It Isn't Tuesday? or Playing Kissy Face

I know, I know. I said I'd have a post for you Tuesday about a technique I did and how I married it with this flower for another card. I was too tired and distracted with other things and it kept getting pushed to the bottom of the "to-do" list. Better late than never, right?

Okay, here's what happened. I have a group of teenagers that I make cards with once a month. They're temporary residents at Jesse's House, a shelter for girls who need to be away from their homes due to domestic violence or abuse. They're a sweet, polite group of girls, and I wanted to offer them something to do on Sunday afternoons, which can be long, and to show them how to use cards to encourage someone in their lives.

But here's the deal: I'm not hip or cool. While that's no secret to those who know me, I wanted the girls NOT to have that impression of stamping. So I tried my best to come up with a card that was pretty cool. Turns out they liked it, so I guess I succeeded.

What did I do? Well, I took the Extreme Elements set and stamped it on Whisper White card stock. A technique came to mind as I was doing this that made me rethink the card entirely. I eyed a scrap piece of card stock that had been embossed with the Square Lattice Textured Impressions Folder for the Big Shot. I wondered if the "kissing" technique would work using the paper instead of a stamp.

Don't know about kissy face in the stamp world? Well, "kissing" with stamps involves taking a solid image, inking it, pressing it on a patterned stamp, and then stamping it on paper. The pattern on the stamp that "kisses" the original stamp stays on the original stamp and some cool stuff happens.

So, I tried inking my stamp, stamping it on the debossed side of the scrap, which transferred the pattern, and stamped it on the base for my card. Squeal--it worked! And it looked cool and hip, at least in my mind.

I used Old Olive classic ink, and for the flower, cut from the Fun Flowers Bigz Die for the Big Shot, I chose Melon Mambo, Tempting Turquoise, Daffodil Delight and Pumpkin Pie, all from the Brights Collection. The sentiment is from Friends Never Fade. It made the perfect sentiment for this card, although a few of the girls asked if I had any "Mom" or "Dad" stamps. Made me sad.

None of the girls had ever stamped before, and now they're hooked. I'm going back in April and want to do something else hip and cool, but I might have used up all of that on this card. Any thoughts on what I could do that teenaged girls would like? Have a great weekend!

An Extreme Word Play Birthday

I love a good color combination. It takes a lot of the thought process out of a project and allows one to focus on being creative with other elements. Such is the case with this card by Karen Thomas, which I adapted slightly but CASE'd mostly.

Some of the colors Karen used have been discontinued, so I used More Mustard, Crumb Cake, and Not Quite Navy. The main stamp set in use is Extreme Elements, one that grows on me more each time I use it. It just creates a really cool vibe without much effort, and I need all the help I can get to craft a hip look!

The base barely shows here, but More Mustard is one of those colors that's best used sparingly. Two mats, Not Quite Navy and Crumb Cake, cover the base mostly, and the CC piece was stamped in CC ink with the Wonderfully Worn background stamp. The Very Vanilla panel was stamped with More Mustard, Crumb Cake, Soft Suede, and Not Quite Navy, using half of the design pieces from the set. Wish Big, from Word Play, is stamped in Soft Suede. I love how different one stamp can look when paired with a different layout and a different set of stamps!

The stars were made using the die for the Big Shot. If you don't own this machine, you really should consider investing in it or asking for it for Valentine's Day. I use it so much and it adds so much to my cards--texture, cutting shapes, letters--quickly and simply cannot be overstated.

The last feature of this card is the use of the Decorative Label Punch with a Jumbo Eyelet to create visual interest and an anchor for the twine. I folded the punch in half and punched a hole for the eyelet in it using my Crop-A-Dile. The correct tools make things easy peasy!

Here's a Snowpocalypse update for those interested: the entire week of school was cancelled, and the kids have Monday off in observance of Martin Luther King Day! We went back to work on a normal schedule Friday, but the roads are still a bit dicey in the subdivisions, exit ramps, and intersections. This is one storm that will not quickly be forgotten!

Coached Color Combination

Sometimes I have an idea for a great card and I know which stamp set I want to use, but I can't settle on a color combination so that I can get started. Ever been there? Well, SU! knows this and has, with the recent Color Renovation, revamped its old Color Wheel and created a Color Coach. This tool is a deck of 55 double-sided cards and each one features a color from our collections. It's so nice to be able to see what a color looks like in a larger swatch, rather than trying to discern it from the tiny representation in the catalog!

The other immensely cool feature is the back side of each color card. There are 2 suggested color combinations! This is especially helpful since there are new colors in our collections that I don't have any experience pairing with others, so having selections at hand that I know have been tested by the graphic designers at SU! puts me at ease and lets me get down to crafting, instead of staring at my card stock feeling stuck.

Here's what the Color Coach selection I made helped me create. I had been using the Brights Collection almost exclusively since the Color Renovation, and I wanted to do something different. I looked up the Cherry Cobbler card, and went with the combination of Cherry Cobbler, Pumpkin Pie, and Night of Navy suggested.

I used Extreme Elements and finally put to paper what I had envisioned in my head since I first laid eyes on this set: a paint splattered focal image. With the colors already determined, I could turn my attention to design. I used several other images from the set, as well as the sentiment from Party Hearty, colored direct to rubber using the same markers. I had to go and make it a bit more challenging by adding the triangles of color around the image, but it was a fun experiment and I'm pleased with the result.

Do you have the Color Coach? If not, why not treat yourself to this time-saving, stress-reducing, creativity-inciting tool? You can order online anytime. Just click here!

Birthday Wishes like Falling Stars

I saw a beautiful card on Nichole Heady's blog (scroll to the bottom past all the Halloween stuff to view it), and I wanted to try to create something similar. I chose the stars stamp from Extreme Elements and inked it in rainbow colors from the Brights Collection. In order to include all the colors of the spectrum, the strip ended up being just over 6" long. Well, that wouldn't do for a standard card, but I have a stash of 5"x7" white card bases from another project and grabbed one from the closet.

My next thought was, "What am I going to do with all that white space?" It's always a struggle for me to create a sparse look, even though I really like it when others do it. I mounted the start strip on Basic Black card stock and chose a silver metallic Sharpie to hand draw a border around it. The silver prompted me to pull out some leftover strips of Square Lattice textured foil that I'd saved from this project.

It added some great sparkle and dimension and grounded everything in the design. I stamped the birthday wish sentiment from Heard from the Heart and still felt something was lacking. This was when I wished for black ribbon, but I don't have that, so I made do.

Andrea Walford showed this grouping of ribbon on a card this week, and I really liked how it looked. It's easy to do and refreshingly different.

I know I've been very erratic in my posts lately. I'm sure you know how life can impede progress to the craft room door! Thanks for your patience. I'll have another post Monday using Extreme Elements. It's a complete departure from this look, and a great guy card. Y'all come back now, ya hear?

Trying New Things is Hard Sometimes

Oh my. My nephew Nik's birthday is Monday, and I sat down this morning, thinking I had a plan for his card and would just whip it together and post it on my way to work later today. I feel as though I have conquered the arch enemy of creativity by finishing this card!

Ten is a difficult age, especially for a boy. Things that were once cool start not to be cool, and yet you're not old enough to embrace the things of adolescence. So, I knew when I looked at the image I'd chosen that it wasn't going to work. It was just too juvenile. So I pulled out Extreme Elements and grunged up my card a bit. I'm so not grunge, so this was challenging.

Then I went back to my original image, the Builder Wheel trio of Candle Crazy (retired) and Birthday, to see if there was anything there I could salvage. At this point, I was feeling the clock ticking...LOUDLY.

I ditched the candles and even paired down the words from Happy Birthday to You as far as I could to remove as much of the Whisper White. That would work...I thought.

My next idea was incorporating the NUMBER of Nik's birthday into the card design, but in order to do that I had to call my mother-in-law to confirm that he is turning 10. I had made a mistake on my niece's birthday card in this category, but that's another story for another time...

Okay, yes, he will be 10 on Monday (at this point, this card might not make it there before he turns 11!), so I pulled out my retired Headline Numbers and stamped them on Basic Grey. Blah. So I ran them through the Big Shot in my Square Lattice Textured Impressions Folder (could we please come up with some agreed upon shorter name for this?!) and liked that look. I mounted them on the card using Stampin' Dimensionals and used the same to place the sentiment.

Done? Please? NO! The card looked unbalanced on the left side due to my placement of the word "Happy". I was NOT "happy" at this point. Glancing around my desk, I saw a piece of Silver Metallic card stock that I had embossed with the aforementioned folder and remembered I had the Big Shot Stars #2 Originals diecut in the shape of stars! Yes, yes, yes, I would finish this or DIE!

The stars adhered, the card was complete, and I am glad I pushed through all the obstacles my arch enemy used to try to deter me.

Now I have to cram some lunch down my throat, change clothes, and run this by the post office on my way in to work. Whew! Who said card making was relaxing?!