More is More

Happy Tuesday.  I hope you had a wonderful Labor Day weekend.  I have several things lined up to share this week and I wanted to get a post in before I head out to the office today.  This card started with an image I had colored for my class a couple of months ago when I taught masking.  It’s from the beautiful Flourishes set From the Garden.

I started by stamping the flower/leaf image and masking it and then the tools image and masking that.  Then the flower pot image was stamped under the leaves.  Next I stamped the bottom flower pot in the stack, masked it and stamped another on top, masked that and stamped another on top.  Really almost quicker to do than to describe.  I used Eclipse Masking Tape – I LOVE that stuff – so much better than a post-it note! I only made one mask of the pot and just moved it around as needed.  The images were colored with Copics and after the panel was die cut with a Spellbinders Nestabilities, I sponged color with the die still in place.

Now for the really fun part.  I have been wanting to try the Letterpress technique with some of Cuttlebug embossing folders for quite awhile now to see how it would work.  Well, it worked great!  I used my new Victoria folder and brayered SU white craft ink on one side of the inside of the folder.  I carefully placed a panel of Olive cardstock inside and ran it through the machine as usual.  While the result wasn’t perfect, I was really really happy with it and look forward to trying this again with other folders.  In person the effect is somewhat chalky – almost velvety.  If you have tried this with other types of inks, I’d love to hear about your results.

Cardbase here is Daffodil, layered with Concord Crush.  I didn’t have any purple ribbon to match so I simpley colored some SU white taffeta with a Copic marker.  Love how well the taffeta takes on ink. (Note” it matches much better IRL than in the photo.)

Thanks for stopping by.  I hope to have a post up each day this week.

Happy Friday!  I am so excited today to be playing along with the uber-talented Flourishes Design Team in a More is More Challenge hosted by Christine Okken.  When Christine asked me to participate I pinched myself and then I jumped at the chance!!  I thought it was so sweet of her to want to include me because I originated the idea of a *More is More Challenge* way back when. Here are the two cards I created featuring the gorgeous Flourishes set From the Garden along with Basic Grey Green at Heart papers.  I think the card on the left is quite pretty, but I really pulled out the stops and played to my heart’s content for the *more* card on the right.  I hope you enjoy.  🙂

For more details and to see what Christine has to share please hop over to the Flourishes Blog.  Christine – thank you so much for inviting me to play.  I had so much fun creating these cards and I’m so honored to stamp along side such an incredible team of designers!

Oh and if you’re wondering about the TESC, we’re taking a sketch break this week as Taylor and several of the Sketch Crew are in Chicago at CHA.  Have a fantastic weekend and thanks for stopping by!

Happy Monday!  Did you have a good weekend?  I was missing the Rocket Scientist as he was up at the Air Force Base for a launch.  He’s on his way home now though and the launch was a success, so I’m a happy camper.  On Friday night (before he left) we attended a special graduation and party.  Deanna (you remember the girl who made my kitchen curtains) was homeschooled all 13 years (including kindergarten) by her mom Darla who is one of my very best friends.  They held her graduation at our church and it was followed by an ice cream sundae bar party.  Almost 100 people came and it was so heart-warming to feel the love in the room!

I made Deanna’s graduation card with Taylor’s sketch again (TESC116) using Flourishes Hats Off to You set.  Can you believe with all the stamps I own that I had to borrow that set from my friend Lisa to make this card?  Vine image is from SU Thoughts and Prayers.

I used the Paper Girl Taylored Card Kit from Taylored Expressions for the cardstock and patterned paper. Spellbinders: Circles, Blossom, Fancy Tags.

Sentiment on the inside says “Unlock Your Future”.  Of course I was photographing this as I was walking out the door to get to the ceremony, so I didn’t get a photo of the inside.

For those of you interested in the launch here’s a link to a brief article about it.  And here’s a photo.

Cool, huh?  🙂

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you have a fabulous week!

Happy Thursday!  Wow – where has the week gone?  I’m excited for today because, as you may know, Taylor is in SoCal and I get to see her today!  I’m guessing there will probably be a cupcake in my future.  Time with Taylor almost always includes cupcakes. LOL!

Tomorrow is my incredible friend Joy’s birthday and I want to share the card I made for her.  It’s going in the mail today and I know I should probably wait a few days to post it, but I just can’t.  (So Joy if you are reading this…look away till you get it in the mail!)  I feel so lucky to call Joy my friend.  She is the type of person that everyone falls in love with…so genuinely sweet, so caring, generous to a fault!  She was the very first person from Splitcoaststampers that I met in real life after knowing her on-line.  That was back in the early days of SCS when it had less than 10,000 members (now it has over 250,000!) and we got together to plan our very first tiny little SoCal StampMania after someone else dropped the ball on an event (I think we had about 12 people come to that one.) I think both of our families were a little nervous about us going off to meet someone from the internet!  LOL!  We hit it off immediately and have been friends ever since.  Love you Girl!  Happy Birthday!

This stamp is Spring Bouquet from Flourishes.  I got it a few weeks ago and stamped several images, but hadn’t colored any of them till yesterday.  I have to admit that I was a little intimidated to get started, but once I did it was coloring heaven!  The way this image has just enough little shading marks makes it a dream to color.  I used Copics here and had a blast playing with blending and shading (which is NOT my forte!)  The Flourishes design team had really inspired me with their samples, so I looked through the Flourishes gallery at SCS to see how several different people had colored this image.  That really helped give me the confidence to get started.  I love the way it turned out!

Card is 5.25 square with a white card base that has the edges sponged with Barely Banana ink.

Recipe:

Stamps – Flourishes Spring Bouquet, SU sentiment from a retired Birthday set

Paper – TE Choice Snow cardstock, SU Orchid Opulence, colored cardstocks and designer paper from TE Card Kit featuring Girls Paperie (currently out of stock – no link available)

Ink – Memento Black

Other – Copics shown above, pink silk ribbon, white crochet trim, Spellbinders Labels 1, SU circle and scallop circle punches, KaiserCraft pearls, foam tape.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you have a great day!  I’ll be back tomorrow morning with a sketch sample for this week’s TESC.

Happy Thursday.  How the heck did it get to be Thursday afternoon already?  This week is just flying by!  Today I worked with my friend Lisa and her mom, Jan, to make 20 invitations to a party Jan is hosting for her son’s graduation from medical school.  Lisa and Jan asked me awhile back if they could book a *private class* with me to make these invitations.  At the time I had no idea how hard it could be to find nice graduation images.  Boy was I ever thrilled when Flourishes released Hats Off to You just a couple of weeks ago!  It was perfect!

I e-mailed links to samples from the Flourishes Design Team blogs to Lisa and Jan.  Jan immediately liked a beautiful sample (seen here) by my friend Leslie Miller, but in a slightly different color scheme.  I was thrilled to use Leslie’s card as my jumping off point in designing these invitations.  This is my first time working with Flourishes stamps. Although I love many of their images, I am not a fan of clear stamps at all so I’ve held off purchasing.  I have to say that they are very high quality and stamped beautifully.  And I’m looking forward to playing with Spring Bouquet which I fell head over heels for when I saw the design team samples.  I asked Lisa to throw it in her cart for me when she was ordering Hats Off.  *big grin*

Card base is Flourishes white cardstock, followed by a Taken with Teal Layer and then a black layer that was run through the Big Shot with a CB Argyle folder.

*Tip – when you have a layer that will be totally covered up, take the opportunity to die cut any layering shapes you might need before you adhere any layers together.  In this case we die cut the Spellbinders Labels Two from the center of each teal piece and saved a ton of cardstsock that way.*

Sentiment is punched with the SU Modern Label punch and embellished with Basic Grey Bling.  Black satin ribbon makes a nice texture contrast while still keeping the elegant masculine feel.  The finishing touch is a decorative brad.  We actually did about 12 that were grad caps and diplomas, but we couldn’t find enough for the 20 cards we needed and I happened to photograph one with a different decorative brad we used for the rest.

Lisa’s husband is a graphic designer and he did a beautiful job on the inside.

Thanks for stopping by.  It’s almost time for me to get dinner going.  I haven’t quite decided between tacos, burritos or nachos…it’s basically all the same stuff.  I’ll be back in the morning with a sample for Taylor’s sketch.  It’s already done and photographed (which is a rare thing on a Thursday afternoon) so I’m feeling really good!  Have a great evening.