Wednesday, 8. October 2008, 15:55:37
thank you, Under the Stars, swap, Stampin' Up!
You've probably noticed that I've been doing a lot of coloring on my cards. Here's my secret- I spend a ton of time waiting for my kids. I've started stamping out a sheet of images with Basic Black or Basic Brown and taking my colored pencils or watercolor pencils with me. If I use colored pencils, I usually use the Magic Colored Pencil techniqueat home when I get a few minutes. You simply wet a blending stump with odorless mineral spirits (AKA Gamsol) and use small circular strokes to blend the pencil strokes and colors together. With the watercolor pencils I use either a blender pen or a water marker to blend the pigments.
This card was inspired my
mariemc. I really liked the Kiwi Kiss with the Pacific Point strip across the card. Since this card is for a swap that requires an accessory and I had honestly no idea what accessory to add, the bear got google eyes. I'm liking the effect of them quite a lot. The card is much more whimsical.
Oh, and the "Thanks" on the front is done with an alphabet set from the $1 bin at Michael's. I rubber banded the letters together so I wouldn't have to do the letters one by one and they would have pretty uniform spacing.
Monday, 6. October 2008, 16:38:40
swap, Fluffles, hand stamped
I don't think there's much Stampin' Up on this card, but I really like the way it turned out. I made 6 of these for
Sara's card swap.
The printed paper is Die Cuts With a View. I originally bought it to make a birthday card, but didn't end up using it for that. Michael's had their stamps for 40% off and this Fluffles stamp jumped off the shelf and into my hand- I had to take it home! I spied the paper on my desk and just knew that I needed to color the flowers to match the paper. The watercolor pencils and Bliss Blue cardstock are from Stampin' Up.
A few years ago I was very into wire and making wire embellishments. I pulled out a hank of wire and some green seed beads and made the "thanks" to go on the card. I had forgotten how fun wore was, even if my finger were a little tender the next day.
Anyway, this is set one of four. I'm hoping to post the other three cards this week.
Tuesday, 15. July 2008, 21:55:38
swap, designer paper, Stampin' Up!, hand stamped
My poor neglected blog. Actually, my stamps have been quite neglected, too. School is out and we've been having too much fun outside and away from home.
To get back into stamping, I joined my buddy
Sara's swap. The challenge was to make cards with a different shape or kind of fold. A few years ago, I went through a phase where none of my cards were rectangular, so it was fun revisiting my cereal box templates and sketches. Here are the 2 cards I came up with.
The one on the left is cut, then folded which leaves a hint of the inside of the card showing on the side and an acute triangle at the top. I pulled out an old pack of designer paper (retired, but I still love it) for the matting on the front. On the layer on top of that I pulled out a new to me wheel (it's been in the catalog for at least a year- I finally bought it) and my favorite Short and Sweet set. It still looked naked, so I added the loops of cord.
Does anyone else miss the metallic cord?
Anyway, I'm pretty happy with the way it came out. I may need to play with this shaped card again for my Christmas cards. I forgot how much fun it was.
The card on the right is a
trifold card. Because I'm lazy, I cut the cardstock base to 4 1/4 by 11 so I could get exactly 2 from each sheet of cardstock and not have any extra cuts. I still folded it at 3 1/2 and 7 inches per the directions. I used the scallop circle punch for the opening on the front, some treasured but random scrapbook paper for the inside, and a 1 3/8 circle punch for the inside flower.
I know my stamping is rusty when I have monochrome cards on a white base...LOL. Hopefully I can work most of the rust away before Christmas in July on the 25th!
Friday, 25. April 2008, 14:06:00
swap, handstamped, Stampin' Up!, in progress
...
Ok, so here are two of the rejects for the kid's card swap. The one on the left I wanted to have a western theme (think cowboys and the old west). It came off looking like, well, I don't know what. I think maybe it needed more layers and a different greeting. Maybe different colors- kraft instead of Creamy Caramel, Bordering Blue instead of Bliss Blue- or white on Night of Navy even. And it didn't feel fun enough.
The one on the right was a little too monochromatic. The glitter on the balloons didn't look quite right, either- too much there and not enough on the rest of the card. It was also a lot of coloring. Yeah, that probably makes me sound wussy, but I want it done right and I'm not sure I have the patience to color 6 sets of images right now. Maybe if the images were colorful, if the mat was split into 4 colors, if I got rid of the glitter it would have worked better. I think the mice and the raccoon should have switched places to balance out the images.
Anyway, back to the drawing board.
Thursday, 24. April 2008, 20:37:06
swap, cuddlebug, Stampin' Up!, birthday
I got an email from my friend
Sara a couple of weeks ago telling me about a
swap she was joining. Kid's birthday cards, send 6, get 5 back. I can always use kid's birthday cards, but I have no time. But I can always use cards. (That debate went on in my head for a very long time.)
Finally, I sat down yesterday and knocked out some cards. This post will have the cards that I'm sending so far. I have a few more cards that I made one of and got rejected as not cute enough, not kid enough, or just not right.
Here's the first one:
It uses the upcoming Party Hearty set, Creamy Caramel and Pretty in Pink. I'm really liking the Cuddlebug embossing folders. They're quick and easy. They add dimension and depth. They're pretty inexpensive.
The second set looks like this:
After the first set looking pretty girly, I wanted something more for little boys. The beaver in this set has always cracked me up. How did SU's art department slip that past all of the checks and balances? I mean, yes, it's an animal, but it could be a great naughty adult card, too. Anyway, this card uses Hip, Hip, Hooray (retired), Basic Brown, odd bits of designer paper found in my stash, River Rock or Really Rust for the matting, ribbon from my stash, and plastic bits that I found on clearance at Michael's earlier this week.
WIDGETIZE