A nurse and a witch....

Today I have two cards to show you. The first is birthday card I made for a customer who needed a birthday card for her sister who is a nurse. I love that stamping allows to customize cards any way we like. The recipients know that a lot of thought was put into a card that is so personalized. So when I heard that the sister was a nurse, I knew immediately that I run for my favorite Rubber Soul Stick People set! You thought I was moving on from those right? LOL! I love the design of this card. It was totally inspired by my awesome stamping friend Valerie Stangle. I really loved a card that she made recently that used two patterned paper blocks on one card. It will be fun to go back and look at her card to see how closely I cased her design, as I couldn't remember her exact layout...just the two pieces of patterned paper. I see that the card that inspired me is up on her blog now, isn't it cute? I used THIS patterned paper from Rubber Soul, same sheet of paper just flipping the design. I love that about double sided patterned paper, you always know it's gonna coordinate together nicely. This sisters is also available from Rubber Soul and I think this a great set to own(the photo of the set is not up at this time on the website). Of course if you have a sister(s), you know this set will be fun. And if you sell your cards like I do, I know that a *sister* section in my card stash basket will go over well. I might just add that category soon. To finish off the card, I used SU! Old Olive card stock, SU! Old Olive grosgrain ribbon, Copic markers for some simple *color book* coloring, a yellow Copic Spica glitter pen for the nurse's outfit and a yellow sequin sticker from AMuse. The envelope is stamped and colored to coordinate. This card design will definitely be going into my card idea notebook. This next card uses a Lockhart witch stamp and the Happy Halloween sentiment is a wood stamp from Rubber Soul. I colored the witch in with Copic markers using fun, bright Halloween colors. I matted the main image several times then added it to my card front which is a Wisteria Memory Box note card. Patterned paper is from Doodlebug, Ribbon is from May Arts (available from my good friend Cindy at StarLitStudio), and the three purple Decorative Pearls are available at Ellen's store. Notice again that I ran my ribbon through the matted layers of the main image. By using pop dots, you are able to feed the ribbon through the layers easily.

WE HAVE A WINNER!!!!

Ohhhhh, I love it when I give away goodies! I get to read SO many fun stories from you all. Thank you all so much for telling me about your Fall/Halloween traditions. I really love to hear that there are fun loving families out there that still do things together.

The lucky winner of the Ghosties set is:

Latisha said...
We do so many things for fall...lets see, I re-do my flower beds and plant mums. We take the kids to a corn maze, most corn mazes have pumpkin patches so we get our pumpkins there as well. I put out my outdoor fall decorations like hay, scarcrows and pumpkins. The night we carve our pumpkins we clean off the seeds and bake them. If the town we live in (hubby is in the navy) has a haunted house or garden, we normally will take the kids to that. The night of Halloween I never cook, we order Pizza. On Thanksgiving since we are far away from family we have single sailors over for a homecooked meal, since they can't be home also. I can go on and on about all of our traditions but I will stop here lol >"<

Latisha, Congratulations!! Please send me your full name and snail mail address and I'll get your stamp set out in the mail to you! Email me at : stamplady@satelephone.com

Usually Fridays mean that a nice relaxing weekend is coming up. Not so much the case this weekend. We'll have a fun time but we have a football game tonight, birthday party and slumber party tomorrow for Jordan and then a soccer tournament on Sunday. I hope you all have a GREAT weekend. Do something fun with your family, time goes by so quickly!!

Reverse Pocket Goblin Card...and instructions

Here's another reverse pocket card sample. This one uses stamps from a cute little Wordsworth set called Ghosties from Rubber Soul(be sure to check out the other cute Halloween stamps too, they are cute!!). I stamped the square sentiment block in black, colored in with a purple Copic marker, then added purple Stickles to some outline letters. I stamped the word *Booo* on the mat underneath then added an extra SU! Eggplant cardstock mat. The patterned paper is from Rusty Pickle, base cardstock is Stampin' Up! River Rock and the squiggly background stamp is also from Rubber Soul from the Backgrounds set. Grosgrain ribbon is from Stampin' Up! and purple sequins are from my local scrapbook store.

Reverse Pocket Card Instructions:

1. Cut cardstock to 4-1/4" x 11". Score at 5-1/2" and fold in half (my photo should read fold 4-1/4" x 11" card in half...sorry about that). Add patterned paper to front of card or stamp.

2. Score bottom of card at 1-1/2" and fold. This fold will be on the inside of the card. Adhere the two outer sides of the fold to the inside of the card with sticky strip. Be sure to put sticky strip far enough apart so that a gift card will fit inside. Stamp top of card with background.

3. Punch the Stampin' Up! slit punch as far in as it will go in on the top center of the card.

4. Adhere the focal image piece to the front of the card with sticky strip. It's easiest to punch the slit punch first, add sticky strip to the front focal image, then place the focal image piece under the slit portion.....then press down to secure the sticky strip. This focal image piece can be whatever size you like, depending on the size of your stamped image, mats, etc.

5. Tie ribbon around card front. This can also help to hold down the gift card, stamped images or maybe a note you want to insert in the pocket. Okay, who wants a FREE Clearly Wordsworth Ghosties set, courtesy of Fred and Dani at Rubber Soul? This is a set of 5 acrylic stamp set. You will need acrylic blocks to use this set. I'll pick a winner on Friday after school. I'll pick a winner from all responses that answer this question: What is your favorite Fall or Halloween tradition? Or what one would you like to start? For me......I love to go on hay rack rides with my dad driving his old mini tractor and trailor...carving pumpkins.....making homemade Halloween costumes.....trick or treating.....soup in the crock pot.....Friday night football games.....yummy pumpkin bars....decorating my house.....scaring my husband......making Halloween cards and treats...!

Reverse Pocket Baby Girl

Edited: Hi there, I will be glad to do a tutorial on the reverse pocket cards. I have another reverse pocket card all ready for tomorrow's post and I will take some photos of how to make one. They are easy and not a lot of measuring.....which I like!! Have a great day..I'm off to sub!!

I haven't done one of my reverse pocket cards forever! If you aren't familiar with this design, I created it for a demo I did for a Stampin' Up! Regional in KC a few years back. It's made just like a regular pocket card but instead of folding the flap to the outside, you fold it to the inside. Then you punch a flap on the top to tuck the focal image into. The inside then holds a note or a gift card, cash, etc. This card uses Crate Paper patterned paper and the cute Lockhart baby carriage image. I colored the image in with various pink Copic markers and then paper pieced the blanket and carriage top. Image was cut and embossed with a classic Spellbinder's rectangle die and matted on two other Spellbinder's cut mats. The sentiment was created with a Stampin' Up! mini alphabet and a Papertrey Ink circle outline. It's punched and layered several times and embellished with ribbon and silver cord. To finish off the card, I used 5 decorative pearls from Ellen's store. I love making this card design when I give gift cards or have an extra little note I want to tuck inside. Or how about you stamp some images and send them to a friend, this would be perfect! If you need more instructions, just let me know.....it's late and I've got to get ready for work tomorrow but I'll be glad to answer any questions for you.

Yeehaw!

Q and A: I spoke to Kate at Copic and she said that storing the markers vertically is OKAY. So my markers can rest in their cute little pink tote once again!

Okay, I promise to move on from the Rubber Soul Stick People collection after this card. The images are just so cute I had to try them all!!This is a sassy little cowgirl and I am certain that once my friend Lori sees this stamp, she'll want lots of cards made with it. Her husband is a cowboy and her two girls make the cutest little cowgirls. I stamped the cowgirl with Palette Black Noir ink and then colored it in with Copic markers. There are some very small spaces in these stick people images and I love how the Copics keep a nice, sharp point. I cut and embossed my image out with a Spellbinder's Die Template from the Standard Tag collection. I talked with Ellen and I think she'll be carrying this die set in her store in the future. I'll let you know when it's available, woohoo!! To attach the ribbon, I punched a hole with my Horizontal Slot Punch from Stampin' Up! then tied a bow from some red Martha Stewart ribbon. I added red Stickles and some red AMuse twinkle stickers for some bling. The background paper is from the Rubber Soul Shake It Up Collection.

Stack-o-Cupcakes!

Mmmm, I'm so hungry for a cupcake right now! Remember this image that I posted a few days ago with my Copic techniques. Well, here's the finished card. A pretty and simple birthday card that will go into my card stash....my ladies are wanting me to bring my basket to school so I need to make some refill cards! This card uses a Memory Box card base and Memory Box pink polka dot paper from the Sugar collection. The images are from Karen Lockhart and can be purchased from Ellen's store as well as the papers and the fun decorative pearls that I used on each cupcake. You can see the packaging sitting underneath the cards. I love those little embellishments! Ribbon is from May Arts. Image was colored with Copic markers and a Copic Colorless Blender.
Here's a close up of some shimmer that I added to the cupcakes. I used my Copic Spica Silver Glitter Pen to make foil cupcake liners.

Tip of the day: If you are wanting to use ribbon on your card front, try this. Tie the ribbon around the card front. Then adhere the bottom colored mat underneath the ribbon. Attach dimensionals to the back of the main image and then adhere that OVER the ribbon. This helps the main image from having a hump in it and possibly popping off of your card front. It also makes your card look like you put some real thought into it.

Questions: By now many of you have received your Copic marker and Spellbinder's dies. Any questions that you have? I try to answer questions from your responses but sometimes I miss some.

One question that was asked was about storing Copic markers horizontally. I had them packed vertically in my little pink tote bag in some previous photos. I have sent this question to my Copic friends and am awaiting an answer......but I can probably guess that storing them horizontally is probably a good thing. This helps the ink to not settle in one end of your marker, thus preventing the other end from drying out. I'll let you know what I hear back. And typically I do store my markers horizontally unless I'm taking my little tote with me somewhere. Thanks for the question!!

Road Trip!

Once again, I've been stamping with the Rubber Soul Stick People set. There's so many fun images in this set that I just have to try them all! This little gal is ready for a roap trip. And so am I! Well, actually my road trip isn't til the first weekend in November but I'm counting down the days. There are six of my scrapping friends who rent a swanky hotel conference room with one adjoining room(we don't sleep much)...then we scrapbook from Friday til Sunday. I think we even booked the room for Thursday this time too. We go twice a year and it's about the only time I scrapbook. I get about 30 or so pages done and have the BEST time!!

So back to this fun card, I thought it would be fun to send one to the girls going scrapping with me. They'll get a kick out of it. I used bright, fun colors from Memory Box and some Rubber Soul patterned paper. To color the image, I used Copic markers that closely matched the colors in the patterned paper. I cut and embossed the image with a Spellbinder's rectangle die and then matted that on a cut and embossed scallop rectangle die. The embossing on the shapes really adds a lot of texture without having to add extra layers.....love that!! To finish off the card I added orange Stickles to the girl's dress, velvet Ric Rac and two Amuse Twinkle Stickers.

Tip of the day: I highly suggest at least a yearly road trip with your girlfriends. It's so refreshing, fun and inspiring. Do you have road trips planned? I'd love to hear about them.

CRAZY FOR COPICS.........THAT'S ME!!

You might quite possibly freak out with today's post. Or at least get a little giddy and jump up and down in your chair. Or squeal a little. Or groan because I'm a total enabler and am going to make you want more Copic markers and accessories. Whatever the case, settle in and get a cozy grip on your computer mouse!! Here we go.

I have a ton of photos for today (don't peek, stay with me now). So I want to write in short little blurbs so I can keep your attention. Lots of my photos are of unfinished work because I just couldn't wait to share some new techniques with you. So stay tuned to my blog because all of these samples will become finished projects some day soon.

Now for this little tote...it makes me happy just looking at the photo. It's almost better than a new purse, and I DO like new purses!! It's an All My Memories mini scrapbook tote and I got it at my local scrapbook store. They had them on clearance the other day for $5 bucks (regularly $15) and I bought the 5 they had left. I thought I would use them for kids' gifts filled with art supplies being the cool mom that I am...but two got snatched up for my Copics. This one in pink and brown holds all 48 of my *Ellen Copic Colors* plus a Colorless Blender and all of the Copic Spica Glitter Pens. Is this just not heaven??? I even organized them into colors kinda like a rainbow. They are sooooo purty sittin' in there! I keep this right on my work table and it's always within reach. I also take this with me every day that I sub. During my free hour, I color stamped images. This was nestled in another bigger work tote that I take to school...some boys saw the tops of the markers and said, *Gee Mrs. Wooderson, you sure bring a lot of eye makeup to school with you!*. I had to laugh!! Who needs eye makeup with you have Copics!???
Here's a finished card I made using the Karen Lockhart slippers. This image is gender friendly and can be used for guy or gal cards(check out the cute robe too when you pop open that link, again gender friendly). Here I'm using it for a male get well card. The image was colored with Copic markers on a scrap piece of cardstock, scratched up with a paper clip and then matted with SU! Old Olive cardstock. I was playing around one day at school and that's how this card came about. For the background, I made a plaid square using the chisel tip of Sketch Copic Markers. Then I got out my Colorless Blender and scribbled back and forth over the image, creating a light to dark blended effect. It was totally a scrap piece but I really liked how it looked so it made it's way onto a card. Keep the guy images coming Karen, we love them!

Wanna see what else you can do with some Copic reinkers and some Colorless Blending Solution? This is a transparency just dotted with reinker colors. One tiny little droplet spreads out into big circles. It's fun to just watch it happen. I entertained myself for a full 10 minutes on this samples, I think!! Can't wait to use this!!

Here's sample of some scribbles colored over with the same color marker. You can see the scribbles still because the top layer darkened the scribbles, even though it's the same color. The border was made with short little lines of color, then I took my Colorless Blender Marker and let a little bit bleed where two colors touched. The image is by Karen Lockhart.
Who loves coffee? I do and it's about time that I get some more samples in my stash basket. My card buying gals LOVE the coffee cards, especially during the colder months. How about a coffee stained background? This sample was made by scribbling a brown marker onto cardstock, then squeezing a big droplet of Colorless Blending Solution straight from the refill bottle. How fun is that? Image by Stampin' Up!
Plaid giraffes, anyone? This background was created by drawing a plaid background onto cardstock. Then I took my Colorless Blender Solution refill bottle and drew plaid lines on top. The colors bled together where the solution criss crossed. Image by Stampin' Up!
This is one of my faves and I can't wait to make more of this one. First, aren't the stamp images adorable? My friends Joy and Daisy sent them with an Eclectic Paperie order. I believe they are by Stampendous or maybe Penny Black?.....either way, they're available at the store. The background was again created by making plaid stripes with Copic markers in fun, bright colors. Then I took the Colorless Blending Solution refill bottle and squeezed on droplets of reinker fluid. It bleached out the color and made some fun dots. I could see putting some clear page pebbles on top of those dots, or they could be used for rain droplets too. Oh I'm giddy myself,now!
Tip of the day: Gee, like you need more tips today!! LOL! I am so happy to share today's post because I had such fun making these sample pieces. The moral of today's story is this: Get out your markers and just play around. You don't have to be an accomplished artist to have fun with Copics. And the other fun accessories like refills and the Colorless Blender Solution only increase your possibilites of the fun stuff you can create. That also gives you more *bang for your buck* too. I'll be experimenting more with Copics and will post all my fun findings. Enjoy, everyone!

Oh, one more tip: When you purchase Copics, I suggest buying them in at least sets of two that are in close color range plus a Colorless Blender. Like two greens, or two shades of pink, or a red and an orange that are close together in color. Why? Because when you sit down to shade an image, like a pumpkin, you'll have at least two colors to blend together AND the blender to blend even more or to remove a little color. And think about what colors you'll be working with soon such as oranges for pumpkins, earth tones for Fall, greens and reds for Christmas, blues for sky backgrounds, a skin tone for Bellas or Rubber Soul stick people images, etc. You can also scribble two colors together on a CD case and create new colors.....red and blue make purple, etc. And don't forget that Ellen has her 48 Copic colors that are very close in color to Stampin' Up! colors. You can purchase Copics and all the Lockhart stamps at her online website store HERE. So let the coloring begin!!!