A Little Birthday Sparkle

Hi all!

Baby Brennen was 1 month old yesterday!  Pezza is QUITE pleased with being an Auntie of course!

How fun is it to dress babies in ridiculous outfits?!??!  Little monster behbeh!!!  Auntie Pez also babysits:

And then there is this face - HOW much trouble are those parents in with this kid...???

Ok enough with the baby shenanigans - ON with the crafting!

A good friend of mine had a birthday yesterday.  A group of us got together and took her out to lunch.  I love making cards but decided some time ago I would only make cards I will USE so none of the crazy embellished shenanigans I used to make!  Birthday cards & tags are tops on my list and this seemed like just the right moment for something quick & easy but with lots of glamour - Twinks to the rescue!  Not familiar with Twinks?  Twinks refers to Twinkling H2Os - little pots of hard-cake watercolor paint that packs loads of color (pigment) and tons of shimmer & sparkle (mica.)

I was pressed for time so I wanted to do something clean & simple (CAS) - I love the way watercolor washes look on cards, particularly the shimmer of Twinkling H2O watercolors.  I grabbed 2 of them and added a bit of water and let it sit while I made some coffee and threw in some laundry.  It takes a bit of time for the water to "soak into" the hard cakes and turn them into a painty consistency.  I like to use them when the wet paint is about the consistency of honey.

I cut a piece of watercolor paper to fit the front of my card.  If you use regular cardstock it is likely to warp a bit which does not look as good.  I chose this cute solid candle stamp and used a pencil to very lightly marked off a rectangle area that would fit the stamp.

I began by wetting my brush and making some swashes of water where I would be putting my color.  then I added the Twinks.  The thicker the paint the more color AND sparkle it will have.  Once it was completely dry I stamped my image on top.  The Twinks can be somewhat slick so be sure to let the ink dry for a few minutes.  A simple sentiment at the top diagonally balances it out just right.  I edged it with Tsukineko Brilliance ink.

I was inspired by the following challenges:

• Splitcoast Stampers - Color Challenge & CAS challenge
• Card Mania - Make It Sparkle

And now I am outta here - we have another snow day today and that means I have a super whiny child who doesn't understand why she can't spend 14 hours playing video games.  So I need to come up with ways to keep her busy.  We may start with packing up all her toys she is refusing to play with and see if that straightens her out a little! LOL!

Dragonfly summer

Hi all!

Have you been enjoying your summer?  It's hard for me to believe we are already in August!  At the beginning of summer I panic and think how on earth am I going to fill up all these weeks?  (We don't do summer camps other than Girl Scouts.)  And then we get to August and I panic again thinking OMG I have all this stuff on my list of things to do that we haven't gotten to yet!  I am always torn about what's best for her - do I cram her weeks full of all of these "super camps" and put myself in the poor house so she can have all these super enrichment experiences?  Do I schedule a super activity myself every day and kill myself trying to make every day an adventure?  Or do I just let her laze around and do whatever she wants?  Today our activity is Minecraft mods - she wants to learn code and write her own.  I told her how about we just figure out how to use one someone else has made first.....

As for me, I have been back in the studio (usually with her right by my side!)  I saw a tutorial for a Layered Batik on Splitcoast Stampers that was very cool - I tried to do it 6 or 7 times and failed miserably

However, I liked the stamps I had gathered and the color scheme so I finally gave up and went with good old-fashioned stamping.  I am submitting this card to the follwoing challenges - click on the links and join them too!

• Daring Cardmakers - Color Challenge
• Crafty Creations - Just For Fun
• Glitter N Sparkle - Add glitter and sparkle
• Stamping Sensations - Anything Goes
• All Sorts - Favorite Things (My Brilliance inks)

All of the stamps are from various Inkadinkado clear sets I have had for ages.  I haven't bought a rubber stamp in a really long time and I pulled up their website - big mistake!  Now I want to order a slew of stamps!  I have always loved their stamps.

My hands down fave inks are Tsukineko and for this card I used Brilliance inks on the dragonflies and VersaMagic for the swirls.  I love how the brilliance shimmers and the VersaMagic is a nice soft chalk.  I like the mini size too - I have all of the dew drops - made it easy to collect them all!  The Hello is a Studio G $1 stamp of course!

I used a few Pez-A-Bling in light blue sparkle to finish it off.  Still one of my favorite finishing touches.  I do still have plenty for sale in lots of colors.  If you are interested let me know!  Eventually I will get them posted again with pics and links to buy.

And now I am off to research minecraft mods - thank you for stopping by!

Party time!

Hi all!

Hooray for weekends right?  So last week I had put a post up on Facebook lamenting how every day I say "Tomorrow is sewing day.  I am going to sit and sew."  I have a backlog of sewing projects I really want to accomplish -  TWO quilts, a wall hanging, a purse my step mom has requested, fall/Halloween table linens, American girl doll clothes - the list goes on and on.  So in the comments my (awesome) neighbor says "You jut have to drop Pez at the bus stop and go in and do it."  My cousin says "What's stopping you!"  So I think "That's it!  Tomorrow I'm doin' it."  So what's stopping me?  I will do laundry while I sew so that I am still accomplishing something and just DO IT.  Here is how the day went

• Begin cutting out purse pattern
• Go to put my laundry in the dryer, hmmmm the load that's in there is not dry....I could have sworn I started the dryer twice already....I start it again.
• Discover I am out of interfacing - now I will need to drive out to Leesburg to get some (we live in a small rural town.)
• Go back to put the next load of laundry in the dryer....CLOTHES ARE STILL WET!!!  Now i KNOW i have turned it on...Holler for hubby who is working from home.
• Begin dryer assessment.  No heat.  Commence dryer dismantling...which then involves dryer insides cleaning

Disgusting!

• We will need a new heating element.  So that means calling around to find it.  Good news, found it.  Bad news, now I am not only driving to Leesburg for interfacing but also ALL the way to Sterling for the element - about 45 minutes away.
• While I am in Sterling I think Hey, I can stop by that nursery I really love and check for the Sempervivum Pezza has been begging me for.
• Plant lady is apparently lonely since the Spring rush and decides to educate me on EVERYthing you could EVER want to know about succulents.  Interesting but I AM TRYING TO SPEND THE DAY SEWING.
• Hubby and I were going to do lunch but now I am running late and he got a meeting put on his schedule - how about I hit the drive thru on the way home.
•  I roll up to the drive thru at 12:32 along with every other human for MILES around.
• I get home, eat my lunch, I have about 1 hour left before Pezza gets home, phone rings.  It's my good friend Amy (Pickled Paper) whom I haven't talked to in ages and SO miss her!  We talk and talk and then it's time to go meet the bus.

And this is how my EVERY day seems to play out UGH!  Though my day interrupting event yesterday involved picking up two itty bitty kittens to spend a couple days with me to recover from surgery before heading to the adoption center at Petsmart.

As I was squealing over them in the back room at the vets office I said "You would think after having rescued DOZENS of babies I wouldn't swoon over babies anymore but it just never gets old and the vet (BEST VET EVER) says "Nope, it NEVER gets old!"  These two are probably some of the best kittens I have had come through here.

But to be fair I do squeeze a bit of playtime in here and there and today I have a quick and easy birthday tag to share.

When I was cutting the circle elements for the layout I posted yesterday I thought HEY that would be a great birthday tag!  A Studio G $1 stamp is perfect in the center!  (If you missed that craze I do still have a few of the spring sets available.)

Once again I used foam tape to pop a couple of the layers up for added dimension.  I really think it's key to how nice the finished tag looks.

And now we are off to the party!

I am enetering this in the following challenges:

• Papertake Weekly - Make it Sparkle

calling all stampers...

hi all!

i am not sure how many readers i have or how many i have from my original blogging days but once upon a time my claim to fame were Studio G $1 stamps.  This led to opening an entire online store but I have since let that go by the wayside.  HOWEVER, i have inventory left I am hoping to sell.  and i am going to list items here from time to time at a savings too.  so to kick that off i went through my studio G stamps and pulled out what i have left for halloween and christmas to list here.  these are not complete sets but extras i could not sell as complete back in the day.  i also want to be sure you know that these are excellent stamps - many folks tried to say these stamps were too cheaply made to work but i can assure you that is not true and i have a video demo on that if you are interested:

The stamps are 25% off so 75 cents a pack!  quite a deal! these are the perfect little stamps for cardmakers and a great way to get a holiday collection of images to use without breaking the bank!

$7.50 - Set 1

$12.00 - Set 2

$4.50 - Set 3

$8.25 - Set 4

$4.50 - Set 5

$12.00 - Set 6

 $9.00 - Set 7

 $4.50 - Set 8

I only have ONE of each set except set 4 - i have 5 of them. these are first come first serve.

couple sketches for ya - studio G and SHIMMERZ - yummo!

hi! i am so behind on my sketch challenges so i am posting a two in one for ya today! the first card uses Jen's sketch from last week ->





AND incorporates a new challenge i stumbled across that i just LOVE (tho i find it VERY challenging)! Ashley over on heart hugs designs does an etsy inspired challenge. now this is cool! features a new etsy artist each time and then you browse the site and base your project on something there. the one posted last saturday featured the artwork of autumn russell - she draws fashion type stuff which is totally hot right now AND her work is FABBY BUT not really my thing.....so i had no idea what i was going to use....



and then i realized why i love studio Gs so much!! there's nothing i don't have!! so i pulled down my binder, flipped through and sure enough it came to me! there were some incredible pics of high heel shoes and i remembered seeing some in the studio Gs (and thinking how i would NEVER EVER use them) so i found an assortment and picked out two shoe stamps, a purse and a sentiment and here is what i ended up with:

i think it is kinda cute even! i stamped in poppy, then orchid, then lightening black brilliance inks on each panel. Placed a prima for the embellishment and added a few bead pops from the cupid mix.

next up is the sketch from OCCC last saturday (hey i told you i was a bit behind....) ->

i decided to ink up another FABBY stamp - fairy with rose - from my friend susana's shop:

as soon as i saw it i knew i wanted to do faux watercolor with it and i love the result! i inked up the stamp with memento dew drops - the little dew drops are perfectly sized and shaped for precision inking in a hurry. once it was all inked i held it at arms length and misted lightly with water, then stamped onto watercolor paper.

i painted her dress and winges with opal SHIMMERZ from susana's shop - i tried to capture it in this photo.....

IRL it is awesome and shimmery in just the right spots.

i finished it off with some little clay flowers i made to match.

well i am back to work on some things i am planning.......

have a stampy weekend!!

Tutorial - masking fun!!

ok i will apologize now for this post being so photo heavy BUT i want to make sure i explain this technique well enough for y'all to follow along! my fabby talented friend suzanne told me she was lurking around my blog waiting for this tutorial i teased y'all with and then promptly dropped in order to get my shipping done. SO - want a great use for all those little studio Gs you have been collecting??? this is the perfect technique!! i will apologize now for not having the completed project to show you but there is a bit of a back-up in the studio these days AND i made this for a gift bag which i have yet to go out and purchase.....

i first showed this technique a few days ago - we did this in my monthly SU tech club that i go to. stacey always comes up with something i love!

SO gather some supplies - you will need a larger (or regular size) stamp as a focal image and then you will need numerous coordinating smaller stamps - 5-7 (grab those studio Gs girls and guys!) three ink colors - light, medium and dark - same color family. ink blending foam or sponge, glitter or embossing powder, the larger size rectangle post it notes - 3-4 (OR you can do like me and cut your own scrap paper and put repositionable adhesive on it but the post it notes work better - just couldn't find any)

Cut your cardstock to the size you want and stamp your focal image in your darkest color. OPTIONAL - create more emphasis by embossing it or adding glitter - here i decided to do some distress embossing powders on the large cardinal stamp from inkadinkado's winter birds set. when using distress embossing be sure to shake them well!

Now starting on one corner mask your main image with the post it - best to not make it an exact corner but a little askew. take your ink blending tool and smudge from the post it note onto the paper in your LIGHTEST ink color.

DO this for all four corners. Be sure not to have any of the previously inke area showing when you ink a different area.

NOw continue working your way around the edges of your paper creating a "frame." At this point it is unavoidable to have previously inked areas unmasked so you will need to use additional post it notes to cover up any inking. keep going around the paper and inking sections just along the edges of the post it note(s).

SOme areas will even require three post its to mask adequately.

Next repeat the same masking process BUT use your medium color to ink the outer edges toward the post it note but not covering your lighter ink - just up to it or almost up to it.

Continue moving the mask(s) around again to add your medium color to each masked off area.

Final step - again place the masks in the same spot for each area and stamp random small images in the 3 different colors - BUT if using the darkest color stamp on a scratch paper and then your piece so the image does not overpower the focal image. again placing the masks correctly is what makes this so cool!

i hope that is clear - if it isn't PLEASE let me know, ask me questions!!

ok i'm off - working on some cool new things.....oh so much to show you, so little time.......