Tutorial Tuesday-Faux Flocking

It's Tutorial Tuesday! Today I'm going to show you faux flocking. I've seen this technique and you may have seen it too. But I really wanted to give it a try and I liked it so much I thought I'd do a tutorial on it. It's a little time consuming, so I wouldn't plan to make 100 of them. But one or two are really cute.
So lets get started, here's what you'll need. Paper snips, cardstock in color you want your flocking, crystal effects and your stamped image.

To get all your 'flocking' open your scissors and scrap the edges of your cardstock. By doing this you'll get lots of little flock scraps, as I like to call them. I collected all mine in an old brads container. This way they all stay contained in one spot and if I don't use it all I can save it for another use.

I've already stamped my image and I've put Crystal Effects all over the bird. Not on his pumpkin, beak or eyes. Just where you want the flock to be. Something I didn't do but should have BEFORE you apply your crystal effects color in your image the same color as your flocking. This way if some doesn't stick in the corners or everywhere it needs to you still get the color coverage.

Gently put your flocking on. There are a couple ways to do this. You can turn your image upside down in the flocking, or you can pick some up and gently push it on. I like to push it on. I think you get better coverage that way and your ensuring that it's sticking to the crystal effects.

Now we need to brush off the flocking from the spots where we didn't want the flocking to be, his eyes the pumpkin. Since I'm working with a very small image I just use the round top of a straight pin. If you're working with a large image you might be able to use a paint brush.

Now you can finish coloring your image, if you haven't already done so.

Attach to your card and you're done!

Isn't he cute!

Thanks for looking, see you tomorrow!

Deal of the Week #2

Second post for the day.
It's week number 2 for SU Deal of the Weeks. You can get these on sale until next Monday (10/19) at 10AM.

On sale this week lots of dies for the bigshot!

The 3 tiered Cake die, normally $39.95 now ONLY $24.49

The Flower Burst Embosslit die, normally $11.95, now ONLY $5.99

The Perfect Settings Die, normally $42.95, now only $25.99

Don't wait these deals won't last long!

Halloween Treats and Balloons

I have a long post today so grab some coffee or tea and settle in. First, I have some really cute and really simple Halloween treat boxes for you. And when I say really simple I mean these came together in just minutes.

First a cute witches hat. This is a triangle box, I've had this pattern for a while, I actually have the pattern for a smaller one but I just enlarged this one. I was reminded of this cute box from Heather Summers in her simply holiday's class. But I just decided to make a super easy witch's hat for Halloween. I sprayed the whole box, before assembling, with my shimmer paint spray. And I've learned with using the spray a whole lot that it shows up better on darker colors. The Soft Suede is so pretty with it and so is the black so try darker cardstock if you're not getting the desired look in lighter cardstock.

The box is a 4x10 piece of cardstock. Score at 5 inches on the 10 inch side. Mark the 2 inch center on the 4 inch side, on the top and bottom of your cardstock. Then score it from the 5 inch score line diagonally to the 2 inch mark, on all the sides. So you should have 4 diagonally score lines when your done. Fold them and put it together. Easy easy. You can modify this box to any rectangle cardstock too. Just follow the same basic pattern.

To keep the box closed you just tie the top with a ribbon.

It holds alot of candy, I think I put 3 or 4 handfuls in and it wasn't even full.

Ok for the next treat box, this is another oldie but goodie. These little pouches (known as sour cream containers) have been around a while and they work for any holiday, it just depends on how you dress them up. So this weekend I spent some time re-organizing my DSP and specialty paper holders and found this little scrap of a window sheet. It was probably around 4x5, so as long as I had the sticky strip and candy out why not make another treat box.

These are also really simple and can be modified to any size with different sizes of rectangles. Put sticky strip on one side, roll it up like a toilet paper roll or paper towel roll. Flatten and glue one side together, fill it up and glue the other side in the opposite direction. I remember making these at some of my first workshops that I ever did.

Sorry this picture is a little crazy. I couldn't get a good picture with my camera right side up so I had to turn my camera upside down.

Aren't they cute and easy.

So as I told you last week, we went out Friday Morning to the Balloon Fiesta. I haven't been to a morning one in years and I've never been to a special shapes morning, so this was exciting for all of us. Here are a few shots of our early morning trip. We did go again on Saturday night but the glow was cancelled due to windy weather. But we had a nice dinner with the Continental Airline Reps.

Logan was just fascinated by everything going on.

This was Logan's favorite Balloon, the Creamland Dairy cow.

Have you even seen the bottom of a cow?

The bees are so cute, I think they're from Brazil. They always take off holding hands then separate in the air. Sometimes they kiss on their way up.

Here's one for my Ladybug INK friends!

Thanks for looking, see you tomorrow for Tutorial Tuesday!

Birthdays....Always

I didn't get a chance to stamp a single thing yesterday. We decided to brave the cold early morning and head to the Balloon Fiesta yesterday. We were up by 5AM and had left the house by 5:30, after getting on the park and ride bus we arrived at the park a little after 6:30. Man that was early and it was so cold! Logan had a blast and I'll share some pictures of our Balloon Fiesta Fun next week. We're going again tonight for the glow, at least it won't be as cold :) Then we went grocery shopping and by the time we got home it was lunch time and I still had to clean the house and get ready for a Party Lite party that I was hosting. Logan and Dan both had naps in the afternoon, but no nap and no time to stamp for me. But the party was fun so it was all worth it. I'll be sleeping in today though :)

So since I didn't get a chance to stamp I decided to dig deep into my files and show you a card I mailed to SU for a contest. SU has monthly contests for demonstrators and I try to enter every month. It's a lot of fun and they're always fun themes. This one was mailed earlier this year.

I stamped the bird in Pink Passion craft ink then embossed it with Clear EP, then I masked it and stamped and embossed the heart in white EP.

It's very bright and very girly but you could always change the colors and use if for a guy.

Supplies:
Stamp Sets: Upsy Daisy, Always
Cardstock: Pink Passion, Pixie Pink, Chocolate Chip, Whisper White
Ink: Pink Passion Craft Ink, Versa Mark
Accessories: Chocolate Chip Ribbon, Heat Tool, Clear and White EP, Dimensionals

Thanks for looking, have a great weekend! See you Monday!

Christmas Bucket

I know these Pillow Box buckets are all over the place right now, but that's because they're so cute! It's a lot bigger than I thought it would be too when I made it. You need 6 pillow box's from the big shot for them. And it goes really fast once you have those. Mine is super simple. I didn't do a lot of decorating on the sides. How cute would this be full of Christmas goodies, or you put some hot cocoa and some marshmallows in it. The possibilities are endless. You can use this for any Holiday too. I've seen the in Orange cardstock with jack-o-lanterns faces on them. So Cute. Anyway I just wanted to share mine with you, sometimes you see a tutorial and you just have to try it!

The next picture isn't so great but I sprayed all my DSP with the Shimmer Paint (of course) and this picture, while not great kind of shows the sparkle to it.

Supplies:

Cardstock: Real Red, Christmas Cocoa DSP

Accessories: Frost White Shimmer Paint, Sticky Strip, Big Shot, Pillow Box Die, Silver Brads, Real Red Ribbon

Thanks for looking, see you tomorrow!

Fall Foliage

Where is all the time. I feel like I'm working on 10 different projects all at once but yet nothing is done! Fortunately I did get this done and I really like this card. This card is for Dan's Grandfather who's birthday is next week I wanted to keep it simple but nice and I think I accomplished that. I used the shadow block technique that I did a tutorial for way back in September of last year. I sponged it first in Sahara Sand then I went over it lightly with Bordering Blue. I debated with making a fall sunset but I really wanted the leaves in the tree to stand out so I went with a more toned down background. The tree is stamped in staz on then I watercolored it with blender pens and craft inks. I did a fall tree with the leaves changing and lots of colors. If you've never watercolored with the craft inks, they're so much fun and you get a brighter color and I really like them. I find myself reaching for my craft inks more and more when I watercolor lately.

I finished the card with a little paper piercing and some linen thread. I think it's a great card and I think Dan's Grandfather will enjoy it.

Supplies:

Stamp Sets: Lovely as a Tree, It's Your Birthday

Cardstock: Sahara Sand, Kiwi Kiss (I know I've been using this alot lately and it's retired but I have a lot I'm trying to get rid of), Very Vanilla

Ink: Staz On, Close to Cocoa, Sahara Sand, Bordering Blue Classic Pads, Pumpkin Pie, Summer Sun, Old Olive, Creamy Caramel Craft Pads

Accessories: Paper Piercer and Pad, 1 3/8 inch Square Punch, Sponges, Linen Thread, Dimensionals

Thanks for looking, see you tomorrow!

Bunko Boo!

So I'm trying something new this week. Logan goes to preschool on Tuesday's and Thursday's. Normally I drop him off and come home. But that's been using up a LOT of gas and by the time I get home I only have about 2.5 hours before I have to go back anyway, and so I need to find errands or activities to do near the school to conserve gas. My Christmas Card Stamp a Stack is coming up in just a couple of weeks (there are still a couple spots left if you want to sign up), so I decided to head to library and spend a couple hours cutting. It's probably what I would have been doing at home anyway. So I got 2 of the 4 cards cut and ready to pack. Next week I'll do the other 2 and I'll be a week a head of schedule! How awesome is that! By the way have you ever noticed how noisy it is to cut cardstock? Me either, until I did it in a super quiet library. Yikes, I was beginning to think they might kick me out, just kidding it wasn't that noisy but you can hear every cut when you're in the library.
For today's project, I offered to help my friend Lori with some Bunko invitations. Our monthly group kind of died out when the summer started so we're hoping to get a big crowd and get enough people to commit to start another monthly Bunko group. We doing a Halloween theme, not that it means anything except that that's how Lori's house will be decorated. So here's the invitation I came up with.

The top note kind of makes it look like a cauldron, cute huh!?

The invitation pulls out of the top note die.

Supplies:

Stamp Set: Twick or Tweet

Cardstock: Basic Black, Pumpkin Pie, Kiwi Kiss (retired), White

Ink: Staz On, Pumpkin Pie, Summer Sun, Old Olive

Accessories: Silver Brads, Blender Pens, Dimensionals, Big Shot, Top Note Die

Thanks for looking, see you tomorrow!

Tutorial Tuesday-More Shimmer Paint

I'm loving 2 things right now MDS (My Digital Studio) and Shimmer Paint! First of all MDS is so great, but it's still taking me a while to figure some stuff out. I've started a book. It's a whole book of Logan and I decided to stick to a color theme, so the only colors I'm using in the book are Mellow Moss, Always Artichoke, White and I may add some Chocolate Chip in later. I only have about 5 pages done but it looks great so far. I want to get some more done then I'll show you them here.
For today's tutorial I'm using shimmer paint. I wanted to show you a different way to use the shimmer paint instead of in the spray like I showed last week (that I love by the way!). So I'm using the level 2 hostess set in the mini catalog (Patterned Pines), Frost White Shimmer Paint, a piece of a sponge, and some reinker (mellow moss).

In any plastic container, I'm using the lid to an old brads container), pour a little bit of the shimmer paint. This is a very little amount. A little will go a long way. I think this is 4 or 5 drops.

Then add a couple of drops of reinker. I added 2-3 drops of Mellow Moss.

Mix it up.

Use your sponge, or sponge dauber, and sponge the paint onto your stamp and...

...stamp on your paper. Set it aside to dry. It will only take a couple of minutes. Another great thing that I love about shimmer paint, it dries very quickly. While it's drying you can assemble the rest of your card.

Here's my finished card. I thought it needed something else behind the trees so I stamped some Mellow Moss snowflakes. I inked them up and stamped them off on scratch paper then stamped them on my project. I also sprayed it with some of my shimmer paint spray (smile).

It's really hard to see the shimmer on this card but trust me it's there and it's great! Try this technique at home.

Thanks for looking, see you tomorrow!

First Monday of the Month Card Challenge

Welcome to Monday! I didn't get very much stamping done this weekend. I spent most of the weekend playing with My Digital Studio. It's so much fun but there's SOO much to do on it that I'm still learning all the tricks playing with it! But more on that later.

It's the first Monday of the month, time for another card challenge with Logan. This month I let Logan pick everything. I had (well have) a stack of stamp sets sitting out on my desk and I told him to go pick one and we'll make a card with it. He picked the Hello Again stamp set. Then I told him to pick colors. He said "light green and light yellow" so I pulled out some Certainly Celery and Barely Banana. So we decided to use markers to color the flower. So we added a 3rd color pink (it was actually his second choice, his first was brown but I didn't think that would make a very pretty flower so I convinced him to choose another color that a flower might be). So then we just stamped an assembled our cards.

Here's Logan with his.

Logan decided that everything needed to be scalloped with the border punch so he scalloped almost everything. His flower has a fun tie dyed effect to it to. Very cute!


Here's mine. I choose to only scallop one piece of cardstock on mine. Still cute.

Supplies:

Stamp Set: Hello Again

Cardstock: Barely Banana, Certainly Celery, Pretty in Pink, White, Certainly Celery DSP

Ink: Barely Banana, Certainly Celery pads and markers, Pretty in Pink marker

Accessories: Dimensionals, Scallop Border Punch, Silver brads

Thanks for looking, see you tomorrow for Tutorial Tuesday!

More Shimmer

So can you believe it's already October? We are debating whether or not we're going to the Balloon Fiesta this year. The Balloon Fiesta starts today and is about 10 days where hundreds of hot air balloon fly in the early morning. And you can go onto the field where they launch and it's really cool. But they start lifting off around 7 AM, or a little after depending on weather. So with traffic and all the people you have to leave your house way before the sun is up. It's kind of crazy and we don't know if we want to get up that early. We keep saying every year we want to go and Logan loves balloons so maybe we'll finally brave the early morning this year. We will go to one of the Balloon Glow's (The pilots inflate the balloon but don't fly and when it's dark they all burn the burners so it's like a light show). Continental Airlines works with Dan's company and they always invite his office to their tent for dinner and to watch the show. Anyway on to today's project!

Yesterday I showed you my new favorite way to use the shimmer paint and today I'm using it on a witch. A cute bear witch. I made this little bear and I knew she needed some extra shimmer to her so I sprayed the whole card. Every layer and the witch, I think the only thing that isn't shimmery on this card is her broomstick. She's so sparkly and pretty. You HAVE to try this spray!

If you look closely in the photos you can see the shimmer. Trust me though in real life it's amazing!

Supplies:

Cardstock: Perfect Plum, Pale Plum, Creamy Caramel, Chocolate Chip, More Mustard, Elegant Eggplant, Very Vanilla, Basic Black

Accessories: Big Shot, Build a Bear dies, dimensionals, White shimmer paint spray

Thanks for looking, see you Monday!!

Shimmer Paint Spray!

I'm so glad I saw this technique and ever since I've seen it I've been spraying everything!! I've shown you the shimmer paint before and I love it! I still only have the Frost White but the other 2 colors are on my list. But this is by far my FAVORITE way to use the shimmer paint. Take an old spray bottle, I used an old Stampin' Mist bottle. Fill it about 3/4 of the bottle with Rubbing Alcohol and then add about 1/4 teaspoon of the shimmer paint. Give it a good shake and spray, spray spray. I saw this technique on Heather's Summer's Blog. And ever since then I've been a spraying fool! This is one of the make and takes that we did at the workshop I had last Sunday and the shimmer spray is so pretty on the Soft Suede cardstock. It's a simple card but with the shimmer spray you don't need anything else! I was able to photograph it pretty well but in person it's 10 times as sparkly!

Isn't that awesome! Go try it!

Supplies:

Stamp Sets: Sparkly and Bright

Cardstock: Soft Suede, Bermuda Bay, Thoroughly Modern DSP, White

Ink: Soft Suede, Ruby Red Marker

Accessories: Shimmer Paint (frost white), 1 3/8 inch circle punch, Scallop circle punch, dimensinoals

Thanks for looking, see you tomorrow!

Deals of the Week are BACK!

Second post of the day.

Stampin' Up! is doing more Deal of the Week Promotions. This week they have 3 punches on sale!

• Trio Flower Punch--$10.99
• 5-Petal Flower Punch--$10.99
• My Way Punch--$11.99

This is a fantastic savings! You have until October 12 at 9:50 AM to get these punches! Then a new deal will be announced!

Also new today! My Digital Studio is NOW available for purchase to customers! And you can now get MDS in your starter kit when you join SU. You can get the Digital+ Starter Kit!

Contact me for more info on the deals of the week and the new starter kit!

Thanks for looking, scroll down for today's post, see you tomorrow!

One box--Two ways

We made a trip to Sams Club over the weekend and Dan got a box of those little tiny boxes of cereal. So after he had his Fruit Loops I was looking at the box saying "This is a really cute box and it's a good size and I can totally make this!" So Dan of course rolled his eyes as I ran off with his cereal box to use for a pattern. The box is really simple to make and since it's so simple I made 2, two different ways!
The first one I made a lid to go with it, then ran ribbon around it and tied it over the top. The second one I left open and squeezed the top together and closed it with a ribbon. I think that they're both super cute and I just love them! You could do it a third way and just leave the box open with the gift inside.

The box is 9 1/2 x 6. On the 9 1/2 inch side score at 1/2, 3 1/2, 5, and 8 1/2. On the 6 inch side score at 1 1/2. Cut your tabs and assemble! Super easy. If you want to make the lid it's 4 1/2 x 3, score at 3/4 inch on all 4 sides. Cut your tabs and assemble again.

Supplies:

Stamp sets: It's Your Birthday, Medallion

Cardstock: Kiwi Kiss (retired), Old Olive, White

Ink: Old Olive

Accessories: Sticky Strip, paper snips, dimensionals, Chocolate Chip ribbon, crop a dial

Thanks for looking, see you tomorrow!