Thinking Inking

Long Happy Birthday

I'm playing with my super-cool new designer paper tonight. It is so Spring-y that I can almost forget that we have a pile of snow outside with more on the way! This card is 3-1/4" x 6-1/2" , sized to fit in SU's open-ended envelopes.  Card base is Cool Caribbean, and the designer paper will be available from your local SU demonstrator on March 1. Ink colors are Cool Caribbean, Pretty in Pink, Old Olive, and Regal Rose. Stamp sets include Happy Everything (birthday), Polka Dots and Posies, and Polka Dots and Paisleys. Two of the stems are stamped, and two are drawn in with an Old Olive marker.  I've been using eyelets a lot more since I bought a Crop-a-dile--eyelet-setting bliss!

Scalloped Happy Birthday

I think I overindulged in the SU designer papers this quarter, considering that I still have full packs left of both varieties! I decided that it was time to stop hoarding this paper and use it as quickly as possible.  The only stamping here is with Nichole Heady's Paper tray stamp set. (Yes, I'm aware that I'm stuck on that repeating word theme. . . but it has been so much fun to be able to line up words without having to pull out my stamp positioner!)  The large scalloped border is made using my SU slit punch, touching one slit to the next all the way across the length of the card stock.  (Some clever person on SplitCoastStampers figured this out and enlightened the rest of us. If I had a name for this person, I would be happy to share it.) Edited to add: What timing!  A couple of you let me know that Beate Johns just wrote a tutorial for this on her blog yesterday. Check it out; you will love Beate's blog if you haven't found it already! I couldn't figure out how to get a permalink to that particular post, but it is her February 26 post. Beate used a corner rounder instead of a slot punch, but it works the same.  The slot punch gives you a deeper scoop, and the corner rounder a shallower scoop.

Scalloped Square is a Marvy-Uchida Mega Scalloped Square. Besides the SU designer paper, I used Taken with Teal, Pretty in Pink, and Regal Rose card stocks.  It's a simple card, but it's one more for the birthday stash!

Doodle Mileage. . .

When I was looking for my mileage notes from 2006, I had to scrounge for four sticky notes and the back of an envelope.  I thought that if I made myself a cute little notebook, perhaps I would not have such a hard time keeping all of my notes in one place!  For this 4" x 4" notebook, I used two layers of the thin chipboard coasters for both the front and the back, gluing the layers together. (Thick coasters wouldn't fit in my Rubicoil machine.)  Next I cut four 4" x 4" pieces of Sage Shadow card stock, rounded the edges, punched, and stamped them in Chocolate Chip classic ink. I enhanced just a few spots with my white Signo Glo Gel pen and glued the card stock to the covers, both back and front inside and outside. I painted the stamped Doodle This flower on watercolor paper, cut out around it, and matted it in Pixie Pink. I added a flower center from Doodle That, then used my 1/8" Karen Foster informal snap stamps to stamp the word mileage onto Apricot Appeal card stock, which I cut out with my word window punch.  I stacked the covers and inside pages, then ran my coil through and crimped it on each end. Finally, I embellished with stickles, a rhinestone, and a bit of ribbon tied on the top.  It's pretty simple, but it beats my previous mileage system!  By the way, if anyone finds my stamping mojo, would you let me know?  I think I misplaced it somewhere in last week's paperwork. . .

Doodle Wish

Woohoo!  I finished my tax figures and can play again.  My husband's happy, I'm happy--everybody's happy!

For this Doodle This card, I used a Fabriano square card. There's nothing better to work on than lovely paper. I stamped my doodle images with Timber Brown Staz-On and painted them with my sorely neglected Twinkling H2O's--the shimmery little watercolor tubs that were such a rage a year or so ago.  (You've probably got some--you know, in that drawer with all of the other things that you bought because somebody else loved them. . . I have a Melting Pot on the shelf too--same reason.  One day I'm going to visit the Suze site and get all inspired to actually use it!) In my giddiness over being finished with taxes, I digress.

After painting the card, I added a bit of bling with Stickles (ordered from StarLit Studio since I live two hours from a craft store). I liked it but still felt that it needed an indefinable something.  So I pulled out the Small Script hostess set from last year and stamped wish on Cool Caribbean card stock, cut it with my word window punch, adhered it, and added one more tiny blinglet--an AMuse twinkle sticker from Ellen's store. There--I think it's finished now!

Edited to add:  Some of you have written to ask where you can learn more about using the Twinkling H2O's that you already own.  One of the best places that I have seen is Kimm Bennington-Thompson's website.  Kimm is a master-twinkler! She has a tab to click for Twinkling H2O's.  Have fun exploring!

No FUN!

My husband wants to get taxes done this weekend. What does that mean?  It means that until I can pull together my numbers for last year, I'm not stamping very much. I hope that I'm not the only procrastinator out there who is printing out a year's worth of business receipts in one evening to attempt to make heads or tails out of it all.  Last year I tried simply telling him, "I'm sure I've spent more than I've made. Can we just leave it at that?"  Unfortunately, he wanted a bit more precision than that. . .  Wish me luck!

Doodling This and That!

I think I'm really going to like Doodle This; I have many flower sets, but this one is particularly playful and trendy. Images are stamped on watercolor paper with Sepia pigment ink, (but Timber Brown Staz-On would work equally well), then watercolored with both watercolor crayons and reinkers. The stamped image was pierced, then partially matted in Chocolate Chip and fully matted in Tempting Turquoise stamped in chocolate chip ink, and enhanced here and there with a white Signo Glo gel pen. I layered a couple of small flowers from Doodle That just to add some depth and interest. The bit of ribbon is two-toned turquoise and dark brown satin. Finally I added some stickles for bling-power. What a happy set!

Friend Notebook

Tonight while I was waiting for my Doodle This blocks to dry, I found a couple of scraps of the stamped paisley paper that I had used for a "Just because" card a couple of night ago.  If I used a contrasting color for the spine, there was just enough to cover a mini composition book.  First I covered the spine with Chocolate Chip card stock that I had run through a crimper. A crimped spine allows a bit more flexibility for opening the notebook. Also, I do not glue directly on the spine, but on the front and back to either side of the spine.  Next I added the stamped pink paisley card stock and aged its edges a bit.  A piece of the SU Flirty ribbon, glued under the friend piece, allowed me to add ribbon while still keeping the notebook flat. (Primas don't fare well in most purses!) I stamped the friend from That's Nice (another Spring Mini set) in Regal Rose and Chocolate Chip. How about that cool notebook punch? I like it!  I still needed more on the cover, but I wanted it to stay flat--no bows, lumpy ribbons, buttons, brads, knots. So I pulled out Stamp of Authenticity and added a few pieces from it.  It's a simple little project, but I think one of my friends will find a use for it.  Tomorrow I'll have a Doodle This for you; the stickles are drying right now.  (Yes, Doodle This was definitely worth the wait!.)

Sneak Peek: Petals and Paisley Paper

First order of business is a retraction: several of you have e-mailed me about the Big Impressions Starter Kit, asking whether the BI plates will work with a Cuttlebug.  I have a Big Shot, but not a Cuttlebug.  I was guessing that the Big Impressions plates would be too large to fit the Cuttlebug since they are larger than A-2 sized and larger than a Cuttlebug A-2 embossing folder. However, when my friend Penny tried the Big Impressions plates on her Cuttlebug  tonight, they did work. The plate was not too wide. So there you have it: BI plates, while not a double sided sandwich like the CB embossing folders, will work with a Cuttlebug. Just as with a Big Shot, they require some extra fiddling in order to get a good impression--misting the card stock with water helps. Here is Penny's Cuttlebug/Big Impressions sandwich recipe:
Cuttlebug "A" Spacer
Big Impressions Paisley template
Card stock, dampened with water
Black squishy Big Impressions rubber layer
Black hard Big Impressions layer

Thanks, Penny, for checking this out for me!

Have you ever seen a message like this on your UPS tracking before? "THE PACKAGE WAS LEFT IN A UPS FACILITY CAUSING THIS DELAY;FORWARDED TO THE FACILITY IN THE DESTINATION CITY"  The long and short of it is that I still don't have my Doodle This set yet, and patience is not one of my strong points! I still had some of last week's delivery to play with, however: I wanted to use my new Petals and Paisley patterned paper.  In my stash I found several unused packets of card stock that I had cut for workshops in the past few months. Among them was this fold-up-and-down card base. Being Cool Caribbean, it happened to work perfectly with Petals and Paisley.  The card base is 4-1/4 x 8-3/4, scored at 5-1/2". The short side folds up from the bottom. The double-sided patterned paper is 3" x 8-1/2", scored at 4-1/2". It attaches with the fold on the top, just opposite from the base layer. (I would tell you what this card is called if I knew.**See note at bottom of post for credits.**  I received one several months ago and saved it because it was a different concept, but not a difficult one.) I am including several views so that you can see how it works in case you haven't made one of these before.  Mine seemed to want to stay slightly open, so I added a notch at the bottom with a Basic Grey Notch and Die Tool. All stamps and papers except the inside greeting are Stampin Up. The inside greeting is PaperTrey. Happy tag is polyshrink, dug out of the stash. . . (The stash is taking on a life of its own.)

Here's hoping that UPS will come through tomorrow!

Edited to add: Julia Stainton just told me that this is called a Joy Card Fold, and Valerie Stangle (11Valerie11) created it.  Here is a card that Valerie posted, but she also credits Rozie 640.  Valerie and Rohla created a template posted in this thread on SCS (both Word and pdf formats). I'm not sure how far this cool fold goes back, but  thanks, Valerie, Rohla, and Rozie!

Pink Paisleys and Primas

Tonight I wanted to play with my new Technique Tuesday Masterpieces of Paisley stamp set; it's a build-your-own paisley set that includes several different styles and sizes of Paisleys separated into layers for easy stamping. I used Chocolate Chip, Pretty in Pink, and Regal Rose inks on Pretty in Pink card stock for the top.

On the bottom, I used SU's Canvas stamped in Close to Cocoa on Regal Rose card stock.  For the words, I used Nichole Heady's PaperTrey set. It's very handy to stamp multiple word without a stamp positioner since the stamps are  acrylic.  Ribbon is May Arts dotted sheer organdy. The brad for the prima center was a weird pink, so I rubbed it in my Staz-On Timber Brown pad.  Card size is 3-1/4 x 6-1/2, and it will fit into SU's small open end envelope.

Tomorrow I should get my Doodle This pre-ordered set.  Woohoo!  New toys!

Cute as a Button!

One more card with last night's color scheme: I have to use that background up! The large dotted circles in Polka Dots and Petals  reminded me of buttons, so I stamped them and punched them out with a 1" circle punch, then punched two holes so that I could insert ribbon through them like thread. Mats are cut with a 1-1/4" circle punch. Card stock and ink colors: So Saffron, Cool Caribbean, and Certainly Celery, on a Whisper White base. Faux buttons are mounted on dimensionals. Yellow and celery grosgrain ribbons are SU, and the aqua grosgrain is from Taylor. I promise to move past this color scheme tomorrow, even though I have one piece of background left. . .  Thanks for visiting!

Hello, Polka Dots and Petals!

I had a chance to play with my second preordered set tonight, Polka Dots and Petals.  Since I love Polka Dots and Posies, I figured that I'd love its sister as well!  This card is 3-1/4" x 6-1/2", and it fits SU's small open-end envelope, 107286. I used both Polka Dots sets (which will be available starting March 1.) Colors are Cool Caribbean, So Saffron, and Certainly Celery.  I drew in all but one of the flower stems so that they looked more random. The word hello is from this Papertrey stamp set, and all other stamps are SU.  White dotted organdy ribbon is May Arts from StarLitStudio, and aqua grosgrain is from Taylor VanBruggen. Since I still have part of my stamped background left, you will probably see these colors again tomorrow!

If you get a chance. . .

If you get a chance, stop by and check out Nichole Heady's new stamp set at Papertrey Ink! Nichole is one of my favorite designers, and I look forward to seeing what she will continue to do with her stamp line each month. This was one of my design team pieces for her inaugural stamp set: a note card, mini composition book, and gift tag. Card stock is SU Bashful Blue, Almost Amethyst, and Whisper White. Patterned paper is Basic Grey LilyKate. Texture plate is from the Big Impressions Starter Kit. (Had to have those paisleys!)   I truly enjoyed working with this set though it stretched my typical design bubble. My instinct, if left unchecked, is to fiddle and add details forever. . . But Nichole's stamps begged for a cleaner design to showcase them properly. That meant that I had to actually think before I started stamping. (I may even try that more often.) I love having small words that I can add to anything I please without having to get out my stamp positioner, and I love the versatility of the possible word combinations as well. Be sure to see the Inkpad, Papertrey Ink's Gallery; the pieces there are quite varied and all lovely.

What else happens on the fifteenth of every month? Yes!  The SplitCoastStampers Dirty Dozen Gallery opens.  So many places to surf. . . and so much laundry to fold.  Do you think that my family would mind dressing straight from the laundry basket for another day or two?