CHIPBOARD ON CARDS

Using chipboard is not a specialty of mine. I keep forgetting I even have it and trust me I have a lot! When I do remember it I never quite know what to do with it.

Diane included some chipboard pieces in the Fall Craft Kit she put together for the FLYbaby Stampers on SCS and so I decided I needed to use at least those pieces. I needed a get well card and it is fall so I used the kit to come up with this card. I'm ot sure the butons add anything but they are there and stuck well so there they will stay. I don't think embelishements are my forte. I may just leave that aspecyt of card making to my buddy Lee. She does such a great job with embellies of all kinds. If you have never been to here BLOG to see the wonderul work she does you must go there. It's called My Reality....It's All Good! And it is!!!!!!!

I colored the chipboard with my copic markers. They work well for dark colors not for lighter ones. The leaf is a sticker. Normally I don't use stickers on cards but this one worked well and shows up nicely.


I do like the sentiment that I put on the front of the card. Its from SU's set Nice and Easy Notes which is a favorite of mine and of course is retired. I seem to be in a gold embossing mood lately. I've been using it on a lot of cards. Maybe it is the fall maybe it is getting ready for the holidays which are rapidly approaching I don't know, but it is showing up on a lot of my cards.

Well thats it for today. Not sure how much stamping I will be getting done in the next few days. I need to spend some more time sewing for the craft fair I am part of next weekend. I will try and split my time between sewing and stamping this weekend.

See you later. Thanks for stopping by.

JOURNAL FUN

Its getting to be that time of year again: craft shows and gift giving. So now is when I start looking for new ideas for gifts as well as items than might sell and redo items I have done in the past that have been popular and that I like to make.

Altered composition books are one of my favorite gift items to do and people seem to like them. So I made a few this weekend. Especially popular are prayer and gratitude journals so those are what I started with. I also like doing quilt journals and I will work on designs for some of them after I've been to the post office tomorrow morning.

Why the post office you might ask????? Because I have some new stamps waiting there for me. And they are quilty stamps! I've been eagerly waiting for these stamp sets from PaperTrey. They are Quilter's Sampler, Quilter's Sampler Additions, and Quilter's Sampler Sentiments. These are going to be so much fun to use!

Until these here are two of the altered books I have designed so far. It doesn't show up well in this photo of my gratitude journal, but I followed the advice of Susan and altered the black brad that is in the center of the flower in the top left corner of the journal. I used a white rub on flower and put a tiny rhinestone in the middle. Then I coated it all with clear nail polish. It took me three tries and three rub ons but I finally got it right! It is cute. For more detailed information on how to do this check out here fabulous and informative web site Paper Craft Central. Thanks Susan for the wonderful idea and instructions.

NO STAMPING OR PAPER BUT OTHER FUN!

No one has ever accused me of being a single minded crafter. There are only a few crafts I have never tried and even fewer that I have tried that I didn't like. There are ones I can't afford such as needle point on hand painted canvases, but that's a whole different reason for not doing something.

So what have I been up to lately besides stamping, paper crafts, and quilting. Well, at the last quilt show I attended I decided it was time I taught myself how to knit socks. I've been knitting since I was knee high to a grasshopper. Having a very English grandmother I suppose it was only natural that I would learn to knit at a young age. My mother also is an avid knitter so the stage was set. I've done scarves and an afghan or two in my time and even a few sweaters including a very challenging fisherman knit sweater full of cables and popcorn stitches. I loved that sweater even if it turned out a bit larger than I wanted it to. Socks however were something I never took on. The heel scared the dickens out of me. Then our church administrative assistant started knitting socks and I fell in love with what she was doing. It took me 2 years to get up the courage, but in September I bought the needles, yarn and pattern and set out. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, though I have to credit You Tube instructional videos I found with getting me through the turning the heel part of the sock. I know have one done and am on my way with the second of the pair. My main concern now is that the two end up being at least close to the same size........

I think that what I really love about knitting socks is getting to use all the wonderful washable wool sock yarn that there is to choose from. Its so pretty. I already have the yarn for a second pair.

What else have I been doing????? Yesterday I appliqued the aprons for the winners of tonight's Chili and Dessert Cook off at church. It is an annual fund raising event put on by our churches youth group. I think I've made the aprons for the winners for about 10 years now. Every year I also enter a dessert into the competition, but have I ever won.....of course not. Do I care...not really. Usually it's one of the youth group kids that wins the apron. We all think the kids stuff the voting boxes........this year I went with an easy entry. Simply a chocolate sheet cake with yummy chocolate frosting covered with crushed toffee pieces. Not fancy, but it sure smelled good baking!

So that's what I have been up to that is not paper or quilt related. This next week I will be busy preparing items to be sold in our second annual church Fall Arts and Crafts Festival. I have less than 2 weeks to get ready............So you know where I will be if I don't show up here for a while, but I hope to make it by so do stop back and see whats up!

BIRTHDAYS ARE FUN!

There are a lucky group of stampers that were able to spend a week on a cruise with Gina of Gina K, Nichole of PaperTrey and I forget who else. It is something I would have loved to be a part of but well the timing just was all wrong and for a variety of reasons I could only dream about it. But there was some land fun last Wednesday evening when the land lubbers who also love Gina K stamps got together on SCS for a land cruise. There was lots of chatter, questions to answer in hopes of winning a prize and fun card challenges.

I only had time to do one challenge. I had to use chipboard on a card. Now I have LOTS of chipboard and I rarely use it because I can't figure out what to do with it so this was a real challenge for me. I was not very happy with my first attempt. I seemed to be forcing the issue. This is what I came up with. ITs okay, but nothing special. I colored the chip board scalloped ciecle using my copic markers. Since I was using yellows and oranges it took quite a few coats of color. I did have fun uing lots of my punches.

My second attempt made me mch happier. Maybe mainly becasue it is a lighter brighter card. For this one I covered a chipboard circle with designer paper. I wish I could remember the name of the Designer Paper but I don't. All I can tell you is that is is retired and it is from SU. Also it was one of their christmas packs. This is the chard that I uploaded for the challenge. It also uses a Gina K stamp set. The set is How Sweet It Is which is one of her stamps for a cause sets. These are specific sets that provide from their sale a donation to a specific charity. This set benefits The American Diabetes Association and the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation. $7.00 of every set sold is divided evenly between these two organzations.

So thats it for today. Tomorrow will be venturing away from stamping to show some things I've made or am working on that are projects from other of my crafting loves.

A BREAK FROM CARDS

Back in early September good friend of mine got married. She asked me is I would be willing to make prayer and wish cards to her reception. This was not her first marriage and she knew from earlier experience that guest books never were looked at after the wedding. So instead of a book for guests to sign she wanted cards that they could fill out writing a prayer or wish for the future of the newly weds. I have never been so nervous making something, but when I showed the cards to her she loved them. Here is a picture of them in the basket waiting to be filled out and then hung on a dowel rod tree. Each one was different and I made great use of all my decorative scissors, prisma flowers and rhinestone brads.

They were a great success. People loved them and wrote very endearing sentiments that I am sure will be cherished by the bride and groom for years to come. My next task it to put them all into an album for them. This was my gift to them both.

Next "I have a "band aid" tin that has been altered to hold tiny treasures. Everything used in this project once again came from the Fall SCS Craft Kit. I never know what to do with these tins. They are such an odd shape for keeping or gifting things in (other than band aides that is). This is what I came up with. I will probably find some small goodies, probably chocolates to go into it and it will go into my craft show inventory. I have a show that I am a vendor in coming up on November 8 so the crunch is on to get things made for it. I am hoping I can offer inexpensive yet nice handmade items for sale as gifts for the upcoming Christmas season. With the state of the economy What it is I don't think people will have lots to spend on expensive gifts this year. At least I know I won't. So I will do what I can to provide nice things for them to gift friends and family with. I may try decorating a few of these tins to hold crayons for kids. I think they are tall enough for crayons to fit. We'll see.

Well that's it for today. See you all later and thanks for stopping by.

MORE FALL THEMES

The weather gets more fall like by the day. The trees here in Maryland are showing their colors and some are falling. Soon there will be enough to rake up. The temperatures are cool even when the sun is shining. While this all goes on outside inside I am inspired to work with fall colors and themes on my cards. Fortunately I have wonderful papers and stamp sets to choose form.

The cards I have here today use a current set and a loved retired set. First two cards with scarecrows from the Happy Blessings set. This is a fun set to color. The first card is colored using Copic markers. I can color with them okay, but don't have the blending and shading techniques conquered yet. I try, but everything still looks flat. I do like the vibrant colors they give though. I so need to save my money to get some nestability dies though. Working to get the scalloped rectangle to be the correct size AND have decent looking corners is no fun.

The second scarecrow card is colored using an aquapainter and watercolor crayons. I don't do a perfect job shading with these either but I think I do much better than with Copics. These give a much softer look. I uses a lot more embelishments on this second card. It uses items from the Fall craft kit from my SCS group.

My final fall card for today uses the retired SU set Autumn Fest. I love the leaves in this set. They are so real. I choose to use the oak leaf along wiith a couple of acorns for this card. It also uses papers from the Fall craft kit.

My goal with this card was to capture the look of leaves that are changing color. I was happy with my results. I used several fallish colored craft ink spots. Starting with the lightest color which was a golden yellow (More Mustard I think) and then progressing through to the darkest color which was Bravo Burgandy I dabbed the oak leaf stamp. I stamped it onto Old Olive cardstock and them embossed it all with clear embossing powder. I made several and just like real leaves they all looked different. Oh, I also used Chocolate Chip on the stem part of the leaf. I did the same type of inking and embossing on the acorns, but they were stamped on Creamy Carmel card stock using Chocolate Chip on caps and Close to Cocoa on the bottoms.

The card base is Sahara Sand and I sponged fall colors around the edge that wasn't covered by the striped paper.

Well that's it for today. Thanks for stopping by. Please come again.

I'M BACK FROM MY TRIP

I know I haven't been around here for a while, but with good reason. I've been on a cruise to Canada. What fun!

I do have some projects that I've worked on both on cruise and then today I did make a couple of cards, but haven't had time to photograph them yet. Plus I'm up to my eyeballs in photos from the trip.....I think about 600 of them!!!!!!

I do have this card to share with you all though. I did it before we left on the trip, but never got around to posting it here which I guess was good since it gives me something to write about now.

This is one of the first thing that I've made using the Fall craft kit from the SCS FlyBaby Group. It's a really neat kit and so I look forward to making more with it. The stamp set used was Happy Blessings from Stampin' Up. It's in the Holiday Mini catalog The main image was embossed with a really neat embossing powder I found at a yard sale. It's called Gold Dust. It is much more sparkly than regular gold powder.

Then weather has turned very cool here and the trees are changing color so I am very happy thinking fall and getting ready for Thanksgiving. (I don't do halloween any more since kids have grown up. I like watching the little kid come by and we give out candy, but we don't decorate.) I love pumkins and fall leaves. Scarecrows can be fun too.

Thanks for stopping by I will try and get some photos for tomorrow. I not I do have another fall card I can share.

CASTAWAY INK????

Has anyone heard of this product....Castaway ink pads by Jacquard????? I hadn't heard of them until I went to a stamping show several weekends ago. I discovered they are really neat. Rather than putting color on your card stock they remove it. Sort of like using the stamping with bleach technique but much easier and neater plus no nasty bleach to worry about getting on your clothes.

When I encountered these pads at the show I had to have one to try out and play with. I really like the effect they give. The image left is like a shadow or a frosty or hazy background. The colors you get are different with the color of card stock you are using and also the brand. I even had one color that it didn't work on at all. Nothing changed. Here is a picture of two different card stock colors and how the stamp shows up. They are both Stampin' Up products. One is Bravo Burgundy the other is Sage Shadow. I used the Upsy Daisy stamp on both.



You use it by stamping the image you want on the card stock with the Castaway ink. It leaves a wet almost creamy image. You let it set for 5 minutes. At this point the ink has dried and is virtually invisible. Then heat set it using a dry iron on the cotton setting. The image reappears. It is a shadowy image that I think is really cool.

Here is a card I made using the image stamped on Night of Navy card stock. Notice that there are two little circles in the top most daisy. Know what those are????? The steam holes on the bottom of my iron. So a lesson was learned here. Use to bottom half of the iron where there are no wholes to cause a temperature difference on the heated image. Also notice here the image reappeared in a lighter bluish color where as the Sage Shadow showed up a creamy yellow and the Bravo Burgundy a light gray.



The final card I have to show you is one of the first images, the burgundy one, made into a Get Well Card.

I really do like how these images show up. I look forward to experimenting more with it. I saw it used with a snowflake stamp on a lighter blue card stock and it was really really cool. So I will try that when I get out of my fall card mood and move on to winter cards.

Oh the card stock which did not register any color change and the image just faded away to invisability when ironed was Stampin' Up's Almost Artichoke.

POLISHED STONE

I haven't been doing much in the way of stamping lately due to other life activities, but the other day I did once again play around with the polished stone technique. I don't get out my alcohol inks often enough and this is one of the main, okay maybe the only, thing I know to do with them. Fortunately I love the technique.

It's very easy and fun to do. The supplies you need are few: glossy card stock, alcohol inks, ( I use ones from Ranger), a blending solution (also from Ranger), and an applicator . For these cards I also used a copper metal mixative.

When I do this I make a lot of backgrounds at once. Usually I cut up two 8.5x11 inch sheets of glossy card stock into 4 pieces each and prepare 8 backgrounds. It can be a little messy and so I get the mess over with in one sitting. Rather than my trying to explain the technique to you I am going to send you to the experts. Tim Holtz has a video that shows using these inks in YouTube. You can watch it here. This is the technique I used. For those of you that don't have alcohol inks and would still like to try the polished stone technique SCS has a tutorial on doing it with dye ink refills. You can read it here. I have done this as well. I like the Ranger ink version better mainly becasue you don't have to seal it with a spray and I think it is shinier.

One of the things I like about polished stone is everytime you make a background with this technique it is different than the last time. Even when you use the same colors. Becasue I was thinking fall I used yellows, reds, and oranges with just a little green and even less blue in the mix.

The stamps I used are both Stampin' Up sets. The top card uses Upsy Daisy which is in the main Fall Winter 2008-09 catalog and the lower card uses a set which is in the Holiday mini catalog that is currently out. It's a set called Happy Blessings. There is also a cute scarecrow in this set. I especially like the Upsy Daisy over the polished stone background. I think the solid black image is very striking.

I will try and be back tomorrow with some more fall creations. Thanks for visiting.