Gone too long

I have probably broken every rule about keeping a blog.  I had no intention of launching a blog and then disappearing for 3 months.

 

The usual story...work, vacation, family visitors plus a craft room make over!  I spent a month crafting in my old makeshift space with things boxed up or scattered around waiting to box up.  Then another month digging through boxes in the living room to craft on the kitchen table.

 

It was all worth it now that I have a functional craft space.  Things are better organized and easy to get to.  No more climbing over boxes of stamps & paper to get to ribbon in the corner.  I now have a L-shaped tabletop with plenty of open space in the middle of the room.  I would show you before & after photos but I was too embarrassed to take a before shot!

 

I'm settling in to the new space and making cards.  I had two specific occasion cards for family members that I made using a piece of pattern paper from BasicGrey's Grand Bazaar collection.  I ended up with one small piece that I matted on a piece of orange card stock I had in my scrap pile.

 

Does anyone else start out with a piece of paper or a stamped image and them spend hours trying to make it look good on a card?  I tried putting this on a card front that I had stenciled with some Distress inks.  That didn't gel at all.  Plus I had no idea what stamped images to use that would match the paper...which seems Southwestern-y to me.  I left it on the desk for a week during which I remembered the iguana from the Create A Smile set "Jungle Fever"  This is the image that it needed!   But, oh how long it took me to get the image to look the way that I wanted.  I tired coloring with markers ...EPIC FAIL.

 

Poor Iguana...so many outfits and everything looks so bad!

 

 I realized that I should try a technique with Distress Inks and watercolor paper.  I stamped the Iguana one more time in Rancher Archival Jet Black ink on a scrap of watercolor paper.  Then I smushed three Distress Ink pads onto my Ranger craft sheet and added about 3 squirts of water from my mini-mister.  I then dabbed my stamped image into the water-y ink and VOILA!

 

 

 

 
I now had the blended colors that I wanted.  I cut out the little guy and thought I was home free.  WRONG!  A few more hours messing around with layout and the thought of trashing everything crossed my mind so many times.  I finally ended up with this card.  I'm not totally in love with the layout but I do enjoy the Iguana and the final scrap of paper.

Using the same BasicGrey paper collection, I cut a background and "grounding" strip using the Mama Elephant "Femme Frames" die.  The original scrap was first cut using a Simon Says Stamp "Frames" die but I couldn't work it into the layout in a way that I liked.  I chopped it down to the part of the pattern that I liked the best and thought it looked like a flower pot.  (Looking at it now, I think I should have flipped the pot.)  I stamped some flowers from the new Clearly Besotted "Celebrating You" set using the same Distress Ink colors and cut them out.  I white embossed the sentiment from the Jungle Fever set and added a background using a cute starburst from the Essentials by Ellen "Merry & Bright" set.  I adhered to my card base and added some Ranger Black Enamel Accent to the Iguana's eye and some clear Wink of Stella to the flower centers. 

I do love how the Iguana turned out and hope to try some other cards using this stamp and watercolor method again.  What do you do when you hit a creative wall with a particular stamp, paper, embellishment, etc?  Do you trash it or keep working until you have a finished card? 

 

 

 

SUPPLIES:

STAMPS - Create a Smile "Jungle Fever"; Clearly Besotted "Celebrating You"; Essentials by Ellen "Merry & Bright"

INKS - Ranger Archival "Jet Black"; Ranger Distress Inks "Chipped Sapphire" "Wild Honey" Evergreen Bough"

DIES - Mama Elephant "Femme Frames"; Simon Says Stamp "Frames"

PAPER - BasicGrey "Grand Bazaar"

EMBELLISHMENTS - Ranger "Black Enamel Accents"; Wink of Stella "Clear"

New to This

If anyone is reading this, HI!  I'm an amateur card maker that recently found the wonderful word of creative people in the blogosphere.  I've been inspired by so many amazing crafters and stampers.  It gave me a desire to jump in and share what I've been doing.

I've been stamping for about 10 years, more or less.  I have LOTS of paper and LOTS of stamps that sometimes collect more dust than ink.  Seeing what others have created has given me new ideas, introduced me to new products and techniques and encouraged me to share.  Would love to have your comments and suggestions.

The first card that I would like to share was made for a co-worker's birthday.  I just couldn't find anything in my pre-made cards that would work for this lively woman. 

I've seen a few cards with this type of theme/layout.  I especially love this one here by Vicky Papaioannou.  The  Polaroid camera and "photos" make me so nostalgic for when I was growing up in the 70's.  My early childhood is documented with many of these  :)

The two characters (and the musical notes) are from the Avery Elle set "Red & Goldie".  The camera and saying are from a new Avery Elle set "#smile".  I die-cut the polaroid picture from the largest of the My Favorite Things Die-namics Precious Polaroids.   This die cuts two pieces: a photo and a white frame.  This makes it easy to design your "photo" and preserve your white frame from any stray ink! 

To get the blue background, I stamped the two characters on Post-it tape to create a mask.  I placed my masks where I wanted the characters and then sponged some Salty Ocean Distress Ink on the rest of the picture portion of the die cut. 

I lifted the mask for what was to be the red-haired character and stamped her.  I then removed the mask for the brunette and stamped her.  I colored both with various Copic markers and stamped the musical notes a few times in the sky area.  I stamped the sentiment on the frame portion of the die cut.  I attached the picture in the frame by using a tape runner. to back with printer paper. 

I then stamped the camera with Versamark ink and embossed with some black powder.  I fussy cut the final image and then colored with Copics.  I used my craft knife to make a slit on the front where the photo would be printed in a real Polaroid. 

I covered an A2 card with a piece of glitter printed cardstock from an older paper pad by DCWV and then rounded the corners.  I slid the polaroid into the slit in the camera and mounted both on the card front using foam tape.  It is hard to tell from the photo but I put a higher layer of foam tape at the bottom of the polaroid so it stands up slightly higher. 

The last touch was to put some Stampin Up Crystal Effects (similar to Glossy Accents) where the camera lens is.  I decided not to add any other embellishments because the background paper is very glittery in person. 

Well, if you made it to the end of my ramblings, I hope my card gave you a #smile ;)  Thanks for taking time to read my blog!