I CAN'T BELIEVE IT! I STAMPED TODAY!

It's been so very long, but today I actually allowed myself to take a break from all that needs to be done and made some cards.  I stamped pretty much all day, rediscovering how much I love creating cards.  I also rediscovered that I am not a neat stampers.  Hard to believe one person can create such a mess is such a short time.  BUT it was a lovely mess.

I haven't purchased any new stamps in over a year so I pulled out two of my old sets and challenged myself to use only those two sets for my days worth of creativity.  The two sets I  used were Easy Elegance and Polka Dots and Paisley. Both are Stampin' Up sets from when I was a demonstrator. 


I love using the Easy Elegance set with water color paper.  I colored the stamps with my water color markers and then spritzed them with water just before stamping onto the watercolor paper.  This stamp set has three lovely long stemmed flowers and I used them in both a portrait and a landscape arrangement with the Top Note diecuts using my cuttlebug.  I love my bug! 

If you are not familiar with the Top Note die that is from Stampin' Up it has a perforation that gives you a cutting line to follow if you want to create two layers.  I cut down the water color die cut so that it would layer over the top of the color. For both of these I stamped the flowers after cutting the shape so I could place them where I wanted them. 

More designs later.  I can't use them all on this one post becasue who knows when I have another day to stamp again for a while.......still so much that needs to be done around the house.  Right now that is number one priority

THE NIGHT BEFORE WEDNESDAY

It's Tuesday night, which in itself is no big deal, but that means tomorrow is WEDNESDAY! That means a new Belli Challenge is posted......and you know I love those challenges. But I must be patient. And so while I wait.......................not so patiently........I will share with you a card I made for a through the mail shoebox swap I am in.

Can you tell how much I am lovin' my new Scor-Pal??? I always know I have a winner when I get a new toy and use it a lot! My Scor-PAl is a definite winner. It is right up there with my Nesties' Soon I hope to get a new set of nestie's to play with...(note to family: my birthday is coming up in case you might have forgotten. I know I'm shameless) Any way back to the card......

The images are from Inkadinkado though the leaf is from a GinaK set. I stamped all colored images with black craft ink and then embossed the flower with clear powder and the hummingbird with Holographic powder to give some shimmer. I like doing that when I am coloring small image areas. The little ridge that is crated helps me stay within the lines when coloring....especially with water colors and this was colored with Twinkling H2O's.

The card base and ribbon are the retired Stampin' Up In Color, Blue Bayou. I really miss this color and am hording what little I have left! The scalloped card stock rectangle is Riding Hood Red which is a current In Color which I will also miss after this July when it retires.

I find it interesting that when I started stamping 3 1/2 years ago I did so because I could create art without having to draw or color. I could let different colored stamped images do the work for me. NOW, though I still don't draw (and never will) I find that coloring images is quickly becoming my favorite part of card making. Do you have a favorite coloring medium? Do you even like to color images? I wish I could tell you my favorite coloring medium, but I am finding I love them all and the one I love best is the one I am currently using.

Well till tomorrow......when hopefully I will have time to take the Belli Challenge of the week!

HAPPY 50TH ANNIVERSARY

Todays card is actually one I dod a while back but never posted here. It is a new technique for me and one that I now love. I is embossing on water color paper and then watercoloring the image inside of the embossed lines. I also used the masking technique to get the greenery behind the flower.

The set I used was Stampin' Up's Embrace Life I love these images. I stamped it in Gold Encore ink and embossed using Gold Detail powder. I had to think how to mask and emboss on the same images. What I ended up doing was stamping and embossing the flower. Then making a mask of it and covering the embossed image. I then stamped the greenery removed the mask and then embossed the leaves being careful not to over heat the original embossing.

I used my watercolor crayons and an aqua painter to do the watercoloring. Finally I distressed the edges of the water color paper. I just love that look and use it often when I am using water color paper.

I wanted to use a fair amount of gold on this card as it was made for some good friends 50th Wedding Anniversary so I embossed the Happy Anniversary sentiment in gold and also used Brushed Gold card stock and gold organdy ribbon held in place with a gold brad.

All in all I liked the effect of this card.

FROM THE STAMPING ARCHIVES

I didn't do any stamping today. I spent my crafty time sewing today. I'm working on quilted placemats I need to have completed to take to a small museum where I have items on consignment in their gift shop. The first weekend in June is their annual Strawberry festival on the museum grounds and the manager of the gift shop is trying to stock up on merchandise.

The placemats are not ready to be photographed yet and I wanted to post something today. So I went back into my collection of items that a relatively recent creations which have not yet found their way to this BLOG and found some cards that celebrate my love of quilting as well as stamping. All three designs have stamped and colored quilt blocks as their focal point. I love these stamps from Impression Obsession. The images on all three of these cards were stamped on watercolor paper and colored using water color pencils.

Maybe by tomorrow evening at least one of the two sets of placemats I am working on will be completed and ready for the camera.

I'M GETTING TO OLD FOR ALL THIS!

This picture is in honor of our guild quilt show this weekend. I have spent all of today gathering things from home to take to it and helping set it up. The show opens tomorrow and will run through 5pm Sunday. I really enjoy working with it and being at it all weekend, but boy I can sure tell that I'm not as young as I used to be. This is at least the 15th show I've been involved with.

The stamp I used to watercolor for this framed picture is another of my ones from Impression Obsession. I have used it to make note cards but Diane suggested it was so pretty it should be a framed picture. I decided I agreed with her and here it is. Thank you for the suggestion Diane I love this picture.

This is probably all I will be posting until Monday unless I perk up one of the other evenings when I get home from the show. So since there probably won't be anything new here if you have never visited Diane's Designs take this opportunity to do so. She does marvelous work!