A Confetti Card, A 3-D Project and A Challenge / NAC #8

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Hey y'all! Happy Friday! Woo-Hoo!!! I've got lots to do this weekend so I can hardly wait. I hope you have lots of fun planned too.

Do you Pin? I do. (You can check out my boards by searching for me ShanAngel or by clicking on the Follow Me button on my sidebar) I love wasting  spending valuable research time getting inspired or finding things that I love and would like to share with others. And just in case you're wondering before you click on over, Yes the boards are a little OCD just like me. : D HAHAHAHA! Any-who, I've been meaning to actually do something with the things that I pin and have been trying to do that a little more. In fact just last week I made cupcakes that I found that were Ah-Mazing (and low cal/points too!) and I'm finally taking inspiration from a card I saw and putting it to use. I'm pretty happy with how my card turned out. The original card was so unique I didn't even look it up when I made my card. I looked it up just prior to starting this post and it turns out I even used one of the same sentiments, just in a different way. Great Minds and all that. Swing on by my boards when you get a chance (but finish here first, kay) and see what you can find. If you Pin too, leave me a comment with your Pin name. I'd love to swing by and check out the Fabulous things I know you've got pinned too.

Here's today's card-

Confetti Card featuring
Friendly Phrases

How fun is this? Well, I think it's fun. :) I was really stumped trying to think up something to make with this week's challenge Over at Nacho Average Challenge. It's a color challenge and y'all know how much I absolutely adore those! NOT!!! I was actually afraid I wasn't going to be able to enter for the first time. :( Since I was limited to 3 colors this doesn't have quite the same impact as the card I took my inspiration from, but I think it's still easy to gather that it's confetti. It is easy to see that, right? Oh, please say yes!!!

In case you can't tell the colors-

I was hoping for a one layer C&S card with this, but no-go. I started with a base of Whisper White and using a pencil eraser made the "confetti" by inking up the eraser and "stamping" it onto my c/s. The colors, unfortunately, were visible on the other side of the c/s. So I cut my W.W. card into two pieces and layered them onto a Tempting Turquoise base and problem solved. My sentiment is from the set Friendly Phrases and I simply inked up the word WOW with my SU Marker instead of inking up the whole sentiment. I love that this set lends itself to this kind of separation, because it really increases the set's versatility.

Here's the inside-

Inside of Confetti Card featuring
Friendly Phrases.

I'm really happy with how it turned out. It's just so bright and happy.

Because I wasn't sure how "kosher" it would be to case someonelse's work for a challenge even though I changed it up I decided to add something else for the challenge. It's been a hot-minute since I had a 3-D item on here so I decided to add one as a bonus to this challenge. I've been thinking about adding this type project to my upcoming Christmas Class, so I just changed it up a little.

3-D Treat Holder featuring
Two-Tags Die, Boho Blossoms Punch and
Bitty Banners Framelets and Matching Stamp Set 

I love this idea. I know it's out there everywhere, but it's cute and quick and makes an impression on it's recipients and your class participants. I simply cut out two of the larger tags in T.T., creased them on the score line, added a little Tombow to the bottom to secure them and then decorated. See, Easy! I closed the treat holder with a small piece of Pumpkin Pie Ribbon tied in a simple bow. Multiple flowers were punched out from each of the colors plus W.W. and then sponged the edges and set about assembling them. The layers were all adhered with Tombow and the flowers were then secured with Mini Glue Dots. Once I had them all secured, they seemed to still be needing "just a little something extra" so I got out my White Gel Pen and added a little extra detail and I think that's just what they needed. I stamped the sentiment and then cut it with my Bitty Banners Framelet. Using my Bone Folder I curved it to give it some movement and then secured it as well with Mini Glue Dots. This will hold 3-4 Mini Reeces' Cups, Nuggets, Kisses (or similar sized item) or a snack sized candy.

So what do you think of my projects? I hope you liked them and I  hope the ladies over at NAC like them too. Like I said I went back this morning and looked for the original Pin and found it. Turns out the Pinner lives in my town. I'm sending her a message to let her know I CASE'd her and who knows maybe one day we'll get to meet. Always fun to meet other SU peeps. Don't you think? :) Here's the Original Pin and the link to her blog post-

Well, that's all I have for you today. I hope it inspires you to try something new, a challenge or maybe just actually doing something with one of the things you Pinned. I love hearing from you so if you have comments or questions about today's card &/or project, please feel free to leave me a comment. I read all of my messages and they really do make my day! If you'd like to +1 or Pin either, I've put the buttons 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 very appreciated! I hope you have a great rest of the day and that you have a Fabulous weekend filled with lots of time for Family, Friends and of course Creativity! 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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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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Sneak Peak and a Challenge

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Hey y'all. Happy Humpday. I hope you're having an Amazing week!

The sun is shining here in the DMV and the birds nested under my window are singing. Should reach low 80's today...Sweet! Although I hear my little friends all day, you know what I haven't seen yet? Butterflies. I love them, always have. I especially love when you are lucky enough to have one come and rest on your hand. How  Incredible is that? We must seem like such huge, moving, giants and yet they trust enough to come and settle on us. WOW!!!

What's got me thinking butterfly's? Mr. UPS left me a package on my doorstep yesterday and I went in, sat down and promptly started going through all my new sneak peak goodies. One of my goodies was the new Patio Party DSP which I got as part of a recruitment bundle. SU takes such good care of us. I got two new stamp sets, DSP and new ribbon too!

I don't know about you, but whenever I get my DSP I look at each page and flip every other sheet around so when I go to look for a DSP to use I can see all of my selections without having to flip them over. Saves me time and frustration. When I was looking at and setting up my Patio Party DSP, I saw a sheet with nothing but pretty little butterflies. I knew I had to use it. I even had two different sketch challenges in mind to use it with. :) How often does that happen? For me not very. LOL

Do you ever know just how you want your card/project to turn out and have it seem so simple and then not have it look or feel right? That's what happened to me last night as I was putting this card together. I chose my sketch, a very simple and straightforward one, and yet I struggled. In the end, I was happy with my card, but what I thought was a short straight path turned out to be, at least mentally, twisty and bumpy. Let me know what you think.

Here's today's card-

Sneak Peek, Patio Party, 2012-2014 In Colors

Love, love, love the New DSP, ribbons and In-Colors. This card is chock-full of sneak peeks for you. I started with a base of Primrose Petals and layered on the Patio Party DSP. It makes me think of a summer night where someone has run through a meadow and surprised the butterflies and sent them soaring. I adhered a new strip of 1/4in stitched grosgrain ribbon to the edge of the DSP with SNAIL and tucked and secured the ends underneath the DSP. For the butterflies I used my Beautiful Wings Embosslet and the new Midnight Muse, Raspberry Ripple, and Summer Starfruit from the new In-Colors and a few Baja Breeze ones for accents. They were mounted with Mini-Glue Dots to punched circles of Baja Breeze and Whisper White c/s. The banner is from the new Itty Bitty Banners. There's a set of framelets that coordinates with these, but since I totally forgot these were part of my freebies, I didn't order them. Silly Shan!!! I inked the stamp with our my Midnight Muse Stampin Write Marker to get just the sentiment, stamped it and then handcut the banner. A few butterflies and 3 little pearls to echo the sketch and the front was done.

Here's the Sketch I used. It's from Sketch Frenzy Friday and if you haven't given them a try, I highly suggest it. They have great sketches each week and a fabulous group of ladies on their Design Team.

I stuck pretty close to the sketch. My only differences was to stagger the circles and to use pearls on the flag instead of off to the side. I hope they'll like my offering.

When it came to the inside, I was totally stumped! I actually considered leaving it till later and just not showing the inside. If you have seen any of my posts, you know this is just simply not done! I just couldn't think of a sentiment or decoration. As I went through my stamp sets for a sentiment I could use, I found one in one of my favorite sets Petite Pairs and I was off and running again. Here's the inside-

Truth be told as soon as I saw this sentiment, I thought of my sister Lisa. She is my Rock! We keep each other going whenever times get tough and luckily it's not too often that we have to "raise each other up". Being with her is so easy, like watching butterflies effortlessly floating skyward. I don't think she reads this everyday, but if you're reading today Lis... Love You! You're the Best!!!!!

I stamped the sentiment using our new ink-pads. LOVE THEM! OMGosh, they are soooo amazing! Getting a complete set is on my wishlist. If there are any stamping fairy god-mothers out there who listen out for heartfelt desires...Hear Me! :)  I added more butterflies to the inside, alternating them so the embossed and de-bossed sides showed. I then added some sponging and a little Dazzling Diamonds for a sweet little glittery surprise and my card was done.

Well, that's all I have for you today. I hope you liked today's card and I hope it makes you think of someone special in your life and inspires you to create something new. If you liked today's card, I hope you'll leave me a comment. I love hearing from you! If you liked it and would like to +1 or Pin it I've added the buttons to my sidebar for your convenience. Friends and Followers are always welcome too! :)

I hope to see you back soon for this weeks End of the Week Technique.

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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