Merry Muffins

I'm in use-it-up mode again, in anticipation of all the yummy new papers that will be coming out for fall! I used my Stampendous Eclectic Paperie Merry Muffins set to crank out a bunch of glittery cupcake cards for September birthdays, using old patterned paper from my stash. I have at least 12 birthdays coming up in September to send cards for; its a BUSY BUSY birthday month!






Stamps: Stampendous Eclectic Paperie "Merry Muffins" set, Autumn Leave Swirls v2

Patterned paper: Pebbles Inc Loverly Flower

Glitter: Martha Stewart fire opal

Ribbon: Old Michaels floral ribbon

Nestabilities: Oval & Oval Scallops

It's the long weekend; time to party!

I am SO dang excited for a 3 day weekend! I thought I'd post this party chickie from the new Crafty Secrets "Glamour Girls" set, because she's all glammed out and ready to drink martinis this weekend!

I used the martini glass from this set to create a random background for our girlie, and then colored them in with copics. Copic colors used on this card: Lipstick Red, Buttercup yellow, spring dim green, warm grey 2, spanish olive.

I hope everyone makes time this weekend to relax, de-stress, and enjoy themselves. Don't just do chores all weekend, have a little fun, too, okay?

Happy Friday!

L.

A Crafty Secrets Challenge!

Our talented Crafty Secrets design team leader Vicki Chrisman gave the Crafty team a fun challenge this week; to use any of the girlie images from Crafty's new "Girlfriends" Image notes and journal booklet! Since I'm such a huge GIRLFRIEND SUPPORTER, I jumped on this challenge immediately! Errr, well, in my head anyway. Tonite I finally sat down to rest my bowled-out body and stamp a little since I procrastinated it until now. Dang. Why am I so sore? In my head I don't feel 43, but apparently my body disagrees...

So here's my versions of our sweet Vicki's challenge! I used 2 images from the "Girlfriends" Journal booklet and paired it with some pink paper from Crafty's "Radiant" paper pad. On the little girl card I used my nestabilities oval die to cut the image out and then ran hot pink glitter around the edge of the image. I sewed the paper onto the cardstock in a square and mounted the oval image in the middle. The sentiment is from the same page on the journal pad, so you get both an image and a sentiment to match it!

For this card, I used the "secrets" image from the same booklet, and stamped fun sayings from the "Glamour Girl" stamp set at the bottom of the card. Both of these cards were quick and easy to crank out!

Make sure to go check out the other girlie samples on the sweet design team girlie's blogs here:

Heidi Blankenship

Marisa Grossman

Pam Hooten

Vivian Peters

Vicki Chrisman

Happy Wednesday! L.

Crafty Secrets Glamour Thanks

As you're reading this tonite, I'm officially starting my first night as a BOWLER, on a Monday night bowling league! YIPPIE! LOOK MOM, I'M A BOWLER! Yesterday we got together and did a little 'practicing' at the bowling alley. I did okay, I bowled a 92, a 100 and a 140! ONE-FORTY! Holy crap, I have to aim low, I can't ruin a low average with a 140 game! Except who knew you needed kneepads and a helmet for bowling; I ended up sprawled out in the lane at one point.

So on to stamping; tonite I'll post another girlie thank you card from the new Crafty Secrets "Glamour Girls" set. For this card I used papers from Crafty's "Radiant" paper pad, and my oval nestabilities. To make the flowery background behind the flower-throwing chickie, I used my hero arts distress background, stamped barely banana ink on it. Then I "kissed" the flower swirl stamp from this set onto the background block in a darker yellow ink. I created a post-it note mask of the girl image, laid it on top of her and then stamped the background block onto the oval. Clear as mud, right? I filled in the slight white outline of the girl with warm grey w2 copic, to create some shading. Copic colors used: red violet & carmine for her dress, skin white e00, pale sepia for her bow & hat.

Happy Monday, all!

Flourishes Peony.

I'm so excited! I finally placed an order with Flourishes because I FREAKED OUT when I saw this peony stamp set go up for sale. I LOVE botanical stamps and wanted some new floral stamps that I could use for all occasion, especially sympathy, get well, weddings, etc. So I splurged and finally placed my order last week. I got a chance to play with the peony on Thursday and paired it up with some new Pink Pailslee Pop Fashion "Bermuda Shorts" paper that I got from CHA.

I'm gonna admit, I freaked out a little when I stamped this flower and wondered if I'd be able to make it look good. But after I calmed down, I just decided to apply the same principals I use when I'm coloring my Crafty Secrets stamps, and it turned out okay, even with lazy-girl style coloring on it! I always have admired Anna Wight's talent for coloring, and in no way could ever reproduce her style of coloring without some education. I have a couple of principals that are simple and easily used by a beginner when attempting to watercolor or shade with your copics. I thought that since I've been such a blogger- slacker lately, I'd do a short coloring tutorial for you to show you how lazy-girl here colors my images.

First off, I know a lot of people are intimidated by stamps with a lot of detail and shading. I've gotta say that I LOOK for lots of shading in a stamp, because it actually makes your job easier to do, in that you know exactly what spots on the stamp should be darker, and what should be lighter. So I started out by using new leaf copic on my leaves here. I colored the center of the leaves with new leaf. You can color the entire leaf if you want, but I'm going to fill in the edges with a darker color anyway, so I didn't want to use up a ton of ink when I don't need to.

Next, I took a moss colored copic, and following the DARKER black shading on the leaves, I filled in with the darker moss green, leaving some lighter areas in the leaf. I colored right over the black inked shading lines with my copic.
Here's where a skilled colorer would take it a step further; by taking another color of light green and trying to blend the dark green into the light green. LAZY GIRL, HERE, said "ENOUGH" and left it as is. I'm all about QUICK!

That's it! Now you know how to color detailed images! Light colors for light spaces, dark colors for the dark shaded lines! Now we'll apply the same principal to the flower section of the stamp. I took red violet and colored in the whole flower. Looks just fine as is, right? The stamp does the shading for you!

Nah, we'll go one step further. Take a darker shade of color and go over the black ink shadows of the stamp. I used Carmine, R37, and colored right over the black parts of the flower with the darker color. See how the leaves subtly pop out at you because of the 2 tones of pink?

I learned from a drawing teacher that the trick to good art is being able to create gradations of color by blending your dark colors in with your light colors. The gradual shading creates movement and helps your image become more 3-d.

Lazy-girl here, has not perfected this skill. Maybe someday!

After I was finished coloring, I took my hero arts distress background block and inked it up with almost amethyst stampin up ink. Then I inked vintage violet around the edges of the block only, and stamped over the top of the peony with a cut-out paper mask to cover the flower.

For sparkle, I used Stampendous glitter to outline the edge of the flower. On some of the cards, I outlined the entire edge of the purple block with the glitter. That's it! Now I have time to....err....clean? NAAAAAAH.

Hope everyone's having a beautiful Saturday!

L.

Take 10 Autumn Edition!

I was so excited to get the Autumn edition of Take 10 in the mail last week; they accepted a Masterboard (also called a one-sheet-wonder) of mine for this issue! It's an AWESOME issue; you should see the superstars in it! Jen Del Muro, Kim Hughes, Sharon-rockstar-Johnson, Kendra Wiestock and Cindy Lyles (Starlit Studio) are all in this issue, just to name a few!

I made all of these cards using a "master

board" done with the Crafty Secrets Birdnotes Set, using the
Crinkled Chalk technique; the complete instructions on how to make them are in this issue. The awesome thing about Take 10 is that all of the cards can be completed in 10 minutes or less!

Here's a shot of the open book...Take 10 does such an AWESOME job with the layouts, it's always a pleasure to submit to them! And I love that you can use your MICHAELS coupons to get the magazine...I'm a coupon girl, through and through!

I want it all & I want it delivered!

I snuck in some stamp time tonite and was able to play with the new Crafty Secrets "Glamour Girls" set again tonite! Yippie! I'm diggin this girlie set! I had to use this demanding chickie from the set because she's so sassy; "I want it all & I want it delivered"!!! She's a perfect size for putting on cards, especially if you add the little art-deco swirls to the edges of the image!

Here's a closeup. VERY minimal coloring on this chick! Copic Skin White for her face and neck, and Ice Ocean color for her hat. I also colored in the flower accents with a Pale Sepia copic. It would be EASY to whip out multiples of this card for birthdays. The inside says "SMILE, it's your day! Happy Birthday Girlfriend!". I just noticed that Sandy pretty much covered all occasions with this set, as it has birthday sentiments, thank you and "Hello"! Happy Wednesday...hope your dinner gets DELIVERED!

L.

Glamour Girl.

They're here! I was so excited to get the new Crafty Secrets Glamour Girls stamp set in the mail this weekend that I had to rip into it and play right away! Can't wait to get more stamp time in so I can play with the other cool images from this set. The bonus thing is, that you get a break from me posting HALLOWEEN samples!

I decided after taking ONE BILLION bad shots of this card, to get smart and photograph it in the sunlight. I have decided that Canon cameras just STINK at taking indoor photos ( or I stink at using it!). Does anyone have the same problem with their Canon? UGH!


I LOVE the outdoor photos it takes, but I have to say my old Sony digital was hands down the better camera for taking indoor card photos. ANYWAY, I used Copic markers buttercup yellow and pale sepia for this girlies dress, and carmine for her shoes and the flowers. Salmon pink and spring dim green are in the flowers also. I ran a line of glitter across the edges of the clouds, and also outlined the clouds in 'cool shadow' copic.

Stamp set: Crafty Secrets "Glamour Girls"
Paper: Crafty Secrets "Radiant" paper pad

Floral Thanks!

Good morning, all! I finally got some stamp time in this afternoon and warmed up by doing these floral thank-you cards. I'm still digging my new Stampin Up "Bella Rose" patterned paper that I stole from friend Lana, because it's made with my most favorite of all colors, red and celery green. These colors make me happy just looking at them.

I'm still on a glitter kick so I colored in the daisies on these with Carmine red copic, and then used liquid glue to adhere red glitter to all of the petals. VERY sparkly!








Here's a close up for the glitter effect. I used little gemstones (Hero Arts) in the flower middles.

Stamp sets: Sassy Stems (Stampin Up), Hero Arts Thanks acrylic set, Autumn Leaves Swirls v.2
Paper: Stampin Up Bella Rose
Doodling done with Copic multiliner .3

Happy Saturday!

Penny Black Love Notes

Wowzer, it feels like DAYS since I've blogged! Oh wait, it HAS been DAYS since I've blogged! I'm in desperate need of some stamping time, and I'm going to chisel out some time this weekend to DO IT!

This little Penny Black envelope cat stamp got a workout so that I could have a stash of blank, all-occasion cards on hand. My Grandma has not seen a card in MONTHS, and I have one of these sitting on my desk at work to go out to her. I used Kaisercraft "Hampton" Tudor paper for the blue floral background, and an old crate striper patterned paper for the horizontal triangle paper.

The cat stamp is from a Penny Black set called "Every Which Way", which is a VERY reasonably priced acrylic set with some fun HEDGIES on it!

The sentiment is from Stampin Up Sale-a-Bration last year.

I should have more this weekend when I go into crank-em-out mode, because I have not given the LOVE to these sets very much and am itching to use them!

L.

Eat, drink and be scary.

Happy Monday! Thankfully it's almost over, and we're 4 days closer to the weekend!

I have to post a few more Crafty Secrets Halloween cards tonite...I know it's SO NOT RIGHT to be posting Halloween samples in August...I mean, why rush the holiday, summer is NOT OVER yet! But I'm waiting for my other Crafty Secrets stamp sets to arrive, and so far I only have the Halloween Fun set in hand! And you know how I am, I can't just have NEW RUBBER sitting around not being used! I have to TEAR INTO it right away and start creating.

The card on the left was made with this cool image from Crafty's new Halloween image booklet. I love these crabby people with witch hats on, it looks like they're SO NOT having a good time! I stole the words "eat, drink and be scary" from one of the journal notes in the booklet, because I thought it fit their expressions perfectly! The middle section of this card opens up to reveal the sentiment inside. I used the black cat circle image as a closure for it, so when you fold the frame down over the picture, the cat holds it shut.

Glitter-girl here had to bomb the images on the card with Martha Stewart silver glitter (white gold color).

These pickle-pumpkin images are so funny! The heads are pumpkins and the bodies are pickles! They even have a pickle-dog friend trick-or-treating with them! I colored the pumpkin heads in with Copic Sanguine and the bodies with pale olive and moss colors. The shading around their feed is warm grey 2 (w2).

I love the little border that comes with this set...here I've colored in the white sections with sanguine to make the border black and orange. The border is actually meant to fit inside the witch shoes, ala Wizard of Oz, dead-witch style!

Crafty Secrets Witchie and New Design Team!

A quick announcement tonite! There are some incredible new stampers that have just joined the Crafty Secrets design team! I'm so delighted that Sandy has chosen the talented Heidi Blankenship, Marisa Grossman and Vivian Peters...they will be unbelievable additions to an already very talented design team! You can click on their names and it will take you straight to their blogs, where lots of beautiful Crafty Secrets eye candy awaits! You can also read all of their bios HERE on the Crafty Secrets blog!


I thought I'd post my first card with the new Crafty Secrets "Halloween Fun" set, in honor of the new C.S. design team girls!

I used Crafty's "Flourishes" swirl set, and stamped a swirl in versamark ink on the top of my black cardstock. I covered it in heat and stick powder, heated it up, and then sprinkled Martha Stewart glitter on top. Then heat the glitter up a bit, and it will stick on your paper wherever the heat and stick powder was. I need to experiment with it more because I'm on a glitter kick right now, and want to try different swirl colors on different cardstocks. I stamped our sweet little witchie on white cardstock, colored her in with Copics, and then masked her off on a post it note, so I could stamp the alphabet words from Crafty's "Book Lovers" stamp set as a background. I also used orange crepe paper ruffles at the bottom of my card again. Hope you had a great weekend and are all ready for Monday!

L.

A quick morning post today; I wanted to show you my ruffle layout from last week, done with the new Stampin Up patterned paper pack. I had to pair it up with these little picnic bugs...I know they are ants, but I just thought they'd be cuter as green bugs!

I love that on this layout you can showcase 2 different patterned papers! The ruffle at the bottom is just crepe paper, stuck to the back of the paper and gathered up.

On another note, Eclectic Paperie just put the Merry Muffins stamp set up online! I wanted to cut and paste the stamp set here so you could see the entire set, but couldn't figure out how to do it! So here's the link to Merry Muffins instead!

Stampendous/Eclectic Paperie Merry Muffins Set Link

Happy Friday!

L.

Oh, one more thing! The hydrangea are going NUTS in my backyard...I thought I'd show you a fun way to display them! I had an old prince albert tobacco can, so I put a fruit jar inside of it and added hydrangeas! Sort of an unexpected combo, tobacco and flowers, huh?

Co-worker Muffin Gifts - E.P. Merry Muffin Set

So you're gonna laugh at tonite's sample. I really wanted an Accucut cupcake box to use with the new Stampendous/Eclectic Paperie exclusive "Merry Muffin" set, but since I don't own that die or a cupcake box, I had to improvise. I bought a transparent chinese food gift box from Target a while ago, so I decided to alter it to hold a cupcake. I put a faux bottom in it by cutting a hole in yellow cardstock with a Nestabilities circle die. I thought it would be fun to make a cheap co-worker gift that would hold a chocolate chip muffin, so it could be placed on their desks on the day of their birthday.


I'm not gonna lie...I'm no Betty Crocker. In real life, I would go out to Panera or Starbucks and BUY a chocolate chip muffin to put in the box. But NO, I decide to make weight watchers chocolate cupcakes from a box for my props. Which promptly FELL as soon as I took them out of the oven. Note the beautiful hole in the center of the cupcake. I've been told by trusted sources to never EVER EVER cook for anyone, EVER!




So if you can get past the horrible baking episode, it COULD be a cute gift set in the hands of someone more, shall we say GIFTED in the kitchen department than I am! Happy Wednesday! p.s. QUIT LAUGHING LANA AND HB!

L.

Supplies: Basic Grey Stella Ruby Stripe, Pink Paislee Vintage Moon "Night Owl" yellow paper, Stampendous Eclectic Paperie Exclusive "Merry Muffins" set, to be released Friday. Stampendous Dot sparklers, gingham ribbon, Nestabilities circle and scallop dies.

Merry Muffins Candy Stand Box

So I gotta credit girlfriend Lana Lepinski for the CUTE candy stand bag that I played with tonite. We stopped to see her in WI on our way home from CHA, and dropped off some gifts for her because she had surgery! Lana doesn't really understand the whole concept of GETTING gifts, because she sent us all home with bigger packages of loot than we gave to HER! Apparently the anesthesia from surgery had not worn off yet. These candy stand bags were in the bag of goodies she sent home with me! You can see her CUTER than CUTE version on her blog HERE. So tonite I sat down and played with the new Stampendous Eclectic Paperie Exclusive set, "Merry Muffins", available this Friday.
I started off by using my killer red tacky tape that I got from Creative Cuts and More. I outlined the top of the candy stand box with the tacky tape, and then glittered it up with some Martha Stewart hot pink glitter.

OOOOH! GLITTERY!

Then I used my nestabilities oval die and cut an oval out, stamped my muffin guy on it, and paper pieced the paper lining bottom with polka dot paper. I used Brilliance black ink and heat set it, then colored in fluffles with Copics (dull ivory, light walnut and light camel colors).

When I was ready for the liquid applique, I spread a THIN layer across the cupcake. THIN IS GOOD...the more you layer it on, the more it will grow & poof out too far....think of it as overloading the washing machine with laundry soap. NOT GOOD!

Dump your glitter on the wet liquid applique. Here I'm using hot pink, but on yesterday's sample, I used Stampendous clear glitter. Use whatever glitter you want...I like glitter that is has a finer texture...I think it sparkles a lot more.

Dump off the excess glitter. Now we're ready for the heat gun. Heat up your heat gun, and give it a second to warm up. Then run the heat gun over the top of the glitter, and the liquid applique will puff up. Don't leave it there too long...as soon as you see it puff, it's done!

Here's what it looks like when its done. As SOON as I turn off the heat gun, I dump more glitter onto the hot liquid applique, for extra sparkle.

I added more Stampendous pink dot sparklers to the image, and then tied it onto the candy bag. (Notice that I've gotten a little smarter with my props....I don't buy candy any more for "display" purposes. Buttons are inedible and will not make my butt bigger. )

Experiment with different glitter colors to match your papers! Here's another sample done with the Stampendous glitter...I think this will be so fun to use for snow on Christmas cards!

EP Sneak Peek Gallery HERE

New Eclectic Paperie Exclusive

I have a sneak peek for you today, from a new Stampendous set that will debut at Eclectic Paperie this Friday! The set is called "Merry Muffins", and it's a WINNER! It's an all-occasion set, so even though I've gone "Christmas" with it here, it also makes yummy birthday cards too! Make sure to sign up for Eclectic Paperie's newsletter on the E.P. homepage, so you get the scoop via email!

I had so much fun playing with these new critters from the set....I layered them so that they look like they are floating around in the fluffy ice cream scoops! I used liquid applique to create the fluffy ice cream, and sprinkled glitter in it so that it's puffy AND sparkly at the same time! I have another project done with this set, so tomorrow night I'll do a tutorial on how I've used the white liquid applique with the glitter. I also used Stampendous dot sparklers to add little dotty accents to the patterned paper on this card.

I can't get a good shot of the glitter, so you'll have to click on the photo to see it close-up and glittery!

To see all of the upcoming sneak peeks, check out the Merry Muffin gallery HERE~

More tomorrow!