Stamp Review Crew: Serene Silhouettes Edition

Here we again with another edition of the Stamp Review Crew. We are featuring Serene Silhouettes this time, and I am so excited! This set is by no means a new set, it has been around for at least 2-3 years, but it is a wonderfully easy set to work with. You can change the mood easily just with color choices, and get all kinds of projects from it, everything from Halloween and Sympathy, to birthdays and Spring, and Christmas! There are masculine and feminine features too :)

I hope you are enjoying all of the creations we are sharing. We sure enjoy pulling out some of our favorite sets to share with you :) If you have missed any of the past hops, be sure to go to the official Stamp Review Crew site and catch up!
You may have just arrived from Nancy Smith's blog, love her stuff! Or maybe you are jumping around. If you are on this hop and get lost at any time, you can get reoriented here.

For my first project, I made an over the hill card. I thought about making it a Halloween card but I don't really send many of those out :) I do have a co-worker who is turning 30 next weekend and she keeps going on about how she is feeling old now, lol! We all keep telling her she is still just a puppy :) She has a great sense of humor and would get a kick out of this card, so she is who is getting this card.
I took a 3"x5" piece of watercolor paper and sponged it with Cajun Craze and Basic Gray ink, then sprayed with Vanilla Shimmer Smooch Spritz. Then I die cut it with the large label from Apothecary Accents framelits, then paper pierced and outlined with the white gel pen.
The banner is a 1" wide strip of Cajun Craze that I embossed with Black embossing powder and this great sentiment from the photopolymer set Bombs Away.

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This one is with the same image, but with a completely different feel. A lovely soft Christmas card. First I embossed the birds and tree branches image in White embossing powder on watercolor paper, then I used an Aquapainter to add the Soft Sky background. Then Ovals framelits were used to cut out the focal point. The background panel is a Very Vanilla piece with Hardwood BG stamp stamped off once then on the Very Vanilla panel in Soft Sky ink.
I originally intended to emboss the sentiment with Gold embossing powder, but I apparently didn't swipe well enough with the Embossing Buddy because I had a finger shaped blob right next the sentiment that I couldn't stop getting embossing powder on. SO, I used some Gold Perfect Pearls instead.

Inside, I used Versamark again with Gold Perfect Pearls on the rest of the sentiment, so it matches the front.

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I hope you enjoyed my projects! Now it is time to continue on to Kerry's blog where she is using the digital version of this set to amaze us :)

Starry Birthday

I have been obsessed with watercolor paper, wet embossing, and spritzing lately! I have been having so much fun creating my own patterns and playing with techniques, sometimes it is hard to cut into them or cover any part of then up :) Well, this one was the easiest to cut into, so I started here.

When I started this card, I had no idea what I was going to make with it, just something with a starry night sky. I also have discovered Perfect Pearls. I know, I know. Not a Stampin' Up! product, but what can I say. I have been using Pearlized Water a lot lately when spritzing watercolor stuff. I have a 3 oz travel size spray bottle I filled with water and put about ¼-½ tsp of Pearl color Perfect Pearls into, awesome stuff! Here is how I made this card:

1. Take a 4"x5¼" panel of watercolor paper and sponge all over it with Night of Navy and Island Indigo. Spritz liberally with Pearlized Water (or plain water). Set aside to dry. When it was close to dry I did hit it with the heat tool, but not until all the puddles had been absorbed. 
2. Take a 3¾" square of Crumb Cake and emboss with the Lucky Stars embossing folder. 
3. Use the Stars mask and sponge stars all over the watercolor panel with Silver Encore ink. Sponge the inside corner of the card base with stars also. 
4. Die cut a Stars framelit out of the watercolor panel. Pierce around it with the Eclectic Paper Piercing Pack, then go back with white gel pen.Outline the whole panel with white gel pen.
5. Die cut a smaller star in Whisper White, paper pierce 2 sizes of stars on it. 
6. Lay the watercolor panel on card front and trace the star on the panel, then adhere the embossed Crumb Cake panel to the card so that it will cover the star and not stick out past the edges of the watercolor panel. 
7. Put LOTS of dimensionals on the back of the watercolor panel and adhere to the card front. 
8. Glue the white star in the center of the star cut out. 
9. Take a ½"x4" strip of Crumb Cake and emboss with the "Birthday Wishes" sentiment in white embossing powder. Dovetail the ends with 1" Square punch. Outline with white gel pen. Adhere to the card front. 

Done!

 And here are those stars on the inside. I will be showing more of the watercolor adventures I have been having soon :)

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Stampin' Addicts 2014 Winter Holiday Blog Hop: Visions of Santa

Are you ready to see a bunch of projects featuring the Winter stamps from the Holiday Mini? Well then, you are definitely in the right place! A group of us from Stampin' Addicts have come together to bring you an astounding number of ideas :) You can check out the full blog roll, and stop to chat, on the official SA thread for this hop.
 If you are following in order, then you just arrived from Debra Burgin's blog where she featured Ornamental Pine. Fantastic stuff, right?!

Today, I am using the quirky, fun, adult set: Visions of Santa. I kept saying how much I like this set during the pre-order month, and then when it was time to pick our sets for this hop, I figured I better put my money where my mouth was, lol!

This first card is pretty simple. I just stamped the different Santas in Early Espresso on Naturals Ivory paper and colored them with a Blender Pen and Cherry Cobbler and Mossy Meadow inks. The sentiment is stamped in Early Espresso on Cherry Cobbler and is matted on a piece of Mossy Meadow cardstock. I outlined with white gel pen, of course. This is a pretty plain jane card. I think I am going to go back and color the skin areas with Crisp Cantaloupe and add some white chalk marker to the hair and beards. That should jazz it up a bit, don't you think?

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Next up is another card featuring that dancing Santa! This time I decided we need to highlight Santa's star qualities ;) There are stars embossed on the Old Olive panel, the star behind Santa has one of the stars from Bright and Beautiful stamped in Gold Encore ink. Santa is embossed in Early Espresso on watercolor paper, then colored with an Aquapainter and Old Olive and Crisp Cantaloupe ink. I colored his hair and beard with the Chalk marker too. The sentiment is from Good Greetings and is stamped on a scrap of watercolor paper with Gold Encore ink also.

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This time I featured the moose, again on watercolor paper, embossed with Early Espresso, and watercolored with Soft Suede, Sahara Sand, and Cherry Cobbler. The Old Olive panel is embossed with the On Point embossing folder, which looks like trees to me :) The coordinating Washi tape looks fab on this card, and the Gold Bakers Twine has a few knots tied in it to give some more interest.

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Here is another moose card. I think I like the other one better, but it isn't horrible, lol! I stamped the moose several times in Tuxedo Black ink on Mossy Meadow cardstock, then used a blender pen to color some, and Blendas to color the one with the white accents. I have to admit, it was much easier to color this on the watercolor paper and with the image embossed. The Crumb Cake panel is embossed with On Point again, and stamped with the snow flurry image from this set. The Washi tape makes a great addition above and below the Mossy meadow.

And I did another moose on the inside, colored with Blender pens. More Washi, and the "Tis the season to be fancy" sentiment.

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This particular Santa makes me think of the "dad" or "mom" look. You know the one. The one that will make you tell all your secrets. And I think it goes perfectly with the Nice, Naughty, or Fabulous check list. It is like he is daring you to be truthful, lol! More stars here, and more Washi, and apparently I am into embossing right now. LOVE the silver sponged stars from the Hearts and Stars Decorative Masks! You can see the little check list much better in real life, and it is embossed in silver. This Santa is watercolored in Island Indigo, and the fur trim down his shirt front is the Silver Dazzle marker.

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OK, I know that was a whole bunch of cards, but I hope you found at least one that you liked, and that I convinced you that this is not the "creapy Santa" set, but the "fun and quirky" Santa set!

Now it is time to go on over to Rhonda Griffin's blog to see what she has dreamed up with Get Your Santa On!

Stamp Review Crew: Work of Art Edition

Happy October! We are back to review another stamp set from the Stampin' Up! Annual Catalog. This set just came out this spring, and there are so many ways to use it!
If you are following along from the beginning, I am the first stop this time! If you started somewhere in the middle and are following around the loop, then you just arrived from Nancy Smith's blog. I can't wait to see what she made! If you get lost, you can always find your way back on track on the official Stamp Review Crew blog post for this hop, where the links always take you exactly where you want to go :)
I have 3 cards for you today, and I think I used this set differently than you have seen it used a lot.

 For this card, I used the heart and the long streak stamps. I must have been in a hearts and rainbows mood :) The colorful strip is watercolor paper that I stamped a rainbow of streaks, then spritzed with water. Then I used the heat tool to dry it quickly and restamped the rainbow streaks again. This gave the strip lots of fun color with depth.
The hearts are stamped on Pool Party cardstock with Versamark and then Pearl Perfect Pearls was brushed on.
I colored the rhinestones with Blendabilities markers. I love that I can color my embellishments to match this way!

I had to stamp some more hearts on the inside.I think that little heart stamp gets left out of the fun :)

I had an extra piece of this DSP that I made with MDS. I printed one of the patterns from Back to Black onto a 12x12 piece of Crumb Cake cardstock, then cut it into 6 card fronts. I used the other card fronts on a series of cards featured in these posts: Thank You Lines, Fruitwood Birthday, Sponged Fruit Hello, and Dappled Fruit.
For this card, I just stamped over the DSP with several colors and the long streak image. I must have a thing for that image, I sure used it a lot! I then stamped the "thank" and "you" images from the Work of Art set in 2 colors and then punched it out with the 1-3/8" Circle punch. The other 2 circles are from the Circles framelits. More coloring with Blendabilities on rhinestones to add just the perfect touch. I know they look like pearls on the photo but they really are rhinestones. It must be a trick of the lighting.

I added a row of dots down the side of the inside panel, and the "so much" image from Another Thank You.

My last card I actually used as a wedding card this weekend, so glad I had it on hand! Lots of images from this set got used on this card.
I cut out a piece of Strawberry Slush cardstock with the large label from Apothecary Accents framelits, then used Generational stamping with the long streak stamp (again!) in Strawberry Slush ink, and filled in between with the retired Illuminate ink (I love it so much, I bought 2 ink refills for this ink pad). Then I pierced around the label with the coordinating Paper Piercing Pack, and outlined with the white gel pen.
I punched out a few Whisper White hearts and stamped them with the chevron, the circle, and the smaller paint swoosh images in Strawberry Slush and Crumb Cake-again with the generational stamping. I outlined the hearts with a Basic Black marker to make them pop a bit more. I stamped "Happy Together" from And Many More in black ink on the center heart.
Then I decided I needed a couple of little burlap hears, so I took a 3" piece of Burlap ribbon and covered the back with Sticky Strip, then die-cut 2 of the smallest hearts from the Hearts framelits.
This time I colored some pearls with the Blendas, so pretty!
The Crumb Cake panel is embossed with the Arrows embossing folder, and the card base and the Crumb Cake panel have the corners rounded. All of the elements are popped up on dimensionals.

Inside there is more outlining with the black marker, and some more generational stamping with the long streak stamp and Strawberry Slush ink.

That's it for me! It's time to go check out what Ann Schach has created. She is a genius!!

Rainbow and Hearts card supplies:

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Grateful For Brown Sugar!

What is better than some brown sugar and steel cut oats with craisins on a crisp autumn morning? Not much, I can tell you! The slightly chewy goodness of the oats makes me crave breakfast anytime! While there are no craisins in this card, I still think it is delicious :)
I made this card while on vacation in August. You would have been quite impressed with my packing skills for this trip :) I brought quite an array of stamping supplies in only the Demo Business Bag, the Sizzix Drs Bag, and a Scrapfolio paper file.

We frequently go on weekend trips to visit family, and I always have things I need to get done for my stamping assignments. So I have started keeping a Go-Bag of sorts for travel stamping. I got this bag at convention in 2011, I think. Here is how I keep it stocked.
I have almost all of the main colors in Stampin' Spots, and I continue to fill in with the spots from My Paper Pumpkin kits each month. I keep all of the spots in this bag, making sure they are good and juicy about twice a year. So when we travel, I just add the ink pads I need that I don't have in spots to the bag.
 I also took some pieces of chipboard and wound a yard each of the current ribbons that I have on them and put them in baggies. I stock this bag with a package each of rhinestones and pearls, a bottle of Tombow adhesive, some Sticky Strip, scissors, paper piercer and mat, white gel pen, pencil, black pen, dimensionals, and a lighter for sealing the ends of ribbon. There is a bottle of stamp cleaning solution and a rag tucked in there too.  I have an older paper trimmer and a ruler tucked in the back pocket and keep extra cutting blades in the front zipper panel.
When we are going somewhere, I decide what sets I need to bring with. By consolidating stamp sets in the cases, I was able to get 28 sets in just 7 clear mount and 2 wood mount cases! Wow, huh! Then I load it all in the bag. I can usually slip some extra stuff in here like Washi tape and other embellishments. Oh, and I load my clear blocks in the side pockets. This little bag gets QUITE heavy by the time I am done loading it :)

Then, there is the Big Shot. I feel like I can't live without this thing, lol! In this bag, I can fit my machine, the magnetic platform, the multipurpose platform and cutting plates, and a variety of other items. I stick all of my embossing folders into a wood mount case and tuck that in there. I have taken all of my framelits out of the plastic envelopes they come in, and put them on magnetic sheets cut to no more than 5"x7". I can fit about 10 sets of framelits into a wood mount case this way. I also end up adding a few punches, and all of the small punches fit in another wood mount case. Sometimes my Blendas and SU markers go in a couple gallon baggies and get thrown in here too.

Now, this puppy has at least 4 sheets of every color paper we carry in it, at all times. There are 7 pockets in it, and I divide the paper into the color families. I put scads of extra neutrals in though, since I use a ton of them. I also have watercolor, vellum, glimmer, and foil paper in here.

So when it is time to go out of town for the weekend, it still takes me longer to pack my stamping stuff than my suitcase. But not much! Since I am awake for most of the night even on my days off, I find I have a lot of time on my hands when everyone else is sleeping. I just can't get to sleep before 5am most of the time. And when we are out of town, I usually am back up again by 9am.

Ok, now do you want to see the card?

I was going to feature the Gratitude For Days set on the Fall 2014 SA hop, but the person that signed up to use Four Feathers had to back out, so I switched to Four Feathers. But before I knew I could switch, I started working on some ideas with this set. I combined it with the starburst image from Kinda Eclectic, and went with some cool autumn colors. You can't really see them, but I stmped the leaves in Blackberry Bliss on the same colored paper. The Gold Encore ink sows up marvelously well though! This card absolutely needed some texture to liven it up, and Zig Zag did the trick.

I had to add some of those cute little acorns on the inside. 

So, what do you think? I would love to hear your take on this card, or how you pack your stamping stuff to travel!

Gratitude For Days Photopolymer Stamp Set

$15.95

Kinda Eclectic Clear-Mount Stamp Set

$19.95

Naturals Ivory 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock

$7.50

Blackberry Bliss 8-1/2" X 11" Cardstock

$6.95

Mossy Meadow 8-1/2" X 11" Cardstock

$6.95

Crumb Cake 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock

$6.95

Blackberry Bliss Classic Stampin' Pad

$5.95

Mossy Meadow Classic Stampin' Pad

$5.95

Gold Sequin Trim

$4.95

1-1/4" Burlap Ribbon

$7.95

Metallic Gold Encore Pad

$9.95

White Signo Uni-Ball Gel Pen

$3.95

Zig Zag Textured Impressions Embossing Folder

$7.95

Circles Collection Framelits Die

$26.95

Big Shot

$99.95

Stampin' Dimensionals

$3.95

Project Life Cards & Labels Framelits

$24.95

Crystal Effects

$6.25

Sticky Strip

$6.95

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