mountains

For those of you that don't know, I live in Calgary, Alberta, and while I love living here, there are some things I wish were different. Like heat, we don't get really hot in the summer, which is kind of nice, but when it comes to gardening, esp vegetable gardening, it's not the best. Last year was unusually cold all summer, so I never did get much from my garden. When the frost killed my garden last year my zucchini's were only as big as my pointer finger. While this year has been better so far, it's not been really hot enough yet to get a good garden going. I've only had a handful of peas, bean, strawberries, and raspberries so far. The rest of the garden is growing, but I probably won't get a lot from it again this year. What does that have to do with stamping? Well it makes me think about how cool it has been, and that it's like an Arizona winter basically which inspired this snow themed card.

I love using my brayer, it never fails to create beautiful cards, super fast. I made a moon mask by punching out a 1 1/4" circle from a post it note, and to create the look of snow covered hills I ripped post it notes to the right shape and then sponged the blue slightly over the edge. To do this you will want to start on the post it note and rub in a circular pattern until you just barely rub onto your cardstock. Otherwise you can end up with too much color, or a big blob by accident.



Stamps: Extreme Snowboard, Lovely as a Tree
Inks: StazOn Black, Bashful Blue
Paper: Whisper White, Garden Green, Not Quite Navy
Misc: Platinum Shimmer Paint, Post-it Notes, 1 1/4" Circle Punch, Sponges

To create all the wonderful shimmer on the card I made what I call Shimmer Mist. You take several drops of shimmer paint and add rubbing alcohol (70% works best) in a spray bottle. Then you can spray over your cards lightly. If you want a lot of shimmer like here, sometimes you will need to add the shimmer in layers so your card does not get too wet. The alcohol dries quickly, but can still warp your paper or cardstock if it gets too wet.

Hopefully the weather heats up so my garden will start growing better, and so I can be inspired to create some non winter cards and scrapbook layouts.

Lovely Christmas

One of my all time favorite sets has got to be Lovely As A Tree. It can be used for just about anything, in fact I have yet to find a type of card it can't be for. When I saw this DSP Jolly Holiday and this pattern I knew I had to use this tree with it. I think the different shades of green look great with this tree. I still have so many ideas for Christmas cards, but only so many classes that I might end up scheduling another Christmas Stamp A Stack in December just so I have an excuse to make more samples.


Stamps: Lovely as a Tree, Christmas Punch (retired)
Inks: Old Olive, Early Espresso, Cherry Cobbler
Paper: Cherry Cobbler, Old Olive, Very Vanilla, Jolly Holiday DSP
Misc: Curly Label Punch, 1/4" Very Vanilla Grosgrain Ribbon, Stampin' Dimensionals

I am hoping to get a fair amount posted in the coming days, but life has thrown us another curve ball. My Grams broke her back late last week and we are having to care for her basically round the clock as the hospital here won't keep her until after a Dr can confirm that her old x-rays and her new x-rays are in fact different and then maybe they will see if they can do anything for her. I am so glad that she only lives literally a block away, it makes caring for her that much easier. It's also nice to have mom around helping out too. I will try my best to keep up with the blogging, but it might get swept to the side a bit int he next few days while we get this sorted out. Please bear with me and keep checking back.

Brayered Night Sky

I really love how simple it is to create a simple, yet beautiful background using a brayer. More and more the brayer is becoming my tool of choice when I want to create a simple easy and fast card.



Stamps: Lovely as a Tree
Inks: Elegant Eggplant, Basic Black
Paper: Whisper White, Elegant Eggplant
Misc: White Gel Pen, Brayer, Post it note (for masking), Black Marker

I am back.... and almost ready to go again.

Up here in Canada Thanksgiving is in October, the 2nd Monday, and it is not as big of a deal as in the US, but I saw the sentiment on Teeny Tiny Wishes and I knew I had to make this card. I hope you like it.


Until next time, Happy Scrappin'

a new card, finally!!

So I finally got a card uploaded that I cased tonight, the original is done by Donna at butternutsagedesigns.blogspot. Hers is way nicer than mine ever could be, but I tried something new. I am going to be doing a variation of this card (same technique, different card) in my September Christmas Card Class. If you want to sign up for that, just leave me a comment, or email me. I also messed up on this card slightly since I did not wait for the ink to dry, before cutting it down to size and I smeared the ink.


Until next time Happy Scrapping!