Saturday, December 26, 2009

Scor Pal winner

Just a quick note to congratulate Joy Lane! She one the free Scor Pal Crafty Capers was giving away. I could not post earlier as her husband was going to hide it on her and put it under the tree!! :)
Hope you all had a great Christmas!
Don't forget the Crafty Capers pre-inventory sale Monday Dec 28 10 am - 2 pm (in store sale only sorry!).
Hope to see you there!

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Spring House


Recognize this house? It's the same one I used yesterday but I've changed it up to make it springy! All the stamps used in this card are Art Impressions except for the saying which is from Flourishes.
Once again I used the watercolor technique with my Tombow markers and Ranger dye inks but this time I added flowers!
I am really happy with the versatility of this stamp - good value!
If you are in the Nanaimo area I will be teaching some Art Impressions watercolor classes so watch the Crafty Capers website for a schedule.
Thanks for looking!

Monday, December 21, 2009

Holiday House


Crafty Capers received an order from Art Impressions last week. I was quite excited to play with my new watercolor stamps since I love the Art Impressions watercolor technique and all their matching stamps! I chose this house stamp (which is a bare house that you add trees, flower to - see tomorrow's post as well for the same stamp).
I won't go into a lot of detail about how one actually does the watercolor technique but I use my Tombow markers and Ranger Adirondack dye inks.

All the stamps used on this card are from Art Impressions including the trees, lights and greenery. To make the snow on the trees and roof I added Liquid Applique, let it dry a few hours (like the instructions say) and then heated it with my heat gun. I've included a close up of the snow for your enjoyment. I hope this is a close to snow as any of us Islanders get this year!! :)
Most of the stamps are available now at Crafty Capers. Thanks for looking!

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Finally finished the cards!

I have finished making my Christmas cards - hurray!
I was in the shop on Saturday and remembered I had a penguin stencil I bought back in Sept that I had not used yet so I thought I would bring him out.
The technique for this is a bit complicated so bear with me.
I began by cutting a piece of Dreamweaver double sided adhesive slightly smaller than the size of the penguin stencil. I peeled 1 side of the backing off the adhesive and applied it to a scrap of white cardstock. I peeled the 2nd backing off the adhesive so I then had a sticky rectangle. I used a bar of 100% coconut oil soap (smells sooo good!) and rubbed the back side of my stencil with the soap. You want lots of soap on the back side of the stencil. The soap acts like a release agent. I placed the stencil soap side down on the exposed adhesive. I pressed the stencil lightly down on the adhesive so all areas had contact. I then poured black Glitter Ritz glitter over the stencil trying to leave the feathers on his head "non black". I pressed the glitter down and then tapped off the excess. I added Yellow Glitter Ritz glitter to his top feathers and pressed down. I tapped off the excess yellow glitter. I used my handy dandy blush brush to brush off excess glitter then I carefully removed my penguin stencil from the adhesive (this is where you find out if you put enough soap on. I find slipping a craft knife between the stencil and cardstock helps release the stencil). I added White Glitter Ritz glitter to his belly. I tried to keep the white glitter within the outline of his body because I added Be Creative Sugar Beads to the background of the stencil. I was trying to show this with my close up photo but you can't really see this.
I matted the penguing on gold. I cut a circle of burgandy cardstock and ran it through my Cuttlebug with the Snowflake folder. The white cardstock was sprayed with Memory Mist Gold spray ink to jazz it up a bit when the gold was dry I stamped my Joy, joy stamp with Ranger Cranberry ink. I edged the white cardstock with my Ranger Espresso pen and attached everything as shown. I added 3 gold brads to my circle to finish the card off. These cards were fairly quick to mass produce despite all the steps! Thanks for looking!

Recipe:
Stencil: Dreamweaver (penguin)
Stamp: Penny Black (Joy, joy)
Glitter: Glitter Ritz black, white and yellow
Other: Be Creative sugar beads, gold brads, Dreamweaver double sided adhesive, Memories Mist Gold, Ranger Cranberry dye ink, Ranger Espresso pigment pen, Cuttlebug Snowflake folder

Just a quick note to let you know Crafty Capers received an order from Art Impressions today. We now have in stock lots of watercolor stamps and the VERY popular "tree with bench" stamp. Hurry in for best selection.



Thursday, December 10, 2009

These little cuties are back!!


I'm so excited! Crafty Capers is carrying House Mouse stamps again! We've brought in some stamps just in time for Christmas gift giving! Crafty Capers carried House Mouse stamps waaaaay back when we first opened and now they are back!! I can't wait to play with them again.
Also, the Hero Arts 2010 Stamp Debut party on Dec 19 is fast approaching. We have our Make and Take kits ready to go. Free Make and Takes will be offered anytime between 10 am and 3 pm. You will also be one of the first people in the WORLD to see the ALL the new Hero Arts cling and clear stamps! I can't wait to see what Hero Arts has in store for 2010! Hope to see you in the store Dec 19 if not before. I hope to have a card post up (or 2) up later this week. I can see the end of my Christmas cards! Yeah!

Thursday, December 3, 2009

Getting there...


OK I am making slow and steady progress on the Christmas cards. I bet by now you are recognizing this image!! Here is yet another card made with the images I colored with my Tombow markers back mid-Nov.
The layout is pretty self explanatory. The last few cards have made me realize I am seriously short on small sentiments. I guess that can be my new year's resolution. I'm pretty sure I can keep that one!
Thanks for looking!
Again the recipe is:
Stamps: Penny Black Caroling Trio, Stampendous clear sentiment (don't know the name off the top of my head but it's an oldie!!)
Coloring: Tombow markers
Ink: Versafine onyx black ink, Versamagic Night Sky ink
Other: Bazzill & Crafters Workshop cardstock

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Christmas cards done??


I bet you are thinking "wow she finally got her Christmas cards all done" well you would be thinking wrong!! I actually did 2 non-Christmas cards today. This one for my neighbourhood class on Sunday and one just for a shop display! I will be regretting today's lollygagging next week! :)
I wanted to do a non-Christmas card for my Sunday class and most of my group are big time gardeners so I thought I'd better do a flowery one.
Despite the lots of layers the card is fairly simple. The flower is stamped and embossed with gold embossing powder on a scrap of white cardstock (and I had a bunch of the same sized squares so I did not even have to cut this part of the paper for the class). I edged the white panel with Ranger Stonewash ink. I matted it with a scrap of green. I ran 2 squares of blue through the Cuttlebug with the BEST Cuttlebug folder there is "Victoria" and rubbed my ink pad on the raised parts to give it more definition. I added a strip of designer paper also from my stash down the front of the card. I cut the sentiment ovals with my Spellbinder ovals and stamped my sentiment. I attached everything as shown and added some wired ribbon to the bottom of the card. I was going to tie a knot but liked the look of the ribbon wrapped around itself. I'm quite proud of myself most of this card came out of my scrap box.
Thanks for looking!
Recipe:
Stamps: Stampendous Agapanthus cluster, Hero Arts clear cupcake set (happy birthday)
Ink: Embossing ink (PSX), Ranger Adirondack Brights dye Citrus, Ranger Adirondack Earthtones Stonewash
Paper: Bazzill and Fancy Pants
Other: ribbon (unknown), Victoria Cuttlebug folder, Spellbinder classic large and small ovals

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Royal Mail

I am teaching a mini class this weekend for my neighbours who are complete beginner stampers. I think this will be one of the cards we do and coincidently it also qualifies for the Penny Black Saturday Challenge! This week it was a sketch challenge. They are my favourite! I started by stamping my main image with my Versafine ink then colored it with my pencil crayons. I cut the piece down to size and matted it with a scrap of red. I then found a piece of red vellum which I scored into 9 equal squares then I cut 8 1.25" squares and stamped them with the Winter Bough stamp with Cranberry ink. I mounted each stamped square inside a red square. The scored lines sure made it easy to line things up! I stamped and embossed my sentiment on a white Spellbinder tag then trimmed it down to fit onto the red one. I addied a piece of gold cord and glittery white brads in each corner of the red vellum piece. I mounted the main image and sentiment as shown. I finished up the card by applying my Designers Dries White
glue to the snowy areas of the mailbox and added Glitter Ritz Cool highlight to the glue. I must confess I like the top of the mailbox snow the best - where the glue was coming out all globby because I had a jam in the tip!! Once I got the glue flowing it came out smoothly which I did not think looked as nice! :) I've included a close up so you can see the snow better. Thanks for looking!

Recipe:
Stamps: Penny Black Royal Mail, Winter bough, holiday cheer

Ink: Versafine Onyx black, Ranger Cranberry dye, PSX tinted embossing ink

Coloring: Prisma pencil crayons

Other: gold embossing powder, dries white glue, cool highlight glitter, gold cord, Spellbinder Label