Character Cafe Feature Friday

Christmas is almost here! Anything goes this week as long as it's sparkly! So, I used the snowman from this month's releases and put some Stickles over a flocked title.

Like It Love It Gotta Have it Challenge for January

Well, we had a little time off on the swaps for Paper Wishes, and I'm really glad - I over-committed myself in October and November and didn't know how I was going to get it all done. So welcome to getting ready for a new year! This will be posted on the Paper Wishes site on December 15 but it is for January so put your thinking caps on, but you can wait until January to dig in and create something fabulous!

What I'd like to introduce to you today is a technique I've seen in several magazines, and Gina K had a version of it on her videos - this is my first time trying it. Basically you stamp an image twice - once on one color background and with a complementary ink and embossing powder, then you stamp it again in reverse. Here I'm stamping white on red, and red on white.

The trick to this is being sure your image is exactly placed in the same place on both pieces of cardstock. If you have a stamp positioner, this is the time to use it! Unfortunately, this is one little gadget I have yet to acquire. So, I chose the size of my paper not too much bigger than the image so I could just center the image and hopefully all would come out alright and it did!

Here are my two images stamped on 5" x 5" squares. The first is using a white embossing powder on a dark red cardstock. The second I had some tensil embossing powder and decided to try using a glittered cardstock. I wasn't sure how the image would stamp on this type of paper, but it did great! So the glitter and tensil adds a little sparkle as well!

Then, I cut each image into 1" strips. When applying the strips to your base, you just alternate the pieces - one from the white image and one from the red image. The cool thing about this technique is you end up with two cards!

Like It

I cut mine into 5 pieces, but you can do just 2 - half and half. In fact I have an old card that does just this! Notice how the designer of this card made it extra interesting by using reverse colors on the background, and adding a dark border!

Not a stamper? Try this with two patterned papers - you can often find a single pattern printed in several colorways - see if you can match them up!

Love It

Try the 1" strips like I did

Gotta Have It

You could do more, smaller strips, or even cut them up and do a checkerboard pattern. You could even fussy-cut around the image and replace one side with the other instead of using straight cuts. Try this and see what you can come up with!

Happy New Year Everyone!

Character Cafe Feature Friday

This week we're looking for foil and shiny stuff. I used the new year baby image from this month's releases at The Character Cafe and used one of the great foil papers from Hot Off the Press - I love these papers - they're much thicker than average, so they're good not only for pages and cards, but also for making boxes.

Winner of Snowmobiling Image from the December Character Cafe Blog Hop

Julye - you're the winner! I've sent you the images in email.

CONGRATULATIONS!

List Randomizer

There were 2 items in your list. Here they are in random order:

1. Julye
2. darling Ho

Timestamp: 2010-12-14 21:32:32 UTC

Feature Friday at The Character Cafe

I had some fun this week with one of the new December images at The Character Cafe. Our challenge was to use glitter, and it worked out well with one of my purchases from Black Friday! This cute rocket would be great for a kid's valentine! I got one of the 50-page bundles (well, I actually bought all three!) from Bo-Bunny. This paper was in the birthday/party pack and I thought it fit well with the rocket and a boy theme. So I glittered up the gears and swirls with Stickles and added some foil stars. I shaded the background with my Copics but the edges weren't as smooth as I'd like, so I used a stiple brush with black ink to smooth out the gradation of lighter blue to black in the background.

Like this image? You can get it here.

The Character Cafe December Blog Hop!

It's that time of the month again in a good way - blog hop time! This month my image is a fun one - snowmobiling! If you like this image (named Sledding) you can get it at The Character Cafe or leave a comment at the end of this post and you could win it!

Also, if you leave comments on all the blogs in the hop, and at the last stop, you could win a gift certificate to The Character Cafe as well! So if you started on my blog go to the Character Cafe Store to start at the beginning (the link is below).

Here's the order:

Start at The Character Cafe Store
DJ - Moon Rocket
Joyce - Sledding
Chelsea - Top Hat Baby
Lola - Snow Friendly
Jessica - Snow Friendly
Nancy - Sledding
Cleota - Top Hat Baby
Deanette - Sledding
Fink - Snow Friendly
End: The Character Cafe Blog

And finally, here's my card for this hop. Hope you like it. In December we're amping up the bling! You'll see glitter, foil papers, rhinestones, anything sparkly! On this card, I used irridescent watercolors for the sky, a pearlescent white cardstock that I embossed with a swirly design to simulate snow swirls, peel offs from Magenta, rhinestones, and a great product I found a couple of years ago called Faux Snow.