Sunday, December 2, 2012

How can it be December already?????

I guess it's a sign of how busy life is when the months seem to fly by. So I've been working on Christmas projects, like this Paper Cone Christmas Wreath. It's very easy to do, if a little time consuming. But I love the finished product!





All the paper used is from the Be of Good Cheer DSP from the main Stampin Up catalogue. The little pine cone embellishments are items I saved from Thanksgiving party crackers we had a few years ago at a family dinner. I made everyone give me all the little goodies that decorated the outsides of the crackers. Glad I finally found a project to use them on!

In the middle is a rosette finished off with a Vintage Faceted Button for a little sparkle, and a pearl - all surrounded by Cherry Cobbler scalloped tulle. Here's a bit of a closeup of the middle part.


This was a lot of fun to put together and they can be made for any season or time of year just by changing the paper. I can see some more of these in my future!

Thursday, August 9, 2012

All new products!

I've been so busy playing with new toys that apparently I haven't had time to post any of my creations! Another endeavour that has been taking up my time is the annual Night Market season here in Sechelt, BC. It runs every Thursday night from the middle of June until the end of August.

This card attracted a lot of lookers and sold pretty quickly. It uses my favourite technique of watercolouring, and features a Hostess Set from the 2012-2013 Catalogue called Summer Afternoon. Very appropriate for the season!


Everything on this card is new - except the Watercolour Paper. The base of the card is a new In-Colour, Summer Starfruit. The Designer Series Paper is Comfort Cafe. The wooden-looking frame highlighting the image is cut from the wonderful Natual Composition Specialty paper. It's very cool with glossy, raised patterns printed on heavy-weight natural paper. I cut the shape using a Framelit from the Labels Collection.

The image was stamped on the Watercolour Paper using Black Staz-On ink and watercoloured with markers.

Saturday, June 23, 2012

From background to focal point!


Pleasant Poppies is a brand new background stamp from the 2012-2013 Stampin' Up Catalogue. And it's available in clear mount!

I decided to make it a focal point and to use some of the new 2012-2013 In-Colours: Midnight Muse and Summer Starfruit. Here's what I came up with for my first try with this stamp:



I used some other brand new products on this. See the greeting stamped on the cool-looking curvy banner? It's from another brand new set, Bitty Banners and the shape is from the brand new Bitty Banners Framelits. And the designer paper is from Comfort Cafe DSP pack.

There are many more possibilites for using this wonderful background stamp. Check back to see my next projects. I will be teaching a class on Tuesday, July 3 at the Fibre Expressions Quilt Shop and plan on doing at least one project with this stamp.

Stamps: Pleasant Poppies background stamp, Bitty Banners
Ink: Midnight Muse
Paper: Summer Starfuit, Midnight Muse, Comfort Cafe DSP
Tools: Bitty Banners Framelits, Big Shot

Sunday, April 29, 2012

I'm back!!!

I know it's been a looooooong time since I've posted anything. All my time and energy has been taken up in the past few months with a few things that have been going on in my life. Such as packing up and moving two entire households within two weeks of each other!

Before that, the place I was living in was put on the market and there were numerous showings, which meant that I had to try to keep my "crafting clutter" to a minimum. It's stressful enough to go through the listing and showing process with a property you own yourself, and I think it's every bit, if not more, stressful when you are a renter. And you have pets. Well, the place was sold in December and my landlady/employer moved just after New Year's. The new owners were fabulous and I'm sure I would have been happy to continue living there, but at the end of January, my Mom was notified that she could move into the brand new senior's housing unit that has been under construction for a couple of years.

She had two weeks notice. So I had to give my notice right away to my new landlords. After we got my Mom moved, it was my turn. I moved into Mom's house, which I am in the process of buying from her, in the middle of February. Ever since then, I've been struggling with trying to figure out where I'm going to put everything in this tiny house. And since I don't have a dedicated crafting area - yet - I haven't been doing a lot.

Well, I finally just had to start hauling out supplies and taking over the kitchen table. I don't use it to eat at anyway! The next hurdle was to get inspired again. So, I decided I needed to organize another class, as I hadn't done one since November. After a lot of what I call "research" - otherwise known as blog surfing - I CASED (this stands for Copy And Share Everything) some projects for a basic stamping class. Stampin' Up demonstrators are extremely generous in sharing their talent, so my main resource is a web site for demos only.

Another resource for demos is a monthly magazine from Stampin' Up, called Stampin' Success. It is chock full of inspiration, tutorials and great advice. In the most recent issue was a project that caught my eye and inspired me to create my own take. It also gave me a chance to play with a new tool - a set of Framelits Labels Collection.

This is what I made:







Here's the supplies I used:
Cardstock: Crumb Cake, Watercolour paper, Whisper White
Stamps: Flower Soft (Hostess set), French Foliage, Teeny Tiny Wishes
Ink: Island Indigo, Pool Party
Accessories: Framelits Label Collection, Perfect Polka Dots Embossing Folder, Aqua Painter, Re-inkers, Word Window Punch, Baker's Twine, heat tool

This technique is a twist on watercolouring, which is one of my favourite things to do. I started with a piece of the Stampin' Up watercolour paper and spread moisture liberally all over it using the Aqua Painter. Then I dipped the Aqua Painter into drops of ink and then dropped the ink onto the moistened watercolour paper. It's like magic watching the ink spread and run in the water! Start with the lighter colour Pool Party and then do the same thing with the Island Indigo.

It does take a while for the ink to dry, but you can speed up the process with the heat tool. Once it was totally dry, I stamped images, again stamping some in Pool Party first, and then in Island Indigo.

The beauty of this technique is that it looks different every time because of the way the ink spreads in the water. What you end up with is something truly unique!

Tell me what you think. Is this a technique you would like to learn at a class?

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