Rejoice

I have a LOT of Christmas stamps and
have been very careful about my purchases
of those stamps because I have to many.
Christmas and the Holy Days
(aka Holidays to the politically correct)
are my yearly reminder of God's unending
love for me and all humanity
by the fulfillment of the promise,
the gift of His only Son, born a man,
to die and shed his blood for me.
Because of this great gift and sacrifice that
followed I have eternal life.
So I Rejoice!!!!!!!

The branch in the upper left corner
has been stamped with VersaMark
and embossed with clear embossing powder.

Faith Makes Things Possible

This design began with my playing around with an
EK Success punch. I drew two orange metallic lines close
to the punched area and then searched for a way to use
it on a card. The scrapbook paper with the white leaves
seemed to be a perfect match.
The stamped phrase is one of my favorites
and is made by
River City Rubber Works.
The image has been stamped with VersaMark and
embossed with fine line black embossing powder.

Blue, Tan and White

This color combination and the use of snowflakes was inspired by my stamping friend's blog. Carol Norby has a blog called Stampin Hot In Arizona and it is a "hot" blog. Carol has some great ideas, so stop by her blog and be inspired.

The shades of blue paper used here is from K & Company. I stamped one of my many snowflake stamps on the paper and embossed with a sparkly blue embossing powder.

The Sizzix die cut snowflake is dark blue cardstock. VersaMark ink was brayered on then holgram embossing powder was used.

The ink used on the rest of the stamped images is Blue Iris Chalk ink.

Use Your Dictionary!

The background for these cards is dictionary page. Using a bold Stamp Camp background stamp, the image was stamped with Tsukineko's VersaMark and embossed with clear glossy embossing powder. After the heated and embossed powder had cooled, the unembossed area was inked using a makeup sponge.

In the purple version the entire card front is cover with the dictionary page, while the blue



version is layered on dark blue cardstock and then mounted on the card base.

The image of the girl reading the book is from Stamp of Excellence. These are wonderful stamps that I just love. Judi doesnt' have a website up and running just yet but you can find her at 1105 Main Street in Canon City CO or email her for a catalog, judisox@qwestoffice.net.
Be prepared for some fantastic stamps. I had a terrible time deciding which stamper were my favorites, sigh, I need a money tree that grows year round with people like Judi around making stamps.

More dictionary backgrounds to be posted soon.

Christmas Card Designs

It's getting to be that time of year again. I have been playing with several ideas for Christmas cards. While I like both of these designs, they are to labor intensive to make 50 of them.

The pine bough image is from Hero Arts. The lovely Merry Christmas image on the top card is from a company called My Sentiments Exactly. The Merry Christmas with holly is from Rubber Baby Buggy Bumpers, which is no longer in business. The pine cone image on the second card is from PSX, aka Personal Stamp Exchange. I have found a few of their stamps at Sierra Enterprises. They have a very limited supply and may not have the pine cone stamp.

I used Ranger Distressed inks for the pine bough and the distressing around the edges of the cards.

The phrases on both cards have been embossed with fineline black embossing powder. Gold fineline embossing powder was used on the pine cone.

Wolfie

The wolf face image is from a company called Bear Rubber. I have not been able to find them on the web. There is one Bear Rubber Company on Etsy that make custom stamps and may have these images.

I stamped and embossed the image on cream leather. A Coluzzle template was used to cut the leather in a circle. The Coluzzle swivel knife will not cut completely through the leather, but makes enough of an incision that you can easily and cleanly cut with a sharp scissors.

The eyes have been colored yellow with a felt tip marker. The edges of the leather have been sponged with sepia ink (Ranger Archival, one of my favorites) The leather circle was then attached to corrugated cardboard. The cardboard was inked with the same sepia ink as well.

The decoration on the right side of the card was done with various punches, hand punches and decorative scissors. The turquoise half balls are plastic and from "I have no idea where I got them." You know......the stuff that has been waiting in your craft area for years.......the stuff that you bought because "someday" you just might need it. That is where those little half balls came from. If you can't find any, try clear embossing powder on a punched out circle of turquoise paper, or a glitzy turquoise embossing powder. (you know......punt, LOL)

Tri Fold Shutter Cards 2

The papers for these cards came from a DCWV stack. I love stacks for this type of card as the paper coordinates.

The tutorial for this card is on Split Coast Stampers, as great resource for stampers. I was going to tell you to do a search, lucky for all of you that I went into Split Coast and tried their search. It does not work. So here is the link to the Tri-Fold Shutter Card. Here is how I found it, I opened up the home page for Split Coast Stampers and left clicked on "Resources" at the very top and to the right side. This brought up a list of all their tutorials in alphabetical order. They even have a picture of the project to help you find the correct one.

The directions call for you to cut a piece of card stock 5.5 x 11 inches. With scrapbook paper that leaves you with a 1 x 12 inch strip. I drew a line down the center of the BACK of the strip and cut with the ripple decorative scissors. Those strips are the border trim on either side of the cards. From two pieces of 12 x 12 scrapbook paper I got 4 cards and the trim. Nothing was wasted.

Using laser printer acetate:

1. talc the acetate

2. stamp the Butterfly and Flourish (Heartfelt Creations, HC217D) and emboss with fineline

black embossing powder

3. Carefully cut out the image that you have just stamped and embossed on the acetate

4. Now stamp on acetate and emboss the single plain butterfly from the set, using EK Success's

Paper Shaper large butterfly, punch out this butterfly. Clever Heartfelt designer, Emma Lou

Beechy has sized the butterfly to the size of the punch.

5. I carefully applied glue from a glue pad and glittered the back of the butterfly. You could use

markers, or punch another butterfly from some glitzy paper and attach to the back, there are

are all kinds of options, use your imagination!

6. As this is a slick surface, glue does not hold very well. My solution is to rough up the butterfly

and flourish image on the butterfly portion. Both on the front and the back where I will be

attaching this gives it more "tooth" and the glue will hold much better. You can rough these

areas as they will not show on the finished card.

7. Attach punched out butterfly to butterfly and flourish image. After the glue has dried attach

it all to the card.

A few notes here: flowers and smaller butterflies are for the most part punched from glitter papers.

Why use laser printer acetate? The Laser Printer Acetate or transparencies is designed for a laser printer which uses heat to apply the ink. So you can use you heat gun to emboss the embossing powders with out warping the acetate.

What about inkjet printer acetate? These transparencies work fantastic for regular stamping. There is a rough and a smooth side to the acetate. Stamp on the rough side with most inks. As always, try the ink out first by stamping a small image in one corner to see how the ink and the transparency interact. Some inks will run or not dry. You can NOT apply heat to these acetate transparencies as you can the laser transparencies.

The Lord Is Great

Another scripture stamp. The background is stamped on cream cardstock and embossed with white fineline embossing powder. I sponged in a little dark tan to get more contrast. The diagonal piece is the same background stamp using gray ink on cream cardstock.

I really do like this design. I may have to make more, but I think I will stamp the verse on a different scrapbook paper. Maybe one not so busy. LOL

Ink Blocks Indian

Ink Blocks has some fantastic Indian images.

This one was stamped with VersaMark

and Distressed Embossing Powder by Ranger was

used to create a rough carved woodsy look.

The embossed image was cut out in a square with

the corners then being rounded with Fiskars corner scissors.

The edges were sponged for depth and drama.

The three brass brads add a little interest.

The paper on the card base is a gift wrap.

It was glued to the card base and then sponged with

dark brown ink for that vintage look.

The two narrow bars of faux snakeskin have

been mounted on dark brown card stock

that has been trimmed to a narrow border.

I used a clear glitter pen to accent the eyes of

the Indian and the eagle.