Thank You

Thanks for coming by for a visit, and to share this Thank You card with me, that I've been forever finishing. Pieces of it have been on my desk for some time, and each day I'd plan to finish it, something would interfere. Isn't that the way life goes? My life goes that way, anyhow!

So here it is:

- Memory Box die, cut from white cardstock. Heat embossed first with Ranger's Princess Gold, & I didn't like the look. Re-versamarked it, then used an SnS EP (can't remember the name of it) but looked much much better. A similar size piece of previously created background - from sprays or brusho-s I don't remember that either, as it came from the background box! - was cut to size and glued to the circle to create a background

6x6 card pack had some paper that I thought looked ok with the circle motif. A Hero Arts Infinity circle die embossed a frame for the circle before it was adhered to this DP. (you use the tan pad that embosses instead of cutting...if you are lucky! I have sometimes cut through if it's a thin paper like this was, instead of the thicker card stock. Placing an extra piece of c/s on top of or below the thinner paper is helpful. If you think to do it, which I usually do not, until I ruin the first piece of paper!!!

Stamped the sentiment on a snippet of vellum, heat embossed with the same color used on the circle die. It looks quite different when on the vellum. A few yellow pearls to trim - that's it!

Ya'll have a nice Wednesday. God Bless.

A Happy Birthday Poinsettia

Good evening, and thanks for stopping by for a little visit. We have a dear friend from our days in Florida, who is going to be 100 years old on Christmas Eve. This sweet lady has since been moved out to California by her son, so that he can better look after her, but aside from most things age-related, she is still sharp although due to some falls in the past, she moves about with a wheelchair. She loves to read, watch tv, goes to craft & social functions at the living facility where she resides. So what to make for this special lady? We even looked at Hallmark as I wanted something very elegant and beautiful for her. I was quite disappointed, as all of the cards we saw were humorous or just not suited for this milestone occasion. So, thinking...well, it's Christmas AND her birthday, she likes flowers...poinsettias, right? So here's what finally evolved, and I will say right up front, it looks much better IRL than it does in the photo.

- A Penny Black poinsettia background was stamped using versamark, heat embossed with Queen's Gold.

- White cardstock was die cut with a Tim Holtz Mixed Media die (which I thought I had in my stash; then when I went to pull it from storage, that was not one of the 2 mixed media sets I have! Murphy's Law!) After this corner was die cut, the piece was embossed with a Tim Holtz poinsettia EF.

- A stampendous poinsettia image was stamped with versamark, heat embossed with Queen's Gold, and colored with copics (carefully, as the nibs don't like the embossed edges). I did 2 sets of this poinsettia, adhered one layer. Then on the 2nd layer, used a stylus to raise up the petals on some leaves. Looking pretty good, until I tried to 'deboss' the center, and stylus poked through! Grrr! So first thought of Nuvo drops, but then decided to drop some glossy accents into the center, then add some of the tiny, tiny gold beads (forget what these are called..it's not prills). Of course these little things just go all over, but I managed to mound them up and it dried overnight.

- Sentiment was heat embossed with the same gold on heavy weight vellum. I was going to add 100th between the words, but did not have any number stamps that looked appropriate with the size of the sentiment letters. Inside it references the milestone, and I hope she will enjoy knowing this card was made just especially for her. We've always thought a great deal of this elegant & refined lady and don't get to see her since she moved to California.

Some lovely cards were added to the Cards by Friends page tonight. Are you as intimidated to send your cards to fellow card bloggers as I am? But we sure do get a bright lift to our day to receive them from these sweet people. I have a few more, but haven't photo'd those as yet.

Have a wonderful week, and hope you can find some relaxing time. We aren't real sure we'll make our trip to Florida for Christmas. DH had a procedure to shatter the kidney stone on Thursday, and we're not 100% sure that it's successful. He's done pretty well, but still seems to have some pain at night when he lies down. Still watching to see if anything passes...just didn't feel it was the thing we should do to take a 12+ hr drive, perhaps encounter a problem while away from his doctor and his records. So we're just a little 'down'...but all things happen for a reason.

God Bless. Hugs too.

Green Butterfly

Good afternoon, thanks for surfing in for a visit. Today has been one of those overcast days you just wish it would rain and get it over with. It's been quiet, and I have just been a bit lazy..nothing that I _had_ to do, plenty I _could have_ done, but just not in the mood to do so. Had some oldies music playing, hunted through the music stored on the pc to create a flash drive to  have the car. Just piddly sort of stuff. The telephone hasn't even rung today, which means no aggravating soliciting calls. Now that's a rarity here.

Today's card is the remains of creating this card.

Popped the leftover die cut background over a purchased card and added a die sentiment - think this was cut with 2 layers of vellum, and colored with a copic pen.

Ellentina Elegant butterfly die also cut from vellum. Bottom layer colored on both sides with copics in yellow green shades. Top piece of vellum was dabbed with versamark, heat embossed with SnS detail white. Colored in with a new set of KaiserCraft Gel pens. Wasn't sure how these pens would look on vellum, but the effect was quite nice.

Hope your day was pleasant or just whatever you needed it to be. It's lovely to have a day now & again, when you don't really _have to do anything special_. 

And I will update on the bathroom project as things happen. Don't think it's going to get completed real fast...too many crafts people have to coordinate supplies, schedules, that kind of thing. Some of the elements have to be 'made', so that takes time also. Trying to be patient. Thanks for all the encouragement - appreciate it!

Blessings and Hugs

Embossed Leaves and Vellum

Good afternoon and welcome - there is an new challenge going on over at CAS Mix up for May.

Thought I'd try to play along. A very old set of wooden Hero Arts leaves has been waiting patiently on the messy desk for months to be inked. A set of 4, bought long years ago. Had seen a video, where leaves were inked with versamark, stamped on vellum, then embossed with white powder -- very pretty effect. This leaf set was put out on the desk with all intentions of trying this technique.Have no idea who did it, what youtube it was, but....finally Got Rountoit.

Stamped on  vellum, embossed with SnS White Detail Powder, (very pleased with the results too). While thinking _just what to do_ with the embossed leaves, stamped again onto a white piece of card stock. Grabbed Lemonade, Twisted Citrus, Mowed Lawn, Tumbled Glass Distress Inks & sponged all over this card stock. Looked pretty good...Hmmm..wonder what some Perfect Pearls Gold powder might look like on this? Put 'er down, burnished well with dry baby wipe - it looked good! However, there were places where the PP didn't want to be burnished away as cleanly as I would have wished, but still liked the overall effect.

Then I visited Stamping with Klass and saw the card Bonnie had designed for CAS Mix up; great minds and all that! (I did email Bonnie about the path of my own efforts). However, aside from enjoying her lovely card, Bonnie added a link to a video, Layered Embossing using an Altenew floral set. The technique for doing each step was: ink,emboss an image or two, then move on to the next ink, emboss; this method yielded a much better placement of the stamps than the way I did it. After embossing, you can see where to place the next image, rather than trying to find the versamark inking & not overlap! What really inspired me though, was the manner in which Svitlana die cut the finished piece.

Used the MBox Open Studio Postage Stamp Square die to cut this shape. Then used a S/B square to cut out one of the vellum leaves, added a faux mat (from a snippet of another dry embossing - you can't see the texture in the photo, but it's lines). Placed this in the point as a spotlight effect.

- HLS Bold Birthday Sentiments inked with versamark, heat embossed with Ranger Liquid Platinum. This is a rather warm-toned silvery effect, and thought it looked better with the vellum than a heavier gold or silver would have. 

Thanks to Bonnie and Svitlana for the wonderful inspiration in finishing this card!

Now, I'm off to link up with the CAS Mix Up May Challenge. Why not come along and have some fun and fabulous inspiration?

Thanks for coming by and big hugs!

Digi Vellum Rose

Hi Ya. Happy Friday. It's gently raining and rumbling thunder here at our house this afternoon. Moi has a haircut appointment here in a bit, but wanted to share a quick card first.

Let me also welcome Cara of My Creative Chaos who became my newest follower. Do pop over and say Hello to Cara and enjoy some wonderful inspiration. Cara is a guest designer over at Mrs. A's Butterfly Challenge - so that's quite an honor.

Here's the card:

- the free digi came from The Graphics Fairy - quite a long time ago. Tested the new Canon printer when it was first installed, using a piece of vellum, just to see how the printer liked vellum (Epson won't print it). It printed beautifully, and has been floating around on my desk for a while. At least it had time to dry well. Die cut with a S/B deckled oval.

- Card front is w/color paper, spritzed to dampen, then used gelatos in yellow, pink & green. Dabbed a smidgeon onto an old cd (makes a great palette), then using a small slightly wet brush, spread some of the various colors across the w/c paper. When I didn't get as good coverage in places as I liked, I took the gelato - lightly daubed the color directly from the tube in different spots. Used the damp brush to spread it out before it had time to 'harden'. I liked the look and texture that the w/color paper created. Used a smaller oval deckle die to cut the aperture and emboss the edges of the opening. This piece is mounted on dimensional tape and placed on the off-white card base.

- Sentiment is a recent Elizabeth Craft die (purchased the day of the Silhouette class - store had gotten in a new shipment of some of the newer dies). There's 3 layers cut from design paper, glued together, with Glossy Accents applied over the top. (saw that done here & liked the dimensional, shiny effect). Have seen this on several blogs, but saw Diane's card while working on this one. Monkey see, and all that...

- Leaves punched from white c/stock snippet, colored with copics. Tried to create similar shading as the vellum leaves. Finally gave up that idea as none of the various greens, grays & toner colors replicated that shade. Went with the color you see, adding some white gel veins. Green twine added after adhering the rose & leaves.

- Rose was punched from the same dp as the sentiment. Punch is 5 petal flower, and there's 5 layers in this rose. I'm still working on making flowers-- {sigh}. You'll see a few more on other cards from my 'rose night' - did this while watching 'Sex in the Wild' on PBS. (No, it's NOT pornographic either! But it's very interesting to learn about these different animals - makes me very glad to be a human). Loved the show about the elephants.

So that's it for today. The next few posts will be scheduled posts, as we are having our kitchen and bathroom cabinet doors replaced. (another big Sigh...and a wish that I might not have decided to do this. The cabinet door replacements are looking good, but oh, so many stumbling blocks. This was supposed to have been started and finished early in June).

Thanks for popping in and Big Hugs. See ya soon.

Floral

Hello again. I took some pictures of the punches I used in making the rose I posted earlier this week. (shown here)

I made the pink rose with the larger of these punches - which is a middle size of a set of 3. I used the smallest punch to make a yellow one (showed the punches pieces in the same post with the pink rose). This morning while waiting on another tv person, I made the yellow rose with a glue gun. (See this Youtube video). I like the size of the smaller rose, but it was a bit harder to handle the smaller petals. I did try to keep my petals staggered better in the yellow rose..as she shows in the video. I think if I keep practicing, my fingers won't feel so clumsy with the smaller petals. This is a more usable size for cards in my opinion. The bigger size would be ok on altered art, but I think a bit too 'heavy' for just a 4 1/4x5 1/2 card size.

Another Youtube I watched was an embossed vellum technique using alcohol inks at Scrapbooking Made Simple. (it's at the end part of her video).  I don't have the vellum Stacy used, but while I was downstairs with our tv installers yesterday, I hunted up some vellum to try an experiment. I used a damask stamp that was handy, inked it up with versamark, then used a Ranger Silver Pearl embossing powder over it, set with the heat gun. Turned it over to the backside, and used an alcohol ink (think it was stream) just like Stacy did in the video. Now my effort didn't look quite as nice as hers did, but I was excited at the result I got. This was not a real good quality or heavyweight vellum. I think it was from a pack of Paper Studio, purchased at Hobby Lobby. But I think it's a technique I can play around with, until I can get some of this Ruby Rockit paper.

Front side
 

Back side



 

I have one last picture of 2 flowers made from oversprayed paper when I was using Dylusions, glitter sprays, etc. This paper is a tissue paper - sort of like newsprint - that comes as packing/wrap paper in some of the online orders that I get. I save it to cover the desk where I airbrush, and when it gets too awful to continue using, I toss it. I saw a post here where Sandee had used some wax paper from lining her spray box to make a beautiful card. (Folks, I tried to find the specific post, but couldn't find that one, so just linked to Sandee's blog...she has amazing stuff to see!). So that gave me the idea to use my sprayed up papers to punch & make these flowers. Thanks Sandee, for the idea!

 

 

 

I used the SU scallop punch to punch out about 6 layers of this paper...it's just a tad more heavyweight than plain ole tissue paper. Then I pierced a center hole, placed a tiny brad to hold the layers together. I separated & smushed up each layer together, spritzed with some water until damp - not wet - and let it dry overnight. Then fluffed it up. I thought these turned out pretty. Colors are quite sparkly IRL, and I may spritz with some gold spray glitter.

 

So I hope you enjoyed this post, and maybe it gave some good ideas. Thanks to all these talented bloggers who give ME ideas. I'm a great copier, but not so talented when it comes to designing. If I know where I got the idea, and can get back to the blog, I will always try to recognize the blogger who inspired me! Ya'll have a grand afternoon, and thanks for visiting. Hugs