Foiled.....

.....that pretty much describes my afternoon~~~foiled.

The Toad (aka DH) and his dad took the boys (including the dog) for an overnight camping trip this afternoon. They are driving within 2 miles of their camping spot then loading up all their gear and the boys' on their mountain bikes and "biking" into the camping spot.

WONDERFUL, GLORIOUS FREEDOM TO CREATE ALL DAY!!

Except I got foiled. By a book. I'm sure that I'm the last person to read (or as the book cover indicates, seen the movie) My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult. Yup. Finished 423 pages today (ok...I had started it yesterday...but had only read the first 70 or so pages as of this morning). All my FREE hours that I was going to create, create and then create some more were taken up with reading and ended with me bawling my eyes out over this book and giving myself a headache.

But!! I still need a card for DH's grandfather and for DH for father's day (which, according to my calendar, is TOMORROW). Soooo, I remembered a card that Gina K did on stamp TV. Loved the technique and the colors. Decided to adapt the idea for DH's grandfather's card.

I used SU's exclusive texture plate with an extra piece of paper for the sandwich in my Big Shot with regular tin foil. Stamped my sentiment form SU's All Holidays and did all the matting/layering. IRL the sentiment does NOT look like it is layered crooked. I have looked at it several times to make sure my tear fatigue eyes are not playing tricks on me!! The "brads" are faux made with my 1/4" hand held punch. How can someone run out of something so basic as black brads, I ask you?!! Leave it to me, I would be the one! But this needed something to add that little extra "pop".

I wish I could say that I LOVED how this turned out. But I'm going to be honest here. This one was better in my head (ok, ok, it was better when Gina did it!!). I'm going to walk away from it and see how it hits me tomorrow. Hopefully, I'll have time to come up with something else if the effect is still the same in the am. Supplies: Paper: SU's cranberry crisp, whisper white, basic black. Stamps: SU's All Holidays. Inks: SU cranberry crisp. Accessories: Tin foil, Big Shot, Texture plate, 1/4" hole punch, mini glue dots

Thanks for dropping by again! I'm going to try and stamp out the new images I ordered for DH's card (how many hours do I have before they get home?!! Nothing like procrastination to make one create!!)

Inspired by Textures

I'm BAAAACK!!

I got some new toys this past week, just in time to try and come up with an idea for a workshop that I had this past weekend. Wellll, inspiration was only part way there. I knew I wanted to use SU's Inspired by Nature and was hoping to use my new texture plates. The problem was, I couldn't come up with a layout idea. So, once again, I turned to Splitcoaststampers to find the answer. And what a beauty I came across!! My card was inspired by this card by Dawn, a.k.a TreasureOiler on SCS. Now Dawn is a Dirty Girl Alumni, so of course my inner wanna be Dirty Gal was drawn to her card, hehe!!

I didn't want to try and figure out the frame for this card as this was going to be for a workshop that consisted of a couple of gals who really haven't stamped. I took Dawn's basic layout and color scheme BUT I didn't have any designer paper that would wow. So out came the texture plates. BUT~ not enough "pop" for me. So I played around with an idea. I took my ink pad DIRECTLY to the texture plate then embossed. YES!!!! It mad the subtle texture POP!!! (insert major happy dance here________!!!) Now, someone else may have already come up with this idea, but I haven't seen it used yet. And I love the results. This is the card that we madeDidn't this turn out GORJUS?!! (I hate trying to type accents btw!) This was just perfect for what my gals wanted to do!! Supplies used: Paper: Kiwi Kiss, Whisper white. Inks: Old Olive, Basic Black, Pink Pirouette. Accessories: Big Shot, SU Butterfly die, Textures plate, Pretties kit, Paper piercer, sponge daubers, grosgrain ribbon, glue dots, stampamajig, scalloped edge punch

Now here is here the only bummer deal about this card: the image pretty much covered up all that LOVELY texture. So, today I played around with another idea. Here is that result:

Let's just pretend that I'm Jan Tink for just a moment (yes, I know that this is REALLY pushing the envelope, but imagination is always good for the soul!!) ISN'T THIS JUST GORJUS!! YILMS!! (yes, I love myself too, right now! hehe)

After several tries at using the inkpad directly to my texture plate and getting kinda streaky results, I used my BRAYER (major lightbulb moment!) and got rid of the streaks. BUT!! There is a catch to this technique: you have to be VERY, VERY careful when you put your paper down on your inked plate. It it slides, even a teeny, tiny, itsy bit, you will get small smudges on your embossed area (ask me how I know this! Just don't ask how many times it took to get this section! hehe). But the effort is SO WORTH it!! This is a PERFECT technique to make your own FABULOUS designer paper!! It is just lucious IRL!! (ok, before you fear that my head may blow from all this self congratulations: let me put that to rest right now. Somehow, over the 30 min that it took me to tie that ribbon on this card, my sentiment slipped up a bit from it's original position. Then I realized that my cut edges are frayed as I need to replace the blade on my cutter. So, this card is NOT perfection, BUT IT'S DANG CLOSE BABY!!! lol) Supplies used: Paper: Very Vanilla, Chocolate chip. Inks: Chocolate chip. Stamps: SU's Warmest Regards. Accessories: Big Shot, Texture plate, brayer, scalloped edge punch, paper piercer, Spellbinders die cut tag, sponge dauber, ribbon.

Thanks for stopping by! If you decide to try this technique, please link me your creation! I would love to see what you do with this idea!!