CAN'T RESIST AUTUMN

I  wish I still had this card in my hands so I could retake photos of it. You see, it honestly is so much prettier in person, and I'd try mightily to capture more of its essence.

But, unfortunately, it is now living about 100 miles from me. Tomorrow is my mom's birthday, and this is her birthday card. I snapped a few shots of it before I mailed it out to her.

Anyway, this card is an example of emboss resist. The flowers of all sizes on the card are from a Paper Pumpkin kit from a few months back. I love the large flowers, the half flowers and aren't those two tiny sized flowers adorable?

After rubbing my paper well with my trusty Embossing Buddy, I stamped them all over the Whisper White cardstock in VersaMark ink. I added gold embossing powder to the stamped images. Once my background was cooled enough, I sponged autumn-flavored colors all over, trying to vary darks and lights, but blending the colors.

Once I had my background sponged, I added a few sequins from this past month's Paper Pumpkin kit to give it a little bit of bling.

I'm so sad that the set from which I chose my sentiment is retired because it so so wonderful and whimsical. To match the gold embossed flowers, I also embossed the Happy Birthday in gold. 

My photo doesn't show, but inside the card, I had attached a smaller piece of Whisper White cardstock on which I had gold embossed a nice saying. I even gold embossed my stamped info on the back of the card. I mean, you gotta stay consistent, right?

I know I feature emboss resist on my blog quite frequently. It is such a really cool technique and gives the greatest results; it's almost impossible to mess up emboss resist! Do you ever use it? What are your favorite resist methods?

Happy Birthday to my dear mom!

(Ir)Resistable

Smiles.

SUNFLOWER NOTE CARDS

I didn't use all the components that came with the test tube Paper Pumpkin kit. The little sunflower tags were just begging me to use them on cards, so I obeyed, and set to it.

From the kit, I used the sunflower tags and the striped banners, adding all the rest from my supplies.

My mom's birthday is this week, so I thought she would enjoy having a handful of cards on hand. So I made eight cards, four of which are just HELLO cards and four THANK YOU cards. I had thought the Elegant Dots would be adorable as the background. However, when I embossed my first one and laid my focal point on top of it, I wasn't totally thrilled with the look.

So, what I ended up doing was making two of the thank you notes on that background, as well as two of the hello notes. Then, I finished up by doing the same with a different embossed background, the Boho Chic. 

I am mailing the packet of eight cards and their envelopes, so didn't want to add just too much weight. So, I created a simple belly band to keep them neat and all together.

I just love it that Stampin' Up! always provides more components than we actually need to put together the Paper Pumpkin kits. It gives a great opportunity to be even more creative and get more from our supplies!

Sunflower

Smiles.

SNOWFLAKE SPARKLE

Technical difficulties today. 

I always take the photos for my blog with my little Canon digital camera, then import them to my computer so I can send them to Photoshop Elements to work with them.

This was a difficult card to photograph. You see, it sparkles so much you almost need sunglasses. I took so many photos just trying to capture its beauty that is apparent in real life.

Today, however, when I plugged my camera into my computer, there was no communication between the two devices. Uh oh. I know nothing about those kinds of things! I even rebooted my computer, hoping that would clear up any glitch. But no. That wasn't it. The computer just did not recognize the presence of my camera.

Now what?

I had taken a few photos of the complete card with my Smartphone to put up on Instagram. So, that was my only option (for this little pea-brained person). I sent the phone photo to Photoshop and worked with it. 

And here you have it:

I had been designing this card for an upcoming Stamp-In Workshop. It turned out to be way too frustrating, long and complicated though. So, I opted for a simplified rendition of the same look for the workshop.

However, I did like the way this one turned out. So, I thought I would share it with you, and tell you how I did it. If you are interested.

I started with a 3 1/2" x 4 3/4" piece of watercolor paper. After rubbing the Embossing Buddy well over the paper, I stamped the snowflake from Holly Jolly Greetings (page 34 in the big catalog) several times in VersaMark ink. At the heat station, I covered all the snowflakes with white embossing powder, and heat set it to emboss.

I had added single drops of three retired reinkers to a little paint tray. I then watered down the reinkers with water. I spritzed the watercolor paper well with water so I was working wet-on-wet. Using a paintbrush, I picked up one of the colors and kind of dripped and splattered it onto the wet paper. I repeated that with all three colors, letting the inks run and blend into one another. 

When you are working wet-on-wet, you need to be very careful about the colors you choose, because as they run and blend, certain color combinations will give you a yukky shade of brown. Since I was using shades of blues and purple, I didn't have any problems with mud.

With a paper towel, I absorbed some of the excess ink, started to dry it with my heat tool. Dabbed again. Once it was dry, it was much too light. Remember, I was using very watered-down inks because I didn't want too-saturated colors in any one spot. So I repeated this same process three times until I got the color intensity I really wanted. The white snowflakes had popped through its colored resist beautifully.

Then, I was ready to try a sparkly technique I had come across somewhere. Using Elmer's Glue in another of the slots of the paint tray, I watered the glue down considerably with water, and stirred it until it was well mixed together. Then I took another paintbrush and flicked the watered-down glue all over the background. The next step was to add Dazzling Diamonds Glitter to the wet glue spots. 

It worked well, but the splotches of sparkly glue were much more dimensional than I would have hoped. Even so, I definitely do like the look of it. Sometimes, during a heavy snow, the flakes come down heavy and thick, clumped together. That's the effect on this card.

I know you hear this all the time, but you should see it IN REAL LIFE! This photo does not do it justice whatsoever. 

So, enjoy this single photo of the card. I've wasted enough time trying to figure out these technical difficulties. Hopefully by my next blog post, I will have it worked out. If you have any ideas for me, please let me know!

Sparkly

Smiles.

PIRATE BIRTHDAY

Do you remember the long-ago Stampin' Up! set Ahoy Matey? Well, when that set first came out, my youngest daughter fell in love with it. She proclaimed that every single card I ever make for her for the rest of her life needed to be made with that set.

Sarah, now in her 30s, had a birthday this past week. So, of course, I made her a pirate card. 

To add to the festive look of the card, I embossed the rectangular piece of Whisper White with the Confetti Embossing Folder (page 195).

The little guy looked much too clean-cut for a pirate. You know what I mean? So, I added some whisker bristle and brought him up to date. 

I colored his sword blade and his hook in gray, but made them look a little more metallic -- and festive! -- by adding a bit of Wink of Stella. 

And, on the very tip is the cake from the Endless Birthday Wishes (page 22). What a meanie, stabbing a birthday cake with his sword??

His shirt is paper pieced and I drew some stitching and arm hole lines on with marker. His pants are also paper pieced. His bandanna is just colored in, but I added some black polka dots.

Around the perimeter of the white oval, I markered black dots. And on the gray oval behind it, I used marker to add a checkerboard look.

Happy Birthday, Sarah!

Arrgh

Smiles.

GENTLE FOX

In looking through the Stampin' Up! Holiday Catalog, did you happen to notice the precious stamp set Cozy Critters available as a hostess perk on page 3? 

That wide-eyed owl and the eyes tight shut fox struck me especially. And, the best part is that they are both weating scarves. You know what that means, right? Yup. I stamped the scarves on bits and pieces of Christmas-colored Designer Series Paper that I had in my stash. While riding in the car for long distance trips, I cut these teeny tiny little scarves out.

For an upcoming project, I stamped out a bunch of the owls in Early Espresso. I dug through all my reddish inks for the perfect fox color. I settled on three possibilities: Cajun Craze, and the retired colors of Really Rust and Cranberry Crisp. Truthfully, I wasn't crazy about the Really Rust ones, but Cajun Craze and Cranberry Crisp were very foxy colors! So I stamped a bunch of them. (My Stamp-In girls will be making projects using either the owl or the fox and their coordinating scarves, all of which I have already fussy cut for them.)

Anyway, I was excited to use one of the foxes, so I stole one from the bunch that are ready for the workshop, and went to work.

First, to get some inspiration, I grabbed into my box of Project Life cards, and randomly drew one. I looked at it with absolutely no sense of inspiration whatsoever, and even started to move to put it back in the box. No, Linda! That is the point. A random pick is meant to challenge. So, I reluctantly laid it on my work table and sadly gazed down at it.

I had a few Project Life cards left over from other projects that measured 2" x 2". I sifted through them, and discovered one that would be a perfect complement for this uninspiring background piece. 

Do you all remember the old In Color Cranberry Crisp? I wish they hadn't retired it, because I'd always felt pretty attached to it. 

Having ribbon, paper and ink left over in that color, I used it throughout this card, along with white and Old Olive. Even my foxy fox is Cranberry Crisp. 

And this is what I came up with:

Basically this is the Project Life card I'd randomly picked to work with. The squiggly background lines against white and the cute pointed piece of plaid on the top of it. But then the 2x2 piece of Old Olive polka dots against white was just what I needed to make a happy card.

Foxy

Smiles.