NO COLORING day 2 - faux watercolor

this is one of my favorite techniques and i have recently been collecting stamps that would be good for this. i am afraid you will see alot of this stamp as i used the heck out of it this weekend!

~~if anyone can tell me why i have a pic come up sideways occasionally i would be eternally grateful - it is rightside up in my file~~

for this technique you need a stamp that is fairly solid - an outline stamp will not be as effective. i have just experimented with different ones and some look good and some don't.

ink up your stamp with various colors of dye ink - memento dew drops are perfect for this due to their shape - PLUS they have lots of yummy colors (and i have them ON SALE). once your stamp is inked as you want mist it very lightly with water and then stamp on watercolor paper. it is that simple!

those delish little square purple embellies will be here soon in lots of fun colors and finishes which i can't wait to get my hands on!

assignment time......*evil laugh*

so i gave my girls some assignments - hee hee! i know most of the time i have images on my projects that i color in - usually with my copics. however i also know there are a lot of stampers out there who don't necessarily want to color or feel comfortable coloring. so the girls will be doing two projects this week that do not involve coloring :)
i began working on my own and had so many ideas i decided to focus on *not coloring* all week! so here is my first one:
i had not done spotlighting in quite awhile and then Danni posted a tutorial about it on Follow my Heart. i LOVE this stamp from inkadinkado but had not inked it yet sooooooo. this is such a quick and easy technique.

i stamped first with black (or you can do brown, gray...) and then i stamped a second time with a kaleidacolor pad (15% off). i punched a circle of the area i wanted to spotlight, glued it to a slightly larger circle to mat it and then matched it up to my black stamped image. i used my wonderful foam ink blending tool around the edges with scattered straw and aged mahogany distress inks. the keyhole is a tim holtz goodie.

all of the products used this week to show you some fun non-coloring techniques are on sale RIGHT now so this is a fantastic time to stock up!

look ma NO GLITTER! OR hey i did it again....!!

another male card! no glitter, no ribbons, no bling......
i stamped the cupcake from Polkadot Pie Chocolate Treats 1 with black memento ink twice, once on white and once on green patterned paper (from the DCWV sweet stack). i colored the top of the white one with copics and cut out the paper cup from the patterned one and glued it to the white one. i made the border with the coordinating images included in the Treats 1 set. the blocks are all one border and i stamped that in Memento Pear Tart (15% off right now). next i took the matching mini cupcake and stamped it in memento rich cocoa in the spaces between each block. i love that i can turn this block border into lots of different matching borders with these sets.

i edged everything with the same two memento inks using the foam ink blening tool - i LOVE this thing. i love how smooth it puts the ink on - it makes the papers almost glow!

ahhh twinkling goodness!

twinkling H2Os that is. i know i know - these have been around forever and i am like the last stamper on the planet to get them. i had been holding out and ignoring them and i was reading a post on SCS wondering about the difference between all of our *shimmer* options. so i broke down and bought a couple. before they even got here i read that they are going out of business and all of their stuff is 40% off. well when my first few arrived they were so gorgeous i immediately went back to luminarte and ordered a bunch more! i thought they would be perfect for the tail on this stinkin aDORable image from the greeting farm:
as always, near impossible to capture the shimmer - especially since we have had no sunshine but i tried:

tho i have not done a side by side comparison i would say these shimmer about the same as everything else we use BUT there are more color selections in H2Os than anything else i have seen. and i hear they make a great shimmer mist when a chunk is left to melt in some water in a mister!

so on her tail i used a blue and a purple and blended them together. on her shell top i colored with a light pink and then went over it with a clearish white color called icicle. i used a green on her fins and then matching lettuce dimensional pearls for the pearls in her hair and around her tummy. i decided to do an acetate card and i embossed the bottom with swirls and then went over them lightly with some blue staz on and a foam blending pad. i wanted a strip of *sand* across the middle so i snuck into hubby's sacred garage (i am not even allowed to keep the snow shovels in there) and poked about looking for sandpaper but no luck. then it occured to me i could just use some distress embossing powder! so i covered a strip with versamark and sprinkled on three powders: antique linen, frayed burlap and a touch of holographic and melted. i am quite pleased :) i put a piece of blue across the back to hide the adhesive.

so how does she look?

my first acrylic album!!!!

well it took me long enough to try one! altho this one is so small it is really easy!

i won this little acrylic cupcake album in the clear scraps class i took at CHA. there are lots of shapes an of course i immediately wanted to go order 5 more!

i started by putting the "icing" portion of each page through cuttlebug embossing folders. next i got out some black cherry staz on and LIGHTLY inked up my faom ink blending tool and brushedd it over the embossed portions to make them stand out.

next i cut some patterned paper (printed on both sides) close to the size of the bottom portion. i spread a thin layer of glossy accents on the acrylic and then laid the paper over it. i moved the paper a bit to spread it around and pressed the air bubbles out. it dries super fast. then i took a sanding block and just sanded around the edges and my excess paper came right off - easier & quicker than tracing and cutting - great for chipboard shapes too!

i edged the bottom portion with more staz on. next i outlined the "icing" part with fruit punch stickles on the same side as i put the paper and the embossing. i only had to decorate one side since it all shows through!

lastly i cut some small mats with my nesties and put one on each side of each page and accented with mini primas.

here are the close ups of each page - i do not know why the last one is sideways - it is not sideways on my computer.........

i am going to send this to my friend Liz - we were at her daughter's bday party this weekend.

so what do ya think??????????

my attempt at being less girly......

a little bday set i put together - trying for something that i could maybe give to my dad.....

notice i still couldn't resist the stickles (as icing)....ah well. overall i am pleased with the look - i have had the polkadot paper forever. i paired it with some SU designer paper, solid cardstock and luscious velvet paper from SEI.

Both Images are Polkadot Pie - Chocolate Treats 1 - i colored with copics. then i used crystal stickles as icing, nut brown flower soft as cake, paper pieced the cupcake holder (stamped the image on patterned paper and then cut out just the cupcake holder and glued it to my main image), and stamped a second strawberry, colored it cut it out and glued it over the main image using foam pop dots. i cut the images with my nesties an edged them with versamagic in Ocean Depths using my foam ink blending tool (seriously this tool will change your life!)

Some close ups...

the nut brown flower soft is in stock right now along with some other flower soft goodies. i am also working on additional tutorials so watch for those! Acetate boxes are also in stock.

winner!! and more yummy flower soft!

i am a bit late but i do have a winner for the $40 gift certificate - Karen D!! she made these two adorable ballerina cards - dontcha just love flower soft as cake!?!?!

i have been playing with my flower soft too and here is one that i am very pleased with:

i stamped the Hydrangea and berries with memento black and colored it with copics. next dotted some flower soft glue on an sprinkled it with delphinium blue flower soft from the floral bouquet kit:


Quick and easy but LOVE the effect. the colors in the floral bouquet set are multicolored mixes and really give stunning results.
















i covered an acetate box with a strip of blue bo bunny paper and then i took a brown piece and punched it with a fiskars border punch. i stamped randomly with the same stamp using versamark and brushed on a bit of heirloom gold perfect pearls. i tied some bo bunny polka dot ribbon around it and then added my image with pop dots.

be sure and get your flower soft now! imagine what you can do with it for spring! we have also added some more items - we now have some of the flower soft stamps, printed papers and the individual colors missing from the sets!