a Card backgrounds (Stripes and Dotty Circles, CC094). Finally, I added a saying from the CL304 All I want for Christmas clear set.

One of the things I would like to talk about with my card is trying to get the lines to match up over the various colors. First, I stamped the background onto my kraft notecard. Next, I stamped the background onto a large sheet of red cardstock. I used a larger piece of red paper so that I could cut it down smaller and line it up to what I had stamped onto kraft paper. For the saying, I once again stamped my red paper with the background and punched a circle where I wanted the saying to go on my card. It was a lot of stamp aligning, but I liked the finished look. Here is a close-up of the patterns:


Are you too anxious to see more? How about a link to the new Impression Obsession catalog with all the new images? You can find it here.

Want to see more design team samples? Check out what Daniela, Deborah, Dina, Jeanne, Julie, Kathy, created. Be sure to visit the various blogs since leaving comments will enter you to win a $25 IO gift certificate. You can find more information about that on the Impression Obsession blog.

Also, you have a chance to submit your own work for a chance to win another $25 IO gift certificate. On July 21st, Shirley will be posting contest information on the Impression Obsession blog. As a heads up, the theme will be to make a card using only Impression Obsession stamps (in case you want to get started now).

I hope to see you a lot this week. It should be lots of fun!

Non-Craft Post- Harry Potter

I don't often post non-craft related things, but I had a chance to do something special yesterday, and I thought I would share. Okay, I mainly wanted to show my mom my day. :)

I was lucky enough to win a trip with a local radio station to go to New York and see the US Premiere of Harry Potter. Yeah! The big surprise for me? I had no idea that I could get to NYC by bus in less than four hours. Who knew?

We were escorted to the side of Avery Fisher Hall (Lincoln Center) and were allowed to watch the reporters and interviews. The red carpet made a u-turn, and we actually walked the second half of the red carpet where there weren't any reporters:

Once we were inside, we could see the start of the red-carpet and the fans that had waited to see the celebs. It was nice to have a birds-eye view. Plus, the glass toned down the sound of screaming teenagers:

We found that our seats inside were row 8 on the right-hand side. I was worried about seeing a 3-D movie that close, but it was an awesome vantage point when the actors, director, producers, and screen-writer came out before the show to talk about the films.

I call this one "Yeah Daniel Radcliffe!:"

Another pict of the pre-show talk:

I was probably the most excited about seeing Alan Rickman. Someone recently told me that the actor who plays Neville grew up to be quite good looking. Boy, was she right.

Overall, it was very exiting to see the premiere. The movie has a ton of action, and the crowd was really into cheering and clapping throughout the whole show. So much fun!

Moxie Fab Card Challenge

Today I want to share a card I made for the Moxie Fab Stamp It! challenge. I chose to use a butterfly by Magenta that is definitely one of my favorite stamps. I colored it was an assortment of Copic markers that matched my new Basic Grey Out of Print line of paper. I love, love, love that collection of paper! To finish the card, I added a saying by Impression Obsession and some jewels by Memory Box.

Here is different view of the card so that you can see that it opens differently than the cards I normally make. You can also see from this view that the wings pop up:



If you want to play along with the challenge, you have until midnight on July 13th to enter a card.

Another Color Challenge

I thought I would post the card I made for the latest summer card camp challenge. The interesting thing about this one is that I colored the chilis primarily with the peach and terracotta colors with only an accent of the red. However, they look primarily red to me. I don't know if it is because red is such a dominant color that a little goes a long way or because I added red accent pieces behind the images that may have really brought out the red color. I guess I am just interested in the whole color theory aspect of it! Also, on my monitor at home the darkest green looked really dark, on a different monitor, it looks more emerald to me. Oh well!

For the card, I used the Impression Obsession Chilis (D2213) in black Memento ink and colored them with Copic markers. I then added some paper by My Mind's Eye and the What's Cookin' saying (A5437) from Impression Obsession.

I find that I am really enjoying these color challenges!

Here is a picture of the colors we were supposed to use:

IO Challenge- Hello!

Today the Impression Obsession challenge is all about saying hello. I like hello cards because they allow you a lot of freedom. You can stamp just about anything, add the word hello and it works!

I have had the Beach Bottle (E2415) stamp for a while, but I have never used it. I wanted to make sure that I had a chance to use it before summer was over, so I knew it was going to be the image for my card. I stamped the bottle onto white paper with black Memento ink, colored it with Copic markers, cut it out, and layered it onto my card. I thought that my sand and sky needed a little more interest, so I stamped them both with the Cover a Card Canvas (CC073) and then edged them with Distress inks. Finally, I added a saying from the All Occasion I clear set (CL306).

Here is a close up of the bottle and the canvas background:

Want some ideas for saying hello? Check out what Daniela, Deborah, Dina, Jeanne, Jenny, and Kathy created.

Want to play along? You can find all of the information here, and you could even win a $25 Impression Obsession gift certificate!