C'mon Spring!

I needed to put together a tutorial for Paper Wishes today, and since I'm REALLY in the mood for Spring to hurry up and get here, I decided to try some Easter eggs.

I tried coloring one with Copic markers - did okay, but you could see the brush strokes. 

I then tried one using Distress Inks and the Ranger Foam applicator. I got the best results with this technique.

I also tried the Distress inks using a reinker and a sponge but never could get it to dry! I even tried heat setting it - I finally had to wipe it off!

I then applied some Dazzles, flowers and rhinestones.

Coloring the Dazzles with Copic markers gave a really pretty effect!

I also found that using four corners at the top of the egg worked well too.

And one last tip - it seems like the Scrapbook Dazzles must have a different kind of adhesive - I had a very hard time getting them to stick to the eggs, and had to use glue.  I don't know what is different but there must be something!

What will you create! Show me your creations!

Iris Folding

I joined in on a color challenge on the Paper Wishes Message Board and combined it with using an iris folding pattern one of the folks had posted. It's a little different from my usual cards, but I thought it turned out kind of nice - could even be used for a masculine card:

Do It With Twine Contest

I entered A Cherry On Top's Do It With Twine Contest today. Wish me luck- I could win $100 in product! I created a page with as many different ways to use twine as I could think of that would look good together.  I first made the base border with two panels that I punched using an Anna Griffin punch and then laced the two together with twine. I then cut a variety of die cuts from Spellbinders and Memory Box and did spirelli with some and laced others. What do you think?

Quiet Before the Chaos - Mosaic Moments Challenge

Our second Mosaic Moments challenge for February was to use Lotus (mint green) grid paper, page pattern #19, and either ribbon/string, hand journaling or one of the free downloads available on Snap n Crop. I chose to use one of the free downloads because it fit my pictures perfectly - the download includes several different sizes of journaling blocks that are made to fit the mosaic grid papers, and then had several titles- "In the Quiet Moments" was just perfect. I had these pictures we took early Christmas morning before the grandkids woke up - everything is so quiet, and beautiful....then the chaos begins - paper and ribbons flying, noise noise noise and joy - which is just as beautiful!

February Technique Challenge - Ghost Stamping

Many of you may be familiar with emboss-resist technique. This is similar. If you are not familiar with emboss-resist, you stamp a design using a watermark ink (like Versamark), and emboss it with a powder to match your background - in this case, white.

You then color over your embossed design with ink of your choice - chalk inks, Distress inks, pigment inks work fine. If you use dye-based ink you will just need to work quickly, and you may not get as smooth results.

Ghost-stamping is similar, but gives you a more subtle result. Use a pigment ink to match your background (white) and use a heat gun to be sure it is thoroughly dry. Then color your background as before. See the difference (below)?

Using these two makes a very interesting card. Here is an example:

You can also use this technique to make backgrounds. It is a little tricky, though, to be able to see where you have stamped...you can see in my example below that the designs are not exactly evenly stamped...

Let's see what you can come up with! I'd love to see your experiments!

Valentines

I will wish everyone a Happy Valentine's Day now as I do most of my work on weekends! Here are a couple of creations I made this year:

The first I made for my husband (shhhh - don't tell him!) using a new die from Memory Box called LaRue Heart. I LOVE this die! I got a little sloppy with the glue, though, so I added a lot of liquid pearls to hide the oopsies (I am the MASTER of happy accidents...)

The second I made as part of a sketch challenge on the Paper Wishes Message Board and I will send this one to my mother. I used the Nona's Garden paper pack, and a label from the gold Color Me papers, chalked the background of the label, and used green Smooch for the leaves.

I Need to Learn to Follow Directions!

Boy did I waste some time this past weekend! I went to my monthly crop at Stamp and Scrap Nest in Simsbury, and was planning to complete both of my assignments for Mosaic Moments for February during the crop. Well, you know how things go - you get to talking with your friends....I finished my first layout and realized - oh no! It was supposed to use 2 1/8" squares as the main feature on the layout, and I hadn't used one single square of that size! I didn't have duplicate pictures with me, so I was going to have to wait until I got back home to print out new ones and start over! And, of course, I couldn't have figured this out before I had cut out all the little flowers from another patterned paper and stacked them three deep for embellishments, and added scrollwork from a sheet of stickers!

Anyway, I thought you might enjoy seeing both layouts - I always enjoy seeing different ways of using the same supplies and pictures. I had to change the title because I now had less space for it (plus, I wasn't sure I would have enough of the letter stickers to spell out the same title, anyway!) And in the second one I had a little extra space to put some journaling. Fortunately, I still had enough paper to make some of the same embellishments.

They both are okay, but I still prefer the first one!