Whirlpool of Imagination

Giant Flying Cotton???

Pollen is brutal here. We've got huge white puffs floating around and if your car sits for any length of time, its yellow. My allergies are in an uproar so no creating for me the last couple of days. I did a little work on my wedding invitation order but I'm pretty useless. So its off to bed for me. 

A Different Point of View

It is amazing to me how a change in color can change the mood or vision of a card. One of my favorite sources of stamp inspiration comes from the Technique Junkies newsletter. Last newsletter contained the starburst technique. This is a tough one and took me some time to master but I am coming along with it. Check out Pat's site for more information. I have never been sorry that I subscribed. So on to my cards.......

Here is the same technique using two different color schemes. The bright version reminds me of a blazing sunset while the pastel version reminds me of a soft morning sunrise. Both evoke different emotions even though design-wise they are the same card. At the moment, I only have a few of the multi color inkpads so I'm somewhat limited with this technique. But there are a few things brimming in the old noggin. The lighthouse stamp is from Cape Arago rubber stamps. This is a wonderful company that I discovered not too long ago. I only have a few of their stamps but I like the quality of what I've seen so far.

The air conditioning has been fixed. Apparently we were low on refrigerant. Now we have lovely cool air in our house. Fantastic since it was stifling today outside.

I'm Melting.........

Yes, this could be a great title for crayon background examples. Maybe I'll pull out my iron tomorrow and work on some. For tonight. I'm having a bit of a cranky moment. We have gone from cold/rainy weather to sweltering heat, all in the blink of an eye. Last night I retreated to the basement where it was heavenly but I can't spend my life down there. So we put the air conditioning on tonight. I'm not sure if it needs some back in season warm up or something but so far we are still hot here. And while I possess a lovely personality (LOL), I am officially cranky tonight.

But I did work more on my iris folding idea. I'm still not crazy about the background but I think I'm getting there. I've got this vision and it hasn't made the magical leap from my mind to the paper yet. This is a fantastic pattern by a wonderfully talented woman from England. And I thought that the red floral ribbon would be great, which I do like. But I'm still working on the background. Originally I had this on white paper and stamped the harlequin background red. No good. Competed with the dress. I then went with the black and just versamarked the harlequin but you couldn't see it. So I brushed the pattern with perfect pearls which helped a little but I'm still not happy with it yet. I might try black embossing the harlequin pattern which will make it shine a bit more but stay background to the dress. If I get stamping time tomorrow, I may try that. The harlequin is from TAC.

An early Happy Memorial Day to all and special thoughts sent out to all our soldiers and their families back home.

All a Bust

Today was one of those days when I wasn't happy with anything I created. I tried an iris folding pattern but didn't like the background I made. I've been working on a few starburst cards but again, not happy. I hope to get to play tomorrow night and will hopefully have more to show for my time.

Our little fish Aidan died today. We've kept Dorothy going for over two years so this was a bit of a surprise. Conor hasn't noticed so yes, we went and got another fish, a new Aidan. Let's hope this little guy lasts a bit longer.....

Pick A Sale....

I love holiday weekends - it's some fun shopping. I have been waiting all week for those great emails of Memorial Day sales. Here are just a few:

Cornish Heritage Farms - If you read my blog, you know how I feel about them - LOVE them. They have some of the largest selection of backgrounder stamps and some phenomenal unmounted prices.(And they do sell mounted if you haven't gotten into UM's) Right now everything on the site is 10% off. I've had my eye on the plain big monogram set and now may just be the time. Shipping is quick, service is great and the stamp quality is very good.

Purple Onion Designs - I love Michelle over at Purple Onion. Just got an email that the new stamps are on the site and I think she will be having a sale sometime next week. Excellent - I don't have to feel guilty about buying this week. If you sign up for her email, she'll send you details about the sale. Again, great service, fast shipping and good quality. These are unmounted stamps.

Onyx Expressions - She just added a bunch of new stamps on the site. I think all the stamps item #4000 and up are 20% off although you do need a code and would have to contact her. These are unmounted stamps on black rubber, a little unusual but fantastic quality stamps. Again great service and very responsive.

JKM Ribbon & Trims - 10% off all orders over $75. This is a great site for buying ribbon in bulk. There is a huge selection and I like buying items that I know I will use often. They don't have all the items in their warehouses but are very open about shipping times and will communicate to you.

Addicted To Rubber Stamps - Everything on their site is on sale right now with varying percentages. They offer mounted, unmounted and tons of accessories.

As you can see, I like a good sale but I also like good service and good quality stamps. If you know of any other sites with both service and quality having sales, let me know. I'd love to check them out.

Cute Alert!

Because of the fact that I have two young children, my main contact is with moms with young children. And since many orders I'm given have to do with said young children my demographic to please is your basic 3-5 year old. Keeping that in mind, some of my creations are very cutesie. Now, I like cute but todays creation would not have been something I would have made just off the top of my head. I was asked to create birthday invitations for a 5 year old girl who's having a swim party. I pleased with how they turned out and Meg was quite impressed herself! The little girl stamp is from TAC, the sentiment from CTMH and I think the water/concrete is from Beeswax but I'm not sure on that one. It's unmounted so I have to do some checking on that one. All the party info is printed on the inside like your traditional invite. The little girl is masked to create the image of her standing in front of the pool. 

So our backyard has all the sod laid down. It looks fantastic. There's just one little glitch. We have a chipmunk who likes our yard. When they laid down the sod, Mo marked the hole with a stick so he could try to find a way to chase the chipmunk away. A few hours after I look outside and there's a hunk of dirt not far from where the stick/chipmunk hole is. I go out there. The little bugger dug up another hole. All I can think of is Bill Murray and Candyshack. Let's hope our little chipmunk is not as canny as that gopher! We are now on a mission to convince this little chipmunk that our lawn is not the lawn for him. If anyone has any suggestions, please pass them our way.

Blue Rattle

I am really loving the iris folding so here's another one. I have met an extremely talented woman in England who makes fantastic patterns and the rattle is one of hers. I used satin ribbon to complete the pattern.

Warm weather has finally hit us. It is so nice to see the sunshine! The background is getting its layer of sod as we speak. I'm hoping after all the hard work that it takes okay.

I've got an order for birthday cards for a pool party. The design is almost complete - just tweaking it a bit. Thanks to Mo, he pointed out what needed fixing. I hope to have that up here tomorrow. Now off to work!

A New Challenge

I love stamping challenges. I have a tendency to get in a rut and create the same way. Its been a long time since I pulled out my embossing powders. When I first started stamping, I embossed everything but lately, they rarely see much use. And today when I went to get them, I realized I have 4 (FOUR) containers of clear ep. How in the world did I do that? Anyway, the technique challenge for this week at Splitcoast Stampers is a split negative technique. You can most certainly do this in color but I wanted to originally try it in b&w. So I pulled out my black and white embossing powders and gave it a whirl. The sailboat is the same one I used recently and is from River City Rubber Works. The script is from Purple Onion. If I had had black rick rack, I might have used that instead of the ribbon but I went with what I had.

I want to try this with flowers. I have a flower from Art Declassified that I haven't used yet. I think I want to try this technique with it. If I get some more done, I'll post them.

Second attempt with the castaway pad also didn't work out. I guess I'll have to drag out the iron and try heating the cardstock with that. My poor iron (which is never used for clothes!) has melted crayon on it from letting Meghan do some melted crayon backgrounds with me. One of these attempts should hopefully work! I'm not ready to give up on this yet.

The germs are slowly leaving our house. Conor has definitely gotten better and Meg was better enough to go to school today. I think poor Mo has got the worst of it right now. Ah, but the sunny weather has come back so I'm opening windows again!

Going Sailing

I just got a new order of backgrounds in from Cornish Heritage Farms and decided to give one a go last night. I wanted a background to go with a new stamp from River City Rubber Works and I think they paired up nicely.  I used the abstract background and my sailboat collage stamps to make this card. I thought it would go nicely for Father's Day, masculine birthday, masculine thank you or even maybe a sympathy card. I used colorbox chalk ink and some sheer ribbon on the bottom.

I tried my new castaway pad from Jacquard. It is supposed to simulate the use of bleach without actually having to use the bleach. My first attempt didn't really work so I'm hoping to get more tried in today. The directions call for using an iron to heat but I'm trying with my heat gun. We'll see what happens....

Out Darn Germs...

Our entire house is infected. We're a miserable lot right now. And after precisely zero sleep last night, I'm going on the attack. When I was growing up my mom used to always have the windows open, even in the middle of winter, to get fresh air into the house. I used to complain, as kids are apt to do, but now I get it. So, regardless of the pollen count, I'm opening the windows to get the germs out of our house. Mo always laughs at me when I say this. He says he envisions little germs in parachutes jumping out the windows. I'll personally sew little tiny parachutes for every germ in our house if it gets rid of them. So my windows are open, fresh air is flowing and hopefully, little commando germs are jumping out of our windows looking to attack some other household......