Holy buckets, it's CRAZY over here!

It's finally starting to wind down though! :)
This month has been a whirlwind of activity. There have been three different family visits (a niece, SIL/BIL/nieces AND aunt/uncle/cousin) all within a couple of weeks. Not to mention the shopping trips (well, aren't family visits the best reason to shop? I blame it on those crazy SIL's of mine!) and the get-togethers. Then we had a family reunion of sorts - people I haven't seen in at least a decade! Not to mention my birthday, my best friend's birthday (we've known each other 20 years!), two upcoming baby showers AND my little man started swimming classes.
Whew!
No wonder I haven't touched ink to paper in almost two weeks!
I thought I'd drop by for a minute and post the card & gift I made for my friend's birthday. The card was actually a sketch from SCS, but I can't remember which one! Maybe when I get some extra time (ha-ha!) I'll head over there and try to figure it out.
I think the biggest inspiration was the lotus stamp. I found it at Michael's a while ago - it's a Studio G stamp (from the Soloz line) so I think it was only a $1. I really love the size & the lines. For this one I stamped the flower several times on watercolor paper & colored it with a water brush and Distress Ink. Once they were all dry I cut out the petals & popped them up on a base image. The center was actually a piece of sticky back canvas that I also colored with a water brush & DI. In order to give it dimension in the center I stuffed two 'heads' of q-tip cotton under the canvas before I glued all the petals down. I *love* how it came out! Obviously, you can't see the glimmer, but I wouldn't be me if I hadn't added some Spica pen to the petals and outline. ;)
Here's a nice close look at the flower - I just love how the color came out. Mostly I used Chipped Sapphire - but there's also a touch of Dusty Concord. The center is mostly Scattered Straw with some shading of Tattered Rose. Oh, the sentiment is also from Tim. :D
This next thing was totally CASE'd from the cover of (Stamp & Scrap???) a magazine earlier this year. Honestly, I can't remember which one right now. Assuming that I ever get some down time (riiiiight, I'll do this right after I figure out which sketch challenge I used!) I'll have to find the original magazine & update this post. I remember being stunned by how beautiful it was - must be why it stuck in my head! :)
To start I stamped & clear embossed a lot of black paper. I used a 1 inch punch to cut out the pieces for the background, then dipped the edges into more clear ep (using my melting pot). The background is actually the velvet backboard for a shadow box that I picked up at Mike's with a coupon. After spacing the squares out & gluing them down, I ignored this project for way too long! (which ended up in a total panic when I realized just how close her birthday was!)
To do the butterflies I colored both sides of a white paper with distress inks & stamped a little bit with water/glimmer mist. After it dried I used a couple of Martha Stewart punches to get the 3 different sizes of butterfly. I glued them down with glossy accents after deciding on an arrangement (which was harder than I thought it would be).
Once more my love of bling surfaced & I added Rock Candy stickles to all the butterflies. Since that didn't seem quite enough, I added Diamond stickles to some of them too! :) I totally bums me out that you can't see any sparkle in the picture - you'll just have to believe me!
You'll also have to take my word for it that it looked about twice as cool *inside* the shadow box. I'm not certain why - but it bumped up to another level when it was all put together. Enough so that DH was feeling a bit covetous! :D
Thanks for dropping by! :)

Cleaning day!

This morning I uttered the most dreaded words known to husband: we need to clean the bathroom. Oy! I'm sure his heart sank into his toes! :D So, yes, we did clean. Both bathrooms and the horrible pit of despair that is the laundry room. Now it (practically) sparkles!
Of course that meant that I couldn't be crafty today. I would much prefer stamping to cleaning - but I sure do love the feeling of having a clean(er) house. Perhaps I got into the cleaning groove because of this card? As I've said before, I have some hispanic roots, and let me tell you - my abuela could have put Mr. Clean to shame!
This certainly reminds me of the style of colors you often find in Mexico. Lots of bright blue with touches of orange & pink. While I don't often create with this color palette I find it almost soothing in a way. Not that you're likely to see me *wearing* this combo! :D
The base card was stamped with a circle stamp from Recollections using Brilliance gold ink. The two background pieces are from Basic Grey and the main image is from Inkadinkado. Both pieces from BG were roughed up around the edges and then inked. The brown piece was inked with blue and the white with green (both colors were used on the flower as well).
The flower was stamped on regular white cardstock with VersaColor ink (in Pinecone?) then colored using Distress Inks and a water brush. Once it was dry I trimmed it out and added some glossy accents to the underside to give dimension. (I added GA to the tips of the petals, the stem & at the base of the leaves. The best part of doing this is that you can vary the height of the GA while you apply it. Once dry you get a more natural, gradual dimension which I find works well with things like flowers. Also, it's almost impossible to tear the finer pieces once the glue is dry! After it dries, just add a little bit more GA, position it on your paper and let it dry a second time - it should only take a minute or two.)
I really felt that this needed a little more sparkle (shocking, right?) so I went over all of the brown ink with my clear Spica pen. I loved the effect so much that I had to take a close up picture! If you look closely at the brown parts of the image you can see what looks like little flecks of white -that's not dust! It's a little more pronounced than glimmer mist, but not as 'in your face' as a glitter pen. I really like this in between sparkle.
Finally I finished off with the sentiment in Brilliance gold and some brown dew drops to ground the background panel.
Although this isn't my usual style, I love how it came together in the end. And, to be honest, it makes me feel a teensy, tiny bit like home.
Hope you like it too....
Thanks for stopping by!

Very nearly the same card...

I must have been in a very nautical mood! Although I admit, I do love this stamp but it rarely sees the light of day. I can't even think of why!
The stamped panel had the same treatment as the last card (lots of dripping glimmer mist) - actually were both cut from the larger sheet I made in the beginning. As you can see, I used black Versafine instead of blue, and there was no stenciling.
The really cool thing about this one was the punch shape. I saw a tutorial on Amazing Paper Grace (3 parts) on punching with the MS corner punches to make awesome shapes. As soon as I saw this one I knew it was perfect for this card - it looks so much like a compass or ships wheel! There was a little extra glimmer added to them after they were punched, honestly I loved them either way. On the right side you can see the edge punch that goes with the corner punch I used. The only other thing I really used is the 'black' (hah! those are NOT black) dew drops. Perfect for this particular card, but a really disappointing color in general. Just sayin'.
I hope you had a fabulous 4th of July with lots of food, family, fireworks and SAFETY! :)
Thanks for dropping by!

Another TJ techie

Holy moly! Stop the presses! I believe I've actually been well for almost a week! :D Funny how you take it for granted when you feel well, but when you have a rough winter/spring it means *so much* to feel healthy. It sure does feel good to be at 100%!
Since I've felt better I've been diving into some of the TJ techniques - some for challenges, others just for fun. This particular one is an older technique called Stenciled Collage. I had never tried it before, but it was enough fun that I'll be doing it again!
Generally speaking you use a stencil and white ink over a background piece (mine happens to be a piece that I covered with glimmer mist, starburst stain & distress ink with perfect pearls) then stamp in a similar color as the background (Majestic Blue VersaFine in this case). I was very pleased with how well the stamped portion came out - but I'm not in love with the card. I'm not exactly sure what, but something is missing. Perhaps it's the fiber? Dunno. You can get the idea of how the color/glimmer went in streaks across the paper (my own idea, even!) *and* you can see some of the glimmer from the VersaMark Frost I rubbed on the raised portion of the background paper. The light was *perfect* for taking this picture! :D
Anyway, thanks for dropping by! Hopefully I'll get good sunlight tomorrow & will be able to post the second version with this stamp (but not the same technique!).

Pulled Glimmers - a TJ technique

I've been working away (ever so sloooowly...) on this latest card. Last week I was down with yet ANOTHER illness, this time thanks to the boy. *sigh* Why can't he give these little gifts to his dad??
Anyway, here is my interpretation of one of the newest TJ techniques called Pulled Glimmers. I think I'll need a little more practice choosing colors, but the technique was pretty easy. The card itself is smaller than I usually work with - I believe it ended up being a 4x4 inch card.
The dandelion area is from a frame stamp by Hero Arts. The fairy (with the sentiment) is from Rubber Stampede. Both were stamped with Versafine Black over the glimmers background. Since it *is* glimmer mist you'll just have to take my word for it that it's much more sparkly in person! :)
The background flourish is also from Hero Arts and was stamped with Dusty Concord Distress Ink. I added some glitter pen to the image because it just didn't have enough bling!
Thanks for stopping by!

Crying woman

If you've been reading for a while you know that we've had illness galore around here this year. *sigh* It's been a wild ride, and looks to be even tougher ahead. Between the three of us getting sick at the drop of a hat, summer arriving with all of it's activities, long term family issues and DH's condition continuing to worsen with no answers in sight - well, we've really hit a wall.
Ugh.
So, not so strangely, it finally came out in my crafting. I have to say that I really love this image - it's evocative even if it's not comfortable. And it seems to fit the mood around here lately! :)
The main image is from Non Sequitur. All of the flourishes are from Stempleglede. First I covered some white c/s with Milled Lavender DI. After rounding the corners I used Milled Lavender and Dusty Concord to stamp flourishes around the edge.
On a second piece of white c/s I stamped the woman with black VersaFine and colored her with Lyra pencils. I cut the oval using nesties, then inked around her & the flowers with more Milled Lavender. More flourishes with Dusty Concord and a final edging with black completed her panel.
Although it's not completely obvious in the picture, the oval is popped up for dimension - which allowed the use of a few of the ubiquitous little rolled flowers. You can find an awesome tutorial for them here - it's actually very easy to do, just a little tedious. They came out super dark looking in the picture, but IRL they were the same color as the card base on one side and the same color as the flowers on the other (with a spritz of glimmer mist).
Thanks for dropping by!

Hero arts poppies

Finally my mojo came home! :) Maybe just for a visit, but boy was I glad to see it!
So, as you can tell from the title, I'm back loving on the Hero Arts flowers. This time I found myself drawn to the poppies image (that isn't reversed).
For this card I got a little inky! You may not be able to see the full effect in the picture, but there are tons of layers of stuff going on here. First I inked up a piece of white c/s with Scattered Straw distress ink. Then I stamped over it with versamark Frost with a diamond pattern stamp. While it was still damp I spritzed it with water (it makes the ink move a bit - subtle, but there). You can see the diamond pattern, especially when the light hits the sparkly versamark.
Then I stamped the word Love all over the background in Scattered Straw. The extra layer of ink really makes a difference even though it's the same color. Once that was dry I stamped the HA flowers in brown Versafine and let it dry. I used my Lyra pencils (white, golden brown & a couple shades of green) to color the image. I thought it needed a little bit more oompf so I used a brown pencil along the left side of the flowers/stems to give a little definition.
The butterfly is from a Martha Stewart punch - he has a light coat of stickles but the light was not cooperating. It was actually punched from the same paper that I used to mat the main panel (Far East stack, I believe). Finally I used the ticket corner punch (from SU!) and a couple of colors of green embroidery thread. Once everything was in place on the card I realized that I needed another little pop of white. Out came the pearls! :D
I love how this finally came together. Slightly more masculine colors than I envisioned, but right up my alley when all was said and done. I'll keep my fingers crossed that the mojo is in town for a while!
Thanks for dropping by!