Whirlpool of Imagination

Getting Inque-y

You know how much I love stamps. And I definitely spread the wealth. Staying with just one stamp company just isn't any fun for me. There are way too many great companies out there to not branch out! In the time that Inque Boutique has been around, I haven't really given them a try. Recently, they were having a sale so I thought I'd take the plunge and give them a try. I bought mine from The Purple Turtle Shoppe.

This is how the stamps came. They are all unmounted and are already die cut. That is a definite plus for me. I can't tell you how many stamps I have that need to be cut out and mounted.

Another neat thing about these stamps is that the back of them is already clingy. There is no need to adhere them to ez mount, which is what I usually do with my unmounted stamps.

Here are the stamps on the opposite side. That leads me to the third really neat thing about them. The picture is on the back of the stamp. You just pop these onto an acrylic block and you can see exactly where you are stamping the image. This was especially useful when stamping out the words. I usually get those crooked the first couple of times but with the writing on the back of the stamp, I knew exactly where I was stamping.

The one possible downside includes a bit of a learning curve. I've used unmounteds, wood mounteds and acrylic stamps. I know how much pressure each kind needs. These I need to work on a bit. There is a black cushiony mat that comes with these stamps and its recommended that you use that when stamping. I tried it but it didn't give me a perfect image every time like it claims. Like everything else, I just need to learn the subtleties to using these stamps. That was a small downside and not enough for me not to buy/use these stamps.

 And here is my first card made with these stamps. This is my offering for the Dirty Girls Dare week - the dare by JulieHRR was to embrace white space so here you go. The card itself is pretty simple, in fact it can be a 5 minute card when using an assembly line.

Overall, I was pleased with my new Inque Boutique stamps and you will definitely be seeing more of them here in the future.

More Grads

I have some more graduate cards to show you. These both were for males which I definitely find more of a challenge. If nothing else, for a female grad, I can always go to flowers or my bella grad.

This card is for a male whose school colors are blue and white. The diploma stamp is from Art Impressions and the sentiment stamp is from Purple Onion.

I also used one of my brand new cuttlebug folders, houndstooth. I thought it would be appropriate for a graduation card, especially as this particular graduate is an older gentleman who went back for his "second career".

This card is for a male whose school colors are green, white and a bit of orange. I used the congrats cuttlebug folder for the background this time.

The sentiment is from Cornish Heritage Farms and the grad cap (second generation stamped) is from Stampin' Up. The ribbon looked masculine enough for me and really encompassed the colors I was going for. That was it for my stamping.

Today is a sad day for me. This morning my grand mother died. I know it's for the best for her. She was 97 and in the last couple of years really wasn't aware of much of anything. So I know she's in a better place. I'm just sad because in my mind she'll always be my "nanny" and I remember her as she was when I was a little girl. But I guess that's what good about memories. You can always bring them out, dust them off and think of your loved one.

Slurp!

This is an early morning post because I have a super busy day ahead of me. Meg's birthday is coming up in a few weeks and she's been hounding me to get her birthday invites done. I finally finished them this week. The theme of the party is Hannah Montana (big surprise for a 7 year old, right?). I had some trouble deciding on how to do the invites. I didn't want to just pop dot a HM sticker and of all the bellas I own, wouldn't you know I don't have rock star bella. So since its a summer party, we went a different route.

I don't know who on Splitcoast originally designed these popsicle cards. If you check the gallery there are lots of them now.

The circle stamp is from TAC (one of their brand new sets that matches the punches), the candles are from Stampin' Up and for the life of me, I can't figure out where that sentiment came from. The candles have stickles on their flame for a bit of sparkle.

For the "bite" out of the popsicle, I couldn't get my scallop punches to cut through both layers of cardstock so I improvised. I used my SU word window punch and did a series of punches along the cardstock. I did each layer separately but even so, they came out pretty even. So if your scallop punch won't do the trick, try your word window punch instead.

I did the inside info in Word and pop-dotted the layer to cover the popsicle stick. All in all, they came out really cute! And Meg was happy with them, which is the most important thing.

Now I'm off to get ready for Mo's party. His 40th birthday party is finally here so I have a lot to do to get ready. Have a great day!

Dirty Dare Masculine

If you are a member over at Splitcoasters, you may know about the week of Dirty Dares. As a thank you to fan club members, the Dirty Girls post various challenges for the week. One such challenge was to make a masculine card.

I had to make a birthday card for my brother so this fit in nicely with the challenge. Now most masculine stamps are fishing or hunting and the like. He's not into any of that but he does have a red car. I took what I could get on subject matter!

The car is from TAC and is stamped with SU's real red ink. The striped paper is from Doodlebug and the black layer is actually black glossy cardstock so in real life, it has a bit of a shine.

The rain did a number on my arthritis last night so I'm sleepy and fading fast. Hope you all have a great night!

Happy Mail

It's always the best feeling to look through your mail and see that the mailman has brought lovely cards. As I usually do, I randomly chose three cards that I have received in the last month.

This really fun card is from Tara. I like the freshness of the colors and the design had me looking at it twice. Originally I thought there were three panels, a fun design that I like, but after looking at it again, I realized there were layers instead. I like this layout and have added the sketch to my little sketch book.

This fun little card came from Bonnie. I love these little bee stamps. I haven't gotten any of them myself yet, but they are definitely on the watch list. One of these days, I'll break down and buy a few.

This design is another great one. I've used variations of this layout and really like how Bonnie put this one together.

And last but not least is this great card from Alice. First of all, it's purple. Do I really need to say more? You know of my total love of all things purple. And I am completely amazed at the time and effort she took to cut out all those flowers. I very rarely cut out a lot of pieces for my cards and appreciate when others do so.

And there's a little peek into my mailbag this month. I have such great pen pals. They bring a smile to my face with every letter they send.

Have a great night!

Teamwork

As some of you know, I design cards for people. What's really interesting to me is that some clients give me free rein to do whatever I want, others have some ideas and yet still others have very specific criteria. I like working with all three types for various reasons and find the variety makes the job more interesting. One repeat client that I have has very specific ideas that I translate into cards for her. Normally, we do this over the computer and pass along a LOT of emails back and forth. This time I thought it would be neat to have her come over and to work as a team, in the moment, to create the card she was envisioning. Not only did it make the process a lot easier, it was a lot of fun!

These cards were designed for a little girl who is turning four and loves horses. My client would tell me what she wanted and then and there I tried out ideas for her. Then she got to play with the placement of the various elements until we both agreed on the final design that you see here to the left.

The horse was embossed with a brass stencil in my wizard. I then cut it out and sanded out the white core. It was then placed with pop dots onto a layer that had been stamped with a flourish stamp from TAC. The flowers and rhinestones were requested by the client and what was neat about doing this in person was she got to play with the embellishments until what she saw in her mind came to life on paper.

What I love about this type of work is the interaction I get with others. To take a blank sheet of paper and create what they see in their mind can be a challenge but is also a lot of fun. As the kids are older now, I really look forward to getting the chance to do this on a regular basis and having a job that I love.

Watch out Hallmark

This weekend we celebrated my brother's birthdays (they're twins). One brother got his cards from the kids earlier in the week but we didn't see one until yesterday. Meg was the cardmaker in the family this weekend. Here's her card.....

I suggested the baseball card since Rob is a Mets fan (and I did tell her the teams' colors to give her a jumping off point).

The baseball player is from a retired set from TAC and the banner is from Papertrey.  I believe the screen is drawn to be the screen/net behind the backstop. What I thought was really cute was the wording which was all Meg's idea. I didn't see it until it was done. The front reads "It's a home run" and the inside reads "to have an uncle like you." How fantastic is that????

Today Meg and I went to see the Kit Kittredge:American Girl movie. I thought is was really well done and Abigal Breslin was just wonderful as Kit as well as a great supporting cast. Meghan loved it and gave it an enthusiastic thumbs up.

My Goodies

I'm not feeling the greatest so I haven't stamped very much this week. But I do have a picture of all the goodies I got at the stamp convention this Sunday.

I did get a chance to get most of this put away (well, I didn't mount all those unmounted stamps yet) but I haven't played with it yet.

This weekend was supposed to be a whirlwind but plans have been changing and it looks a bit quieter than we thought so I'm hoping for a chance to play!

Have a great evening.

Bikini Bella

I was in a summer card making mood so I pulled out my bikini bella. Aaah, at one point in my life, I could wear one of those......

I tried vainly to add more layers to this card but to be honest, it just looked like I was adding just to add so I scaled it back down to my style.

The bella is from Stamping Bella, the flip flops are from TAC and the circle is from Papertrey. The blue mat that the bella is one is actually pop dotted for a bit of dimension but the camera didn't pick up on that.

I dry brushed some acrylic paint onto the bella layer just to dirty it up a bit.

The patterened paper is from my new favorite, Tutti Frutti from TAC. I think the bright colors have been matching my summery mood.

Until tomorrow...

More Butterflies

For some reason, Typepad is giving me little red x's when I try to add more than two pictures to my post. My solution......a second post.

Now I think it's the picture that Typepad objects to. For some reason, two of my pictures are not showing up on the screen. I guess I'll have to try those another day.

Hope your day is a good one.