Back soon

For those of you who may be wondering if I have fallen off the face of the earth, the answer is partially.  My husband who is in the military was gone for a month to train in Texas at Fort Bliss.  He came back 2 weeks ago, and we wanted to spend some time together.  Then I had a stamping club on the Friday and left for my March break vacation with the family on the Saturday.  Since being away I have had SHORT intervals to stamp *sigh*.  With all the Children of my sister and myself running amuck, it has been challenging to say the least.  I have 3 cards all in various stages of being made and am hoping to start posting them this weekend.  It is to bad one can’t U-Haul their entire stamp room along with a babysitter lol.  See ya soon,
Sophie

Stampers Club Project, past Friday

I know, I’ve been a little late posting.  Unfortunately my daughter had an appointment in the city which is usually an overnight stay, and then on the Friday I had a Stamper’s Club.  I do 2 a month so it keeps me busy along with my other commitments.  This card has two inspiring cards behind it.  The first is from Leslie on Running with Scissors  and the second is from this card on Splitcoast Here.  This totally uses Leslie’s card as a base.  I did the TP BG for which she has an awsome tutorial on her post, as well as the double poppin pastels.  The second card was used to come up with the layout as well as the 3-D leaves.  Hope you enjoy and I will be on tomorrow with my Workshop cards for this week.

recipe:
Stamps:  French BG, Carte Postal, Blossoms Abound
Paper   :  Vanilla CS, Old Olive CS, Plum CS
Ink       :  Caramel, Cocoa, Old olive, Garden Green, Basic Brown ( for greeting )
Other   :  Wide grosgrain Olive ribbon, Pop-up dots, Pastel chalk, Dazzling Diamond, white gel pen

Just follow Leslie’s instruction.  The rest is easy.
Cheers
Sophie

Basic Grey Style paper tutorial

I have always loved the distressed look of the Basic Grey Papers.  Now Stampin’Up has some pretty awesome papers, but sometimes its nice to make something a little different!  Supplies needed are :  Sanded BG stamp, Any colored CS, although softer colors work best so that you can build layers on.    In this case I used Vanilla and Soft Sky CS.  Ink: Sky, Blue Bayou, River Rock, Caramel, Cocoa, Guava, Pomegranate.  Markers:  Cocoa, Old Olive, Not Quite Navy.  Spritzer tool, sponges, stamps of your choice.

Sky CS:  Stamped Close to Cocoa  using Sanded BG
Vanilla CS: stamped Caramel  and Close to Cocoa using Sanded BG

Soft Sky CS:  Dragged Soft Sky Ink across in back and forth motion.
Vanilla  CS:  Dragged Caramel and Guava across in back in forth motion

This is how it should look after dragging.

Begin sponging with a heavy hand.  Blend with circular strokes, don’t press fingers in too deep or you will end up with little imprints.  You want it to be very smooth, but with an intense color.
Vanilla CS:  Guava, Pomegranate, Cocoa
Soft Sky CS:  Bayou, Cocoa, River Rock

It should have rich smooth colors when finished.

Place Markers of choice into spritzer tool and spritze with a light hand.  You just want to add a touch of texture.
Vanilla CS:  Cocoa
Sky CS     :  Cocoa, Olive, Not Quite Navy

Now you are ready to stamp the solid or open images of your choice.

Flourishes, flowers, patterns will all work great on this BG paper.

Voila, you have some gorgeous paper to work with on any project.  This actually does not take very long if you make it up in batches.  I like to keep a variety of colored BG on hand to use in a given project.  Hope you enjoyed it.
Hugs,
Sophie

Friday’s stamper Club cards

Well you will have to excuse the fact that the windows don’t open up to the larger picture, unfortunately, I am having issues!  Whenever I was clicking on it, I kept getting the first picture instead of the one you would click on.  So until I can fix it, unopened it stays lol.  These are the stampers club cards for this coming Friday.  The heart card shows embossing, the bird card shows poppin pastel.

Heart Recipe:
stamps:  Always, Tres Chic BG
ink:  Pomegranate, black, mustard, Guava
paper:  Basic Black, Vanilla, Guava, Pomegranate
other:  Pomegranate ribbon, clear embossing pwd., white gel pen, scallop circle
this card is straight forward.  Sponging is used to color in the embossed hearts. everything else is self explanatory.

Bird recipe:
Stamps: Always
Ink:  Chocolate Chip, Old Olive, Not Quite Navy, Black, Caramel, Ruby Red
Paper: Chocolate Chip, Very Vanilla, Old Olive, Blue Bayou, Old Olive DP
other:  Olive Grosgrain ribbon, white gel pen, Pastels
This card is also straight forward.  The caramel and olive panel is Poppin Pastels, BG panel is sponged, flowers are stamped and sponged, bird is stamped and cut.

thanks so much for stopping by
hugs,
Sophie

Sketch Challenge 163

Well I’m back today with Yesterday’s challenge.  Had it done yesterday, but did not feel like posting.  Today felt like posting and had the darn-est time with my Adobe Photoshop.  For some reason it kept freezing up.  It seems that since we updated to Bell Ultra high speed and got their security package, we have had more issues with our computers than ever before.  And to make matters worse  My husband is not around and will not be around for awhile yet.  So I’m crossing my fingers that it does not give me to much more problems. 

Recipe:
Stamps:  Boatloads of love
Paper:  Old Olive, Pomegranate, Whisper White, watercolor paper, Guava, Soft Sky, Bali Breeze DP
Ink:  Pomegranate, Turquoise,  Old Olive, Guava, Artichoke, Creamy Caramel, Close to Cocoa, Soft Sky, Blue Bayou
Other:  Nestabilities ( if you don’t have these just use the colozzle template for the circles and regular straight cuts for the square and discard the scallop), white signo gel pen, cloud template ( just freehand one by hand), dazzling diamond, wide Olive grosgrain ribbon, pop-up dots.

This card is fairly straight forward.  I stamped and colored the boat, and then cut out with nestability.  Water coloring was done with above ink colors.  Sky circle was simply sponged out after cutting.  Square layer beneath first two mini panels was sponged with pomegranate.   Pop up dots were used for the steam puffs and the sky sponged with turquoise panel. Everything was put together and then dotting was added.  Normaly I do stitching with the pen, but I have seen Faith AKA Markie’s Mom doing this dotting and it looks awesome!
thanks so much
Sophie

Vintage style card

Ok, you guys have to be kind here, because I am so out of my comfort zone on this one!  Today while I was blog browsing, I came upon this amazingly beautiful card here.  It had such a beautiful vintage feel to it, and it looked amazing and I just had to try it out.  Now I did not want to copy Leslie’s card although I did use some of the same stamps sets.  I won’t even try to tell you how many darn hours it took me to make.  I was fiddling and playing alot.  And seeing that it is not really the style I normally do, well you get the picture.

recipe:
stamps:  Wild Roses, Always, Happy Harmony, Carte Postal, Ephemera
paper:  Ruby Red, Chocolate Chip, Very Vanilla, Cameo Coral
Ink:  Versamark, Close to Cocoa Craft, Caramel, Old Olive, Garden Green, Ruby Red, Burgundy
Other:  Sewing ribbon, silver button, silver brads, Nestablilities ovals, Krylon fixative spray, Dazzling Diamond, Crystal effects, micro beads, rhinestones.
Chalk:  Moss, Artichoke, Cameo Coral, Ruby Red

Leslie gives the instructions on her card ( linked up above) for the main background with chalk.  I followed them to a T.  Next I stamped out the large flower three times on Cameo Coral with the Ruby Red and Burgundy.  Distressing and molding was done to give them shape, and then 3 rhinestones were added along with some black micro beads for a poppy like look.  Dazzling diamonds was added to the darker portions.  The leaves were stamped on Vanilla cs and cut and molded also.  Bird was stamped in Cocoa craft ink on Vanilla CS and embossed with clear embossing pwd.  The card was then put together.

Sketch Challenge 162

Phew, finally got around to uploading.  Hubby left at 4:30 am this morning for a month in Texas for a training exercise.  I’ve been spending time with him up until then.  Now I have a month  till he is back so hopefully that means that I will use my time wisely in stamping!  You wouldn’t believe how long it has taken me to post this today.  It seems like I can only get a couple minutes at a time.  Anyways, this is my interpretation of Sketch challenge 162.

recipe
stamps:  Embrace Life, Always, Like it a Latte
ink:  Staz-On timber Brown, Basic Brown, Black Kraft, Caramel, Groovy Guava
Paper: Ginger Blossom DP, Groovy Guava, Ruby Red, Vellum CS, Whisper White, Confetti Cream
SU markers:  Ruby Red, Cameo Coral, Burgundy, Rose Red, Old Olive
Other: Dazzling Diamond, Chocolate Satin Ribbon, Gold leaf pen, gold brads, Pop-up dots, rhinestone brads, Black Embossing Pwd, turqoise and Not quite Navy chalk.

Using stamp ma Jig, I stamped the blossoms on the back vellum panel.  I colored the with marker from the reverse side.  Next I used chalk to color the empty space on both sides of the vellum.  It was then mounted on the cream CS.  Large Blossoms were stamped on Vellum, colored on reverse side and then holes were punched and they were layered in two’s.  Dazzling diamonds was added to the stamens.  Bird was stamped on Whisper White and embossed then cut out.  Always was stamped with Basic Brown and cut out.  Everything was then put together.  Back panel is raised on Pop-up-dots.  Just as a side note, if you don’t have Like it a Latte for the swirls, well any swirl stamp will do the trick ie. Priceless or Baroque Motifs.
Thanks for visiting and have a great day!
Hugs,
Sophie

March of the Snails

Welcome to my first card on my new blog.  This Blog is designed to show primarily Stampin’up Products which everyone has easy access too.  For today’s card I have not yet written a sentiment because I have not yet decided who will be the recipient of this card.  The layout and colors are based on this gorgeous card by Anna W.

stamps:  Unfrogettable, Sanded, hand drawn stars
Ink      :  Staz-On Timber Brown, Old Olive, Wasabi, Sky blue, Celery, Blue bayou, Turquoise, River Rock, Close to Cocoa,
                Summer Sun.
Paper :  Blue Bayou, Soft Sky, Celery, River Rock, Marigold ( can use Summer Sun), Water color paper, Confetti Cream
Other :  Cuttlebug embossing folder ( can replace with Soft Sky DP sponged), Quick Kutz stars ( Use Stampin up star
               punches, Dazzling Diamond, Crystal effects, Spica Glitter pen clear, Old Olive Wide Grosgrain ribbon.

Start by stamping Confetti Cream CS with Sanded in River Rock then sponge all over with your blues and greens.  To achieve the same stars with your Stampin’Up punches, punch the smaller star first and then interpose the larger punch over and punch it out.  This will give you the open stars.  Confetti Cream was then dotted with Crystal effects and glittered.  The second layer is a Cuttlebug swirl embossing folder.  This paper was embossed and then sponged.  if you don’t have the cuttlebug, use Soft Sky DP with a strong pattern, and sponge liberally with your blues.  The snails were stamped on with the Staz-On using a Stamp-ma-Jig.  Stars were drawn in with a waterproof pen.  Image was colored in with water brush and the colors mentioned above in Inks.  I used Spica Glitter pen to glitter the stars and a slime trail.  Alternately you can use crystal effects for slime trail and Dazzling diamond for the stars.  Ribbon was attached to middle layer and card assembled. 

I hope you all gain some pleasure and use from my new Blog, as I know I shall continue to gain from yours.
Hugs,
Sophie

Welcome

You must all be interested as to why I am starting a second Blog.  When I decided to start a blog, I didn’t exactly know what I was doing.  I had a general idea to share my artwork with fellow stampers, and to make my little mark on our stamping community!  Well now that I have been doing this for many months, I’ve come to several realizations.  My first Blog which I have put so much into is not quite cutting it any more.  I find there are several types of readers out there.  Those who love Seeing new and exciting stamps and products, who want all the latest from all sources.  And there are those who are loyal to Stampin’Up and don’t want to see all the other stuff which may or may not be easy to get hold of.  Also as a Stampin’ Up demonstrator, I feel that I have the obligation to show great projects using those wonderful products that I sell.  So thus I know have my New Blog which is to be dedicated to Stampin ‘Up for the most part, and miscellaneous.  My design team work and bits and pieces of miscellaneous will be featured on my Blogspot Blog.  My New Blog will be more business oriented.  So welcome, and I hope that you will find projects and ideas that inspire and teach.

Hugs,

Sophie