The Daley Stamper

Another Japanese paper card

2012-01-29T17:36:00.000-05:00

As I was writing my last post, I remembered I had wanted to try this card with a black background for my vase and branch. Ignoring my to-do list, I set to it and came up with this while all the stuff was still out. (Blithely ignoring the fact that this state is likely to continue indefinitely....)

I used Brilliance Coffee Bean ink for the branch and Brilliance Pearlescent beige for the flowers (branch and flowers - Impress Rubber Stamps). I tried adding in some light blue flowers in pigment ink and didn't like a blob, which I tried to scrape off, causing a smudge and necessitating some punched butterflies (a.k.a. Stampers' All-Purpose Concealer). I may whip up a few more like this as I have enough for at least 3 more in black with blue and brown accents .

The background stamp is a calligraphy stamp from Fred B Mullett, stamped in Bordering Blue (RIP; BTW I found a whole package, unopened! Yippee! I can downgrade its status from Perma-Hoard to Short Rations.)

Playing with Japanese paper

2012-01-29T16:56:00.001-05:00

Hello! For the past couple of days I've been playing with my stash of Japanese paper. I had picked up a big bag of scraps, so I used those to make about 17 or so cards. Here are two examples. For all of them, I punched a vase (punch from Carla craft) and stamped the bough+flowers (Impress Rubber Stamps) on a 2x3 3/4" piece of neutral cardstock. I used the colours in the vase to determine the colours of the flowers, and the background accents, etc. I found some wonderful scraps and these are two of my favourite cards. When they were bright and cheerful like this, I made them into birthday cards, Mother's Day cards, thank you cards, etc. More muted tones and purples I turned into sympathy cards. Almost all the card bases are the wonderful tsumugi cardstock that comes in such beautiful colours and has such wonderful texture, reminiscent of slubbed silk. For the purple card, I only had a tiny scrap of the vase paper, but I found another tiny scrap of the red and white and black that looked nice, and a bigger piece of the crumply paper. On the blue card, I used an Oriental calligraphy stamp (Fred B Mullett) in the background. (It's the stamp that has the poem about the words like stones and youthful tongue growing gray.) The green card is a Mother's Day card, with the sentiment on the front (Stampin' Up) and a lovely quote on the inside with a Quietfire Designs calligraphy stamp.

It was a bit like doing a jigsaw puzzle, finding all the bits to go together and arranging them to look nice on the card. All the cards are finished off with some liquid pearls in the centres of the flowers, and the colours again depended on the overall colour scheme but I used mainly white opal, platinum, and used pale yellow on a couple and lettuce on one with yellow flowers and a brown base. I now remember that I had thought of trying some on a black backdrop. Hmmm...maybe something to try before I clean up the scraps! Thanks for stopping by!

Another Birthday Card

2012-01-28T19:23:00.000-05:00

Hello! Here's a super-quick card I made for my nephew's birthday. I used a Darkroom Door robot photo strip that I had on hand and paired it with a Darkroom Door word strip. The background is a seafoam glimmer paper, run through a Tim Holtz cogged wheel embossing folder. I coloured in some of the depressions with an avocado marker to give it a bit of interest, and added some black liquid accents (Ranger) here and there for a finishing touch. The card base is Dusty Durango (SU). Speaking of SU, have they retired Bordering Blue? I couldn't find it on their website. I use this colour all the time, and frankly find it quite astonishing that they discontinued it without consulting me, their largest volume purchaser of that colour. Now my remaining stock will have to go into perma-hoard status, never to be used again since it's the last I have (along with Purely Pomegranate and Soft Sky) until Future Karen no longer likes those colours and wishes she'd used them when she loved them. Too bad Future Karen isn't here to give Present Karen a swat upside the head for that! I'm sure if Future Karen were to come back in time to today, she would have better things to admonish me for, like spending more time stamping and less time doing laundry, etc. And bring me winning lottery numbers for next week and things like that. I would put up a with a few swats in the head for that!

Thanks for stopping by!

Birthday Card

2012-01-21T16:00:00.001-05:00

Hello! Here's a card I made today for my brother's birthday. He's an avid video gamer, so I thought this would be a good card for him. It's a Sunshine Designs image, one of a set of four. I stamped it on watercolour paper and embossed it, then watercoloured it with Tombow markers, and accented with Stickles. I added in some sound lines and Batman-style "pops" "bzzts" and "zaps" for the sound effects. The background paper is from the Marrakesh pack of BasicGrey accent papers and the background stamp is another Sunshine Designs cube. The card base is Mellow Mossand I added a final accent of dimensional pearls (Ranger) in Denim. A quick card that was good for using some paper scraps. The longest time is figuring out the layout. It's also quicker to decide on the paper and then choose the marker colours. Edited to add: This is more vibrant in real life but Sauron the Scanner hates me and refused to cooperate. I tinkered with my photo editing software to the full extent of my patience to no avail. You'll just have to picture it brighter :-)

Thanks for stopping by!

PS A huge thank you to the ladies who came out to my calendar class at Heather's Stamping Haven last week. I had a wonderful time!

Calendar Class

2012-01-07T10:03:00.000-05:00

Calendar - closed

Hello! Happy New Year! Hard to believe 2012 is upon us, isn't it. Here is my first class this year at Heather's Stamping Haven - a 2012 desk calendar. It will be a two-part workshop on Saturday, January 14th. Please contact Heather at the store to register.

In the morning, we will do the images and you will learn the essentials of Krista Schneider's popular technique for watercolouring with Tombow markers. In the afternoon, we will make the calendar pages and assemble the calendar.

Calendar open to January 2012

Calendar Pages

I really had fun making this calendar and I would be hard pressed to pick a favourite page. I think I could narrow it down to three contenders: the bunny, the witch, and the poppy. I used Sunshine Designs and Heather's Stamping Haven images as they lend themselves so well to the technique, but also because there is tremendous variety to choose from, seasonal and floral and birds...gorgeous. This calendar also has two bonus pages for 2013, which presented some challenges to DH to understand (in his engineer's world, calendars have 12 months you see). I said it was because years are only randomly selected points in time, roughly timed to include one trip around the sun and any old pope can make one up. Plus, we are making this later in January, so the two extra months are to make up for that. Also, a calendar that will go to February will allow people to purchase their 2013 calendars at deep discounts in February, thus offsetting the cost of the class. He remained unconvinced. I, on the other hand, thought it was great to be able to include the extra months, which is the whole reason you *make* things, not buy them, because then they get to be how *you* want them.

Hope to see you at Heather's on January 14th! It's going to be a great class and a lot of fun.

Artichoke Birthday Card

2011-12-22T14:03:00.002-05:00

Hi! Here's a card I made recently for my husband's birthday. I needed a quick and easy masculine card, so I cast my eye over my stamps and cards on-hand and threw out that notion. It was 11 pm and a long day and I really just needed some stamping therapy, not a "requirement". My eye lit upon a Stampin' Up stamp set called Homegrown, with beautiful line art vegetables. Instantly I knew I needed to colour some artichokes, so I stamped them on a card base (naturals ivory) in India Ink and coloured them with my Bryunzeel pencil crayons in lots of different shades (green, yellow, brown, red, blue and purple). I also added a bit of shadow with a soft grey. I didn't blend with anything, just the pencils. I find if I don't get too carried away, they blend well together, and if I do get a line, I can cover it up with something darker or assist it with my finger and some firm rubbing. Besides, I wanted the variegation of the different colours to make them look more lifelike. I needed a birthday message, and once again, my eye lit upon just the thing, a wonderful script stamp by josephinekimberling for Impress Rubber Stamps. That got stamped in India Ink too, and then it made my card lopsided, so I trimmed off some "white space" at the top to get the proportions I wanted and I was away to the races. I normally like to make a card with the person in mind, and in this case I don't really have any cause to associate DH with artichokes. Instead, this card was all about just following what felt right and taking the chance that I could give it to someone who would appreciate that aspect. And failing that, not really mind if he got an artichoke card for his birthday.

Well, I'm off on holidays now, and my wenting is done for the morning. I went to my daughter's class to help them sew felt ornaments for a little bit, then I went to an electronics store to return something, then I went to get groceries. Now I'm home and about to the fruit I soaked overnight in rum into fruitcake and then do some wrapping and maybe make some peppermint bark. We'll see how long the other things take me. I'm taking two days off before Christmas to do my baking and wrapping and general getting ready.

Thanks for stopping by! Have yourself a merry little artichoke!

Christmas Card

2011-12-18T09:11:00.000-05:00

Hello! This will be a quick post before we dash off to church. Today is the Advent Pageant - always a good time.

I was "cleaning up" the stamp room yesterday and found two of these trees stamped and embossed on watercolour paper and decided to "whip up" another two Christmas cards. I had thought I was done Christmas cards, but those were only the mailing ones. I realized I needed another 30 or so...

I had been doing a lot of red and green cards so I decided to try something else and used bluey greens, oranges and pinks here. I used Tombow markers and blended them with a paint brush. I like it for the most part, but I think the traditional colours are still my favourite. Still, it was fun to get out the new Stickles that don't get much use. The Eucalyptus, Mystic Green and Tropical Tangerine were *perfect* here and this card has more sparkle and glitz than a Vegas showgirl.

Well, I must dash and feed Thing 2. (Thing 1 is at a sleepover birthday party.)

Thanks for stopping by!

PS. Dear Santa, Please bring me a clean and decorated house, some tins of home baking (including Granny Borrowman's gingerbread please) and some clean and folded laundry. Thank you!

Holy Holly Batman!

2011-12-10T16:45:00.000-05:00

Hello! Here's my card for the December challenge at Inkurable Stampers, theme of Holly.

Well, here's where my near fetish for holly stamps came into its own. I used a Penny Black brush stroke holly stamp for the main image, a Stamping Bella holly stamp for the background, and on another version of this card I used the Heather's Stamping Haven solid and open holly stamps.

I started off by using a layout and technique idea from my stamping friend Mary, but changed up the colour scheme a bit. I coloured a panel of watercolour paper with Tombow markers in shades of light yellow, light blue, and many greens, just scribbling on randomly. Then I spritzed generously with water and let it blend around by itself, getting a fair bit of green on my hands. (It washes off eventually. I don't want to say how long because it all depends on how much you wash your hands. I guess if you are neither a compulsive hand-washer or a germophile, it will wash off in about a day, unless you are very neat and don't get any on your hands in the first place. If you are that person, I would watch for other miracles too, like Virgin Marys in your watercolour puddles.) Ok, let the watercolour panel dry, and help it along with a heat tool if you want, once it's stopped sopping and dripping. I set it aside to drip onto my crafting rag, which helped contain the mess, and added a cheerful green to the rag. Once it was dry, I stamped with the Stamping Bella solid holly in Evergreen Bough distress ink, and also some music (Cornish Heritage Farms) in the same green. Then I ironed it to seal the deal and stamped the Penny Black brush stroke holly in black and embossed in black. Next was the message (from the Darkroom Door Dear Santa collection), but I wished afterwards I'd embossed that too. I accented it with my sparkle pen, but I still wish I'd embossed it - next time. The card base is a medium gray linen, stamped with the same Penny Black holly in Ice Jade chalk ink. The front side of the card is cut short by about 1 1/4", and a gold edge strip applied. On the inside of the card is a black linen strip, stamped with my current favourite stamp, a scripty background from Impression Obsession. I am using that stamp on everything. Everything. It works everywhere! It is the little black dress of stamps. Not that I have ever had a little black dress, or needed one, but I use the term to indicate a wardrobe staple, that can be dressed up or down, go uptown, downtown, day to evening with the right accessories, etc. Only the stamp version is much more gratifying and requires neither pantyhose or high heels. Once everything was all put together, I put some Patina stickles on the holly leaves and some Xmas Red and Candy cane stickles on the berries. Yay holly! Yay stamps! This will be a quick one to do a batch of, maybe later tonight.

Thanks for stopping by!

Bellarific Friday - White Theme

2011-12-08T00:23:00.000-05:00

Hello! Here's my card for Bellarific Friday this week at Stamping Bella and the theme is white. I used the three ornament stamp, stamped on white linen with gold Delicata ink (fabulous stuff - so gold and great detail - I have used it on everything for the last two weeks). I re-stamped it on cream linen and cut out the ornaments to pop up. I accented with a white gel pen and then added some tape around the edge of the white linen panel topped with warm highlight glitter ritz. I accented some of the ornaments with glitter ritz too, to tie it in. Also, the polka dot ornament is paper-pieced with white linen. the panel is mounted on gold metallic and the base card is a slightly textured white metallic with gold iridescence. I stamped the base card with Stamping Bella solid holly using alabaster chalk ink. In real life it's totally fabulous but Sauron the Scanner bears me some monstrous grudge and refuses to capture its beauty for you. Trust me. Even my DH said it was really beautiful, and he's not one who's normally lavish with praise. I think I will make more of these as they are quite quick to do (minus the fiddly paper piecing, which could be achieved more quickly with the gel pen in future). I will use the narrower tape for the glitter frame next time too, but again, live and learn. I'm not displeased with this, but now that I want the narrow edge, I will fixate on that until I get a chance to try it.

I'm in full Christmas card mode right now, and finished a small batch (6) of cards from Krista's Copic class this fall (the stained glass nativity scene). I hope to post that soon, but I make no promises. I have a lot of things to do. In fact my friend and I were talking (on the chat feature of Facebook Scrabble) about how we're so very far from being ready for Christmas. I said I have to battle perfectionist tendencies and so far lowering my standards and eliminating unrealistic (i.e. any) goals has been the secret to my success. She said she will stop procrastinating. I said I planned to do that as well, but not just yet. And for the record, Facebook Scrabble doesn't take that long, I usually play a quick word before my morning shower. That's hardly encroaching on laundry-shopping-wrapping-cookie baking-gingerbread house building- tree decorating - Advent meditating-Christmas card writing time, now is it? And also for the record, I put "make Christmas cards" at the top of my To Do list every year. Stephen Covey says to prioritize, and I find that a very helpful secret to success.

Thanks for stopping by! I must go and see if I can play my X and Q!

Christmas Card

2011-12-02T07:24:00.000-05:00

Hello! It's been way too long! Since I've last posted, there was the church bazaar, my daughter's birthday party, my daughter's family birthday party, my parents' visit, and the hurly burly of daily life. Good things, all, but no time for blogging, and precious little for stamping.

I had gotten this stamp and the Christmas colours of Distress Ink at Heather's recently and I really wanted to try them out. It's a gorgeous brush stroke poinsettia (Penny Black), with a holly sprig. I've tried it a few different ways, but here I started with a piece of sage green, sponged in some Iced Spruce and stamped on the old script (Impression Obsession) in Memories Soft Gold. Then, the poinsettia on top in Delicata gold (that stuff is fantastic! dries instantly on porous paper - cue foreshadowing music here), the Merry Christmas (Heather's Stamping Haven) in black. Doodled a frame with a Micron too. I edged the panel in the gold ink too. This piece is n a dark grey linen mat, then a lighter grey linen card base, on which I stamped the poinsettia again, this time in a sage pigment ink. The accent bit is a piece of Ionize metallic paper (my new favourite since Krista's class this fall), which I zipped through the Cuttlebug (why don't I have a holly folder????) and applied more delicata ink. Most of the ink is off my fingers now, the next day, and I found that delicata will eventually dry on metallic paper, but not quickly enough not to make a bit of a smudgy mess. Next time I will set it aside to dry for five minutes or so. The final element was some artful application of Champagne Stickles, mostly in the centre, but also here and there, as I've been seeing done with sticky-back pearls on lots of blogs. This will mail more easily, and helps put a tiny dent in my stickle supply. Well, this card has been percolating for a while, and it was good to get it out. I might make a few more tweaks to size of panel, etc,., but I think this is in the running for one of my Christmas card batches this year!

Thanks for stopping by.

PS Sorry about the wacky formatting - Blogger updated their interface while I wasn't looking and I don't have time this morning. Really I should be getting everyone ready for the day and not blogging, but there you go. We'll compromise with wacky formatting and a mad scramble for the bus.

Just for You

2011-11-01T00:02:00.000-04:00

Hello! Happy Hallowe'en! We had a nice time out trick-or-treating with the girls. There weren't a lot of kids out in our neighbourhood, so people were quite generous and gave out handfuls of stuff and were quite pleased to see some cute little girls at the door. Hubby even did a quick jack o'lantern for the front porch. Some people had some good decorations out, and one house had a ghouly-skeleton with glowing red eyes that waved its arms and moved its mouth and talked about the haunted house. My five-year-old's eyes were like saucers. I hope it doesn't give her nightmares! After the kids were in bed, I wound down with my stamps, and thought I'd do a couple of cards in the same vein to save design time. I'd seen a card like this at Heather's Stamping Haven, with the various diamonds cut out and popped up, but I couldn't remember exactly how it went. I started by stamping the image (Stampers Anonymous) on some cream linen card stock using India Ink (Stewart Superior), once on the card itself, and a second and third time on a scrap of the same paper. Then, I cut out the scrap piece, the full image, and then a couple of diamonds. I also cut away a couple of diamonds to look through to the base layer. To add colour, I used a moist paintbrush and lifted colour from Distress Ink pads. For the top one I used: Pumice Stone, Scattered Straw, Forest Moss and Stormy Sky. For the bottom one I used: Antique Linen, Pumice Stone, Victorian Velvet, Seedless Preserves and Gathered Twigs. I really like those last two special issue colours. I coloured each layer the same, then assembled usinging dimensional foam tape between the layers. To finish it off, I highlighted some diamonds with Rock Candy stickles for some non-glittery sparkle. The sentiment is a stamp from Quietfire Designs. I wanted to make these cards all-purpose so that seemed like a good choice.

Thanks for stopping by!

One layer card

2011-10-29T22:13:00.002-04:00

Hello! Thanks for stopping by. It's getting to be that time of year when I need a bunch of cards to donate to the church bazaar. Clean and simple options are always quick to do, and can be striking. I had a card base handy, so I masked off an L-shape with sticky notes and sponged on some distress ink (Victorian Velvet and Stormy Sky). It seemed to need a horizontal silhouette vignette. Since I didn't have the perfect stamp for that (gasp!), I had to improvise. I found this lovely shorebird (Old Island Stamp Company) and stamped it on in black and added some extra ripple lines with my Micron. I found a suitable sentiment for underneath (A Muse) and added some birds in flight, again with the pen. The all-seeing eye of Sauron the Scanner has revealed my sponging shortcomings, but I'm hoping the hurly burly of the Christmas bazaar will mask (ha ha! who says puns are the lowest form of humour? I refuse to believe it) any imperfections.

NSR: We're getting into Hallowe'en here - costumes have been chosen, pumpkins purchased and ready for carving, candy bought for trick-or-treaters. We had a party at work yesterday and I had the dubious honour of winning the Thematic Costume category. I wore a buttoned dress shirt with my husband's tie, a brown fedora and a glued-on mustache, and toted my iron. Can you guess what I was? (Hint - I foreshadowed my love of puns in the previous paragraph.) Yes, you guessed it - I went as Iron Man. My friend at work said I looked like Everyman on a New York subway. At least that's what she said when she stopped hooting with laughter long enough to come up for air. Then she insisted I refer to women as "dames" for the rest of the day and pretend I worked for Barney Miller down at the precinct. I think it was the mustache. It was quite realistic (ca. 1978). My kids just couldn't stop looking at it, and touching it. I think it really freaked them out. I would post a picture except this is the internet and people from work might see it. Oh yeah. They saw it in person. I'm still not going to post it. It was one of those magical moments that had to be experienced in person.

Windy Day

2011-10-23T00:44:00.006-04:00

Hello! What a wonderful couple of days at Heather's Stamping Haven, taking Krista Schneider's workshops on colouring with Tombow and Copic markers. Eighteen projects later, I'm worn out but enjoying the creative intensity of the last two days. Friday was a day off from work (!) and Tombow markers. We did 11 Christmas cards and fell in love with lots of stamps and colour combinations. Saturday was 8 projects and lots of great Copic colour combinations to try out. This particular card was one of my favourites and it is such a great image from The Artful Stamper. This stamp was discontinued for a bit, but they have brought it back. Yay! If you can't find it at your local stamp store, get in touch with Heather and she can probably get it to you.

The top left card is the one that Krista taught us, but she said it would be great in all sorts of colour combinations, especially a monochromatic with a hit of red for Christmas. I thought that would be fun too, but I owed my family some time. So I came home and played with the kids for a bit after supper. We alphabetized my chalk re-inkers as I had dumped the box (a second time, immediately after sorting them and was too fed up to re-sort). It was great fun. My five-year-old particularly enjoyed it. (We are quite the party family. Who likes to rock the party? We like to rock the party.) They loved that so much, they begged to alphabetize something else so we alphabetized my stickle drawer. This is quite hilarious given the rest of my stamp room which, although tidier than it generally is, is not exactly organized to military standards. An alphabetical stickle drawer in my stamping space is sort of like having a flashmob where only two people in the crowd are singing the same song. (Speaking of flashmobs, it was one of my New Year's Resolutions to see one and I still haven't. Do you have to be Twittered to find out about them? Because I am not signed up to Twitter. I use another social media interface for the purposes of playing Scrabble and "liking" cool Stampbord projects but I can't see myself joining something else just to see what #twitspace is going on in 45 characters or less. I tend to prefer formats that allow for lengthy ramblings. Hah!)

** Back to the cards! (Click the image to see it in a larger version.) After the kids were in bed, I coloured up a few more and mounted them. I made a pastel one (top right) and a blue-grey one (bottom left, love that one!) and then finally channelled Krista a bit to do the last one, the monochromatic one with hits of red (bottom right). I didn't want red leaves, so I drew a few birds on with the Copic multiliner and coloured them in. For the snowy scenes, I used Rock Candy stickles on the snow, and then coordinating stickles from my (temporarily) alphabetized drawer. I confess they are no longer completely alphabetical (sorry LH!), but the drawer wasn't full enough too keep them from sliding out of order. I don't know which confession is worse: I have enough stickles to alphabetize, I let them get out of order within hours of being sorted, or I don't have enough to fill a drawer all the way to the back. Actually, I like them all in a tumble-jumble because I can rootle through them and re-acquaint myself with all the options whenever I am looking for one. If they're all standing up, I just zoom to the one I want, and forget to notice neglected colours.

Thanks for stopping by! Hope this makes you think about different ways to colour an image to create different results.

ATC Class Nov 12th

2011-10-20T06:57:00.010-04:00

Hello! Just a quick post this morning before I dash off to work. Here are the ATCs I made for an upcoming class at Heather's Stamping Haven. It's going to be from 2-5 on Saturday, November 12th. If you'd like to take the class, please register with the store.

I tried to make ATCs in several different styles, and I will also give people some sketched designs for how to use ATCs as card-starters.

I love all of them, but I think my favourite is the Snowy Day one, which has some surprises hidden inside.

Hope to see you on the 12th! In the meantime, I am going to be a parent volunteer on the kindergarten field trip. Naturally it's the coldest day we've had so far, 8 degrees, windy and rainy. Good thing I'm made of stern stuff. Then tomorrow and Saturday are the all-day classes with Krista Schneider at Heather's! Can't wait - two full days of colouring with Copics and Tombows, 18 projects over the two days. I love it.

Thanks for stopping by!

PS. Stamps: Heather's Stamping Haven, Sunshine Designs, Hero Arts (gold flower), Stampers Anonymous (butterfly ATC). Sorry about the formatting. Ran out of time and patience to get it any better.

Scrap Sunday 13 - on Monday

2011-10-10T21:48:00.003-04:00

Here's a card I made this evening from some scraps. I'm calling it a Scrap Sunday card since today is a holiday (Thanksgiving), so it's still the weekend. I had a piece of green flecked paper that I'd made from some spray I think (guessing lettuce and mushroom Adirondack color wash). I stamped it with this lovely calligraphy stamp from Quietfire Designs and matted it on a scrap of cork, then over a scrap of lovely handmade olive paper, and the card base is a cream coloured linen. Very quick and easy! (If I don't count all the false starts and the dead ends along the way.) I love cards like this that count as "cleaning off the stamp desk". Also, it's my reward for working hard on my holiday to get all the laundry done. Today and yesterday were gorgeous, so I was a laundry dervish, washing and hanging out to dry about 8 loads. All three clotheslines were pressed into service, and nearly all the clothespins. And even better - all the laundry is put away, and I even ironed! Pretty soon my husband is going to say, "Where is Karen? What have you done with her? Unless this imposter can cook, I want my real wife back!"

Happy Thanksgiving! So much to be thankful for.

NSR. It's been a good weekend. Friday started out with a meet and greet at work, with the big head honcho (many, many levels above me). When I met her she knew my project and said kind things about it. That was neat - she has a lot of people working for her, doing a lot of things, so the fact that she knew what I'm doing was kind of neat. And unusual for me since I usually prefer to fly under the radar. Then Friday night we all went to the rector's house for a wine and cheese for the stewardship committee and their families. (Well kiddies got movies and snacks, not wine and cheese). Hubby is chairing the committee so it's a busy fall around here. It was a very nice evening, just a shame that I'm always totally worn out by Friday night. Then Saturday morning was a wonderful stamping class at Heather's Stamping Haven and we made some gorgeous projects with Caran d'Ache crayons. Then home to make pear salad and do some whirlwind cleaning while hubby took the kids to the park for a family fun day with the cousins. Then off to my brother's place for a huge turkey feast, thanks to my sister-in-law. Such a wonderful meal! The kids had a sleepover so the grown ups got to stay up late (i.e., past 8 pm) visiting. Sunday morning was church, hubby was duty warden so gone bright and early to let in the 8 o'clockers, so I got to sleep in and have my coffee in the comfy chair overlooking the woods, reading a good book, enjoying the sunny morning. Didn't have my watch on so enjoyed this solitary scenario for far too long, and rushed pell-mell to church, arriving just in the nick of time. The church looked so lovely with all the Thanksgiving decorations everywhere! In the afternoon we raked some leaves and played outside, then went for a drive to Lanark County and the Mill of Kintail just outside Almonte. There's a museum there in the old mill and some lovely walking trails, which we enjoyed. The kids' favourite part was playing Pooh Sticks on the bridge over the Indian River. Some notable surgeon-sculptor-scholar type person (R. Tait Mackenzie) converted the mill in the 1930s and lived there with his wife, a published poet. Wouldn't that be great? I would love to stumble on a ruined mill in the woods, see the potential, rebuild it fit for habitation and move in the next year. Today was a bit of a quieter day, playing outside in the leaves, picnic outside, bike ride and playground, and Addition Bingo after supper (do we party it up, or what?!). Also a fair bit of bustling and things around the house, inside and out so we can face with a minimum of dread the Sisphean task of getting the family through the week. That brings me to now, and a few minutes for stamping and blogging! Yay!

Copic Poppies

2011-10-06T21:09:00.005-04:00

Hello! It's been a while since I've posted - I've been busy cleaning out the stamp room, and the computer has been in use during blogging hours. But this week the stamp room got clean enough to stamp this poppy image (Hero Arts), and colour it while watching tv. I tried out some new things I learned at the Intermediate Copic class, things like shading and shadows and different colour families. I am still no expert on shadows and shading, but will claim that my main source of light comes from some direction, and then random other sources of light and shadow may also come into play depending on the backstory of my image. So, for example, here, the sun is coming from more or less above, except for the parts where there was a child playing with a flashlight, and another part where another child was casting shadows. You see, if you can imagine a light source, you can imagine all sorts of things. (You are beginning to see why I have not yet been plucked from Copic obscurity and brought to design team fame and glory.)

Anyway, coloured up the poppies while watching Strike Back and seeing Sgts Scott and Stonebridge shoot their way out of this week's (seemingly) certain death. Not normally my sort of tv, but Sgt Stonebridge is extremely easy on the eyes and they do a cliffhanger every week that brings me back. We are on Story Arc #51 of Plot #3 and it's only 5 episodes in. I tell you, not much time to dither between YR31 and R02 or you will lose the thread completely. Oh yeah, it's the hunk shooting his way out of a sticky situation. So far the main difference between episodes seems to be which country he is shooting his way out of and which babe his sidekick is tomcatting around with. So far it's been India, South Africa, the Sudan, and Kosovo (or brainbox, blondie, Irish exhibitionist, doctor, journalist).

Oops - got a bit side tracked there. Back to the card. I masked off the poppies (just the flowers) and stamped the background music (Cornish Heritage Farms scrapblock) in Antique Linen distress ink. I also sponged in some Linen and Vintage Photo around the edges to soften the white paper (too stark). Decided a poppy should be popped up and coloured up another one. It's trimmed to 4"x5.5" so I could have a strip of red fleck down the side (I believe the paper is called poppy fleck - meant to be!). The sentiment (Papertrey Ink) is heat embossed in black, and the accents are Cello Glitter Ritz (Art Institute). Clearly I am a philistine since when I ordered it, I thought it might be clear glitter, as in cellophane. It's a lovely rich brown, as in cello the instrument. Edited to add: Copics used for poppies: YR31, YR02, R22, R08, E19; used for stems: BG93, YG93, YG97.

In non-stamping related news, my five-year-old washed the dishes tonight. She loves being helpful, so I thought I'd give it a whirl. She did a great job. I did the sharp knives and really grubby/heavy things, but she did all the little lunch containers and things like that. I was so proud of her!

Thanks for stopping by.

Inkurable Stampers September Challenge

2011-09-27T23:28:00.004-04:00

Hello! The September challenge at Inkurable Stampers is to use eyelets (link here). I had my new Twinkling H20s out, so I made another ATC, this time using a Hero Arts stamp embossed in gold. Once it was embossed, I painted it in shades of warm gold and brown with some magenta highlights (Golden Nugget, Desert Clay, Harvest Sol, Raspberry Wine). I matted it on some burgundy linen cardstock, and embossed the edges in gold. Then stamped "inspire" (Darkroom Door) on a torn strip of the same linen paper and attached it with eyelets. The finishing touch was to add some Gala Glitz (Art Institute) to the flower (little gold balls, and shards of gold glass). I really must get some gold Gala Glitz. I'm tired of winkling out the gold pieces out of my teal jar....

Thanks for stopping by!

Twinkling ATC

2011-09-22T21:03:00.004-04:00

Here's an ATC I made for the Creative Imaginations Luminarte Raffle described here. Basically, you send in your ATC and cross your fingers.

I recently picked up the newest sets of Twinklings, this ATC uses all the colours from the Autumn Brilliance set: Mystique, Harvest Sol, Spanish Moss, Raspberry Wine, Golden Nugget, and Desert Clay.

I started by stamping the leaf (Fred B. Mullett) in an Adirondack multicolour ink on some 130 lb cardstock, and clear embossing it. (versamark + Adirondack then e.p.) Then painted on patches of the new twinklings, admiring each -these colours are wonderful! Then, ironed away the clear embossing powder and stamped on the tree quote (Quietfire Designs) and embossed it in black. Added some leaves stamped with twinklings, and some crackle effect (Stampendous cube) in black India ink. Added a maple leaf brad from the stash, matted on some black cardstock, and called 'er done.

Thanks for stopping by!

Sympathy Card Revised

2011-09-19T22:30:00.002-04:00

My bold move paid off! I like this revised version better than the original here. A minor tweak, but one of the big things we learned in the Intermediate Copic class on the weekend was how to give yourself constructive criticism. Basically, you pretend (a) it's not your card and (b) the person who made it is immune to criticism, in fact revels in it, begs for it, and always wants more. (A and B are usually mutually exclusive, so this is a hard lesson to learn.) My first round of constructive help was to gussy up the card, since I just had the seniment panel and gold bits. No leaves or frame. It just needed a little something else. This is for the church bazaar so I wanted to keep it easy to mail, so that ruled out adding a raspberry bough or similar embellishment (as if! ha!) and of course I couldn't add ribbon to a card to save my life. So fussy little vellum leaves remained an option. Not too bad. The only problem with being your own critic is you don't have all those great ideas for fixing things that other people do. The up side is you're never so mean you can't take it.

Botanical Sympathy Card

2011-09-19T22:18:00.004-04:00

Hello!

I stole a bit of stamping time tonight after a long day and it was nice, very nice. I tried out some Fred B. Mullett stamps to make a sympathy card. They are a great background, and conveyed the sort of restful background I was looking for. I used two stamps, Wild Raspberry (the one with multiple leaves) and Lil Salal Leaf, using an old Adirondack multicolour inkpad (Winter Sky). The colours seem to have mostly run together in it, but it does date back to my early days of stamping, so I don't really mind. The colours are still beautiful and a little varied so it doesn't look like just one colour. I embossed the Lil Salal leaf a couple of times on vellum for an accent using Peridot embossing powder. This was the same e.p. I used for the sentiment (by Quietfire Designs). I sponged around the edges with Weathered Wood and Pine Needles. I felt it needed more, so I added a frame and the strip of metallic paper. I have just now ripped off more of the gold paper so it will fit in the frame (do I live on the edge or what!) and it does look better, though I will have to join the frame lines, which will be a risky manoeuvre at best. Wish me luck! (If you hear an anguished groan, you'll know it didn't work.)

Thanks for stopping by.

Birthday doodle birds

2011-09-18T19:38:00.003-04:00

Hello! Here's a birthday card I made that was inspired by birds I saw on the blog Stamping Mathilda here. If you would like to make your own doodle birds, here is a link to the tutorial on
Delphine Doreau's blog. They are really easy to do, just have fun! I drew these on Papertrey white cardstock using a Copic Multiliner, and coloured in with Copics. I was at the Intermediate Copic class on Saturday so I am all revved up about my Copics right now. I wish I'd used my 130 lb cardstock from Heather since the Copics bled right through the PTI stuff. I lined the inside of the card to hide it, but I had been hoping for a one-layer card. I didn't have time for Stickles to dry since I was delivering this to the birthday girl right way, so I used Sakura glitter pens. Clearly I didn't wait long enough for those to dry as the keen-eyed observer will see where the red one smudged on the crown. I also accented the birds' eyes with the black Sakura glaze pen. The stamped "happy birthday" is from A Muse. I loved doing these blobby birdies - so much fun! And there will never be another birthday card just like this one. I am going to enter this card in the Simplicity One-Layer card challenge here.

Funky Christmas

2011-09-03T11:50:00.003-04:00

Hello and happy long weekend! It's Labour Day weekend here, and we are enjoying the time off work, but it's not quite turning out how we pictured. I guess that's what happens when you're a grown up! Free time gets eaten up with responsibilities. Oh well, I still found a few minutes to stamp. The lovely Jennifer McGuire surprised me with a RAK gift of stamps (thank you!) and here is something I made with one of them.

The main image is a Hero Arts stamp, inked with Colorbox Fluid Chalk ink (Lime Pastel) and then embellished with several colours of stickles. Basically I selected all my shades of light green, gold, and red, with some burgundy too and dotted all the dots. (Though by the cold light of day, I see I missed some.) Then, the next day when all those dots are dry, I matted it on gold, then burgundy. The card base is olive green (Kiwi Kiss from SU I think), stamped with a funky snowflake stamp from Sunshine Designs (available from Heather's Stamping Haven) stamped in more Lime Pastel. I ran some Poppy sparkle paper (part of my treasured hoard now that it is discontinued, just like my Kiwi Kiss unfortunately) through the Big Shot using a dotty Tim Holtz folder. A strip of burgundy linen added a bit of oomph to that panel and I also matted some burgundy on the gold too, for some depth. The card was feeling like it was missing some depth of colour to anchor it, apart from the burgundy stickles. I can see cranking out a few of these for Christmas - quite fast and easy. I've made a similar card for Jennifer as a thank you, and will post it later. This is a fun stamp - outside my comfort zone for sure, but it's so quick and easy and I love the results. Thanks for stopping by and enjoy your weekend!

PS I'm entering this in the Simon Says Stamp Challenge Blog Hop - theme "Anything Goes". There is some great blog candy for the lucky winner. Now I'm off to do some hopping!

Happy Anniversary!

2011-08-26T07:08:00.004-04:00

A few days ago we celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary and this is the card I made for my dear husband. I used naturals ivory card stock and stamped the heart (Stampin' Up!) in red chalk ink (Memories - Tomato Sauce), lightly sponged with brown chalk ink (Colorbox Fluid Chalk - Chestnut Roan) on one edge for depth. I tried out a few different reds but liked this one best. Can't decide whether the gratfiication of finding the perfect red outweighs the shame of having so many reds to choose from...... I heat set the heart in preparation for stamping the main image (Quietfire Designs) in black and heat embossing in black. I really, really love this image. The calligraphy is stunning and I like how the message is hidden. Next, I matted the image on black cardstock, and then popped it up on a naturals ivory card base. Decided it needed something else, so I used my ruler and .03 Micron pen to add the line to frame it on the inside. There are also Platinum stickles filling the hearts in the words "I love you". I can't usually pull off clean and simple, but I think I did it here! I can see doing versions of this card with all sorts of lovely Quietfire Designs quotations over a nice accent stamp......but not this morning! Have to get dressed, get the kids to camp, get to work, get to 5:00 when the weekend starts! Thanks for stopping by.

PS. Veggie update. I got an enormous cauliflower at the farmstand on Tues, seriously, it was bigger than a soccer ball. Anyway, googled grilling recipes and discovered that grilled cauliflower is unbelievably delicious. Kids weren't too keen, but grown ups scarfed it down with relish. (Actually with veggie box feta cheese sprinkled over! haha.) I couldn't recommend it enough. I normally love cauliflower, but this took it to new heights. Basically sliced off a few 1" slabs off the head, keeping the stem part too to hold all together. Rubbed with olive oil, sprinked with coarse salt and pepper and chopped oregano. Grilled till lovely brown (what makes it yummy). We sprinkled with feta as it was on hand, but wouldn't be essential.

Early efforts in art journalling

2011-08-21T09:36:00.010-04:00

Hello! I'm home from a great holiday at Manitoulin Island. Before I left, I picked up a book on art journalling by Gwen Diehn called The Decorated Journal. It's a wonderful book and very inspiring. I particularly enjoyed the section on making maps, and thought that would be a good thing to include in the journal I'd brought on vacation in case I felt crafty/creative. I sketched a map of the route from our house to Manitoulin Island, a drive of about 9-10 hours (600 km), west from Ottawa to Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron. (Note, map for artistic outlet purposes only and not to be used for navigation, academic studies, land titles, etc.) After packing our car (a.k.a. The Blue Jellybean) to the gunwales (including DD2's bike!), we set off. This map captures the journey. Gwen Diehn talks about mapping as selection of what's important, and here I've put down what were important to me, mostly where we stopped driving and took in a bit of local scenery.

The first portion of the journey goes west along the Ottawa River, which forms the boundary between Ontario and Quebec. At Mattawa, the Ottawa River goes north, and the Trans Canada Highway continues west towards Lake Nipissing and North Bay, and then up towards Sudbury, which is a nickel mining town. There is an enormous nickel there (five cents), commemorating something or other (link to Wikipedia entry). We stop there for a play and a picnic on the way home, but my investigations of historical or informative plaques are always severely curtailed due to the long drive and necessity to keep stops short. (My weakness for such plaques goes unrequited, so absolutely no chance of nipping in to Brent Lake to see the meteorite crater and related plaque - 32 km off the highway....maybe one day.....). We did stop in Mattawa for a picnic lunch, and I happily read the plaque there describing the importance of the location to the fur trade when waterways were the main transportation routes. Mattawa also has some lovely heritage architecture and stunning views, nestled as it is in two valleys. Anyway, back to the page...

I sketched the map, using a road map for reference (perhaps should not admit this???), adding the key stopping points for us along the way, and our destination, Manitoulin Island, and some other things I felt like adding. I mainly added rest stops, like the Tim Horton's (a chain of coffee & doughnut shops that seem to appear in every sizeable town). My 5-year-old daughter couldn't tell them apart and kept getting confused about whether we were back to the one we'd stopped at before. Another was the Pembroke Irving (gas station chain known for its clean bathrooms) and this particular rest stop had maps inside where I showed the girls our journey. Another stopping point on my map is symbolic of the many lovely little provincial picnic/rest areas that appear all along the route and make great places for a picnic and a place to get the wiggles out. On my map, the road stops at Espanola, but in real life the Trans Canada continues westward out to Vancouver. The only land access to the Manitoulin is the swing bridge at Little Current, which is a former railroad bridge. I made a few mistakes on the map (in best Bones McCoy voice, "Damn it Jim, I'm a stamper, not a cartographer!"), and Lake Nipissing and the lakeshore are in the wrong place (L Nipissing is east of the French River ghost town). (Random aside: I have always had a fascination with this ghost town since I found it on the map. However, it is inaccessible by road, so I will need to take up adventure canoeing if I ever want to go there. Since I can't actually get there, I keep building it up in my mind into quite an elaborate location that I am missing. In real life, it's probably nothing like I imagine, if anything of the town even remains, so I will hold off on training to become a wilderness canoe expert for the time being to avoid disappointment. Still, I find the notation on the highway map tantalizing.... )

After sketching the map in pencil, I used my daughter's watercolours to paint it. This was a bit of an adventure and I added a bit too much here and there, learning (I hope!) a lesson about leaving well enough alone. (And learning that I should invest in some good watercolours.) Still, I was pleased with the result, and did actually learn something about the geography of the trip, from the fertile Ottawa Valley, up towards the Canadian Shield, then to Manitoulin Island, with its unique landscape and history. The swing bridge at Little Current was a challenge. I could see it in my mind's eye, but couldn't draw it from that. After reading Gwen Diehn's advice on drawing and the art of truly observing the subject, I dug up a photo of the swing bridge and realized that my mind's eye wasn't really very accurate at all. My rendition here is based on my observations and some artistici license, really just capturing the essence of the structure and the main lines. But it really does look like the real thing. Who knew! Before I get too carried away with my new-found drawing abilities, I cast my eye on my fleur-de-lis in Quebec and regain my humility..... Also, the island itself was impossible to draw accurately. Way too many wiggles and squiggles, and hubby said it should be bigger. I maintain that I wanted to convey the vastness of the lake..... In real life the island is closer to the mainland and there are hundreds of islands in the North Channel, as well as large islands on the east side of the island. And the Bruce Peninsula should probably appear on my map. But it's my map and I have never been to the Bruce Peninsula, so on my map, it appears in direct proportion to my experience.

I really enjoyed the observing and the sketching and watercolouring process here, and was quite pleased with the results of my initial efforts. Many thanks to Gwen Diehn and her wonderful, inspiring, and empowering book!

Baby card

2011-08-03T16:44:00.004-04:00

Hello! How are you? I'm feeling a bit frazzled, back at work after a week-and-a-bit's vacation. We went to Newfoundland to visit relatives. More on that below, if you are interested.

About the card - I am going to a baby shower and needed a card. I started with this lovely black and white photo from a Darkroom Door Montage sheet (Hello Baby collection) and clipped it out, and tinted the sweater with pink distress ink in a couple of shades. Mounted it on grey linen, then popped up off another layer of grey linen when it turned out to be too small for the final card. The next piece down is white, embossed in the Cuttlebug, and sponged with pumice stone. Next down is dark grey, then the same grey linen, stamped with a scroll (Stampers Anonymous) in Lake Mist. Then the card base is Pirouette Pink, stamped with Linen (Stampin' Up!) in Spun Sugar, which didn't show up very well, but I thought another stamp would be too busy. The "sweet baby girl" is from SU's Everyday Flexible Phrases and didn't turn out well when I stamped it down, so I did it ransom-note style on gray linen and dotted some liquid pearls around it. Then everything was going on down in that corner and the light grey on the other side couldn't hold it, so more liquid pearls went up on the top corner. I also discovered I need pewter liquid pearls (is there such a thing?) and I don't have light pink either. How did that happen? Must remedy that. Had the perfect shade of embroidery floss and spent a happy half hour reviewing all my buttons to find the almost-perfect one. Ideally it should have been a four-holer to match the picture, but it's a two-holer, which is easier for tying bows anyway. I'm quite happy with this - pink and pretty but not too precious. Hope she likes it!

Re Newfoundland: Had a great time - saw whales, lots of scenic vistas, even splashed in the North Atlantic. The girls were the only ones brave enough to get completely wet, and they had to be hauled out of the waves when the bystanders got too cold to watch anymore.... We were at a wonderful sandy beach (rare, most beaches are rocky) and the waves were wonderful. Came home with some bakeapple jam and more bakeapples besides. The bakeapples were ripe so hubby and his folks spent three evenings on the mash picking them. I declined, as there were already more than enough opportunities to tramp around in the bog. I think those are delights best appreciated by someone who grew up doing it. CFAs (come from away) just can't quite savour the fly bites and wet feet properly. I am, however, quite happy to savour the bakeapple jam! Bakeapples are a berry that grows on the bog or mash as it's locally known, and you might know them as cloudberries. They are orange when ripe, and can be red and yellow. They smell heavenly and make delicious jam. I also came home with my husband's old Olivetti typewriter. There was a bit of grumbling about packing it (weighs close to 50 lb), but hubby came through for me. Now it's right in the thick of things, back to work, girls in daycamp, soccer, swimming, haircuts, meetings, all the normal stuff. Hard to imagine it was only a few days ago I was ankle deep in a cliff-top peat bog, I mean gazing out over the bay with the wind in my hair. Yes, you read that right, I did organize a family hike on the Cape English trail, which goes up over the clifftops at Cape English. The "path" doesn't go right to the edge of the cliff, but there are enough alarming views to cure me of any desire to go anywhere near a cliff any time soon. It was all perfectly safe and we were at least 100 feet away from the edge and the brink of certain death. And hubby assured me that he never heard of anyone vanishing in a sinkhole in a peat bog either. Well, that's enough rambling about our holiday - it was great, I highly recommend Newfoundland as a vacation destination, and ideally you should stay with someone who is a fantastic cook! Apropos of nothing, I would recommend flying Porter - liked everything about it and it was really fast. Our car rental was a Ford Fusion, and since I have been watching so much Top Gear, I now feel qualified to do an automobile review. Like all Fords, this one is built for a race of giants, and they try take your mind off the disappointing performance with lots of rumble and roar and a 3d-effect dashboard. The one good thing about it was the trunk, which was big enough to hold our Prius and a team of sled dogs. The girls didn't like it since, not belonging to a race of giants, they couldn't see out the back windows. Still, it got us around, which was the point in the end.

Must dash - rambled enough! If you made it this far, well done! You can add another 600 miles to your frequent blogger account.

Book recommendation

2011-07-28T20:04:00.003-04:00

Hello! Nothing stamped to post today, just a book recommendation. I just finished reading Remembering the Bones by Frances Itani. It's a wonderful book! Frances Itani is an Ottawa writer, and has won numerous awards. I really enjoyed another of her books, Deafening. Remembering the Bones is beautifully written and a wonderful, empowering story. Reading a well-written book is such a pleasure, and when it's a great story, even better. It makes me wish I belonged to a book club, so I could discuss it with other people. Things like why all the women have men's names, and what that might mean. Have you read that book? Do you have a recent favourite? Now that I've finished that one, I'm treating myself to a frivolous mystery novel, and I chose one by Lynda LaPlante, writer of Prime Suspect. So far it's a good one, with a twist in that the protagonist is a bad guy. I'm also reading what claims to be a suspense thriller, but so far the only suspense I'm in is wondering when it's going to get interesting. We recently read our elder daughter another book by Kate diCamillo, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. What a lovely story! We'd loved reading another of her books, Despereaux, and I mean to get her others. They are such beautiful stories of hope and courage and the struggles to do the right thing even when it's hard. Not bad messages to convey to children! Happy reading! Thanks for stopping by.

Wedding card

2011-07-20T21:58:00.003-04:00

Hello! Here's a card I made for a lovely person at work. She's getting married this summer, and I wanted to make a card for everyone to sign. I used this beautiful Penny Black image and heat embossed it and added colour with Twinkling H20s. Her colour scheme is shades of green, so I went with fresh shades of green on the card, with white embossing on ivory shimmer for the panel underneath (Stamp: Bella Toile, Stampin' Up). I accented with some glitter and pearls here and there as well (click on the image for a closer look). The scan doesn't do it justice - it's very elegant and shimmery in real life.

Thanks for stopping by!

Summer Card Camp Week 4, part 2

2011-07-19T23:14:00.002-04:00

Here's an ATC I made for the colour challenge this week at Summer Card Camp. I thought it would be fun to try an ATC using a piece of background paper I made. I started with a piece of Heather's 130 lb cardstock and wanted to try my new stamps from Crafty Individuals that I won with the Gothic Arch challenge (thank you!). I stamped one of the flowers in white paint and let it dry. Then, I brayered on shades of fluid chalk ink (Colorbox), in the challenge colours. I think I used French Blue, Ice Blue, Lime Pastel, and Ice Jade. Then, stamped on more floral motifs with Deep Lagoon. Set aside, made yesterdays card, and came back to it tonight. I used the floral motif tree and embossed in white, adding colour with Tombows and detail with seed beads. (These were glued on as after thoughts, but realistically I was never going to sew them on.) The bottom is some grass punched with the Martha Stewart grass punch, and the words are clipped from a Darkroom Door wordstrip. I also accented parts of the tree image with a Sakura glaze pen. The image was whiter until I sponged over some Deep Lagoon chalk ink. Note to self - this stuff does not completely rub off white embossing powder. Next time I'll use dye ink for that little step. I matted the piece on some black and felt done. I think I wish the tree were a bit whiter, but I am not going to start from scratch all over again. I like it well enough. I need to get to bed - I have an important meeting to go to tomorrow and will need my wits about me. Speaking of work, I am really enjoying my new job. It's completely different, which is lots of fun, and I am using so many things I learned in the other job over the past ten years. I do miss the great people where I used to work, but I am getting to know some people at the new place, so that's good. The main thing about the new place is my "international" keyboard. The punctuation is all in weird spots and the shortcut functions are in different places, so my touch typing is really getting messed up. It's the little things that drive you crazy, isn't it! You never know how much you use an apostrophe until it is in an awkward spot (right right finger, lower row + shift). It's easier to type the yen symbol on my new keyboard than the apostrophe.

Thanks for stopping by!

Summer Card Camp Week 4

2011-07-19T17:37:00.002-04:00

According to the descriptions, this week's colours include a soft denim-y blue, so I chose this cardbase (Memory Box) and punched out a large number of small flowers from white linen paper. I glued them down into a rectangular area and popped up the top layer of flowers. To bring in the other colours of the colour scheme, I added centres using stickles and dimensional pearls in lime green, blue and teal. The sentiment (A Muse) finishes off the card. Simple!

RAK from Sarah S

2011-07-17T21:55:00.006-04:00

Hello! I wanted to post a quick card that I got in the mail last week. I was lucky enough to win the stamp draw for the Inkurable Stampers Gothic Arch challenge, and my prize package arrived last week. (More info on the challenge wind-up here.) In that package were the lovely Crafty Individuals stamps and designer paper, but also this wonderful card, made by Sarah Schwerin, who hosted the challenge. I love this card - the blues just glow and the netting and braided twine add such lovely texture.

Also in my envelope were my Inkurable Stampers ATCs from a swap I participated in. I'll try to get a photo of those and post, but they are all lovely, each and every one, and I keep going back to look at them and see something new each time.

Thank you for the lovely card, Sarah, and for the great prizes! I can't wait to get them inky :-)

Recipes

2011-07-16T16:49:00.004-04:00

Hello! No stamping post today - just a couple of random recipes I came up with last week. These are "fridge scrounging specials", using what's on hand. It helps to buy interesting looking things at the store! Amounts here are approximate - use more if you need to, use less if you don't have enough.

Blue Potato Salad

new blue potatoes (1 lb? 2 lb? enough to feed 4 in a salad), washed and boiled (halve them if they're bigger than the rest)
2-3 stalks celery (give or take), roughly chopped
2 apples, chopped
2-3 shallots or 1 onion, finely chopped
a good hunk of soy curd (by which I mean double-smoked bacon, chopped or approx 4 slices bacon, chopped)

Dressing:
1 tbsp strained soy whey liquid (by which I mean rendered bacon fat with the shallots/onions in it)
4 tbsp apple cider vinegar OR if you just bought sherry vinegar because it looked interesting, 1 tbsp sherry vinegar and 3 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 tbsp dijon mustard
good pinch Maldon salt
good few twists of ground pepper

Saute bacon to crisp up and render fat. Drain fat, leaving approx 1 tbsp. Saute the onions or shallots until translucent. Whisk vinegar, Dijon mustard, salt, and pepper. Whisk in the bacon and onion/shallot. Taste, and if too tart, add a teaspoon of sugar. However, the dressing should taste stronger than you like when tasted by itself as it needs to be able to flavour the potatoes. Pour over warm potatoes, apple and celery and toss to dress the salad. The warm potatoes will drink up the dressing beautifully. Serve warm or at room temperature. Also good cold for lunch the next day. The blue potatoes are beautiful with the red apple skins. This was a hit with 3 out of 4 family members, but earned a solid 5 stars since my vote counts for more. I loved this. It's the double-smoked soy pellets - beautiful.....

Quinceatoonapple Crisp

Toss together in a casserole dish:
2 quinces, thinly sliced (or use 4-5 apples instead)
2 apples, sliced
1 1/2 cups saskatoons (or blueberries if you are not so fortunate as to have saskatoons on hand, but it won't be the same)
3/4 cup sugar (or less depending on how sweet your apples are)
sprinkling of cinnamon

Topping:
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/4 cup flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup vegetable oil
pinch poudre douce (Victorian Epicure, optional)
sprinkling of cinnamon
pinch of salt

For topping, mix together in a bowl and sprinkle over the fruit mixture. You can add some chopped nuts. This is quicker if you use the 1/4 cup measure for all topping ingredients, measuring the oil last.

Bake at 350F for about 40 minutes or until you see the juices bubbling up through the topping. Serve warm. Very nice with vanilla ice cream, or custard, but delicous all by itself. Also nice cold the next day. This earned a "I love this" from DD2 who is very hard to please. You can substitute other fruit, but you must create a new name that incorporates all the fruit. No "bumbleberry" cop outs allowed.

Ok, I realize that the best thing about foodie blogs is the lovely photographs of the dishes, attractively plated and steaming fragrantly. However, I am never (as in never) in the frame of mind to try to photograph dinner. It's hard enough to rush home from work and get it on the table before the family devolves to hunger-induced barbarism. You will have to believe me that the blue potato salad was a feast for the eyes made all the more appetizing with the smell of bacon and onions and the quinceatoonapple crisp had jewel tones fit for the Tower of London, with a crispy golden-brown topping that smelled like oatmeal cookies.

Summer Card Camp Week 3

2011-07-13T21:00:00.003-04:00

Here's the colour combination for this week's project at Summer Card Camp. I was stuck in Christmas theme cards, but couldn't bring myself to do a Christmas card. It's July!

Speaking of July, we have started getting our veggie box from a local farm (Foster's Farm). We've been enjoying the most delicious fresh vegetables. Tonight was beet greens, sauteed in flavoured butter I had in the freezer thanks to Jamie Oliver. The greens were delicious and I swear you feel healthier just cutting them up, inhaling the antioxidants and enjoying the emerald green leaves and ruby stems.

Back to the card. Here I started with a scrap of off white paper, stamped the quote (Fred Mullett) and embossed it in Bavarian Bronze (metallic brown). I thought I would incorporate the stone and butterfly imagery from this poem and stamped my Stampotique stone (large and small sides) here and there in Lake Mist. I antiqued the edges a bit with distress ink and matted it on some brown card and some medium brown Bazzill. The card base is 3 1/4" x 6 1/2" and stamped with a butterfly and the word Papillon (both Quietfire Designs). I used a bit of fancy Japanese paper for red accent behind. More red elements are the red eyelets (I knew they would eventually find a home on a project!), some crochet cotton and a button. The button was a late-game addition, added on this morning before I went to work. This description makes it sound like the card came together in a hurry and part of some master plan, but really it came together like all the others, trial and error, and hemming and hawing, trying different things. I like how the butterflies came out - stamped in Toffee versafine, and the lovely "papillon" from QF, hand lettered by the owner, Suzanne Cannon. A long time ago I dabbled in calligraphy and have always loved it. As for that poem, well, it came in a lovely parcel of Fred Mullett stamps, as the English translation to the Japanese calligraphy stamp I bought. I presume someone more cultured than me would be able to plumb the depths of that poem, but for me it was the ideal shape for this card, and had the words "stone" and "butterfly". More opportunistic than cultured, granted. Still, maybe one of my readers will enlighten me. In the meantime, I'm pleased with how this turned out even if I don't have the faintest idea who I'd give it to.

Well, off to enjoy an episode or two of Game of Thrones with hubby. Sean Bean....now there's a reason to pay for extended cable!

Summer Card Camp Week 2

2011-07-05T20:21:00.008-04:00

Hello! Here's my card for Summer Card Camp, Week 2, featuring this week's colour combination (pale yellow, rusty orange, poppy, lime, grass green). I'm also using this card for this week's Bellarific Friday at Stamping Bella. I placed the three daisy stamps on an acrylic block and stamped them down the length of a 3"x6 1/2" piece of Bella's Bestest paper. I chose Copics in this scheme, or as close as I could get. I don't have a juicy yellow green like that - all mine are a bit greyer. I love that juicy lime colour - you can almost smell the lime zest! Anyway, I coloured it and then had to figure out the layout, which has to include ribbon for this week's Bellarific challenge. You know me and ribbon (love-hate releationship - I love ribbon, it hates me). Anyway, I finished off the card by matting onto some So saffron (SU) and Poppy Parade (SU) in an oblong card. I embellished the flowers with matching stickles (lime green, yellow, copper, Christmas red) so they're quite sparkly in real life.

NSR: Two notable family achievements today: DD2 (age 5) rode her two-wheeler today for the first time, no one holding on, no training wheels, just free-wheeling down the street and pleased as Punch. She must have gone up and down the street a dozen times (Hubby's going to be sore tomorrow - jogged alongside). Second notable achievement, different scale, different continent, different generation. Grandpa is due to reach the summit of Mt Kilimanjaro at sunrise, which is some time in the middle of the night tonight my time (see earlier post on baffling nature of timezones). He was going to try to send a text, but wasn't sure whether it would work. Part of me hopes that at least mountain tops are unsullied by digital traffic. But part of me hopes it works. Apparently he's having a great time and really enjoying himself.

Thanks for stopping by!

Glimmer fish

2011-07-01T09:26:00.003-04:00

Here's another card I made with a glimmer-misted sheet. I embossed the fish image (Heather's Stamping Haven) in black and matted on a blue-green piece, then black. The card base is more of the same sheet of glimmer misted paper, but I sponged on some sequin waste, stamped a shell (Stampin' Up) in orange distress ink, and a fan coral (Coronado Island) in black. A little piece of netty looking mesh ribbon is an accent. I misted that with light yellow to tie it in. Overall, I like it, but it's a bit busy. If I had my time back, I'd re-think the black fan coral and the really dark sequin waste. Still, I like it well enough. In real life it has a life of its own with all that sparkle.

NSR: The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are in town today, but we're not battling the crowds. We went last year to see the Queen, but that was enough for a few years. We'll watch on TV. I had my last day of work at my old job yesterday - very emotional. Was there way too late cleaning out my filing cabinet and backing things up. That always takes longer than you think it's going to. Backing up is a pain in the neck - and the program we use at work won't allow you to take out the disk without turning everything off and on again. That adds a lot of time and headache. I made stern vows to myself to become paragon of organization and order in my new job. This may be a vain hope, but hope one must. Well, must dash. 1001 things to do today and I forgot to add blogging to my list so it would "count" as a legitimate activity.

Summer Card Camp Week 1

2011-06-30T06:16:00.005-04:00

Hello!

As you can see by the image below, I'm doing the summer card camp I saw advertised on Jennifer McGuire's blog (link in sidebar). This week's colour challenge is shown below and was a real stretch for me, as I don't normally go for such bright colours. But that's what challenges are all about - stretching creativity.

Here's the card I made, with a stamped image on Heather's 130 lb cardstock. I will have to check where the image is from, but I got it at Heather's Stamping Haven.

I coloured it with Copics, keeping to the scheme, and added some pencil crayon for depth, and stickles for sparkle. The orange piece is embossed, and the sentiment (Stampin' Up) is punched with an SU punch and accented with the perfect Swarovski crystals - they are pink or purple or orange depending on how you look at them. The card base is rich razzleberry and stamped with a dotty flourish (Impress Rubber Stamps).

Thanks for stopping by!

This says it all (or at least some of it!)

2011-06-29T22:41:00.003-04:00

I picked this up a while ago, and gave it to myself for my birthday recently. I loved this - it's by Anne Taintor and there are a bunch of great magnets and other gifty items like it. I got another one that says, "I always wanted to be someone. Now I realize I should have been more specific." Too funny.

I was a bit down about this milestone birthday, but thanks to the kindness and generosity and love and support of friends and family, I am enjoying it immensely. Hurrah indeed!

And I want to know where Anne Taintor got my picture.

Thank you card

2011-06-28T21:18:00.003-04:00

Here's a card I made for the girls' bus driver this year. He was particularly punctual and particularly patient when we weren't. Two excellent qualities in a bus driver. Bus drivers...they have the perfect job....all their problems are behind them! ar ar ar. Not my joke, but my favourite bus driver joke of all time.

I used the Hero Arts foliage stamp, inked with various shades of distress ink, misted and then stamped onto putty coloured linen paper. Then over stamped with a Cornish Heritage Farms text stamp (scrap block) in pumice stone. Sponged on some old paper and walnut stain around the edge and matted on brown. Dithered endlessly about layout, and eventually settled on this. I used a precious chunk of some paper a friend brought me from her summer holiday and one of her stamp store pilgrimages. It's beautifully textured, think of the seaweed you wrap sushi in. (If I weren't such a hick, I would know what that's called. If I weren't so lazy, I would look it up!) The bottom is card base stamped with the same foliage and tinted Rusty Hinge. I wrapped some linen thread and used one of my hoarded Asian coins. We must really hold this guy in high esteem - using up hoarded paper AND hoarded embellishments, all at once.

NSR. An emotional day at work. It was my farewell lunch, and some goodbyes to special people. It's not a big town and we may cross paths again. Indeed I hope so. Still, it's hard to say goodbye to somewhere I've worked for over ten years and step into the unknown. Wish me luck!

Inkurable Stampers June Challenge

2011-06-27T21:54:00.003-04:00

Here's my entry for the June challenge at Inkurable Stampers, which is Spots, Dots and Circles.

I recently took a great class at Heather's, featuring Glimmer Mist and I used that technique here, misting and spraying and bleaching out selected portions. I coloured some back in with pencil crayon too. I chose the bird image (Hero Arts) for the circles on it. I also added some paint circles, and the background has a circular motif on the stamp (Stampers Anonymous). The message (also Stampers Anon) is embossed in black. The paper is from a Tim Holtz pack, two sides of one sheet. And a little round clock brad to finish it off. In real life it's quite sparkly. I'm not sure about it - maybe the square is too square. Still, needed to get my entry in before the end of the month, which arrives early due to time zones in Australia being several days ahead of us here in Canada. (I love to say things like that to hubby, who is an engineer and immediately starts to explain the quantum mechanics of time zones and how it's not actually time travel, it's to do with the curvature of the earth and Sir Sanford Fleming trying to catch a train. It's at this point I normally tune out so I can't exactly say how time zones work, other than it's either much earlier or much later somewhere else, and will always be the wrong time to call.)

Thanks for stopping by!

Colouring, colouring and more colouring!

2011-06-26T15:34:00.005-04:00

Hello! I've been doing some therapeutic colouring lately while watching tv with hubby. I stamped off a bunch of images (Sunshine Designs) with Memento Tuxedo Black onto Heather's 130 lb cardstock and coloured them different colour ways with Copic markers. Last night I had a few minutes while hubby was working on some committee stuff, so I took some time to turn them into cards. Basic formula: find matching cardbase and Basic Grey paper, mat, layer, etc. and finish off with Stickles and Dimensional Pearls. The big flowers got a sentiment in the white space (Stampin' Up). I think my favourite is the yellow flower card. My nephew's favourite was the blue flower card. I sprayed some Delphinium glimmer mist on the background paper for some subtle sparkle in the background. If you're interested, the coloured papers from top to bottom are: PTI lavender moon paper with pattern from BG Kioshi; Stampin' Up Really Rust with paper from BG Scarlett's Letter; Heather's dark purple cardstock (and a SU Sage Shadow mat) with BG LilyKate; SU So Saffron card base with paper from BG Perhaps.

NSR: Just finished reading a Kate Atkinson novel, Started Early, Took My Dog. It's the 3rd or 4th Jackson Brodie mystery and it was really good. Dark, but with great dashes of humour here and there. Also, her books always weave together numerous threads that are seemingly unrelated.

Make a birthday splash

2011-06-25T18:35:00.003-04:00

Hello! Here's a card I made up over the past couple of days for a friend of my daughter's. She's having an ocean themed birthday, so I thought I would continue the theme with the card. The main stamp (Outlines) was stamped twice on watercolour paper and embossed, and coloured in with Tombows and blended. I tried to keep to the same colours on all the panels, but some are lighter and darker, just adding more markers to deepen colour if necessary. The card base (3 1/4 x 6 1/2") is a bright green (retired Stampin' Up), with a red and metallic yellow band. I used a background cover-a-card stamp (Fluff, Impression Obsession) on the background to echo the dots on the image. I didn't have time for stickles to dry before this card went to the party so I added glitter with my Sakura pens. There was lots of shine from the embossing too. I did two bits for the "splash" and the seahorse, cut out and popped up the second ones for dimension. The scan doesn't quite do it justice - in real life it's very vibrant. That's what I really love about the Tombows. Now if they'd only make a nice navy.....

NSR: It's strawberry season here and we had lovely strawberries and whipped cream and angel food cake for dessert tonight. Yum yum. I hope to get out soon and pick some to turn into jam. I didn't get to last summer, so I hope to remedy that this year. Also, thank you for the well wishes about the new job. I'm staying with the same overall organization, but moving to a different department doing a different type of work. So a huge change. It's going to be a big learning curve, but I think it will be good for me to try something new. I'll also be downtown, closer to interesting places to poke around in over lunch time, and lots of nice places to try for lunch. Also a great organic bakery between me and the bus stop (could be hazardous!). So lots to do between now and then, new clothes, new glasses (need new prescription), clean out old office, do handover, finish up what I can, farewell lunch, and all that sort of thing. It will be hard to say goodbye - many wonderful colleagues and friends there and many happy memories.

Birthday card

2011-06-23T07:15:00.005-04:00

Hello!

Here's a card I made last night for DD1's dear friend's birthday. The focal image (Heather's Stamping Haven) is stamped and embossed on watercolour paper and coloured with Tombows using Krista Schneider's watercolouring technique. It's matted on black, with a little border doodled in. The card base is stamped with a daisy (Stamping Bella) and accented with patterned paper (Basic Grey) and Adirondack dimensional pearls in Butterscotch. The focal image is liberally accented with stickles, which really adds pop in real life. Nothing too out of my comfort zone here, but that's the way I like it right now. I'm on the brink of a significant change in jobs, so I'm way out of my comfort zone there. Some happy colouring time was just what I needed.

Thanks for stopping by! Happy stamping :-)

Steampunk Challenge

2011-06-18T11:55:00.004-04:00

I made this card for this challenge on Hels Sheridan's blog. The challenge is to make something in the steampunk theme, and since her Sunday challenges are always based on a song title, this week's is "Sheena is a Punk Rocker". Since I am listening to nothing but The Ramones lately, I just had to play along. (Side note, DD2, age 5, always requests Rockaway Beach! I'm so proud...) I figured Sheena would want steampunk in shades of pink, so I used a pre-done Glimmer-misted sheet. (Hey, if people can turn Swiffer into a verb, I think the least I can do for the Queen's English is to turn Glimmer Mist into a verb too, and I think I can safely say I'm not the first and I won't be the last).

Anywho. Glimmer-misted sheet, cut with Tim Holtz edge, and stamped with Eiffel tower (Stampers Anonymous) in worn lipstick and socme clock faces (Stampers Anonymous). The glimmer sheet has a clock face (Tim Holtz) mask on it, to add to steam punk theme, though it's obscured and/or trimmed off, so you will just have to take my word for it. I think the Eiffel tower is steampunky- so many rivets! Beautiful lines, all made of metal, all it needs is some method of self-propulsion and it would be steam punk all the way. So there you have it. This might be more punk rocker than steampunk, so I added some fake rivets to the word panel (Stampers Anonymous). Also, what makes something more steampunk than sequin waste (cogged wheels and dirigibles aside)? Nothing. That's what. So sequin waste is sponged with tumbled glass here and there.

Hope you have a great weekend! I'm soon off to Heather's to teach a class and then figure out what to do for Father's Day tomorrow. Hubby asked for something "adventurous" that we'd all like. Tricky as these two categories are mutually exclusive in our family. I suggested river rafting as it would meet the dangerous criterion, since when my friend went, the river guide broke his arm when they capsized. Hubby said he asked for "adventurous" not "dangerous". I guess in his mind there is a distinction. You may begin to see why I am stumped. Wish me luck!

Faux Japanese paper

2011-06-16T23:34:00.004-04:00

Hello! My mojo is back! And almost in the nick of time. I needed to have my July samples done yesterday, and Heather won't get them till tomorrow, but better late than never I hope. I'm really pleased with how this one came out. There were lots and lots of trials, but I finally figured out what worked. I love it! That big stamp is amazing.

I won't give too many details on this one, other than to say that's a gorgeous new stamp in the Jumbo line by Stampendous (the Dahlia set), with a sentiment by Sunshine Designs (Frog's Whiskers Ink) and background stamp (Fluff by Impression Obsession). If you want to know how to make this, give Heather a call and sign up for the class on July 16th. My class is at 10 a.m. I'll also be doing faux batik featuring mulberry paper. That will be a trip down memory lane - it was the first class I ever taught at Heather's! I've re-vamped that sample though to showcase the new stamps from the summer line and a great bamboo stamp from Hero Arts. Also, the faux batik class will give a brief introduction to watercolouring with Tombow markers if you are interested in trying that out. While I'm shamelessly plugging my classes, I have another one running tomorrow morning, with a couple of masculine cards suitable for Father's Day.

Thanks for dropping by! It's Friday tomorrow! Yay! Fun Friday is always a hit at our house. Its DD2's turn to choose the movie, so probably Tangled would be a safe bet. It was DD2's concert at Kindergarten this afternoon - so cute! I loved it. Her teacher is amazing. It was also a good opportunity to connect with some of the parents and talk about summer playdates. I'd like her to be able to keep in touch with these new friends over the summer.

Well, it's one minute to midnight so I'm going to sign off and thank you for your patience during my dry spell. Looks like you were right, Nimmy, my mojo came back with a bang! Thanks, all, for the encouragement :-)

Less is More - Monochromatic

2011-06-10T06:46:00.007-04:00

Here's my entry for this week's Less is More challenge, theme Monochrome cards. I had a few minutes to spare before work and heard my stamps calling me. I inked up a new one by Crafty Individuals with Vintage Sepia versafine ink. (This is my consolation prize stamp that I awarded myself for not winning the monthly blog challenge over there. I picked myself to get the runner-up prize of the CI stamp of my choice. I picked this one. I can see myself "winning" a lot more runner-up prizes like this in the future. And the best thing is they don't need to come out of my stamp budget because they are prizes. Sort of like you don't have to pay tax on lottery winnings. I can't believe I didn't discover this loophole sooner!)

Edited to add: Please note I didn't win anything from Crafty Individuals. The winning projects were lovely and I merely concocted this scheme as a way of buying myself more stamps without having to include it in the stamping budget. Under this level of close scrutiny, the logic, which was flimsy at best, seems to break down. From now on, I won't consider these stamp purchases as "prizes", but as "groceries" instead.

Back to the card. Inked and stamped with sepia on a caramel card base and added a frame of sketchy lines and a Scor-It line on top and underneath. This card seemed like a good masculine card, so I added a "Happy Father's Day" (A Muse) under the image. I felt it needed something more, so I added some highlights with my white Bruynzeel pencil crayon. Those things blend like butter. They go on really smoothly and I'm usually able to coax any harshness out with my fingertip and I still had time to upload. It's an early attempt at Less is More, since I'm usually of the school that more is more, if not of the school of layering something on to conceal a mistake. No room for cover-ups here! I'm going to try more of these challenges. It's a big stretch, but that's what makes it fun.

Also, just wanted to say thank you so much for your lovely comments of encouragement. I think my mojo is coming back thanks to that! I can't say how much it meant.

Scrap Sunday 12

2011-06-05T16:40:00.002-04:00

Well, my mojo is still missing. I can usually find it foraging in my scrap stash, but today I was only able to come up with this. The flower is a scrap (grungeboard, Tim Holtz die, Judikins mica gloss) that's been on my desk for a while. It had the button on it already, from its near miss on another project. The card base is another scrap, with a dragonfly cover-a-card background stamp (Impression Obsession). The sentiment (Stampin' Up) is on kraft paper with some black glaze pen written over it and a portion of it in red, slavishly bowing to the rule of 3 for the red. I think the kraft piece is too big, or the sentiment too small. There is also a background stamp of dotted swirls (Impress Rubber Stamps), stamped in Lake Mist on the kraft. On the upside, my five year old really liked it, but turquoise is her favourite colour, so I could be accused of playing to the gallery there.

In other news, I got my two days of all-colouring-all-day at Heather's Stamping Haven. It's that magical time of year when Krista Schneider comes up and teaches colouring techniques with Copics and Tombow markers. We made 17 projects in two days. She does all the assembly and stamping and we do the colouring. I didn't quite finish yesterday - hit the wall at about 4:30. Still, it was a great time and nice to catch up with friends who share a common interest. The only downside is that it's hard to come crashing back to earth. Still, it's better to have stamped and lost than never to have stamped at all. Isn't that how the saying goes???? Hope you've had a good weekend too.

Wanted: Stamping Mojo

2011-05-31T22:51:00.002-04:00

Hello! My mojo has disappeared. Has anyone seen it? I have picked up my stamps, but to no avail. Luckily Krista's classes are this weekend at Heather's, so those should inspire me. If you are hoping for something stampy, please click away from this blog. May I recommend one of the selections to the lower left? They're really quite marvellous.

A few notes from the home front:

DD2 turned 5 a while ago and we gave her a Playmobil school. She loves it, well they both do, and are getting up really early to play with it before school. I am in love with Playmobil - the quality is amazing and it provides endless hours of entertainment and imagination play. And they've thought of everything: the globe spins, the backpacks open and a book fits inside, there are even bathrooms (a boys' and a girls'!). It's the most amazing set.

There's been a bear in the neighbourhood for about a week. Our neighbours across the road saw it in their backyard and there have been other sightings too. I know that sounds like a Canadian cliche, but I would like to point out that I live in a city of almost a million people. Yes, my part of the city is bound by greenbelt, but still. It's a busy place, lots of cars, etc. Not a place you would normally see a bear. That said, the Ministry of Natural Resources handed out flyers that assure us that it can happen, it's likely "passing through" and we should avoid leaving out birdseed and garbage to attract it. How about the tempting appetizers on the swings? Yikes. So there you go. Everything you heard about Canada is true, eh.

I have a birthday on the horizon and I was trying to figure out how to celebrate it. I thought maybe a stamping road trip but hubby didn't like me trying to flee the scene in order to celebrate. He didn't have any other suggestions though, so I thought he should be more creative, so I said, "You should channel your inner Victor Newman" and he said, "What, you mean find another wife?". After I stopped laughing, I realized that I would have to plan my own party. [Victor Newman is a central character on a soap opera - the wealthy magnate of some big conglomerate of unspecified nature. He's been married to all the ladies on the show at least once, if not several times, and he's famous for his grand romantic gestures where he sweeps the current love interest off somewhere exotic and showers her with cliches and lavish gifts.]

So there you have it - no stamping, but 3 things that are going on in my neck of the woods.

Crafty Individuals Challenge May 2011

2011-05-23T22:45:00.003-04:00

Here's my entry for the Crafty Individuals May challenge, "Free as a Bird". I used this wonderful bird stamp from Crafty Individuals. It's so striking! I stamped it twice on two sheets of sprayed watercolour paper from my stash and embossed in black. I cut out some of the pieces from the blue version and adhered them to the orange piece. It's not technically orange, since I used terracotta and butterscotch to make it, with a bit of spiced marmalade/copper concoction. So while it turned out orange, it's really shades of rust and honey gold that combine to look orange. I prefer to think of it as sunset glow. And just like a sunset, this card requires heavy-duty sunglasses to gaze at it. Ha ha ha. I used my bleach brush to highlight the birds, and coloured back in using the opposite crayon (blue on gold, marmalade on blue). Ok, so this isn't the most stylish of all colour combinations, but sometimes you just need to go where the design takes you, and this is one of those times. I had a scrap of embossed paper handy, so that became the accent strip, and the background got stamped with a Crafty Individuals script stamp. The card base is a mustard fleck, which is in keeping with the colour scheme, but not an exact match. (An exact match would require a warning and a welder's mask for viewing.) The last few highlights were in the way of white and black enamel accents (Ranger). And with that, the challenge is finished, with moments to spare. The design team will pick their favourite, and the winner gets a CI stamp of their choice. In the likely event that this isn't chosen, I may award myself an equivalent consolation prize.

Thanks for stopping by!

Inkurable Stampers May Challenge

2011-05-23T22:03:00.003-04:00

Here's my entry for the May challenge at Inkurable Stampers, theme of "Food". I debated for a while about which stamp to use: artichoke, radish/beet, cutlery, dessert, chocolate bunny, Fred B Mullett fish. Then I opened my drawer of pear stamps (should I feel abashed to type that?) and selected several favourites. This was the one that ultimately got picked (Sunshine Designs) and I spent ages colouring and blending and blending and colouring (Tombow technique -take Krista's class at Heather's in June!). Then I pried the top off my Liquid Crackle Accents (no patience whatsoever to apply tiny drop by tiny drop to large area), and applied liberally to all three pears, envisioning a lovely porcelain effect. I did NOT envision a horrific mess as the Liquid Accents caused all red ink to run into the yellow. Hideous and unsalvageable (and I will salvage almost anything). Grr. Luckily I remembered which 47 markers I used (which comforts me when I wonder the rest of the time if I have early-onset dementia) and coloured it up quickly. Next came the laborious steps of turning into a card. I must have matted and layered this thing 50 times. I discovered that the wrinkly piece of Japanese paper will release anything without too much trouble, as will gold metallic. Eventually I settled on this. It's a warm khaki linen card base with pear words (A Stamp in the Hand) and edged it with Memories Art Print Brown. A little scrap of Bazzil in burgundy anchored it, and I also edged the Japanese paper, which has lovely metallic flecks in it mostly hidden. But I know they're there! Then a piece of ivory tsumugi, and then gold metallic and then black and then the image. One version of the card had patterned paper in there (matted to boot!), but that was definitely two layers too many. It looked ok up close, colours were fine, everything worked, but at arm's length the design was definitely off. I'm not sure about the final result, but I had pried and re-taped and tested every piece of paper I own. This is as good as it gets. I may yet try my crazed porcelain technique with Copics, but I am sufficiently crazed at the moment without the addition of crackle accents. Thanks for stopping by!

Stampotique challenge - Recycle

2011-05-23T20:13:00.004-04:00

Here's my submission for this week's Stampotique challenge, which is to recycle something. I started off using a few different things, but they didn't work, so I raided the recycling bin. No joy there, but next to it is our box of things to go back to the bottle depot. I nobly sacrificed the 10 cents we'd get for the Stella can and cut out the label with my Kai shears and gently molded it flat against my brayer. I was careful not to cut myself on the sharp edges. Then I used some cereal box to cut into the fleur-de-lis border (Tim Holtz - Sizzix) and sprayed that with Riptide glimmer mist and some other mist concoction of vaguely orange/copper nature. This got piece got stamped with one of my Stampendous rock cubes using black ink. The crown (Stampotique) was stamped on a red scrap and cut out. That same scrap got used for the sentiment (Inkadinkado), which reads, "It's not just for breakfast." I only inked a portion of the stamp, which starts off with "Chocolate:" but I figured since this is likely going to finish up as a Father's Day card, I'd make it about the beer instead of chocolate. The red scrap also did duty behind the border. The card base is kraft cardstock. I like this and I hope hubby does too. I did wash the piece of can, but there is still the faintest aroma of beer about the project. Also my hands. This brings me to the end of my post and near the end of the long weekend. It's been a good three days, and I am trying not to think about the mountain of things waiting for me back at the office. No, I will banish those thoughts and go back to stamping!

Penny Black challenge

2011-05-22T21:56:00.008-04:00

This week's challenge at the Penny Black blog is to make a decorated envelope. I thought the brushstroke stamps would be perfect for this, so I made a few different ones until I got one I liked. (Note to self, don't start with Fabriano cards until you have a good system down!) I painted the stamps with twinkling h20s and misted and stamped, repeating a few times withing re-applying colour. I thought it would be nice to make a card while I was at it, so here's what I came up with.

I really, really love those brushstroke images. They are some of my favourite stamps and it's a pity they're so hard to find here in Canada. Whenever I see one, I snap it up.

I was inspired by the work of Rachel Jackson, whose work often appears in Craft Stamper magazine. Her work is characterized by lots of white space, interesting texture, bright colour, and a certain element of splatter or paint. I was going to go simple on this, but then I thought of the article I just read by her that had interesting text blocks stamped in unusual places so I thought I would give it a whirl. I'm not sure if I like how it turned out, but I like it well enough to use it. I think I will keep experimenting with her approach, which is sort of clean-and-simple meets mixed media. Craft Stamper is a great magazine, but it's also hard to find here. Again, whenever I see it, I snap it up. I'm debating about subscribing, but it's from the UK and quite expensive.

Anyway, back to the card. I added a frame with my Micron, matted the whole thing onto some grey cardstock, and then on a moss green tsumugi card base.

This envelope was stamped in the same way, but with the dragonfly too. He's stamped in Black Emerald twinks, and the same purples and blues for his wings, but without the pomegranate. Black Emerald is THE colour for dragonflies. It's black, but dark green when the light catches.

I don't know what it was about yesterday, but it was a day for paint in our house. The girls spent a long time painting, and got themselves completely covered in paint. And the table, and the floor, and the bathroom when they tried to clean up. It was a monumental mess and they got into a monumental heap of trouble for the series of poor judgment calls that led to the mess. Fast forward to 9 pm when I am stamping away, and dip the hem of my t-shirt into a pot of Rainforest green twinkling h20.... I sigh (it won't wash out) and note the irony. Fast forward to 9:10 pm, when I knock that same pot off my desk and it bounces on the floor, upside down and makes two big spots of dark green on our light coloured carpet under my stamp desk. An interval of intense scrubbing and muttering followed and I got it pretty much out. Luckily our carpet is made of some frightening fibre that repels twinks. I guess the previous owners didn't splash out on wool carpet. Anyway, the irony of the situation wasn't lost on me..... Here's hoping our house isn't in the grip of a similar force today.

I will leave you with the best rapture comment hubby found on-line: "People are making rapture jokes like there's no tomorrow."

Thanks for stopping by!

Floral Wedding Card - YES!

2011-05-19T19:18:00.003-04:00

Blogger's out of its bad mood and let me upload the card today. Thanks for the tips. I don't know what was wrong, maybe just general flakiness. I would click on "Browse" to access the file directory and it would just blink at me, with a dull-witted, vacant look. Now it's working again, see Exhibit A (at left).

A colleague at work asked for a wedding card, in the couple's wedding colours (baby blue and purple). I mulled it over, custom cards are always a little anxiety-inducing as they need to be "just right", without any definition as to what "just right" actually is. I started with some white linen paper and stamped various botanical silhouettes on it (Darkroom Door, Cornish Heritage Farms) in shades of blue (Palette) and purple (Nick Bantock, Damson Plum). I tried all sorts of ghastly things, embossing, paint, this and that. Eventually decided that less is more (yes, you heard me say that) and went with plain ink. I did trace over the word (Stampin' Up) with glitter pen and dot the purple flowers with stardust stickles. I matted it on some purple metallic cardstock, and then that went on a light blue card base. I remembered to add some ribbon before it was stuck down. I was hoping to use my prestamped blue card base that's in my scrapbox, but it really didn't work on this one. The stamping on the card base took away from the clean lines I felt. I did a matching inside and envelope and called 'er done!

NSR: Thank you for the well wishes about the birthday party. It went really well and the kiddies had a great time. We played games and sang songs and generally had a good old-fashioned birthday party. I'll see if there are any good pictures on the camera and try to post them.

Floral wedding card - NOT!

2011-05-18T20:45:00.003-04:00

Grr. Grrr. Am trying to upload a picture so I can blog about it, but blogger won't let me. Is it some recent 'upgrade' that won't let me? Or is blogger on the blink again? Grrr.. Have no patience to try to figure this out, so will go and stamp instead. Only that ticks me off too, since they've cancelled Studio 93 at 9 pm and moved it to Saturday nights instead. Which is fine, except I don't listen to the radio on Saturday night. Usually we watch a movie or something. Weekday evenings is when I listen to the radio while I stamp. It was a wonderful system. There was no need to change it. I must quickly become a billionaire so I can take over the radio station in a bloodless coup and reinstate the program. In the meantime, this may be the incentive I need to figure out how to work my MP3 player. Nevermind, that ranks right up there with trying to figure out how to fix blogger and/or computer settings.

Happy Birthday!

2011-05-15T10:59:00.003-04:00

Quick post today, and nothing stampy. It's DD2's birthday party today and I am madly flapping around trying to get ready. (As you can see by me procrastinating, posting to my blog.) So this is mainly why no stamping is happening this week. Only cleaning and tidying and party preparations.

We are doing a Ladybug Picnic, but it's raining (that was sooo not in my plans) so everything is indoors. I love nothing better than large groups of children in a bungalow for two hours.... I have orchestrated the schedule so that the sugary treats will be plied shortly before they go home. I made a very cute ladybug cake, quite easy if the look you are going for is amateur-chic. I just used a 9x13" pan and lopped off some corners to make a ladybug shape and iced with black and red icing. I got the no-taste red, so it's not completely vile. And we'll do some games (the classics) and songs and a craft. Egg carton ladybugs involving paint. Hubby was a bit dismayed by that plan until I told him paint was better than buying 8 red and 8 black markers for the kids at $5 each. He wisely avoided mentioning I could have chosen another craft that didn't need markers. I think he was still reeling from my reaction to his suggestion that I not make the cake "disgusting". Anyway, another few hours and this will all be a distant memory. In the meantime, we will joyfully celebrate that happy day when my dear little girl was born. And then collapse in a heap.

Stampotique Designer Challenge

2011-05-09T06:31:00.003-04:00

Hello! Quick post before I dash off to work. Here's my project for this Stampotique Designer Challenge - sketch.

I had a scrap of coloured paper I'd made so I stamped Gog Lin on it and coloured with Bruynzeel pencils. Then added some stones. Both stamps are Stampotique. Then I found some coordinating BasicGrey papers (Recess line) and finished off the sketch. I don't have any Stampotique sentiments (yet) so I used a rub on from my stash for the "celebrate".

Thanks for stopping by!

Bellarific Friday

2011-05-05T21:23:00.005-04:00

Hello! Here's my card for Bellarific Friday this week at Stamping Bella. I used this wavy flower border, stamped on white linen, intending to mat on a blue piece then white card. I flubbed that up, so cut out the flowers and started over. I like this better, so that was a serendipitous mistake. I've stamped and embossed in blue metallic (Zing). The words are stamped in Faded Jeans, which was too pale, so I went over them with a glaze pen. I couldn't find my crystals, so I went with these A Muse sticker rhinestones coloured with copics to make them a little green to go with this Key Lime card (Memory Box), which is white on the inside. This was very quick and easy, and I'm quite pleased with it. Now there's time to go watch a bit of TV with hubby before bedtime. Nothing funny tonight - I'm worn out. This little bit of stamping therapy has really helped, plus just heard The Ramones on Studio 93, which is always fun. Off to watch The Office - nighty night!

Thanks for stopping by!

PS All stamps are Stamping Bella.

Baby Card or BasicGrey's New Flag

2011-05-03T06:23:00.004-04:00

Hello! Here's a baby card I made last night. When I saw this stamp, I fell head over heels in love. First, I love my clothesline. I love hanging out clothes, being outside listening to the birds, pinning things out, seeing them blowing in the breeze, and when they come in they are so fresh and sweet-smelling. And I just loved seeing a line full of diapers, all marching like an orderly little row of soldiers, so pleasing in their symmetry. Second, my littlest girl has a bear just like that one, and just this weekend, Bear had a trip through the washing machine and a day on the line in the sun. Bear got lovingly soaped down with lavender soap, then DD2 watched her get all sudsy and spinning round and and round through the washer window. Then she checked up on her on the line, a few times during the day. It was very dear. She wasn't upset that Bear was getting washed, but she was definitely keeping an eye on the process. And now Bear is lovely and clean, "all sweet and clean and smelly" as our family saying goes.

I stamped the image in versamark and embossed in chocolate brown, then coloured with Tombows and blended with a paintbrush. When I'm trying to match paper, I experiment with colours first on a scrap, and then when I get a combination I like, I jot it down on the back of the paper pack. Here, I'm using BasicGrey's Offbeat, and discovered (again) that Tombow needs a better light blue. I must write a letter to Tombow to suggest it. Many of their blues are quite bright and are either purple or green in tone. They really need one that's more like faded denim. Anyway..... Coloured with Tombows, accented with stickles (waterfall, crystal, candy cane, diamond, patina) and dimensional pearls (espresso), and a doodly frame. I like how the layout turned out, more by accident than design. I had already pulled my papers that I wanted to use, and they didn't quite fit across my 5x7 card, so I fiddled a bit and came up with this. I now see that this isn't at all original, it's the layout of half the flags in the world. I present to you, drum roll please, BasicGrey's new flag! [insert trumpet fanfare, and ideally some bagpipes too]

Thanks for stopping by!

Inkurable Stampers April Challenge

2011-04-29T22:58:00.003-04:00

Here's my card at literally the eleventh hour for the April challenge at Inkurable Stampers. This was a tough challenge: 3 stamps, 3 colours (including neutrals), and the number 3 somewhere on the card. I thought I would go with a vintage typewriter theme, since I have a Stampers Anonymous stamp (Going Somewhere set) with letters and numerals on it, satisfying that condition. I stamped the typewriter (Cornish Heritage Farms) on vanilla paper and embossed in a lovely green (Topiary) and trimmed out. The "missing you" is from the same Cornish Heritage Farms set (On the Desk), and embossed in white, tinted with Copics, which was probably a mistake since it seemed like it rubbed off a bit on the tip. I just don't have vanilla embossing powder (must be the one colour I'm missing!). These bits and pieces were layered up and matted on black and put on a dark green card base (Pinefeather, by PTI), on which I stamped the same letters/numerals in Memories Pine Tree ink. The typewriter is popped up on dimensional tape. This was a tricky challenge and took all month to percolate in my mind. I like how this turned out, crisp and clean and beautiful colours. Tricky challenges are always the most fun!

NSR (RWR): Not Stamping Related (Royal Wedding Related)

How about that wedding!!!! I got up at 5:15 to see the arrivals at the Abbey, and got the girls up at 5:30 to see the families arriving. It was so exciting. What a beautiful service. I found it very moving. You will get all the fashion commentary elsewhere, but I will say that I agree with millions of others that the Duchess of Cambridge looked incredibly beautiful. I will also note that someone at work observed that a certain royal cousin looked like she was wearing moose antlers. Probably her head gear was intended to be appreciated on a different level, perhaps like jazz music or Booker Prize novels. The girls and I had a great time watching the ceremony and processions, etc., and breakfasted on English muffins, crumpets and tea. I thought the Bishop of London's address was very inspirational, and the music was incredible. That said, I do love to hear bagpipes and I did miss them today. The trumpet fanfare was lovely, and the orchestra was too, but still, it doesn't seem like a proper "big do" without bagpipes. But I would hate to criticize an otherwise spectacular celebration of marriage.

Challenge Tag

2011-04-25T16:27:00.002-04:00

Hello! Wow - two posts in one day. It's been a good day for stamping, other than refereeing two girls who are somewhat overwrought with an excess of excitement and sugar.

The current challenge at Stampotique is to use newsprint/old books on the project. It's an any-stamp-goes challenge, so I went with this nice quote from a Darkroom Door floral set. I had the tag on hand, used to mop up extra ink off the craft sheet from another project. I can't say what the colours are, probably denim and eggplant color wash spray, with some Memories silver in there too. Just guessing though! I stamped the twiggy branch (Sunshine Designs) using chipped sapphire and broken china, then the sentiment embossed in metallic purple. I did a bit of a frame in black pen, and brought in the old paper by die cutting some butterflies with a page from an old book of French poetry. Which I then coloured with Tombows and covered in stickles. But the old book paper is there, I promise. You can kind of make out the print on the two larger butterflies. I decided it was too hard to see the embossing, so I took a waterbrush filled with bleach and went over the words to highlight them.

Thanks for stopping by!

Square challenge

2011-04-25T13:40:00.002-04:00

Here's my card for the April challenge at Crafty Individuals, which is to use squares. I found an interesting scrap of paper, but I don't remember how I coloured it. It might well have been distress inks on a craft sheet, spritzed with water, then I used my 130 lb cardstock to soak up the colour. I stamped the squares from one of the tiled bird stamps (Crafty Individuals - CI-265) in black (versafine onyx) and heat embossed with black and cut out. I mounted them on a scrap of Japanese paper, torn at the bottom. This was layered onto an ice blue card base (3x6"), with a scrap of textured blue, and a scrap of black. The sentiment (A Muse) is stamped in black India ink. Back to the stamp desk - it's a day off and the girls are happy playing. Yesterday's table cloth is drying on the line so I can feel like I'm doing housework and stamp guilt-free!

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Easter, Again! Plus Twinkling Eggs

2011-04-24T21:25:00.004-04:00

Hello! Happy Easter! What a wonderful day. By popular demand (100% of blog comments yesterday - 2 of 2 - requested a photo of the twinkling eggs), here's the photo, thanks to a very fancy camera-phone-Angry Bird player.

That's it for the artsy chat, so click on to your next blog unless you're interested in our day today. We got up really early to go to the sunrise service at 6 am, which was so lovely. All four of us went and it was very special. DD1 said when we woke her at 5:30, "My eyes are open, but I'm still asleep." DD2 required the slight incentive of an Easter egg hunt when we got home from church and then she was all right. After the service, there was a delicious breakfast at the church, which was so nice to share with our friends there. Then home for an Easter egg hunt and checking out the goodies in the Easter baskets. That dear little Easter bunny brought some more Playmobil mermaids to round out the set, much to the girls' delight. And he brought hubby some fancy Belgian chocolates, and he brought me some Caran d'Ache watersoluble pastel crayons. Yay! Many chocolate eggs later, it was time to go to church again (hubby and DD1 are in the choir) and it was the full-on pageantry, complete with trumpeters and flowers everywhere and favourite hymns all around. It was a wonderful service, with the church packed to the rafters. Then home again for some quiet time and a well-earned nap, some playtime outside in the gorgeous sunshine, and hubby even got the parkas and snowpants dried on the line, a sure sign of spring! The birds are really active now, even saw a pileated woodpecker in the woods behind the house yesterday! There are cardinals nesting in the cedars beside the driveway and the chickadees are everywhere. I love it!

Around 4 my brother and his family arrived for the Easter feast and we had a lovely visit, and my sister-in-law saved the green bean casserole with a quick dart home for sour cream, which I'd forgotten in the big grocery run yesterday. Good thing too, because the only alternative was a mushroom-laden recipe, which would have strained the good will of at least half those around the table. As it was, the beans were only a hit with the grown-ups. Still, I shamelessly played to the crowd and received accolades from the under 9 set for my Kraft Dinner à la boîte. There were actual cheers and dancing when it was revealed that we were having it. My only fear is that I've set a dangerous precedent..... Nigella's ham in coca cola was unbelievably easy and marvellously delicious. Our hams here don't have that nice layer of fat on the outside so it didn't look like the picture, but it was still really good. It did get nice and burnished on the outside nonetheless. And the Joy of Cooking scalloped potatoes (with a tweak in preparation thanks to Jean Paré, who suggests making a white sauce instead of dredging potatoes in flour - definitely an improvement as it would quickly have become drudging with that many potatoes very thinly sliced....) were perfection - silky and delectable. I also sautéed the onions before adding them, which made them much nicer in the final dish I think, and not much effort for the payoff. The green beans had fresh lemon in them, which was very nice, and the coleslaw was the perfect zingy crunch in contrast to the other things. I also had a delicious beet chow chow out, which was quite vinegary and crunchy, and very nice with the ham. The chocolate lime cheesecake for dessert was wonderful too - and quite tart with all those fresh limes, but with the sublimely velvety texture of really good cheesecake. My sister-in-law brought a raffle cake she made (and won!) for the school bake sale, very cute in the shape of an Easter egg, all decorated with candy. The kids were so excited about that. A wonderful day all around. So much to be grateful for, so much abundance, not merely on the table, but all around it, and those dear ones absent from the table are missed and ever in our hearts.

Happy Easter!

2011-04-23T21:12:00.004-04:00

Hello! I really shouldn't be blogging as there are still a million things to do before bed, but I've been bustling all day and I'm ready for a break. I thought I'd post another Bellarific Friday challenge card, even though I missed the challenge. It was an anything-goes challenge and I used the circus tent and sentiment (Stamping Bella) with June Bug paper (Basic Grey). The image is coloured with Tombows and has some stickles added too. I was sure I had the new Paprika stickles, but perhaps not. They would have been perfect here.... I used the new dark blue stickles though, and I love them! I sponged a bit of mustard seed and wild honey distress ink onto the sentiment, forgetting I'd stamped with markers so it smudged a bit. Final accent was some buttons. Naked buttons. Deliberately naked buttons. If Blogger doesn't shut me down for the word "naked", the button vigilantes will. But they will have to drag me down, kicking and screaming, because I really felt like those naked buttonholes echoed the polkadots of the two papers and the main image. Tying string or paper through would have insulted the whole endeavour. So, button vigilantes, lynch me with crochet cotton if you will, but I will defend my design choice to my last breath!

In other news, we had a fabulous time today decorating Easter eggs. I'm sure I'm not the first person to try it, but Twinkling H20s make absolutely gorgeous eggs. I bought flowers in green and purple, so I got out shades of green and purple twinks and my daughters and I had a great time painting them. My youngest (almost 5) had to wash her hands a lot ("They're a DISASTER!") because she's very fastidious and can't abide dirty or sticky hands. Three rounds of dishwashing later and my hands are almost presentable for church tomorrow. But the eggs are gorgeous. The lustre of the twinks and the perfect curve of the egg are matchless. I tried stamping and embossing on them first, and early trials showed it would be possible, but it would have drained my reservoir of patience and made a significant dent in the back up tank. I felt it unwise to face the next few days with patience on "E", so I abandoned that particular effort. If you're not facing 2.5 days of chocolate-fuelled youngsters, it would be worth a try.

NSR: Speaking of circuses, excitement is climbing to a fever pitch around here. We have made it through Lent and the girls did really well. They are really looking forward to chocolate tomorrow! We are having Easter dinner here, and I am going to try Nigella's ham in coca-cola. It's in all her cookbooks in one form or another, so I figure that if she's going to urge us that zealously to try the recipe, I should go ahead and try it. I'm also trying her chocolate lime cheesecake. I just took it out of the oven and it is the most gorgeous colour and texture. Can't wait to take a bite of that! Hubby really wanted a turkey, but I'm still turkeyed out from Christmas. That and I roasted a turkey breast the other day for a cold salad to take to a potluck so I am feeling done with roasting fowl this week. I am even going to make Kraft Dinner for a side dish, so the kids will have something they like. I must be going soft in my old age. Actually, both the ham and dessert recipe are from Nigella's "Trashy" chapter in her "Bites" cookbook, so it does seem somewhat fitting to add KD to the mix. It doesn't get much trashier than KD, unless it's KD with ketchup. We are also having green bean casserole from my Harrowsmith cookbook, and homemade coleslaw. Those two don't count as trashy since they don't start with a brand name ingredient and both are made from primarly fresh ingredients. Story, sticking to it, yada yada yada.

If you've made it this far, you are likely related to me, so this little story might make you laugh. As I happened through the dining room just now, I saw two letters left out for the Easter bunny. I don't know when the kiddies wrote them, but clearly my 8-year-old took dictation from the younger one:

To: The Easter Bunny,

Can you please get me a My Little Pony big unicorn that can go with my baby unicorn and if you cannot get me that can you please get me a Barbie like [my sister's] Barbie that has tuquois [printed in turquoise crayon] higheel boots and if you have no turquoise bootes another colere is fine. From [elaborate signature of DD2, age 4]

To: The Easter Bunny,

This year can you please get me the pet of the month webkinz and a photo of you and your little helpers. Thank you. Love, [signature of DD1, age 8]

I have it on good authority that the Easter bunny will not be bringing Webkinz or Barbies this year, turquoise-booted or otherwise. Also, yesterday DD1 asked me if there were any stamps I wanted. I hemmed and hawed, trying, and failing, to narrow it down. I eventually gave a couple of options and she said, "Just ask the Easter Bunny and you could get them for free!" There aren't usually a big number of presents from the Easter Bunny, but clearly it's worth me writing a letter....

To: The Easter Bunny,

I hope you are having a good Easter and not getting too cold and wet delivering eggs. Please enjoy the carrots we left out for you. If it's not too much trouble, I would like a set of Caran d'Ache watercolour crayons. I have seen them used to great effect. If possible, please include a turquoise one since I know some people whose favourite colour is turquoise. Thank you and Happy Easter!

Karen

His and Hers Monogram Cards

2011-04-19T16:53:00.004-04:00

Hello! Here are the cards I'm doing for my next class, "His and Hers Monograms" at Heather's Stamping Haven. It's on Saturday, May 7 from 10-1. I'm also doing the Distress Ink book that afternoon from 2-5. Give Heather a call at the store if you're interested in signing up. I'm showing samples here in "E" and "K" (wonder why????), but you choose your own monograms for each card. We're using the gorgeous alphabet from Ten Seconds Studios.

Hope to see you there!

Thanks for stopping by.

Scrap Sunday 11

2011-04-17T16:11:00.005-04:00

I noticed on the Darkroom Door blog that they had a challenge on their Flickr group was getting close to 1000 entries. I uploaded this one and depending on how I access it (through my Flickr login or via the Darkroom Door link), I'm either the 1039th post or the 983rd. Either way, it was fun to pull together a quick card with some of my new Darkroom Door stamps that arrived recently in a grab-box of wonderful goodies. I also used a scrap of blue paper I'd made at Christmas time (I think this was one of the sprayed jobbies with Adirondack colour wash spray and Memories silver mist). I started by stamping the text with chipped sapphire distress ink, and then adding the floral silhouette in white pigment ink, embossing it with a mixture of white embossing powder and warm highlights glitter ritz. Then I felt it needed something else, so I stamped the scroll down the side in black India ink. The clipped words are also from my grab box, from the baby word strip. I mounted it on a navy card base and the final card is 3x6". Thin and flat for mailing, though I may break down and add a button. I'll see. I kind of like it flat and I think non-stampers don't really understand why a button would be on a card. (I even know some stampers who feel that way, though I won't mention names in case they're mobbed by an angry bunch of paper-piercer wielding, button hurling embellishers.)

I'm having a lovely Sunday afternoon of stamping. (Hubby's out, kiddies are at their cousins', house to myself - bliss!) It's cold and windy outside, so I am tucked away in my stamp room, having a lovely colourful time. I've been doing chalk ink and resist for a class project, then took a break to do this one. Now I'm heading back to work up a "masculine" card for the class. I thought I would do his/hers monograms for birthdays or other occasions. My other line of class samples was only filling up my recycle bin and undermining my confidence. But I'm back in my element now, with my Colorbox stylus and chalk inks, iron at the ready and white paper waiting to be altered. Definitely my just reward for being up 'n at 'em bright and early this morning with a really big Sunday school lesson to teach (Palm Sunday).

Hope you're getting some stamping in this weekend too. Thanks for stopping by!

PS All stamps are by Darkroom Door.

Radish Delight and other recipes

2011-04-11T06:05:00.003-04:00

Hello! Radish Delight sounds like something Letitia Cropley on Vicar of Dibley might have made. I hate to disappoint you, but the recipe will be for a card. If you have a delightful radish recipe, please do let me know.

I stamped the radish (Stampin' Up) in India ink and watercoloured with shades of distress ink, including some mustard seed on the leaves to tie in with the yellow coloured paper. I made this a radish, though it could be a beet or a turnip/swede as well. I'm out of touch with what the leaves are like on all those veggies. I think this could likely be a beet. Radish leaves I think are smaller and smooth. Any botanists and or rabid vegetable enthusiasts, please forgive my artistic license, expressed in the desire for a hit of red. The paper is from the Farm Fresh line by October afternoon. The "Homegrown" oval is from the same SU set and is also stamped in black. The card base is Summer Sunrise, which is a great match in real life to the paper. Not as much on the scanner. I used this card to send in payment for our summer veggie box. We've signed up with a local Community Supported Agriculture farm and we will get a box of farm-fresh veggies every week all summer and into the fall. I am very excited. One of the farmers is a stamping friend of mine, so a veggie-stamped card seemed very fitting for sending in my payment. I'm looking forward to the challenge of some surprising vegetables, but we generally like veggies in our house, and my pickiest daughter likes veggies best. I can't wait for green bean season to start!

Well, I should dash and get ready for work. I woke up to the first thunderstorm of the season today. It's quite the doozy. Hope the Little Blue Jellybean doesn't blow off the road on my way in! (That's what I affectionately call our Prius, blue. As the Top Gear boys would say, "Naught to 60 in 320 seconds." Not a traditional super car, but it's our supercar - great on gas, fits all our gear on camping trips. Though as the girls get bigger, we'll need to take less stuff or get a pod for the roof.)

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

PS If you type in www.thedaleystamper.blogspot.com/view, you can get different view options for my blog. So you can see more pictures and less text and not have to hunt through the archives or my peculiarly categorized key words if there is something you're looking for but don't know what it is.

Colouring with Copics

2011-04-10T08:33:00.003-04:00

Hello! Here's a card I made out of a piece I coloured up with Copics one evening. I couldn't get it to scan well - in real life it'q quite soft and pretty. On my monitor it looks a bit garish. For a reference, the cardstock is PTI's lavender moon, and the background paper is from the Kioshi line (BasicGrey). The stamp is by Penny Black (gossamer?) and I stamped it in either Memento tuxedo black or Brilliance graphite black (heat set). I did up a batch of different images and used one or the other ink since my little Memento was drying up. (I have a reinker now! Yay.) Anyway, I played with the Copics trying to go for a soft purpley pinky orange look to the petals, which was somewhat achieved in real life. I am less happy with my choice of stickles, but that's ok. Another doodled frame, which I seem to be doing quite often. This is one of my favourite images from Penny Black, but I think I say that about all of them.

I have a few different projects on the go at the moment. I picked up some Shimmer Sheetz and am playing with those at the moment - lots of fun and lots of possibilities. I am also working on my May class sample, a few ideas there and some of the ideas even seem to be going somewhere. I have no trouble stamping when I can just sit down and play. When I have to use a certain thing, I often get a creative block. It's weird.

****One last thing, if you're in the area and want to take my class on Saturday morning (April 16th, 10-12), please call Heather to sign up. I'll be showing how to do quick and easy collages by turning ATC-sized stamps into cards. There are a few little special touches for adding texture and dimension that may surprise you. Give Heather a call by Thursday to register.

Thanks for stopping by!

Bellarific Friday

2011-04-07T21:46:00.004-04:00

Here's my card for this week's Bellarific Friday challenge at Stamping Bella. The challenge was to do a monochromatic card, so I went with blues. I know, I know, not exactly out of my comfort zone. Never mind that, comfort was what I wanted tonight, so comfort zone to the rescue.

I started out with the acrylic block+Distress ink + water I learned on Jennifer McGuire's fabulous blog using Stormy Sky, Faded Jeans, Chipped Sapphire, Milled Lavender and Victorian Velvet (sssh! don't tell Bella that I used those last two - but really I think they make the rest of it look bluer. That's my story and I'm sticking to it). It turned out a bit crooked and spotty, but oh well, it's a different look every time. And after spending all day fiddling with nightmare fiddly detail horrible detail nightmare fiddly horrible things, I was not about to get all picky with my spray and smoosh therapy. The next step was to wait for it to dry (I skipped this step, just blew on it a bit and by the time I rootled out the stamps and long block, it was dry) and I stamped the branch and bird. This was the very exciting part because I got to use two new embossing powders: Cobalt (branch) and Holiday Blue (bird). A dear friend gave me the Holiday Blue (Sparkle and Sprinkle) and it is so gorgeous in real life. Very sparkly and wonderful. I am feverish for embossing powders lately, not sure why. I think it's that magic that they have when you heat them and they go all shiny. It's still magical after all these years. [soft sigh and quick stare into middle distance....] Next I stamped the sentiment in black, and then some swirly circles in Stormy Sky. They're a little dark for my taste. Stormy Sky is one of those colours that's too light when you want it dark and too dark when you want it light. It's an interesting phenomenon. Then I doodled a border, and regretted it a bit. Fiddled around a while with the card base but settled on this ice blue linen with a scrap of blue-gold metallic paper that was embossed and lying handily on my table. I added a dot of black liquid accents for an eye, drew around the bird for emphasis, and added those three little black dots and called 'er done. I feel marginally better, and may try another one to see if I can get a version that I like better. Or maybe I'll leave it till tomorrow and see how I feel about it then. Top Gear is about to start - who knows what those crazy guys will be up to next. Yesterday they were making police cars out of a Vitara, a coupe and a Lexus. Or maybe I'll go back to my book. I'm re-reading my Susan Howatch Starbridge books, which are my go-to books when I need something really good to read. Anyway, time to get off the computer! Thanks for stopping by!

PS. All stamps on project are by Stamping Bella.

Bellarific Friday

2011-03-31T21:45:00.002-04:00

Here's my card for Stamping Bella's Bellarific Friday this week, challenge is polka dots. I used that great flower (Stamping Bella), which has some dots in the design (oh, how it pained me to hide some under the ribbon, the ribbon nearly didn't make it!), the solid grey piece has embossed polkadots and the patterned paper has large and small dots (SU). I stamped the flower on shimmer paper using India Ink and painted it with stamp pads (Baja Breeze, Old Olive, Not Quite Navy - SU; Willow - Adirondack; Brushed Corduroy, Peeled Paint - Distress). I also added a bit of a doodle-y frame with my Micron .05.

I made this for a colleague at work who is coming back after an extended maternity leave. It will be nice to have her back and I'll bring this in for the team to sign. I'm even going to stamp the solid version of this flower on the inside - so cool. Other bits and bobs - the ribbon is the double sided kiwi kiss ribbon from SU and the black dots are the Ranger liquid accents in black, the perfect finishing touch for a polka dot challenge! Did anyone else out there play along?

Thanks for stopping by!

Easter card

2011-03-30T06:23:00.004-04:00

Hello! I made this card for the Stampotique Animal/Bird/Insect challenge, and when I went to enter it, I found the challenge closed. This is the second time I've missed the challenge. How stunned am I? I am losing my mind. Granted, there wasn't a lot left to lose, but this is irritating. Still, it's a cute card and I mean to give it to a friend for Easter.

I don't have any Stampotique animal/insect/bird stamps, so my thought was to make Marci here into a little Easter bunny. Her bunny ears are actually parts of Moon Girl's wings (feeling quite clever about that!). I stamped Moon Girl on vellum and embossed with Moonstone (no other choice of ep really seemed appropriate) and trimmed out the parts of the wing I wanted. Then after I had Marci stamped and embossed in Chocolate Brown (again, no other ep seemed right for an Easter bunny), I made a slit in the card stock at the top of her head and inserted the "ears". When I trimmed them out, I left little tabs on the bottom to glue down on the back. Marci is stamped on a light pink cardstock that has a faint texture. I coloured her with Distress inks (crushed olive, forest moss, tattered rose, pumice stone) and added in some small grass clumps too. She's embellished with some stickles (champagne, star dust). The card base is the light lemon PTI card, topped with some pretty decorative paper from my stash. It's a pad of Provo Craft handmade paper that I've had since I first got hooked, and I am trying to use it up. Then the card still needed a little something else, and I found a gorgeous piece of textured Japanese paper and used that. I found a great deal on scraps of Japanese paper, all in a big bundle for a good price (at Wallack's art supply store). It's ideal, because I can never bear to bring myself to cut into a full sheet, but these scraps, well they're already scraps so I feel free to use them. Unless they're really pretty and there's only one.... Ok, maybe I'm not quite cured of hoarditis, but I'm getting better and at least it's a start! The final touch took the form of three dots of Espresso dimensional pearls. On the inside is an Inkadinkado stamp that says "Chocolate: It's not just for breakfast".

Thanks for stopping by! Hope you have some time to stamp this week.

Upcoming Class

2011-03-26T16:04:00.004-04:00

Hello stampers! If you are near Heather's Stamping Haven, here is my next class, scheduled for 10 am on Saturday, April 16th. (I'll try to schedule an afternoon one soon, just this one I had to do morning to accommodate prior obligations.)

This class is called Quick and Easy Collage, and we'll be making these two projects. Hope you can come and join us!

Paint Challenge

2011-03-25T20:05:00.002-04:00

Here's my card for the March challenge at Inkurable Stampers, which is to use paint. I started with a sheet of textured shimmer paper, and coated it with acrylic paint dabbers and (pool and lettuce). The shimmer didn't show through, but I still like the texture of the paper, and the white bits still show shimmer. The "thanks" (Impress Rubber Stamps) was stamped in black and heat embossed in black, and matted on more black. The card base is olive, with some botanical silhouettes (Darkroom Door) stamped in dusty lime and Opaline blue ink. The flowers are from my stash.

Thanks for stopping by!

Quick card

2011-03-23T23:09:00.003-04:00

Hello! I made this quickie this week, mostly because that little scrap of alcohol ink background was too pretty to throw out and too small to put away. I recently came home with this pear stamp by The Artful Stamper (my treat for last week, never could resist a pear stamp), and it seemed like the perfect thing to go on this little scrap. I had made up a bunch of this paper for an ATC swap and this was what was left over. I think the colours were lettuce, butterscotch and espresso (and maybe pesto). The pears were stamped in India Ink and left to dry overnight. (So while this was a quick card in real time, it did take three evenings to put together.) The pears are mounted on a black mat, then on a gold mat, then another black mat for good measure. I'm not normally so zealous when it comes to matting, but I liked it here. It was a fairly small piece and it really bulked it up. (Mats are the new protein shake!) The card base is black, with a panel of music collage from a Tim Holtz patterned paper block, with some tissue tape stuck down in a willy-nilly "L" to cradle the focal image. I also gave the card a spritz with some gold smooch before adding the pear panel. Oh yeah, and my favourite thing about the pears was highlighting them with some Twinkling H20s. I've never used those on glossy before, but it really seemed to work here - just defined the pears that little bit against the background. And I drew in a shadow with a dark grey copic marker. So there you have it: a 15 minute card that took 3 weeks.

Thanks for stopping by!

Birds

2011-03-21T22:53:00.003-04:00

Hello! I've been fooling around with my Copic markers lately, colouring in a bunch of stamped images. This image is by Stamps Happen and I coloured using a whole bunch of different markers, too numerous to mention. I will say that the scanner makes it look greener than it does in real life. Also, I discovered that my mother was right (but ssshhhh don't tell her I said that) - if you add the complementary colour on the colour wheel, it will make your main colour look more interesting. Case in point the blue on the birds looked really flat despite me having used at least four or five shades of blue and gray and purple (sorry no before and after shot). Probably more like six or seven. Then I added in some orange (opposite on the colour wheel to blue) and bam! - brought them to life. You don't look at it and say "blue and orange birds??", you just see texture and depth and it no longer looks flat. Who'da thunk??? So the next time your Copics are looking a bit flat at lifeless, add in a bit of an opposite colour and see what happens. It's pretty neat. Mind you, I like my Copics to look more artsy and less comic-book, so if you prefer a purer the 3-colour effect from light-med-dark of neighbour markers, then this might not work for you. Myself I quite like the almost painterly effect. Plus with Copics you can add and add and add for hours, shading all through the final episode of An Idiot Abroad and all of Top Gear. I will confess to having started watching Top Gear, after having ignored it for years. I thought it was all a bunch of know-it-all men spouting off about cars. Well it is, but they also do hilarious stunts and two of the three are quite entertaining to watch, and the stunts they get up to are really fantastic. Almost Red Green-esque in their execution (Canadian ref., sorry). The third requires significant amounts of Copics and colouring to tolerate. Also, it's kind of fun to watch people who are so clearly passionate and knowledgeable about an obscure topic like cars. It kind of reminds me of when we stampers get going around the table discussing more mainstream hobbies, comparing the relative merits of this ink or that and how different heat tools perform in various conditions. Also we've been watching An Idiot Abroad with Karl Pilkington, which is quite good, if you like that sort of thing. Think the Lonely Planet but instead of Ian Wright getting all involved in the local culture, picture more of an Eeyore personality literally choking down some local delicacy or making some ascerbic observation with a wickedly deadpan comic delivery.

And back to the card. It's stamped in Memento black, coloured with about 3000 copics, on Heather's 130 lb cardstock. Edges sponged, matted to soft gold glossy cardstock (with a nod to the incomparable Jo Capper-Sandon, see sidebar for her blog, where you will find marvellous creations, several with gold mats like this), mounted on Crate paper card, stamped with a border stamp (The Stamp Barn). I also put glossy accents on their little eyes for some shine, but decided against stickles, though I may change my mind. I do have the new colour of medium blue that might look great on them. Or it might compete with the mat. I'll decide tomorrow.

And with that, I'm off to bed. Thanks for stopping by!

Bellarific Friday

2011-03-17T21:45:00.004-04:00

Here's my card for Bellarific Friday this week at Stamping Bella. It's a sketch challenge and I was just fooling around with the copics while trying to catch up on video debt. Here's what I coloured while good old Inspector Morse and Sergeant Lewis cleaned up Oxford. It's such a cute image!

I didn't set out to make a card in primary colours. The scanner doesn't do it justice - it's much more virulent in real life. And I haven't even stickled it yet. (I'm not allowed to get any more stickles on the scanner. Some people just don't appreciate patina and distressed/altered surfaces....) I didn't set out to make an orange card. It's just that once I had the image coloured and matted on bright blue (again, how did that happen?), it seemed like a good way to use up my orange paper. That way I can combine the virtuous feelings of actually using my Basic Grey 6x6 packs without having to use any of the paper I actually like. That's not quite true, I do like those circles on the green background, but I'm not sure why I thought they looked good on the orange. In real life it does look a little better. The blue frame is bolder and anchors the eye on the centre. I just couldn't convince Paintshop Pro to darken only the blue scallop mat.

NSR. Well, the girls have been enjoying St. Patrick's Day. They spent two days making decorations and I left them homemade broccoli soup for lunch - nice and green! They were overjoyed when I came home and announced that St. Patrick's Day was a feast day and we could have dessert. They literally danced for joy. We've given up dessert for Lent as a family (all "40 weeks" of it, according to DD2, age 4). The girls then took to the calendar to scout out any other upcoming saints days where Lenten strictures are lifted and were very happy to see St. Joseph's Day on Saturday and the Annunciation next week. Two budding hagiographers, or just two girls keen to find the Lenten loopholes??? Well, happy St. Patrick's Day to you!

Hero Arts 50 Grand

2011-03-13T23:11:00.003-04:00

Hi! Can you believe the weekend is over? I can't. Where did it go??? Yes, we moved our clocks ahead today, but it feels like I lost more than an hour. I'm not ready for Monday morning at all. Anyway, enough whinging about that!

Here's a card I made for the Hero Arts 50 Grand celebration. Their flickr group had close to 50,000 posts, so they are doing a giveaway and here is my entry. I stamped that lovely butterfly collage (Hero Arts) on a piece of paper I'd made a while ago using Adirondack colour wash sprays and pickling salt on watercolour paper. The salt is what gives those neat knobbly effects. I don't remember what colours I used, but pesto, lettuce and a watered-down denim spring to mind. There may have been mushroom and butterscotch too, but I can't really remember. It's going to be different every time anyway.

I stamped the image using the Fiskars board with sponge feet and it did a great job! I needed to spray the cling part of my stamp with window cleaner and wipe it off, since that is the only way I've found (thanks to Kim for the tip) to get Hero Arts stamps to stick to the blocks. They have the stickers on the backs that interfere with the cling. So I stamped it with black pigment ink and heat embossed in black and then stamped the big butterfly the same way on plain watercolour paper. That one got cut out and painted with (8!)Distress Inks and a coating of light blue Twinkling H20 for some shimmery sheen. (Distress inks used: Stormy Sky, Faded Jeans, Forest Moss, Pine Needles, Chipped Sapphire, Dusty Concord, Walnut Stain, Rusty Hinge - I am a hopeless case!) Then trimmed the image, mounted it on black, mounted to a piece of Spring Moss (? the light green PTI paper) card, trimmed to a 5x7 folded card base. The thank you is also Hero Arts, stamped a little too high, so the black dots were dotted in to "bring it down" visually. Then everything was happening at the bottom of the card so I fooled around for a long time with fibres and bows, etc. I settled on these two fibres from my stash knotted and glued down. I think they do a reasonable job of balancing all the action in the bottom part of the card, but still linking them visually. Doubtless there is an artsy term for this, but I just call it gut-feel.

Well, I am back to the stamp table. I want to do the Darkroom Door ATC swap this month since the next few coming up I don't have the stamps for. This month is Filmstrip theme and there were lots of lovely filmstrips in my box. I am doing an alcohol ink background since I took a class at Heather's Stamping Haven on Saturday and got all re-inspired to use those with a new (to me) technique. (Thanks Fran!)

Thanks for stopping by!

Inkurable Stampers - Bookmark Challenge

2011-03-11T21:42:00.002-05:00

Here's my bookmark for the current Inkurable Stampers challenge. Well, current for the next 11 hours. Nothing like under the wire, and this challenge ran a bit long too. I thought it would be easy to whip off a bookmark. Not so much! This one was whipped off, and it shows. Still, it was fun to get all inky, and if I didn't have to sleep for most of the next 11 hours, I would probably do another one.

This one features Darkroom Door stamps (words and botanical silhouettes) and a Stampers Anonymous flourish in gold. All ink is Distress ink and the ribbon is hand-dyed (not by me) silk ribbon.

My box of goodies from Darkroom Door was amazing: a TON of new stamps and only two duplicates, film strips, paper, kits, word strips, photo chips, a punched red circle (!), and a sheet of cling mount so I could get some stamps mounted already. So many goodies, and two new sets (since I was already paying for shipping, it seemed smart). Rubbery goodness all round.

Parcels!!!!

2011-03-11T19:12:00.002-05:00

Goodies, stamping goodies in the mail! First was a lovely little envelope from a wonderful, inspiring person, Jennifer McGuire. You probably know her blog (it's on my sidebar), which features lovely creations, mostly for Hero Arts. She liked one of my comments one day and sent me some stamps - what a sweetie! Hope to get those inky pronto.

Also in my mailbox was a parcel notice - could only mean one thing - parcel from Darkroom Door has arrived! I whizzed over to the post office and, sure enough, it was!!! And even better, I won the customs lottery and didn't get dinged. Yippeee!!! Now to dig into that and see what's in the box. It was a mystery 'grab bag' type of discount so I can't wait to see what's there.

So, no time to post, time to play!!! Is it too early to send the kids to bed?????

Bellarific Friday

2011-03-03T06:39:00.003-05:00

Hello! I'm finally back! It's been a while. Thanks for the lovely comments of encouragement. I'm at 2/3 workouts this week and have my eye on a ferny collage stamp from Magenta. I hope it's still there.

I made this card for Bellarific Friday, theme is Aquamarine this week. I was clearing off enough room on my desk to stamp and found this lovely scrap of Ecoline paper in, wait for it, aquamarine! Wow - it was meant to be. Stamping serendipity. It was just a scrap, so it's the little backdrop piece. I used a flower stamp and double stamped it to be able to pop up the flower, embossed it, and coloured it with Tombow markers, accented with stickles. The card base is Cool Caribbean (can never remember if it's two r's or two b's...) with another Bella stamp stamped in Azurite chalk ink. This morning as I looked at it, I felt it needed something else, so I doodled a border around the focal immage. I think that's better, but I still feel like it needs something else. Oh well, on to the next project tonight - this will have to wait. I want to get this sent off to Bella land since I've missed a lot of Bellarific Fridays that I wanted to play along with.

In other news, I have a couple of classes at Heather's coming up: March 19th I'm teaching a class on some new ideas with my all-time favourite favourite Stampers Anonymous stamp. Then on the 26th I'm doing my Distress book again.

Hello

2011-02-26T10:00:00.003-05:00

Hello! Nothing new to post. I have been being very grown up and responsible lately which has meant no time for stamping. This has been about as much fun as it sounds. I am hoping to get back in my stamp cave next week, or sooner if I need a mental health break. I did do a little bit of stamping last night, but it didn't turn out and I didn't have any more of that colour and only that colour would do (I'm sure you know what I mean) so I need to get out and get some more. Happily, I also need to make a run to my LSS for a little treat. I am on a self-reward program where I get a little something from Heather's like a Copic marker or a small stamp, etc. if I work out at least three times the week. I'm just back from workout number three and there are some new Crafty Individuals stamps in stock that are calling my name! I've already used up Feb and March allowance, so these weekly incentives really help me get to the gym. My Feb-March allowance is chugging its way here from Australia so I have no idea when to expect it. It can take 3-4 weeks from the States, so I have no notion of how long it will take to get here from the other side of the world. I get freaked out just thinking about it. (freaked out at the enormity of the distance involved, not freaked out by waiting for stamps. I'm not that obessessed with stamps, well I am, but not in this case. I am actually feeling quite patient and zen about waiting for the order, leaving lots of room in my psyche to freak out about transglobal shipping.)

Well, I have taken enough of your time considering I don't even have something stampy to post. Hope you're able to get some stamping in!

Take care and I'll be back as soon as I can.

It's Sweater Day

2011-02-17T06:53:00.002-05:00

It's National Sweater Day - time to turn down the thermostat by 3 degrees and put on a sweater. I feel a bit like it's cheating since it's going up to plus 5 today, but still. It's a balmy 15 in the house right now - not too bad so far.

Check out the website:
Turn down your heat on Thursday 150,000. That’s how many Canadians we need to participate in National Sweater Day this Thursday, February 17. Help us meet the goal by turning down your heat by 3°C and putting on a sweater. You will make a big difference in the fight against climate change.For more information about National Sweater Day, visit our website.Other ways to get involved:
Take the National Sweater Day pledge for the chance to win a $500 gift certificate to Loblaw or one of two $250 gift certificates to Joe Fresh Style!
Sweater yourself on Facebook with our app. Dress up your profile picture and show your friends that you’re serious about fighting climate change.
Bid on a designer sweater, donated by leading Canadian designers. All proceeds go to WWF.

Valentine Card - Queen of Hearts

2011-02-13T23:41:00.003-05:00

Here's the card I made for my sweetie on Valentine's Day and I thought I would post it to enter the Quietfire Designs Queen of Hearts challenge too. I used my Quietfire Designs butterfly stamp from the Papillon sheet and stamped it repeatedly with two colours of versamagic ink (Oasis Green and Aegean Blue) and silver encore ink. Then I heat set it with a dry iron, whomped with my anti-static bag and stamped the valentine sentiment (Paper Inspirations). I also stamped one red butterfly with some red Palette ink (Moulin Rouge). There is a little heart at the end, from an A Muse sheet of crystal stickers, which I coloured red with a copic. There got to be some smudging from the iron (I didn't use a piece of paper between the iron and the project - bad girl! Lesson learned the hard way there) so I had to stamp some background, so I used a mosaic tile stamp (Judikins) and some light distress ink. The panel is matted on some red metallic paper and a sage shadow card base. I don't know if this is too feminine or too Christmassy for DH. Oh well, that's what I get for leaving it till the last minute - no time for do-overs! On the plus side, I realize how much I like this layout - very quick and easy. I could see it working for lots of purposes, with lots of options for changing up the colour scheme. Paper Inspirations has a bunch of sentiment stamps like this too for many occasions (but I only have this one - so far!). Still, any vertical message would do, I would think.

Thanks for stopping by!

Birthday card

2011-02-05T18:44:00.002-05:00

I made this card for this challenge at Card Positioning Systems #203. It's sponsored by Stampotique, and there are free stamps to be won, so I thought I would give it a whirl. I didn't have an appropriately sassy/snarky sentiment stamp, so I hand-wrote in, "And how old are you???" I remember when our little was small (like 3) everyone would ask her how old she was, and she would tell them and eventually she started asking them back. It was quite funny to see their discomfiture. To her it was a very common conversational gambit, so why not ask back? She didn't know that little kids aren't supposed to ask grown-ups how old they are. Anyway, that's what I think of when I see little Marci here.

The background papers are BasicGrey (Indian Summer collection) and the card base is More Mustard. Marci and her crown (both Stampotique) are embossed in black and coloured with Tombows.

Sorry for the long silence. I had a wicked 'flu and was in bed for a week. Next year I am getting the 'flu shot. I forgot this year, and I really got hit hard. Our whole family has been knocked down to varying degrees, and unfortunately I was hit the hardest. I hate being home sick and totally lacking the will to stamp. I see them there, I know they're there, and I just don't have the wherewithal to do anything about it. Luckily I am on the mend now, and have come up with two batches of ATCs for the Darkroom Door February swap, featuring the colour red. I also came up with some extras since if you send extra original ones, they will pay the postage back and save me having to figure out international reply coupons, etc. I haven't made too many ATCs so it was fun to experiment with that size of creative space. I made quite a few really hideous things, and eventually stumbled on some treasures. AND my parcel of January allowance arrived in the form of a box from Fred B Mullett, including some gorgeous embossing powders, an enormous Bluegill stamp, and some other marvellous rubber goodness. Can't wait to play with those!!!!! All that ep.... so much fun! Can't wait.

Serene Birthday Card (or How to Hide Mistakes)

2011-01-24T08:31:00.004-05:00

Hello! I made this card for the January challenge at Inkredible Stampers, which was to make a "golden birthday" card. Your golden birthday is the one where you turn the same age as the date. I passed mine a while ago, so I just used a birthday theme with gold elements.

I started off with the black panel, stamping it in Memories Soft Gold using the Cornish Heritage Farms Spanish Script backgrounder. Then, I added that beautiful leaf stamp (Wild Raspberry, Fred B Mullett) and embossed it in gold. Fred B Mullett has beautiful stamps from nature prints, lots of botanicals and vegetables, as well as fish and other sea creatures. They're gorgeous. Anyway, back to the card. I stamped the happy birthday (A Muse) and embossed it too, and mounted all on a gold mat. I thought this mossy tsumugi card base was nice, but when I folded it, it cracked, so I covered it up with some tissue tape (Tim Holtz). I stamped the card base in versamark with the same wild raspberry leaves, and added a strip of plum textured paper. I like to keep strips like this for accents, and not just because I can't bear to part with the smallest pieces of my favourite paper. Now, having introduced purple, I felt compelled to follow the rule of threes, so I added some eggplant dimensional pearls. Have you spotted them? No? Well, that's because they really blobbed out into enormous blobs in the top left corner, so I applied a Tim Holtz metal corner. (Two actually, another on the bottom left, but it was too much so I pried if off, with some difficulty I might add). During all this, the other smaller dots of eggplant dimensional pearls under the happy birthday got smudged, so I scraped them off too and covered up the damage with mushroom dimensional pearls instead. Take that rule of three! Take that.

Thanks for stopping by!

Clean and Simple Birthday Card

2011-01-20T23:01:00.005-05:00

Hello! I made this clean and simple birthday card for a friend using a brand new stamp (Local King) that I got for Christmas. (Thanks Mum!!!) I love how it stamps - I used Fresh Ink here, in Slate, and heat set it with the iron. I had used chalk inks for a few tries, but settled on this one, for a more muted colour scheme. They say on design shows on tv that you should look at what people choose for their clothes to see what colours they like, and my friend wears a lot of black, charcoal, grey, slate, and white. I didn't go black and white (though I think that would look amazing with this stamp), rather with shades of grey. I was unable to resist a splash of colour, added with some red embroidery floss. The image is matted on silver cardstock, the lone nod to sparkle on this card. I am going against the grain here - no big experiments with colour, no distressing, no stickles, no colouring, just simple stamp+ink+paper (+thread). I can see making a few like this in various colours - would make a good gift set. I haven't tried Local King stamps before, but they seem quite good quality rubber. They come on cling cushion and they're a Canadian company, with a variety of styles of images.

Thanks for stopping by!
Wheeee - it's Friday!!!!

Birthday card

2011-01-19T23:14:00.004-05:00

Hello! How are you? I'm great - it's been a really good day. Great day at work, lunch with a friend, met a friend after work, nice time with the kidlets in the evening and my mother came over and we had a great time stamping together. It's my brother's birthday soon, so we were making cards for him. Here's my effort - with Marci and Mort has a Pin Curl from Stampotique. I started by making the background, which is a piece of smooth white cardstock that I used to blot a colourwashed & misted piece of watercolour paper. I ironed it and then stamped and embossed this pair in black and coloured with Distress Ink (accented with Distress stickles). The "to brother sister" are Stampin' Up! stamps and the "from" is Karen Foster snap stamps. The grass is Stampotique and the rest of the stamps are Stampers Anonymous (Tim Holtz collection). I did some sponging of Black Soot around the edge, created a frame with markers and then added a grey mat and some black enamel accents. I really love this card. This pair really cracks me up and it's a bit unexpected. I like that Marci even looks like a big sister. She looks after her little brother and makes sure he brushes his fangs - I even whitened them with pigment ink to show what a great big sister he has.

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you had a great day too.

PS I discovered that mixing Dusty Concord and Aged Mahogany gives the most wonderful plummy reddish purple. Gorgeous! I will be using that colour combination again. Dusty Concord also combines beautifully with Chipped Sapphire. I love that about Distress Inks - if there isn't quite the right colour, you can mix them together for beautiful results, and because they don't break down when wet, the colours really go well together.

Japanese Doll

2011-01-18T23:26:00.003-05:00

I don't know how the colours are showing up for you, but in real life, this is a fresh celery green (like celery hearts) and cameo coral for the pink. It's gorgeous and I love it!!!!! That's extremely immodest, but I love this card. And look at the acres of hoarded Japanese paper I used! Acres! It's a lovely background, and I actually coloured her to go with it.

I have happy memories of colouring this doll - DD1 and I made dolls together one happy afternoon. She loves to blend and make colours with Tombow markers. I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree ;-)

The image (Hero Arts) is embossed in black and coloured with markers, and the message is Papertrey Ink. I struggled a bit with the layout, but settled on this. The card base is a lovely celery tsumugi square card, and the pale paper is more hoarded paper (Soft Sky). The girl is festooned with Stickles - yum yum!

Well, it's going to be a short post tonight. I've been slacking on my getting to bed early so it's time to fix that. Starting tonight!

If you're in the area, I have a class coming up at Heather's on January 29th called Lily Splendour. I also have my February class project done and it will be a great class - lots of fun. It will be Feb 19th.

NSR: I made a yummy dinner tonight - roast chicken with lemon and garlic. I got home, whipped it in the oven with a pan of potatoes tossed in olive oil and dashed out to work out. When I got home the kitchen smelled amazing, micro'd some veggies and dinner was delicious. I will have to remember that a roast chicken is that easy and self-minding. I used a great herby-salty-rub, Tuscan blend, to season the chicken. Very nice. I got it in the impulse purchase section next to the cash at LaPointe's (fishmonger) but I have also seen it at the Butchery. Great stuff to jazz up a meal. And really, nothing smells better when you come in the door than roasting chicken. Mouthwatering! As far as recipe went, I saw a bunch of variations on line and just did a version of those. If I were a Kitchen Jedi, I would say I used the Force, but then the Health and Safety vigilantes would close down my blog and start wittering on about inner temperatures and food safety. So I won't. (Besides, who are you going to trust - me, or the people who say leftovers only keep for two days?)

? of butterflies

2011-01-14T05:46:00.003-05:00

Hello! Does anyone know what the collective noun for butterflies is? Flock? Swarm? I have no idea. If it were up to me, it would be "a drift of butterflies". What do you think?

I woke up early this morning (coughing, not personality transplant) and thought I would spend some time stamping. I had this panel leftover from various stages of trying to find something to do with it. Much like a butterfly, it has gone through many stages before it emerged onto this card. It started out as a page in my new booklet for a class at Heather's Stamping Haven, but it wasn't going to work for that purpose. Then I stamped some more on it. Then I stamped some more on it, then I stamped words and tried some distress crackle paint (rock candy). Then stamped the butterflies. Then it was time to go to bed last night. This morning it found a home on a black mat, some sequin waste really spruced it up (man, that stuff can rescue any project), as did some punched butterflies from another discard from the class project. I also doodled a border with my black Micron (also another guaranteed rescuer of ailing designs). I quite like this now - lots of texture, colours, etc.

Some details: I stamped that grungeflower frame (Hero Arts) and embossed with Old Paper Distress embossing powder, sloughing off the release crystals. Then I sponged on various colours of Distress Ink with my ink blending tool. I stamped on the ship's register stamp (Heather's Stamping Haven) and the butterflies (Stampers Anonymous) and the words (Stampin' Up!). The punched butterflies were from another image (Sunshine Designs hydrangea) that had been sponged and crackle painted, also with rock candy. The butterfly punch is the one with three butterflies on it (Martha Stewart). The ribbon is the two-tone kiwi kiss/vanilla ribbon from Stampin' Up. The card base is PTI (#enchanted evening).

Well - now it's time to click on "publish post" and go get ready for work! This was definitely a better way to spend an hour than lying in bed coughing and trying not to sleep in.

NSR: So, here we are, two weeks into January. How are your New Year's resolutions holding up? Mine are hit and miss. I have been hitting the sack before midnight (usually with just minutes to spare, but sometimes as early as 11) and eating more fruits and vegetables. I have been more patient with the children, but it's early days yet. On the miss side, we haven't had any friends over, I have one basket, two hampers, and one dryer full of clean laundry and #flashmobs seen=0, though apparently there was one at daycare when the kids had a big dance party to "I gotta feeling" by The Black-eyed Peas (I cringe as I write that, even though this blog isn't exactly good grammar's last bastion). BTW, the muffins from last post were disliked by the children, despite the chocolate chips. Apparently they took exception to the fig seeds, which, I thought was the best part (other than the orange-spice-chocolate-fig taste). Sigh. Good thing I resolved to be more patient! In other news, I'm reading a very interesting book about the history of the English language (The Mother Tongue: English and How it Got That Way, by Bill Bryson). It's a fascinating collection of facts about English and how it got to be the way it is, and if history is anything to go by, there is no last bastion for good grammar and "I gotta feeling" will soon worm its way into the canon by virtue of popular use. Ain't nothing like the English language!

Exciting news

2011-01-12T19:54:00.003-05:00

Imagine my delight and surprise when I checked my favourite blogs today and discovered that Vicky Garrett chose my Starry Lady card as one of her challenge favourites! I was so excited. It's one of my favourite cards that I've made and I felt very honoured to be chosen from such wonderful entries in the challenge. Thanks Vicky!!!

Check out the entries - they are all fantastic!

There's another challenge on right now, masking, and you can use any stamps (their first challenge of the month is open to any stamps) so go out and get inky!

Mystery Muffins (NSR)

2011-01-09T14:14:00.002-05:00

Mystery Muffin Recipe (Fig, Orange Spice & Chocolate)

Original recipe in Company's Coming: Muffins & More by Jean Pare. Modifications by me!

2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups bran flakes breakfast cereal
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cloves

2 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup cooking oil
1-1/2 cups buttermilk (1 tbsp of vinegar will sour 1 cup milk, for a substitution)
1/4 cup orange juice (squeeze the juice from an orange you zest for...)
1 tsp orange zest (I use the Lee Valley rasp for zesting citrus fruit)
2 cups chopped dried figs (I removed the stem)
the end of a bag of chocolate chips + the end of a bag of mini choc chips or about 1 cup of choc chips

Measure first seven ingredients into large mixing bowl and stir thoroughly. Make a well in the centre.

In another bowl, combine the wet ingredients and figs. Pour into well. Stir to moisten (get all the dry ingredients wet, but don't over mix). The batter will be lumpy. Fill greased muffin pan (or use muffin papers). You will need two 12-hole muffin pans. Bake at 400F for 20-25 minutes. Makes 24 muffins.

Enjoy!

Scrap Sunday 10

2011-01-09T11:42:00.003-05:00

I had a few minutes this morning since DD2 and I were home from church with sore throats and a cough. She was sneezing a lot too, so I thought we would just stay close to home. She wanted to do some "blending" (the kids' words for colouring with Tombows and blending with a paintbrush), so I had to clear off a spot for her at the stamp desk. In the pile of scraps I removed, there were these pieces of patterned paper and the embossed velvet piece. They looked nice together so I hunted in my scrap basket for something to go with them and this pear image fair leaped into my hand. Seriously, it was the first thing I touched and I couldn't even see what it was. Spooky! Anyway, I stamped it "collage style" (ie crooked and uneven, adding more to make up for it) and matted it on some coordinating cardstock. I used the light blue (Baja Breeze, SU) to coordinate the pear with the paper. This pear had been my first foray into flocking and had been waiting for an occasion to appear on a card. I finished off the card with a few PTI buttons from the stash. Presto, change-o, done! Today will be a day of tidying and putting away Christmas decorations, so I'm glad I got some stamping in when I could.

Thanks for stopping by.

NSR: We went out to see Harry Potter last night. It was pretty good, and I'm looking forward to the next one in July. We rented a great movie on Friday night too, called In the Loop. It was really funny (though the language was pretty extreme, so consider yourself warned), but in a dark sort of way. Apparently it's based on a BBC Television series (In the Thick of It), but it's not one that's made its way to Canada yet. If it does, I would certainly watch it.

Also apropos of nothing, yesterday I made some muffins to use up some languishing buttermilk and oranges. I found a recipe for date bran muffins, and in the absence of dates, substituted figs. They turned out to be delicious! I also added a bit of cloves and nutmeg, and those flavours with the orange zest and juice were very nice. I also used the ends of two bags of chocolate chips (in my experience muffins with chocolate chips get devoured by the children, regardless of how much bran, etc. I have sneaked into the muffins). Altogether, it's quite a pleasing combination, though it was a bit of a gamble. So: figs, orange, chocolate, cloves, nutmeg. Not in any recipe book, but made for a tasty, tender muffin, with the added benefit of putting dried-out oranges and last-day buttermilk to good use.

Happy New Year!

2011-01-01T20:40:00.003-05:00

Hello! Happy New Year! I hope you are having a nice New Year's Day, wherever you are. If you're here for a stampy post, stamping references will be thin on the ground. Feel free to click my sidebar to greener stamping pastures. Otherwise, get yourself a cup of tea and settle in for a nice fireside chat.

We've been having a great Christmas. Here are some highlights:
- lots of family time, with cousins, grandparents (my parents), my brother and his family, and friends over
- great food, from family favourites to several marvellous recipes from British celebrity chefs (Jamie Oliver's greens with flavoured butter must be tried - fantastic! and his festive strudel was a wonderful way to use up the leftover Christmas pudding and well worth the trip to the produce market for a quince, though an apple would be fine instead - I just wanted to try a quince; lots of great Nigella recipes)
- pyjama days
- the new Maeve Binchy
- the new Jack Whyte
- Playmobil (the kids LOVE it, we are all converts. It's great stuff, fantastic play value and very good quality)
- great Christmas CDs (faves are Barenaked Ladies, the new Bob Dylan, Maddie Prior and the Carnival Band, the Irish Tenors, John Denver and the Muppets
- picnics in forts with the cousins
- Church on Christmas Eve
- listening to DH play his guitar
- tobogganing
- lots and lots of other great things!

Since it's New Year's Day, I thought I would mention resolutions. I don't normally make a lot since I am not very good at keeping them. I more take a day-to-day approach since trying to be perfect for a whole year at a time seems doomed to failure since I can't make it through even one day without some sort of lapse of character, if not several lapses on many dimensions throughout the day. Still, I did try to think of some goals. Here they are in no particular order:

1. Eat more fruits and vegetables.
2. Put laundry away when it's done in the dryer/off the line.
3. Be more patient with the children.
4. Use my bread machine.
5. Hang out at airports and train stations in effort to see real-life flash mob.
6. Go to bed before midnight.
7. Send some of the cards I make.
8. Have friends over more often.

Well, that's it for blogging this evening. My first post of 2011. Here's to many more, hopefully more with stamping in them! Happy New Year! May it be a good one for you.

Starry Lady

2010-12-31T09:34:00.007-05:00

I made this card for the challenge at the Stampotique Design Challenge blog, where the challenge was to use one punch and one diecut in your design. It's the challenge where you can use stamps other than just Stampotique images.

I started off with Ms Starry (Stampotique), embossed in gold on watercolour paper, and added in a bunch of stars (Papertrey Ink), also gold embossed. Then I punched out some stars using a Fiskars hand punch and coloured the image using Tombow markers and a paintbrush. I embellished with some stickles (see second image for more sparkle than the scanner could pick up) and added smaller stars with stickles, a gold leaf pen, and a glitter pen. I had left a gap for the sentiment (see third picture), but it was too big, so I put it on the inside. This left a large gap, and DH suggested that the card needed the Milky Way. He was absolutely right and I forgive him for all his comments about crooked stamping, excessive (i.e., any) ribbon, and corny content. The Milky Way was a stroke of genius, and I boldly and bravely set to with my gold and glitter pens to create a starry path for my lady here.

The die cut portion of the card is at the bottom, and it's more of the card base (dark purple), die cut with a Tim Holtz edger and sponged with Champagne shimmer paint. The panel behind it is amethyst stamped with the Gemstone cube (Stampendous) in amethyst and gold ink. The card base itself is stamped in Versamark dazzle using the Star map scrapblock by Cornish Heritage Farms. I also gave the card base a light spritz with gold Smooch spray. The focal image is mounted on foam tape over a gold mat, so that the punched stars have some dimension over the gold behind.

I've had this sentiment for a long time - I really like it. So when I saw this image of Ms Starry on the Stampotique website, I thought it would be the perfect complement to this sentiment. The words are embossed in eggplant on ice blue linen paper, matted on more dark purple and edged with gold leaf pen. The tiny stars are accented with gold stickles.

Now that I'm done, I have only one problem - choosing who to send it to since there are so many wonderful people in my life that make me smile like that. Not a bad kind of problem to have!

Thanks for looking.

Adoration of the Magi

2010-12-30T22:42:00.005-05:00

Here's my entry for the December challenge at Inkurable Stampers. I was very fortunate to be chosen as last month's winner of the international entries (thank you!) and a lovely stamp set from Tarisota Stamps will be on it's way to me all the way from Australia. I will be sure to post something when I get it. Thank you Sarah and Tarisota!!!

The theme this month is one-layer cards, with minimal embellishments. We were allowed to mount our layer onto a base, so I did that, since I like the framing effect. I wanted to use the Fred Mullet fish stamp (Pompano) that my mother brought me, and I was fooling around with it, colouring with markers direct to rubber, and one thing led to another and the next thing I knew, I had 3 Wise Fish , and they had to be following a star. So one emergency run to my local stamp store for a star fish later (and Heather didn't let me down!), I had my pisciform magi following the star. I must give apologies to Jo Capper-Sandon, as I'm sure I was led down this creative path by this wonderful Three Bee Kings card.

A few more notes about this card: the starfish is a Michael Strong stamp, stamped in Wild Honey, and coloured in with the same using a blender pen. The fish were coloured with Tombow markers, and the coral is actually from a gemstone cube (Stampendous), as is the "water", just a different side of the cube. There is a fan coral stamp too (Coronado Island). The crowns are by Tim Holtz - Stampers Anonymous and Stampin' Up and the sentiment is from Cornish Heritage Farms. I'm irked that it's crooked - my pilot test was straight, but this wound up crooked. I hoped it wasn't too bad, but my mother noticed right away, which goes to show you that no matter how old you get, you still can't sneak things past your mother. As for embellishments, there are platinum liquid pearl bubbles, distress stickles on the star and sand, and glossy accents on the eyes. If I were to do this card again (and this was effort number 3 or 4, so I was quite tired of colouring the fish with the 5 markers I felt it needed), I would mask the crowns. And get the words straight.

I'm not sure if I'll send this out. I don't usually send Epiphany cards, but this one might have to get used, if I could bear to part with it. I do have a soft spot for it. I showed it to DH, who said it was corny. (Corny?! Harumph. Try post-modern ironic or humorous allegory, but definitely not corny. Double-harumph.)

Thanks for stopping by! Happy Fifth Day of Christmas! Fiiiiiiive golden riiiiiiiings!

Stampotique Design Team Call

2010-12-29T21:09:00.002-05:00

Hello! Stampotique has a design team call. Click here to check it out. Spread the word, especially to any stamperissimos (those are the stampers who stand up to ...stamp...).

Bellarific Zombie

2010-12-28T22:23:00.004-05:00

It's not too often you need a zombie Christmas card, but I thought this Penelope with her prezzies (Stamping Bella) would do just nicely. I "enhanced" her with some stink lines, bugs, beetles, worms, and patches and coloured her up in grungy reds, golds and greens for a seasonal colour palette. The layout was for a Bellarific Friday sketch challenge, so that took care of that. The background paper is from last year's BasicGrey Christmas line (Wassail) and distress stickles finished off "the look". She's stamped in memento black and coloured with Copics.

Now wouldn't this look nice on Miss Havisham's mantlepiece this Christmas????

By the way, I do realize it's after Christmas, but technically, we are now in the season of Christmas, it being the third day of Christmas today. So I am uncharacteristically timely. Happy stamping!

Arch #23 Signs of the Zodiac

2010-12-28T21:55:00.004-05:00

This is Arch #23 for the Inkurable Stampers Gothic Arch challenge, theme "Signs of the Zodiac". I have had this image of the woman with the bowl of stars (Ms Starry, Stampotique) for a while and have been itching to use it. I stamped her on watercolour paper and coloured her with Tombows and cut her out. I stamped the arch with the star map (Cornish Heritage Farms), which has signs of the zodiac constellations on it, also embossed in gold, and also coloured with Tombows. I added a few other stars (Papertrey Ink). The stars are stickled and some are popped up, like the lady.

I like this lady who is flinging stars into the sky, and she is a much more satisfactory theory for the origin of stars than some sort of cosmic collision of gases or whatever it is now that the physicists think stars come from.

Gothic Arch #22 Mythical Creatures

2010-12-28T21:49:00.003-05:00

Here's Arch #22 - mythical creatures for the Inkurable Stampers Gothic Arch challenge. The main image is clip art, and is of an aquatic fairy on a shell, with a squid. She looks a bit glum, but then again, wouldn't you? All the other clip art fairies got to be doing interesting things like flying around on butterflies and lounging on flowers. She got the squid. So it seemed only right to use her on an arch and give her more of a reason to live, not that she shows any gratitude. That's squid fairies for you.

There is some stamping on here, the words (Stampin' Up) and the shells (Stampin' Up) on the dangly bit with the beads and pearls. I stamped those on shrink plastic and coloured with alcohol ink before shrinking. The navy paper is mulberry and already had the stars on it. The medallion at the top is metallic paper that I had on my desk so I clipped it to fit. I think it was from a spellbinders die originally and I embossed it and clipped to fit, and put a pearl on it.

I'm feeling a bit squid-fairyish about this arch, but not inclined to do a do-over at this point. These arches are what they are and there is more stamping ahead to waste time on do-overs. So onwards and upwards and off to use the new stamps I got for Christmas. Yay! I hope you had a good Christmas. We are having a great time and were even out swimming today with the kids.

Christmas Rocker

2010-12-20T00:03:00.004-05:00

My apologies if my blog post led you to believe this would be a card depicting a kitten snoozing in a rocking chair in front of a fireplace bedecked with fir and holly. Instead, we have extreme guitarist (Stampin' Up), rocking to some psychedelic red and green. I think I can actually hear the electric guitar on this card! I didn't think I could get that effect with paper, but it turns out you can. I used glossy paper, with alcohol inks (watermelon, cranberry, citrus, sunshine yellow, willow) and a spray can of air. Tim Holtz does an awesome video on this - it's an easy technique and way more fun than cleaning your keyboard, which is the only other thing I know of to do with a can of spray air. I also embossed the rocker in black, and the grunge flourish is by Stamp-It in Australia. You can tell he's rockin' for Christmas by his hat, which is by yours truly, freehand (only four tries to get the right size!), with some liquid applique for trim. It sort of disappeared against the red (my planning skills, or lack thereof, let me down here) so I covered it with glossy accents to make it stand out. The message panel is sort of a terra cotta, but might be the new cajun craze by SU, I don't remember. It was just a scrap near my hand that really just begged to be included on this card. The "Merry Christmas" is from a wonderful Cornish Heritage Farms collection of Christmas greetings. I'm so glad I snapped that set up before they closed (a moment of silence in their memory....). The scratchy background is a Tim Holtz/Stampers Anonymous stamp, in crushed olive. The card base is Kiwi Kiss from my treasured stash. I love this green. It's the perfect shade of citrusy yellowy green, and I would go through my hoard in a flash. But I am trying to strike the right balance between using and enjoying it and tearing through my stash and not being able to get more. Right now I am erring on the side of never using, which is a pity. I'm glad I used it here - it's just right. This card is for a friend of mine from high school, and we used to go to rock concerts together and he is still a big fan of hard rock music. Because of this, I just had to make a non-traditional card for him and his family and I think this fits the bill. You won't find something like this at the mall! Nope. This is a one-of-a-kind!

Thanks for stopping by!

More Christmas Cards

2010-12-18T21:38:00.004-05:00

Hello again!

Here are a couple of Christmas cards I made recently. I made quite a number with this image (Stamping Bella), coloured similarly to go with my pack of paper (Jovial line by BasicGrey). I used Copic markers, and then sponged on Antique Linen distress ink to tone the paper from bright white to off white to go with the paper. I also used stickles (Candy cane on birds, patina on dots) and crackle accents (Ranger) on the "boards". I love this image, and it is quite quick to colour up. These were fun cards to make, and good for using scraps of the paper. I edged all the paper with Memories Art Print Brown as well. Well, that's almost it for my Christmas cards this year. They are all (but one, which needs a letter which is only part-way done) in the mail. Now on to the Christmas cleaning and baking. I also want to make some cashew brittle and peppermint bark this year. We'll see how that goes. I also need to wrap presents, but hope to do that while watching National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. I love that movie! Speaking of Christmas shows, I have been watching the Jamie Oliver Family Christmas shows and they are so wonderful! The food looks delicious, and he is such an engaging presenter. I've also really been enjoying watching his series called Jamie's American Road Trip, which is very interesting. Well, time to throw another load of Christmas laundry (not really holiday laundry, but calling it that makes it feel more special).

Thanks for stopping by!

Christmas Cards

2010-12-18T08:58:00.004-05:00

Hello! My apologies for being such a delinquent blogger. I don't know how people blog every day. Maybe if I didn't read other blogs, I could work on my own. But there are so many wonderful other blogs out there, how could I not!?!

Here's a card that I recently made (as in last night). It was quite quick to put together so I think this might be a candidate for some batch cards next year. It's for someone who loves glitter and shimmer paper, so I used both. I started with some navy shimmer paper and stamped the image (Snow Dust by Penny Black) and sentiment (Cornish Heritage Farms) with white pigment ink and embossed with a mixture of white embossing powder and warm highlight Glitter Ritz. Then I matted it on some white, and popped it up over a navy shimmer card base. I thought it would be nice to extend the dots, so I used a fanatstix stick to daub on some dots of white ink again and embossed those. I added some Star Dust stickles to the snow dots and the trees, and a rhinestone star to the "i" in Christmas. I like how the "t" in Christmas sticks down like a tree trunk (and a cross for that matter, but I am speaking for a design perspective here). This card is quite wonderful in real life (is that terribly immodest?) and the scanner can't really pick up all the shimmer. You'll just have to try one yourself and see!

I love this stamp. I see so many possibilities for spring (cherry blossoms), summer (leaves) and of course, autumn. And it's so perfectly laid out for wham-bam-image and whamitty-bam-bam sentiment, bob's your uncle, done. Gorgeous and quick and easy. Love it!

I hope you are well, and not getting too crazy. Remember to keep stamping on your to-do list at all times! Then you get to stamp and not feel guilty about it!

Thanks for stopping by!

PS A huge thank you to that very nice lady who gave me the coupon a couple of weeks ago. I got some great new colours of Adirondack paint dabbers, which I can't wait to use. Thank you!!! :-)

Bling it on!

2010-12-03T23:03:00.006-05:00

The challenge this week at Stampotique is Bling, and all stamps are Stampotique. This is an easy one for me, since I have a drawer full of stickles, another one with Twinklings and lots of sparkly embossing powder. I also needed a birthday card for a 4-year-old girl and that task just begs for sparkle! I happened to have a piece of colourwashed and splattered paper big enough for a card leftover from a gothic arch. It's in gorgeous shades of pink and purple and yellow. Perfect for a little girl! I dithered for a bit how to stamp the fairy, and I settled on using Dusty Concord and embossing with iridescent ice embossing powder. She's stamped on watercolour paper, so I could paint her and so it would match with the base, which is watercolour too. I painted her with distress inks, shading a bit since things always look better painted with at least two colours. See that little heart on her chest? Painted with worn lipstick and spiced marmalade. Her face has tattered rose, worn lipstick and pumice stone. Honest! The wings have shabby shutters, tumbled glass, broken china, and pumice stone and the crown is wild honey + pumice stone. I also painted the mushroom with pumice stone and accented with enamel accents in white. When I had it all put together and mounted on the card (marigold morning - Stampin' Up), I felt that it needed something, so I drew in some swirls with diamond stickles, which I had also used to accent her wings. This was a gamble, and I'm 70% glad I did it. It really needed some words or other stamps, but I wanted to use this for the challenge, and I didn't really have any other stamps that would suit and the card has to be all Stampotique. Still and all, I like the swirls and really, this is for a 4-year-old girl who will likely not even notice in her haste to open the present. So really, it's for me and I like it. So there. I love the richness of the colours in the colour wash. I spend a lot of time with stained fingers thanks to my love of that technique. I might try that craft scrubby to see if I can clean them off. It doesn't really bother me, but I do work in an office, so I'd rather not have hands that look like I've recently been fingerprinted....

I have some other colourwash projects to post when I get a chance. Right now they're trapped inside my camera and I haven't had a moment to extract them since I have been off sick with a bad cold. It hit me like a ton of bricks on Saturday afternoon and it was only yesterday morning that I turned the corner and felt halfway human. Nothing serious, and I do get sick leave off work (just not off being a mommy).

On an unrelated topic, we watched the new Sherlock Holmes, the modern day one, with Tim from The Office as Dr Watson. It was fantastic! I was hooked right away. I thought they did a marvellous job. We've been enjoying Wallander too. And when I was off sick, I got caught up on my Midsomer Murder episodes. I sometimes wonder why English villagers don't move to the inner city to get away from all the crime. I mean they are bumped off left and right out there. Which reminds me of another show we enjoyed but haven't seen on lately was about the housewife mafia of Little Stempington and we can't remember what it was called. It had its funny moments for sure. I just liked the premise - too funny. All ladies-who-lunch on the outside and cold-blooded villains on the inside, cornering the local drug market on high-test hormone replacement therapy pills. Who knew rural England was this seething hotbed of crime??? (Other than Miss Marple, I mean, who was certainly well aware.)

On another unrelated topic, this weekend we are hosting our second annual gingerbread house building afternoon with the cousins. We have a cast iron mold (from Lee Valley Tools) that you bake the pieces in - one side is a log cabin and the other is a brick house. It's fun, but largely because DH does most of the baking and building. When I was a teenager I used to enjoy designing and making gingerbread houses at Christmas time. I remember making a few. I can hear rasping sounds from upstairs, which means DH is filing down more walls and roof panels so they make a better join. That is where we differ. He likes them to fit neatly together, straight line to straight line. I realize it is a cookie house, shortly to be encased in candy, so I just stick them together with gobs of icing to fill the major gaps. Actually, to be fair, it is nice to have someone like that in the house because it means that pictures get hung straight and the Christmas tree doesn't lean to one side.

Well, I should get back to it and not sit around blogging all night. I have things to do to get ready for Christmas, as well as Gothic arches to get caught up on, and the 12 Tags of Christmas have started already. Yikes! So much stamping to do, competing with other necessary tasks. How to choose??? People at work keep asking me if I'm ready for Christmas (and I do have to say that I resent bitterly this particular conversational gambit). I always respond with a chipper, "Another six weeks should do it!" and wish they would stick to the more traditional Canadian opening line, "Can you believe the weather we've been having, eh?" I guess I should be grateful that people still openly talk about Christmas, but I do dislike having to constantly defend my state of planning. My normal life gets planned on an as-needed basis, which is to say, whatever is happening in the next two hours. Long range planning gets done as-needed as well, which takes care of tomorrow, and possibly the next day if DH and I have had time to work in a strategic planning meeting. Any extras, like birthdays, holidays, church bazaar, throw a spanner in the works and seriously jeopardize things like laundry and groceries. I suppose if I gave up stamping, I could become some manically organized dervish, whirling the laundry from dryer to drawer on my way to menu planning and dropping the kids at gymnastics. In my new spare time I could host delightful candlelight suppers and stylish cocktail parties, but I would be so stressed from lack of stamping that I would likely become as murderous as a villager. Also, it would be a shame to lose the value of the investment on my stamps. By my calculations, if I stamp for seven hours a day for the next three hundred years, I will see a 10% return on investment. 10% is excellent, since our savings account only gets less than 1%. Now that I see the numbers in black and white, and realize what a great investment stamps are, I should get some more, and increase my returns by 9%, which translates (rounding up, carry the one) to investing in 9 times the stamps as I had been getting. I love it when the math checks out. I guess having an engineer husband is rubbing off on me.