2nd Attempt

As you can see, I can't get enough of that masking technique.  I tried using Distress inks this time, but had a harder time.  Not sure if its cause its water based? Whatever it is, I had a harder time, but managed to come up with this card.  The large butterfly is Penny Black and the rest of the stamps are by Hero Arts.  I guess I gotta keep practicing!

Let Your Dreams Soar and Take Flight

I love that sentiment... Its from one of my new Penny Black sets.  It works so perfectly with butterflies, which are my new passion.  Yes, I'm behind the times, but I really like them right now!  

So I was playing around with my Distress Inks,  trying to figure out what I was gonna teach in my up coming class.  I decided to use a technique that I saw Jennifer McGuire teach on the Two Peas YouTube channel, where she stamped with water on Distress Inks.  Love the way it looks.  I used this technique on the background stamp (also Penny Black) and then stamped the butterfly using gold paint (dabbers) again.   I finally used my new Distress Ink pads.  The pink is from the new summer seasonal distress inks called Picked Raspberry.  OMG!  I Love Love Love it!  Then I used shaded lilac for the purple.  Its like a periwinkle purple- totally my style.  Loving these new Distress colors!

I'll be back soon to show you what else I'm gonna teach...  See you soon!

Playing With Distress Markers

 For an upcoming class, I decided to feature the new Tim Holtz (sensei) Distress Markers and waterbrushes.  Love the effect of using both together!  Wanted to keep it very simple for the class since we are focusing on technique.

I just got this pretty Memory Box flower stamp and decided to use this on my project.  Sentiment is by Hero Arts.

And here's a closer look.

After coloring in the image, just used some Spun Sugar Distress Ink around the edges.  I think I need to make more of these simple cards!

Hemp Daisies

I finally found a great use for my hemp string that has been taking up space in my craft room!  I found this awesome tutorial on how to make these cute daisies, only they used baker's twine.  I like the look of it using the hemp better and decided to incorporate into my next class. 

A couple days ago I also shared the Paper Crafts Library sample using Distress Stains.  I like the colors in this sample much better than the first card I shared, so I thought it would be better to use this one in the class than the blue one.  The red, orange and yellow just brighten up the card and give me warm fuzzies. I guess that's why I gravitated to that Hero Arts sentiment.. perfect right?  Had to glue down the daisies using my glue gun to be sure they would stay.  Hope they don't fall off!

Distress Markers Reject?

While coming up with some of my class samples, I played around with using my new Distress pens.    I love the watercolor effect you can get from using them with TH's water brushes.  Yes, I'm not sure yet if this will be the actual card we make in class or if it will be a reject/sample.  I bought a new stamp by Memory Box that I'm interested in featuring, so I might use that one instead of this older Hero Arts stamps.

After coloring in the flowers, I decided to distress around the edges using more spun sugar distress ink.  Playing with my distress markers was a nice alternative to using my Copics!  Guess I should use them more often!

Stain Inspiration

Back in April, the Paper Crafter's Library blog featured the new Distress Stains by Ranger.  After just coming off of my Tim Holtz Online Card Class high, I was eager for more Distress info.  One of their cards totally caught my eye... click here for the link and scroll down to the bottom of the post to see my inspiration.

How easy is it to create a nice background using Distress Stains?  I was a bit hesitant about purchasing the stains since I already had most of the ink pads, but this totally convinced me.  I used crushed olive, stormy sky and concord grape to make this card.  You can't tell since I took the photo on my craft sheet, but I mounted it on kraft cardstock.  After I used the stains for the background, I stamped the leaf and sentiment using Archival Ink. Both stamps are by Hero Arts.

I was trying to make some samples for my upcoming class with Debi, and was playing around with my stains.  Totally loving the look and ease of this technique!  If you are in the Hilo area, hope you can join us for our first joint class together!

Stamp Layering Class

Hope you are having a nice weekend so far. Celebrated my last furlough Friday (for now anyway) by teaching a class on stamp layering. I got inspired by the Hero Arts blog a few months back and have since bought a lot of stamps that are ideal for layering. I also got me some shadow inks to work with my distress inks, along with some mica powder. We had a lot of fun in class yesterday and were able to finish all three cards pretty quickly. If there were more supplies, I think the class would have been done in about an hour. Used the gold mica powder on this one. I think you can kinda see it on the top left corner of the card since the light got to it in the photo. Used this one as a sample- we didn't make it in class, but I always like to show them different ways of applying the same technique. All stamps are by Hero Arts.

Happy Belated B-day Papa Joe!

Yes.. late again.. My step-dad's b-day was last week but I didn't send out his gift till after the fact. Here's the card I made for him. When I first stamped this koi stamp in black, I didn't like the results. It looked like a bad photocopy. I decided to change it up and stamp it in versamark and then apply gold mica powder for a subtle effect. I like how it came out much better! Since the mica powder is more subdued, it kinda looks like the koi is underwater. Or maybe that's just the distress background? Anyway, I added on one of my favorite sentiment stamps by Paper Inspirations. I love their stamps and can't seem to find them anymore. Glad I got the ones I did when I did! Since I didn't want a lot of accents, I just ended up tearing the bottom instead of adding more stuff. I like the simplicity of this card. Guess I really liked it, cause I ended up making several versions using different colored distress inks. These will likely be sold at one of the craft fairs. Stay tuned for more craft fair projects...

Happiness is Stamp Layering

This type of stamp layering is a technique that my Aunty Jan taught me awhile ago. I finally got a stencil brush, so now I can do this at home. It didn't come out nearly as nice as her's but I'm still practicing and hope to perfect it soon. If you know me, I'm so not a stencil person, but I'm hoping this will expand my horizons. Used this with my distress inks but Aunty used chalk inks instead.. I wonder if that makes a difference? Can't wait till my shadow inks arrive, maybe those will work too..

Thinking of You

Finally getting around to practicing more of the stamp layering technique. I used the distress/watercolor technique by putting some distress inks on my craft mat and spritzed water over it. Then got some watercolor paper and soaked up all the distress ink to make this background. I love how it came out! The watercolor paper just soaks it all up so nicely. After it dried, I used my new Thanks definition background stamp in antique linen distress ink. You can't really see the words itself since its on the watercolor paper, so I wasn't stuck using a "thank you" theme. After the definition stamp dried, I stamped the weed looking stamp using broken china distress ink and then added the dragonflies with peeled paint distress ink. For a fun look that I always forget to use, I ended up tearing the bottom of the paper and added distress ink to cover up the white that showed through. Finished it off with a sentiment, crystals and a bow. This is becoming one of my favorite techniques!

Copy Cat

Yes, I'm a copy cat. I couldn't help myself. I saw a card made by Robin ("cardrageous") on the Hero Arts blog, which took me to Flickr where I started browsing her cards. I totally fell in love with the card that looks like this one and got inspired to copy it. I love the colors she used too, so I used the same colors. She used the canvas stripe stamp for the lower half of her card, but I don't have that stamp (yet), so I just left it as is. Added some scattered pearls to my card and just stamped the sentiment over the flowers. Since its been at Island Scrapbooking, this card has caught the attention of our regulars. Unfortunately I can't take credit for the design, so I'll happily give credit where credit is due. Thanks Robin! I love your work!

Another Acetate Card

Decided to re-do the card for the Acetate Card Class coming up at Island Scrapbooking. Since I had already done one red card, I thought it would be better to change the color scheme and scale down the card size. So this is what I came up with. I love how the distress inks blend so well together, so I used two different colors and blended them with my fingers. Janis- the link for the instructions to the embossing on acetate can be found here... What she doesn't tell you is that you probably need to use a thicker acetate. I've tried it on thin acetate and mine melted! Good luck! Supplies:

• Butterfly stamp- Hero Arts
• Diamond Glaze
• Glitter
• Tissue paper
• Acetate
• Cardstock- Bazzil

More Sympathy Cards

I hate making sympathy cards, but I've had to make a handful over the last month. It really sucks to have to make these types of cards, so I don't normally post them. Just wanted to share my favorite stamp which makes making sympathy cards quick, easy and painless. The sentiment is by Paper Inspirations and is a great focal point for the card. I distressed both cards using my Ranger Distress Inks and then just accented the cards using my fern stamps. Don't know if you can tell, but images were stamped and embossed with gold embossing powder then distressed. Just stamped the sentiment directly over the embossed image and it seemed to work fine. Paper Inspirations makes all different types of sentiments using this layout. I love them all since it makes making a card fast and easy.

Last of the Acetate Card Class Samples

I know, junk photo- the reflection totally takes away from the card. I used the same technique that I've used in other diamond glaze/acetate cards but this time used gold tissue. I love how dramatic it looks! Thanks Aunty for the advice! Guess I was going for an asain look to this card, so naturally I chose red to go with the gold. Finally picked up this Hero Arts cling stamp I've been wanting since I got into distressing. I think it nicely shows off the technique. Here's a close up of the butterfly. Well, that was the last of the cards for my upcoming class. Who knows if I'll ever work with acetate again after this class! Wish me luck! Supplies:

• Acetate
• Butterfly stamp- Hero Arts
• Diamond Glaze
• Glitter
• Tissue paper
• Cardstock- Bazzil

September OCS- Summer Card

Here's the card I made for this month's OCS hosted by my GF Linda.. Its a great way to meet other crafters and exchange ideas! October sign ups should be announced soon, so if you are interested, check out her blog for the announcement. So, Linda has been challenging us for each OCS since she's taken over from Teri... This month's theme it to create a summer card. Since I've made a few summer themed cards this year, I decided to find an image that I haven't used recently. While browsing through my stash, I found this Mermaid Lilly set by Pink Cat Studio that I bought last year. She reminds me of summertime, so I decided to use her for my card. As you probably already know, I LOVE distress inks, so I had to incorporate it somehow on my card. Since they are blendable, it made a nice watery background for Lilly. I added some crystals using my flourish template and added the CC's sentiment that coordinates so well with mermaids and other sea life. My OCS partner this month is Brenda (Punch Queen). Hope she likes it! Supplies:

• Mermaid Lilly stamp- Pink Cat Studio
• Fintastic sentiment- CC's Designs
• Distress inks- Ranger
• Stickles
• Crystals- Hero Arts
• Cardstock- Bazzil

Another Christmas Card

Made another sample for Island Scrapbooking over the weekend. Decided to play with my other Hero Arts background stamp I got recently. I love this Holly stamp but didn't know what to do with it, so I used the same emboss resist techinque again using gold embossing powder. I then distressed the edges with pine distress ink and the inside with barn door. Since the background was not large enough to fill the space of a 5x7 card, I mounted it on red cardstock and used my MS double loop border punch. Topped it off with a large bow and sentiment. The sentiment was stamped on the Tim Holtz labels die and then I just hand cut the border around it. Making these non cutesie cards are so out of my element. I bet the customers will think Debi made this one! Supplies:

• Holly background stamp- Hero Arts
• Merry Christmas sentiment- CC's Designs
• Distress Ink- Ranger
• Double loop punch- MS Crafts
• Gold embossing powder
• Ribbon
• Labels die- Tim Holtz Sizzix
• Cardstock- Bazzil

Peace

I can't believe its Monday already! Where did the weekend go? Guess I've been busy with a alot of projects and family stuff. Just glad its another 4 day week! (Not looking forward to next week- which is 5 days.) Got this new Hero Arts flourish stamp from Island Scrapbooking the other week. Its so pretty, I didn't know what to put it with, so I just left it alone. I finally got some gold embossing powder too, so I decided to emboss it to give it a Christmas feel. Then I used my distress inks in barn door and olive and topped it off with a Peace sentiment. Very simple once I figured out what I was going to do. The only drawback was that I had to use a larger sized card since the flourish is so big. Hope you have a great week! Supplies:

• Flourish stamp- Hero Arts
• Peace sentiment- CC's Designs
• Distress Inks- Ranger
• Gold Embossing Powder
• Cardstock- Bazzil

O Christmas Tree

I think this is my last card made using that crystal glaze technique. Decided to try a Christmas card this time using my red and green distress inks. The Christmas images are from one of the new clear sets by Hero Arts. I bought this set specifically for distressing purposes. Its the start of another 4 day week for me. Hope it goes by fast! Supplies:

• Christmas Tree and sentiment- Hero Arts
• Acetate
• Distress Inks- Ranger
• Crystal Glaze
• Glitter
• Cardstock- Bazzil
• Tissue paper

Happy Labor Day!

Happy Labor Day everyone! Just wrapping up another 4 day weekend and getting ready for another 4 day work week. I am getting used to this furlough business and now I don't think I want to go back to a 5 day week! Anyway, since I was on a roll with this technique, thought I'd share another card... Karate Anya makes another appearance wearing Geisha Anya's clothes here since she was so popular the last time around. I really love this look on her- I think she'll be borrowing Geisha's clothes more often! Used two tones of pink this time for the background and lots and lots of glitter. I stamped the acetate using a large sakura background clear stamp from Fiskars. I love this stamp a lot and thought it would be nice on the acetate. Here's a close up of Karate Anya... Supplies:

• Karate Anya and Geisha Anya's clothes- TGF
• Sakura background- Fiskars
• Distress inks- Ranger
• Sakuras- Island Scrapbooking
• Glitter
• Crystal Glaze
• Acetate
• Cardstock- Bazzil
• Tissue paper

Butterfly

Made this card when I was having fun with that crystal glaze technique. (I still have a couple more to show you). I had to find stamps that don't need coloring in and decided on these stamps by Hero arts. This butterfly set- although not my favorite, has come to be one of my most used sets and well worth the purchase! I really like this flourish too- its a bit distressed and matches the overall feel of this card. I went a bit glitter crazy too- can you tell there's a lot of glitter behind the acetate? Here's a close up of the butterfly... Supplies:

• Butterfly and flourish stamps- Hero Arts
• Cardstock- Bazzil
• Acetate
• Glitter
• Crystal Glaze
• Tissue paper
• Distress inks- Ranger