Feature Friday with Cyndi!

October 12th, 2012
Good morning!  Cyndi here today with a snippet of my Feature Friday card.  In honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month I’d thought I’d go pink and create a card with one of the bras from Bra’s Volume 3!
To see the rest of this card please visit my blog: The Scrappy Chick.

 

Simple Steps to Shabby Chic with Rochelle!

October 11th, 2012
Hello everyone!  Rochelle here.  I want to share one of my favorite tips for creating a shabby chic card.  There are four things that I use to create a quick shabby chic look.  A pair of craft scissors, a good background stamp and two different colors of distress ink – one light and one dark.

 
The first thing you want to do is cut your cardstock to the desired size.  Then, you want to take your light colored distress ink and ink up your background stamp.  I used the damask stamp from “Damask Darlings“.

 

 
Stamp your pattern all over the panel.
 

 
Next, take some of the darker distress ink and ink up the edges of your panel.  You want to make it seem old and aged.  So, start with a light application and then add more if needed.
 
 

 
Using a small pair of craft scissors, scratch the edges of your panel.  You want to make sure that the edges look frayed just like a pair of old blue jeans.  Don’t scratch too hard or you’ll actually tear the cardstock.
 
 
Next, using your index finger and your thumb, roll the corners of the panel inward toward the center of the panel.  If you roll and unroll a few times, the corner will look like has been worn over time.  If you leave it tightly rolled, the aged effect is lessened.
 
At that point, you’re all done!

 

 
We can’t wait to see how you incorporate this tip into your next project!  Be sure to come back and share!

Winner Wednesday – Sketch #148

October 10th, 2012

Hi, everyone!

It’s a Winner Wednesday, so it’s someone’s lucky “stamping” day!

This morning, I get to announce that Kerry Louise was our randomly selected winner of last week’s challenge with this beautiful card!

I absolutely love all of the pink for Breast Cancer Awareness month!

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Congrats, Kerry!

Please send an email to our owner, Heather at madebyme33(at)hotmail(dot)com and let her know which set you would like as your prize. Don’t forget that we announced a new sketch challenge yesterday! Just scroll down for all the details.

Have a great week and I’ll be back next Wednesday with another winner!

Skipping Stones Sketch Challenge 149

October 9th, 2012

Good morning friends!

It’s Tuesday, and you know what that means!  Another fantastic Sketch Challenge with Skipping Stones Design!!  We are taking a walk down memory lane this month with some super fun retro sketches and this week is no exception.  This week’s sketch was designed by Cristina Kowalczyk.

Let’s take a look at what our guest designers created with this week’s sketch.

JJ Bolton- using Grunge and Breathtaking  Butterflies

 

Miriam Prantner- using Birthday Purses and Pumpkin Seeds

 

And now our design team!

Glenda- Using Grapeful

 

Katie G- Using Beautiful Botanicals and Everyday Blessings

Cyndi- Using Holiday Cats

Karen Baker- Using Dogs

Judith- Using You Know You’re Getting Old Birthday

 

Didn’t our guests and Design Team do an awesome job with this week’s sketch?  Our team loves to hear from you, be sure to stop by their blogs and leave them some love!

Now it’s your turn!  We’d love to see what you create with this week’s sketch.  We have just a few simple guidelines for our sketch challenges:

1. Do not link more than five total challenges (including this one).
2. Create a NEW card based on the sketch (no back linking).
3. You do not have to use SSD stamps, but we LOVE when you do!
4. Link up with a DIRECT link to your post in the linky below!

And don’t forget to have fun! One lucky winner will be randomly selected from all participants to win a free stamp set of his/her choice! Hooray for free stamps!

We are looking forward to stopping by your blog soon!

Hope you have an awesome Tuesday! Thank you for stopping by!

Katie



Feature Friday with Judith!

October 5th, 2012





Hi there!


Judith here sharing a little sneak of a card I made using a fun set… You Know Your’e Getting’ Old Birthday.  Please come on over to check out the whole card on my blog :)

Mixing and Masking with Megan

October 4th, 2012

Hello!

Megan here with a quick tip for combining your stamp sets. I love combining my sets in different ways to create unique looks. One of my new found favorite techniques is masking. At first it can seem intimidating, but a few tips can really help out!

I wanted to add some texture to these shoes from the Sassy Shoes set to give them a bit of pizzazz. I pulled out the Timeless Textures set and chose the music texture because it had an intricate pattern that would work in my small spaces.

After stamping the shoes on plain printer paper, I cut out the sections that I wanted to stamp with the music, using my craft knife. I use plain printer paper because it is thin. Some people use post-it notes, which are nice because they already have the removable adhesive on the back, but printer paper is larger and cheaper and I have a bunch of it lying around.
Initially, I stamped the shoes randomly like you see above, thinking that it wouldn’t matter, but I had a tough time keeping the ink from the music stamp JUST where I wanted it, so I re-stamped them in the center of a larger paper. It doesn’t matter that they are stamped the way they are going to end up on the card. You could work with just one, and then the other.
You can see from the green ink leftover on that scrap paper that I didn’t just press the stamp one time over each shoe. That is what you would probably do for a larger area that you were masking, but since my areas were SO small, I wasnt getting a lot of contact between the stamp and the paper beneath the itty bitty holes.
Basically, my tiny areas were all in the ‘halo’. That’s what I call it when I mask and there’s a tiny gap between the stamped image and the edge of the mask, due to the width of the mask. One thing that I find to help with that is the thinner paper. Another is to use a softer stamping surface. You can see here that I have a piece of purple foam, covered by a piece of darker purple felt. Usually, I used the purple foam as my stamping mat, but I added the felt for this project to get less ‘halo’.
Finally, what I ended up doing for the tiny dots, is using the corner of the stamp and really jamming it in there.  It sort of distorts the pattern a little, but in an area that small, it doesnt really matter. I just kept inking that one corner and stamping over each dot and part of the bow.

 

Winner Wednesday – Sketch #147

October 3rd, 2012

Hi, everyone!

It’s a Winner Wednesday, so it’s someone’s lucky “stamping” day!

This morning, I get to announce that Jan Garber was our randomly selected winner of last week’s challenge with this beautiful card! Her coloring is just amazing on these cardinals!

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Congrats Jan!

Please send an email to our owner, Heather at madebyme33(at)hotmail(dot)com and let her know which set you would like as your prize. Don’t forget that we announced a new sketch challenge yesterday! Just scroll down for all the details.

Have a great week and I’ll be back next Wednesday with another winner!

Skipping Stones Designs – RETRO Sketch #148

October 2nd, 2012

Good morning!

It’s OCTOBER!!!  Wow!  How did that happen???

This month we are revisiting some of our favorite retro sketches!

Today’s RETRO sketch was done by Pamela Young and it is a definite keeper!

First up, let’s see what our guest designers created using this month’s sketch:

Miriam Pranther – using Gray Hares

JJ Bolton – using Dandelion Dreams

 

These are definite beauties from our Guest Designers.  Make sure you visit their blogs and give them kudos!

Now let’s see what out Design Team created with this week’s sketch:

Tesa – using Victorian Summer & Heart Song

 

Wendy – using Grunge & Grunge 2

 

Rochelle – using Heart Song

 

Megan – using Timeless Textures & Dandelion Dreams

 

Stephanie – using Cancer Schmancer

Lots of amazing inspiration for you this week!

We have just a few simple guidelines for our sketch challenges:

Rules:

1. Do not link more than five total challenges (including this one).

2. Create a NEW card based on the sketch (no back linking).

3. You do not have to use SSD stamps, but we LOVE when you do!

4. Link up with a DIRECT link to your post in the linky below!

And don’t forget to have fun! One lucky winner will be randomly selected from all participants to win a free stamp set of his/her choice! Hooray for free stamps!

We are looking forward to stopping by your blog soon!

Hope you have an awesome Tuesday! Thank you for stopping by!



Meet our October guest designers!

October 1st, 2012

Good morning!

Can you believe that it is already October?  I love this time of year with the cooler temps, the changing leaves, and the opportunity to introduce you to our fantastic guest designers for October, JJ Bolton and Miriam Pranther!

JJ Bolton

I’m a wife, mom of twin teenage boys, science nerd, and late-night crafter. I’m originally from Hawaii but now live in northern Virginia. I’ve been crafting my whole life but only recently added card making to the list. My card style usually leans toward graphic/CAS or cute/fun, but I’m up for anything!  I’m so excited and honored to be asked to play along with the great Skipping Stones DT!

Miriam Prantner

My name is Miriam Prantner, I’ve been married to my husband for 11 years and we have two daughters, Ellie and Carina.  While I have been crafty my whole life, I only started stamping and making cards last year.  These days I make more cards than any other type of paper project.  I love that there are always new techniques to learn!  When I’m not spending time with the family or crafting, I enjoy playing roller hockey, spending time with friends, and reading.  Skipping Stones Designs’ sketch challenge was one of the very first that I participated in when I started stamping, so I’m really excited to be guest designing this month.

And we are soooo excited to have JJ and Miriam as our guest designers this month!!!  I can’t wait for everyone to see the fabulous cards they create using our Skipping Stones stamps!!!  I have one more update to share for this month.  We are bring back some more retro sketches!  We (and you) had such a great time with the sketch rewind month we hosted in August that we are doing it again and bringing back even more blasts from the past.  Our first retro sketch challenge will be unveiled tomorrow- be there or be square!

Have a great day, friends.  Thanks for stopping by!

Katie

 

Feature Friday with Tesa!

September 28th, 2012

Hi all! Tesa here sharing a card using the a-mazing Victorian Summer set. I’m working with heat embossing and loads of layers and pearls for some flair. Welcome over to my blog, Tesa’s Scrap, for the complete card.