I received this darling card from Kay Demonbren last week. What a bright it was in my week! Kay won some blog candy from me during the Skipping Stones Design blog hop and sent this sweet card to say thanks!
The balloon and trees are stamped on patterned paper and pieced onto the card! I THINK this is a Gina K set… I love the card, thank you Kay!
~Inky Smiles!
(Scary photo showing us on one of our early dates. Excuse my terrible hair and dorky glasses, Brent’s cute as ever, but that’s just Brent ! This had to be somewhere in March-ish… I think we were engaged at that point… well, we were at least at the “holding hands point”… hahaha!)
Today is an AWESOME day in our little family! Today, January 30, 2010, marks the 11th anniversary of the day I met Brent and coincidentally our first date. Way back in 1998 I had asked my little sister, Elizabeth, to see about setting me up on a blind date… I just wanted to go out with someone NEW and someone not in my current circle of friends and I didn’t want to meet anyone at a bar (cuz in the first place, I didn’t drink and it would have been silly) or online. (Been there, done that – with the online part that is…) So she decided that this crazy guy she worked with in the finance dept, and who shot paperclips and rubber bands at her over the cubicles, would be perfect to set me up with. So she gave him my phone number and told him to call me after he gave her a ride to the airport at Christmas time. LOL….
A month later I got a phone call. It was kind of short and to the point. But that’s just Brent. He doesn’t waste words. When you ask my three year old niece and nephew “what does the dog say?” they say “woof”. When you ask them “what does the cat say?” they say “meow”. When you ask them “what does Uncle Brent say?”, they say “not veeerrrrrry muuuuuch!!” in their cute little sing songy voices and then grin at you.
Brent: “Hi, this is Brent, your sister gave me your phone number. Would you like to go out on Saturday?”
Me: “Sure!”
Brent: “Well, we could do a double date with two of my friends. How about I pick you up at 6:00?”
Me: “Sure!"
Brent: “Ok, see you then. Bye!” <click>
I think he was nervous… or he wasn’t sure what to think.
So he came and picked me up at my apartment that Saturday and I piled in his little green Ford Escort with his friends and we headed out on our adventure. He took me to Ottavio’s Italian Ristorante in Provo and we enjoyed a delightful Italian dinner. I think I ordered a small Margherita pizza (very authentic and non-alcoholic, btw, haha) and I don’t remember what anyone else had because I was too busy trying not to slurp red sauce laden cheese strings on my face and clothing. I think the dinner was a little quiet. Thank goodness for his friends (Andy Adcock and Jessica Barker) who were the siblings of Brent’s two friends, Art Adcock and Lisa Barker Adcock, who subsequently became two of MY friends, too. (Andy and Jessica married other people later down the road…)
After dinner we drove up to Salt Lake City to the Hansen Planetarium (which is now the Clarke Planetarium at the Gateway Plaza in SLC) and Brent surprised me with a U2 Laser Light Show. I think we had discussed at dinner that I liked U2 music. I LOVE star shows and laser light shows and U2… and when you combine them all it’s a recipe for fun. The seats in the theater leaned back and I just remember laying in my seat rocking out and singing along at the top of my lungs…. Brent was awfully quiet, but still singing along, just not belting it out like me. Somewhere during the show I thought I was probably going to scare him off with my lyric belting but I was having so much fun I didn’t care… tee hee! Turns out that he thought it was cool that I was just being myself and having a good time. :) :) big cheesey grins :) :)
He dropped me off that night and I shook his hand (what a dork I was) and told him I had a GREAT time and “let’s do it again sometime!”. I truly did have a great time. There was no weird and awkward nervousness like other dates. I just felt like I could be me.
So that night I made him a thank you card for the date…. It was my first venture into “crafty card making” as an “adult”.. hahaha. I took a black piece of CONSTRUCTION paper and cut it out to a standard card size, then cut out some construction paper planets and glued them to the front of the card and took some liquid white-out and put little star dots all over it with a toothpick. On the inside I cut out a comet from cream colored construction paper and then colored the tail to look like flames… again more planets and white out stars. The giant comet was where I wrote the thank you note,
“Thanks for the great time on Saturnight… I really enjoyed it and hope we can do it again sometime soon.”
Yes, I wrote Saturnight…. it was not intentional. It was a brain fart, and I didn’t notice it until Brent pointed it out later…. LOL! I am such a dork. Anyway, I tucked it in a little ziplock sandwich bag and Liz put it on the windshield of his car on Monday at work. I have the card around here somewhere but we just searched for it and I can’t find my bin that has “destination scrapbook” loot in it. I will find it and post a pic. :)
He called me back the next week for a second date.
I was recovering from being horribly sick. I told him, “how bout a raincheck?”
Then my roommate freaked on me for saying that…
And I called him back, “But I’m not too sick if you want to come over and hang out. I just don’t feel good enough to go out on the town.”
And he came over and we sat on my couch talking for HOURS and HOURS into the wee morning hours.
And the rest, as they say, is history…
~Inky Smiles!
PS – we’re off to eat some Italian food and go to a laser light show in Salt Lake! :) :) :)
Mostly I’m naughty… I think…. at least with sketches. I like rules because they give me boundaries and usually I see things in black and white with very few grey areas…. however with crafting I break all the rules…usually… but not today! {Go ahead, pick your jaw up off the floor….}
Today I followed the sketch and left everything in it’s right place.
Brent did not scold me.
Like he really ever does…
Usually he just gives me a hard time.
But that’s his job.
I {heart} him.
But moooving on… Here’s today’s sketch:
Excellent sketch, but totally not how I would normally lay things out… but I believe that is the point of a sketch CHALLENGE, right? To challenge us to step out of our box and stretch the imagination and challenge ourselves to do something and grow!
So.. I obeyed the rules.
And my brain stretched. You should have heard it. Scary sound.
Heather sent me some fabulous stamps to play with again and I decided to use a FABULOUS sentiment from her newly revealed set, “Well Behaved”. I believe that it’s being revealed today, Tuesday, and you’re gonna luuuuurve it!
Again, I pulled out the Basic Grey “Lemonade” paper kit and went to town. I had so much fun stitching on the last card (and my cross stitch threads box was still on my desk) that I decided to do a little more stitchin’. With metallic thread that was a pain to separate and work with… Woot!
And I didn’t want to use the big ol’ circle as a stamped bit, so I pulled out the beginnings of a funky flower I’d been working on earlier in the day.
The flower is made using some scraps of paper and tulle (that funky netting stuff that you usually find under wedding dresses or as the veil) and a DESIGNER button.. hahaha! Anyway… I blinged it up with some Stickles (icicle flavor) and let it dry forevvvvvvver. I tied the button with some metallic thread. I used some home made glimmer mist and spritzed it on the paper parts of the flower. You can kind of see it on the green paper (bottom left of it). In real life it’s all shimmery and luuuuurverly! Oh yah, and the light pink tulle (which came from my sweet friend, Jeanne Tomshack, is inked up with some CTMH Vineyard Berry ink to distress it even further. My fingers were so gross. LOL!
Fiddled with the sentiment placement and decided on this:
Here’s the final product. I did elongate the card a little to allow the uber long sentiment to be placed on it and fit a little better.
Thanks for stoppin by today! Think of me as I slave away over numbers and contracts and customer payments and tax prep today at work. Tee hee! :)
~Inky Smiles!
PS… Answering the last post comments.
1) THANK YOU for your kind comments on my charms! You made my day.
2) YES! An Etsy shop is likely in the works. I am going to try my hand at selling my creations, both paper craft and especially jewelry. (Jewelry posts coming…) I love making jewelry and can’t wait to share my creations!
3) I have to figure out the whole Etsy thing and a shop name. LOL!
Supplies:
Stamps – Skipping Stones Design’s “Well Behaved”
Paper – Basic Grey “Lemonade”
Ink – CTMH Vineyard Berry
Miscellaneous"- Kaisercraft Rhinestones, pink tulle, Stickles, Silver metallic thread, border punches.
I have been buried under piles of beads and jump rings for the last couple of days.
I have found a new PASSION!
Jewelry making has always intrigued me and I have dabbled in it here and there… Back in November I took a class on crocheted necklaces…made a zillion of those and then signed up for Tresa Black’s Creative University next month… and guess what? They do a CHARM SWAP… and guess what else? Silly me signed up for it, buwahahaha! I have been having so much fun making charms and baubles and bling, jiggle, bling, blings…. Wanna see?
For the charm swap we were instructed to make two types of charms, one creative (using papercrafting schtuff and ideas) and one filler type charm (using bling and jewels and other fun goodies), 15 of each for a total of 30.
Here’s my filler charm:
The filler charm was made with a variety of beads and a Swarovski crystal.
And here is my creative charm:
I created the creative charm by designing a birdie in Photoshop Elements. I used a basic bird body template for the outside shape and then went to town creating my clipping masks and adding in textured and patterned papers and embellishments. I printed the birdie onto white “Shrinky Dink” paper and then cut out all the bodies and front side wings, threw in the oven and let them melt! {The original birdie art had legs, but I lopped them off because they added unnecessary bulk and distracted from the bird.}
Click on the birdie for a view of the details.
Lopping off some birdie legs and trimming out the birdies. Shrinky Dink paper is a pain to cut out, basically it’s plastic and if you snip too hard you snap the plastic… lost a few beaks and back wings that way. *sniff*
Here are some other charms I was working on including a pair that turned into earrings.
And then I needed a bracelet because the plain old chain I was trying to make into a bracelet just didn’t do what I wanted it to do…. but that’s a post for tomorrow because I have to go work on laundry (dang real world interrupting my crafting time) and think about dinner… :)
~Inky Smiles
Good morning friends! Or, good afternoon, or evening, or middle of the stinking night, whatever time it is that you’ve happened upon my blog.
I got a bunch of goodies this weekend in my mailbox from Heather at Skipping Stones Design. Ahhhhh fat free, calorie free CANDY!
One of the delights that I received was the Skipping Stones Design “Stitched Stamps” stamp set.
Isn’t it DARLING?
Ok so moving on… today is SSD’s 8th sketch, our 3rd from Amy Sheffer. Here’s our sketch:
Brent already gave me the “whatfor” for not following the rules completely again. Here’s how our discussion went:
Erin: Hey love bug, wanna see my card? (Interrupting him watching Star Trek and folding laundry.)
Brent – looking at the card and then the sketch, and then the card again.
Brent: Babsie, you left off a whole piece.
Erin: No, sorta, well ok, yah, maybe I did.
Brent: You’re breaking the rules again.
Erin: Yah, so, uhm, I was sorta messing with the card and jiggled it a bit and that back circle (pointing at the back circle on the sketch) sorta fell down behind the front circle.
Brent: You nerd. But that’s not the whole sketch.
Erin: Yes it is, the little back circle is the scallops behind the little front circle, see…. (pointing at the scallops on the card)… it’s down behind the front circle. It was already on it’s way anyway….
Brent: You are so silly. (Back to watching Star Trek and folding laundry.)
I had a lot of fun playing around and making this card. Here’s what I showed Brent initially:
I like it.
And then I went back and started playing around and added another layer to the sketch…. but it’s not round…
I like it, too.
I embossed some lines with my Score Pal. Gosh I love that little guy. I get nice, even score/emboss lines without going thru the paper with a stylus or blade. I cut out some strips of designer paper from Basic Grey and adhered them between the score/embossed lines.
Here are some close ups that I also like.
I created the flower by stamping a shadow with the reverse side of the stamp. Did you know you could do that? Make a custom fit shadow using the backside of the stamp image? I love it! I inked up the back of the stamp and then stamped off the first generation of ink onto some scrap paper. Then I stamped the second generation of ink onto my bright white cardstock. Then I cleaned my stamp and flipped it back over on the block and loaded up the image with some Versamark ink and stamped it onto the shadow image, sprinkled with CTMH pink embossing powder and heat embossed. I cut it out with Nesties dies in my Cuttlebug.
Have you ever hand sewn on a card? I’ve sewn with my machine but never with a simple needle and thread. This sentiment comes printed all neatly in stitched lines and would look awesome just stamped on, but it was SEW screaming at me to stitch it, so I raided the ol’ cross stitch supplies and went to town. I stamped the word “SEW” in a very light grey ink and then to prevent bending of the cardstock when poking with a needle I pre punched the holes with my paper piercer. I did a simple back stitch to sew up the letters.
The button embellishment is made by cutting out circles of patterned paper and glueing them to the back of clear buttons. I picked up a big bag of clear buttons several months ago at Archivers with this technique in mind but this is the first I’ve actually pulled them out to use them. LOL! The buttons are tied together with crochet thread and glued down with AC foam tabs.
~Inky Smiles
Supplies:
Stamps – Skipping Stones Design’s Stitched Stamps
Inks – CTMH Vineyard Berry and Crystal Blue, Grey Flannel (2nd generation stamped for ultra lightness), Baby Pink & Garden Green
Papers – Basic Grey
Miscellaneous" – crochet thread, embroidery floss, ric rack, adhesive, paper piercer, liquid glass, misc clear buttons, Baby Pink EP (CTMH), Sakura glitter pen, Nesties scalloped circle and classic circle, Cuttlebug.
Ahhhh I totally got buried in projects (not all crafty) last week and forgot to post this. I was cleaning up my camera card this morning and found these photos. Oooops! Please forgive me!
As promised in this post, I am posting what I did with my stained glass butterfly. I love making cute, altered goodies for my studio and for other people. When I was sitting at my desk creating this little guy, there was a plain and boring jar of tiny glass beads staring at me from the back of my desk…. which gave me an idea.
So I pulled out some American Crafts foam tabs and a couple of flowers from my little flower tin and started messin’ around. I used a couple of drops of Liquid Glass (aka Diamond Glaze, Crystal Laquer, etc) to adhere the butterfly to the petals of the flower.
Here’s what I came up with.
I think it jazzes up the jar, don’t you? I just put it on the top of my InkStak and it looks lovely up there all sparkly and colorful! Oooh la la!
~Inky Smiles!
Good morning my Inky friends! It’s that time of the week again to play with sketches. I spend the weekend “sitting around and laying around” because I had the worst stomach ache in ages. I did a TON of crafting. I mostly played around with jewelry and made some charms for a swap I’m in plus some extras and got brave and made a complete linked bracelet loaded with baubles and beads from scratch. (Photos coming in future posts.)
But anyway.. let’s get on with this week’s sketch so I can go heat up some leftover Baked Potato and Ham soup and whip up some biscuits to go with it before my sweet husband gets home from work. (By the time you read this we will have eaten it and be at work again. LOL!)
Here’s this week’s Skipping Stones Design sketch from Amy of Pickled Paper Designs.
I tried to lock those little devils away for today’s sketch cuz my idea WAS going to work with the sketch, but then… well.
Yes, I rotated it again. Couldn’t resist. BUT, I changed NOTHING else :) I was a good girl today.
I made a rule for myself for crafty purchases for 2010. I have to seriously start using up or give away my old papers. I’m starting to try to use them up first.
So out came the Basic Grey paper stash cuz I LOVE BG papers and can almost always find something to work together. Hahaha!
Guess what? I found MOST of a 6x6 Bittersweet paper pad left. Yah babeeeeeee, that will work!
Here’s today’s card:
I cut a few strips of Bittersweet paper and used a CTMH edge distresser to rough up the edges of the papers to look like a frayed fabric edge. I punched the edges of some brown paper with a Martha Stewart border punch, lined them up on some pink paper and then stitched them down with a zig zag stich (Bernie was much happier with me since I used regular cotton poly thread this time… ) I popped up the main square layer and the sentiment layer with AC foam dots for added dimension.
The bow is made from SU Chocolate Chip ribbon. I LOVE SU ribbon. I had a pin laying on my desk and thought it would look cute poked into the bow, so in it went!
And there you have it, today’s sketch and another out of my box card!
Hope you have a marvelous day! I’m off to work to work on year end accounting.. fun, fun!
~ Inky Smiles!
Are you recovered from the Blog Hop yet? I’m not quite sure I am! LOL! I keep going back to various blogs and enjoying the art. I’ve got to work up something for the Sketch coming up on Tuesday still today but in the meantime I have been dying to share this with you….
A lot of people commented on how the butterfly on my card looked like stained glass. Thank you! That’s exactly what I wanted it to look like and so I am glad that it actually came across as I intended. The butterfly on that card was just stamped with StazOn Jet Black ink and then colored in. But, you know how sometimes you get this whizbangger of an idea in your head but can’t always get it out how you’re imagining it? Well, my first several attempts at doing “Faux Stained Glass” did not do my imagination any justice…. {I tried using Liquid Glass and pouring it out over a handn sketched design, then I tried embossing powder on my Silpat mat and nearly melted the mat……} and then this fabulous butterfly stamp from the Healing Wings Set came into my hands and it actually worked how I wanted it to!
Today I’d like to show you some real “Faux Stained Glass”. This project is a little different than the butterfly on my card. I was laying in bed thinking about stained glass (cuz I have this new fascination with actual stained glass now) and this is what I came up with.
Ok now, gather up your supplies. You are going to need the following:
* Transparency Paper
* Mirror Platinum Embossing Powder
(I used CTMH)
* Bic Sharpie Markers
* Versamark Stamp Pad
* An “outline” style stamp with spaces
that resemble * stained glass
* Sharp scissors
* An “Anti static pad” {not shown}
* Lay your transparency paper down on your work surface. I am using a white sheet of paper under mine for filming purposes. Otherwise you can’t see it all that well.
*Rub down the sheet section you will be stamping on. Rub all the way to the edge of the transparency sheet.
* Lay your stamp face up and thoroughly ink with Versamark ink. (I lay mine face up because it helps limit the amount of excess ink that may get on your block. Those Versamark pads are awfully squoooshy.
{Step 3}
* Carefully stamp your image onto the transparency sheet. Be careful not to wiggle or slide the stamp. The transparency is slick and it’s easy to slide. Press down all parts of the stamp to make sure you get a good amount of ink on the transparency.
* The photo on the right shows a nice clean Versamark stamped image. It’s very hard to photograph clear paper. LOL!
{Step 4}
* Pull out a piece of scrap paper and put it under your image. Pour your embossing powder over the stamped image. You might have to pour it over a couple of times for a good thick layer. If some excess powder sticks where you don’t want it you can take a moment to gently scrape it off or brush it away before heating.
* The picture on the right shows a nice thick layer of embossing powder on the Versamark image.
Ok… now we’re going to melt this bad babeeeee… well, actually we’re only melting the powder. We really don’t want our transparency paper to melt so let’s take a precaution and HEAT UP that heat gun.
* Preheat your heat gun for about 15-20 seconds. You’re going to want that air nice and hot so that you don’t have to have the heat on the transparency sheet for any longer than you need to.
{Step 6}
* Don’t leave your transparency sitting on your work mat. Hold it up in the air to prevent melting or warping of your cute pink Fiskars work mat. See left photo. Ergh.
* Taking care to keep your fingers away from the heat, gently wave the heat gun in front of the stamped image on the transparency. Keep the heat moving so that you don’t overheat one spot and melt a hole through the transparency. You will notice the powder turn shimmery and look like molten metal. Looooooverly schtuff that molten metal is!
*It’s hard to photograph with both hands being busy… LOL… sorry for the blurrrrrrr….
{Step 7}
* Now you can cut out the section of butterfly. Just roughly cut it out, don’t trim closely just yet.
* Here you can see the embosses image of the butterfly. Doesn’t it look splendid? Like pure molten metal or flux and solder like real stained glass. I love that the mirrored platinum gives such a nice patina’d effect. Don’t worry, it’s actually platinum, not so greenish. It’s difficult to photograph this at midnight.. LOL!
* Now flip that bad babeee over we’re ready to color. You will want to color on the backside. I am sure you could color on the frontside, but who wants to risk coloring that beautiful embossing with Bic Sharpie marker? Not me. Flip it. Just flip it.
{Step 9}
* Begin by coloring focal points or areas you want to stand out. Then fill in the areas with contrasting colors. You can also blend for a graduated color merging.
* See that stray stringy looking thing on the right side of the image? It's a bit of embossing powder that got heated. It’s not on the stamp… weird.. Not sure how that got there, but I like it. It looks like cracked stained glass. Even more fun!
* See the scribbles on the transparency? That’s me trying out colors before I color in the butterfly and why I don’t trim out my image just yet. It’s also nice to have an extra spot to put your fingers to hold your image. The ink is a bit sticky and your fingers can leave finger prints and lift the ink if you’re not careful.
{Step 10}
* Now you can trim it out close to the image. I left a little tab of transparency attached to my butterfly so I could attach it to my project. (Posting soon… once I snap the photos in daylight.)
Here’s what I ended up with (left pic = backside of image, right pic = front side of image):
{BONUS TECHNIQUE}
And here’s a bonus for ya! Remember back in the 80’s when those holographic style foil/shimmery backed pictures were all the rage? {Ok, maybe some of you youngins might not… but I do…LOL!} I looked all over the web for an example, but the closest I found was this cool version of Starry Night by VanGogh. Click HERE to view it. (A separate window will open.)
So while I was playing around with this butterfly I decided to try another “technique”… Faux Foiled Images.
Take your beautimous butterfly and flip that bad baby over so that the back is facing up.
Pull out your handy dandy Sakura Clear Star Gelly Roll glitter pen (it’s #38450 from Sakura) and lightly roll it around the back of the butterfly until you see the glitter covering the color. Don’t rub too hard or the tip of the pen will scrape off the Bic marker color.
Wait a few minutes for it to dry… watch your fingers, you’ll have glitter everywhere…. then flip it back over so the embossed side is facing up and VOILA!
You have a beautiful Faux Stained Glass Foiled image. :) {Click on the image – which is a totally different butterfly than the one we made in the tutorial - to see the sparkle better.} I bet you could probably experiment with different glitter pens for different effects, too. I imagine that a gold glitter pen over gold/dark yellow marker might look like gold leafing… hrmm…. I might have to try that out!
~Inky Smiles & Happy Stained Glass making and Foiling!
Thank you girls for playing along with us with the sketches on my Cupcake Cutie giveaway!
The following girls played along with cards and posted their links in the comments:
1) Amaryllis B (she did a card & a layout)
2) Stacey F.
4) Jeff*Nichole*Hudson (which is Nichole)
5) Amanda D.
I decided the easiest way to choose was to number them and then use the random number generator again.
The Prize is
And our lovely winner of these delicious goodies is……
#3 – Sammye Jo!!!
Congratulations Sammye Jo! Please send me an email by clicking on the word email with your information and I will get these out to you. I’ve left a comment on your blog as well. Please contact me by Jan 23rd or I will pick a new winner.
~Inky Smiles!
