Showing posts with label Technique Tuesday. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Technique Tuesday. Show all posts

Saturday, October 25, 2008

The evolution of a card, aka my random method of creating

This evening (while Sheldon was marking quizzes and we were listening to Car Talk and WWDTM podcasts :D) I was able to make a card for today's SCS Inspiration Challenge. I always love seeing the inspiration pieces for this challenge, and try to participate regularly as time and mojo permits.

I wanted to make my card on a white card base because I love the look of the white solid furniture against the yellow walls in the third inspiration picture. I was flipping through my little box of card bases and found these embossed, square card bases I'd gotten in a grab box from The Angel Company a couple of years ago. Originally I wanted to make a yellow and white card, but upon closer inspection of my yellow-coloured inks and papers, I decided to change my plans and go with the bright pinks in the second photo. The butterfly is of course from the Unity kit Friendship, Love, Miracles, and the use of that image was the only thing I was certain about in this whole design. After colouring in the embossed square frame with my Gelly Roll glaze pen, I decided to trace the pen around the butterfly as well to give it more visual weight. My little card was still a little plain, so I stamped a pattern around the edges the easiest way I could, using wee little flower centre stamps from Technique Tuesday's small Loves Me, Loves Me not stamp set.

After stamping all those little dots, I was ready to call it a card, and Sheldon thought it was pretty cute at that point. BUT, I was not completely happy with it, so I sat back down and grabbed a bottle of Stickles. The most obvious choice would have been my go-to colour, Frosted Lace. I decided to fling caution to the wind and, remembering that pretty yellow bedding set, opted instead for Lemon Ice Stickles. I had NO plan on what I would do with the Stickles; I just started off filling the centres of the largest dots, took a look and decided it needed a little more so filled in the centres of the small hollow dots, took a look and felt I was almost there, and finished up by putting a drop of Stickles in the small solid dots too. After all that dotting, I was in full-on Stickles mode! I was like, "Ok, what else can I Stickle here? Well, there's the empty squares in the frame, and there's the butterfly's wings. Nah, those aren't dotty enough. How about doing the dots in the butterfly's wings? Perfect!" So there it was -- done and done! In retrospect I like my crazy and impulsive little card!

I did spend most of today crafting, but I am waiting for my other project to dry and hopefully will have it up for tomorrow! I am so chuffed about it -- I started working on it a few months ago, hit a stone wall, then had an AHA! moment today looking at an inspiration challenge from a couple of weeks ago and now I'm almost done!

And now for something completely different..... I think it's pretty apparent that I LOVE Unity Stamps. I am so happy to have found them and their awesome products, because they are one of the big things that revitalised my enthusiasm for papercrafting and stamping. Well, not only do I love Unity, but so does my cat Fozzie!! He is soooo appreciative of how they understand his little kitty soul and send him the most perfect gifts! In the pic he is lying on some of the paper my first kit of the month was padded with. He has literally loved that paper to pieces! For a few days, he had also gotten a hold of the padded envelope that my second kit of the month came in, and was using it as a pillow while lying on his paper "bed"! No word of a lie!

Friday, October 24, 2008

Sending Joy

First off, I've gotta say I have the coolest friends ever! I posted my excitement about being featured on the Unity blog on Facebook, and my friend Matt C (not a stamper or cardmaker by trade) made sure he got to see this card of mine and said it was awesome! Kudos to Matt and all supportive and encouraging friends of stamp addic- er, stampers!

Onto stamping! I was so excited to get to sit down and make a card using my awesome Fabriano Aquarello watercolour paper! I was never very comfortable making one-layer cards without using a card base that was either substantial or fabulous, or in the case of Aquarello, both! Sharon Johnson posted a flat card challenge on her blog yesterday, and I wanted to try it out the other night! When I started this card, all I knew was that I wanted to use at least one stamp from the October KOM from Unity, and whatever happened after that was gravy. :) The pink swirly stamp is stamped along both the front and back, and I also punched the border along the front and back edges.

Stamps: swirly from Unity's Thinking About the Good Times kit, angel from Unity's Friendship, Love, Miracles kit, green dots and yellow sparkle from Technique Tuesday small Loves Me, Loves Me Not set, both sets of letters from Studio G (by Hampton Arts) mini alpha sets.

Ink: yellow pigment ink by Inkadinkado, green chalk ink by Clearsnap, Coffee Bean by Brilliance, Tattered Rose Distress Ink by Ranger, Starry Night by Palette.

Paper: Fabriano Aquarello watercolour paper.

Other: Prismacolor pencil crayons, Threading Water border punch by Fiskars.


Other news from today.... I had two (!!) doctors' appointments today and only spent four hours at work. It was a quiet day at work anyways, so it was not a problem I don't think. Both doctors' offices are down by the Michaels, so of course I had to go in between appts during my lunch hour to see if they'd gotten in the new Martha Stewart stuff, and they had!!!! The sheep punch and one of the new stamp sets were already sold out! I had a tough time deciding between the cupcake, owl, and elephant punches, but had to get that cute owl. :) I wasn't quite sure how the "double punch" worked, but I found out as soon as I got to the parking lot! It cuts the outline out, and embosses the owl's eyes and tummy. I don't know how I'm going to use this thing, but I'll sure as heck have fun finding out!

With supper, Sheldon and I (and Fozzie too! He liked the fighting and desert scenes) watched the second movie in the 1972 "Lone Wolf and Cub" series. I remember watching samurai and ninja movies with my folks when I was young (back when glaciers covered North America :D) and it is very enjoyable to watch the genre again. The good ones are like Clint Eastwood westerns, except Japanese.