Cutie Pie Paper with White Rub-ons and Pretties

I'm having computer troubles, so to keep myself sane I whipped up a handful of simple cards tonight. I think they're all pretty self-explanatory, except for the last card -- that's a bling crystal in the center of the rub-on flower.

More Rub-ons

Just a few more cards using the Love and Happiness rub-ons from Stampin' Up!

Late Night Cards

I was supposed to be putting the stuff on my bed away, but instead I just HAD to make two more cards. (You know how that goes.)



I think I set my record in number of eyelets used on this first card: 8... eight!!! I was just goofing around with the Three for You flower punch, but I liked how the little posies look layered on the printed paper so I went with it. I used Stickles in the little circles on the print instead of pulling out my Dazzling Diamonds and glue pen again. (The cat is still glittery from the last episode.)






I meant for the rub-on on this next card to go on the So Saffron card base, but I think the body heat from the cat (who insists on laying on my stuff when I'm not looking) made it start to stick to the printed paper. Sooo, I went with the flow. The card seems a bit busy to me, but I think it still works.

Rub-ons!!

Yesterday I broke into my new SU! rub-ons (the FREE Love and Happiness set being offered as part of this year's Sale-a-Bration promo)... and I gotta say, I'm in love! I'm astonished at how easy they are to use and how good they look; and I'm tickled pink that I got TWO sets of these rub-ons -- and I may go for a third if I can scrape up the funds for another $50 order.



I've made four cards so far, all using the Cutie Pie double-sided designer paper and coordinating color cardstock. This was my first time using rub-ons since I was a kid and got some Beatles Yellow Submarine Blue Meanie rub-ons in a cereal box. (I probably just dated myself there, haha.) I took my upline's suggestion on my first card to use a stylus to rub with instead of the high-tech popsicle stick provided with the kit, but I had better luck with the popsicle stick on subsequent cards. With the stylus, the rub-on looks sort of embossed into the paper, while with the popsicle stick I got a nice, smooth rub, no indents.



I really like how the black contrasts with the bright colors on this first card. Card base is So Saffron, and I'm almost embarrassed at how easy this card was to make.






I used Certainly Celery as the base for this next card. Versamarked background flowers are from the Just Like You set. A quick punch with the Word Window, and ta-da!, card was done. How cool is this?






The Love and Happiness rub-on set includes four sheets, one each of black, white, old olive, and chocolate chip rub-ons in the same design. I decided to try my hand using some white ones on Rose Red cardstock, and I love love love how it turned out!






Here's a close-up of the rub-on. I hope the pic shows just how crisp it looks.






I'm not so sure about this next card, but I'll chalk it up to experimentation. Card base is Bashful Blue, ribbon is double-stitched Purely Pomegranite (close enough to Rose Red to pull it off, I think), and I used a rub-on on the ribbon itself. It worked great! My 2-way glue pen threw up on the card, so I have Dazzling Diamonds glitter in more places than planned. (It was a case of operator error... I don't blame the glue pen.) Hey, ain't it neat how the scalloped rub-on fits perfectly into the SU! scallop punch? I startled the cat when I noticed this, I was so excited (*grin*).






I want to keep working on my rub-on/Cutie Pie cards, but I have to tackle the mess on my bed first. I had my home health aide pile everything that was in my "hell hole" on the floor onto the bed so that I would be forced to deal with it before I hit the sack tonight. At the moment I'm regretting that brainiac idea, but I'm sure it'll be nice to have things put away when I get up in the morning (assuming I don't just dump everything on the floor at bedtime!) Wish me luck!

Always with Brilliant Blue

I spent most of today playing with embossing powders and using my current favorite SU! set, Always. I had a sampling of double sided papers from the Azure designer series sitting on my desk, which motivated me to work mostly with its coordinating colors, Brilliant Blue and Very Vanilla.



These first two pictures show very similar cards -- the only difference being that the top one has a layer of Bashful Blue to frame the images while the second one instead has a layer of Brushed Gold. The Rumi quote stamp showed up in my mailbox this week courtesy of my dear friends in North Carolina (Hi Fonda! Hi Katie!), so I figured I should start getting some use out of it while they're letting me borrow it. The embossing powder I used for these is called "Gold Fire Opal" and has specks of multicolored sparkles in a gold base. It's absolutely stunning when you see it in person.









This next card is the one I struggled the most with today. I'm not completely thrilled with how it turned out, but it's a lot better than what I was initially going to settle for. The embossing powder is an off-white pearl, except for the saying for which I used detail white powder. After embossing the pearl branch thingey onto white cardstock, I decided to add a little contrast by sponging some Brilliant Blue ink along the edges to make it stand out a bit.






I found some gold floss which coordinates beautifully with the Gold Fire Opal embossing powder, so I put it to good use on this next card. The print paper is from the Azure set by Stampin' Up! The whole thing seemed rather plain, so I added a little interest by VersaMarking a flower circle on the card base for a little interest.






This next card was actually my first one I made today. (I'm posting them in random order.) I used "Crystal Frost" embossing powder which has a grainy white base with tiny multicolored sparkles mixed in. The three blue jeweled brads really add to the design, I think.






Here's some more embossing with Gold Fire Opal. I snagged a stamp from the SU! Sweet Serendipity set for the saying on this one.






Can you tell I really like the stamp with the Rumi quote? Here it is again! The images are layered on Bashful Blue here, and the embossing powder is once again Gold Fire Opal.

Garden Windows

Here are some of the cards I made with the images I colored yesterday. Stamp set is "Garden Windows" by Hero Arts. Oh, and the "Thank You" and "Smile" are from Stampin' Up! sets.






A closer view...

Working with Gamsol

About six months ago (or maybe a year, who knows?) I got me some Gamsol (oderless mineral spirits) and had every intention of experimenting with colored pencil blending. Alas, life happened, and the Gamsol got lost in the shuffle for awhile. It resurfaced today, and it occurred to me to try it out with the Garden Windows Hero Arts set I got last week. I looked high and low for my SU! pure color pencils and couldn't find them, and my PrismaColor pencils are on a shelf too high for me to reach without help... so I pulled out my cheapie Crayola colored pencils to see if they'd work. They did!



I tend to not use colored pencils much because even when I color in a circular motion I can still see the pencil strokes, which I find discouraging. Gamsol solves that problem! I tried my best to get some pictures so you could see the difference with and without using Gamsol. The images on the left are the Gamsol'd set. The contrast is even more striking in real life.





Now to make some cards out of these...

Hero Arts Card Exchange for February

Shirley D. and Barb A., don't look if you want to be surprised!!



And now, to the rest of you...



My adopted mom kidnapped me on Friday, fed me brunch, and then forced me to go to Archiver's (my favorite store in the whole wide world!), where she bought this new set of Hero Arts stamps for me (LL070 Garden Windows), along with some bling. I feel so spoiled!






Since my Hero Arts Card Exchange cards are due to be put into the mail no later than February 20th, I had a perfect excuse to crack this set open and get to work. I chose to heat emboss with black ink and then paint the images using Twinkling H2Os.






Then I assembled the cards using Stampin' Up! cardstock (since it matched the watercolors so perfectly), and then added some of my new bling to the centers of the three flowers. Ta-da!

Faux Silk Technique Swap

One of the folks in the KraftingKarensStampCamps Yahoo Group requested for Wish Wednesday yesterday that more people join the Faux Silk Technique Swap which she is hostessing -- and in a moment of madness I told her to count me in!



Actually, I'm glad I did it. The technique is super easy and fun, and I really like the results. Basically, it goes like this: (1) stamp on tissue paper, (2) smoosh and wrinkle tissue paper, (3) unsmoosh the wad of tissue paper, (4) glue tissue paper onto neutral cardstock using a glue stick. Let dry and trim to size. Voila! You got something that looks kinda like silk.



I broke into my brand new Stampin' Up! set, "Always," which I'm sure you will be seeing a lot of since I love love love it. Colors are Purely Pomegranite, Blue Bayou, Soft Sky, Groovy Guava, and Wild Wasabi. The "always on my mind - forever in my heart" is stamped in black either directly on the card base or on a scrap of Blue Bayou, depending on how straight my first stamping attempt was (*grin*).



The "ALWAYS" flower is four layers: Two scallop punches, a 1-1/4" circle punch, and a 1-3/8" circle punch. The little holes in the Guava scallop were done with a teeny tiny hand punch. It's attached to the card with a Stampin' Dimensional. Fun, eh?



Here's a pic of the tissue paper before I smooshed it:





... and the set of 10 cards needed for the swap:





and finally, a closer view of a single card:

Another Round of Bali Breeze

I've been playing some more over the last few days with the SU! Bali Breeze double-sided papers, and here's what I came up with...



I pulled out my tag punches and the flower punch from the Three For You Punch Box kit for this first card. I really like the teal and red rose color combination.






The woman/butterfly stamp is from Ducks in a Row. I pulled out my heat gun and embossing powder for this card and some of the others. I'd forgotten how embossing makes a simple card look elegant. In case you can't read the quote, it says "To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of the arts. - Henry David Thoreau" I know it's a Stampin' Up! stamp because of the index label, but I wish I knew what set it came from. Anyone out there know??






I couldn't decide which side of the paper I wanted to use for the next card, so I just chopped it in half and split the difference. I also tried a technique I had read about in a Yahoo! group: Rather than actually get up from my desk and get my rose red craft pad (heaven forbid!), I just inked the stamp with Versamark and then inked it again in the rose red dye ink pad. It embossed gorgeously!!






I used my blender pen to color in the flowers on this next embossed image.






I wasn't so sure about this next card because of the colors, but it's grown on me this morning. Pumpkin Pie, Old Olive, and Rose Red is an unlikely color combination, but it seems to work. As a happy accident, I grabbed my Dragonfly Black Colorbox pad to emboss rather than my Lava Black -- and it turns out the greenish black looks great with the Old Olive.






I pulled out punches and pretties to make this next card. I colored the white flowers with markers, and a green jewel brad holds them together.






Don't tell anyone, but these next two cards are made from scraps. I like the first one best.






Of this batch of cards, this one is the one I'm least sure about. But, I can honestly say I've made uglier cards, so I've decided it's not so bad.