Tag Punch Starburst

I know I haven't been posting much lately, but I promise I'll do much better! I'm going to be making at least one more card today, and I'm attending a class at my up-up-upline's tomorrow where I'll be making 3 projects using Fundamental Phrases. I'm really excited to see what Sandi has planned for that set!
Today's project features the tag punch starburst, created by Donna Moore, AKA Shadow Mill on SCS. Here is my mini-tutorial for her brilliant creation.
To make a double-layered starburst, you will need 2 4X4 pieces of paper (She used mulberry paper; I'm using vellum. You could also use designer paper for a totally different look.) To give my vellum some sparkle, I used the splatter stamp from Itty Bitty Backgrounds with VersaMark and embossed with Irridescent Ice EP.
For the tag punches, start by punching the small tag punch. Then line the large tag punch over the hole you punched out, so you just have a rim of cardstock in the shape of a tag. You will need 16 of these to make 2 layers. (I used Shimmery White to add more sparkle.)

Use the 2 way glue pen to adhere 4 tags with the angled sides touching. I applied the glue to one and adhered before applying glue to the next one. (I would recommend pushing firmly on one spot and then moving your finger to another spot and push firmly rather than running your finger along the tag. Mine had a tendency to slide a little.)

Adhere 4 more tags as shown above. I would recommend laying them out first to dry-fit them before adhering any down. This second layer has a tendency to bubble up a little so make sure they are all stuck down well, especially where the layers cross over.

Cut away the excess as shown.

To finish my card, I used monoadhesive to adhere the first starburst as you can't really see most of that layer. I used 2 dimensionals in the center of the second starburst to adhere it to the first one; that is hidden by the flower. I adhered the flower and pearl to the starburst using mini glue dots before applying the dimensionals to the back.

You could also use a circle to cover the center. 1" would be the perfect size, but I don't have that punch yet. 3/4" was too small, and I thought 1 1/4" was too big; I want to see as much of that beautiful starburst as possible!

I kept the rest of the card simple to keep the focus on the starburst. I wish you could see the sparkle!

Supplies (all SU): Stamps: Baroque Motifs, Warm Words, Itty Bitty Backgrounds; Paper: vellum cardstock, Shimmery White, Soft Sky; Ink: Versamark, Soft Sky; Accessories: small tag punch, large tag punch, Pretties Kit, Irridescent Ice EP; mini glue dots; Stampin' Dimensionals; 2 way glue pen

What I've Learned From the Pros

Here's the card I came up with for my workshop on Thursday. I'm pretty happy with it! This card demonstrates something I've learned from the pros: It's the little details that take a card to the next level. On this card, I added a buckle to the ribbon instead of just a knot. I added a photo corner on the main image. I stamped the main image in Basic Brown on top of the VersaMark image to add emphasis. I added paper piercing to the photo corner and the upper right corner of the main image to tie into the dots on the patterned paper. If I wanted to take it up another level, I could add a background in the same color ink to the card base. I could add cardstock layers behind the 2 square images. I could use the ticket corner punch on the bottom layer of paper. You get the idea! Somethimes, it's just the little things!

For the main image, I stamped the image twice with VersaMark and sponged over it with Really Rust. Then I stamped the image again in Basic Brown. This layout is Beate's Weekend Sketch Challenge # 20.

Supplies (all SU): Stamps: Stem Silhouettes; Paper: River Rock, Glossy White, Apple Cider designer paper; Ink: VersaMark, Basic Brown, Really Rust; Accessories: photo corner punch, crafters tool kit, Aged Copper Hodgepodge Hardware, Wild Wasabi double stitched ribbon, sponge

Sorry I've been MIA...

It's been a busy week! I haven't even stamped much. First, I had 3 sets of ribbon shares to split up. That was way more work than I thought! Then I had a workshop to get in the mail. I was in such a hurry to get it done that I forgot to take pictures of my samples! Then on Friday I got a killer headache that has been bothering me off and on all weekend. I should be stamping, and I can't even concentrate! And I have another workshop coming up on Thursday that I still have to create a project for. Hopefully the one in my head will work once I feel up to making it.

Anyway, I did get something done on Friday night. We have craft night about once a month at my church. (Hi, Rhonda and Pauline!) I didn't stamp this time; I mounted stamps. I just got So Many Sayings, the level 1 hostess set. I love all of the sayings, but I don't like that they are mounted on only 3 blocks! Apparently, I'm not the only one because the fabulous Julie (reneejul1 on SCS) came up with the brilliant idea to cut them apart and mount them on dominoes. (Others have mounted them on Jenga blocks too.) So I got a set of dominoes at Walmart and got busy. I decided to mount 2 sayings on each domino so they would be flat for stamping but the sayings would be far enough apart for inking. Here's how they came out:

We Have a Winner!

Wow! I'm so amazed at how many people have visited my blog this week. There were 37 comments for the blog candy. The winner is # 33, as selected at random.org. That makes the winner.... Anette! She said, "It is a toss up between the scallop punch and the new In Colors. They are gorgeous,but the scalloped punch is so versitile. :)Your site is great, thanks for the opportunity to win...." Anette, please e-mail me your address so I can get your goodies in the mail.
The favorites were the scallop circle punch, Garden Whimsy, patterned paper, and the In Colors. I love all of those things too!

Blog Candy Giveaway!

To thank you all for checking out my blog, I'm giving away the following: a 4 X 6 frame just waiting to be altered, 4 chipboard flowers, metallic eyelets, and Earth Elements buttons. I may throw in some other stuff, too. To be eligible, leave a comment (only one comment per person please!) telling me what your favorite item is from the 2007-8 Stampin' Up Fall/Winter Collection. It can be new, old, stamp set, accessory, whatever! To get it started, my favorite is the scallop circle punch.
I will choose the winner on Thursday, September 20 at 8PM Central Time (after the season premiere of Survivor of course!). I'm going to date this so it will stay at the top of the blog until Thursday, so keep scrolling down when you check back for new posts.

I've Got Good Grammar

How's your grammar? Since correct grammar is very important to me, I HAD to take this quiz when I saw it. Click the link at the bottom if you dare!

You Scored an A

You got 10/10 questions correct. It's pretty obvious that you don't make basic grammatical errors. If anything, you're annoyed when people make simple mistakes on their blogs. As far as people with bad grammar go, you know they're only human. And it's humanity and its current condition that truly disturb you sometimes.

The It's Its There Their They're Quiz

Watercolor Sympathy Card

Unfortunately, I needed a sympathy card this week. My sister-in-law's mom passed away. You may notice this looks similar to another card I posted recently. I love the technique for this card. I colored directly onto the stamp with watercolor crayons, spritzed it with water and stamped onto the watercolor paper. Then I used the aquapainter and crayons to color in the grass and fill in a few bare spots on the tree trunks. The new wide grosgrain was just perfect for this card. (Thanks for the ribbon, Rhonda!) I layered it between the 2 layers of cardstock to add some dimension. And of course I had to use the ticket corner punch all over the place!

Supplies (all SU): Stamps: Lovely as a Tree, Sincere Salutations; Paper: watercolor paper, Really Rust; Ink: Chocolate Chip; Accessories: watercolor wonder crayons, ticket corner punch, aquapainter, Chocolate Chip wide grosgrain ribbon

Remember, you have to post a comment by Thursday at 8PM to be in the drawing for the blog candy. Thanks to all who have commented or even just stopped by!

Missing Jake and Almost 1000 Hits!

My nephew, Jake, just started college in New York City. It's hard to believe that he is so far away, but NYC is definitely the place for Jake! His favorite color is red, so I decided to use the Dashing designer paper that I just got last month. I got it for Christmas, but I think it's versatile enough for other uses. I cut one 4 X 5 1/4 piece of the paper. Then I cut it at 2" and flipped the top part over. I used the ticket corner punch on the 4 outside corners. I just love the little extra that adds to a card! A piece of red ribbon covers the seam where the 2 papers meet. I stamped the U in Real Red and then stamped the word "miss" in Old Olive craft ink so the color would stay true on the red.

Supplies (all SU): Stamps: All About U; Paper: River Rock, Old Olive, Dashing ds paper; Ink: Real Red, Old Olive craft; Accessories: Real Red narrow grosgrain ribbon, ticket corner punch.

As I write this, we are only 2 hits away from the 1000 mark. So check back tomorrow for a post about blog candy and see what you need to do to win!

Yes, it's a (kinda) round card

When I saw this sketch challenge on SCS, I decided that I really needed to do it! It's not often that I try something really different, and this is definitely out-of-the-box for me. I combined it with this weeks color combination of Always Artichoke, Purely Pomegranate and Taken with Teal. It's a very unusual color combo, but I like it. I made the card base by first making a standard card base and wheeling the Whimsy jumbo wheel over it in Tempting Turquoise. (It shows up better IRL.) Then I flipped the card over and traced around a CD on the back; I put one edge of the CD almost at the very edge of the card so I could get a good-sized card out of it. Then I just cut it out with scissors. As I added each layer to the card, I just trimmed around the edge of the round card base. Helpful tip: When trimming off a layer that hangs over the edge of the card, hold the card so the card base is on top and the overhanging layer is on the bottom. It's much easier to follow the edge of the card that way. (I hope that makes sense! Otherwise, it's not helpful at all!)
I used the Coluzzle to cut out the 2 larger circles. Then I stamped the tulips, making sure I kept them to one side so they wouldn't get cut off. I used the corner rounder punch with the guard removed to make the scalloped edge on the pomegranate circle.
On a blogging note, some people have been having trouble commenting, so I removed comment moderation but left on the thing where you have to type in the scratchy, wavy letters. I'm hoping that will help. Remember, when I get 1000 hits, I will have a giveaway, and I'm open to suggestions!

Supplies (all SU): Stamps: Garden Whimsy, Whimsy jumbo wheel; Paper: Naturals White, Taken with Teal, Always Artichoke, Purely Pomegranate; Ink: Tempting Turquoise jumbo cartridge, Always Artichoke, Purely Pomegranate, Taken with Teal; Accessories: Coluzzle, corner rounder punch, 1 1/4 & 1 3/8" circle punches, gold elastic cord

Emerging Color

This is another card for work (meaning it's HUGE--5 1/2 X 8 1/2) for my friend, RuthAnn's birthday. For this card, I decided to try the Emerging Color technique; yes, it's another tutorial from SCS! For this technique, you start with white cardstock (Naturals White here). Cover the whole piece with small images in lighter colors of ink (I used guava, soft sky, and celery). Stamp a large image in Versamark and emboss with clear EP. Sponge entire piece with a darker color of ink. After you're done, wipe the embossed image(s) with a cloth or paper towel to remove the excess ink. Helpful tip # 1: I had to use a baby wipe to remove the burgundy ink. Even after wiping with a paper towel, the flowers had a pink tinge, but the baby wipe took care of it! Helpful tip # 2: When I say lighter colors of ink, I mean lighter! For this card, guava was almost too dark. I had to really work to cover the guava flowers. Helpful tip # 3: A sponge dauber works much better than a regular sponge.

Supplies (all SU): Stamps: Looks Like Spring, Itty Bitty Backgrounds, Wonderful Words; Ink: Soft Sky, Groovy Guava, Certainly Celery, Bravo Burgundy, Versamark; Paper: Naturals White, Groovy Guava, Soft Sky; Accessories: Clear EP, ticket corner punch, Aged Copper Hodgepodge Hardware, Certainly Celery narrow grosgrain ribbon

Resistance is Futile!

Sorry, the Star Trek fan in me just couldn't resist that title! I made this card yesterday for one of the VSN challenges on SCS. VSN is Virtual Stamp Night. About every other month, they have VSN. There are challenges every hour on Friday night and most of the day Saturday. You have 45 minutes to make a card that meets the challenge requirements. This challenge was to use a resist technique. This card uses the double resist technique, which is actually 2 different resists (emboss resist and Versamark resist). First, I stamped the large leaf with Versamark, added gold embossing powder and heated. Then I stamped the other leaves in Versamark and brayered over everything with the Late November Spectrum pad. (Why oh why did SU retire this??? It's my favorite!) Both the embossed image and the Versamark images resist the ink. Helpful tip: If you use clear embossing powder, use a soft cloth to wipe off any excess ink from the embossed image. Second helpful tip: Make sure you emboss the first image before stamping the others. Otherwise, all of your images will be embossed! LOL

Supplies (all SU): Stamps: With Gratitude, Weathered; Paper: Glossy White, More Mustard, Perfect Plum; Ink: VersaMark, More Mustard, Not Quite Navy, Late November Spectrum; Accessories: Gold EP, spiral punch, brayer

Altered Composition Journal

This is a composition notebook that I altered to make a stamping journal of sorts. I'm not really one to journal, but I thought it would be nice to have a notebook to keep my ideas in, such as projects I want to try, workshop ideas, color combos, sketches, etc. I'm thinking I'll add tabs once I decide what categories I want to have.

This started life as a plain notebook that I got on clearance for 12 cents. You've seen them before; the cover is a black and white marbled pattern, and there's a black binding. If you decide to do this project, I will warn you that these notebooks are not cut straight! Be prepared to cut the paper a little big and trim it down. Fortunately, I was able to use the sticker strips to cover up the wonky edges on mine. I got the idea from another demonstrator on SCS to use a Simply Scrappin' kit. Here I used the retired Friends and Flowers kit. The only items I used that weren't in the kit were Sticky Strip, twill tape to cover the binding, and Chocolate Chip craft ink for the letter U. The letters in the kit spell out friend, so I turned the extra N upside down and sponged the ink over it. (Classic ink was not opaque enough.)

Thanks to all of you who have been checking out my blog! When my counter hits 1,000, I will have some type of giveaway. I don't know what it will be yet, so feel free to make suggestions!

Daniel is 18 today!

I can't believe Daniel is 18, but he is! Today was also the first day of his senior year in high school. Shirley, you'll be glad to know he wore his Mountain Dew shirt and new pants that you gave him for his birthday.

I made Daniel a surprise pop-up card for his birthday. The card lies flat for delivering. Then you pull on the ribbon at the top to fold up the front of the card, revealing the message underneath. It is way easier than it looks, especially if you follow Beate's great tutorial on SCS found here: http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/resources/surprisepopup.php All of the tutorials on SCS include photos, step-by-step directions and even measurements! Daniel even admitted that the card was really cool!

Lovely Watercolor

I made this card almost a year ago and found it in my stash. How could I forget this card? It's so pretty, if I do say so myself! This is the direct to stamp technique; I colored with the watercolor crayons directly onto the stamp, sprayed the stamp with water and then stamped it onto watercolor paper. Then I watercolored the hills with the crayons and aquapainter. The watercolor paper doesn't buckle at all, and it's precut to fit on a card front. I stamped the word "friend" onto a scrap of watercolor paper and then adhered it inside the metal frame. (I originally got this idea from a card on SCS, so don't think I was clever enough to come up with this myself!)

Supplies (all SU): Stamps: Lovely as a Tree, Lexicon of Love (retired); Paper: Watercolor paper, Really Rust; Ink: Close to Cocoa; Accessories: Watercolor Wonder Crayons, Aged Copper Hodgepodge Hardware, olive wide organdy ribbon (retired)

Faux Stenciling

I made this card for a demonstrator challenge on SCS. The technique is called faux stenciling. Personally, I would just call it stenciling! You just make your own stencil using punches and cardstock. But I didn't create the technique, just a card. LOL The top of the card is done in the faux stenciling; I made the stencil using 3 sizes of circle punches. (The spring bouquet punch would also be awesome for this technique.) I used Double Line Doodles for the scallop circle, and I colored in the images using ink and a blender pen. I omitted the heart from the larger stamp and popped up the flower in its place. I consider this to be a Debbie Olson-inspired card; let me know if you think so too! (And if you've never visited Debbie's blog, click on the link on the right. She's awesome!)

Now, I'm going to make Daniel's birthday card. I'll post it later this week along with pictures from his birthday celebration at his grandparents house. My only baby is 18 on Thursday! SOB!

Supplies (all SU): Stamps: Double Line Doodles; Paper: River Rock, Old Olive, Dashing DS paper; Ink: River Rock, Real Red, Old Olive, StazOn Black; Accessories: 1/4", 1/2" & 3/4" circle punches, word window punch, ticket corner punch, scallop circle punch, Real Red narrow grosgrain, blender pen, sponge daubers

Acetate Card

Last week's tutorial on SCS was an acetate card. It was so elegant yet seemed simple to make. So today was the day! This was fun and actually was pretty simple. Here's the link to the great tutorial on SCS: http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/resources/acetatecard.php .

The basic idea is that the acetate is the card base. You have to stamp on it using StazOn or another similar ink. Regular ink won't dry on it. For the front, I stamped the two medallions from True Friend, cut them out, and added a rhinestone brad. I mounted that on a 2 1/4" square of Purely Pomegranate with ticket corners. The Basic Gray layer is 2 1/2" square and is attached on the inside of the card. The sentiment is stamped on a 2 1/2" square of Shimmery White. It's lined up with the Basic Gray so that it's not seen when the card is closed. The last layer is a 2 3/4" square of Purely Pomegranate that's attached to the back of the card. Cool, huh? I added the Basic Gray taffeta ribbon with 2 jewels from the Pretties kit tied onto the ends. (You can thread the beads on by cutting a long, very narrow point on the end of the ribbon.) The ribbon has the added bonus of covering up the part of the design that I smeared. (Acetate is slippery, so be careful when stamping!)

If you make one of these, be sure to post a link here so I can see it.

Happy stamping!

Supplies (all SU except acetate):Stamps: True Friend, Doodle This; Paper: acetate, shimmery white, basic gray, purely pomegranate; Ink: basic gray, StazOn black; Accessories: gray taffeta ribbon, ticket corner punch, Pretties kit

Photo Wallet

Last night was crafting night at church. (Hi, Rhonda and Pauline!) It is so much fun to just hang out and stamp. And because it's planned, I actually do it! Rhonda and Pauline were both scrapping while I worked on this photo wallet. It was actually designed by Stampin' Up, and last spring they sold us kits with all of the pieces pre-cut. It's a good thing because I don't think I would make it on my own! The project itself is fairly simple, but there were lots of pieces. They originally showed it with Doodle This, but I decided to use Baroque Motifs to make it a little more elegant. It's held closed by a belly band. There are 3 pull-out pieces for photos; you can put one on each side for a total of 6. And the journaling is done on the black pieces underneath the pockets. I think it would look great with the white gel pen or a metallic marker. Or, as Pauline suggested, you could layer lighter cardstock on top of the black for the journaling. I think we'll be doing this in September for something fun and different.

Supplies (all SU): Stamps: Baroque Motifs; Paper: Marigold Morning (retired), Basic Black, Old Olive, Rose Red, Tempting Turquoise, Whisper White Mini Envelopes; Inks: Basic Black, Old Olive, Rose Red, Tempting Turquoise; Accessories: Basic Black grosgrain ribbon, Vintage brads, 1/16" hole punch, 1 1/4" circle punch, scallop circle punch