GSG Swap Card

I waited as long as I could. I'm thinking Becky has gotten the swaps out in the mail on their way back to us, so I am probably only a day early on this post. If you are a GSG girl and reading this and you want to be surprised when your swaps arrive then stop reading! I know you won't, but thought I'd throw the spoiler alert in there anyway! LOL! This is one of my favorite cards I've made with this set to date. I used the Top Note Bigz die and then stamped the grass and flower images in kiwi kiss. This photo doesn't show it, but one of those big flowers is embossed with clear embossing powder. After I stamped the full image, I cleaned the stamp and then inked up only the 1 large flower with the Versamarker and clear embossed it. I love the texture it adds to the cards,plus because it was embossed with clear powder, it highlights anything that is stamped behind it. I think it is such a cool effect. I offset the main image a bit so I could show off the scalloped borders a little more. I used strips from the Urban Garden dsp. The whole card was mounted on Basic Grey cs and then again onto Baja Breeze. The sentiment was stamped and punched out with the wide oval punch and finished off with a piece of striped Kiwi grosgrain ribbon. Happy Monday! Hugs,

One More Cone Flower

This was the last of my frenzy of cards I made using this set. I think it is my favorite cards so far. I love my watercolor crayons, but truly only use them with an aqua painter. I brush the aqua painter directly onto the crayon to pick up the color and then I go to town coloring in line are stamps. This stamp is obviously not a line art stamps, so another cool technique with the crayons was used here. I misted the stamp with a little water first (I keep an empty Stampin' mist bottle filled with water) then colored directly on the stamp with the crayon. I mist again and then stamp onto watercolor paper. The colors blend so nicely and it creates this wonderful watercolored image. It really is a quick and easy technique to produces wonderful results. If you are a customer and reading this here is another sneak peek of a card we will do at my up coming Sept. 7 class! Hugs,

More New Stuff

If you haven't see the new catalog or the new specials SU is running this month, check out my side bar. There is some very cool stuff going on. All info is also on the customer website, Stampin' Up! I got some creative time today and spent almost two hours working on a few scrapbook pages. I would love to share them but they are in limbo until my order arrives hopefully next week. I did finish another card using the Inspired by Nature stamp set. Hope you aren't sick of seeing it because I am not sick of using it! hehehe! I still haven't shown you the cool book mark we made at Convention, but it used this striped Pacific Point ribbon. I thought the ribbon was way longer than it needed to be for the project and me being the frugal ribbon girl I tend to be cut it short leaving me with a usable scrap. It saved the day today on this card and added just the right touch I was looking for. The sentiment is from the awesome new Ronald McDonald stamps set, Say it With Scallops (the one we got for FREE at the closing of Convention!!). Since I don't have my scallop square punch yet, I just cut it out to fit in the square styled silver HPH frame. There are so many different techniques you can do with this set and that is why I have been playing with it so much lately. This one uses markers and a sponge dauber (since we don't' carry the In Colors in markers). I inked up the stems in Mellow Moss and the petals in Bashful blue using markers. I then added depth to the center of the cone flowers by sponging on Pacific Point with a dauber. I layered the main image onto Artichoke (mellow moss was too light with this vibrant blue) and then onto Pacific Point cs. That image is then layered onto a piece of Kraft cs that is inked with Versamark and stamped with canvas (it is a very subtle look, not sure if you can see it in the photo). The card base is, yep you guessed it-Pacific Point. It is a beautiful shade of blue. Hugs,

Inspired by Nature-I LOVE it!

This is my favorite new stamp set. It was in our Convention bag and I am soooo greatful. I saw a sneak peak of it from the Cruise pics attendees posted and knew I would love it, but I had no idea just how much I would fall in love with it! I am still working with limited supplies (of new product, I mean-Still no ribbon or dsp yet) but at least I have some new rubber. The card base is Riding Hood red and I stamped the background stamp, Canvas in the same ink giving the card just enough texture. Since I didn't order the scallop edge punch yet (it is on my first order, Aug. 11 hurry up and get here) I used my slit punch to create the scallop edge in Kiwi Kiss. I inked up the silhouette flowers with my sponge daubers using Baja breeze and Kiwi. The ribbon is Bayou Blue (trying to use that stuff up) with the stitching pulled out. It isn't an exact match, but it works for now. I love the sentiment in this set (I already told you that, I know). It fits perfectly in the new wide oval punch, but again, I had to make due until my new stuff gets here so I used the large oval punch. Check out that brad! If you dip those cool styled silver brads in craft ink and then heat set it and dip it again you can get color into the grooves and give it a whole new look. I learned this at convention and was just WOW'd! by it so I had to give it a go. After I got the color into the brad, I sanded the edges to remove some of the ink, that way it was only in the grooves of the HPH piece. Here is a close up of the silver brad with Olive craft ink. Isn't cool?! I have a couple other new ideas I hope to try out today. I'll get them posted as soon as I do. Have a great day! Hugs,