"G" inchie

I did a whole slew of these for an inchie alphabet swap on the SSReflections yahoo group. I started with 140# watercolor paper, painted it with Distress crackle paint, let it dry, rubbed it with Deistress ink, cut it into 1" squares, dabbed the edges with Brilliance gold ink, stamped the vine with Stazon green, stamped the letter "G" with Archival ink black, punched out the flowers, glued them on, added gold stickles to the centers, printed "grow" on a light green patterned cardstock, cut them out and glued them on.

Time Keeps on Slipping ATC

I stamped a time background stamp on white glossy cardstock with Resist ink and then sponged on Adirondack inks. Stamped clocks and words with Archival ink black. Sponged edges and stamped dots with Gold Krylon paint pen.

It's Time ATC

I used sprays made from Distress Ink reinkers in mini mister bottles to make the background. One of the colors used also had a little scoop of Perfect Pearls in it so the whole card also shimmers. Stamped the time background stamps. Punched holes from red cardstock and a gold wrinkly handmade paper and layered them with a clock embellishment. Wrote the words Tick Tock and stamped It's Time.

Just Playing

I was playing around with small Versamagic ink pads for the background of this. I would set the pad down over the edge and then drag it out. I also stamped a large flourish (Quietfire Design) in the center with the same color. "Laugh Out Loud" (Studio G) was stamped with Archival ink jet black. Added border stickers (got mine from Quietfire Design), flower trim, and pink rhinestones in the center of each flower.

Little Birdie

I love how this atc turned out :-)) The egg (Time to Stamp) was stamped first with DI broken china. The bird (gg Designs) was stamped on top with Archival ink jet black. It actually comes with feet and I just didn't ink those. The nest was built using part of a nest stamp from Time to Stamp. Inks used to build the nest were DI tea dye and walnut stain, Archival black, and Antiquities California stucco. Sponged on DI shabby shutters, peeled paint, and pine needles. Leaves (an old Embossing Arts stamp) were stamped with shabby shutters. Wrote the words, cut them out, edged them with pine needles and glued them on.

A Father's Love

This is an inchie - 1" x 1" artwork. The background is a little color on white glossy cardstock and stamped with a text stamp. Collage image is from Quietfire Design and also the flourish stamp I used in the corners.

Created Byhand - Watercolor Backgrounds

Watercolor backgrounds are the challenge this week on Created Byhand. For this background I used the checkerboard corner stamp from Quietfire Design and Lyra watercolor crayons. I colored the stamp with the crayon, spritzed it with water and stamped it on the white cardstock... resprayed and stamped again, repeating until the color was gone... cleaned the stamp and repeated with another color. After the background was done I stamped the face collage image with Versamark ink and embossed with detail black...used a crayon on the eyes and blended with a damp brush. The quote (Quietfire Design) is stamped onto vellum with VersaMagic midnight black.

4 x 4 Friday - Oriental

The theme for 4x4 Friday is Oriental. The background stamp is from Stubby Stampers and I embossed it in gold on gold cardstock. Stamped tranquility (Stampin Up) and embossed in gold on a tag, tore the bottom of the tag, rubbed ink around the edges, layered it on black cardstock. Butterflies are from a collage sheet from Quietfire Design. Layered it all to black cardstock and added red brads in the corners. Lastly I added some black sprays using a blitzer and Sharpie marker.

Background Swap

I'm participating in a background swap on the byhand artists yahoo group. For the swap we needed 4" x 6" pieces of whatever background we chose to do. This picture is of an 8 1/2" x 11" piece which I would cut up and get 3 pieces for the swap along with some left over pieces to use for myself. I started with a piece of dusty purple cardstock, put some bleach in a spray bottle and sprayed randomly on the cardstock, let that dry, dripped some bleach on and let it dry, sprayed the piece with black spray webbing, then sprayed with Adirondack color wash spray stream and Stamp Zia chroma sprays lime, iris, cherry, and olive, and let that dry. To finish it off I sprayed it with gold spray webbing and while the webbing was still tacky pressed on some gold foil here and there. I love making these kinds of backgrounds... they look so complicated but are really very easy to do.

Sing along ATC

Once again I've gotten the words and flower from the foil seal of a sour cream container. They are just too pretty not to use! For the background I tore a heart from music paper, glued to watercolor paper, brushed Golden glaze seafoam green over the whole piece, let it dry, used a Galaxy marker to add white dots around the heart, let that dry, brushed another layer of seafoam green over the card, let it dry, and went over the dots again. Glued on the flower and words, stamped some small hearts using Colorbox chalk pink pastel and edged the card with the chalk ink also.

Wall Plaque

This is my newest project for the Quietfire Design project gallery. It comes complete with pictures and directions. If you are interested in getting email notification of updates to the Quietfire Design site, subscribe to Suzanne's newsletter... go here and add your email address (right side, at the bottom).

Inspirational Diptych Duo

This is the Project of the Month on A Monthly Rubber Stamp Club for April 2008. It includes pictures of the process and all the directions.

VSN - April 2008

Both of these cards are published in the April 2008 Vamp Stamp News magazine. The first one on the front cover and the 2nd one on the back cover. This is another fabulous issue of this magazine. You can't help but learn something with every issue Nancie puts out!!!

CBC - Stencils

This weeks challenge over at Created Byhand is to use a stencil. I love this Dreamweaver stencil I got from Quietfire Design of the line of birds. For the background, I punched a circle from a piece of scrap to use as a stencil while I brayered on Kaleidacolor ink baby powder (I layed scrap paper over the blue and purple ink pads before inking the brayer so I only got yellow, orange, and pink on the brayer). Next I layed on the bird stencil and using a sponge dauber applied Versamark ink through the stencil, removed the stencil and embossed with Distress ep walnut stain. Tore the top of the paper, trimmed the bottom and sides, and sponged Distress walnut stain on the edges. On a scrap I sponged ink from the baby powder pad, stamped "Tranquility" (Quietfire Design) with walnut stain, tore out, and rubbed edges with walnut stain. Base is brown Bazzill cardstock and the flourish image (Quietfire Design) is stamped using the Versamark ink.

Quietfire Design's byhand newsletter 7th Anniversary Contest

The featured Quietfire product for these projects is Grungeboard.

This is one segment of a scavenger hunt for a $30 gift certificate from Quietfire Design, celebrating the 7th Anniversary of the byhand Newsletter compiled and designed by Suzanne Cannon of Quietfire Design.

To get all the information about this contest and 2 others, see the newsletter here.

Mini Book

This mini book has pages that are 3" x 3" and the covers are 3 1/4" x 3 1/4". I used some marbled paper I made at a class on the covers and bound it with a decorative spine binding. I did one spread in the book and sent it on. It will go to 4 other people to work in and then on to a very special lady that we wanted to do something for. I used paint for the background of my spread, stamped the quote on a transparency, attached it with clear glue and used stickers around the edge. Added collage image ribbon and flower trim using stickles glue in the center of the flowers. All stamps on my spread and the cover and the collage image are from Quietfire Design.

Purple Flower

This is another floral atc for the byhand swap. The large flower was made using a cateye ink pad. Little flowers - Stamps by Judith; Saying - Hero Arts. Stickles glitter glue for accent.

Ordinary Miracles

This atc if for a swap on the byhand yahoo group. The background was done with Ecoline watercolor inks and plastic wrap. The flower and words are from the foil seal on a container of sour cream, Daisy brand. Gold strip stickers along the bottom and right. Ecoline inks and gold stickers are available from Quietfire Design.

And the winner is..................

Well, no one actually hit the nail on the head with what I did with the stencils but I've decided to have the give away anyway and entered everyone that left a comment. I used a random number generator to pick the winner and it is lindart!!!! Woohoo!!!

So just what did I do you ask :-)) I layed down the stencil on white cardstock and using a sponge dauber applied microglaze through the stencil. Put the dauber on your finger, dab it in the microglaze, dab it on a piece of scratch paper to be sure you don't have any clumps when you start and begin sponging it through the stencil (add more microglaze to the dauber as needed). Start in one area and work your way across the stencil - Don't go back and sponge again once an area has begun to dry. Remove the stencil. Then either sponge or spray on your color, blot up the extra off of the microglazed areas and dry with the heat tool.

Heart - after the microglaze was applied I sprayed the piece with water, sprayed Adirondack color wash onto a cosmetic sponge and dabbed it over the heart allowing it pool wherever it wanted (I did not blot this one off, the color ran right off of the microglaze).

Tree - after the microglaze was applied I sprayed it with water and then with diluted color wash espresso also sponging some on.

Last atc - after the microglaze I sprayed on 2 colors of color wash, blotted the piece, dried it, flicked on some water, let it set a little bit and blotted again, redried it, layed on the stencil in another spot and sponged some ink through it, added the torn music paper sponged with ink, and also stamped a couple of flourishes.

(If you missed the post this is referring to, scroll down to the "Fun With Stencils - Give Away")

Journey atc

I got an order from Quietfire Design today and it included the newest sets of Cedar Canyon rubbing plates. This means I now own all of them and so I thought I really should start actually using them :-)) The background for this atc was done by wetting a piece of white cardstock very well, dabbing it off on a towel, pressing it onto one of the plates from the floral fantasy set using my fingers, brayering the cardstock with Kaleidacolor blue breeze, taking it off the rubbing plate and drying it. I then stamped a flourish image twice using the blue breeze ink, added the collage image, sponged some ink onto the book and lace parts of the image, stamped journey with black ink, and used a fine tip black pen to add writing to the book page. All supplies available from Quietfire Design.

Created Byhand Challenge

I'm getting in just under the gun with this one :-) The challenge posted last Tuesday on Created Byhand was spritz-spray-spatter. The background for this card was done using a Cedar Canyon rubbing plate I just got in the mail today. It's from the floral fantasy set. I put one dropperful of Distress reinker fired brick in a mini mister bottle and then finished filling it with water. Repeated with another bottle and spiced marmalade reinker. I used both of these to spritz the rubbing plate well and then layed a piece of white cardstock onto the rubbing plate and pressed well holding it there for a bit to soak up all the color. Dried it with a heat tool, trimmed it to 4" x 5 1/4" and softened the white areas a bit by sponging on some Distress ink dried marigold. Quote is stamped onto vellum, torn along the right and left, rubbed some dried marigold on the back of the stamped area, dried it, layed it onto the background folding the top and bottom to the back and taping them down. The ribbon is white silk colored with Distress ink fired brick. Added flowers, leaves, and a brad. Layered it all to a folded green card.

Fun With Stencils Give Away

Here's a picture of what will be in the package (could be more if I decide to add to it). There is some duo mulberry cardstock stuff, some book pages and misc stuff, a variety of backgrounds I've done from my stash, a bag of charms and doo dads.

If you missed how you could win this, look down to the next post. The technique I used with the stencil is the same on each project. The stencils I used were a tree, a flourish with hearts, and part of a leafy border. Also you can click on each picture to see a larger one.

Fun With Stencils / Give Away

I've been having some fun trying something different (for me anyway) with stencils lately!! I thought it might be fun to see if anyone could figure out just what I did and what I used (supply/supplies). So I've decided to give a prize to someone who could guess. What you need to do is leave me a comment telling me what you think I did/used, which one of these projects is your favorite, and your email address so I can let you know if you win. I'll draw one name from those who guess right and send them a package. I don't have the package all put together yet but will post a pic when I do. I'll make the drawing on Tuesday, March 11th. I got the stencils I used from Quietfire Design. The first and third projects are atcs. The 2nd one is a 5 1/2" x 6" card .

A Monthly Rubber Stamp Club

The Project of the Month on A Monthly Rubber Stamp Club for March is a paperbag book that I made. I had a great time with this book. Hope you all like it!!! More pictures and complete directions can be found at AMRSC.

A Birthday Card

My husband's birthday was March 1 and this is the card I made him. The scenic leaf stamp is from AJ's Country Stamps and I got it at a stamp convention dh and I went to this past fall. It was the first time he'd ever gone to one with me and we had a really good time. This stamp is from a set of 4 that we both liked and he especially thought they were cool stamps so I used one for his card. Image was stamped with black permanent ink and colored with chalk pastels and a Dove blender pen. Next layer is a black heavy textured handmade paper and I inked the ridges with Brilliance ink. Leaf brads in the corners. "Happy Birthday" is a sticker.