Running With Scissors…

When I opened my box of new SU! supplies and took out all the stamps and ribbons these two papers were laying there together in the bottom of the box.  I thought it was a striking combo and decided to use it on my first card from this order.  I was really looking forward to this Basic Gray and I’m not disappointed.  In fact, I’m delighted!  I wouldn’t have thought I’d be that excited about gray, but this deep charcoal gray is something else again.  I give SU! a big A+ on their colors this year and what’s better is that this one is around to stay, having joined the neutrals group as a permanent member.

I stamped it with Paisley in Basic Gray ink.  Be aware that this ink stains like Basic Black.  I’ll have to go back later and clean my Paisley with solvent so it’ll be pristine again.  It was late by the time I got around to this so I didn’t fuss much with the layout and extras.  It’s very simple and went together in no time at all but I like it like this.  It seems fitting for the cool elegance of the charcoal Paisley and the textured Coral cardstock.  The card base is Basic Black and the main image mat is Soft Sky.  I can’t wait to use this gray with other colors as well.  I’m just beside myself!

The poppy and its Soft Sky textured background is from the Oh, So Lovely Level I hostess set.  I didn’t order very many stamps this time but not to worry — I have another order going in this weekend.  I did receive a nice selection of ribbons with this order.  This piece is from the Sherbet collection.  It’s elasticised and it’s pretty thick so I had to raise the Coral textured panel on dimensional tape in order to tuck the ribbon behind it.  The main image panel is on dimensional tape over that, using two layers of it on the lower part of the panel that rests on the card front.

I sure hope I can share more of my new treasures tomorrow.  Isn’t it wonderful when the new catalog comes out?  Until then… have a great day!

Before I start stamping I just want to share a few garden photos from today.  It was one of those incredibly still and beautiful days we get before a rain.  Mostly overcast but warm and so quiet you could hear the buzz of a bee in the far distance.  I must have been the only person home in the neighborhood today, too, because there weren’t even any of those sounds.  Maybe everyone stayed inside, put off by the overcast sky, thinking it a dreary day.  It was anything but a dreary day in the garden.

The first photo is a view of the upper level of the side garden.  To the left of the photo the garden slopes down, accessed by a set of brick stairs and a grassy “road” with a terraced bed between the two.  I’ve shown glimpses of those areas in photos I’ve posted before.  I’m standing near the honeysuckle arbor where the path curves around to the back yard.  The yellow bench in the distance sits on our tiny patio off the kitchen and beyond that the path curves around the front of the house toward the driveway.

This photo is across the path, sort of skipping over top of the sunken area and looking to the upper level beyond it.  Our stone walk is a work in progress.  I envision it cushioned with steppable ground covers, making the path more a part of the garden, less raw and glaring.  It can actually be quite blinding on a sunny day.  It’s paved with Rocky Mountain Rose Quartz and looks like it’s sprinkled with glitter when the sun hits it just right.

Let’s go around to the front of the house, now, but rather than curving to the right behind the yellow bench in the first photo, we’ll step through that little break between the butterfly bush and the Rose Glow barberry.  We then enter a grassy area where the picnic table sits under the cherry tree.  I’ve stamped out there before but I’ll confess, the garden does distract me.  These words by Morpheus express it so well:

When bright flowers bloom parchment crumbles, my words fade, the pen has dropped…

I posted earlier that I’d make quick work of my gardening today so I could spend the afternoon stamping.  Who was I kidding, I wonder?  I simply cannot resist the lure of the garden on one of the few days I’m able to enjoy it.  I guess I’ll be doing some evening stamping after dinner…  Until my next post, take care and enjoy your weekend!

With a newly arrived box full of SU! goodies sitting on my stamp room floor why did I make this card?  Well, I had a hard time settling down to this, I’ll tell you that!  Now, I’m not opposed to using older stamps and supplies.  In fact, I’d love to see them used more often.  With so many fabulous new stamps from various vendors on the market it’s inane to think any of us could keep up with it and still realize any value from our purchases.  I understand if you’re mixing business with pleasure, as with a serious demonstrator or a stamp company design team member, you’re more obliged to stay on top of the market trends.  On the other side of the coin is a person like me, hoping merely to justify those spending sprees.  I do believe, though, that a lot of the justification comes simply from the sensual pleasure of a room full of art supplies.

That said, I want to play with my new stuff!  Yet I had this birthday card still to make, requiring the use of Yo Yo Yellow and I didn’t want Yo Yo Yellow to be the first ink to touch my new stamps.  Silly, but there it is.

So I started out in my scrap drawer again and found this Cuttlebug embossed Cool Caribbean background.  I smooshed it liberally with Cool Caribbean ink directly from the pad to the paper.  I knew I wasn’t going to be able to do a flawless job of inking just the embossed areas so I freely allowed smudges in the debossed areas, also.  After I stamped the yellow flowers (from the Cool Cat set) on the lower, white panel I tapped the pad around randomly to help pull the backgrounds together somewhat.

The cake is from the retired hostess set, Along the Same Lines.  I colored the cake with my Barely Banana marker, then shaded the left and lower edges with Summer Sun and blended with Barely Banana while the ink was still wet.  I did this by simply tapping the Summer Sun with the brush tip of the Barely Banana marker.  If you’d like to read more about shading with markers, please see this tutorial I wrote in May.  The candle flames were colored with Yo Yo Yellow and then with the Sakura Stardust clear glitter pen.  I added some color to the Prima center with my Summer Sun marker.

My next cards will be using new supplies.  Oh, my goodness!  The ribbons!  The stamps!  The textured cardstock!  First, the garden needs tending but I plan to make quick work of that and then spend the afternoon getting acquainted with the stuff in that box.  Happy Saturday!

Supplies used (All SU! unless otherwise indicated):

Stamps:  Along The Same Lines, Cool Cat (flowers)

Paper:  Cool Caribbean, Yo Yo Yellow, Tempting Turquoise, Whisper White

Ink:  Cool Caribbean, Yo Yo Yellow, Basic Black, markers:  Barely Banana, Summer Sun, Tempting Turquoise, Yo Yo Yellow

Accessories:  Turquoise dotted Offray grosgrain ribbon, SU! Maize grosgrain ribbon, Prima flower, Making Memories brad, Sakura Stardust clear glitter pen, ticket corner punch, slot punch, Cuttlebug and Birthday embossing folder, Scotch brand foam mounting tape

Since I’m having a mental block on some other things I need to be stamping, I thought I’d try to break the spell by stamping something just for fun–my favorite kind of stamping.  Someone at work the other day was asking if I had any wedding cards so I’m sure that was in the back of my mind as this card developed.   Still, I made it just for me.

This card is pretty simple, really.  Sometimes I think I tend to underembellish my cards.  I stared at this for a long time, wondering what more I could put where, but I think this beautiful Baroque Motifs set does a fine job on its own.  Three pearlized brads and some baby blue organdy ribbon satisfied me in the end.  I debated whether or not to put glitter in the flower centers.  How silly of me…of course it looks better with glitter!

I used a very simple color palette, focusing on the aptly named Soft Sky.  This blue is so pleasantly delicate and understated as to make Bashful Blue look downright bold; sweet and shy and very easy on the eyes.  It’s supported here by Blue Bayou, a somewhat mellower tone of Not Quite Navy, another blue I’m particularly fond of.  I stamped Linen and the flourishes in Soft Sky on Vanilla, and the little flowers in Blue Bayou.   The squarish motif was stamped in Soft Sky–stamped off once very lightly so as not to remove all color from the stamp.  When I stamped it I concentrated the pressure on the edges of the stamp so the center would be lighter in color.  The word is stamped in Not Quite Navy, panel edges distressed and sponged with Soft Sky.  I had fun creating a border with the round, scalloped motif.  I’ve been surprised, actually, with the versatility of this set.

Well, I need to wrap things up for the evening.  Yes, I’m a nighttime blogger and I’m fading fast.  If I can just make it to the weekend…  Happy Friday!

More details (all supplies are Stampin’ Up! unless otherwise indicated):

Stamps:  Baroque Motifs, Linen

Paper:  Soft Sky, Blue Bayou, Very Vanilla

Ink:  Soft Sky, Blue Bayou, Not Quite Navy

Accessories:  Offray Ribbon, Creative Impressions brads, corner notch punch, Scotch brand mounting tape

What do you do when the paper is just too pretty to cover up?  I guess you concentrate all the stamping and design into as small an area as possible.  This piece of BasicGrey Stella Ruby is one I couldn’t bear to cover.  I did want to add a little something to the card front, right side, vertical orientation, without competing with the floral beauty of the paper.  When I looked at this Hero Arts stamp I thought it would very nicely complete the sentiment begun by Stella Ruby.

The 5 1/4″ square card base is Chocolate Chip and the next layer is River Rock.  Yes, River Rock again–I so enjoy working with this color.  The sentiment panel was stamped with River Rock Linen and the sentiment, itself, is Chocolate Chip.  I punched just two corners with the ticket corner punch and distressed the opposite edge.  The 1 1/4″ circle punch allowed me to inset the shell button, tied with frayed linen thread.  The edges of most of the panels are sponged with Close to Cocoa and the top layer of the sentiment panel is raised on dimensional tape.  The ribbon is from Stampin’ Up!’s Ribbon Originals, Prep School collection.

I’m glad you could join me for another Ruby Tuesday.  I surely do appreciate your company and I enjoy the time we spend here together.  I’ll look forward to another visit again soon.  Have a wonderful Tuesday!

Well…they’re colorful.  Really, I just started with the yellow one, trying to make a birthday card for someone who likes bright yellow.  She likes skunks, too, but I don’t have any skunks so I settled on the yellow.  I thought while I had the Scatter Sunshine wheel all inked up with white craft I might as well roll out a couple more backgrounds on different colors.  I also thought I’d use some of my new Magenta that Libby sent me and, even though there’s flowers in the background, I wanted for a change to do a focal image other than flowers.  By the way, the middle card is Magenta but it looks an awfully lot like Lovely Lilac in the photo.  I don’t know whether I’ll wind up using this for the birthday card.  I like the pretty colors all lined up in a row but then, I’m not going to give her all three cards.  I guess I’m trying to talk myself into liking these cards more than I do. 

I did use my new Tsukineko glue pad to cover the hearts with glitter and it worked like a charm.  The instructions said that the pad will have a tendency to dry out so I saturated a square just big enough for the heart stamp.  I stamped the heart with ink first, then used the Stamp-a-Ma-Jig for positioning the second stamping with the glued-up (?) heart.  One thing to watch out for when using this glue pad is slippage, but that’s easy to keep under control by using the Stamp-a-Ma-Jig to hold the stamp in place.  The SAMJ will also hold the paper down while you lift the stamp away from the paper.  After all, it is glue and certainly will stick somewhat.

I’ll be back next for Ruby Tuesday.  I hope your week gets off to a great start!

Supplies (all stamps, papers and inks are Stampin’ Up!):

Stamps:  Simply Said, Scatter Sunshine jumbo wheel, Seeing Spots, Curvy Verses

Paper:  Yo Yo Yellow, Marvelous Magenta, Real Red, Whisper White

Ink:  Same as above plus Craft White and Basic Black

Accessories:  Ribbon, Tsukineko glue pad, Prisma glitter, scallop scissors, ticket corner punch, Scotch brand mounting tape

Today I’m sharing something I stamped way back in December 2005.  I hope that’s okay.  With too many irons in the fire right now I’ll be surprised if I get much stamping done this weekend but that’s just the way it goes sometimes.  Gosh, does this look dated?  It’s even scanned, not photographed.  These stamps were all quite the hot little numbers back then–All About U, Floral, Cheesecloth, Leaf Prints wheel and Everyday Flexible Phrases.  The only thing that’s retired, though, is Cheesecloth and the Leaf Prints wheel.  Now why’d they go and do that?

When I uploaded this to my Splitcoast gallery a few people thought it was a wedding card.  It’s actually a retirement card I made for my friend, Nancy Littrell.  All the roses are from the Floral background, stamped in Basic Black and colored with Stampin’ Pastels (soft chalks).  I cut them out, as you can see, and arranged them on the Cheesecloth background which was stamped on Apricot Appeal and smudged with More Mustard.  The other cardstock colors are Almost Amethyst and Close to Cocoa.  I used Timber Brown Stazon to stamp “joy” on the dangling shell button.

Now, about that U…First I stamped the Floral background in Regal Rose ink on Very Vanilla cardstock.  Then I stamped the U on the Floral background with Versamark.  I sponged Rose Red Stampin’ Pastel chalk over the Versamark U until this soft, floral U emerged.  The look is entirely different from the kissing technique because this is so much softer.  I concentrated a little more chalk around the edges for some subtle shading and then cut it out.  The idea to do this just sort of occurred to me one day and I did it a couple of times and then forgot about it.  Two years later I think I’d like to do it again.  Imagine it with a bold solid image flower like Bodacious Bouquet. 

There’s a lot of work in this card but it was for a very special occasion and I sure had fun making it.  Mainly, I wanted to share the U technique because I think if you try it you’ll be pleased with the results.  Thanks for stepping back in time with me today.  Enjoy your weekend!

Kim does and she’s sharing it on her blog, Inked.  She’s got ribbon, buttons, Primas, paper, brads and Stickles!  Yummy!  She’ll draw a winner Monday night so there’s a three day window of opportunity left for you.  And while you’re there, you just may enjoy taking a look around and reading some of her posts.  Have fun and good luck!

This is the last of the pretty and flowery cards I’m making for my friend to choose for his mother’s birthday.  Maybe.  If another pretty and flowery card comes out of me between now and her birthday I’ll let him take a look at it.  What are the odds, do you think, that I’ll make another flowery card pretty soon?  I probably go overboard with the flowers but I’ll admit, I’m a flower lover.  I tell myself all the time to do something other than flowers, but whenever I do it seems like, all of a sudden, my cards aren’t pretty anymore.  I like pretty cards.

To make this card I used, for the first time, the Simply Delightful Scrappin’ Kit which was an SAB item earlier this year.  This is also the first time I’ve used this Delight in Life set, other than the little sprinkles that I stamped on some Christmas cards.  I will be using all of these items again.  I don’t know why I drag my feet like this sometimes.  I guess it’s because when these sets first come out they’re used so many times by so many people–who wants to see it used again by slow-poke me?

The cardstocks I used on this are Bashful Blue, Regal Rose, Certainly Celery and Whisper White.  The flowers were watercolored on Naturals White with Rose Red ink.  The centers were colored with the So Saffron marker and covered with glitter (bonus).  I stamped the little sprinkles on the white panel in Bashful Blue.  The rest of it is papers and pieces from the Scrappin’ Kit.  I love the trim that comes with these kits and I’ll look forward to decorating more cards with it.  I have one other kit and some Accents & Elements just sitting around, waiting…

I thought I’d share my first new catalog order with you, too, since I’ve enjoyed reading everyone else’s lists.  Hope you’re not tired of these lists yet.  Here goes:

Garden Whimsey and Whimsey wheel  — Who’s not getting these?  They caught my eye right off the bat and it seems like they’re on just about everybody’s list.

Sanded background — So I can make my paper look like BasicGrey

Happiness background — It’s like a whole bunch of different borders all in one.

Oh, So Lovely — Level 1 Hostess set

Basic Gray paper and ink – I already have all the other new colors.

Earth Elements textured cardstock

Scallop circle punch

Taffeta ribbon in Kraft and Basic Gray

Double stitched ribbon in Soft Sky and Groovy Guava

Ribbon Originals in Jersey and Sherbet

It’s just a sampling of a few different things.  I’m a hobby demo who happens to sell a little bit once in a while so I don’t really need to place a big order.  Do you have a favorite from the new catalog?  What kind of stamps tend to catch your eye, and why?  You don’t have to answer these questions, but I am curious.  Have a good rest of the week!  I hope I’ll be back before the week is over…

Isn’t this a beautiful card?  Oh, my goodness, I have to say it certainly is!  I received this from Linda N., known to many by her Splitcoaststampers username, LSN.  She just started a blog in May and when you’re done admiring this card you may want to check out Stamping in the Moonlight.  She’s recently made some gorgeous acetate cards that will inspire you to do the same!

There are so many things I love about this card and there’s so much to learn from it.  She used the beautiful On Gossamer Wings set I’ve neglected and she put glitter on the flowers.  You can see it just a little in the photo.  Now where did I put that cool Tsukineko glue pad?  She even included a beautiful butterfly and now that I know I can color a Swallowtail, I might have to use this set more.  There’s a dreamy Versamark resist background behind the main image and Linen on the Olive card front.  Linda, did you know pink and green is one of my favorite color combos?  I absolutely love how the fold adds so much to the design, too.

Thank you, Linda!  Your card has become part of my dining room decor and it really dresses up the room!