Whirlpool of Imagination

I'm Back!!

Due to the awesome efforts of my wonderfully computer savvy brother, I am back online. Thank goodness he helped me out - both with detecting the problem and installing the new modem. You know how nothing runs smoothly and tech support needed to be called - I didn't understand half of what he was telling them but all I know is that I'm connected again!

So I have a new Bella card to show...

Bella is colored with prismacolor pencils and baby oil. I have to say I really like this technique. I have never tried gamsol and have no idea how different it is to the oil but I just love how the oil smoothes out those pencil lines (and it smells nice too!). I used a cuttlebug embossing folder in the Wizard for the background. While I like the fact that I can use the cuttlebug with the Wizard, it is HARD. The amount of tension to get those folders through is slowly pushing me towards looking into getting the cuttlebug machine instead. I think I may be keeping my eyes out for some sales...

I hope to get my new bellas mounted tomorrow. I have a couple of sniffly children (one more so than the other) but I'm hoping we nip this cold in the bud before anyone gets really sick. If all is well, I'm getting my bellas ready for stamping tomorrow!

I'm Modem-less

It's official - my modem is fried. When I went to upload my new Bella card, I got a connection problem message. After talking to tech support this morning, apparently my modem has died. I'm hoping to be up and running in the next couple of days and my first upload will be my new bella birthday card. I guess this gives me more time to stamp :)

Can you believe it? In the midst of all these CHA sneak peeks and reports, I have no way of checking out the new stuff! Oh wait, could my husband be in on this????? Talk to you soon.

Simple Packaging

We went to see friends of ours who just had their second son. Because he is a second boy, I went with the tried and true gift card idea as a baby gift but I wanted something a little cuter than those envelopes to package it in. I have the plain silver altoid style tins that are just the perfect size for gift cards so I decided to jazz one up. The baby stamp is from Stampin' Up and the sentiment is from TAC. I used colored pencils and baby oil for the coloring in of the image and there is blue satin ribbon wrapped around the side of the tin. They liked the final result and I have to say, their baby is one cute little boy!

Sunflower Swap

In all the time that I've stamped, I have never participated in a swap. Why? I think because I'm always worried that I'll choke and won't be able to come up with a good enough design. Well, I finally took the plunge and signed up for one swap over at The Stamp Shack. The theme of the swap is to use a retired sunflower set from TAC. Besides the stamps from TAC, I also used a background harlequin from Cornish Heritage and the sentiment stamp from Spunky Stamps. I had an idea for a design but it took me a long time to flesh it out enough to where I liked it. Now I just need to make 5 more!

Busy Organizing

I got the organizing bug this morning so I spent a little time trying to figure out how to completely organize the mess that has become my studio. I'm feeling like the mess is affecting my ability and inspiration to work so something has got to be done and soon. I'm hoping that if I can at least see the table, I'll be able to create.

By the way, my newsletter went out today.

Little Sweet Treats

It may be only January but I am immersed in children's valentine's ideas (and let me tell you, having all this candy around is killing me!!). The kids and I haven't decided what they are giving their classmates yet; these are just some of my more recent ideas.

These are my Jolly Rancher lollipop covers. The stamps used are from the Amuse Art clear stamps sets. These came out last year and they are just the cutest. There are two different valentine sets. I then used a blo pen just to add some speckly dots.

These are my kisses boxes. They hold 5 hershey kisses (my personal favorites). The heart and sentiment are both from Michael's stamp designs. My Michael's has finally updated their $1 stamps so I picked up a few today. Very cute!

I love these. These are my nugget boxes (with three hershey nuggets inside). The pinkish background is red reinker and alcohol on glossy cardstock. The stamp is from TAC and then I added the little heart.

On a side note, my cuttlebug embossing folders DO work in the Wizard. The paper is just placed in the folder which is placed between the two white mats and there ya go. I had been tempted to buy a cuttlebug before it hit me that I could use the Wizard - now I've saved some money to buy more stamps!!

Bella Frenzy

Have you seen the new Bella Stamps? They are just the cutest stamps out there! Of course I had to pick up a few and finally got around to mounting them today. The design is a loose interpretion of a sketch posted this week over at the Stamp Shack. The bella is colored with prismascolor pencils and then rather than using Gamsol, I tried baby oil (and it worked pretty good). I know most people use the Gamsol just fine but a part of me is hesitant to do so because of the potential effects from using it. My studio is in the basement with no steady circulation of air so I've resisted using the Gamsol. I tried using the natural turpenoid but that didn't work too well so I thought I'd give the baby oil a try. When I do this caard again, I don't think I'd use the baby oil with the hair - I liked that before blending in but I liked how the top and pants came out after blending.

You may find stray flecks of glitter that are not supposed to be there. I had a bit of an accident with unset stickles and then valiently tried to wipe as much of them away as possible and redo the stickles part. My brad was a bit small for the flower so I added stickles around that as well as on the cake. Stamps are from Stamping Bella (girl), Amuse Arts (sentiment) and Cornish Heritage (the happy birthday background on the base card - done in versamark). Of course after making this card, I had to go back and order more bellas!

Iris Fish

I always toy with the backgrounds for iris folded cards. The plain background always seems too plain and I'm tired of setting sentiments on a diagonal. I have been doing some lately using background stamps and since this is alcohol ink week, I did one with an alcohol ink background.

Yes, I am still stuck on the blue reinkers background (CTMH - Star Spangeled Blue and Crystal Blue). I liked the stamped fish on it so I figured I'd try an iris folded one. This pattern came from one of the talented designers on the circle of crafters message board and the papers used are all scrapbook papers. Since the challenge theme this month was anything green, I figured I'd give him a go with these papers.

I ordered a few Cuttlebug embossing folders and am going to give them a try in my Wizard. I belong to a yahoo group that is devoted to the Wizard and have already found the needed "sandwich". I'll hopefully be showing examples by next week!

Pink Baby

Whenever I try out new baby designs, I always seem to do them in blue for boys. I wanted to try out the watermelon reinker (CTMH) with alcohol for a background which made for a perfect baby girl card instead. The baby carriage is from Pink Cat Studio and colored with watercolor pencils. The sentiment is from Spunky Stamps. The base card and matting are actually purple but look black in the scan. The patterned paper strip was not exactly what I wanted. When I planned the card in my head, I wanted to find a pink stripe paper (nice thin stripes) but even with ALL the paper I own, I had no pink stripes. This was my second choice - not exactly what I had planned but it worked out alright.

Speaking of Pink Cat Studio, they just released some new plates of stamps - REALLY cute Easter stamps and some cool paisley designed objects.

Fathers Day Fish

Yesterday I said that I would be playing around with alcohol inks this week. For small items, like dominio's, I like the use the actual alcohol inks. For card backgrounds, I get frustrated with the alcohol inks. They dry up on my felt pad so quickly that I have to use more and more just to do one background. So instead I use my reinkers and isopropyl alcohol. I've seen it recommended that you use 91% alcohol instead of the regular one - I'm not sure why but since I have an indepent pharmacy near me, I was able to find it easily so I do use that one.

Back when I was fooling around with the magic snowflake technique, I used these colors and made a note to try them with a fish background. I just love this color combination. I used CTMH reinkers and alcohol. The fish stamp is from River City Rubber Works and the sentiment is from Eureka stamps. I was stumped on how I wanted to design the two blocks but I decided to keep it simple with a little matting. This is definitely going into inventory for Father's Day selections.

I have been waffling on the Cuttlebug. Do I need it?? Should I get it?? I did a bit of checking and realized that I can use the cuttlebug plates in the Wizard (which I own but just haven't used lately). I think I may get a few of the embossing plates and see how it works before I buy the actual machine.