It’s Finally Here!

Last summer I designed a stamp set for Pink Persimmon and it is finally available to buy! Being mainly a digital designer I get the instant gratification of designing a set one day and listing it that evening but designing physical product is a whole new ball of wax but oh, it sure is sweet pressing that stamp to paper! Here are some ideas using my new Cupcake Party Stamps I designed for Pink Persimmon:

For the full instruction on making this party set please see the March 2012 issue of Scrap & Stamp Arts!

I was also able to use the new Cupcake party stamps along with other fabulous stamps from Pink Persimmon to design a party set for Scrap & Stamp Arts Magazine. It is the Stamp-A-Party article in the March 2012 issue on newsstands now, check it out!

It was really fun to design a set I know would be stamped, rather than printed. You can see the stamps below, you simply stamp a cupcake wrapper section four times next to each other and you get a perfectly sized wrapper! You can use whatever color you like and mix and match the patterns if you want. You can also use the wrapper for stamp kissing since you get a sizable swatch of pattern on each stamp. It is such a fun set!

Thanks for stopping by and sharing my excitement! Til next time happy crafting!

WOYWW {a messy start}

So this morning my daughters asked if they could help me in the studio. “Yes!” I said as it just so happened I needed some guinea pigs to try out the project I was planning to do with the brownies this week, here is what my desk looked like when we left it (halfway through the project}…

 

I had a whole sleeve or Formica samples that were discontinued from a lumbar yard and decided it was time to put them to use again. You can see what I did with another batch of Formica samples here.  We are making swaps for Girl Scouts Thinking Day and our country is Egypt so I designed stone looking pendants that we are going to stencil hieroglyphics on so they look like ancient Egyptian art. Then they will be put on earthy ribbon with a few shiny beads and we will have the coolest swaps around;) I like to gauge how a craft will go by having my kids do it first…I’m definatly going to make sure I tell the moms to have their kids wear old clothes because the paint was everywhere!

That is as far as we got because we needed to go roller skating, you know how that is right?

Thanks for stopping by and til next time happy crafting! Oh, PS to all the other WOYWWers out there, when I comment on your desks I’ll be using my google account incase you are wondering who that “Lindsay” chick is commenting on your blog

Limited Supply Layouts

Last Friday I showed you a video of how I pack for a crop.  By limiting my supplies I have less to pick from therefore I can scrap quicker. Limiting your choices should not limit your creativity tho. Here is a layout I made with two sheets of the same pattern paper, one sheet for the background and the other sheet I used as embellishments. I admit these layouts are a bit plain but they tell the story and are in my album and that is good enough for me

 

I did not have time to properly pull papers to go with my photos due to a kid home sick with a stomach bug so before I headed out to the crop I grabbed my newest paper stack: The Fresh Floral Stack from DCWV and my binder of scrabooking stamps. You can see my video on stamp organization here. I was fun to build a layout with paper and stamps. for an extra touch I used a fine tipped Bic Marker and a ruler to draw a frame around my photo cluster. Remeber how populat the Making Memories foam stamps were a few years ago? I used the foam stamps for my title “divas”, they hold ink as well as rubber and give a grat impression. Go ahead, dig out those moldy-oldies!

On this two page layout I also used paper from the floral stack, did a bit of stamping and kept it simple. Also I dies my ribbon with the pink inkpad I stamped the journal block with. I almost didn’t scrap these photos then I asked myself “Would my kids want to look at these photos?” and the answer was “Yes!” so into the scrapbook they go. Face it, my kids do not care what paper, embellishments of techniques I use, they just want to see the pictures of fun times. That is why I urge people to print out your photos. You don’t need to spend 4 hours on a page or scrapbook them at all, put them in a simply album so your kids can see them. Just write the names and dates on the back of the photos (like mom used to do) ans put them in a photo album and rest assured that no one is thinking the less of you for it

 

That’s all for today! Don’t forget the $1 retirement sale is going on through tomorrow at MyGrafico. I know the site was down for a bit yesterday due to high traffic but it is OK now. Til next time happy crafting!

A St. Patty’s Day Free Craft & $1 Retirement Sale!

Happy President’s Day! I know many people are off work today and many kids are on school vacation so it is the perfect day to share the craft I plan to teach next month at my free craft class at the local library. This craft is fun! Feel free to teach it to your childs classroom, scouts or home school group, that is why I am sharing it Although if you know me in real life you can just bring your kids to my free class

 

The most fun thing about this project is the Magic Rainbow Paintbrush and you can make it your self. Just take a 1″ foam paintbrush (they are on sale for 5 cents each at ACmoore this week!) and squeeze yellow paint on the cent and red and blue at the sides as shown. This needs to be tube watercolor, gouache, or tempera paint, I tried liquid watercolor and it was a mess, the colors blended together too much. Now spritz the brush with water. Then you want to work the paint into the brush by painting the brush back and forth on a palette, don’t flip the brush, keep the color lined up. Now you should be able to make a lot of rainbows, just give the brush a spritz of water when it dries out. You can let the paint dry up in the brush and spritz it with water when you are ready to use it again! You can make these in other colors too, oh the possibilities!

 

You can download the instructions and template for free here. They are in PDF format so no need to worry about sizing.

Since you are going to my shop anyway please check out my retiring products on sale for $1! The sale ends on Wednesday the 22nd so Don’t Wait!

Phew, that’s a lot of $1 steals! Don’t wait tho, they are only availble at MyGrafico until Wednesday during the Semi Annual Retirement sale! Thanks for stopping b nd til next time happy crafting!

Simple Sunday Stamping!

Happy Sunday Folks! I had this stamped sock monkey left over from last weekends watercolor pencil tutorial and thought I should make a quick card with it.

We have given the watercolor pencils quite a workout this weekend at my house. I brought up my “kids” binder of stamps, a black waterproof inkpad and my Inktense pencils and the kids and I have been sitting in front of the fire and coloring all weekend!  Not a bad way to spend the day, eh?

Thanks for stopping by and til next time happy crafting!

Faux Dichro…well, an attempt at it anyway;D

A few years ago before I got a bead kiln I wanted to capture the look of dichroic glass with polymer clay…I did not quite get it but I liked the result. It is a quick and easy technique that you can play with this weekend!

You will need polymer clay and metal leaf. Metal leaf comes in books of 25 (or more) and can be made from aluminum, silver, copper, gold, nickel and other metals. It is usually used for illuminating books (fancy old Bibles) or gilding frames. You can get books of copper, aluminum and fake gold for about $5/25 5″x5″ sheets. Gold and copper tones look nice with warm rich colors an silvers look nice with cool colors. For instance I used a cool red with silver (er, aluminum) leaf. Every color can have a warm or a cool undertone, yellow is a warm color but lemon yellow has cool (green) undertones while marigold yellow had warm (orange) undertones.

Here’s how to make your foiled beads:

1. Condition your clay and roll it out into a 1/4″ slab.
2. Lay a sheet of metal leaf on top then roll over it again until the leaf starts to crackle.
3. Cut into squares, rectangles or long tapered triangles that you can roll up int “croissant” shaped beads. You can also put the small squares of foiled clay in a bead roller for cool round, oval and bicone beads!
4. Poke bead holes with a needle.
5. Bake according to clay package directions.
6. Glaze! I pressed my beads on an embossing ink pad, dipped them in UTEE and heated hem with my heat gun for a thick glazed look. You can also paint them with nail polish *Edit: see Silverleaf’s comment on the use of nail polish on polymer clay in the comments section. Thanks Silverleaf for the heads up! or use the tried and true FFW (Future Floor Wax, it is in the cleaning supply aisle and it is under the brand name Pledge, this stuff is like acrylic varnish and very durable!)

One more thing I want to mention. I also tried coating the beads with Translucent Liquid Sculpey (TLS-a product that completely mystified me as I have never found it useful except to help condition old clay and it is constantly leaking and making a mess of my clay drawer…anyway…) thinking I could get a thick semi transparent coating and it did not work for me. I think if I had baked the beads once then added the TLS and rebaked it might have. I’m no clay expert, obviously

Go ahead and play with clay this weekend, you might just discover a new technique when you are trying to do something else. Enjoy the process and til next time happy crafting!

Let’s Go To The CROP!

Howdy folks, Just a quick post today as I am getting ready to go scrapbooking today. After seeing many ladies bring everything but the kitchen sink to a crop and not get much done I decided to film a video showing you what to pack for a crop, or at least what I pack and trust me it is still more than you really need. The less you bring the more you will get done! Have a look-see:

 

So here is a list of basic supplies:

Cutting tools: 12″ paper-trimmer, strait scissors, x-acto knife & mat. I don’t worry about punches and circle cutters, if i need it someone else will have one or I can trace something;)

Adhesive: Doublestick tape/tape runner, fine tip glue, glue dots or foam squares. Also I love the Helmar 450 glue if you glue a lot of buttons and ribbons, it is like a cold hot glue

Color mediums: Fine tip pens for journaling, markers, mini ink pads for stamping and distressing (make sure they have a raised surface so you can ink any stamp), colored pencils, chalk *you don’t need all of this but at least have one!

All of the above should go in one bag/tote that is easy to lift. This bag will stay as is, you will only need to add adhesive from time to time.

In another bag keep a rainbow assortment of cardstock and the photos/paper/embellishments/stamps for each project you will work on during the crop and unpack it after each crop and put back what you did not use and put your finished pages (you will have more finished pages with this system!) in albums!

Easy huh? Pack light and have fun at the crop! Happy crafting!

The Night Circus & WOYWW!

I am in love with the book The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern! I finished it Tuesday night and started reading it again…it was that good! I highly recommend it, I don’t even know what genre it is, it is very dreamy and transcendent with a truly original plot and I don’t want to tell you about it because I don’t want to spoil anything. I even ordered the audio book so I could listen to it read to me! Anyway, it has inspired me in my work this week. I designed a printable party kit called Midnight Dinner Party and I used one of the printable sheets to make this card:

I was inspired by the character “Kiko”, the Asian contortionist when I created this card. The Geisha Stamp I used is by Art Neko, the sentiment is from MSE!, all other stamps are from Glitz Designs. I used my Inktense watercolor pencils to color the kimono, notice how much more vivid the colors are with this brand of pencils compared to the traditional colored pencils I used on my teacher valentines and my sock monkey card from earlier this week. Both the Inktense and the regular colored pencils are by the Derwent company but they are quite different.

Here is my desk mid-card (a day late) for What’s On Your Work-desk Wednesday:

So, this book influenced me so much while I was working this week. I was compelled to design a black and white party set called Midnight Dinner Party. All the elements in my kit are black and white so it is cheap to print and if you do not like black and white you can print it out on colored cardstock. I would be pretty on cream for a wedding, or hot pink for a sweet 16 or with accents of red for a “Night Circus Midnight Dinner” like I did here. Please note that no text or wording comes in this kit (but couldn’t help the mock-up with the characters names!)  you can customize that easily yourself and use this kit time and time again!

If you find yourself inspired enough by The Night Circus to create something leave a link to it, I’d love to see it! Thanks for stopping by and til next time happy crafting!

Last-Minute Valentines & a FREEBIE!

 Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, don’t panic! Here are a few last minute cards & favors you can whip up tonight. Here is a teacher’s valentine using the library pocket from the Valentines Galore SVG set:

 

I love the sweet pockets, you could use them for anything. I think they would be sweet holding a journaling tag on a scrapbook layout.

 

My girls have a Brownie meeting tomorrow so I thought they could make these quick cute lollipop cards tonight:

I got this stamp set for $5 when ACmoore was clearencing their stamp department, when I saw them I thought “valentines!” There is no coloring, you just stamp the outline then stamp the layers in differnt colors, cool! You can use any wild animal stamp you have on these cards tho.

 

You can stamp any wild animal on the card. You get 6 cards from one sheet of cardstock. Click on the picture below to download.

 

To download: Click on the picture, it will open a larger picture of this printable, then right click on the big pic and choose "save as"

My son is making the iPod valentines from the Valentines Galore kit, I have prepared all of the supplies he will need to make them in the photo below. This is a very easy project that uses few supplies; to make 24 valentines you only need 3 sheets of cardstock and string. You can cut 8 of the mp3 die cuts from the kit on each 8.5”x11” paper then mix and match the colors when you glue them on. Fast & frugal! The boxes of conversation hearts are 4/$1 at the supermarket or dollar store.

Here is a look at the Valentines Galore SVG and Printable template set, if you need to make some quick valentines tonight it will o the trick!

 

Thanks so much for stopping by today. I have 3 dozen cupcakes to bake (and 3 expert cupcake decorators to help!) so I better get going on that! I hope you enjoy the freebie and til next time happy crafting!

 

Watercolor {pencils} made easy!

How do I love watercolor pencils? Let me count the ways:

1. They are inexpensive (esp. compared to Copics!)
2. They last FOREVER!
3. I can let me kids use them and not worry about them getting damaged.
4. They blend with ease.
5. I can control them in my tiny stamped images much better than traditional watercolors.
6. No mess!
7. And they look great even on cheap cardstock LOL!

Here is a quick card I made for my son to take to an ice fishing birthday party yesterday:

 

I love sock monkeys and that particular stamp is from Oriental Trading Co.(I loved it so much I paid full price for it!) One thing I want to mention about the $15 stamp sets from OTC is that they are huge! You get a 8.5″x11″ sheet full of stamps and they come on a 3 ring hole punched sheet that I can put directly in my binders and they have good sales too, many of the huge sets I have purchased from them have been between $3-$7 and if there is a problem with anything (like a stamp missing-it happened once) they send out a replacement ASAP. And I am not being compensated to say that;)

OK now on with the show…

Today I want to show you how to color and blend with watercolor pencils. I am using inexpensive Georgia Pacific cardstock, Derwent colored pencils, Stampin Up Basic Black ink and a Stampin Up blending pen. Use what you have. Any watercolor pencils, smooth cardstock and archival ink will work. I’ve tried many blending pens and I find SU to be the best as the nib does not wear down. If you don’t have one you can use a round nylon paintbrush. Dip it in water then blot it on a towel before blending.

 

Tips!

• Most watercolor pencils are good, in fact, Staples office supply sells a set of 24 in the drafting section that are very nice and since you can blend you do not need that many colors. I had the ones from Staples before I received the set of 72 Derwents (pictured) and then I gave the staples set to my niece.
• You will get darker colors on a rougher paper because the tooth of the paper will grab more pigment, it will also wear down your pencils quicker. But don’t let that worry you because they last for YEARS! I’d use the blender pens only on smooth cardstock because the rougher watercolor paper will fray the tip of the blender pen. Try a nylon (the gold or white bristle ones) paintbrush for watercolor paper work. You need a firmer brush for watercolor pencils than traditioal watercolors.
• Don’t overwork the cardstock, blend it once and leave it, if you keep going back you might “pill” the paper. You will get the feel of how much pencil to add before blending after a few tries. Practice!
• If you like the ease of watercolor pencils but want more intense color I recommend the Inktence line of pencils by Derwent. They are super vivid and you can layer colors over each other without lifting up the first color. I use them more often than my traditional watercolor pencils because I like the bright.

 

So, what do you think? Are you ready to dig out your watercolor pencils yet? I hope so! If you have any questions leave a comment and I will answer. It is going to be a very cold windy day in Maine today so I think I will hunker down with a cup of tea and my watercolor pencils, how about you? Thanks for stopping by and til next time happy crafting!