Life Gets in the Way

Holy moly.  My life has been one big whirlwind for the last month.  Between soccer tournaments, starting my masters, work stuff, and a social life, I don't seem to have any downtime recently.  After a couple of hours reading up on the brain and its crazy abilities, I made an appearance in my craftroom.

At the beginning of the month I received several new sets that I've had my eye on for some time, and I pulled one of them out today.  I knew that I wanted to have a masculine themed workshop next month but hadn't really thought about the cards for it much.  Extreme Elements was one of the sets that I hadn't played with yet, so that was a match.  Then for colour scheme.  I have a bunch of More Mustard Scallop Dots ribbon that's been sitting there for months that I decided needed to be used.  I love Not Quite Navy with More Mustard, and Always Artichoke rounded things out nicely.

Now, I must admit that my Stampin' Wheel has been sitting in a basket unused for more than a year.  It's just too fussy for me and I don't want to buy 40 uninked cartridges and refills.  However, I recently purchased the Speckles wheel and LOVE it.  It makes a really nice understated background.  I can see myself using it on lots of things in the future.

Apparently I was in the mood for grunge since I roughed up and distressed all of my layers on this one.  The ribbon even got a bit of ink smeared on it.  I don't usually use ribbon on masculine cards, but I like the effect of having the ends showing.  I think it makes it less girly.  I wanted to add some brads as well, but I couldn't find the container.

Inside I used the footprints from the set, as well as the Father's Day sentiment from Delightful Dozen.  My stamp shifted on my block before I stamped the image, but I actually like the crookedness for this card so I left it.

2012 Retiring Stamps

With the new catalogue coming in June this year, Stampin Up has released its retired list.  These stamp sets are available to order until May 31st, or whenever stock runs out, whichever is earlier.

Take a good look through the list and see if there's anything you meant to order but didn't get around to.  This is your last chance!  Click here for a PDF of the list.

Happy Stamping!

Has It Been That Long?

Oh my goodness.  After returning to work following spring break life has been hectic!  Sorry about the lacks of posts, but things get in the way.

I have a new post for a but later, but I wanted to update an old post with a beautiful card that I did with my stamper's club this week.

You can see the original post for this entry here.  What I learned this week is that it's best NOT to use hot glue to adhere your pieces to your block.  The glues doesn't come out consistently, and you're going to end up with some pieces sticking up more than others as a result of the amount of glue underneath.  This gives you an uneven stamping surface.  Not so bad when you're just using it for backgrounds, but when you're trying to do a mosaic, you really need the Versamark to stamp clearly.  I suggest using some Sizzixx or Sookwang double-sided sticky sheets.  They're strong enough to hold your pieces on, and they'll give you an even surface.

If you love this card, here is a recipe for it so you can make it without trying to figure out the measurements.

Base: Always Artichoke

1st later: Crumb Cake - 4 x 5 1/4

2nd layer: Pink Pirouette - 3 7/8 x 5 1/8

3rd layer: First Edition - 3 3/4 x 5

Art Piece:

1st layer: Crumb Cake - 3 1/4 square

2nd layer: Pink Pirouette - 3 1/8 square

3rd later: Very Vanilla - 3 square

TOOLS:

Heat tool, clear embossing powder, textured impressions plate (flourish), sponge dauber, mosaic stamp (if you don't know what this is search STAINED MOSAIC in the resource section of splitcoaststampers)

INK/ACCESSORIES:

Always Artichoke, Crumb Cake, Pink Pirouette, Soft Suede, VersaMark, Blender Pen

Vintage brads, Always Artichoke seam binding ribbon

*Stamp and colour your image. I used my blender pen for a gentler look than the markers gave me.

*Ink your mosaic stamp with VersaMark and cover coloured image.

*Cover with clear embossing powder and heat set.

*Use coordinating dark colours to ink brayer and cover image. Wipe off excess ink.

*Before mounting your pieces of cardstock together, use your scissors to rough up the edges, then distress them with your sponge daubers.

A La Card Monkey #102

Sorry for the lack of posts this week.  Back to real life after a glorious 2 week spring break.  So much for doing three sketches per week!  I'll try and get back on track this week though.  To start things off I've done a challenge from A La Card Monkey.  Easter is this week's theme, and I needed another card so it worked out quite well.

I know I've already posted a few cards with this set (Everybunny) but it's just so darn cute that I can't help myself.  Plus, I'll have to put it away for another year now, so I wanted to get my fill.  I used Nursery Nest as my DSP and then the coordinating markers to fill in my image.  I seem to be on a blender pen kick right now.

Mosaic II + Colour Throwdown 184

I'm trying a new challenge this weekend with Colour Throwdown.  The sun is shining and the snow is melting, so this combo was perfect to match the spring mood.  I don't use the subtles all that much, so using so many of them here was certainly a challenge for me.

Yesterday I discovered the mosaic technique, and this morning I made a HUGE mosaic.  It's got to be 5" X 6".  This might not seem very big, but cutting and gluing all of those little pieces in place was no small task.  It took me the better part of an hour to do it, but I'm happy that I've got one now.  I think that I will be using it a lot.  Next week I'm going to try using different inks on it to make backgrounds.

In keeping with the spring mood, I chose Simply Soft for my stamping.  The flowers are lovely, and they lend themselves nicely to messy colouring.  I stamped the images in Certainly Celery, and then used my So Saffron and Marina Mist markers to fill in the petals.  Elegant Eggplant was used to make the mosaic.

It took a little bit of playing, but I finally ended up with Four Frames and a nice button to cap it all off.  The sentiment that I've used comes from Petite Pairs.  If you don't have that set yet, you should add it to your wish list.  There are a variety of great little sayings in there, and the layout of them allows you to use with a variety of shapes of punches.

Mosaic Technique + Hand Stamped Sentiments 110

You know how Stampin' Up's stamps come in that piece of rubber that you have to punch your stamps out of?  Well, I always feel guilty throwing the pieces away because I feel like I can use them for something, so I've saved a few of them.  I saw this technique ages ago, but completely forgot about it until I was looking through Splitcoast stampers and saw it again.  So out to the craftroom this morning to give it a whirl!

I am in L.O.V.E.!  I love the emboss resist technique, but this adds a whole new element to it.  I originally pulled out this set for a Hand Stamped Sentiments challenge sine the image lends itself nicely to water colouring.  It had been sitting on my desk waiting to be coloured, I just wasn't sure what colours I was going to use.  Yesterday I received an order that contained some Always Artichoke cardstock and seam binding ribbon (my absolute fave ribbon).  After using my ink pads and blender pen, I used my newly made mosaic stamp to cover the image with Versamark.  I then used clear embossing podwer and heat set it, creating the little tiles.  The final step here is the brayered ink in Soft Suede and Always Artichoke.  The dark ink really makes the image look like a mosaic.

If you aren't familiar with the mosaic stamp, check out the page on Splitcoast Stampers.  It's really simple and chances are you've got what you need to make it!

Colour Q #129

Being on spring break means I have more spare time on my hands than I know what to do with.  So what do I do with it?  Spend hours looking at challenge blogs and making cards - that's what.  I love the Colour Q site when I need inspiration, but I've never played along with their challenges.  Of course the week I choose to do so, one of the colours I like least shows up.

Don't get me wrong, Tempting Turquoise is a nice colour, but I rarely find myself using the brights.  (However, I did make 2 cards with brights this week...)  It was especially challenging to use these colours together.

I knew that I wanted to have white butterflies, so I added a few in Rich Razzleberry as well.  I think they look whimsical.  I really like the layout that I did for this card, so I think I'll repeat it in neutrals for a wedding card.

I'm not in love with this one, but I like it well enough.  I should have left the bottom corner alone and I would have liked it more, but, being a challenge and all, I tried something that I don't usually do, and stamped the sentiment right on the DSP.  Big mistake.  It looked horrible.  I had to cover it up with something, so this is what I ended up with.

Why am I posting this card if I don't like it?  Because I did something outside of my comfort zone, and though I don't love the colours, I do love the layout.