Mostly More or Less Monochromatic Birthday Card

Now that BFF-M has her card, I can post pictures of it. I got the idea for it from a couple of cards on display at the LSS, Stamp Fever. The card stock is all from Bazzill, although two shades are the canvas finish and the third, the lightest, is one of the other finishes. All three shades were stamped with the Impression Obsession Cover-A--Card "Herringbone" using VersaMark ink in a watermark effect. The cupcake tower is from Peddlers Pack. The sentiment is from a foam-mounted set, and I'm not sure who the manufacturer was; I've had it a long time.

The front:

All the way open and laid out flat:

Partial open/closed:

If I remember right, I used Archival "Sepia" ink for the image and sentiment.

Card Class!

No, I haven't posted in a long time, even though I've actually been to several card classes this year. Can't say as I'm ever likely to catch up, either, nor to post steadily (2 more classes this month!). But here are today's from Linda Coley's "Black, White, and a Little Color."

First up was a geometric design. The stamping was done ahead of time by Linda, as was most of the cutting (we only had to trim a bit off the round pieces). I think the red should have been darker, but I used the darkest reds I had on hand, for the bricks and the butterfly. A darker red would have matched the "happy" die cut better. Oh, well. I used a bit of Glossy Accents on some of the bricks and on all of the butterfly.

I can't help but wonder what this one would be like if the round elements were trimmed with the same die as the first layer. I'll have to poke around among my dies and border images to see about CASEing this one. (Technically, CASE means Copy And Stamp Exactly; for most people, it's "I like this layout so I'm going to copy it my own way.")

The second card required a bit more coloring, and Linda's class samples had a closer fit on the plain circle and the scalloped circle. I've done this technique before, but with a smaller circle for my colored highlighted bit.

And the third card was a technique I've used several times, although I've never popped up any of the layers, nor used any ribbon on the earlier ones. We did our own stamping for these, with stamps of our own choice. Some in class used large, simple line designs, while others used some large, slightly more detailed stamps. But no one used a stamp as detailed as my choice. This is one of the few Stampin' Up stamps I own, as there just aren't many of their designs I like. I'm also not especially a fan of sets, since so many of them have only one or two images I want. The ink is Tsukineko's Memento "Tuxedo Black."

Linda has the good sense to refer to this technique as "Triple Layering"; the blogger I first learned it from uses--for reasons of her own, and which may well make perfect sense to her--"Triple Time" for the technique's name.

I wanted to try it in browns, too, so when I got home, I tested some of my brown inks on two different shades of light brown card stock and made my choices. Unfortunately, I forgot to pop up my layers and forgot the ribbon. Duh. Back to the drawing board! The card stock is from one of the collections of lightweight card stocks available at Michaels stores; the ink is Ranger's Archival "Coffee."

It's also a BFF's birthday today, so this morning I dug through my stack of creative-binge cards, then had to decide on a sentiment, which I tend to put inside rather than outside (with a few exceptions). I didn't take any detail photos, but the lightest of the three lavenders/purples are stamped, too, with two different background stamps. The vertical strip was stamped with Hero Arts' Envelope background in a lavender ink slightly darker than the card stock, while the "ribbon" strips were stamped with a floral image (I don't remember whose stamp it is, and I'm too lazy to look; it's generally readily available at JoAnn stores) with Tsukineko's VersaMagicMark, then heat-embossed with clear embossing powder.

Yes, Melissa, it's very similar to yours! I did this design in three different colorways, but yours was the only one with real ribbon. And the only one with a red cherry.

And the innards:

Not a very "clean" stamped image, but that's because the card stock is textured.

And that's it for today. Our celebratory dinner will be at Outback Steakhouse--the birthday girl's choice.

Stitch Class September

Stitch class this month was today, which is also BFF-N's birthday, so first the card for her.

The front. This was an experimental piece. I have a background stamp of cupcakes by the same artist as the main image here (also the same artist responsible for the cupcake-tower stamp I sometimes use), which I stamped with watermark ink, heat-embossed with clear powder, then ran through the dry-embossing "happy birthday" folder. I matted that with a sage green. The center horizontal panel got the folder treatment, but not the watermark/heat-embossing treatment, and was also matted with the same sage green. The cupcake was stamped with two colors of VersaMagic chalk ink on white card stock, cut square-on-point, and then matted with the sage green. The heat-embossing didn't work as nicely as I had hoped; maybe a touch of color in the embossing powder would have helped.

And the innard, where the sentiment square-on-point was also run through the embossing folder, then matted with the same sage green as the card front.

BSF-T (that's Best Stitching Friend) had a finish today:

This is her Mary Wigham, done on a much finer count that my own MIA Mary Wigham, and a most beautiful piece. Congratulations, GF!!!

I worked on Margaret's Monochrome Madness again. Here's MMM at the end of last month's session:

I started by frogging a bit of that green block I finished last month and then re-stitched the off-by-one-thread mistake I'd make on the last row. It's the green block at the top right corner of the (incomplete) center medallion. I also added a bit more (almost finished) to the block to the right of the green block.

 

And started stitching the border:

There's another section of border that will be stitched around the outside of this one.

10:30PM Update: Hannah Beeby is done. And getting a back.

Crafty Me

I love rubber stamping. Been doing it—off and on, of course, like all hobbies—about the same length of time I've been counted cross stitching. And because it's been that long, it's a counter-culture thing, on the "weird" end of the "cute v weird" wars in stamping. Back in my letter-writing days I loved using stamps to decorate both the letters themselves and the envelopes. Then came the electronic age, and it's kinda hard to stamp an email. More recently, I've been participating in holiday card exchanges and took up stamping the cards for those (and, of course, the cards I send out to friends and family and family friends).

Then BFF-J relocated to Annapolis because the economy is so very seriously sucktastic here in what used to be a truly massive military-industrial complex. So besides keeping up with each other with emails and Facebook, I've been on a mission to keep her snail-mail box occupied with stamped cards, shooting for at least every couple of weeks, and not just holiday-ish occasions, to let her know she's missed and not forgotten. To that end, I've spent a chunk of my tax returns on a new storage system for my stamps (and I'm very happy with these cabinets!) and a variety of new tools and papercrafting toys and papers. And found, through a stamping magazine, a blog, which of course leads to other blogs.

What I've found thus far falls very heavily in the "cute" end of the spectrum. Which is okay, really, because what I'm looking for is more in the realm of layout kinds of things more than images. I've seen some really beautiful stuff. And some ugly stuff. And some genuinely ugly stamps. One thing I honestly do not understand is the fascination for the stamps from Magnolia—mumps-cheeked faces with little black beady eyes (think Little Orphan Annie filled in) and neither noses nor mouths. Frankly, I find them creepy looking. But that's the nature of things: one woman's "creepy" is another's "adorable" (insert hurling emoticon here).

I also haven't had much luck finding stamping bloggers/blogging stampers who lean toward the "weird" end of the spectrum, leaving me with some nice layouts, but otherwise insipid works.

I really need to start photographing my efforts. I sure hope BFF-J is saving my masterpieces for posterity.