Welcome!

Welcome to my brand-spankin'-new craft blog! Whether you're joining me in the wee hours of the night while I'm stamping or during the day while I'm chasing around my very busy kids, pull up a chair, grab of cup of coffee (or a shot of tequila...I won't judge!) and join me in my crafting adventures!

It's finally cooling off and providing some much-needed rain in my part of the world.  It was another late night for me as I tried to learn some new techniques. 

This is the card I created for this week's Ways to Use It challenge at Splitcoast Stampers.  If you're looking for a great online papercrafting community, you must check out Splitcoast Stampers!  It's a treasure trove of talented artists, inspirational gallery cards and very active user forums.  This week's challenge was to use markers in a new way.  They're not just for coloring, you know!  I chose to use two techniques on my card: Thumping and Misting.  These were both new techniques for me, and now that I've tried them I really want to work on perfecting them!  Here's my first card using these techniques:

I used a sunflower stamp from Mrs. O'Leary's.  I stamped on Ultrasmooth Vanilla cardstock (I don't think Stampin' Up! carries this anymore, but I believe it is similiar to Very Vanilla).  I inked the stamp first with Ancient Page ink in Saffron.  I then "thumped" it with several markers: Stampin' Up! Summer Sun, Pumpkin Pie and Garden Green markers, and Tombow Art marker #879 (brown).  The brown was a little dark so I smudged it with my finger to lighten it.  The green was a little too bright so I wiped some of the ink off with a cloth.  I huffed on the stamp to moisten the ink, then used my mini mister to mist water into the stamp (VERY lightly, holding the stamp about 8 inches away from the mister) and stamped the image.   I repeated this process several times to make a border.  I wrapped three pieces of brown fiber (Adornaments) around this piece and adhered it to a brown cardstock base.  I stamped "thank you" (Studio G/Hampton Arts) in Chocolate Chip Classic Ink (Stampin' Up!) on Ultrasmooth Vanilla, adhered that piece to another piece of brown cardstock and adhered it to the card using foam dimensionals.  Because this is a dark card base, I placed a liner of Ultrasmooth Vanilla on the inside of the card so I could write a message to the recipient. 

Now that I am a little more comfortable with the techniques I am looking forward to using them with other images.  I love the dimension the thumping technique provides, and the misting technique really softens the image.  I am sure you will see these techniques appearing on my blog again!

Thanks for stopping by!