Seeing Shamrocks Blog Hop!

I normally don't really have much of "Kiss me, I'm Irish" stuff around since I am of german decent...but when The Angel Company announced it's Seeing Shamrocks blog hop I thumbed through the catalogs to see which stamps I had that might work. Voila!! One of my most favorite sets is the versatile set, Fanciful Vintage, and once again it proved to be handy. It's got a lovely postmark type image with a shamrock, surrounded by the words: Memories, Heart, Faith, Laughter and Happiness.

Here's what I came up with...this first card is a pretty common sketch but it looked just a little too plain to me when it was finished so I stamped the Decorative Corners up in the left hand corner before I added the ribbon and I really liked that touch. And, you may be amazed to hear it/see it, but...I inked ALL of my edges! {big grin}

This second card isn't really what I had intended it to be...the original panel will show up in another card that I just finished today (couldn't let it go to waste!). I really wanted to use the soft Angelee papers for this card and added the saying to balance it all out. I hope I accomplished that and that it's not just hanging out there! Above I cropped the image to highlight just the medallion but here you can see the entire stamp which I clear embossed.

So now it's your turn! Dig through your stamps and see what you can turn into "seeing shamrocks!"...I think of good luck, blessings, rainbows, etc...hope that gets your creative wheels turning. Here is what others are crafting!

Warning - you might need sunglasses!

Looking for my Embellish Magazine blog candy? It's here - open until 12 August!

Last week I had tried playing with my new Copics and failed (went way outside the edges and just couldn't blend for the life of me!). Well, I blamed my paper but since found out that my paper was fine - darn, it was me that was the problem!

I watched Cindy Lawerence on two YouTube tutorials and then our power went out...so, there was nothing else to do but practice! And, this was my next attempt...grab sunglasses, it's bright!



Card Materials: all stamps and papers from The Angel Company
Stamps: Flowers and Holly, Tag Tidbits
Accessories: Floral and Stone Impressabilities, Big Scalloped Squares Nestabilities, Circle Nestabilities, border punch, ribbon, silver pearl, Memento ink and Copics (color caboodle set b and D)

I colored the background blue because just a snitch of one petal went out the lines...I need more practice...

This weekend I was busy making Concord Grape Jam. My neighbor gave me 17 pounds of grapes and it took me two batches of full stock pots to cook it all down. I ended up with 12 jars of jam - had to buy the sugar, surejell and chinois you see in the background...so I could've bought these for the cost to make them but the sheer joy of making it your self is PRICELESS! (I use that same thought process when buying stamps...tee hee)

TAC Contest...

Well, there's a good news/bad news twist to the last contest I entered with The Angel Company... I didn't win, but my downline, Kelly won two of the categories! Yeah Kelly!! Her work is great and I always call her the Queen of Scenes. tee hee. So clever, I know. Be sure to visit her here.

I entered the Marvelous Mini category with some more of my Watercolor Plants mini cards that I first showed in this post. I love these little guys (gals?!) and this time I stamped the inside of the card and the envelope with a matching image, tone on tone.

Card Materials: all stamps and papers from The Angel Company

Stamps: Watercolor Plants, Tag Tidbits

Accessories: Mia's Cottage Soar with It Collection and cardstock, button, scrappers floss (lime), fiskars border punch, Bouquet Kaleidacolor Pad, aquabrush

I'm a little stressed out about the upcoming Spring Break...baseball and tumbling are in full swing so both kids are busy, my in laws arrive Friday (clean house frantically), my sister and family are coming during that time and I just found out my sister in law and niece will drop in for breakfast as they are traveling through our state the Saturday before Easter. Just be forwarned that my postings may be spuratic but hopefully something worthwhile will pop up here! :)

Blessings!

Kaleidacolor Pads

I have three Kaleidacolor pads that have been sitting neglected...I normally just use them for brayering. I was thrilled last week when I had a reason to use them again. I wanted an ink that I could "watercolor" with and the Palette inks are so hybrid that they dry quickly and are designed to stay put when you watercolor over them. The Kaleidacolor pads are made up of 5 mini but seperate color coordinating dye ink pads within one container. Just in case you didn't know, The Angel Company does carry Kaleidacolor pads and if you need refills, just let me know because we carry those too!!

There are so many wonderful blogs out there and just in case you missed this tutorial over at CHF, I wanted to share my version of it here. Ready to make some really neat 3 inch little notecards?




In addition to some patterned paper and a Kaleidacolor pad, you do need watercolor paper and an aquabrush. I really recommend the Niji brush (I do have both of the kinds we sell so this is experience talking!). For the watercolor paper, if you don't have any yet, be sure to look for the Strathmore Watercolor cold press pads (it has a brown cover and says 400 series).

1. Cut your watercolor paper into 2 x 2 1/2 inch rectangles.

2. Stamp your Kaleidacolor pad face down (you really only need the lightest two colors) on a plastic stamp lid. Pick up the ink with your aquabrush.

3. Start to fill up your watercolor paper with diagonal brush strokes, zig zagging back and forth - pick up more ink as you need it. Do leave a slight border around the edges - see my final card for clarification.

4. Let dry or dry with a heat gun.

5. Stamp your first flower with the lightest ink from your pad. I used the set Watercolor Plants. I kept my ink pad spread apart to make this easier.

6. Make sure the first flower is dry before you stamp with a second flower - using a corresponding shade. That's why using a Kaleidacolor pad makes this easy!

7. Once this is dry, stamp a greeting in any of the open space. I stamped Tag Tidbits in Noir Palette ink but there are lots of choices!

8. Now cut a piece of your patterned paper - 2 3/4 inch square in size. Feel free to distress the edges or use a border punch on one side for added interest. Lesson learned here - pick your paper before you get started...I was thrilled to find the Hemingway Soar with it Collection matched my ink perfectly, but I only found it after I finished stamping all of my squares. phew!

9. Mount both the watercolor rectangle and patterned paper square to a 3 inch notecard. I cut mine out of matching cardstock, in this case, Kraft worked perfectly with my color palette.

10. Last step is to make an envelope. I used my template from to make an envelope out of Hemingway cardstock but then I found out that a 3 inch envelope will not fit a 3 inch card! So either be sure to cut your note card a snitch smaller before you put it all together, or I found a template here that I could adjust to 3 1/4 inch in size.

If you want to check out our Kaleidacolor pads, you can find them all here. All stamps and papers are from The Angel Company.

Edit: Juliet asked how I inked these up with just one color...you can see on the card to the right, I ended up with a snitch of the ink from the next pad on the flower but mainly I dabbed the stamp by just touching it and twisting it in both directions until I had it carefully inked up.

Featured In the Creative Corner!

eeck! I won in The Angel Company's latest Card to Crop contest so my two items are featured over in the Creative Corner on their website. It's so exciting. I know the layouts are quite simple but the coloring on my sunflowers actually came out nicely...and how can you go wrong with this paper?! I also want to give a shout out to one of my downlines, Clarissa, who won the Packaged Oh So Pretty category...I love it!

all paper and stamps from The Angel Company

Stamps: Tag Tidbits, Just a Note, Flowers and Holly

Accessories: Sands of Time, Bazzill brown monochromatic pack, Mimi Ribbon, Brown Scrappers Floss

Today was a Lucille Ball type of morning...am I dating myself with that comparison? My son was all out of clean jeans and the pair in the dryer were still too damp to wear (at least for winter - if it were summer I'd say they'll dry fast! tee hee)...so, there I stood, with 5 minutes to go, a hairdryer stuck in the pockets to spot dry them...they were carpenter pants so they had lots of wet pockets! After I got him to school, it was time to feed the chickens. The neighbor had brought me a pumpkin bread last week...not like my yummy muffins I blogged about, I'm sorry to say. It was one of those dense, heavy brick like breads - which only got worse as it sat in my refrigerator. Perfect treat for the chickens! As I broke it up for them and threw it into their pen, one escaped (she spotted a worm outside the coop, how could I deny her that?!) but when I went to catch her and put her back in, I got feathers stuck all over my hands from the stickiness of the pumpkin bread! What a mess...and what a morning!

If you are here visiting from my sponsorship over at the Card Patterns blog this week, thanks for stopping by! You can see my take on the sketch and enter my blog candy here!

Peet's Flowers and a Final Sale

Somehow a while back I discovered Peet's blog, I think it was via The Pink Elephant blog, and I have been a follower (and studying her work intently!) ever since. For a real treat, please be sure to visit her blog!! http://scrapalbum.blogspot.com/

Peet makes the most amazing shaped cards and I've been wanting to try her flower card for a while...so I printed off the template and increased it size wise on my copier for the different layers...my card is 4.25 x 4.25 so it actually fits in an envelope and you don't (can't!) have to write much on the inside of the card.

I used some of my favorite paper - Mimi Soar with it Collection and the new version in our catalog is double sided. So wonderful...

I hand cut the bird and it's fashioned after the Nestabilities style bird...Hello Friend is from the ever popular Tag Tidbits set from The Angel Company. I made that little ribbon flower to and I believe this may be the first time I used my Sizzix leaf die cut...so glad I finally did!

These products can be found on my website, http://chris.ismyangel.net/products

Be sure to check out the Discontinued Accessories section. Everything there is 25% off and it's only good through tomorrow, Monday, 27 July and then it disappears...snatch up some great embellishments or paper packs while you can or the Designer Dries Clear glue that I used on this project...it's wonderful!