Running With Scissors…

This card made me happy for a number of different reasons, most of which have to do with the supplies I used (I finally used my Bird Notes set–oh, joy!) but, also, I simply felt good about the process.  I was comfortable with the feel of this as it came together — all the parts fit each other so well.

Part #1 is the focal image, of course.  I got this Crafty Secrets Bird Notes set some time ago from Anna at Sassy and Sweet Crafts.  She has a lot of wonderful stuff in her store, including a variety of Crafty Secrets clear stamps, but, alas, she no longer has Bird Notes.  I did find them here, though, if you’re interested.  Or you can Google search, as I did, and perhaps find them elsewhere.  I must say, Crafty Secret’s clear stamps are incredibly detailed and I’m very impressed with them.  I stamped the image with Chocolate Chip ink and colored it with my Stampin’ Pastels soft chalks, then sprayed with a matte sealer.  The colors on the birds are Not Quite Navy and Creamy Caramel.  I made an ornate tag with my wrought iron punch.  After I punched it I trimmed down the borders a little and punched with the corner rounder.  The pale blue organdy ribbon on the tag was curled with my heat gun and further dressed up with a silver cord bow.

Part #2 is the wonderful new BasicGrey Periphery paper that I purchased recently from Lindsey at Jacksonbelle Embellishments.  Mine is a 6×6 pad, perfect for card making.  Lindsey has some of the other new BasicGreys, too.  I guess I was just waiting for this paper to come along as the perfect companion for Bird Notes.  I’ve matched it up with Sahara Sand and Blue Bayou.  Down there in the lower right corner I stamped the word “Greetings” in Always Artichoke.  It’s the exact color of some of the print in the paper and it appears to be simply part of the paper’s design.  I love the subtlety of it.  The word is part of my Flourished Words set from Flourishes.

Part #3 is the upper border of the card.  It’s Stampin’ Up!’s new En Francais background blended into that little argyle stamp from Looks Like Spring.  They’re both stamped on a companion sheet of the Periphery paper, the script in Sahara Sand and the argyle in Soft Sky.  I’m head over heels with this elegant new script!

As for the rest of the card — oh, my — I’ve developed a new appreciation for the grays since Stampin’ Up! debuted its new Basic Gray color.  Do you see the velvet ribbon peeking out from under the tag?  The folks at Flourishes sent it to me to play with.  I was admiring the quality of it and thinking, gee, it’s sort of a silvery gray — so beautiful — so I looked it up on their site and found it here.  Sure enough, the color is called Silver/Gray.  I’ll definitely be getting more of this.

That’s enough talk about this one little card, I guess — more than was required, I’m sure, but I wouldn’t want to be lax in providing information for those of you who may be wondering about an item, color, vendor, etc.   I know we don’t always have time to read these long posts so I’ve also listed ingredients below.  Thank you for sharing some of your time with me.  Enjoy the rest of your day!

Stamps:  Bird Notes, En Francais, Looks Like Spring, Flourished Words

Paper:  Blue Bayou, Sahara Sand, BasicGrey Periphery DP

Ink:  Sahara Sand, Soft Sky, Chocolate Chip, Always Artichoke

Accessories:  SU! Stampin’ Pastels, matte spray sealer, organdy ribbon, velvet ribbon, silver cord, eyelets, tag clip thingy (so sorry — what is that thing called?), wrought iron punch, Scotch brand dimensional mounting tape

The Flourishes team has joined Gina K for her Make a Wish fundraiser.  Do you know about Gina K and her Stamps for a Cause?  For every stamp set sold, $7.00 is donated to the cause for which it was created.  You can read all about this Make a Wish set here.  You’ll get a look at the entire set and see some of the wonderful work of her own design team.  If you look in my sidebar to the right you’ll find a list of the Flourishes designers.  When you click on their names you’ll find even more Make a Wish examples.

I chose the wishing well for my card today because I was in need of a get well card for a friend.  There are several sentiments with this set and those, alone, make it a keeper for me but the images are cute, too.  The patterns of this BasicGrey Infuse paper, available at Flourishes, were just what I needed to complete the cozy, comfortable, country feel of this card.  I stamped the main image on watercolor paper with Timber Brown Stazon and painted it with my Stampin’ Up! inks.

I hope you’ll enjoy a look around at the links I’ve provided.  Have a wonderful day!

Stamps:  Make a Wish

Paper:  Always Artichoke, Mellow Moss, watercolor, Whisper White, BasicGrey Infuse designer paper

Ink:  Creamy Caramel, Mellow Moss, Always Artichoke, Bashful Blue, Going Gray, Chocolate Chip

Accessories:  Ribbon, Primas, brads, Creative Memories oval cutting system, Word Window punch, Scotch brand dimensional mounting tape

Hello!  I’m so glad you could drop in to share another Ruby Tuesday!

I was feeling the need for sleek simplicity when I made this card.  Does that feel good to you sometimes, too?    Now, I’m all for layers and panels and bits overlapping or peeking from behind.  Fancy brads and pretty buttons, photo turns and opulent ribbons and trims will turn my head into the next century, as the overfilled drawers in my stamp room will testify.  The quest for ever more original and interesting designs is perpetual and mind boggling and ultimately I come to this place — where I need to rest…just ease down and take a slow, deep breath and fill myself with a fresh creative outlook.  In time I’ll wander away and lose sight of this tranquil place but I’ll always find my way back again.  I’ll remember how much I enjoyed my visit.

It was a pleasure to design a card that’s clean and uncluttered but I wanted it to present with a little interest, too.  In my going-easy-on-myself frame of mind I fell back on familiarity — a simple recessed frame with a float-mounted image and some out of the box cutting.  Very simple but it felt like enough.  I pieced together three different patterns of the Stella Ruby paper and adhered that panel to Old Olive.  Then I punched a window in it.  The flower was stamped on Very Vanilla and colored and shaded with SU! water based markers.

This photo shows the back side of the panel with the beginnings of the punched frame.  I determined the length my frame would need to be and then marked the panel so the frame would be vertically centered.  I slid the 1 3/8″ square punch all the way in and made my first punch.  I continued punching in this manner until I reached the mark on the other end.

As you can see in the finished card, I sanded the inside edges of the frame to give it a little definition.  After I tied the ribbon on — that sweet, soft, pliable SU! taffeta ribbon — I adhered the frame panel to the card front.  The card front, by the way, is Chocolate Chip stamped with Chocolate Chip Linen, a wonderful, visually textural effect.

I was in the middle of going all earthy on this card when I took a notion to add the pink and bring out the feminine side of its character.  To tell the truth, I was actually just looking for a reason to use my new pink taffeta.

This photo shows a bit of the out of the box cutting.  To accomplish this I stamp the image and then use a ruler to draw a light pencil line where I’ll make the new cut.  I cut along the line till I come to where the image overlaps it, then cut around the image and pick up again where the line continues on the other side.

Out of the box is something I’ve done many times to add interest to a design.  This technique was the challenge I presented in the recent Splitcoaststampers Dare to Get Dirty Fan Club challenge extravaganza.  Many people remarked that they’d never tried this before so I thought I’d share it here in case someone might benefit from this information.  To view a whole gallery of out of the box designs, please click here.

Thank you so much for spending a little bit of your Tuesday with me.  I wonder what the next stop on my stamping journey will be.  I hope to see you again when I get there.  Happy Ruby Tuesday!

Stamps:  Oh So Lovely, Itty Bitty Backgrounds, Garden Silhouettes (the word, “Lovely”)

Paper:  Chocolate Chip, Old Olive, Certainly Celery, Very Vanilla, BasicGrey Stella Ruby DP

Ink:  Timber Brown Stazon, Creamy Caramel, markers:  Pretty in Pink, Regal Rose, Certainly Celery

Accessories:  1 3/8″ square punch, pink taffeta ribbon, Scotch brand dimensional mounting tape

Aren’t these flowers just so bright and fun and pretty?  They were waiting for me on my dining room table when I came home from work Friday night.  Last week it was roses.  Yes, I’m a lucky girl.  These are dyed, of course, but oh my — the colors!  Gosh, could a person possibly combine all these colors on a card and get away with it?  Maybe so, but I don’t think I’ll attempt it just yet.

The moment I saw these I thought of Stampin’ Up!’s Petals and Paisley designer paper from a previous Mini catalog.  The only similarity, really, is that turquoise flower but the paper came to mind nevertheless.  It’s in the big Fall and Winter catalog, too, but with slightly more muted colors.  I do love that paper from the Mini.  It’s the main reason I bought an extra pack of Cool Caribbean before it retired — I felt I “needed” it so I could finish up with my Petals and Paisley paper.

So…with that in mind I made the card pictured below.  Any reason is a good reason to stamp.

Gee, the card and flowers don’t really look anything alike, do they?  But that’s what comes of inspiration.  The flowers led me to the paper and inspired me to stamp.  That’s a good thing.

Rather than stamping flowers, I used my new Stem Silhouettes from the Holiday Mini.  They’re stamped in Certainly Celery and shaded ever so slightly with Old Olive and So Saffron markers.  I did a tiny bit of blending with the blender pen, too.  The sentiment, stamped in More Mustard, is part of the Happy Harmony set and the ribbon is Stampin’ Up!’s Apricot grosgrain.

The photo corner is courtesy of Libby’s tutorial here.  She calls them Ridiculously Easy Photo Corners and she’s right.  I’ve been meaning to do this for a long time — so easy!  I used the 3/4″ and 1 3/8″ square punches.  Please do check out Libby’s tutorial for the rest of the info.  Have a happy day!

…but not in the way a person with any measure of control resists buying stamp sets they probably don’t need.  I couldn’t resist this Stampin’ Up! True Friend set but I did resist the background on this card.  Versamark resist is one of the few technique-y things I do.  If you haven’t done this technique before, I’m sure you’d find it easy and fun.  It’s rather magical.  I was a skeptical novice stamper the first time I tried this but my skepticism turned to wonder as I watched that pattern emerge from the paper.

To make this background I randomly stamped two of the True Friend images on glossy white cardstock.  I let it set for a while and then brayered over it with ink from the Pumpkin Patch Spectrum pad which I bought from Stampin’ Up!.  When inking up the brayer be certain the ink pads are popped apart so the inks won’t bleed into each other on the pads.  Then just run the brayer over the cardstock back and forth, lift and overlap the colors slightly and brayer back and forth some more until you’re satisfied with the look.  You can achieve a seamless blended look this way.  You can also overstamp or randomly stamp a few images on the background with colored ink but I chose not to do that this time.

The papers in the background are from Stampin’ Up!’s Apple Cider collection which will be available next month in the Holiday Mini.  I used four different patterns for this card.  See that white dotted scalloped Wasabi strip under the ribbon?  That piece is printed with rows of overlapping white dotted circles.  I trimmed along the edge of one of the rows of circles to create a scalloped border.  I wrapped it around the back of the panel right along with the ribbon.  The “Thank U” stamp was inked with markers.

I’ve got to run now — it’s getting late.  Hooray for Friday and the weekend!  I hope you have a good one!

Stamps:  True Friend

Paper:  Chocolate Chip, Wild Wasabi, glossy white, Very Vanilla, Apple Cider double sided DS

Ink:  Versamark, Pumpkin Patch Spectrum Pad, markers:  Chocolate Chip, Really Rust, Garden Green

Accessories:  Non-SU! ribbon, Antique Brass Hodgepodge Hardware (SU!), Scotch brand dimensional mounting tape

I made this card for a friend to give to her daughter on her five year wedding anniversary.  It’s very simple and clean, keeping her daughter’s tastes in mind.  I have a lot of Stampin’ Up!’s retired designer papers on hand and I like to take the opportunity to use them whenever possible.  This is the Petal Patch collection which has been revamped into Fall Flowers with new colors and a few new designs.  I’m thinking, oh dear, how many new papers will debut in the January catalog?  I’m almost in a tizzy trying to use what I have, but I don’t want to neglect my beloved background stamps, either.  I’ll do my best to use a little of both but, my goodness, I have a lot of papers!

I stamped the fanciful Doodle This leaf flourish and “Love” from the retired Love Matters with Timber Brown Stazon and colored them with markers.  I used a large circle template as a guide to draw a faint pencil line around the image and cut along it with scallop scissors.  No shading, sponging or distressing and no embellishments other than the ribbon kept it very clean and tidy.  Inside I stamped “The best is yet to be” from Love Matters.  It seemed appropriate for the five year milestone.

This is one of those cards that went together so fast it made my head spin.  I have to wonder sometimes at what it is that makes the difference.  When I made this I had just finished laboring over that Pollen Dust card in my last post and I immediately picked these supplies off the shelves and whipped this together.  It was almost like cleaning my palette — very refreshing.  Maybe I’m ready for the next challenge now…  Have a wonderful day!

Well, I finally got the stamp set extraordinaire, Pollen Dust.  It was an elusive item that slipped away from me each time I made up my mind to go after it but my enabler friend, Linda Bullard, pointed me to Scrapbook Express and this set is now in hand!

I’ll admit I’m a little intimidated by it.  It’s huge and the images are breathtaking.  Pollen Dust and I need to simply share space in the same room for a while before I’ll feel comfortable approaching it.  We’ve been sidestepping each other, stealing furtive glances across the room, establishing dominance.  It’s still very much in charge but it allowed me to peel back the cover and remove just this one stamp to test my worthiness.  Though I haven’t done it justice, we’re at least a little better acquainted.

The stamp I used is the largest flourish in the set.  A 6 x 6 block is required for it and I found that at Scrapbook Express, also.  I wheeled the Whisper White background with Soft Sky ink and the Dry Brush wheel, then stamped the flourish with Versamark.  I brushed over the image with Old Olive and Pink Passion Stampin’ Pastels (soft chalks).  The butterfly is from an old Stampendous clear set.  One wing is lifted with a dimensional.  I sprayed the image with matte sealer after I affixed the butterfly wing because adhesives, even the Scotch brand dimensional mounting tape I favor, don’t stick very well to the sealer.

The paper is My Mind’s Eye “Bohemia”, the ribbon is from Wal-Mart and the Sprites Prima is from Lindsey at Jacksonbelle Embellishments.  The “forever & always” is one of the many sentiments (30 or more, plus little border images) on the three blocks of Stampin’ Up!’s Level 1 hostess set, So Many Sayings.  I’m amazed at the variety in that set.  It’s hard to believe it’s a Level 1.

For convenience I’ve listed all ingredients below.  Be well and have a great Wednesday!

Stamps:  Pollen Dust by Fancy Pants, Stampendous butterfly, Stampin’ Up! So Many Sayings and Dry Brush jumbo wheel

Paper:  Blue Bayou, Soft Sky, Whisper White, MME Bohemia

Ink:  Soft Sky, Versamark, markers:  Chocolate Chip & Pink Passion

Accessories:  Organdy ribbon from Wal-Mart, Sprites Prima, Stampin’ Pastels, Word Window punch, Scotch brand dimensional mounting tape, matte spray sealer

I have a hard time throwing away the smallest scrap of designer paper.  I’m a little better with cardstock but not much.  This photo shows the smallest leavings of BasicGrey Stella Ruby paper that I’ve accumulated in a small baggie on my desk.  It includes a tag that I punched out of the tag sheet a while back but never used.  At 3 1/2″ x 2″ it’s the largest piece in this little grouping.  Am I bad?  Look how small these pieces are!  Good grief!

But there must be something I can do with them — gee, an oval punched sentiment or a tiny tag.  I kept pushing aside this miniature baggie of Little Pieces of Stella until this weekend when I finally decided to do something with them before I accumulated any more.

So, for this week’s Ruby Tuesday card I reached into my little baggie and used nothing but these scraps.  I barely made a dent in the bag, but I felt better when I was done.

This card has a pocket in the front which holds the tag.  The pocket is comprised of five different Little Pieces of Stella.  I laid four of them side by side and taped them together in the back – sort of laminated them together.  The fifth piece is used as trim along the top edge of the pocket.  I added the large eyelet and some ribbon to the tag, along with Stampin’ Up!’s That’s Nice sentiment from a previous Mini Catalog. 

The background of the card is stamped repeatedly with one of the Garden Silhouettes images in River Rock and Groovy Guava.  It’s layered on Groovy Guava and then a Chocolate Chip card base.  I finished it off with two Primas held together with a copper brad, adhered to the pocket with a glue dot.

The Fall colors and the “Family” sentiment led me to turn this into a Thanksgiving card by stamping “Happy Thanksgiving” and a single Silhouettes image on a layer of Very Vanilla inside the card.  Our cards are beginning to take on a decidedly Fall look, aren’t they?  While I’m feeling ready for the more relaxed pace of Fall, I’m not quite ready to give up Summer yet!

This is all that’s left of those Little Pieces of Stella I selected from the baggie.  Do you think I can throw them away now?  I don’t know…that one piece on top might still have some life in it…  Happy Ruby Tuesday!

You may remember this tote and tutorial I did for Ruby Tuesday recently.  I’ve been so happy to see that several of you have made them as well.  You make my heart feel good!  Thank you, everyone, for sending me the links to your totes.  I’ve seen a wonderful variety of designs, colors, papers and I’d like to share these beauties with everyone.  These links will take you directly to the totes but while you’re there I’m sure you’ll be inspired to explore their sites and find some of the other treasures they’ve shared.

Stampin cuz I Luv to  –  This is Dee’s tote.  She says she used some of her least favorite paper because she was afraid she’d mess it up, but she did a beautiful job and I love the paper.

The Queen’s Scene  –  Lynn dared to be fabulous and, oh my, it’s fabulous!

Inkcicles  –  Nancy put a fun, creative spin on the straps.

Cherylquilts  –  Cheryl’s tote is displayed with its matching cards and, oh, it’s a lovely gift set.

Rohla –  See this tote and these two made with a fabulous flower by a fabulous stamper.  Amy’s really gone to town on these totes!  She also made this Season of Joy tote, these Holiday Mini totes, and these adorable Chipboard Sayings totes.  Her gallery is a real treat!

Inkerdoodles  –  Lisa made two wonderful totes with beautiful paper and Primas.

Bensarmom  –  Sue used Cutie Pie paper on her tote for a fresh and fun look.

Melyssa made three super cute totes and they can be viewed by clicking on her name.

One of my visitors, Sarah, emailed me a link to some beautiful totes she made.  The link took me to her online photo gallery and I wasn’t sure if I should link it since she emailed me rather than posting the link in her comment.  I emailed her for permission but didn’t hear back.  Thank you for sharing with me, Sarah!

Lenora commented that she made a tote using the Priceless swirls and filled it with matching one sheet wonder cards and it sounds wonder-ful!  She took her creation to work with her and wound up with six orders!

There may be others that I’ve missed but I hope you enjoy these samplings.  I’m so glad this tutorial was useful and brought stamping pleasure to so many.  Have a wonderful day and keep on stamping!

Well, this isn’t precisely my back yard but close.  It’s just a hop, skip and a jump away.  The Seafood Festival was happening in the Charleston (Oregon) Boat Basin Saturday and we thought we’d wander into the thick of it for a little weekend diversion.  I won’t keep you too long on this non-stamping subject, but I thought it might be fun to share just a little bit of where I live and what I do when I’m not at work, in the garden or in my stamp room.

We didn’t stay too long at the festival before we wandered off the beaten path.  We found this little beauty in a back road shipyard.  It had so much character I just had to photograph it.  It still sports a little bit of the yellow which gave it it’s name — you can faintly see the missing “C”.  Just click on the thumbnails below for a trip down the road less traveled.  The first photo is a strip of the Charleston harbor shoreline.   We did hike all the way down there so we could enjoy it up close and personal.  Enjoy your day at the beach!

Stamping will resume shortly…