AN AUTUMN BIRTHDAY

Well, Fall is definitely here in New Jersey!  Although we still have hot weather, some of the trees are starting to lose their leaves.  It's always a sad time for me, as I hate to admit that summer is over and the kids will be going back to school, or in my eldest's case "away to school" and it means back to early rises and routine!  However on the bright side, I just love the autumn colors and New Jersey has so many trees that even the back yard looks different every day! The colors are what inspired my card today:

September and October are the busiest birthday months for me and so I thought I'd better get a few under my belt before I left for Scotland on Sunday.  I'll be back on the 11th but don't know if I'll be able to get right back in to stamping - it's more likely to be laundry and cleaning!!

I've been playing a lot with the Water Stamping Technique, and I found the colors I gravitated towards were "fally", and so I made bunches of leaves, and used the left over ones on my birthday cards.  Here is the last one that I put together with some "scraps" that were lying about on my table from previous projects.

The woodgrain background was made by painting a piece of cream cardstock with a Copper Acrylic Paint Dabber. I ran it through the embossing folder and then lightly sanded the piece, to bring out the texture. I layered that on to a piece of cream edged with Tear-ific Tape and applied Autumn Medley Glitter to the exposed edges. The leaves were made by sponging dye inks (I used orange, green and red) onto cream cardstock and then stamped the leaves with Versamark, then heat embossed with Teddy Brown embossing powder (EP187).  I ran the leaves through the Sissix "Cracked" embossing folder and added a little more of the inks to highlight.  The tag is from Spellbinders Ribbon Tag Trio Two, stamped with Happy Birthday to You from Set 416. I distressed the edges of the finished card with the green dye ink.

Thanks for stopping by!

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You .......

Gosh, this summer has been a complete whirlwind, hasn't it?  I love being able to "sleep-in" (past 5.30am) when the kids aren't needing to be pulled out of bed for school, but only two more weeks of that and we're back to the grind (after I get back from a week in Scotland, getting the eldest off to University).

Ten weeks, seemed like a lot of time, but we have had the busiest summer ever, which made it just fly by!  Among all the things going on, were several "big" birthdays, graduations, and anniversaries. All good, but I felt like my "relaxing" stamping time, was turned into a "sweat shop".  Struan's 18th birthday was on the 5th of August and he's just writing them now as I'm writing this!

Anyway, bottom line is, they had to be quick and easy, but I hate making something that looks like it took a minute to make! Already went that route with his Graduation Thank-You's.  that really did only take a minute!   So this time - I took 5!!!  I used a stamp from the Asian Set 304, and then a Thank You from Set 415.  I bought a few Dylusion paints lately, along with a stencil, thanks to some "stamping tool enablers", but I haven't used them yet, and thought I should at least put the stencil to use, until I have time to play!

Here is the end result using two dye-based inks sponged onto glossy cardstock with the stamped image embossed in black detail powder.  I used a dauber, with the same two inks, to color in the stenciled circles and then just stamped the saying into the bottom circle:

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Thanks for being my Friend

Hi there,

The Blog Hop over at Sparkle N Sprinkle was last week, and I had made two cards for it, but decided since I had a little tutorial on masking and stamping on flocking, that it was maybe too long to add the second card, so I decided to hold this little doggie one back 'till now!

I'm loving playing with all the different width tapes and Adhesive sheets with the Flockings and Sparkle N Softs. Did you know you can stamp directly over the top of them with Staz-On or Memento black ink and you have a fuzzy colored-in image?  This of course works great on the animal stamps, which by the way are still on sale this month, so if you've had your eye on any of them, now's the time to pounce!

I had used a cat image for the Blog Hop, so I decided to go with a dog for this one.  My brother used to be a game-keeper in Scotland, and had a black lab at the time.  Mack was such a loyal lad!  I had him in mind when I made this card:

For the background, I used the Bird Call embossing folder and embossed with Clear embossing powder before coloring with a dye ink wash.  Here are the full directions for the card.

Such a cute, fuzzy pup - don't you think?

Thanks for stopping by.

IT'S THE SNS FURRY FRIEND BLOG HOP

Hi and welcome to the latest Blog Hop by the SNS girls!  We've got a lot of cute and cuddly projects to share with you, to celebrate our little furry friends. If you are here by way of  Marie's fantastic blog then you are in the right place and you are eligible to win one of five different prizes.  All you have to do is a leave a comment at the end of each blog - it's that easy!

If you've been following my blog lately, you will see that I have been working with our Tear-ific tapes quite a lot.  Although not furry (just very sticky) - he's my new best friend!!  The tapes are super easy to work with and come in various widths, from an 1/8" through 2 1/2"  ...and if that's not wide enough, all you need to do is step on up to the Super Adhesive Sheets.

My obsession with the tapes really got worse in June when I was demoing at a Scrapbook Convention in Somerset, New Jersey with Margaret. We were showing customers the many uses of the tapes, and one of the un-advertised uses is to use the left over backing as a mask!  I now keep a bag of the leftovers - some of them are from border punches, some of them are from big pieces of sheets that I've used, or the 2/12" tape. I'd like to show you how I do this masking with a little tutorial today.

When I got my Kitty Trio Set, I immediately thought about how cool it would be to have these little guys colored, but be fuzzy too!  I had recently stamped on top of flocking, and knew that it worked, so I took the idea one step further - here is what I came up with:

Cut a piece of the Super Adhesive Sheet (the tape was not wide enough for this image) and stick it down to a piece of white cardstock.  Stamp the image directly on to the protective backing of the tape. Remove same backing and cut around the outline of the cat on the left.  Place that back down on to the exposed tape - this is your mask:

Now, using the Elephant Gray flocking and a pair of tweezers, dab little patches of the flocking on to the exposed side of tape.

When done, turn piece upside down to remove excess and return to jar.  Then take the Snow White flocking and dump that on top of the gray patches and burnish in with your finger.

After returning excess white flocking to jar, remove the mask.

Repeat with Amber Wheat flocking (as the patches)

.... and Buff flocking.  The finished piece should look something like this!

Now stamp the kitties on to a stamp positioner and place on top of the flocked piece in the correct position.

Remove the acrylic block and stamp on top of the flocked piece with Black Memento ink.

How cool is that!!!???

Cut around the outline of the two cats.

... and there they are!  Aren't they so darned cute - and fuzzy to boot?!  Wish you could feel them, well you can - just make your own!! Here is how I used them in a card:

Here's a close-up, so you can see the fuzzy goodness! ...... and here is the recipe! ?

I hope you've enjoyed your visit with me today.  Now after leaving me a comment, you should continue on to the talented Karalee's blog .  Enjoy the rest of the hop.  I'm off to see what else needs flocking!!