Adrienne’s Red, White, and Blue swap

So I wish I could use the words Adrienne used to describe her card!  The words were perfect.  Anyone remember?  LOL

Anyway, it's a great card with a great interpretation of the red, white, and blue theme using a non-American image!   It is one of my favorite stamp sets Artistic Etchings.

Parlez Vous Francais?

Well, I have all these cards in my stamping space to show you and haven't taken a picture of a single one!  LOL  So, because I feel the NEED to share SOMETHING with you I'm going to share another card that my club members made at our last Technique Club.  The Medallion stamp was inked up with Versamark(R) and then spritzed with the Gold Glow smooch spritz.  This sparkly technique was taught to us at our Regionals event some of us attended last month.  I love it!  The card itself is a pretty close to CASE to the one they showed at Regionals.  I love it.  I love the sparkle, the soft colors, and the slight vintage feel the crochet ribbon and Eiffel Tower bring to the card.  How about you?  What do you think?

(It's hard for a photography novice such as myself to get a good picture of the gold glow smooch, but I think you can get the general idea!) 

Edited:

Just realized I have a picture of the original card from Regionals.  It shows the smooch much better (they used a different color smooch.)

Vintage Christmas Scrapbook Layout

We've all had creative blocks, yes?  Well I kept thinking and thinking and thinking for tonight's Scrapbook class and just kept coming up blank 'til yesterday.  Yes, yesterday!  LOL  So last night and today these pages finally came together.  Nothing like last minute, huh?  Usually I have my ideas well ahead of time, it's the cutting that I'm always pushing it to the last minute!

But I have to say, I think this layout was worth the wait (and creative frustration!).  What do you think?

The bells I watercolored in with my aquapainter.  Then I applied some Champagne Mist shimmer paint with a blender pen to the berries and shaded portions of the ribbon.

The poinsettias were again colored in with my aquapainter.  I cut it out and attached with dimensionals.  I applied some Champagne glass glitter with Crystal Effects to the center of the poinsettias.

I love those vintage tags!  They just add a touch of elegance to anything.  And the beautiful crochet ribbon – LOVE.  Here I stamped a little doodad from "Always" stamp set, punched it out with a 1/2" circle punch and attached it to the tag with a dimensional.

More crochet ribbon… did I mention that I love it?  And a glimmer brad from the In Color collection along with a tag from the Table Setting die.

Colors used: Crumb Cake, Cherry Cobbler (textured), and Naturals Ivory.
Stamp Sets used: Bells & Boughs, Belle wheel, Artistic Etchings, Broadsheet Alphabet
Designer Paper: Deck the Halls

Poppin’ Pastels

Here is another card we made at my Demo Only stamp camp this week.  I found one extremely similar to it on Jackie Topa's blog and knew I had to copy it!  I have a tough time with simple layouts and know others on my team do as well.  I thought this was a great example of how less is actually more!

Not sure how to do Poppin' Pastels?  I'd love to show you!  It's really easy, fun, beautiful and fool proof so literally everyone can do it!  Give me a shout to let me know you want to learn this great technique!

Supplies Used:

•Stamp Set: Artistic Etchings
Inks: Versamark®, Elegant Eggplant
Embellishments: Brights button, linen thread
Punch: Fancy Flower Extra Large
Accessories: Stampin’ Pastels, cotton balls, mini glue dots, dimensionals, Cutter Kit, Stampin’ Sponge

Sympathy x2

Unfortunately this past week I needed two sympathy cards.  I himmed and hawed a long time of what stamp sets to use and of course what to say but I finally decided to go with the hydrangea in the new "Because I Care" hostess stamp set and the medallion stamp from "Artistic Etchings".  For the medallion I used the baby wipe stamp pad techinque.  To do that I took a wipe and folded it in quarters.  Then I put drops of So Saffron, Old Olive, and Pink Pirouette ink on the baby wipe and used the wipe as my stamp pad.  For the hydrangea, I stamped it in Stazon and used my markers to color it in, then cut it out and used my 2 way glue pen to adhere it to the card front.  There are some subtle differences in the cards as well.  The ribbons are different shades of brown and on one card I used the new Smooch Illuminate top coat in the center of the flowers.