A new background idea & my stamp show splurge!

Howdy folks! Today I want to share my most extravagant purchase from the stamp show.  I have wanted a Mega Mount from Impression Obsession ever since I got a couple of stamps too large for my rock-a-blocks but I wanted to see one in action before I plunked down my cold hard cash for one. When I saw the Mega Mount demonstrated my brain went wild with all of the possibilities for creating backgrounds! I got the deal they had at the show for the mount and 3 large background stamps and realized I could also combine them with the stamps I already had. The lady showed us how to layer backgrounds to creat unusual designs, I did that for the background on this card:

 

You don’t have to have a Mega Mount to layer backgrounds, you can use your regular background stamps. I have to say that before I practicly had to stand on some of my stamps to get a good impression or place my stamp rubber side up and put my paper on top and rub it to get a good image but no more! It was the best craft $$ I ever spent! Check out the technique in my video:

The farm stamps came from Local King Rubber stamps, I learned the technique for coloring them at their booth. You can see the tutorial for that in yesterday’s post.

 

Before I got the Mega Mount I was using a large heavy candle jar to stamp, you can see the video tip here. I know you might think that a $25 stamp mount is not frugal…you are probably right but I have used it so much already and I do not regret it. After all if you use it than it is mony well spent. If you buy it on sale and never take it out of the package it is not a good deal at all.  BTW, I agonized over this purchase and made sure that the last 15 minutes a the show would be at the Impression Obsession booth so I could make my decision to buy or not.

 

For me, this was my most exciting purchase, I cannot wait to see what other background combinations I can make with it! Thanks for stopping by and til next time happy crafting!

Grab your watercolor markers!

Hi there! I had some fun yesterday playing with some of the goodies I bought at the stamp convention over the weekend. I learned a new watercolor marker technique, have a look:

 

Wanna, see how I did it? Here is a short (really! under 5 minutes, can you believe it?!?) video to show you how:

The only thing to remember is that you need a stamp that is mostly solid. I used a paper cut bird stamp from About Art Accents. Any silhouette type stamp will work. First I colored the stamp with water based brush markers and then tapped and scribbled darker shades on top nad lastly (this is the part that blew my mind) was that you randomly tap all over the rubber with black! I hardly ever pick up a black marker but I love the look! Also I never tried it on glossy paper, it is pretty on both but see how much brighter it is on glossy:

 

The type of card I made is called a twisted easel. It can be folded flat to mail like this:

 

The inside of the card looks like this. It is a regular card (you can make them ANY size, this is 5″x7″) but you score and fold the front panel from corner to corner. You can see this better in the above video. It was a challenge at OSA this week and it was the first time I tried that too!

 

Here is a side view, it is hard to get a decent pic of a card like this tho 🙂

 

While I was in Springfield the girlfriends and I went to Micheals (we don’t have one around here!) and I grabbed a $6 bag of floral small clear disks-yes I used a coupon LOL! I stuck them to my card and colored them with a permanent marker and viola-instant sparkles!

 

One last thing, the background. I saw an awesome demo from Impression Obsession and they were layering background stamps, that is what I did, I used no pattern paper! How cool is that! I’ll share how to do that later this week as well:)

 

Now I have the boring task of groceries BUT I think I can squeeze in some more stamping before the kids get home! Til next time happy crafting!

I’m Back!!!

howdy folks! I got back from the Heirloom stamp show last night and oh my goodness, what a blast! Look who I met:

 

Can you freaking belive it? It’s THE Judi from Judikins! She was the sweetest, nicest person and she did non-stop demos all day. I could have stayed at her booth all day but I was afraid she would think i was stalking her LOL 😀 Also I had that stupid grin plastered over my face all day..I probably looked like a crazy person…or first time stamp show attendee 🙂

I watched many demos and learned some new techniques. A bunch of us went together and stayed in a hotel so it was like one great big rubber stamping slumber party! I can’t wait til next year (and after seeing all of the goodies I would have liked to buy I should save up untill next year too!) Don’t worry, my wallet is a bit lighter after the show but I did not go overboard (which would have been so easy to do!) I marked off my favorite vendors on the paper they gave me when I cam e in and if I made a purchase I wrote it in the margin so I could keep a running tally throughout the show so I did not end up going over my budget and I am really happy with the few things I bought and you can bet I will be sharing my purchases with you this week!

I have to give props to my hubby who had the kids on his own while I was gone, he did a great job, the kids had a ball and the house was clean when I came home! And he didn’t even ask me how much I spent at the show! Am I a lucky lady or what? Thanks for stopping by and til next time happy crafting!

A Quick Tip: Ink Pad Labels!

Howdy folks! I am as the stamping convention currently but before I left I wrote this post so I hope you enjoy it!

First off, here are some tags, nothing but ink and cardstock. I like to send a tag/bookmark inside a card with my note written on it so the card can be reused by the recipient!

 

As I was making the tags I realized I was spending too much time trying to identify what the colors of some of my ink pads were so I used return address labels (they are smaller than regular address labels, you get 60 on a 8.5″x11″ sheet) and smeared them with ink and stuck them on the edge of the pad so I could see the colors when they were all neatly stacked or in my fancy repurposed cassette holder-turned ink pad holder:

You may notice the new Distress inkpads I have, they were on sale for $2.25 this week and so I grabbed a few, no worries, it came out of my stamp show budget…I’m very happy with them I have to say!

 You could easily write the ink color on the labels too but I don’t care what the name is, I just waht the right color! 🙂

Now I will use the colors sitting on the shelf because I can see at a glance what they are! Thanks for stopping by and till next time (when I share the fun I had at the stamp show!) Happy crafting!

A Tee-rific Father’s Day Card!

OK, I know I did not invent the Tee-rific dad pun but I thought it would be a fun idea to do with the kids at the library this month especially after buying a bag of 200 golf tees at Mardens for $3, talk about your cheap embellishments!

 

When I saw the golf tees I remembered that I had a golfing dog stamp form a Viva Las VegaStamps grab bag I bought last year and the card came together easily! The pattern paper was a freebie from Cardmaking and Papercraft magazine, you can download it free from their website, it prints great!

 

How to:

1. cover a 5″x7″ card with pattern paper.
2. Stamp and color golfer and adhere to card.
3. Cut a scallop strip of paper and adhere where shown.
4. Stamp and adhere sentiment with foam tape (I used tiny letter stamps to make my words, you could also use your computer/printer)
5. Punch a 1.25″ circle from white and emboss with dots folder, smudge with ink and adhere.
6. Adhere golf tee as shown.

Easy Peasy! Thanks for stopping by and til next time happy crafting!