Saturday, October 27, 2007

Masculine Card



I always have a hard time coming up with a masculine card and when I saw this stamp set from CTMH called Take Flight, I fell in love and I know the perfect layout to use with it. I had seen a sketch from Beate that I have been waiting to use.....Yeah I'm weeks behind. LOLOL I just love how it turned out.



Receipe:
Colors: CTMH Olive and Cranberry
B&T Paper: (Hostess Rewards) Days to Cherish
Stamp: Take Flight
Brads: Making Memories
Colored with Prism pencils with Gamasol

Thursday, October 11, 2007

Acetate and Glitter

With everyone doing beautiful acetate cards, it inspired me to do another one for a friends birthday.

Here are the list of my ingrediants:

Stamps: CTMH Elegant Floral and For Every Occasion and Autumn Leaves Flourishes

Paper: CTMH Cranberry and Garden Green, white paper from local printer

Ink: White Staz-on

Ribbon: from Jo-Ann's

Glitter: Stampendous Ultra Fine Glitter

Misc: Tsukineko The Essential Glue Pad and heat gun



Saturday, September 29, 2007

Glitter, Glitter, Glitter

Who doesn't Love glitter! Whether a little or a lot. But how do you get it to stick to the paper and not to you? To explain this I need to share a recent experience...

Several weeks ago, I walked into the new Achivers (LOVE IT) and there it was the most adorable Halloween card and as part of the card they had glittered an entire 4 x 5.25 orange piece of cs. The WHOLE piece! Well as I'm walking towards it I'm preparing myself to now be glitterized. Well to my surprise, I pick up the card, rub it, look at my hands, rub it some more, look at my hands and what to I see.........ONE FLECK of glitter. How can this be? It feels like glitter. It looks like glitter. But it sure doesn't act like glitter. With that revelation I start staking the nearest store associate to ask HOW? We ask everyone and still no solution. We look at the inside of the card for the recipe:

Tsukineo; The Essential Glue Pad
Stampendous Ultra Fine Glitter

Now I have The Essential Glue Pad and I LOVE it. But when I use it I still get glitter on my hands for days afterwards. With my question still unanswered I find myself on a mission, to figure out how they did it.

Well a few days later, by accident I needed a card to dry quickly so I used my heat gun to dry it and it seemed to set the glitter. Is that it? Now to test my theory.

I did several samples and tested several different products to see if the product played any part of the equation or not.

My Supply list:
CTMH Inks: Garden Green, Cranberry, Barn Red
CTMH Stamp: Elegant Floral
Versamark
Tsukineko The Essential Glue Pad
CTMH Glitter
Stampendous Ultra Fine Glitter
Heat Gun

Here is what I found:
Versamark with Stampendous Ultra Fine glitter: Heating it will discolor the ink, the glitter will turn dull and it will smoke a lot. The glitter WILL NOT stick.
















Versamark with CTMH glitter: Heating it will not discolor the ink as much and it doesn't smoke a lot but the glitter does turn dull. The glitter WILL NOT stick.
















Tsukineko: The Essential Glue Pad with Stampendous Ultra Fine glitter: Heating it will not discolor the ink, the glitter stays sparkly, some smoking but..... The glitter WILL stick. (Yeah!)















Tsukineko: The Essential Glue Pad with CTMH glitter: Heating it will not discolor the ink, the glitter stays sparkly, there is not much smoking but.... The glitter WILL stick. (Yeah again!)
So here is what I've concluded.....HEAT is the key. Even though heat is not necessary to use the Tsukineko: The Essential Glue Pad it helps it set so that little to no glitter will come off in your hands and that alone is a miracle.

In regards to the glitters used, Stampendous was a finer grain and it gave more of a sparkly, diamond look and there was a texture to it. Where as, CTMH glitter was a larger grain and it gave a more iridescent look and it has less texture. Both were beautiful it just depends on what look you are going for. And one last tip to help your glitter stick better whether your going to heat it or not it once I have my image glittered. I place it in a zip lock back, take a rubber brayer and roll over it a few times to help set the glitter and the best part less mess on me!

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Today's Funny


I forget where I got this but I love it. LOLOL Enjoy.

3 Year Old Logic...

I had to laugh today, my ds who is now going to be three was looking at some pictures I have in his room of the different ultrasounds when I was pregant with him. First he points to one picture and tells me it's him. I tell yes that's right, that was you in mommy's tummy. Next he points to another picture and tells me that's Finnegan (the dog). I try explain him no that is another picture of you. Well as you all know that is useless to argue with a three year old. LOLOL So for know he think I gave birth to the dog. LOLOL Gotta love this age. LOLOL

Digging in the Archives...

Well since I haven't had anything new to post I figure I'd re-visit the archives of past projects that were my favorites to share with everyone. I apologize if I can't give you much of the specifics on each but it's been some time since I made them.
I Love this card. I saw something like this on someone's blog (sorry I don't remember who's) but I loved it and had to try it.
This was a card that I made for my neighbor's little boy's birthday. I loved the stamp from CTMH especially the kids peeking over. I bought it because I got a picture of my ds when he was about 1 year old peeking over my desk at me. But I have yet to scrap the picture. LOLOL Isn't that always how it is. LOLOL






Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Taking the plunge


Well...I'm taking the plunge with everyone else and creating a blog. I excited to get started and share with others what I'm creating when my ds is in bed for the night and I'm up with the Finnegan the Dog (Golden Retriever, hence the name.) LOLOL I hope I can learn from others on the best way to take pictures of my projects, etc. There is so much out there to learn. So here it goes I'm jumping in with both feet.
And my first blog is also my first challenge from Beate Johns weekend sketch challenge #10.
The colors I used were Smokey Plum, Plum Mist, Baby Pink and Kiwi.