Inkspiration for Stamping and Scrapbooking

Sale-A-Bration Fusion

As promised, here are more cards from Stamp Club.

There actually isn't any stamping on this card, but what a wow it is.

These are the Sale-A-Bration rub-ons, Love and Happiness. After we applied the rub-ons, and we all either used the green or the white sheet, so each card is a little different as we each clipped a piece of flourish, we attached the felt fusion flowers and the rhinetone brads. Fast and funky - gotta love it!

This card was inspired by several on SCS.

The third card didn't use rub-ons; instead we played with the set that co-ordinates with the rub-ons, Friendship Blooms.

  This card was inspired by one made by Glenda Mollet, who was inspired by Josee Smuck. Both of those cards were a 6 x 6 piece of cardstock folded in half to make a 3 x 6 card.

This card is 5.25 x 5.25, so it started with a 10.5 x 5.25 piece of Sahara Sand cardstock onto which I layered the Soft Sky. The top half of the vanilla piece is stamped with the leaf stamp from the Friendship Blooms set. The lower right uses a greeting from All Holidays.

The focal point is done by stamping the flower once onto vanilla and once onto Soft Sky with celery ink and then trimming each flower out. They are attached each other with a "sugar-coated" brad. That means I put a glue dot on the brad and then dipped it into glitter. The girls had a tough time deciding whether to use the cleery or the light blue glitter from the Fine Cosmo collection. The green looked really green on top of a gold brad and the blue looked more blue when it was applied to a silver brad. The leaves are totally inspired by Patty Bennet. Alll you do is fold a scrap of cardstock in half, run it through the paper crimper, hand cut a leaf shape and open it up again.

I love both of these cards, though they are very different - what do you think?

Are you wishing you could have been part of the fun? You can - I'd be happy to get another club going!

Porcelain Rub-ons

OK - weird title, I know. Sometimes that 's the hardest part - coming up with a title for each post!

So tonight our Stamp Club meets and this month we are playing with Rub-Ons, so here is one of the cards we're making. The original inspiration comes from lsasseville, but I've changed it up to incorporate the rub-ons.

You, and our Stamp Club members, are getting a sneak peek at some product from the Occasions mini that starts on Saturday.

The ribbon slide is from the new Stylized Hodgepodge Hardware kit - silver and very pretty!

The rub-on is from the A Perfect Day collection of rub-ons and it co-ordinates perfectly with the 5 Petal Flower punch, doesn't it?

The patterned paper is from the Porcelain Prints designer series paper. The other colours used are Blue Bayou and Wasabi Green. I used white craft ink to stamp the greeting and the white gel pen to add a pen-stitched edge. The flower centre is a punch out from the Three For You punch. I'll show you the rest of our Stamp Club projects tomorrow, so come on back!

Let me know what you think! Comments make my day!

Busy Afternoon!

Our family was blessed to take a  three week long holiday to Europe four summers ago.

It was an incredible trip. the trip of a lifetime, that included jaunts through France, Belgium, Holland, England and Spain.

In the past, I have sporadically posted some of my layouts from this trip. Today I took the time to photograph every page from the album, edit them, and upload them into an album on the blog. When you open the album, you can click on each thumbnail to see a bigger version on your screen and then click next to see the rest of the pages in order.

I love this page for a lot of reasons. It started out with a patterned paper that is non-SU because I had it from something and wanted to use it up. I had a few pieces from an old SU! Simply Scrappin' Kit - Vintage that I was able to incorporate. In addition to the old stuff, I used some new(er) stuff with the chipboard, and the Baroque Motifs stamp set. LOTS of ink on this page to enhance the feel. I love the look on Sarah's face as she listens to the monologue accompanying our double decker bus trip. She loved those headphones! Boy she sure has grown up a lot in four years!

To see the rest of the album, click on the Trip to Europe album to the left. And be watching for upcoming scrapbooking classes. I've been dreaming about them for a week now, so I guess I am supposed to be planning some! I look forward to sharing more of my love of scrapbooking with you in the near future!

Blessings and happy stampin'! - Ann

Enjoy Family Day!

Here in Ontario, some of us are enjoying our first ever Family Day. This is a provinical, not federal, holiday and not every one is getting it off, unfortunately, but it is a step in the right direction. Hasn't it always felt like such a LOOOONG time between New Years and Easter? We needed an extra long weekend in there!

So in honour of Family Day, here's a card to remind us to Enjoy! I chose bright bold colours, because it is very dull here today.

Here's the recipe:

Cardstock: Pixie Pink, Basic Black, Glossy White, Whisper White

Ink: Pixie Pink, Only Orange, Yoyo Yellow in Classic, marker and craft, Staz-On black

Other: Sponges, Clear and Irridescent Ice embossing powders, Word Window punch

Leave me a comment if you have any questions. Meantime, Enjoy Every Moment of Family Day!

Happy Stampin' and Blessings, Ann

Ready, Set, Stamp!

You all know that the Sale-A-Bration stamp sets are die cut, right? Here's your reminder, if you forgot. It is so easy to just get to stamping with these! The rubber is already perforated, so you just punch out the stamps and mount them on the rubber. Add the stickers and you are ready to stamp! Gotta like that - AND the sets in the minis are like that too!

So you can see in the photo that I am mounting the Sale-A-Bration set called Friendship Blooms. I used this set already - if you missed it, here's a card I did for a swap, using craft ink to stamp on darker colours and to emboss.

Here's the card I made with the set today:

  This card is totally a copy of one I saw on Stamper's Showcase by Twila Mooneyham, except she used the Airart tool to spritz the card with ink and I used a background stamp to create a similar effect.

I loved the card - it's simple and pretty - so it  is going in the Occasions class next weekend.

Here is another card for next weekend's class. This one uses the Lots of Sayings set, along with a Hostess set. Isn't the monochromatic feel to this card kind of dreamy? The flower centre is accented with some of the new Lilac cosmo glitter.

Just a reminder: At the class we'll stamp 10 cards altogether, 5 each of 2 designs. Sounds like a lot, but the designs are simple, and you are production line stamping when you start doing more than 1. Believe me, you can stamp 2 of the same card almost as quickly as 1. The class starts at 1 pm on Saturday, February 23rd. If you can't join us in person, but would like to participate, you can:

1. Get the kit version -all pieces are pre-cut and pre-stamped, all embellishments are supplied, along with a photo and instructions. You put it together at home.

2. Round up 4 or 5 friends and I'll bring the class to your diningroom table.

Click here to see the other cards. Happy stampin' and blessings, Ann

Happy Valentine's Day!

Stampin' Up! recently shared this bit of Valentine's Day-related information and validation with us on the demonstrator website. I thought it was interesting, so I'm sharing it with you, and then I'll share a few Valentine's ideas!

The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved.
--Victor Hugo

This week, millions of romantics--and even some who aren't--will celebrate Valentine's Day, a special holiday set aside to express love for special people in our lives. While the history of this holiday is uncertain (it is named after at least one of several different St. Valentines), current traditions are certainly not! We send an estimated 1 billion cards on this holiday, to remind those around us that they are loved.

Special days such as Valentine's Day are a reminder of one of the central reasons Stampin' Up! exists--we believe in caring for others, and sharing that concern through heartfelt and handmade expressions of our love. With the flood of commercialism that has overtaken our society, handmade valentines are becoming the exception rather than the rule. This only means that hand-stamped cards become even more treasured by those who receive them.

This Valentine's Day we express our appreciation for you. We care deeply for you and strive every day to show that concern in the decisions we make. We want you to feel important, and we want you to know that you are a valuable part of our Stampin' Up! family.

In addition, we want to emphasize the importance of what we are doing. Together, we are showing and sharing with other people different ways they can discover and express their own creativity, while strengthening their relationships. Nothing matters more in our lives than relationships, and we encourage you to take a moment this week and send Valentine's greetings to those you love.

Happy Valentine's Day!

And, my dear stampin' friends, I want you to know that I appreciate you!

Without further blah, blah, blah, here are some Valentine's cards for you to check out:

This is the card Brian and I are giving to Sarah when she gets home from school. No, I didn't make it today - got it done last night actually, but Brian wanted to be here when she opens it. I don't think I've gotten the idea for it anywhere. What I mean by that is, very often I decide what set I want to use, and then browse some of my favourite galleries and blogs for ideas. This one is, I believe, entirely an Ann original - who knew I could have an original idea or any creative mojo of my own - ha ha ha ha!

I stamped the mouse stamp from Happy Heart Day on white cardstock, coloured it in with markers, and cut just the mouse out. I stamped the mouse stamp a second time on Pretty in Pink Designer Series paper and cut it out. The coloured one is layered over the patterned paper one and adhered to Whisper White cardstock. I used the Sahara Sand marker to create a shadow beneath the heart and mouse. The flower on the heart is accentuated with the new cosmo glitter in rose pink.

Here's the rest of the recipe:

Cardstock: Whisper White, Basic Black

Ink: Basic Black

Other: Black grosgrain, tag and small tag punches, horizontal punch, cosmo glitter, designer series prints: pretty in pink and real red, white gel pen, non-SU heart-shaped brad

The next one I'm going to show you is one Sarah made for her teacher. She saw the peppermint patty holders I made before Christmas for the advent swap. If you missed it, you can see them here. We decided to make one with a chocolate heart instead of the peppermint patty. I helped her a bit, but Sarah did a lot of the creative work herself.

Here's her card/candy holder closed.

Here she is, proudly displaying it opened.

Here's a close-up of the front:

Acck - that's more blurry than it looked in editing, sorry!

Anyway, the polka dot heart is created using the Pick a Petal set. Get out - it's true! She stamped one petal with Real Red on Whisper White, inked up again and stamped the second  petal overlapping the first at the point. Neat, eh? 2 way glue and dazzling diamonds add lots of sparkle to this card.

We used a marker to just get the sentiment from the tag stamp in the Happy Heart Day set and she used the white gel pen to colur in the hearts.

Didn't she do a fabulous job? Leave her a comment and let her know what you think!

OK - I've got one more to show you today. It's the masculine Valentine's card for, you guessed it! My dear wonderful husband of almost 9 and a half years - can't believe he's put up with me that long!

I saw a card sort of similar to this on Split Coast by LoveStamping!!!!!!! But I changed it and did my thing to make this my own. The card is 5 x 5. I am really enjoying working on a square instead of the usual 4.25 x 5.5 rectangle - it's a nice change and it offers some different creative choices.

This starts with a Creamy Caramel base, with Chocolate Chip and Real Red to accent. Lots of dtp with Chocolate Chip ink help to make this look masculine. Both the Creamy Caramel base and the Real Red square are stamped with the Canvas background stamp for visual texture. The Chocolate Chip and Real Red square layers have their corners nicked off with the Ticket Corner punch. The zigzag stitching on the outside edge is faux, created with the All in a Row stamp set - me, sew?! Ha Ha Ha. The focal piece is 2 Round Tag punchouts layered on top of each other, a Scallop circle punchout layered on top and stamped with stamps from the Priceless set - because he is Priceless, in the best possible way! Chocolate chip narrow grosgrain (retired) and a sentiment he'll appreciate finish off the card. No glitter, no bling - just masculine.

What do you think? Did I achieve the masculine look I was going for? Leave a comment for me or for Sarah! And let the ones you love know you love them, not just on Valentine's Day!

Happy Stampin' and Blessings! - Ann

P.S. I heard a radio dj refer to today as Singles Awareness Day. It can be a painful day for those who are discontentedly single, so be sensitive to that today. AND to those  who are single, remember there is Someone whose Love is Perfect and He Loves You! It's a better love than you'll ever find here on earth. God bless.

I don't remember if I showed you this one yet...

Elephants may never forget, but I do!

I don't remember if I shared this card with you, yet.

This is one I made for a little swap I hosted featuring sets that are new in this catalogue. The images are stamped in Staz-On on shimmery white cardstock. I coloured the images with Watercolour Crayons and then blended the colours using the AquaPainter.

I love the Berry Bliss paper, so I used those colours to inspire this card with a Pomegranate base, a Close to Cocoa layer and the Pomegranate double stitched ribbon for accent. Although we don't have a Pomegranate crayon, the Rose Red works in a pinch - it's fairly close though not quite as rich.

I get quite a lot of natural light in my studio, but last week was a rather dull week, and I couldn't get the lighting right on this photo - so my apologies for the shadow of the camera, and the slightly too bright contrast on this one. I'm getting better, though!

I've shown you a few things done with Watercolour Crayons.I love how versatile they are - and how many different looks you can achieve using them! And that you can get them in all 48 colours + the neutrals. If you've thought about investing in the Wonderful Watercolour Crayons, Sale-A-Bration is a great time to do it! Each of the 4 colour families is $24.13. The Neutrals are $12.04 and the AquaPainters is $20.41 for 2 (different tips).  Add in a package of Shimmery White cardstock and a package of Watercolour paper and you have the watercolouring supplies on hand whenever you need to colour your line-art images. AND if you splurge on it during Sale-A-Bration, you will also receive 2 free items from the Sale-A-Bration brochure. Sets like Merci and Friendship Blooms would allow you to put your new watercolouring supplies to use right away! Feel free to contact me if you'd like to place an order (Canada only).

Embrace Life Class - Sneak Peek

For those of you signed up for my upcoming Embrace Life class, I'm giving you a little sneak peek at our cards. For those of you who haven't signed up yet, you still have time to get in on this fabulous class - sign up closes February 29th so we have our sets in time for the March 12th class.

We will be making 5 over the top, drop dead gojus cards!Here's your peek:

The inspiration for these cards have come from a variety of beautiful stampers including Corinne Somerville, Debbie Olson, Sophia Landry, Vivian Swain, and Kristin Moore.

We'll be allowing about 1/2 hour for each card - yes, these are some deluxe cards and when you're finished you'll want to give them to those special people - the ones you KNOW keep your cards!

See class schedule for more details. to join us for this class, just email me. I'm looking forward to seeing you here!

Sale-A-Bration Class Cards

Aren't these great cards?

These are 3 of the 5 cards that we'll be making later this month at the Sale-A-Bration Occasions cards class. We'll be stamping 2 each of 5 designs to get a bit restocked on those cards that you always need on hand - birthday, baby, friendship, thank you. Because we're making 10 cards, these are going to remain somewhat simple and quick.

The cards pictured use Lots of Thoughts or So Many Scallops. We'll also be using Friendship Blooms for some of the other cards. Our cards will incorporate ribbons, glitter, designer paper and punches. 

Hope you can join us on Saturday, February 23rd! If you can't, the class is available in a to-go version (same price as the class - plus postage) where you receive photos of the finished cards, instructions, pre-cut and pre-stamped supplies, and you just assemble when you have time. For more information on the class, see my class schedule.

Heartfelt Sympathy

I needed a sympathy card recently as we lost one of the founding members of our church at the end of January.

The focal piece is created with the Wonderful Watercolour Crayons - I coloured onto the stamp directly with a couple of colours, spritzed the rubber with water and then stamped onto watercolor paper. The background felt a little stark so I dipped my finger in water and then picked up the colour from the end of the crayon and filled in around the flower. The sentiment is stamped in Bravo Burgundy to match the cardbase. The focal point is layered onto Blush Blossom. I really like how Blush Blossom looks with the burgundy and rose colours of the flower. The white piece was run through a Cuttlebug using the Textile template and some organdy ribbon finishes the card. I created 4 of these at one time, so I can donate the other 3 to the church office to use in the future. 

Happy stampin' and blessings, Ann