POSTCARDS --PART 2

So here is part two of my challenges with the postcard.

Coloring: How to color nicely and evenly without the color bleeding though to the back of the postcard? I hadn't even considered this to be an issue in the beginning because it has never been an issue on my cards. WRONG! When I color on cards it is almost always a layer on which the image is colored that is than placed on the main card in some fashion. Since these were postcards I wasn't sure that layering was a good idea. Postal machines can be rather finicky and I certainly didn't want to risk either them being mangled in the mailing process or being total rejected by the postal service as a postcard. So I decided early on to keep the cards one layer. (I find that in and of itself a challenge; one layer cards that is.)

My first thought was to color with Prisma colored pencils and Gamsol (sp?). Well I found the pencils easy enough, but have looked every where and couldn't find the orderless mineral spirits Gamsol or any others for that matter, so I did some research and discovered that some folks reported success using alcohol or baby oil; that I had. I decided to try the alcohol as I was sure that baby oil would soak through and leave an oily mark on the back. Well, the alcohol didn't work either. The color bled to the back. I found a Prisma blender pen, but it also bled to the back. So I moved on to watercolor crayons and aqua painter, no that bled as well as I was sure it would. I tried markers and while they didn't bleed so badly there looked bad. Like they had been colored my a kindergarten student! I tried a few other things that didn't work and finally remembered my pastels and blender pen. I was worried that the blender pen would bleed through but it worked just fine. That took care of the coloring issue. It took a while to color them all, but I did get the 25 done in about 3 hours.

Then I moved on the the background. The colored images were nice, but to me they appeared simply to be floating on a boring white page. I have discovered I don't like empty space, even on my cards. I almost always use background stamps. First I determined I wanted some sort of a road to connect the truck to each of the houses and give move of a feeling of driving from one to the other. Nor trial and error here. I tried different methods of drawing or painting a road and once again they all looked horrid. Then I stumbled across the stem from the Serene Sunflower SU stamp set and it worked well I think. Another problem solved.

I still wasn't happy though. TOO MUCH WHITE SPACE! What to do? My first thought was to sponge a blue for the sky and then a green under the "road" and along the bottom for grass. I used Soft Sky one of the'07-- '08 In Colors and that worked well. I sponged a green on one card and that did not work! So I settled on sponging the whole card front in the blue and the card was finally done.

I am happy to report my friend was thrilled and thought they were exactly what she was looking for. And so another project and learning experience was completed.

POSTCARD PROJECT & THINGS LEARNED!

I made these postcards for a friend to give her father to announce his move. They were fun to do, but they did present a few challenges along the way.

This was a learning project! It was fun but it involved trial and error and much learning. I have never made postcards before, but thought they couldn't be much different than cards. WRONG! Well at least the way I choose to do them was different.


This first challenge was what to do them on. I choose plain white 110lb card stock. I could have purchased Avery Postcards, but that would have been much more costly as I only needed 25 cards not 200 which is how I found them packages. The second challenge was figuring out how to handle all the written information that needed to be on a card of this type. I immediately determined I wasn't going to stamp it all. That was not practical and I also eliminated my handwriting which is not all that good. The final result was using Printshop and designing the backside of the postcard (where you address it) to look like the back of a postcard complete with a little square that says "place stamp here" and all the information on the move. I also left room if my friends dad wanted to add a note.

The front of the card is what you see here in this Blog entry. I did the writing once again using Printshop and also printed out the pictures of the house and the apartment building in the corners. I did this mainly because I knew that I didn't have stamps for these. The truck is a SU stamp from Loads of Love and it's accessory set gave me the furniture and the person. The road is actually the stem from Serene Sunflowers. I did all the stamping using Stazon Black as I thought I might be watercoloring and didn't want to risk any running of the stamp. So far so good. The real challenge came with how to color the images. For the answers to those challenges I'm afraid you will have to wait as it is very late and I am making more mistakes typing than I care to correct. Tune in tomorrow for part 2 of the postcard challenge.

CAN YOU BELIEVE IT'S NOVEMBER!

I can't! Where has this year gone? I don't have anything to show today. Batteries are dead in the camera and what I've been working on today is not really scanable. I've been finishing u odds and ends of projects that have been sitting out on the dinning room table. I guess I finally got tired of looking at them. I've sewn snaps on baby bibs, sewn closed the turn openings on two sets of placemats, and now I need to go down to my sewing machine and put the final quilting touches on them all. When that is all completed I will be ready to head back up to the stamping area and finish up some projects that are sitting out there. I'm sure none of you ever have unfinished projects lying around being "clutter". BUT if you do now is the time to get to work finishing them so that we are all ready for those Holiday projects that are waiting in the wings. After all it is November! For those who celebrate Christmas you know it will be here in only 51 days!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

I hope everyone is having a very Happy Halloween! We had a wonderful time here in MD going down into the District of Columbia to the Kennedy Center for a free , love that word, showing of the 1925 Silent Movie production of Phantom of the Opera staring Lon Chaney. It was shown accompanied by a gentleman playing a theater organ. It was great fun!

Now I am getting ready to hang out with Gina K. on Splitcoast and hopefully some of you as well. We're having a party to celebrate the opening of her new online store and some wonderful new stamp sets as well! Come on and join in!

FROSTED FILTER PROJECTS

Here are my two cards made with my frosted filters. One of the things I really like about the frosted filters is that they look so much like handmade papers. And I love handmade papers. The Christmas card is my favorite. I love the Silent Night SU stamp set and was very sorry that they retired it, but I am glad that I can still use it for my personal projects. I just can't demo it. I also love the liquid applique that they had two Christmases ago. It makes such fun snow. On this card for added sparkle I also used yellow stickles for the windows, dazzling diamonds for snow falling in the church and embossed iridescent ice snow flakes on the blue background piece. The groovy guava card uses the stem silhouettes stamp set from this years Holiday Mini catalog. I used my marvelous markers on the stems stamp and spritzed it then stamped onto watercolor paper.

So this is what learning a new technique turned into. Once again thank-you Thinker for suggesting this technique. It is one I hope to remember and use often. WHy don't you give it a try also. It's easy and fun though a bit messy. If you don't like colored finger tips use plastic gloves!

FROSTED FILTERS

Here are four samples of the frosted filters I did in playing with this fun new technique. I did six different samples. These are the four that I haven't turned into cards yet. I'm not sure what my favorite one is but I lean toward the blues. These are my favorite colors as they are so peaceful. I still need for work on this technique. I would like to get some really soft colors that are very very subtle. So far mine are quite bold. Some are more muted than others but they are still fairly dark. The trick is that the more water added to thin out the color the more the colors blend together and I end up with muddy colors. The next post will have the two frosted filters I used and the cards I made with them.

AND THE WINNER IS.........

THINKER! I already have your address Thinker so I will be sending out you BLOG CANDY tomorrow or Tuesday. (Probably Tuesday as that is my morning off work!)
Thinkers technique suggestion was Frosted Filter. Thank you so much for the link to SCS tutorial as this was a technique I had never heard of. For those of you who have not heard of this technique either HERE is where you can find out about it.

I don't have a card to post yet because I had so much fun playing with the technique I now have 5 or 6 different frosted filters that I can work with. I'm still trying to perfect the technique so I can get a nice soft background. So far the ones I have done are pretty, but they are bold. Hopefully by tomorrow or Tuesday I will have a card or two put together.

I have learned that there are different type and weight filters and they give very different results. I happened to have two different types in my pantry. The first I tried was a cone type filter. I had to cut it apart and ended up with two triangular shaped pieces. These filters were fairly heavy and gave me a much brighter coloring. The other filters were Mr. Coffee filters which are circular and flat bottomed. They are much lighter weight and gave me much more muted coloring. I will try and scan the colored filters tomorrow and maybe you will be able to see this difference.

Thank you all for your suggestions. I am going to keep them all on file and try them all. I especially want to try the Cracked Glass. I've heard about this technique before and it intrigues me but I'm a little scared of it. Sounds complicated, but also sounds very pretty.

Picking Technique to Try Tomorrow!

I'm getting some good ideas on a technique to try. I've had some unexpected activities pop up today so I will be picking the technique tomorrow. One more day to give me ideas. I'm thinking up BLOG candy to send on even as I type this.......What will it be????????

NEW TECHNIQUES TO TRY????

So many new techniques and idea to try. I keep skipping from one to another. I will have to settle down and figure out which one to try by tomorrow so I can play with it this week-end. I'm not sure how to settle on which one though as so many I have found sound very interesting. I may have to just put some of them on a slip of paper through them into a paper bag and draw one out. OR I could focus on ones that can be used for festive holiday items. Those techniques that add glitter and glitz to holiday projects.....decisions decisions.....so many ideas and so little time! Stay tuned for what I choose tomorrow! IF you have any suggestions to offer just post a comment with it. I will throw your idea into the hat (if it is a new technique for me and I can find directions on how to do it). If your idea is drawn I will send you some BLOG CANDY for your stampin' fun!

WHEW!

Well I am happy to say that the hard work of the past few weeks have paid off. I had the best show as far as sales ever! I also had a lot of fun talking with people and I met quite a few new folks. I think that we are thinking of making this craft fair an annual event. Now I do have moe work a head of me as almost all my cards sold! I was amazed. But I am giving myself a break for a while to catch my breath and do some thinking on some new designs. I also want to try some new techniques to use. So I will be on the look out for some to try. I did just purchase a mew book tonight using some free credits I had. It is a paper crafting book and looked like it had some very interesting new ideas including paper weaving. That looked like fun so hopefully some new projects will be forth coming.

OOPS!

Well I thought I wold be combining stampin' and kwiltin' in my last post but for some reason the kwiltin' photo didn't upload and when I tried to edit it and add it in thinks really went wonky with the layout of the post. So being totally HTML illiterate I'm taking the easy way out and just creating a new post!

This is a small Christmas wall hanging that I made for the fair. If it doesn't sell there it will head out to the Sandy Spring Museum gift shop. This little guy has an interesting history. Every once in a while I decide to clean my sewing room. (Okay everyone pick yourselves up off the floor! I do clean once in a while. FLY Baby friends pretend you didn't hear me say that! I clean and declutter everywhere BUT my sewing room. Really I do!)

Anyway back to the story. I decided several weeks ago that the sewing room (aka: basement) needed a little help before I dove in to making things for the craft fair. In giving it the help it needed I found this Bowl full of little, and I mean little, log cabin and court house square blocks. Obviously they had been destined for some Christmas project as they were mainly red and green with Christmas prints (well most of them were; there were a few pinky ones?????) I have no clue when I made them or what the project was, but there where lots of them. I can't bear to throw things like this away! So I tried to think what to turn them into. Well this is one of the things. A cute little Christmas Wreath complete with bow and bell. It's total size is about 12 inches square. I also made another wreath that is a different design. It's rectangular about 12x16 inches. I tried to photograph it as well, but there is a lot more red Christmas fabric in it. It's a green wreath on a red background. For some reason the red almost looks fluorescent in the picture (it's not I promise you!) and so it looks pretty funky! But only in the photo. It's real pretty in real life. Also I had enough blocks to use them as a row of blocks down the left side of a set of 4 placemats.

Oh the pinky ones. I closed my eyes, grit my teeth and did throw them away!

CHRISTMAS MAKES AN APPEARANCE!

It may still be October and not even Halloween yet, but for crafters it is time to begin thinking Christmas. And I have been! In this post I am combining projects from my love of both stamping and quilting. And yes they are both projects that I made for the craft fair. (Part of me will be happy when it is over. Another part will be sad though because I will no longer have an excuse for spend so much of my time making pretty things and I will have to get back to more mundane activities like housework.)

First here is a Christmas card. Like my Thanksgiving cards I have "mass produced these. (Actually 16 this time!) They are packaged in cute little plastic boxes with elastic silver cord Once again I water colored the tree with my WC crayons and aqua painter. Iadded yellow stickles to the star and placed two small colored brads for ornaments on the tree. I also FINALLY broke down and used some of my hodge podge hardware paces! I've only had them for two years! The doubles sided paper is some hat was leftover from the World Card making Day project which used the Winter Bright Simply Scrappin' Kit. Now I not only hoard small leftover fabric pieces but also paper pieces. MY life is being taken over by scraps! Good thing the ARE useful,

By the way has anyone noticed I kinda figured out how to do a watermark? I still need to work on it. I think it ended up too small to be really of use. But thanks to Kurtis's tutorial I did it! (Sorry Kurtis I didn't foloow the direction totally which is why it's too small. I though it would be to large. I should know better and should have listened to the pro! I'll do better next time I promise!)

I HAVE PICTURES!

Here are two of the Thanksgiving cards that I designed and have made for this weekends craft fair at my church. I actually mass produced (well for me 12 cards of one design IS mass production!). I will be selling them in a package of 8 with 4 cards of each design.

The Thanks card was fun to make. I love using clear embossing powder over craft inks. It's like having 48 colors of embossing powders! The leave was fun to do. Since I use the craft ink stamping spots I was able to dab on different fall colors and get what I though was a fairly accurate look of a fall leaf. It's hard to tell from the scanned image but the squares above the work Thanks each have a gold embossed letter spelling out G I V E. I also finally got to use my jumbo eyelets. They are a challenge to set but my crop-a-dile handled the job!

I've been doing a lot of water coloring lately. It's something I can do while sitting in living room with my husband. There are many methods of watercoloring. I have tried many of them including water color pencils, aqua painters and the classic inks that have been pressed to the ink pad lids and watercolor crayons used with the aqua painter or small paint brush. I prefer using the watercolor crayons that Stampin' Up sells and an aqua painter. I find this the most compact and less messy system to use. Plus there are so many wonderful colors to play with. For paper I prefer the SU watercolor paper but as wonderful as it is it is fairly pricey. I'm experimenting with other brands but so far haven't found one that colors as nicely. So I guess it is true that you do pay for what you get!

Now that Thanksgiving is taken care of it is on to Christmas!

TODAY I STAMPED!

I don't have any pictures yet. Camera is not working (I think it needs new stronger batteries) and I'm just too plain lazy to hook the laptop up to the scanner. But I have completed several stamping projects this week. I've been altering composition books and making them into various types of journals. And I've designed a few cards which I plan to mass produce (if you call 10 cards of one design mass production) ; then package in sets for next Saturday's craft fair. Then ones I have designed so far are Thanksgiving Cards. I also hope to do sets of Christmas cards and hope to find time to design them tomorrow. The designing process I think is the most time consuming, but it is the part I enjoy the most which I guess is why I don't usually mass produce things. Make it ince and move on is my motto be it stampin' or kwiltin'

I AM STILL KWILTIN'

I have not been getting much if any stamping done lately. Right now I am focusing on my quilting. It's really been quite a long time since I have done that and I am having fun. This flurry of quilting is partially precipitated by a request for some new items by the manager of a gift shop that I have items for sale on a consignment basis. I can't do stamped items there because of SU's angel policy stating you can not sell items using any of their product or images in permanent retail outlets or the internet. Soon I will have to get back to some stamping though because I am a vendor on our church craft fair on October 20 and since it is a temporary venue I can sell SU items there. When I get something finished I will post somemore pictures here but for now I just have words.

BUT STILL SEWING TOO!

I love it when I have days off from work! I really get to play and have fun! So after cleaning the master bedroom and putting dinner in the crock pot that's just what I did today. Not only did I get to stamp but I also sewed! Stamping was in morning then when it got too hot to be upstairs I went down stairs into the cool basement and sewed. Here is what I finished. I say finished cause the Pooh baby quilt was already pretty much done I just had to finish up the binding.

Now you may be wondering what the funny thing with the space capsule on it is. It's a "Wubbie" for babies and toddlers. It is their own little 14 inch square quilt that they can carry around. The name "wubbie" came from a friend who gave one to her 2 year old. When asked if he liked it he responded "I wub it" so it became his wubbie.

The back of this little quilt is a fleece fabric so it is very soft and cuddly. The stuff poking out at the sides are little loops of ribbons of various different textures and colors. Quite a few are satin ribbons as most toddlers love silky fabrics. (Ask any mother who has been embarrassed by having their child lift up their skirt so they can hold on to mom's silky slip.) These provide not only tactile interest, but visual interest and can be used to hank on to the quilt.

I've also made some with print designs for little girls. They are very quick and easy to make. Hopefully they will be a popular item at the fall craft fair as I think I've already made 6 of them and have enough materials for another 3 or 4.

BACK TO STAMPIN'

I have gotten back to doing some stamping. In this case altering composition books and making them into Prayer Journals. I have also done some Gratitude Journals. It's soon to be October and so I am working toward making items for a craft fair that I am a vendor in at the end of the month as well as beginning to think Christmas!

I used my Xyron adhesive machine in to covering of these journals; so the papers are not going to go anywhere or peel off. I also this time place cardstock on the insides of the covers so that the school themed printed material would not be visible. The first set of journals I did not do that, primarily out of laziness I think and I don't like the way they look as much even though it is on the inside. I'm thinking that I may go back and ad the cardstock to them. It adds less than 50 cents to the cost of the materials.

I have also made Quilting and Knitting Journals and may do a few more of them as well as general diary type journals. I have some more composition books that I can alter and they are fun to do. Sometimes I just get bored with making cards!

My Life Is......

Here is the wall quilt I finished this week. It was a result of a quilting group challenge (the same group that did the Faces challenge). For this challenge we were all given the pattern for the bowl and had to create a wall quilt that had the bowl filled with something that was meaningful to me. I was working on the design for my quilt last spring when my husband and I were making plans for our summer vacation and I spent a lot of time thinking of just how much I love to travel. So my bowl is filled with "travel dreams". I actually have quilted into the light blue background, which is a cloud fabric "My life is a bowl of travel dreams". It was a fun challenge. I chose to place my bowl floating in the clouds and it is surrounded by grapes and patches showing Italian and French wine bottles. To help with the dreamy quality if the quilt is is quilted with a shimmery thread and has a sparkle in the blue binding fabric. Everything was done on the sewing machine.

A wonderful side note to this project is that I now actually have something completed for our guilds 2008 show next April!

Time Continues To Fly

Wow! We are already over half way through September. I have been busy with both stamping and quilting this month. In fact I have been so busy that I haven't had time to scan or take photos of anything I have worked on since I finished the cake. Which, by the way, everyone did love. I have also been busy traveling the past two weekends and extremely busy with work. This weekend is again VERY BUSY, but after that I should get some time to get pictures up here. For now I will just say I have finished a wall quilt and a Winnie the Pooh baby quilt. As for stamping projects I have done a number of altered composition books. Its fall which means we are approaching the holiday gift buying season and I am getting ready for a craft show at which I hope to sell both stamped and quilted items. So I need to be busy doing both!

LABOR DAY PROJECT

This was my big Labor Day Project. I had other smaller ones and some I wanted to get done but didn't, but this is the big one. And it was so much fun! It did take a lot of time and a lot of sticky strip, but it turned out even better then I had hoped.

I made it for a Women's Tea Party that we are having at our church on Saturday. In case you haven't guessed it is a paper cake! Each of the slices is a party favor box. I think it would be wonderful for a Bridal Shower as well.

The idea for the cake and the pattern came from SU's Stampin' Success magazine that is published for SU Demonstrators. They used all paper flowers to decorate theirs, but quickly decided I did not have the time to do all that cutting, especially of the greenery, so I literally tore apart some silk flowers that I had leftover from a quilting project. (Yes, I did say quilting project! If I ever finish it I will post and explain it, but don't hold your breath I started it 2 years ago and it is currently in UFO status.) I have decided that I really like the silk flowers better and if I ever do another one I will probably use them again.

I have all sorts of ideas for other cakes, such as a chocolate one made with Chocolate Chip card stock. It could be for a birthday party. Or a really fun one decorated for a baby shower or a child's birthday party. Really one's imagination is as usual in crafts the only limit on what can be done with a paper cake.

One really good thing about them is that they are calorie free. Unless your party favor is chocolate that is! I hope you have enjoyed seeing this as much as I enjoyed making it. And I do hope the women Saturday enjoy their slice.

CHRISTMAS CARD FROM CONVENTION

This was a Christmas card from Convention. It is actually one of my favorites. I've not particularly been a fan of glitter, but love the way it is used on this card as a border between the red and green. What you can't see from this picture is that the green back layer is just a background, not the main card. This is a top fold card the fold being on the white. If you look to the bottom of the card you would open it by lifting up the white layer that has the torn edge inked in green. Another thing I like on this card is the use of the tag "Mix & Mingle & Be Merry!" as the sentiment. Also notice how the layered design was offset to the left rather than centered. This adds an additional element of interest because most people would have centered it.

I wish I could take credit for designing this card but I can't it was designed by Tricia D of WA.

PREPARATION FOR WORLD CARD MAKING DAY

October 6 is WORLD CARD MAKING DAY. In celebration of this event my SU upline and I are holding a card making workshop. Our goal is to have those attending make 16 cards, 15 of our designs and 1 of their own, in 2 hours! This would be almost an impossible task except that the cards will all be made using card stock, papers and card stock stickers from the Winter Bright Simply Scrapin' kit from Stampin' Up. This means there is very little stamping to be done and even less embellishment though they will get to use some ribbon and brads, will use a few punches, and will do a little embossing.

Here are three of the 15 card fronts that we designed last night. They are all based on samples we saw at convention this year. But we made a few changes or additions to each of the cards. These cards are all 3x6 inches. That way each person can get 4 cards out of each piece of their 12x12 inch card stock. Besides the two colors shown here they will get a sheet of Real Red and Bashful Blue. These are Pretty in Pink and Wild Wasabi.

I have absolutely fallen in love with SU's new texturized card stock. It is wonderful and very nice looking. The only complaint I have about it is that it is harder to stamp on because of the texture to it. I am hoping with practice it gets a little easier.

To see some more samples for the class you can check out my Splitcoast Gallery and my Demonstrator Web Site.

COUNTY FAIR PLAYING!

I've been trying to learn PhotoShop Elements for some time now and knew that I could make photo layouts for scrapbook pages. This was my first attempt. Not very exciting, but I think I have finally figured out layers and how to combine photos and backgrounds.

Last week was our county fair and as usual I spent quite a few hours there judging and volunteering for 4-H. One night Jerry and I decided that we really needed to at least walk through the carnival area. Not our favorite place, but there are lots of bright lights and there always is a lot of action. Other than the rides I think the most popular thing to do on the midway is eat. Every type of unhealthy but yummy food exists there. Rather than eat it I took pictures of all the different food stands. These are only a few of them. Taken all together you would get one major case of heartburn AND empty wallet I'm sure! We just enjoyed the lights, sights and sounds. This is definitely the low cal was to enjoy these taste treats!

What would have been my favorite had I eaten something---funnel cakes of course!

THE THIRD QUILT TO SHOW!

This quilt I call "A Gallery of Friends". It is the one which will be hanging at the Quilter's Heritage Celebration in Lancaster, PA next spring. I can hardly believe that I have another one that will be out for all to see. This quilt was also a product of a group challenge. Unlike the other two however this one was a challenge of the mini group I am in. Ten of us in the group made a portrait of ourselves out of fabric for each of the others. It could be as realistic or as whimsical as you choose to make it. There were some of each as you can see. It was to be how you thought of yourself. Can you find me? This quilt actually has one of the two ways I portrayed myself.

After receiving each persons face block we could set it into a quilt however we wanted. I choose to turn my friends portraits into a gallery setting over a fireplace mantle, complete with a wall papered background. This turned into a rather large wall quilt its 38" x 63" .

Have you found me yet? I'm in the upper left corner. This was my wild and crazy portrait. The way I picture myself in my dreams. My other portrait was much more matronly. The way I see myself in my nightmares!

This quilt will be on display at the Pennsylvania Quilt Expo in a few weeks. I made it for a guild challenge in 2006. The challenge was to take five pieces of Jane Sassaman's fabric and turn it into something. They were very challenging fabrics to work with. Looking at the quilt they are the fabric the basket is made out of, the background fabric, the birds were cut out of the fourth fabric and the flowers and greenery out of the fifth. The flowers and greenery are actually 3-D and padded. There is beading as well in the centers of the flowers. The piece was all done on the sewing machine except for the beading. That I did by hand.

I am very excited about this quilt being at a national show and look forward to going to Harrisburg, PA to visit it. I hope others enjoy viewing it as much as I enjoyed making it.

There will be others from this same challenge hanging with it in a special display that focuses on group challenges. This is the second quilt I've had in a national show. Last year there was one hung in Nashville at the AQS show. AND......I've just learned that another quilt of mine will be hanging in a show next spring! Wow, three years in a row and all tree quilts were made in 2006. That must have been a very good year for me. This year on the other hand....NOTHING has come out of the sewing room that has been particularly creative.

New Technique For Me

This is a card that I made for my Father-in-laws birthday. I CASED the idea from SCS stamper "gadget19". I love the Natural Beauty stamp set and was very sad when SU decided to retire it. I can't demo it anymore, but I can still use it. In creating this card I tried a technique that I had read about on SCS and have wanted to try. It is a Tile technique. I really like it. What I did was create a 3x4.5inch collage background. I used stampin' spots in a direct to paper technique and then stamped the dogwood and butterfly stamp from Natural Beauty. Then I cut the piece into 1.5 inch squares. This is where the fun begins. "smushed" each square image side down onto a versamark pad making sure it was well inked, then covered it with clear embossing powder, and heated. This gave the paper squares a ceramic look to them. "Gadget19" on her card placed the squares on the dark background in a random order. For mine I kept everything the way it was originally stamped. The spaces between the squares are about 1/8".

I really like this technique. Not only does it look like a piece of ceramic tile, but I think it could be done in a way that it would look like stained glass. I hope to use it again on another card.

Fun Evening Playing With New Techniques!

My first card since returning from convention. It was a fun one to make. I used some of the techniques that I learned more about there. I should clarify that I already knew of the ones I used here I was just nervous about trying them. But I decided they made it sound and look so easy I'd just jump right in. First the whole of the stamped images are on water color paper and use the watercolor technique of spritzing the stamp with a fine mist of water after inking it up. That I have done before and really like the look, but you do need to use water color paper for it to work correctly. I've tried regular card stock and do not like the looks as much. Then new for me techniques I used are on the sunflower and it's center. For the sunflower I first inked up the stamp in summer sun and then went over the inside portion of the petals with the pumpkin pie marker using the brush end. Then spritzed and stamped. The center of the flower I first inked the stamp with creamy carmel ink and then lightly tapped it on really rust pad. I really liked the look I got doing both or these and am trusting that I have not hurt either my pads or markers since I went from lighter ink to darker. I also did use some stickles glitter in the center of the flower to give a little extra kick.

One thing I learned from this card is that I really don't like plain backgrounds on everything. When I first laid out the card I had nothing on the green layer. It just looked blah to me so I decided to add some background that would surround the watercolor paper. I took the stamp used for the center of the flower and using a slightly darker green than the card stock I stamped around the edge. I had to be careful not to go off the edge since I had already taped the green to the gold, but this was a good thing as I like the look of scallops I ended up with. All in all I am very happy with this card.

I also played around with dyeing flowers from the pretties set and coloring and embossing both the flat pearls from the same set as well as embossing the large pop up glue dots. I don't have them on cards yet though and this post is getting long so I will explain about them in another entry when I have them on cards or at least have scanned pictures of the pieces to show with explaination. Let me just tantelize you with ....it was fun!

Here I am at convention with some of my new friends. Next to me (I'm in the turquoises) is Denise from CA. We simply met her while walking to the convention center one morning. Had a nice chat along the way. It was her first convention also. Next to Denise are Roxanne and Vernell. They were my two roomies for the week. We were in a very small room, but managed just fine. We didn't really spend too much time in the room. Too much other stuff to do.

One workshop we took was on knowing all about the products we sell. The presenter focused on the Many Marvelous Marker sets. She said in preparing for the workshop she set out to find out everything about the markers sold by SU that she could. If you want the whole set they are quite expensive and she wanted to be able to convince people that these weren't items you would just purchase and let sit on the shelf. She came up with 20 different ways they could be used. They were quite amazing and ranged from simply using them to color in stamped images to using them to put high-lites in your hair! Yes you read that correctly. She used them to put red high-lites into her daughters hair. She said it worked great and washed out with no problem at all. Now that's what I call getting creative. I hope I can find a list either on SU demo site or Splitcoast as to what all the 20 uses were. I'd really like to do a class showing all those techniques.

CONVENTION IDEAS!

Here are only four of the hundreds of sample projects I saw at convention. Two are cards. The other two items are gift ideas. 3-D items and all sorts of embellishments are really HOT!

There are so many new ideas and techniques that I want to try. I have several of the lunch box tins and really like this recipe box. What a cute gift item for Holiday or Birthday giving. The little calendar and note pad set uses bar coasters. How cool is that!!!! I can't wait till I have time to spend in my stamping room. First however I'm thinking I have lots of cleaning to do!

CONVENTION IS OVER

Convention was such fun! I really enjoyed myself and as you can see everyone was wanting to get in to the Convention Center! It was the place to be in Denver that week.

I met so many wonderful people, learned lots of new and exciting stamping techniques and made many cards. The swaps were amazing and I have so many new ideas for projects I barely know where to begin.

The thing I am most excited about however is that I came back really wanting to grow my business as a Stampin' Up! demonstrator. Stamping is such fun and it can be used for so much more than just making greeting cards. I love to teach and look forward to setting up classes to do just that. I need to head to work now but please check back as this evening I plan to post some of the wonderful projects from convention and tell you a bitg more about it.

SU Convention

I am totally exhausted, but the excitement is mounting. Only 2 days till I leave for Convention in Denver. I can hardly wait to meet and share with others who share my love of crafting and stamping in particular. Sometimes I feel out on a limb by myself. I have friends that who share in my love of quilting, but not really any that share in my passion for stamping and paper crafts. So I pretty much work on my own. I have lots if internet friends to share with, but that's just not the same as sitting down and getting excited with someone over a new technique learned or a new design put together. So I really am looking forward to Denver. I know that the energy will return when I get there. Call it a STAMPING HIGH in the mile high city. It doesn't hurt either that I love Denver and the mountains.