Saturday, July 21, 2012

Border Stamps For Class - Day 10

Happy Saturday!


Day 10 of Stretch Your Stamps class was all about border stamps. I only have a few of these stamps and never use them! As with every other day in class, we were shown so many fun ways to stretch these kinds of stamps. My favorite was a card from Shari Carroll. Oh, I wish I could show you her card! She used border stamps along with some punched hearts to create the cutest card!

I CASED her card using an unknown set of clear stamps. I took a photo of the set to show you - if you know who makes this set, please let me know.


I used a few different borders from this set, stamped and white embossed them, then used the resist technique before punching out my hearts. Here's my card.


Since I was so inspired by Shari Carroll, and she's a Hero Arts artist, I'm also entering this into the, "Inspired By" challenge over at A Blog Named Hero.

I hope you're having a wonderful Saturday! I'm planning to work on Day 11 of class and then hopefully play in the Hero Arts Scramble later this evening - always love those fun scrambles! If you want to join in, here's the link to get you started.

Thanks so much for stopping by! :)







Thursday, July 19, 2012

LOVED Day 9!

I had so much fun creating a card for day 9 of Stretch Your Stamps class!

We were shown different ways to use outline stamps. I just wish I had more time to try all the awesome ideas shown in class!

Of course I chose a floral outline stamp. BUT - normally, with my usual style, I would stamp and color it. This time I used lots of pretty patterned paper, from two different Echo Park paper pads, and some cute dotty paper from A-Muse. I love the way it turned out - especially because it's my favorite color combo!



And here's a close-up of the white embossed, Hand Drawn Flower, from Hero Arts.


Tonight, I'm working on my homework for day 10, and really enjoying this lesson too!

Have a great weekend! :)

How Do You Use Your Label Stamps?

Hi all!


This is going to be a really quick post today - I'm running behind and need to get ready for work.

Day 8 of the Stretch Your Stamps class was all about using label stamps. I only have a couple of these fun stamps, and to be honest, I don't think I've ever used them!

Kristina showed us how to use a larger sentiment with a smaller label and I loved it! Who said your sentiment has to fit into the label? Here's my first card.



I used a pretty label from the Hero Arts, Sweet One clear set and a large sentiment from their, Thank You For Being My Friend set. Then I layered it onto a kraft colored, oval die-cut.

I wanted to continue to play with this label, so I created another card.



For this one, I tried to make it look like the label was larger by stamping it once on the top of my card, and once on the bottom, like Dawn McVey showed us in class. It didn't turn out exactly as I had imagined but a fun idea for sure! I guess I was into ovals and aqua the other day! :)

I've already made a card for day 9 and will try to share that with you soon. Thanks so much for stopping by! Hope everyone is enjoying a creative week! :)

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

More Homework

I've been working on homework today for Stretch Your Stamps class, and it's not easy when you have no mojo! It's like doing your math assignment without a pencil! I have a confession to make - I have only liked ONE of the cards I've created for class so far. *sigh* Not that I'm not learning things and enjoying class - I am! It's just that losing my mojo while class is in session is bad timing!

So, today, I sat down and was determined to finish some cards for day 7. It was all about flowers. YAY! My favorite image to play with! BUT, could I come up with something different than usual, and S-T-R-E-T-C-H my floral images? Well, the jury is still out on that one, but at least I was creating and enjoying it! Here's my first card.



Now, you might not think this is anything different, but for me it is because I would normally stamp a floral image and just color it. So I thought it would be cool to white emboss this fun, Hero Arts stamp onto dark gray cardstock and only add a bit of black with some Enamel Accents.

Jennifer shared an amazing and beautiful card using Glitter Ritz on her main floral image. For my second card, I wanted to use some glitter too, but I don't own any Glitter Ritz, so I used my good ol' Stickles instead. I also wanted to use vellum, but I seem to have run out of that. (Figures!)
So please try to imagine this flower, stamped on vellum, with the same coloring and stickles, okay? :)

I used some pretty patterned paper from the Anthologie, 6x6 pad from We R Memory Keepers. I haven't pulled out the Large Flower from Hero Arts in such a long time- it sure was fun to color, even though it wasn't on vellum!

Okay, one last card. For this one, I used the the big peony from
Jane's Doodles, Pretty Peonies set. I not only colored the main flower with Copics, I also stamped it onto patterned paper, which is from Hero Arts, for a fun, tone on tone effect.

And there ya have it! Lesson 7 all finished! I worked on lesson 8 today too, but I'll share that another day - wouldn't wanna overwhelm any of you!

Thanks for hangin' around for such a long post. I really appreciate your visits! :)

Monday, July 16, 2012

Day 6 - Fun Die-Cutting

Hi there!

Just a short post tonight. I've been very busy with family, work and other fun stuff, so I've gotten a bit behind on my homework for the Stretch Your Stamps class.

There was a bonus day on Saturday, and the lesson was about using our stamp and die-cut combos. Jennifer McGuire shared a video showing us a fun technique where her die-cut butterfly extended over the side-edge of her card. I wanted to use a floral stamp instead, and also try doing the technique from the top of my card. It took two times to get it right, but it's always fun trying, even when it doesn't work the first time. Here's my result.




I used the Hero Arts Lattice stamp for one of the strips and some pretty Distress Inks, in Shaded Lilac and Mowed Lawn, to stamp the flower and little butterfly from the Sizzix/Hero Arts Floral stamp/die-cut set. This was definitely my favorite day of class so far!

Thanks for your visit! :)

Sunday, July 15, 2012

Stretching Sentiment Stamps

Happy Sunday!


I finally had the chance to play with the lesson from day five of the Stretch Your Stamps class. It was all about using sentiment stamps in different ways. I chose to play with a sentiment from my favorite set. It's called, Good Friends from Hero Arts and the font is so pretty!


I cut apart the sentiment so that I could use only the word, "Always" for my background panel. I stamped and white embossed the word several times, along with a little flower from the same set. I then used the emboss resist technique to add a pretty pink shade. A bit of a darker pink was added to each of the petals of the tiny flowers, and a small white pearl for the centers. I then put the sentiment back together to it's original form, and white embossed the entire stamp. It was really fun using a sentiment to create a pretty background!

There was a bonus post (day 6) yesterday and I'm looking forward to working on my homework today! Thanks so much for stopping by! :)