Real black brocade olives.

Hi folks, it’s been a couple of days since I’ve posted. I attempted to make a couple of cards, but I must of had two left hands, cos nothing I did was working right. Yesterday I decided to give it a rest and I went and did some much needed gardening instead. Took me most of the day to get about one quarter of the garden looking spick and span. When I go out to admire the garden I just look at that bit only, LOL.

This morning I got up and started to work on the latest Colour Challenge on Splitcoast, which this week is called Real Black Olive. Thankfully this came together quite nicely for me and I quickly had the main image done. Then I had to go and babysit for Kirsty – she’s getting ready for her first convention. So I completed the card at her place. Being a Stampin’Up! Demo, I knew she’d have all the right things I needed to finish the card.

I used watercolour Paper for the image, Firstly spraying the paper liberally with water so the stamping would bleed and run. When it was nearly dry I over stamped the vine and flowers (from Brocade Basics) again for definition. I then stamped the spots (from The Snowflake Spot), misting the rubber well with water before applying to the paper. A bit of sponging with a misted sponge and the edges were done. I played around with a few layouts and settled on this one, layering a very fine matt with Very Vanilla. The black CS and the watercolour paper were the only non SU! items used on this card.

While I was babysitting the little bratster (winks to Kirsty, LOL) he decided, in his little two year old, I’ll-show-you, attitude, that he would go to his room and SHUT the door. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem, but Kirsty’s husband forgot to mention to anyone that he had removed the door knob so he could make some repairs, so I couldn’t open the door. I tried to entice him with chocolate, to open it from his end and thats when I discovered he couldn’t get out!!!!

Theresa – Hi Kirsty. I have a bit of a problem. Your son is in his room and I can’t open the door.

Kirsty – Well just turn the door knob.

Theresa – But there is no door knob!!

Kirsty – What??? ( I won’t repeat what she had to say about her husband here, LOL)

Theresa – Look don’t worry. He (the son) thinks he’s in there hiding from me and seems happy about outsmarting me. While he’s not upset, I’ll just let him be ’til you get home. 

Not long after this phone call the husband comes in and opens the door. As soon as we stepped into the room, we knew the young fellow had done what he does best. Eeeeewwwhhhh!!! So the little guy did me a huge favour in his effort to outsmart me – I got out of doing the dreaded nappy change!!!! Phew, that was close!

Anyways thanks for popping in to ’see’ me. Love to hear from you.

Theresa.

Inspiration Challenge 177

Hello everyone. Todays card is for an Inspiration Challenge from Splitcoast Stampers. We were required to get our inspiration from designs featured on Kleenex tissue boxes. When I buy my tissues I like to choose my box from a design that most appeals to me at the time of purchase. The following picture is the box I used for inspiration.

Here is the card I made.

I used Stampin’Up! Orchid Opulence for colour, stamping the rose from A Rose is a Rose (SU). The swirls and corners are stamped with Adirondak Pitch Black, and they are made by Tuscan Rose. Pitch Black is my preferred black ink as I find it doesn’t smudge like others. I added a few silver brads and some Basic Gray card stock and there you have it.

Thanks for dropping by for a look. If you’d like to comment, don’t be shy. Be back soon with another creation.

Theresa

Darkroom Door – New stamps

Todays card is one that I’ve been working on most of the morning, and now I’m having to rush this post so I won’t be late for work. A couple of months ago I was checking out some new stamps that my favourite stamp shop had stocked. I went home and I couldn’t get one of the sets out of my mind, so I rang them up and asked them to hold it for me until I got back in to buy it. The stamps are made by Darkroom Door, the set is part of  The Essential Collection 2, and is called Trees. Then as so often happens the rubber stays unused for several weeks. Well today is the day I remedied that and I finally got around to making a card with it.

I made the card for this weeks Caardvarks Challenge – Trees a Crowd. Regular readers will have noticed that I’ve been doing a lot of different and new challenges lately and this one is no exception.

I used watercolour paper to make my backgrounds. I pulled out the Distressed Inks again to do this technique, details of which can be seen here. The sentiment and tree were also stamped with these inks. I pulled out Weathered by Stampin’Up to add a bit of texture to the back watercolour panel. Next I spent a lot of time trying out different layouts for the card and eventually settled onto this one. Other card stock used is Very Vanilla, Chocolate Chip and Close to Cocoa, all by Stampin’Up!

The sentiment reads – “May the tree of life bring you its sweetest treasures – love, hope, and dreams come true.” I hope you all have a great day and thanks for dropping in for a look.

Theresa.

Rosy Baroque

Hello everyone. Todays card is a combination of two challenges from Splitcoast Stampers and I’ve used all Stampin’Up products to make the card. The Colour Challenge this week was to use Basic Gray, Rose Red and Pink Pirouette, and I also followed this weeks Sketch Challenge.

I don’t have any Basic Gray ink, but I do have the Watercolor Wonder Crayons so I thought I’d pull them out for this card. I spritzed the Baroque stamp with water, rubbed the Basic Gray crayon over it, then  applied Rose Red to some of the edges, spritzed agian then stamped. I then repeated this with the Weathered stamp to create my background.

For the main image I used the bird from the Friends 24-7 set, stamping Rose Red onto Pink Pirouette. I added the extra foliage with two stamps from Stem Silhouettes, one in Rose Red, the other in Versamark. I made a stencil of the bird so I could sponge Pink Pirouette to his belly. A bit more sponging to the edges, a bit a layering of card stock, and there you have it.

Other news – I did a try out for one of the jobs I’m going for last night. It’s in a little country pub serving behind the bar. It’s been a lifetime since I’ve done this kind of work and I was surprised at how nervous I was. Tonight will be my first paid work in six weeks – I tell you folks it has been a long and frustrating six weeks. Last week was the worse, but thats all behind me now. Friday night will be the real test coz I’ll be mostly on my own and it’s a busy night. Great clientele though with all the old farmers coming in for a ‘quiet one’.

My other interview went very well, and why wouldn’t it as it is what I’m most experienced with. It involves working with a disabled young man, one day a week. This job has more advancement and training opportunities, but I said for now I’ll be happy with a slow start and build my hours up over time. I’m more excited about my future with this job.

Well, my dear friends, thats it for today, hope you have a good one.

Theresa.

My first Basic Grey Challenge.

As I was blog surfing a few days ago I came across Basic Grey Challenges blog. It’s a place for Basic Grey fans to show/link cards that they have made using Basic Grey products. It just so happens that I have some new BG papers and I also make cards (LOL) – so I’ll join in on this weeks challenge. And the challenge this week folks is to paper piece.

My first challenge was to find a stamp suitable to paper piece. It seems nearly all my stamps are bold or solid. But way, way down the bottom of my stamp collection I saw From the Garden. Clearly it’s been a long, long time since I’ve used it LOL. So now I’m set to go, I have my stamp and I have my Basic Grey Porcelain papers.

First I stamped the flower onto seven (I kid you not) different papers – 3 green, 3 cream and 1 base. Then for the next hour and a hour I cut out all the individual petals and leaves, adhereing each peice to my base image as I went along. You could image all the bits of cut up paper I had at the end of this project. I wanted to add some sponging to create shadows on the leaves, so I cut a mask for the flower to do this. Next I thought the background/base was too dark, so yes my good friend, I got the scissors out again to do some more cutting. I only removed the base from one side of the flower.

After I mounted my image onto Mellow Moss, Barely Banana and Blush Blossom card stock (SU) it still looked incomplete. You know that nagging feeling you get. Then you spend the next hour or so looking at the card trying to figure it out. So after a lot of thought I added to paper piercing, and now I know it is complete. I really like how the photo makes the flower looks like it has been 3D’d, but trust me it is flat!!!

Wow, did this card take a long time!!! I don’t recall making a card like this before, and I’m not likely to repeat it either. It will be a very special card for me though, because as it was coming together I knew my Mother-in-Law would have liked a card like this. She was not the frilly, sparkly, girly-girl type. We would marvel at the beauty of the magnolia trees in full blossom. I miss her.

Thanks for coming by for a read. And do check out that Basic Grey Challege Blog!!!

Theresa

Thanks Vintage Rose

Todays card is one that I made a few weeks ago. I was going to post it sooner, but I was on a roll with all the other cards I’ve been making and posting that I kept on putting it off.

With this card I wanted to use my Stampin’ Up stamps (Wild Roses, Illuminations, and Illuminated) with non SU inks. The inks I chose to use are Tim Holtz Distress Inks. Although they are dye inks, just like SU, they are designed to be more ’splotchy’ to achieve that distressed/old look. The colours I used were Tattered Rose (how appropriate) and Scattered Straw.

I’ve also used Distress embossing powder. It’s not shiny and smooth like regular EP’s, instead it is dull and rough. I used Vintage Photo EP as it has a ‘rusty’ feel to it, in looks and touch.

One day, when I have the inclination, I’d like to try this favourite old stamp set with pigment inks. You know, I’ve barely used my pigment inks since I discovered and fell in love with the magic of SU dye ink.

Onto other things. Today is turning out to be a better day than most I’ve had recently. I went to a job interview this morning and it’s looking really good that I’ll get a start with this one. I also got a phone call for a different interview for tomorrow. I’d just about given up on the one for tomorrow as the applications closed three weeks ago and I hadn’t heard back from them. All things going well I hope to get both jobs. One has 30  hours and the other has 6. Together I’d nearly have a full time job!!

Thanks for dropping by.

Theresa

SCS Inspiration Challenge

To all my regular readers, all three of you I believe, I trust you are now well and truely over the shock of all this recent flurry of activity on my blog. What can I say? I’m outta work, the days are long, the evenings even longer. I’ve got a lot of spare time on my hands. With me and time it always seems to be feast or famine.

Anyways….. yesterday I thought I’d give the Splitcoast Stampers Inspiration Challenge a go. I picked a great week to start as I totally love the website they picked for the challenge. I believe I had only flicked thru about three pages before I saw this and a few neuron pops later I had the ‘card’ in my head.

This card required a lot of Stamp-a-ma-jigging about, hence the first couple of attempts ended getting trashed. But I eventually pulled my act together, devised a systematic approach to the whole – ink stamp, clean stamp, versamark stamp, clean stamp, powder, heat emboss – production. Let me tell you folks, doing the stamping one handed while the other is firmly planted on the Stampy-jiggy-thingy is a talent I never knew I possessed. It might also be worth mentioning that the right thigh region of my jeans are also stained with ink.

First I inked images, from Baroque Motifs with Close to Cocoa, then over stamped with Versamark before applying and heat setting the embossing powder. Now this is no ordinary EP. It is clear or pink, depending on how the light is bouncing off of it. In the first pic you can see the pinkyness. The next pic shows as just clear. I thought it would be a perfect choise after seeing the decorative candle. My swirly band is the Illuminations wheel, using versamark only before embossing. The brads, the only non Stampin’ Up product used here, are from Basic Grey. I like how this card can be oriented how you like, landscape or portrait. I prefer the portrait.

Now I want to talk a bit more about my new Basic Grey brads. As mention yesterday, I bought them to match my new Porcelain papers. But I’m thrilled to discover their near perfect matchability my SU colours. So now I have brads ‘in’ Whisper White, Barely Banana, Blush Blossom, Mellow Moss and Chocolate Chip. The other colour is a paler version of Cameo Coral. How cool is that!!! I may actually pull out some of that over looked Cameo and look at it differently now.

Thanks for popping on over for a read. Hope you all have a lovely Sunday.

Theresa.

Porcelain Roses

As I was blog hopping the other day, I came across some cards that were made with Basic Greys new paterned papers called Porcelain. I just knew from the name of the collection that I just had to have some. I rang up a store that I knew stocks the 6×6 Basic Grey pads – yes they have one left. Yippee!!! Just just love those 6×6 pads. While I was there I thought I’d also get some matching brads – gotta love them too.

This morning, instead of doing my house work, I cracked open my new goodies. So onto the card.

 

I used five different papers from the pad and a few brads. The rest of the card was made up with all Stampin’ Up products. The roses, from A rose is a Rose stamp set, were stamped with Pink Pirouette lightly sponged with Regal Rose.  The leaves and vine swirl, from Baroque Motifs, are in Mellow Moss, which is a perfect matching green for this set of papers and brads. I then randomly ’sprinkled’ some brads around the rose. After looking at it for a while I pulled the brads out and stamped a small flower, in So Saffron, over the holes and reinserted the brads. Lastly, the sentiment was stamped, punched and sponged.

I love the soft feminie look of this card. Hope you all have a happy day everyone.

Theresa

Something Old, Something New

I was wanting to play around with my new Rose is a Rose set, and while there are a lot of great cards posted about the internet using thses stamps, I was hoping to come up with something I haven’t seen yet. So I started to experiment with the Wet Wipe technique. I’d tryed this technique not long ago when I was over at Kirsty’s place, using Fabulous Flowers. You can see what she did with my experiments here. Anyway I like the technique, but unfortunately I didn’t have any reinkers. That was until recently!!!!

This is what I did. Added drops from reinkers onto a laid out wet wipe. The colours I used were, Apricot Appeal, Pretty in Pink, Pale Plum for the roses and for the leaves, all the greens from Soft Subtle colour family. I have now in essence, created my own ink pad. I then proceeded to stamp in the usual way. After the ink stamping I decided I wanted a bit more oomph, so I stamped over the Second Step with versamark and clear embossed. I used an embossing powder with a little bit of sparkle to give it a little bit more zing, but not too much mind you.

 

For all those stampers familiar with Stampin’ Up, you’ll of course recognize the ’something old’ Love Swirls wheel from a couple of years ago, but now retired. Now that I’m no longer a Demonstrator I tend to look at all my stamps now, and not just the current ones

Splitcoast Colour Challenge 214

Time for another Colour Challenge thanks to Splitcoast Stampers. This time the colours were Bordering Blue (now there’s a colour I rarely reach for), So Saffron, Pink Pirouette, with the option of Chocolate Chip.

This time around I wanted to break out my other new stamp set Friends 24-7. Now I must confess when I first saw this set I was a bit puzzled. It looked to me like a mish mash of images that didn’t seem to go together. So I thought I’d go see what was happening in the gallery at Splitcoast, and boy was I amazed. The set, in a blink of an eye, made it to the top of my list.

So onto the card. I inked the flourish in PP and used my BB marker to swipe on patches of blue. The bird was first stamped in BB onto Whisper White, and the second layer with CC onto BB card stock. I also used the BB marker here to add a shadow to his belly. I thought the Bashful Blue and Pretty in Pink taffetta ribbons would work well with this card so I pulled them out. After the card was assembled I felt it needed a bit more of the yellow so I stamped and punched out the flowers from One of a Kind.

Tomorrow I shall post the latest card I’ve made