HONEY BEE STAMPS FLORAL CARD

Having a very busy summer here in Southern CA.  We had to drive down to San Ysidro (right on the Mexican border) last weekend to get our Global Entry passes, working more than usual and in general, just busy! I have been working on this card over the last few days, coloring at night while watching TV and then slowly assembling.  I stamped and colored with copics some of the flowers from the Honey Bee Stamps Country Blooms, and colored the background with copics and applied texture using a bit of towel and blender solution. I used a craft knife to cut an irregular window and tried to cut a similar window out of the teal card stock (somewhat unsuccessfully).  I applied two additional fussy cut flowers to overlap the cutout and stamped my sentiment on the inside of the card.  The card looked fine but I decided to throw on some sequins on three sides of the card.  If you like it let me know as comments let me know that there is someone out there.

CREATIVE CHEMISTRY 103: TAGS INTO CARDS

Wow, what a class.  So many lessons packed into 5 days that I will have to watch a few of them over and over.  I did manage to finish two tags in between work and the Olympics and I had so much fun making them.  But I am a card maker and turning them into cards was a challenge.  I didn't have the heart to cut this one up so I cut off the tag top, rounded the corners and stuck it on Kraft paper.  I used Distress Silver Mist (added as I was making the card), embossed a Make It Crafty chipboard star circle with Ranger Liquid Platinum, cut the thank you die out of Ranger glitter paper which I colored with lettuce alcohol ink (new technique from class).  Scattered sequins perked it up!

My second tag combined techniques from day 2 and 3.  I used crayon resist and embossing powder over texture paste (dots). When I was making the card I decided to add some foiling on the corners using Tim's method of applying collage glue stick and pressing the foil on.

I also added two new colors of enamel accents around the Elizabeth Craft hello die(colored with distress inks and then clear Wink of Stella). I mounted the tag on MFT eggplant card stock.

HOW DO I LOVE MY MISTI...let me count the ways....

SIX to be exact because that's how  many times I had to stamp on watercolor paper to get the crisp black image I wanted.  Can you imagine trying to line up your stamp SIX times. Yikes, I can't even do it twice.  With the MISTI it came out beautifully.   I used Papertrey Ink's Peonies on Parade watercolor cards and colored the blue one with Twinkling H20's and die cut with Simon stitched rectangles (both).  The pink and yellow were colored with Derwent Inktense pencils.  

ALCOHOL INK COLOR CHART - BLANK 2016

I have tried a number of ways to make an alcohol ink color chart and have been frustrated at every turn but stubbornness won out and here is what I came up with.  It was driving me crazy that the ink would flow over the lines, even when debossed with pencil and on plain paper the colors were not true.  Also, all the new colors weren't on the old color chart.  My solution is to print up a blank color chart (I added in what new colors that I could find), and on a separate piece of alcohol ink paper I used a .75" punch and colored each one and glued them onto the chart.  I am happy to share my link but do let me know if it doesn't work.  Enjoy! 



2016 ALCOHOL INK BLANK COLOR CHART

ONLINE CARD CLASSES: CREATIVE CHEMISTRY 103 DAY 2

I have long admired the crafty, chemical genius of Tim Holtz but I have always been really fearful to try his techniques.  This class has really inspired me to put on my big girl pants and just do it!  So after madly labeling all my supplies that have just been sitting there inspiring guilt, I finally gave it a whirl and tried the Distress Paint resist technique from today's class.  I started by applying spun sugar distress paint with a brayer to the butterfly from the Perspective stamp and then pounced it onto the hearts stencil and used picket fence on the flourish stencil.  I then used distress stain in faded jeans, forest moss and dusty concord.  I used the mini ink pads in the same colors plus concord grape.  I was actually surprised at how much I liked it but I wish the butterfly showed up more but I think the lines were too find.  As usual, I wish it photographed better.