Friday, October 31, 2014

November SOTM Blog Hop

Welcome to our Stamp of the Month Blog Hop!  We will be featuring November's SOTM, which is called It's the Little Things, a sweet set of 15 stamps.  If you have come here from MELISSA'S BLOG you are on the right path! The blog hop is a great big circle, so you can start here and work your way all around. 
For this hop I decided to play with this week's Mojo Monday sketch. It's Tall & Skinny week, so my card size is 3.5 x 5.5 inches. My table top was still covered in Halloween Goodies, so when I saw that this week's ColourQ challenge would fit the Scaredy Cat papers I knew I wanted to make a non-Halloween card using that awesome bright color combo. I chose Black, Gypsy, Sunset, Pear, and White Daisy. I toned down the Halloween feel by sanding all the Cardstocks and even the B&T paper. 
I love me a cute little floral set that's easy to cut out and layer to death...but I wanted to stretch a bit and work towards a layered look without lots of fussy cutting. So I inked the large flower image by swiping it across my Sunset pad (removing most of this ink), then rolling just the tips back into the Sunset ink. I layered on the heart flower in sunset ink, then added the dots using Gypsy ink. I made a simple mask from a post-it, then stamped the leaves over top in Pear Ink. I trimmed my sentiment stamp into individual words (one reason I love clear stamps!), then added a word to each square. I backed my Baker's Twine knot with a snip of purple shimmer trim...and then I finally gave in and fussy cut a tiny flower to top off my knot. I just had to be me!

Now "Hop" on over to CAT'S BLOG to see her work! Be sure to visit all the Consultants at their Blogs to get some great crafting ideas and other fun ideas! Remember, the November SOTM is only available until the last day of the month!  Contact your CTMH Consultant (or click here) to see how you can get this stamp set at a discount or even free!

Thursday, October 30, 2014

Practical Scrappers Scrapping Our Stash Halloween Hop

Welcome to the Practical Scrappers monthly hop. This month our theme is Fall/Halloween, using up materials found in our stash. If you've arrived here from MONICA'S BLOG, you're on the right path!
My stash is about 99% CTMH. I have a few inks, and a snip of paper here and there that's not, but in general, most of my projects are made with CTMH products. Last month I was super excited to win an Instagram giveaway from Simple Stories and Big Picture Classes, and they sent me a huge kaboodle of Frankie and Friends goodies. Since I was elbows deep into Scardey Cat, Frankie and his friends sat neglected and lonely, just waiting for a chance to come out and play. I also had this pumpkin frame that I had painted in like August. I painted it, applied copious amounts of glitter....and then it sat. And sat. And collected dust. And sat some more. One day I moved my pile of Frankie stuff and laid it on top of my Pumpkin frame and suddenly I figured out what needed to happen. 
The frame was originally painted with orange acrylic paint and coated with orange glitter. The stem is multiple coats of brown sparkly nail polish. I pulled some old Chipboard letters from the closet, and coated them with some glow-in-the-dark fabric paint left over from making bat gadgets for my 4 year old's Halloween costume. They glow green in the dark! 
These chipboard pieces in this line are too adorable! I added some sparkly glitter and glow in the dark accents, plus wiggly eyes of course. 
At the bottom my collage was looking a little thin, so I cut some very skinny (slightly larger than 1/8") strips of Scaredy Cat Paper and curled it using my paper quilling tool to create some color burst filler for the cluster. You can see the glow in the dark paint on the windows, plus a generous sprinkling of black acrylic star embellies. I don't think I caught a close up, but I had a few gold sequins sitting in my scrap bin, so I added those and topped them with more wiggly eyes.
Attaching the chipboard to this chicken wire frame took a bit of finagling. I finally settled on putting tiny dots of liquid glass on the twisted parts of the frame and propping the chipboard in place until it dried. Once everything was tacked on and dried in place, I flipped the whole frame over and went to town drizzling on Liquid Glass with abandon and now it's a pretty sturdy little piece! And yes...since I decided I needed a pic of the back I added a bead of gold glitter paint along the rope binding where I didn't bother to paint the orange color. 

Next up on the hop is WENDI'S BLOG.  A list of all the scrappers participating this month can be found over at Practical Scrappers. Happy Halloween, Stampin' Friends!

Monday, October 20, 2014

Happy Hauntings Card

I'm finally back, with a fun little trio of happy haunters just in time for Halloween! Even though I haven't been a good blogger these past couple of weeks, I have been busy with a field trip to Portland to hang with my CTMH team, designing a few new classes to teach at the local Joann's (blog post coming soon!), and crafting bat gadgets out of felt and glitter glue for my own little Bruce Wayne wannabe. I know some of you have been following the adventures of Max and his beloved tuxedo on Instagram...the daily cleaning of a tuxedo really cuts into a gal's crafty time!
Luckily I've got the Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge to pull me back to the stamping side! This week's sketch had me scrambling to find this adorable Halloween stamp set called Frightfully Fun. The papers I chose are from the new Scaredy Cat collection, which is strewn across my desk as I design the next six pages for my monthly scrapping group. I knew the colors would go perfectly with this week's ColourQ Challenge!
I stamped each little cutie with Memento Black ink, then colored them in with a handful of Shin Han alcohol markers. For the ghost and the mummy I just shaded a bit with Warm Grey 4 and then blended it out a lot with the blender pen. Then I went a little hog wild with the wiggly eyes. I should take out stock in wiggly eyes, but they are just too adorable!  A few black stars from the Scaredy Cat assortment and some purple stickles added some shine and sparkle to my motley crew of tick-or-treaters. 
Here's the sketch for this week - I hope you'll get inky and come play along!

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Marvelous Marker Workshop Kit

Yesterday I shared this cute and simple little doggie card made with one of the new Hostess Exclusive stamp sets called Cuddly Salutations. Today I'm sharing a fun workshop kit to recreate this card series using the new Shin Han Alcohol Markers!
This sweet little card kit will have a card for each of the five adorable animals in the Cuddly Salutations Stamp set. Each card will focus on a different aspect of coloring with our new Shin Han alcohol markers. Please note I am not a super cool party people copic certified teacher - I'm just an inky pawed gal who loves to color with simple quick alcohol marker techniques. My goal is to make it look good fast without using 8 million markers...No fuss, just fun!
You can order a precut and prestamped basic kit with full color instructions that makes 10 gift sized cards for $15, and provide your own alcohol markers. Or you can take advantage of a limited time only I Want It All Kit for $45 that includes double the precut cards for extra practice, full color instructions, all five markers used, an Archival Black ink pad, and the adorable stamp set! We will be sharing the hostess rewards to achieve that goal, as it's only available to purchase for hostesses, so you must order the kit via Paypal instead of through my website. The I Want It All orders will be grouped for placement on the 15th of October and shipped to you by the end of October with all your goodies, including that hostess exclusive stamp set.

The I Want It All kit order will close October 15th, after which only the basic pre-stamped kit will continue to be available.  You can also optionally add the sweet new mini stapler I used to accent the cards, which staples with the teensiest wee baby staples ever! 

P.S.: Consultant Kits for this workshop are available HERE, including a new Volume 7 collection.


Marvelous Marker To Go Kits shipped right to your home!
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Monday, October 6, 2014

Shin Han Alcohol Marker Blog Hop

Good morning, Stampin' Friends! Today I'm hopping with a talented group of over 40 CTMH consultants, all exploring the possibilities of our excellent new Shin Han Alcohol Markers. You should have arrived here from KATY'S BLOG.  Now let's marker! 
I don't know about you, but even though I love the idea of Copic coloring, and greatly admire those who make beautifully colored artwork, I am just not willing to invest the time or money to become a copic artist at this time in my life. It sounds fun, but I've got to be realistic about how far my craft budget can extend. What I really want is to be able color nicely, maybe blend a bit, and have fun with my projects...and I don't want my markers to cost more than a trip to DisneyLand. I am truly loving what I can do with these Shin Han markers...and the affordable price point!  I honestly feel that these Shin Han markers are just the right compromise marker for me. They color like a dream, but are more affordable than the indisputably fabulous Copics that are all the rage right now. And you're talking to a gal who just bought a big set of Spectrum Noirs last spring...now I'm using my Shin Hans all the time instead!   
I did all the coloring on this sweet little dog card using just Clay, Warm Grey 4, and the colorless blender pens. I love how you can use the blender to lift color and add texture to your colored pieces. I also used it to blend out the grey shadow at his little feet, which I then topped with a smidge of glitter. This cute doggie is the first of a series of cards, the rest of which will be on my blog tomorrow. Check back, or subscribe via email to have them delivered right to your inbox! I used this week's Atlantic Hearts Sketch challenge sketch as inspiration for my card set, focusing on the adorable hostess exclusive Cuddly Salutations stamp set. 

Now hop on over to PAM'S BLOG and check our her marker craft goodness!

Here's a few other Shin Han Marker projects I've done:

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