Saturday, August 30, 2008

Brayered Sky



Time for a new post! I'm still fighting this awful cold, so things are a little slow right now. I do have something pretty to show you though! I've been working in PSE like a mad woman in order to have several cards to show off. That way, when I'm not producing anything purty I'll still be able post! Hah! Look at me, all plannin' ahead!

Here's a little something that took me waaaay too long to create. Don't get me wrong, I love it! Let's just say that it was very time consuming!
I couldn't possibly begin to tell you what all I used to make this. It was one of those things where I just kept adding ink over several days. It's pretty big, bigger than a standard card size, so I haven't figured out what I should do with it. If you want a starting point, go visit Michelle Zindorf (link in sidebar) for tons of stunning tutorials. That's where I got the inspiration... of course she makes it look *easy*!
Recipe: Mellow Sun Arts stamp, various Distress Inks, Brilliance inks, Copic markers and a white gel pen. And a BRAYER! lol

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Mounting my new rubber

It's been a couple of days since I posted, can't believe time went so fast! I'm battling a *nasty* cold. Somehow mom ALWAYS gets whatever illness the little boy brings home - times 3! I promise there will be more eye candy next post, but for this one I thought I'd give you a peek at my lovely Katzelkraft rubber and how I mount them on EZ Mount. I would like to note that I've only used EZM & storage panels from Sunday International - they stand behind their product 100%, something I find very important. If you're a visual learner there is a great video on YouTube that gives you step by step hot knife instructions.





Here are a couple shots of my new rubber... can you see how deeply etched the images are??






Here are some shots of what my mounting process looks like:


First I pull out the glass sheet - it's from an old picture frame so it's very big. Then I strip the cling protection off the EZ Mount & lay it on the glass - this way it won't wiggle while I'm working. I lay out all my trimmed rubber on the glue side of the EZM - and I use (or keep) every little scrap! Then, using the hot knife I loosely trim out each image. As you can see below, all the stuff to the right is waiting for a close trim and the stuff on the left has been fully trimmed. Just makes it easier for me to do it in steps.

When I've finally trimmed everything (3 BIG sheets!) I put them all on storage panels and into notebooks. With all my new rubber I've finally hit three notebooks. Holy smokes!
Thanks for checking in!

Sunday, August 24, 2008

New rubber

Is there ANYTHING better than new rubber? Ok, ok - there are probably a *few* things. New rubber really is in the top ten, maybe even the top five!
I got my much anticipated new rubberstamps from Bea at Katzelkraft today. I was so excited, I couldn't wait to rip open the package and love all over it. Bea was such a gracious, lovely woman to work with. She contacted me because she had seen some posts I left over at SCS about her store in France. I just loved her rubber & couldn't help myself. When she found out that I wasn't a customer (just an admirer) she offered to place my order at the right time to get the 'Happy Hour' special - 30% off! Now, how could I possibly turn that down? To add to that, she has discounted international shipping - which made it half off as well. THEN (even better!) she sent me FREEBIES! Yup, when I told her that I would convince my DH that I needed the flourishes (someday, he's not so much a flourish-y kind of guy) she offered to send me an imperfect sheet. One small, itty bitty imperfection - on an otherwise perfect sheet. Can you imagine my surprise when I opened up my parcel today and she sent me a SECOND freebie sheet?? Again, just one tiny imperfection. Now, how great is that?! Hopefully I'll get a pic posted of my glorious new rubber. Until then, go and drool!

Saturday, August 23, 2008

Testing, testing! 1,2,3


My very first post - ever! This is more or less a test to see if any of this will look good. Bear with me, I'm working on it!

My very first picture is a card I made with the Bandanna technique from Technique Junkies. This technique looks amazing IRL - but OH! the crick in my neck!
Recipe: Creole Spice ink pad, Basic Grey swirl stamps, Hampton Arts sentiment and my brand-spankin'-new Ranger Inkssentials White pen! Oh, and a two piece flower brad that came from Michaels... can't remember the brand - let me know if you figure it out.