Gamsol & Colouring Pencils

Today was such fun! I went to the StampScrapArt Tour in the Southfield Pavillion ... whilst there, I came across Jackie from Inky Antics ~ what fun stamps they have! Jackie was demonstrating Gamsol and Colouring Pencils which is another fun way of colouring your stamped images. Luckily, she was selling little bottles of the Gamsol and a small packet of the blending stumps ... so of course I had to get them! I also bought this adorable pig stamp ... anyone that knows me well, knows that I LOVE pigs (ask my mum!). So here's my very first attempt at colouring with Gamsol ~ I think this could be very addictive!

I popped the image up by cutting out the head and layering it, then cutting out his ears and snout and layering them. Quite a good effect on such a plain card.

Recipe
Stamps : Pig & Sentiment, Inky Antics
Cardstock : Whisper White, Riding Hood Red
Ink : Memento Rich Cocoa
Accessories : Riding Hood Red Ribbon, Square Scallop Nestabilities, Gamsol & Pencils

A Techniques Class

It's time for another class at my house! June's techniques #5 Class is to make the 3 cards shown below. From the left:- A Spotlight Card, A Spinner Card, A Buckle Card. I had fun coming up with these designs and they're relatively simple to recreate. There are 2 classes, one at 7pm on Friday June 12th, and another at 10.30am on Saturday June 13th. You make 2 of each design for just $15 so let me know if you'd like to join us!

New Home

My cousin and her husband are moving into a new house next Monday so I used my new PTI set, Bird Watching, to make them a diamond-fold card. The sentiment is from another PTI set called 'Boards and Beams'. I need to post it today, it takes a week for post to reach England!

Recipe
Stamps : PTI ~ Bird Watching, Boards & Beams
Cardstock : Chocolate Chip, Riding Hood Red, Very Vanilla
Ink : Memento Rich Cocoa
Accessories : Copic Markers

Hinged Cards

Happy Memorial Day! Today over on Splitcoast, Lynn has set us a wonderful 'hinged card' challenge. You can find all the details here. A few weeks ago, I designed a round hinged card for one of my techniques classes so I thought I'd show my round variation here!

This is the card closed. It's made using the large scallop circle Sizzix Die as the base, and then layers of circles made with the Circle Scissor Plus. Make two of the top white circle and cut one in half, this makes the half circle for the hinged top ... and just attach it to the layers with a brad. Easy Peasy!

I cut out the little bird from 'Cheep Talk' and used his tail as the handle for opening the hinged top half ... it works really well and is a little bit different! Hope you like the idea and have a go yourself.

Recipe
Stamps : Cheep Talk
Cardstock : Whisper White, Pacific Point
Ink : Creamy Caramel, Kiwi Kiss, Pacific Point
Accessories : Big Shot, Sizzix Scallop Circle, Circle Scissor Plus, Trio Flower Punch, Rhinestone Brad, Paper Piercer

A Wishy Washy Sketch

Just a quick post, here's this week's sketch ... this card is rather wishy-washy ... but it was fun to use my new Kind Thoughts Flourish stencil! Thanks Debra for showing this to me!



Recipe
Stamps : Friends 24-7
Cardstock : Whisper White, Shimmer White, Parisian Breeze DSP, Going Gray
Ink : Pink Pirouette
Accessories : Kind Thoughts Flourish Stencil, Pink Taffeta Ribbon, SU Markers

Another folding technique

I've been teaching folding techniques in my classes recently ... and this one turned up on Splitcoast as their Monday TLC221 Challenge. It's taken me 2 days to get it finished! So maybe this isn't a good one for a class ~ I thought I'd share it with you though :)

Recipe

Stamps : Sweet Stems, Soft Summer (sentiment)
Cardstock : Kiwi Kiss Textured, Raspberry Tart DP, Shimmer White, Kiwi Kiss, Riding Hood Red, Pink Pirouette
Ink : Close to Cocoa
Accessories : Blender Pen and Reinkers (watercolouring), Scallop Circle Punch, Kiwi Kiss Corduroy Button

Tuesday's Colours

Well, Tuesday is colour challenge today on SCS and I'm not even going to show you the crappy card I made. The colours are just awful (well for me, that is) and so my card is too. I did upload it to my SCS gallery but it's horrible so I might yank it before too long! Tee Hee.

So as my day hasn't started well, I thought I'd share some photos that make me smile :)

On Saturday, a gang of Splitcoast MI 'Minglers' came to my house for a stamping day. I've been chatting to these girls on the MI Mingle chat thread for about a year and a half now and we've become very good friends. Here we are crammed into my basement!

From the left : Okiechic (Laura); vz5dzh (Lorien); nenimlasj (Jill); moebuck (Maureen); Cathy_S (Cathy); CMUgrad (Michelle); Debra (and that's Debra's daughter Jaclyn playing a game on the sofa); Plaid Pony (Michele); kelicat (Kelly); Glitterboo (Maria); DawnMarieS (Dawn Marie) ... and I was taking the photo! If you click on the photo you'll see everyone much more clearly ~ What a fun day we had!

Another thing I wanted to share was a 'New Home' card for Jennifer who moved into a new house a few weeks ago. Hope the move went well Jennifer :)

Recipe
Stamps : There She Goes 'Welcome Home'
Cardstock : PTI White, Old Olive, Ripe Avocado
Ink : Memento Rich Cocoa
Accessories : Copic Markers

My good friend Dawn (take a look at her blog here) gave me with this Lemonade Award ~ how thrilling! Thanks Dawn {{{mwah!}}}

So the rules are that I now nominate 5 great blogs and list them here so you can all go and visit them and be inspired by the wonderful work ... here are my nominations:

1. Carolina Buchting
I was on the H&MStamps design team with Carolina and she was just so talented ... and now she's been asked to join the SCS Dirty Dozen Designers which is well deserved ~ go ahead and see what she's been up to on her blog (here).

2. Neva McMullen
Neva and I were also on the H&MStamps DT together ... she's the Queen of challenges over on SCS and I just love her! Here's her blog for you to go and look at {{wink}}

3. Robin Spinner
Robin is a dear friend and fellow Stampin' Up Demonstrator ... she made Founder's Circle Rising Star last year ... I was so proud of her :) and she's one of the most talented stampers I know! Here's her blog.

4. Angie Juda
Angie is hugely popular ... and probably gets nominated daily by her faithful readers ... but if you haven't stumbled across her blog then you HAVE TO VISIT here. I love Angie! Hey, Angie, did you know you had a fan club? Hee Hee.

5. Chris Kolly
Chris is a great friend of my former upline at Stampin' Up. I've only met her once but I love her blog and visit often ... take a peek here and see if you don't just love her work too!

Now my nominees can make their 5 nominations ... here are the rules:

The rules of the award (To pick up the Lemonade Stand Award):
- Comment on this blog - Cut and paste the award logo and use it in your own blog.
- Nominate 5 to 10 blogs you feel show great attitude and gratitude.
- Link to your nominees within your blog post.
- Comment on their blogs to let them know they've received the award.
- Link back to the person who gave you the award to show your appreciation.

Rock N Roll

So yesterday's CAS challenge on Splitcoast was to make a CAS card (clean & simple) using the 'rock n' roll' technique. Rock n' roll is when you ink up your image in the light colour and then re-ink it with a darker shade but you roll the stamp so only the edges get inked ... like this ...

I also used today's Colour Challenge colours of Old Olive, Only Orange and Summer Sun ~ such fun and fresh colours, they make me smile!

Recipe
Stamps : Papertrey Ink Anniversary set (2009)
Cardstock : Whisper White, Old Olive, Summer Sun, Only Orange
Ink : Only Orange, Summer Sun
Accessories : SU grosgrain ribbon, dimensionals, stickles (centre of flower)

A new technique (to me that is!)

Hi everyone and Happy Monday. Today Lynn showed us how to make a background using the 'bandanna technique'. You can see the post here but basically, you stamp a background and highlight with a white gel pen. So easy to do and really effective.

Recipe
Stamps : Seeing Spots, Cheep Talk
Cardstock : Whisper White, Basic Black, Baja Breeze
Ink : Basic Black, Baja Breeze
Accessories : Valet Ribbon Originals, Trio Flower Punch, Rhinestone Brads, White gel pen

Splitcoast Sketch and Just Buzzin' By

Here's the sketch today over on Splitcoast. It's a square one today so I made this 4 1/4" x 4 1/4" which is a really great size for a card! The panel is long and thin so I chose the daffodil from Just Buzzin' By which fits perfectly! I really like the red and yellow colour combo, it seems so springy and fresh! One of my Splitcoast Michigan Mingler friends has a birthday on Friday so this is for her (I hope she doesn't read my blog or it'll ruin the surprise!). Actually, she's busy moving house so I doubt she'll see it!

Tomorrow I'm meeting 3 other Minglers at the Novi Expo Mega Meet scrapbooking show. We're going early and then having lunch afterwards. Can't wait for that! Isn't stamping fun? Tee Hee.

Recipe
Stamps : Just Buzzin' By, Oval All (sentiment)
Cardstock : White, Riding Hood Red, Flock Together DP
Ink : Memento Rich Cocoa
Accessories : Copic Markers, Scallop Oval and Large Oval SU Punches, EK Success small scallop edge punch, Choc Chip Taffeta Ribbon, dimensionals.

Embossing Resist

Lynn gave us a quick lesson on how to do embossing resist this morning for Monday's TLC over on Splitcoast. Here's a short version : run a piece of wax paper in an embossing folder through your machine. Make a sandwich using 2 pieces of glossy cardstock (glossy towards the wax paper) and the wax paper as the filling! Iron gently on a non-steam setting. Brayer your ink over the glossy paper, wipe with a cloth and hey presto!

I used my new Sizzix Spring Flowers Textured Impressions Embossing Folder ... it turned out really nicely so I'll be doing this one again!

Recipe
Stamps : Schoolbook Serif Alpha, Fundamental Phrases
Cardstock : WW, RHRed
Ink : RHRed, Kiwi Kiss
Accessories : Big Shot, Spring Flowers Sizzix Embossing Folder, Dew Drops, SU Lg Oval and Word Window Punches, Stamp-a-Majig

A quick Sunday Post

I just wanted to post this really quickly ... it's time for bed, what a long day! We worked in our garden most of the day ... on and off that is, I'm getting old! Anyway, just time tonight to make a quick card with PTI's Scattered Showers. I love this set. I found some raindrops which I thought might work with the umbrella! Cardstock is Riding Hood Red and Pink Pirouette and the ribbon is Pretty in Pink Taffeta.

Limited Supply Challenge and Mitred Corners!

Today's LSC (limited supplies challenge) was to incorporate a border into our projects. I used 'Beautiful Borders', stamped it 4 times to make 4 strips and then mitred the corners to make a frame ... only problem is, you can't tell! It just looks like a background stamp ... after all that work! Oh well, it looks cool! And I managed to stay away from the tea pot for the 2nd day running!

Recipe
Stamps : Beautiful Borders, Simple Friendship
Cardstock : Old Olive, Very Vanilla
Ink : Old Olive
Accessories : Button Bouquet, Earth Elements Buttons