Fabulous Finds Friday — Boo!

These birds aren’t very scary, but they sure are cute! I love this Halloween stamp from Inkadinkado. I got it last year, but it was too late for Halloween cards. So today I am putting it up right on time!

(Tree branch by Stampscapes; flower by Prima; gem by Hero Arts.)

And because one card is just not enough to make a decent post, here is a simple Thanksgiving effort:

This pretty stamp (Hero Arts — I think it is discontinued) was stamped and embossed in black. I stamped it on a panel that was already dry embossed (see the pretty edge?) I used Sparkling H2O in gold and copper on the wheat. Too bad you can’t see the subtle shine. I edged the white section in copper metallic marker and mounted it on dark green then peach.

Happy Halloween!

Out with the Old…

I think it’s time to splurge and get a new embossing pad:

This pad must be 15 years old. It was one of the first ink pads I bought when I started stamping. It has finally started to deteriorate.

I finally broke down and bought a new pad — a VersaMark pad this time.  A new pad for a Fabulous Finds Friday! Let’s break in the new pad with a quick card:

This is recycled card stock — it’s a piece I saved from …. uh, something! Found it on my (messy) desk, along with green and pink scraps. I stamped and embossed the flower (Hero Arts) on the pink, cut the leaves using a Sizzix die and stamped and embossed Enjoy (Hero Arts). Wow, so quick!

Now I must force myself to throw away the old pad….

Random Cards

Cleaning off my desk is a good thing! I found a few random images and decided it was easier to put them on a card than to try to find a place to store them.

To make a suitable resting place for the two butterflies (which were cut and embossed using a Cuttlebug set), I simply ran my plain white card through the Cuttlebug text embossing folder, attached the butterflies with dimensional foam, stuck on a sentiment (Hero Arts) and … done! 

I had already layered the four pretty birds (Crafty Individuals) on a piece of black scrap cardstock, so all I needed to do here was stamp a quick background (flourish by Hero Arts) and add the sentiment (discontinued Hero Arts stamp, but I love it!).

Fabulous Finds Friday — Bodacious Borders

Borders add such a nice touch to a card — especially when they are already cut for you. I’ve been a big fan of Bazzill Paper’s “Just the Edge” cardstock strips, and now they’ve gotten even better by using a dotted swiss cardstock.

Here’s a card made using the flower border:

(Dotted swiss background stamp, gemstones by Hero Arts; ruffled butterfly by Stampendous! Bit of glitter on wings is diamond Ice Stickles by Ranger.)

More Bazzill borders:

 

(images by Artistic Outpost)

For more info, go to www.bazzillbasics.com

More Cling-alicious Cards

In my last Fabulous Finds Friday post, I mentioned the joys of cling rubber stamps that have indexing on the back of the cling so you can see it through the acrylic block.

I have been having a great time playing with the images from Stampendous! and Hero Arts. In the card below, I again used my brayer and a pastel Kaleidacolor inkpad on Hero Arts’ Antique Brocade image:

The bird (Crafty Indivuals) was white embossed on a brayered background. Flowers by Imaginisce; gemstones by Hero Arts.

Below is the brocade image again, inked in black and used on a tag. Flower and gems also by Hero Arts.

Then it was time to make some cards using the Stampendous! cling images. I used fresh bloom  (CRQ130R) for a fast and easy card last week. Here are some others:

Are those crowns cute, or what? (Crazy Crowns CRV125R). Note the matching envelope! You can’t see it in this photo, but the middle crown on the card has Hero Arts gemstones in the tips, and the hearts are colored with American Crafts glitter markers. The paper (WorldWin Petallics) was run through the damask Cuttlebug embossing folder. The ribbon is from Catcus Pink.

In the next image, note how I got a smudge in the middle when I stamped it:

I almost tossed it out, but then decided, “hmmm… what if I just cut around the bad part? So I did, and here is how I used it:

(Images colored using watercolor pencil.

These stamps can be found at www.heroarts.com and www.stampendous.com

Fabulous Finds Friday — Cling Cling Cling

To paraphrase an old song…. cling cling cling go my heartstrings when I look at the new cling stamps! Cling stamps combine the best of two worlds — they have the depth and cushion of a nicely mounted rubber stamp but because they are not mounted on wood, they have a similar low-storage profile as an unmounted rubber die. 

But wait! There’s more! (Again, stealing from the late Billie Mays. I am obviously not feeling very original today.) Because cling stamps are rubber, they don’t have the see-through property of clear stamps. Two companies have made cling even better by printing the image ON THE BACK OF THE DIE! So when you stick that die onto your acrylic mount, you can see the image. This makes stamping placement and orientation a breeze!

Stampendous! first introduced their indexed cling stamps in January 2009. Images range from cute animals to whimsical flowers. Take a look:

 

I love the crispness of the image — it shows through the acrylic block quite nicely.

Hero Arts also has come out with cling stamps that have the indexing on the back. Here are a few of their offerings:

Take a look at this fast — and I mean fast — card I made using the Stampendous! images:

You can’t tell from the photo, but I also added Ranger’s Stickles (diamond) to the wings of the ruffled butterfly and the stamins of the bloom. The butterfly was colored with a red watercolor pencil, then blended.  Not fancy, but very quick and easy!

The following card uses Hero Arts’ Floral Garden CG117. I brayered the stamp using a Tsukineko Kaleidecolor pastel rainbow pad (love these pads!) on glossy paper.

 

I also played around with Hero Arts’ Antique Brocade image.  In the card below,  I used the same rainbow inkpad and brayer to apply color to the image, then stamped  all over the front of the card. I wasn’t sure I could line up the image properly — even with the indexing showing through! – so I deliberately over-stamped the brocade square. But I wasn’t that crazy about it, so I decided to cover most of it with a larger piece.

I inked the Special Wishes stamp (an old Hero Arts image), and stamped that on scrap paper. And since I still had color on my brayer, I misted the brayer with water and rolled it over a piece of scrap cardstock. Then I stamped the Magenta tree in Ancient Page black and used that as my focal point.  

Please come back Sunday to see the rest of the cards!

Fabulous Finds Friday — Flower Power

Flowers say so much, don’t they? “Flower Power Papercrafts,” by Julie Hickey,  features a garden full of cardmaking ideas using flowers.

The book has ideas for 50 cards and gifts, all incorporating florals, categorized into “themes,” such as Vintage Vogue, Contemporary Chic, Floral Fairies, etc. 

This is one that really caught my eye — so simple, yet so elegant.

This is a slight variation on the card shown in the book (which uses two squre punches to create a long rectangle along the right hand side of a square card). In my version, I punched a circle at the top of the card, then punched out two sizes of daisies from the same cardstock. Starting at the edges, glue the daisies onto each other until they cover the hole. I added Ranger’s Liquid Pearls to the center of each daisy, but rhinestones or flat-backed pearls would be pretty, too.

Here’s a variation, using a square punch. (Square and round punch by McGill.)

On this one, my medium flower punch actually broke right in the middle!

I glued on the three flowers that I had left – because I was impatient — and ran out to buy another flower punch. But my friend Jean convinced me that the card was kind of cool just partially filled. So I left it that way!

I want to try another variation using pearlized paper — maybe gold, ivory or pink.

(Love sentiment by Stampin’ Up!; Heartfelt Wishes by Hero Arts)

The book is published by David & Charles.

And if you like making invitations, “Paperie for Inspired Living,” by Karen Bartolomei is full of ideas, advice and inspiration to create invitations for any occasion. It’s more of an invitation book than a stamping book, but there’s no reason why you couldn’t use stamps instead of the computer-generated images. The book is also full of invitation tips.

The publisher is Potter Craft (Crown Publising.)

Thanks for looking… and have a Fabulous Friday!

Still Feeling Mellow

Here are some more from my “Mellow Yellow” period!

Love the yellow with a bit o’ black.

(butterfly, leaf stamps by Hero Arts; stripes by Rubber Stampede; flowers by Imaginisce)

This next card doesn’t fit in with the others at all. Guess I got tired of flowers. And I had just bought this Tim Holtz set because I loved the umbrella man. 

(stamps: Tim Holtz; self-adhesive rick rack by Flair Designs)

Thanks for coming back! Feeling mellow yet?

Call Me Mellow Yellow

A few weeks ago I found a set of yellow note cards on clearance at Target. So I bought them. (Wouldn’t you?). I decided to use the entire batch and make a set. 

Take a look:

This was kind of a flook. I had some green punched circles on my desk and one fell on this yellow card and I said, “hmmmmm… not bad.” So then I punched a few more (and some butterflies using Martha Stewart punch), stamped a bit (mosty Hero Arts) and glued down those suckers.  Fast and easy!

Now I was geting into it… so I pulled out my big flower grid stamp (Hero Arts) , hunted for some green scraps, and got into the mellow spirit:

(All stamps by Hero Arts) The funny thing is … when a friend gave me those big greetings, I wasn’t crazy about them. They seemed so… big! But now I use them a lot.

(circle stamp by Judikins; others by Hero Arts)

Come back tomorrow for more!

Fabulous Finds Friday — Anna Griffin papers

Whether you like country prints or elegant designs, Anna Griffin has a look that fits just right. And now the company has a bright, fresh face with the Riley Collection. See the cute monkey on the top of tent? The collection has several matching components, including sparkly 3D stickers, transparencies, etc.

That scrapbook page is adorable (although it is MUCH too complicated for my abilities!) I needed to dial it down a bit and make something simpler. I used a paisely paper from the collection to dress up this box, and make a few cards to match. In fact, this would make a nice gift set…. hmmm…..

First, I traced the lid onto scrap paper to make a pattern, then cut out the pattern on the decorative paper. (I could have simply traced the lid directly on the back of the decorative paper and saved a step, but I’ve found it always comes out better if I make a pattern to be sure it fits.)

I cut out a few paisley swirls from a coordinting paper, as well as some smaller elements.  I used Liquid Laminate (Beacon) to attach the papers, let the lacquer dry (always the hard part for me… sheesh, I’m so impatient!),  then gave it one more coat. When it was fully dry, I layered the flowers using a rhinestone brad from s.e.i. (The two bottom flowers are by Bazzil Basics, the smaller hot pink one is Prima. Don’t know if you can tell, but the middle flower has a soft velvety sheen.)

I needed something to put inside, so I made some matching cards and gifts tags:

(Sentiment from Inkadinkado)

And some matching tags:

(smaller stamped flowers by Kaiser Craft; larger stamped flowers, sentiment, Hero Arts; butterfly punch by Martha Stewart)

Find the papers at www.annagriffin.com