All the coloring tools

I think the colored pencils were spared.  Everything else was drafted to make this card from Stampin' Up!'s Elements of Style set.  The hummingbird is stamped in Versamark and chalked with Rose Red, Garden Green and a little Old Olive chalks.  Then I stamped the flowers in Staz-on and colored first with watercolor crayons.  I wasn't getting enough color variation so I added some marker and went over with a blender pen.  I'd never tried that before - adding the marker over top of watercolor crayons but I loved the effect.  The marker ink stays wet and you can really blend it in good - a little goes a long way.

For the background, I used Ranger Distress inks in Mahogony, Tea Dye and Rose but that gave me too much orange.  So then I pulled out the chalks again and added a little Rose Red over the slightly still damp background.  Finally I used the Tea Dye to stamp the flourish.  Whew!  For me this is a lot of coloring but I love how it turned out.

Thanks for visiting today!  A new month is upon us with lots of challenges so I hope to get in some scrapbooking this weekend.  Oh and I'm tickled; one of my Two Peas entries was a  random draw for a prize!  Love it when the mail man brings a treat.

TIPsy Tuesday - Coloring Perfect Pearls

In the pink again!  This time it is for the Splitcoast stampers weekly color challenge.  It has been awhile since I did one of those.  The colors are Melon Mambo, Crumb Cake (kraft) and Soft Suede.  Since I'm not a neutral person that means a lot of Melon Mambo.  I stretched it with a bit of shading.

The background was created by pressing my ink pad on my Ranger craft sheet and then spraying the ink with water before soaking the paper. Stampin' Up! Classic Ink pads work very much like distress inks.

To give the flowers a little shine, I used some Perfect Pearls but the only color I have is white, so...

I mixed a drop of liquid pearls from Ranger and a drop of Rose Red Craft Ink (I don't have Melon Mambo ink refill) and then painted it on the center of the flowers.  It gives a nice little glisten effect.

Here is another version of the card.  Thanks for visiting today!  Hope the rest of your week is great. If you are in the US, how are you planning to celebrate the 4th of July?  We haven't decided here - no big trip or anything just something around the house.  Do you have a tradition?  

Ingredients:  Stamps:  God's Beauty and Petal Prints by Stampin' Up!
Ink:  Melon Mambo and Soft Suede
Cardstock: Crumb Cake

One Summer Day

Saturday, I strolled around the yard with my camera and snapped what was in bloom and how some things like Lenny's volunteer cantaloupes were coming along.  Then I printed them in these itty bitty size for the Two Peas Snap and Scrap your summer challenge to use small photos.  So not my norm!

My only regret is that I had one more photo I printed and planned to use in the corner and then decided on a different arrangement with the flower.  I had no room for it and it was my favorite!  Oh well, maybe I'll use it in full size on another layout sometime.



Project Note:

The sun is stamped with paint and then I used a marker to outline it.

The flower and Summer are cut with SCAL and the Cricut.  The flower is an image from the built in images in Photoshop Elements.

I know I've been doing a lot of scrapbook pages lately.  I do have some cards made to post. I just needed to get these pages in before the challenge deadlines.

Have you had your camera busy these summer days?  Thanks for visiting today!

Ingredients:  Stamps:  Fancy Pants
Cardstock:  Certainly Celery
DSP:  Bella Blvd, Stampin' Up and October Afternoon.

Wonderland

I wanted to scrap this photo of us at the beach and Shimelle's sketch of the week this week was perfect.  The photo also went great with a Pink Paislee 365 Degree 6x6 paper pad and embellishments making this layout work for Scrapbooker's Anonymous challenge to use at least 4 sheets from a mini paper pad on a layout.  Check.  Finally, I used non-summer themed papers on a summery layout so it fits a Snap and Scrap your summer challenge at Two Peas - Double check.

The challenge was the journaling.  What else to say about the beach at Hilton Head?  It was breezy, It was sunny, it was our last night there, we don't want to leave (yawn).   Finally I realized that I don't go there by myself; I'd ask my husband his thoughts. The journaling is exactly what he said when he looked at the photo:

"Looks so perfect.


Me standing there holding you.


I wouldn't change a thing.


Wonderland."

And what he said when he saw the completed layout.  "Can we go back?"  Oh, I wish!


Project Notes:
Since this sketch was a real departure from my regular style - a lot of small pieces of paper, lots of white space and only one photo - I followed it very closely until the end when I added just a couple more embellishments.

For the background, I did Shimelle's method of flicking paint on the page before I added anything else.  It was fun, like being a child in a food fight.

I also used paint to distress the edge of the journaling block.  It took three tries before I got a color I liked.  That's the great thing about paint.  Since it is opaque, you can layer until you are happy.

Thanks for visiting!

Ingredients:  DSP and Cork embellishments:  Pink Paislee 365 Degree 6x6 paper pad
Stickers:  Basic Grey Marrakesh
Cardstock:  Crumb Cake by Stampin' Up!
Grid paper:  My Mind's Eye
Ribbon:  Making Memories

An Ordinary Day (that wasn't supposed to be)

On the day after we returned from a two day trip to Georgia for a medical/dental consult that ended up with me in a new treatment for my ear, neck and shoulder pain, we did a lot of ordinary things like working and for Lenny, yardwork.  I had to have one of my new dental appliances adjusted by a local dentist and run errands in the afternoon.  We did take time to have lunch together and have one of Lenny's favorite recipes.  Later we watched Jeopardy and a Big Bang Theory rerun.  It was just an ordinary day... except that it was actually our 10th Wedding Anniversary!  

It was probably good that I didn't have anything fancy planned since we needed a day to catch up.  Perhaps it was just right to spend our anniversary doing the same kinds of things we do all the time and things we enjoy doing together.

There was one thing I really wanted to do and that was a photo shoot, but I couldn't bring myself to even freshen my makeup at the end of the day.  We did our photo shoot on Sunday.  So later on I'll scrap those photos.

For the layout of this ordinary/special day, I used the sketch from June's Stretch Your Sketch class at 2P's.  I made my own embellishments with various ribbons and supplies I've had quite a long time.

The grid paper, paper clips, and faux Polaroid frames emphasize the everyday nature of the events.






The center of this embellishment is stamped with an Anna Griffin Hydrangea stamp to compliment the hydrangeas I picked for our table and that we used hydrangeas as the main flower for our wedding.

Here are the faux Polaroids I mentioned in this week's TIPsy Tuesday post (How To) .

Thanks for visiting on another ordinary day here in N.C.!

Ingredients:  DSP:  Sweet Threads by Basic Grey; Hazel Ledger paper by My Mind's Eye for background
Ticket:  J'Adore by Making Memories
Metal frames by Stampin' Up!
Sticker by Girls Paperie
Stamp by Anna Griffin and ink by Colorbox and SU!

The card I hope I never send

I hope I never send this card to anyone.

When I was putting the trims on, I kept thinking "Who do I know that likes pink this much???"  I was trying to use up some ribbon I'd had in my stash way too long - can you tell? :-)  Anyway, the sentiment was selected just because it fit in the space.  It wasn't until I was coloring in the words that it dawned on me ... pink ... Live, Laugh, Love.  This is a card to send encouragement to someone fighting breast cancer.

I've known way too many of these woman in the last few years.  I guess it is a fact of getting older that there will be more people I know with life threatening illnesses.

I put this card in my general card box. I truly hope it gets crowded to the bottom, the trims mussed, the corners crinkled before I ever have a recipient for it.

Ingredients:  Stamps:  Spring by Inkadinkado
Ribbons:  Unknown sources
Markers: Stampin' Up!
Buttons: Papertrey Ink:
Cardstock:  Pretty in Pink by SU!; Lavendar Mist by PTI!

TIPsy Tuesday - Faux Polaroids

Everything comes back in style eventually.  Polaroids have been popular in scrapbooking. If you have old Polaroid (Instamatic) photos you want to include on a scrapbook page, you should probably scan them and then print on photosafe paper for archival quality.  For me, I prefer the real thing.  My scrapbooks are really for me so if the photo degrades, I'm OK with it.  (I do scan them just in case and keep the image with my other digital photos.)

One trend in the industry is to make new photos look like Polaroids.  To create the Polaroid look, there are lots of stamps and digi images you can buy or you can just make your own as I did here:

• Print photo on glossy paper at a little more than 3"x3" in size.
• Cut a Polaroid like frame from heavy white cardstock.  Outside dimensions are 3 1/2" wide by 4 1/4" tall.
• Cut a 3" square from the middle 1/4" down from the top and side edges.
• I set mine up with SCAL software to cut on the Cricut.  You could cut with a craft knife.
• If you want an aged look, curl the edges a little with your finger or add some very light distressing ink like Antique Linen by Ranger.

A layout using this image is coming along later in the week.

Thanks for stopping by!

SU! Catalog Review

Stampin' Up!'s Idea Book and Catalog for 2011-12 is out. I CASEd this card (almost identically) using the Fifth Avenue Floral set which is still available in the new catalog.  This year's CAT was not the massive change of last year when all the color families changed along with lots of other things.  Apparently some of last years' changes were not embraced as they have changed again.  Here's my take on the new catalog:

• I like all of the new In-Colors.  In Colors are now for 2 years so the ones introduced in this catalog carry through the middle of 2013 and last year's In Colors are still good until July 2012.  Finally, someone realized we needed another purple!  Wisteria Wonder is a mid-tone grayish purple sort of lavendar, sort of not.  It looks pretty.
  
• However, it is hard to tell as the color swatches are so very small.  They are using a garden theme throughout the catalog and while I love themes you have to be careful that your theme doesn't diminish your message.  The color swatches are shown as tiny flowers and leaves.  They are just not big enough to really get a good look.
  
• 12x12 cardstock is back in packages of smooth only!!! And they are 12 sheets to the pack which is a much more realistic quantity for scrapbooking than the 20 sheets we had before.
  
• Now if only I could get them to realize ribbon doesn't need to be sold in 10-15 yard rolls!  One very positive rollback on ribbon is having almost every color come in at least one ribbon.
  
• I don't do children's cards; however, I thought the children's stamps were much improved in variety.
  
• I am disappointed in most of the other new stamps.  I guess they just aren't to my taste.  So far I haven't found a single new set I want.  I do wish they would offer background stamps as unmounted red rubber.  Most of the time I turn over the background stamp to use it so I don't need the wood block at all.  At 17.95 + tax and shipping, they are almost $20 each.  Yikes!  I've bought a couple in the past but that is just too much.
  
• One of the biggest changes is the hostess program.  You earn hostess dollars to apply to selected stamp sets and papers.  You get nicer sets and I think you can use the money towards other things in the catalog but I'm not sure.  There is a lot of hostess stuff to choose from so this may work.  It will be interesting to see how the change is received.
  
• The projects in the catalog are some of the prettiest and most interesting they have ever done in my opinion.
  
• The punches are displayed in a way so you can see much better what the image is and what punch is called what.
• Simply Scrappin' kits are more general and less themed which I really like.  They have gone up $2 in price though.  I didn't notice other price increases though I've certainly not checked them all.

The catalog should be on-line July 1st or check with your demo about getting one.  They are great idea books as well as for purchasing product.

The card above is almost entirely Stampin' Up product except for the cardstock.  I think the one in the catalog is a new In Color.  I matched it pretty closely with Berry Sorbet from Papertrey Ink.

Ingredients:  Fifth Avenue Floral

Cardstock:  Berry Sorbet by Papertrey Ink; Crumb Cake by SU!

Liquid Pearls by Ranger

Ribbon:  Old Olive