Sympathy Card

Hello!

Here's a card I made for someone at work who has recently been bereaved.  I wanted to use a technique that I learned at the classes I took a couple of weeks ago from Fred B Mullett.  This was a spritzing technique using Tombow markers and a botanical leaf image from Fred's nature print line of stamps.  The sentiment is from Quietfire Designs, as is the waxed twine around the edge.  The sentiment is embossed with Rust Antiquities embossing powder, so it's multi-toned and matches nicely with the varied shadings of the rest of the card.  The panels are all edged in Memories Art Print Brown, and the card base is a lovely vanilla bean Memory Box note card.  I like the Memory Box note cards because they are white on the inside - saves having to make a liner.  

This technique is from the Spritz me baby ... mo' betta class.  There are some basic instructions on Fred's website, but if you can take the class in person, it's waaay better.  I got to learn all kinds of things, like how to use TP (technical paper, on the same sort of perforated roll around a central cardboard cylinder as regular old tp) to blot up excess water, and how to avoid the Zone of Preciousness around the main image.  (I struggle with this.  The Zone refers to the urge to stamp your main image and then leave a nice perimeter around it, carefully avoiding stamping over this lovely image, so carefully positioned.  Someone who has fabric scissors and paper scissors, a cutting board just for fruit, and an extra pot of her favourite twinkling h20 is destined to have entire shrines set up to preserve zones of preciousness on cards.  Many thanks to Fred for urging me to overcome this tendency and stamp right on over that zone, and he is sooo right to do so.  But, as is the case with all good advice, it's nearly impossible to follow.  I am proud to say that in this card, I was successful in my struggle to overcome the urge to leave a Z of P, and there is only the slightest Nook of Preciousness under the main leaf.)

In other stamping news, I was out all day today, and last night, and will be out tomorrow at the wonderful classes run by Krista Schneider.  We are making wonderful things and it is just such a pleasure to be doing all that creative activity in the company of such delightful people.

Classes with Fred B Mullett

Hello!  I'm back from the most amazing three days in Massachusetts.  My friend and I took a couple of days off work to drive down there to attend some classes with Fred B Mullett.  He has a wonderful line of nature print stamps, botanical and sea life, and some fruits and vegetables, and lots of others besides.  And, he has some wonderful classes that he teaches, some using these stamps, some using colour and figure/ground principles to make a little magic happen.  If he is ever in your area, try a class or two or all with him and you won't be sorry.

A quick aside - we didn't want to get stuck in line at the border on Thursday morning and race to beat the clock to class, so we went down on Wednesday night.  We stayed just across the border in Derby Line at the gorgeous Birchwood B&B.  If you are ever in that part of Vermont, I would recommend staying there.  The hosts, Dick and Betty were gracious and welcoming and their home is lovely.  Betty had an antique store at one time and their home has some lovely antiques.  The building itself is from the early 1920s, but modelled on an earlier home on the property.  The gardens are lovely and the setting peaceful and quiet.  It was a lovely way to start our trip.

Back to the classes.  If you'd like to see a few of the things we made, check out Fred's class descriptions at this link here.  In every class, we walked through the steps together, made something with some fairly specific instructions, then were let loose to try it on our own.  Fred's a great teacher and it was wonderful to be able to try the techniques I've read about on his website.  Taking the classes in person really  made a bit difference.  He has great instructions and samples on his website, but to be able to hear the tips and tricks and context and all the rest of it really made the difference.

The pictures above are the two samples I did using the Dancing Rubber Fish technique.  The purple one is the one we walked through together, and the green one is the one I did on my own.  We also did classes called The Elegant Mess, The Rest of the Mess, and Spritz Me Baby....mo' betta.  Each class was wonderful and I learned so much.  My friend and I had the best time and are just on such a creative high it's incredible.  I came home and tried another fish, then realized I really did have to take Fred's advice and make an embossing powder chart, so I spent last night doing that to find out which of my powders are transparent and which are opaque, and which are somewhere in between.  I was certainly surprised by some of them!  Today I hope to get back in the craft room and really try some more stuff.   I have everything I need and I have a delicious number of beautiful Fred B Mullett stamps to play with.  These nature prints really showcase the techniques and add such lovely elements to the "nonrepresentational art" we made.  (See, I learned lots of new words, some of them artsy, some of them unique to the Fishboy Thesaurus, things like "tactilely interactive vulcanized tools for the replication of graphic imagery" (rubber stamps) and precision thermography powder application devices (cocktail straws).   I tell you, I really was in seventh heaven taking a class from a wonderful artist with a great sense of humour who likes to play with words.  Seventh Heaven!   It was pure, pure happiness, right from start to finish.




The classes were at Ink About It in Westford, Massachusetts.  It's a beautiful stamp and scrapbooking store.  They have a great selection of products and many, many wonderful samples.  Their classroom space is bright and spacious and the ladies at the store are darlings one and all.

To put the icing on the cake, it was so special to spend those three and a half days with my dear friend, just talking and laughing and really soaking up the whole experience.  It was a magical time and the memories will stay with me for a very long time.  They will have to.  I brought the wrong camera battery charger, so all the photo ops have, by necessity, been imprinted on my memory instead of a flash card.  Oh yeah, and I forgot my twinklings and last class projects there when we left so the kind ladies are going to mail them back to me.  (This had to turn into a true story about me at some point, didn't it!)

Mother's Day Card

Hello!  Here's a card I made recently, but didn't post because it was for Mother's Day.  I guess that doesn't make a lot of sense since I stamped it with my mother while she was visiting.  Oh well, that's my trademark - not making a lot of sense!

Mum and I were playing around with Fantasy Film from the Art Institute Glitter folks.  It's wonderful, iridescent, shimmery stuff.  This is an Art Institute dragonfly stamp, and I followed the directions on the package to stamp and heat with an iron.  It doesn't show from the scanned version, but in real life, I made two layers for the dragonfly wings.  The background is distress ink and the bull rushes (Penny Black) were stamped by colouring directly on the rubber with Tombow markers and spritzing.  The sentiment is a Stampin' Up stamp and the circles are from Papertrey Ink.

My own Mother's Day has been lovely.  Hubby and the girls made me breakfast this morning: pancakes with sauteed apples (from DD2s new kids cookbook), fruit salad with lemon yogurt sauce (delicious Barefoot Contessa recipe), bacon, coffee, and juice.  The table was set beautifully, complete with a bouquet of roses, a bouquet of handmade flowers, handmade cards and a poem.  Then off to church where the junior choir sang a lovely anthem, then out shopping in the afternoon for some summer clothes with DD1, then out for dinner, and then a nice bike ride on a balmy spring evening.  Now home for the evening routine and a quick blog post while the kids do a bit of tidying.  It's also the 18th anniversary of the day hubby and I met.  Now that's a lot to be grateful for in just one day!

Another Distress Marker Project

Hello!  Here's another project I made with Distress Markers.  I used them with the LaBlanche specialty stamping paper (same was what Ranger sells).  The markers work really well with this paper and I was able to blend them very easily.  I will be doing this card as a class in June at Heather's Stamping Haven, so I won't go into too much detail here.  The image is one by Magenta.

I will say that I really liked the combination of Distress markers with that super-smooth paper.  The background patterned piece is one I made, thanks to a new technique I learned from my mother (thank you!). The card base is my favourite - tsumugi paper.  Beautiful stuff!  I love the colours and the texture.

Well, I am off to steal a few minutes in my stamp room before I get going on the weekend chores.  I might even turn on the hockey game to listen to the playoffs while I stamp.  We'll see.  Hubby's playing his guitar and I'm enjoying listening to that.

Ok - Blogger has upgraded and won't let me attach pictures without using the new version.  But I can't see where to add labels.  I hate these "improvements" that make it hard to do things that used to be easy.  ---later-- I found the labels under an icon that looks greyed out, but turns out to be active with the right incantation.  I don't understand this move to icons everywhere.  This a blog.  That implies a certain level of literacy right there.  Why use impenetrable icons when a label would work?   Speaking of literacy, or lack thereof, I was walking downtown down a road I hadn't used before on my way back from a meeting. I went past an electric company installation and they had a big sign on the fence (big, imposing, serious fence) that said, "NO PARKING.  VILATORS WILL BE TICKETED AND TOWED."  This sign was repeated again, about 10 feet away.  On one sign, someone had turned the I in vilator into a flower, and on the other sign, some punctilious vigilante had added an O.   Here's a picture of the sign - it must be at a different location since it's on a brick wall, unlike the ones I saw.  http://boerishbwoy.blogspot.ca/2010/06/title-warning-to-all-vilators-location.html#links  I wonder if one could appeal one's ticket on the grounds that they are not a vilator, and are therefore exempt from this exhortation.  I'd hope so, but I wouldn't want to be the one to try it out.

Baby card

Hello!  Here's a card I made recently, but didn't want to post it until I was sure the recipient had seen it first.  I wanted a non-traditional baby card and I had this beautiful quote (Quietfire Designs) in mind.  I used a number of soft shades of Colorbox fluid chalk to brayer on to 130 lb cardstock and heat set with an iron.  I think I used Ice Blue, Creamy Brown, and Dark Moss.  I stamped the image and used Moss embossing powder for emphasis.  Then I die cut with spellbinders to get the image and coordinating mat in ice blue linen.  With that same linen, I made a background panel with a baby theme embossing folder.  The cardstock is a lovely soft moss green, and the accent paper is an espresso brown.  A few soft blue brads thrown in for good measure and I was done! 

Thanks for stopping by.  Happy stamping!

Edited to add:  the embossing folder is from Cuttlebug, and is one of a set of four called Word Collage.

Class sample - Distress Markers

Hello!  Here's a card I made for an upcoming class at Heather's Stamping Haven.  The class will be called "Fun with Textures" and will feature this card an another one, and some different techniques (creating texture with UTEE and the new Donna Salazar Mixed Media Inx).  The class is Saturday, May 5 from 2-5. 

The poppy stamp image and background stamps are all from Heather's Stamping Haven and the image is coloured with my .... (insert deep, sonorous, game show host voice here) Brand, New Markers!!!  (cue applause and raucous cheering).   That's right, I got my new Distress Markers and I was prepared to love them, and I do.  A lot.  I love my Tombows, I love my Copics, I love my pencil crayons, and now I love these markers.  The Distress colour palette will be a great complement to my Tombows from a watercolouring with markers point of view.  I'm looking forward to doing some experimenting with them and seeing what kind of things I can do with them.  Have you tried them out yet?

Happy stamping!

Mastering Twinks & Scrap Sunday on Saturday

Hi!  Here's a quick stamped project to show you.  I was cleaning off my desktop (!) to make room for my large craft sheet, and I came across this coloured image.  I think I'd done it for my calendar class and switched to a poppy image for the calendar page.  This little beauty needed its own home!  I had a few other scraps that I incorporated into the design, and presto-change-o, this card was done!  The image (Heather's Stamping Haven) is embossed in black on watercolour paper and coloured with Tombow markers.    The sentiment is a rub-on, and the light green panel is embossed with the Tim Holtz brick wall and enhanced with some iced spruce distress ink.  So, here we have a Scrap Stash Sunday card on Saturday.  I'll slide it in on a couple of technicalities:  I can't actually remember what day  I made it, so it might very well have been a Sunday.  Also, it's Saturday morning here so it must surely be Sunday by now in Australia, if not Monday or Tuesday. 

In other news, I signed up for this on-line class, Mastering Twinkling H20s, and so far it looks great.  I have read over the first lesson, but not done the exercises.  The exercises look like a lot of fun.  I have always loved my twinks, and I'm looking forward to learning more about them.  I'll try to post my exercises on the class's Flickr group, and I'll post a link here if the group is an open forum.  Now it's off to feed the kiddies and get ready for my class at Heather's this afternoon.  I might even try to get the kids' hair cut this morning, but we'll see how the time goes. 

Have a great weekend!