Randomness From My Week & a Fun Anita Renfroe Video

Hey Friends!

It's been a CrAzY week this week. I worked a couple of days extra and finally ALMOST got caught up at work. YAY! Did some spring cleaning @ the house and finally straightened up and cleaned up my pantry. Went to the cardiologist and had a good visit... I don't have to go back unless I start having the same issues that I had going on last year again. Dr said that my heart sounded good and my bp was super low (it wasn't high until I started having issues last year, but that happens when you're really sick.) He said I can go back to normal activities (once I get the ok from the ortho on my injured knee). I'm so happy about that!

Thursday I tended a wee one (adorable 9 month old) and his sister for several hours for a friend and thoroughly enjoyed it. We played, did homework, and goofed around in general. Bought a GORGEOUS chair at a liquidation place on the way home from work one night... I've been looking for one to put in my front room for a while now but those chairs are all in excess of $350-$400... More than I would want to spend right now. Anyway... found one listed in the classifieds (for around $100) and went to look at it. It was GORGEOUS, but wouldn't fit in the car... but they had one still in the box, so we took that one home. When we got home we realized we should have taken all the protective plastic off and checked a little more thoroughly. One of the fancy legs was broken :( WAAAAH. Thank goodness I have an amazing husband who has a woodshop and loooootz of mad skillz. Woot woot!

Brent and I are considering moving closer to his work and we've been out checking out neighborhoods where we think we'd like to move and getting odds and ends finished up here around the house. (Some of you will remember the construction following the Great Poo Flood in 2008... ay yi yi...) We're getting MAJOR reconstruction on the one and only highway that connects us to Brent's work for the next 2 years and are looking at one way commutes in excess of 2 hours. Currently his "normal" commute is 40+ mins each way. So far I've only been excited about one place and it's likely the most expensive place that we've looked at and requires a new build in a brand spanking new neighborhood. On one hand it's exciting to build a new home to get exactly (within reason) what you want, but then on the other hand it's scary moving somewhere where there aren't really many neighbors (yet) and you don't know what's going in around you. Ay yi yi..... This process is more stressful than I thought it would be.

The kicker of the week.. bleh.. the kicker of the week was that Brent was in a "fun" little incidente (Italian for accident) yesterday on his way to lunch. He was going straight through a green light and and older couple turned right in front of him... in the words of Batman... POW, CRUNCH, SNAP, KaBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM! (The KaBOOM was the airbag blowing up on Brent.) Thankfully Brent is "ok" with just some bruising, joint and muscle pain, and a nasty chemical burn from the airbag. He was only going about 25 mph, probably slow enough for his guardian angel to keep up. The other couple is probably fine, but they had to cut the wife out of the car because their doors were smashed. She was taken to the hospital in an ambulance. I hope they are ok. A positive thing from this was that a nice couple saw the accident and stopped to make sure Brent was ok and gave them their phone number in case he needed a witness. (Which is now necessary because the officer was not able to determine who was at fault. HUH? The normal traffic rule is that when you're turning on a green light -not arrow- ONCOMING traffic has the right away, right? ARRRRGH!) Thank goodness for the kindness of strangers!!

We spoke with the insurance adjuster this morning and our car is likely totaled. I am SO incredibly discouraged about that. We LOVE our little Malibu. It was only 2 years old and was in EXCELLENT condition and got MAHVELOUS gas mileage (which helps cuz we live over 30 miles from B's work). We got an incredible deal on the car (we did major shopping and haggling with the dealer) and the same car is going for $5 - 6K more right now. (We don't like having car payments... we usually have them for a year or two and pay the car off.) I'm really not happy about having to shop for a new car again. :(

I guess the reason for me telling you all of this schtuff is that if my posting becomes somewhat more erratic, you now know why. Stay tuned, stick with me.. .I won't be wonky forever.. ok, maybe I might, but I will try my best to keep things interesting here on the blog.

After all this craziness I found this fun link on YouTube and couldn't resist sharing. I <3 Anita Renfroe. She always puts a laugh in my heart. Here's one for you... Enjoy & wrINKly Smiles!

Tutorial: Popped Metal or Metal Popping

I had so much fun making my last SSD card and figured I should share with you how I did my background for my “masculine” card.

I think I will call this technique “Popped Metal” or “Metal Popping”. I was going to try to use a “Chalk Popping” technique on the card but realized I needed to think up something else when I peeked at my chalks and saw that I only had pastel colors… so I pulled open my “messy embellishments” drawer and my eyes were immediately drawn to my metallic pastes. VOILA! IDEA!!! BLING BLING!

This is amazingly easy (basically TWO steps) but gives a really cool result… so here we go…

You will need:
* Versamark Ink Pad
* Metallic Rub On Paste (mine came from Gina K Designs)
* Detailed stamp ( I’m using Rustic Tiles from Skipping Stones Design)
* Sponge
* Colored Cardstock & Scrap paper (to protect workspace)

Step One:
Ink up your image with a clean Versamark pad (you don’t want to use one that is stained with colored ink because it may transfer to your artwork – ick!)

Begin stamping your image. I like to start off the page so the design runs off the page. Stagger the images on each row so you don’t have “running seams”.

Cover the entire piece of cardstock with the Versamark stamped image. Be careful not to “smudge” the images with your fingers while stamping… what you smudge will show up in Step 2.

Here you can see the CS covered in Versamark images:

Step 2:

Gently rub your sponge in the Metallic Rub On Paste. Don’t glop it on because it will come off too thick on your artwork and make a royal metallic mess.

This requires a LIGHT touch, so if you have lead foot fingers like me and just want to SMOOSH that ink in stop now and take a breath. LOL!

Start at one corner or end. Using just a teeeeny weeeeeny bit of pressure… just enough to transfer the Metallic Rub On Paste to the paper…. rub the sponge over the Versamarked images in a circular motion. You will start to see the images POP out in metallic splendor.

If you have gaps between your images be careful not to rub the paste down in the gaps or you will get a “grid” look. But if that’s the look you’re going for, then hey, go for it :)

Continue rubbing the Metallic Rub On Paste on the Versmarked images, “reinking” the sponge as needed, until all the Versamark has been popped out.

Finish at opposite end/side of where you started.

I love how this looks… you can go back and darken areas for a more distressed look or for shadowing for the images you might be layering up for the final product and ink the edges darker with the Metallic Rub On Paste.

Here’s how I used this background piece:

Thanks for playing today! Inky Smiles!

Skipping Stones Design Sketch Tuesday: SSD022 Surrender to the Wind

Happy Tuesday Inky Friends!

Sadly, today is our last sketch with the awesome Kimberly Crawford, but I really had fun with this one. It’s a simple, straightforward sketch, but I had an idea almost immediately and created my card last TUESDAY, which is NUTS for me. LOL! Usually it’s Saturday night and I’m stressing about it. hehe!

Anyway.. moving on… Here’s today’s sketch:

I played around with the Whispering Wings stamp set and decided to go with something a little more “masculine”. I seriously don’t do masculine cards because I have the hardest time with them, too, mainly because there are so many “girlie” stamps and images on the market and the masculine ones are usually “cheesey” or juvenile.

However, comma, but… the cattails in the Whispering Wings set worked out just perfectly for me for this card.

I took a little artist liberty with the sketch and elongated the focal point. :)

I inked the cattail image up on an Olive Green CTMH ink pad and then used a baby wipe to wipe the green off the actual cattails which I then colored with a brown marker and stamped onto a cream cs. I colored the cattails in with colored pencils and OMS. The image is stamped in Chocolate Ink by CTMH. Edges are distressed with Tim Holz’s tea dye distress ink.

The sand colored background needed some type of texture/depth, but I did not want to “sand distress” or “direct to paper ink distress”, so I fiddled around and came up with a cool technique that I will share with you in a tutorial on Wednesday. (It’s all typed up and ready to go!) Oh how this card was difficult to photograph to show the background detail. LOL!

Here’s a little close up at the background.

Be sure to check out the creations from our other lovely Skipping Stone designers!! (List on the right side bar of the blog.)

Inky Smiles! See you Wednesday!

Creative Supplies:
Stamps – Skipping Stones Design Whispering Wings
Inks – CTMH Chocolate & Olive Green, Versamark
Miscellaneous – SU felt ribbon, fabric glue, misc paper scraps, watercolor pencils, OMS, metal paste.

PS - This just in:

GOOD NEWS – Skipping Stones Design is having a P.M.S. Sale!

P.M.S.~ in this case~suffering from the NEED to Purchase More Stamps!

Buy 1 stamp set save 5%, for a total of .73cents off. Coupon code: PMS1

Buy 2 stamp sets & save 10%, for a total of $2.90 off. Coupon code: PMS2

Buy 3 stamp sets & save 15%, for a total of $6.54 off. Coupon code: PMS3

Buy 4 stamp sets & save 20%, for a total of $11.60 off . Coupon Code: PMS4

Buy 5 stamp sets & save 25%, for a total of $18.10 off. Coupon Code: PMS5

*This sale will last until Saturday May 1st at midnight

All the details on this sale can be found on the Skipping Stones Blog.

Skipping Stones Design Sketch Tuesday: SSD021 –Your 110 lb Friend :)

Good morning crafty friends!

It’s time for another Skipping Stones Design Sketch Tuesday and today’s sketch is a really fun one! This week Kimberly Crawford is challenging us to:

You may remember that I mentioned in a previous post that shaped cards are not something I am entirely comfortable with… YET…

I decided to take the sketch literally this time and created a round card.

and since it was dinner time when I was making it I was a little hungry and needed a snack. So I made a cookie with a fancy wrapper. :) I was craving Oatmeal Crunchies, but Brent said it needed chocolate chunks... so there ya have it.

I traced a circle on a piece of folded cardstock using a regular old CD and then cut it out with my Fiskars cutting thingy… it’s that disk like thing that has a blade in the bottom.. lol… the name of it has escaped me.. ay yi yi…. anyway. You can see the small folded area at the bottom of the card.

Then I took a bite out of it by cutting random teeth marks in both layers with some super sharp scissors. It must have been an ogre who bit it cuz the teeth marks show 3 front teeth.. lol! Shrek… you naughty boy!

The “chocolate chunks” are made from chocolate CTMH cardstock and are just random cut out bits and glued down with a quickie glue pen. All patterned papers and embellishments are from a Kit Club packet that I picked up from Treasured Scrapbooking (Erin Gudge). The papers and buttons are from Basic Grey’s Origins collection. The felt ribbon is from the discount bin @ Stampin Up and I tucked a bit of green tulle poking out from under the flower.

I used the sentiment from Skipping Stones Design’s set Birthday Donuts.

Now get off the computer and go make some cookies!

Inky Smiles!

SSD April Hop Blog Candy Winner

Hey friends!

I am so sorry that I am so late posting this!  I completely spaced it.  Brent took half of Friday off to hang out with me and then his bro called and invited us to drive down to Bryce Canyon with him and his girlfriend on Saturday. (Which was oodles of fun, btw, but my knee learned new meanings of the word “pain”. LOL!)  By Sunday I was totally not in the crafting zone and remembered this morning that I needed to announce the winner.  DOH!

Ok, so without further groveling…  our winner for the April SSD Blog Hop Blog Candy (Skipping Stones Design Funny Coffee Vol I stamp set) is:

Barb’s Boys, that would be you, chica!   Drop me a note at inkysmiles @ gmail dot com with your mailing info and I will  pop this yummy candy in the mail to you!

Inky Smiles!

Erin

Skipping Stones Design Sketch Tuesday: Blog Hop, A Little Candy & SSD020

Happy Tuesday, blogging friends!

Welcome to Skipping Stones Design’s Blog  DT  Blog Hop to celebrate the release of two new stamp  sets, Birthday Donuts and Whispering Wings.  If you just happened upon my blog today, you’ll want to go back to the beginning at Skipping Stones Design. You should have arrived from Kimberly Crawford’s blog. 

Combined with the blog hop today, it's also Skipping Stones Sketch Tuesday which means the Design Team is showcasing another great creation from Kimberly Crawford. We'd love for you to play along with the sketch. Just remember to use the keywords SSD020 if you are uploading to any online galleries or link your card at the Skipping Stones Blog. We'll be looking soon for Guest Designers so you never know....

Here’s this week’s sketch, SSD020:

I flipped it and rotated it in PSE….

I had all sorts of ideas for this sketch, but I had to reel it in a little due to time and pain tolerance constraints (but that’s a another story) so I sat down after dinner and played around with the  Birthday Donuts set and some sample papers from Sassafrass Lass.

I really wanted to use the Birthday Donuts for this card, but I didn’t want to color another card for a few reasons:  1) I don’t have the “right colors” in watercolor pencils 2) I don’t have a watercolor penbrush thingy to use my brown ink pads, 3) I have just one brown Copic, and 4) I didn’t want to color. LOL!

SOOOOOOO… I decided to play around with some paper piecing using my favorite donut stamp from the set.

Here’s what I came up with.

And here’s the same image very roughly edited with a different background, thanks to PSE… It’s fun to see how different colored backgrounds change how a piece appears.

 
Anyway… back to today’s bidniss… Since one of my favorite type of donut is a “cake” donut I decided to make the donut out of a chocolatey brown felt and then frost it with some delightful pink frosting.  I stamped the image onto some scrap cardstock and cut it apart, using the pieces as templates for my donut and frosting.  The candles are stamped direct to some scrap Sassafrass Lass paper and then lit up with some Crystal Effects and yellow glitter.

  
I just wanted a chunky, funky card this time so I layered up chunks fo my fav paper pieces from Sassafrass Lass’ newest release, some pink tulle, an itty bitty zipper I’ve had for ages and never knew what to do with and a big tag made from some SL paper.  I like to think the zipper is keeping the secret of how many birthdays and donuts I’ve really had. *wink*

And even though I don’t usually decorate the inside of cards I thought this one needed it so I layered up some SL papers and stamped a sentiment.

Thank you for stopping by today! I hope you had a pleasant visit!  Please continue on this hop by visiting Kandi Phillips’ blog next!

PS… I’ve got some candy to share today!  Heather sent me a brand new copy of Funny Coffee Vol I to share with some lucky winner this week.  Here’s how you can win:

* What is your favorite “secret” treat?   Leave a comment on this post and tell me and I will draw a winner on Friday, April 16th. 

Inky Smiles!

Sweet Supplies:
Stamps:  Skipping Stones Design Birthday Donuts
Ink:  CTMH Ocean, Hollyhock, misc yellow chalk ink
Paper:  Various scraps of Sassafrass Lass new release pieces
Misc:  Doodlebug glitter, Crystal Effects, Homemade Glimmer Mist, Zipper, Adhesive, Tulle, AC Foam Tabs, misc Archivers CS, thread, Bernie the Bernina.

Skipping Stones Design Sketch Tuesday: SSD019 – Whispering Wings

Happy Easter, Friends!  I hope each of you had a pleasant and blessed Easter yesterday!  Brent and I enjoyed a peaceful and quiet day together.  We listened to LDS General Conference and visited with each other.  It’s been a long week and so it was nice to just chit chat and hang out together. :)  Brent made the most DIVINE chicken for dinner… Parmesan Crusted Chicken with a Sage Butter sauce and roasted rosemary garlic potatoes on the side.. nom nom! :) I do have to admit that I am one spoiled girlie when it comes to the hubs cooking.  He’s fantastic!

This month at Skipping Stones Design we are releasing two fun sets:  Whispering Wings and Birthday Donuts!! These are both darling, darling stamp sets and I can’t wait to make some cards with Birthday Donuts!

Today is also our first April sketch.  This month’s loverly sketches come from Kimberly Crawford of “For The Love of Paper”.

Our first sketch this month is a fun one!  When I saw this sketch I thought “RUFFLES” but then  I had to figure out how to work a stamped image into it.. lol! 

I took the sketch quite literally this week and didn’t make any “adjustments” other than moving the sentiment.  I played around a bit with the new stamp sets that Heather is releasing this month and this is what I came up with:

I stamped a dragonfly from Whispering Wings  onto white cs and colored with watercolor pencils and blended with odorless mineral spirits.  The wings (pink part) are covered in Crystal Effects and I highlighted the body and wingtips with a clear glitter Sakura gel pen.

This last week I’ve been playing around with some flowers for various projects and cut up an old pair of blue jeans.. I couldn’t resist making a flower from the denim and used the bottom hem of the legs to make a “ribbon”  The pearls are pulled off of a bit of lace… lots of “upcycling” on this card :)

I’ve been having issues with my photography skills lately and have had a doozy of a time getting the right lighting. ARgh.  ANyway… I snapped a couple of shots to show the details.  Here’s some better close ups to show the details:

The “sky” area round the dragonfly is pounced in ink with a sponge and the wings have gradiated coloring.

Here you can see the irridescent splotchiness on the body of the dragonfly.

Creative Bits:
Stamps:  Skipping Stones Design Whispering Wings
Inks: CTMH
Miscellaneous:  Odds n ends papers, upcycled blue jeans, pearls, Fiskars border punch and hole punch, watercolor pencils, odorless mineral spirits, misc adhesive.

Scrap My Scraps Challenge II: Reveal #3 Amanda DesJardins

Sorry for the delay in posting this third reveal.  I’m back on track now and just waiting for one more set of treats to come in via email.  One player is unable to play this time due to family things and another did not receive their package in the mail.  It was returned to me because I had the wrong address. argh.  Anyway… We will have one more reveal after this one.

I also need to apologize because I failed to show you what all our players are starting with.

Here’s a snapshot of what they received in their envelopes.  They received one note from me with the guidelines and six pieces of paper.  They all received the exact same amount of paper but the sizes may have been different for the patterned papers.  Everyone received the same patterns.

And now…

for our third SMS II Reveal  we have some delights from the fabulous Amanda DesJardins!

Amanda told me she was surprised how much paper she could actually use and ended up with very little left over!  You can see in her fabulous cards that she used nearly ALL the paper she received.

Check out these darling butterflies!! I love them!  And there’s a teeeny weeeny little butterfly hovering over the sentiment, too!

Amanda used loads of paper on this cute little card, too!  She also stamped Thanks on the patterned paper, cut out gift images, and used rhinestones to highlight the main sentiment.

I LOOOOVE how the purses are on “parade” in this card!  And by inking the edges of the scraps of background paper she added some nice dimension!

A ROUND card!  LOVE IT!  I am so challenged when it comes to “shape” cards.  I love that Amanda thought out of the box and created a shaped card!  (I know there’s one coming up in the SSD sketches and I’ve got some great inspiration now!)

Thank you Amanda for your FABULOUS cards!

~Inky Smiles!