Stampendous Jumbo Pine

I have a fun card/project to share with you today!

I haven't had a lot of time to play with my new Rolodex V546 as I'd like but I do have a new project to show you.

I used the Stampendous Jumbo Pine cling stamp to make a card for my Rolodex art file.  I colored the pine tree with Copic markers and put the "recipe" on the back of the card.  I did forget to take a picture of it so here's the list:

G29, G28, G24, G82, G20, R59, R46, R32

Here's a picture of my progress so far...

Thanks for visiting my blog today -

Challenges:
One Stop Craft Challenge - No Designer Papers
Crafting When We Can - Christmas
Bearly Mine - Anything But A Card
Crafty Sentiments - No Designer Papers

Copic Colorless Blender Techniques

I took some time today to play with a new (to me) technique I've wanted to try.  I watched a video recently on how to do a bleaching technique with Copic Blending Solution, stamps, markers, air brush, etc.

The card above is my finished product, the Spellbinders Labels 14 is where I used this technique.  Instead of pulling out my air brush I used BG13 & BG15 markers.  I was in a hurry, I needed to clean up and fix dinner for my family.  It's a little streaked but I like the overall effect.

Here's a picture of the right way to do the technique.  Air brush with your markers BG13, BG18, BG72 onto a sheet of card stock.  Spritz your stamp with Copic Colorless Blender and stamp on the air brushed card stock.  I held my stamp down longer than I would have if I were using ink.  Be sure to clean off your stamp after each time you use it for a clean impression.  

One of the reasons I brought out my air brush system today is I was working on finishing my card and couldn't find a matching button to go on the tag I'd made.  Do you ever have that happen?  I used a small piece of foam tape to hold my button down to the paper I air brush on and sprayed it with several coats of BG13 and let it dry.  This works so much nicer than using a marker to color the button and dries much quicker too.  Another thing I tried today was using the BG13 marker to outline the edge of the Spellbinders tag, I went over it several times to make it darker.  I like the way it looks and think I'll try to remember to do this more often.

The stamps I used are actually rubber and acrylic stamps.  The dragon fly is by Stampendous, the flourish is by Kaiser Craft & the sentiment is from Papertrey Ink.  The dragon fly is colored with Copic markers BG13, BG15, BG18, BG23, V15, V17, T5, T3.  My layout was to accommodate the largest Spellbinders Labels 14 die, I also used a Spellbinders Oval and tag die.  The white panel is embossed with a Cuttlebug Swiss Dots embossing folder and I added straight lines in the center with my Scor-Pal.  

I hope you enjoyed my mini tutorial and are maybe inspired to try this Copic technique yourself.

We also have a new challenge starting today at Operation Write Home Stars & Stamps, our theme is "Try A New Technique".  There are lots of great tutorials on the OWH Stars & Stamps blog for your inspiration too.  I hope you'll join in and play along in our challenge there.

One last thing today-  I want to THANK YOU for visiting my blog.  Monday, May 23rd was the 4th Anniversary of starting my blog.  I did some homework Tuesday and found that I've had 34,026 visitors in the last 12 months and about 11,000 each year before that.  Which means my blog has really taken off in the last year, wow!  So... thanks for visiting and leaving encouraging comments, it means a lot to me.

Challenges:

Operation Write Home Stars & Stamps - Try A New Technique

Mad For Markers - Coloring Embellishments
The Outlawz - Copic Colorless Blender Technique
Tellen's Place - Anything Goes
The Cheerful Stamp Pad - Color My World
Make It Monday's - Anything Goes
The Spotlight Challenge - Try Something New
A Spoon Full Of Sugar - Things With Wings
Crazy Amigo Challenge - Insects

If The Shoe Fits...

Did you ever wonder if you could overdose on pink?  Yes you can...

I had several reasons for making this card, the more I see it the more I like it but I'd like to try adding a different shade of pink card stock to it when I make it again.   My friend Julie would like to learn how to do heat embossing and asked if I could teach her, my friend Priscilla owns this stamp set and wanted to see what I could come up with for a card using it and my friend Gina loves shoes, purses and pink! 

The stamps, (yes I said stamps, real red rubber wood mounted stamps!) are made by Stampendous and the verse is by My Sentiments Exactly.  I used Versamark ink with the stamps on the Papertrey Ink Raspberry Fizz card stock and added fine black embossing power and heated it until it melted, cut out the shoes and purse with a Spellbinders rectangle die and matted it with the rectangle scalloped die.  I used the Spellbinders Fancy Tags die as a matte for the verse and punched the "if the shoe fits..." with a Stampin' Up! Word Window punch and added it to the fancy tag.  I also used my two favorite Cuttlebug embossing folders Swiss Dots and Swirls because I saw dots and swirls in the focal images.

I hope my stamping friends like what I came up with!

Challenges:
The Crafty Pad - Something For A Friend

Flower Box Set by Stampendous

I really like Brilliance Pearlescent inks. I recently tried watercoloring with them and they are neat! You get a shimmery effect.

I have 3 cards I made using the same image from the Flower Box set by Stampendous. I had 3 small scraps of watercolor paper and wondered how a couple of the different Brilliance Pearlescent inks would blend and if I could shade with them too.

I started with Brilliance Pearlescent Orchid on the petal closest to us then used purple to fill in the petal that's behind it. I went back over the first petal with the purple and tried to make the outside area a little darker and blend it in with the Orchid. It worked pretty well and is much easier to see in person.

On the flower stamens I used yellow and then orange around the edges.

I matted all three flowers with black, light orange and again with black. The light orange is the Papermillstore.com match I've found for Stampin' Up!s Apricot Appeal.

For the top card I used the Cuttlebug A2 embossing folders and black grossgrain ribbon and attached that to a basic black A6 sized card body. The purple card stock is from Thepapermillstore.com and is called Purple Medium which matches Stampin' Up!s Orchid Opulence ink beautifully.

The second card I thought a background stamp would look nice with my flower. I decided on Antique Lace by Stampin' Up! - it's been retired for a few years but hey, I like it.

I inked up my Antique Lace background stamp with Brilliance Pearlescent Orchid to match my Purple medium card stock. It's a nice match and gives a kind of shimmer to the background that's subtle.

Next I punched a hole with my 1/4" round hand held punch so I could put organdy ribbon through it. I have one of Stampin' Up!s small slot punches but was afraid I'd break it trying to punch through so many thicknesses of card stock.

I tried dotted organdy ribbon, black with white dots and it didn't quite look right so I tried the solid black and thought it worked pretty well. A little narrower would have been good but I didn't have any.

The "simply friends" stamp is actually two stamps that come in the Flower Box stamp set.

Oh my... I've lost my third card. Oh well, I used the same colors and it had some paper piercing on it that didn't look very good. It was uneven. That's kind of funny! I wonder where it went?? lol