Finding Treasures!

It seems every time I go through my stuff to clean up or sort things I find things I've pre-stamped and never used! This time it was these uncolored flowers. Yes, this is an old stamp SU! set but sometimes these old sets are just what you're looking for!

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Anyway, these images are stamped on glossy paper. I wanted to color with my Copics but I've been told that they don't work on glossy. I went ahead and tried anyway!

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They definately don't blend but you can still use them. You just don't get the shading that these markers can give you on nice, smooth paper.

I also took a very light grey to go around the image and give it a wee bit of dimension. Yes, I know they look like they are floating in thin air but oh well!

Then just layered them with some cardstock, stamped a sentiment and used simple embellishment on each to finish them up!

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Happy stamping!

I'm Getting Distressed!!! :)

Yes, my distress is all about the ink though! Ranger Ink that is! In a few days I have the pleasure of presenting another card class at my LSS and it features 4 different ways to use Ranger's Distress Inks. This first card is called brushless watercoloring. The focus really is the stamp and I just didn't want to cover it up with a bunch of embellies so I picked my favorite bg and let it speak for itself!
This second card is making the paper look kinda like leather. The real name of the techique has slipped my mind right now! Figured it was a great masculin looking paper so the trees and again very little embellies to finish it off.
This pic really does not do this justice. It is dark outside and I just can't seem to get a nice shot. Anyway, this card started off being ivory c/s. The ink is applied to a craft mat, spritzed with water and then you smear the paper over top. Kinda fun, real inky and I liked that in this sample it was a soft look.

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The fourth card we are doing I've shown you a while ago. It is having some fun with the spritz and flick technique!

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The whole idea is just to show the girls there are many way to use this ink and it is way more fun to use than just stamping with it!

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Getin' Inky!

Fun & Simple

I found my self sitting and coloring images a little while ago with no plans to use them. I just plain picked marker colors without a care for being able to match them to papers I have!!!

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Sometimes, ok most times for me, my favorite cards are the ones I don't plan out. I start with one thing, say the color image, and look for ways to use them later.

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There is much talk about notebooks or journals where many people jot down thoughts and ideas. I have come to terms with my mind not being able to work that way. :)

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I tend to wing it! Sometimes for good and sometimes not so good. And I'm ok with that!

This is just another way I used the same colored image and focused on a different color scheme. I like the first one much more but I thought the purple inked background stamp on the teal paper was kinda fun!

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Here's to finding what is fun for you!

Could I add anything else?!?!?!

This is a card I made for a dear friend's birthday. She has been the queen of techniques with the philosophy of more is good (even though her style has changed since then :)

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Anyway, I had a ton of fun trying to use my Ranger alcohol inks in as many ways as I could on this. The background was ivory paper, smeared with ink then "spritzed & flicked" with water.

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The photo corner and arrow were silver & copper and thanks to the inks they are now black and red! The funny square, jewel thing was an architectural stone which I inked up and covered in glaze and pressed in the jewel. The stamp is also from a set she gave me a couple of years ago. We both have a soft spot in our hearts for vintage stamps!

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Then a little piercing and copper paper to mat it with and I don't think I could add one more thing! Maybe next year I will try to go more simple and clean, like her current style is!!!

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Enjoy your day!

Another Calendar, with some tricks....

I know I've shown you a bunch of calendars already, but this one has a few tricks that I've added and wanted to show you. I have really been enjoying playing with my alcohol inks and copic markers. This flower was a teal color from the store so I colored it with a deep red copic marker! I also colored the jewel brad to match!


In this one, I used my copics to color the red baubles and red brad. My ranger ink to color the arrow. It was silver to start and now it is teal!

This one, I also colored the spiral with my copics.

Last but not least, that flower was white to start! But not more, thanks to my copics!!!

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I love being able to color anything I want! It is awesome!!!

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Happy stamping (or coloring) today!

More Background Stamps!

Simple, and hopefully elegant. I love the big b/g stamps to make my own patterned paper! Here I've used a few more of the pre-stamped card stock I had before I recieve my order from Cornish Heritage Farms. They have soooo many wonderful new ones it is not easy deciding how many I can afford to get!

Well, this is a super quick post tonight! I've not been a huge blog poster but I do love to share when I can!
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Happy stamping!

My Christmas Projects...

Every Christmas for the last 5 or so years I've been making my mom & sisters something special for Christmas. Things, like card sets, coasters and stamped candles to name a few.

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This year I planned to make these calendars last summer, got crazy busy this fall and only decided I HAD to do them on Dec. 23rd!!! Oh my, how crazy is that! Seeing as each one took me about 3-4 hours that is all I did until our get together!

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I used 4 x 4 chipboards coasters, 2 - 12x12 designer papers and lots of flowers & embellies!

Here is a side view...

And here a few of the pages to show you some of the different, yet very simple layouts I used.

Since then, I decided to make a few more for friends!!! They are soo fun!