End of the Week Technique #41 (A Two-Fer) Coloring/Un-Coloring Stamps / PP106

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Hey y'all. Happy Thursday to you! I hope you're having a fabulous week. Just one more day to go until the weekend. Yea!!!

I've got lots of pictures for you today, so I'm just gonna jump on in. :) This card didn't start out with the intent to be a EWT. In fact, I was looking through my reader this weekend to get some challenge ideas and decided on The Paper Players Challenge. I went down to the studio to make my card and had a little "oopsie". Well, you know what they like to say about stamping..."There's no mistakes just creative design opportunities. That's what happened here. Gotta say I love when that happens and you end up loving your creation.

Here's today's card-

Masculine Card featuring
Forever With You

I know I talked yesterday about the only card as hard for me to do as Sympathy cards were Masculine cards. Luckily as I was reading through my feeds, I saw this challenge over at The Paper Players and thought I would give it a try. I usually like a little more structure to my challenges, which is one reason I don't often do Color Challenges.

 I decided on the Masculine, Dry Embossing and Blue options. I really love this stamp set, but I think it's easy to make a beautiful, romantic card for a female with it and a little bit harder to make one that's masculine. You know...all those flowers. :)

I started with a base of Midnight Muse (Check, Blue). Next came a Crumb Cake layer that I embossed with my Stripes Embossing Folder and my Big Shot (Check, Dry Embossing). I gently sponged over this with some Crumb Cake Classic Ink to make the embossing stand out more. Oh, I used my new Windows Framelets to cut all of my layers out. I then decided to layer on a piece of DSP from the new Comfort Cafe Collection. Even though this piece has a floral element, I don't think it's frilly or feminine with this card so, I think it works. Oh I also ran it through my Big Shot with my Lattice E.F. and sponged over it with more C.C. (Check Blue and Dry Embossing). Hey this might not be so difficult after all. :) Or at least that's what I was thinking at the time.

For my focal point I decided to color in the stamp with my Stampin Write Markers. I guess I could have inked it up all in Midnight Muse for an even more "Masculine" look, but you know me, always adding a little something more. Coco Channel would be so disappointed. I used my Stampin Write Markers in Midnight Muse, Primrose Petals, Raspberry Ripple and Wild Wasabi to color in my image and stamped it on Whisper White c/s. You know this has really been a week where none of my cards have been created  easily and without some little Oopsie happening. Well, I went to mount it to the C.C. mat (I cut a piece of C.C. c/s with the same framelet twice, and  cut it so I could layer it behind my W.W. panel to give just a narrow mat instead of a wider one) and realized that I should have used Very Vanilla instead of W.W. AUGH!!!! It was def way to bright against that card. What to do, what to do? You know what to do here..... Think, Think, Think, say it in your best Pooh-Bear voice. Why, I know I'll just add some C.C. ink to it and make it look a little antiquey/vintagey. So definitely not my normal style, but I definitely didn't want to re-color that whole stamp again. So I swirled on some C.C. ink all over the image and c/s. I'm not sure why but some of the colors blended out with the C.C. ink too. I had even waited a while to do this. The M.M. blurred into the center and edges as well as the P.P and R.R around the stamped floral elements. I was not  happy at all, but the more I looked at it, I decided it looked like a really old element and that it went well with the card, so I decided to just go with it. Here's a close-up of the center element-

I think it looks almost like a label or something from an old card. I actually really like it. :) I adhered the C.C. mat to it with Tombow and then adhered that with Dimensionals. The other two layers are also adhered with Dimensionals.

Here's the inside-

Oooops! *EpicFail!* As I went to pull up a shot of the inside, I realized that I must not have taken one. *Headdesk* Oh well, as far as my usual insides go it was pretty boring. Definitely "masculine" with out frills or glimmer. I stamped "Love You" from the Bitty Banners Stamp set in M.M.onto a piece of V.V. c/s.  I inked it with my Stampin Write Markers so I was able to get just the words and not the frame around it. Oh and I sponged the edges too.

So what do you think? I think it fits the challenge requirements and is pretty cool too, even if it is all vintagey. Lol!

Now for today's technique. I know this is a very basic technique, but it's one that I use a lot. You can really change the look of a stamped image by doing this and create endless looks at the same time.

Here's what you'll need- Stamp set of your choice (This works best with line images or stamps with lots of detail), Markers of your choice (Of course I used S.U. because they're amazing and I never have to worry about them coordinating with my c/s or embellishments), Cardstock of your choice to stamp on and last but not least a Blender Pen.

Here's what you do, it's so crazy simple. Really it is, and speaking of this how cool is it that we can now color our stamps different colors in MDS? I know random thought. Sorry. :)
1- Choose the color you want for each different portion of your stamp and color directly on the stamp with that marker.
2- Continue to do this until your entire stamp is inked up. If you're using lighter colors just tilt your stamp around under the lights to see the color and make sure that everything is really inked up. It sure does stink if you forget this step and you have a beautiful image except for that one little spot. Ask me how I know!!! Your stamp  might not look the best at this point, but don't be a Scaredy Cat. Have a little Faith.

3- Once you've finished step 2, other sections of your stamp are probably dry, so you want to make sure you "huff" on your stamp to re-moisten everything. I usually huff a couple of times just to make sure I've got everything "huffed on". Then stamp your image onto your c/s. That's all there is to it. See I told you, Super Simple. I love the effects you can get doing this. What I really love is the look on the faces of my clients when they do this and see the beautiful images they get. This never fails to amaze!
4- Smile when you see your finished project and smile even more when you think about the smile it's going to bring to the face of it's recipient! I L.O.V.E. this part! : D

Oh did you think I forgot about my Blender Pen? Nope you get two Techniques today for the price of one. And since that price is FREE, What a Bargain!!! This second one was the "Main Idea" for today's technique, but since I figure there might be some "newbies" out there who happen to have stumbled upon my little blog somehow, I'd throw the first part in as well. Hey, there was a time when I had never heard of it either. :)

Here's how to turn an *@#%! into an YES! If you've ever tried this technique you have probably encountered one of those *@#%! moments where you coughed, sneezed, heck maybe you just blinked, or could be that the lines were really close together. For whatever reason, you colored out of, or off of your line.

This happened to me. I had colored in the entire center section and was outlining the outer rings when Mayhem struck. No, hes' not only in those insurance commercials (but don't you love him in those...so funny!) Any-whoo, I was almost done and BAM!!! (and not the Tasty, Emeril Lagasse kind of Bam!!! either). My hand slipped and I colored the tips of a few of my leaves Midnight Muse. Now on some of my colored images a little color sharing might be ok, but I was not having it for this one. Here's what I mean-

Sure wish I knew how to add in those handy little arrow pointers, right about now

Well let me just tell you- I was not in the mood to clean that entire stamp and start again. Now, I had heard that you could use your blender pens to "erase" these kinds of mistakes. Having never tried it for this (only on paper and it really doesn't work so well then, kinda like shutting the gate after the cows gone through it) I wasn't sure if it would work. Maybe it was one of those crazy Urban Legends. I figured it was worth a shot. What's the worst thing that could happen? It didn't work and I would have to start over again. I decided to take my chances and try-

Do you have any idea how hard it is to un-color your stamp
at the same time you are trying to photograph you un-coloring
your stamp with a B.B.?

Here's what you do-
1- Carefully swipe your Blender Pen over the misplaced ink until it's all removed. If your area is really big you may have to clean your blender pen at some point during your removal process. Mine was small so I didn't have to clean it till I was done.
2- Do a little *HappyDance* because you don't have to meticulously re-color your stamp.

Woo-Hoo!!! It worked. That Blender Pen just soaked up the color. It's just like touching the end on them on your ink-pads though (Not a good idea BTW! Ask me how I know.), you will really have to wipe it quite a bit to get it all out of your pen and on your scrap grid paper. But it will eventually come out and then you're stamp will look like this-

All clean and ready for the correct color to be applied. 

Well, that's all I have for you today. I hope you liked not only my card, but the techniques as well.  I really hope today's post inspires you to try something new today, whether it's a challenge or a technique or heck even something out of the crafting/designing realm. You know the motto here- Just try.

If you liked today's post or had questions about it, I'd love to hear from you. Feel free to leave me a comment. I read all of them and will be sure to get back to you. Your comments really do make my day! If you  would like to +1 or Pin today's card, I've put the buttons here on my blog for your convenience. Friends and Followers are always welcome too! :)

Thanks so much for taking time out of your busy day to stop by my little corner of the world. You are so appreciated! I hope to see you back here real soon for more fun projects or if you like...more excuses to smile and laugh at my mis-adventures. Till next time-

Remember- Life is often more about the storms than the peace they seek to overwhelm. It's not about Waiting for the storms to pass, but Learning to Dance in the rain.

Be Safe,

Shan

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