Happy Birthday Linda!

For those of you who are regulars at the store you are probably familiar with Carley boxer (dog) and Linda, Carley's human, Linda had a birthday last week but I will be seeing her this weekend so had to keep her card a secret until now. Before Linda and I went off to Anaheim together in January there was a big "to do" because I did not own a bathing suit so when I saw this Art Impressions set I KNEW I had to make her a card especially since Linda's bathing suit has a skirt!
The gals were colored with Prima and Tombow pencil crayons, the main cardstock is by Penny Black and the ocean was done with Adirondack Cloudy Sky ink. The sand was done with Stampendous' Golden Sand embossing powder and the cloud die is by Memory Box. So happy with how this card turned out and even made a second one to keep at the store!
Have a great day everyone!
Oh as an FYI, I now own a bathing suit however it is not striped! LOL

Tropical locales

If you are feeling like me you are probably wishing for some warm sunny weather about now. I have a bunch of friends away in tropical locations or have just gotten back from warm locations! Well this card is for us poor suckers who cannot get away this winter! lol

I've had these 2 penguin sets by Art Impressions for a few years now and I still love them! I had a lot of fun with this card because I did a technique called paper piecing where you stamp the image on your main cardstock then stamp it again on a pattern cardstock cut out the image and mount it onto the original stamped image for a pop of color. It's a great technique for those who don't want to color and also good for getting rid of scraps. OK so I didn't really get rid of many scraps but I did have fun dumping my pattern paper bag out on the table and rooting through it. Brought back many memories of favourite papers of past years. I don't know the brand names of all the papers but both end penguins are wearing Upsy Daisy, the surfboard is BoBunny and I believe the girl penguin is wearing SEI! The sentiment is by Hero Arts.

I hope this cheered you up today. PS have you noticed what a roll I'm on? I'm shocked how many cards I've been getting up lately however I am going to try some new projects and techniques so we shall see how that goes and how many projects are fit for the blog!

Thanks for stopping by.

Stampscapes!

I spent a pleasant Saturday afternoon this past weekend doing Stampscape demos for a few people who had popped into the store.

This scene is where I am going to retire just me, my husband and my multitude of pets!

Thanks to Shirley, Louise and Angela for getting me practicing my Stampscapes!

We have 2 Winterscapes classes coming up Friday Oct 15 10 am - noon. Cost $27

Saturday Nov 13 1:00 - 3:00 pm. Cost $27

if you would like to learn how to make winter Stampscape scenes. Spaces are limited in these classes.

Stamps: Stampscapes and Art Impressions

Inks: Ranger Adirondack dye inks

Thanks for looking!

To tame...

Still in the coloring mood! I pulled out 2 Art Impressions stamps I've had for years in my stash.

I stamped the toucan with my Versafine Sepia ink on watercolor cardstock then colored him with my Tombow markers and blender pen.

I stamped the sentiment also with my Versafine ink, put some Tan Tombow around the border of the stamp and pulled the color inside the box with my blender pen.

I sponged Memento Bamboo ink around the entire panel and as well around my main blue cardstock.

Thanks for looking!

Card Recipe: Art Impressions: Q2231, M2192

Tombow markers: 451, 452, 947, 977, 837, 992, 856, 025, 062, 158 & N00 (blender)

Ink: Versafine Vintage Sepia

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!

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!

Love those penguins!

I've been seeing quite a few Tri-shutter cards around lately and I thought I should give one a try. You know, because I have so much time on my hands since all my Christmas cards are done - NOT!

The basic idea is fairly simple the hard part is decorating the panels. For this card I used a penguin set by Art Impressions. I love this set! Using this set made decorating the panels a little easier since I had a bunch of matching stamps at my disposal.

I've included a bunch of photos so you can see all the panels. The first photo on the left is a view of the closed card (sorry it's a tad blurry) then the rest are inside the card. I must give Estelle and Annika thanks for the help with the card. Estelle was nice enough to help with the idea, coloring and cutting out. Annika gave some color advice. I think the assembly of the card is pretty self explanatory. For instructions on how to make the card click here.

I used my Scor It board for the scoring. Images were stamped with Versafine onyx black. Versamagic Aegean Sea ink was used to edge the white panels and stamp the snowflakes. Images were colored with Tombow markers and Prisma pencil crayons. White Liquid Applique, foam mounting tape and Stickles were used to add bling and dimension!

Thanks for looking!

Very Bad Blogger!!

I have just realized the last time I posted was waaaay back Sept 10! Very bad. In my defense I did not work over the summer so did not make any cards. Anyway, I have seen the error in my ways and promise to get something up every few days! :)

As some of you may know Sunday Oct 4 is World Card Day at Crafty Capers. We are having a card smorgasbord where participants will get to pick and choose which cards they would like to make at the card buffet between 10 am and 3 pm. Each card made is $3 with all fees going to the Canadian Cancer Society.

It was my job to prepare a few "dishes" for the event and today's blog card did not make the buffet "cut".

I started this card by putting a piece of Be Creative double sided tape on a scrap of white cardstock then I cut out a medium sized Spellbinder Label 2. I peeled off the tape backing and applied Warm Highlight Glitter Ritz then stamped the hedgehog with Ranger's black Archival ink right on top of the glitter. I then painted the image with Shimmerz Silver Bells, Bubblegum and Sky Blue paints for a little extra shimmer! As usual, the glitter and shimmer do not really show in these photos! I cut out another Label 2 out of blue cardstock for a mat. I took a square of white cardstock and stamped a Art Impressions snowflake bunch with Versamagic Seabreeze ink to make a background.

I cut out a Spellbinder's Labels 4 and stamped my sentiment with Seabreeze ink as well. The label was also edged in Seabreeze. I attached all my pieces as shown and added some A Muse ribbon and Kaiser pearls.

All supplies are available from Crafty Capers. Hope to see you at World Card Day on Sunday!

Sympathy card

I am lucky, I don't have to make many sympathy cards but a few weeks back a close family friend passed away unexpectedly. Now that I am back cardmaking I thought I had better get some sympathy cards made.

This card is a pretty close copy of the one on the back of the Penny Black Flower Gallery clear set (which the flowers came from). I quite liked it. Simple and classy.

Anyway I started by stamping the Penny Black stamp "footnote" in each corner using Ranger's Distress ink Broken China then I stamped the magnolia's using my Versafine Vintage Sepia ink. I colored the images with my Prismacolor pencil crayons then stamped the Impression Obsession saying from their clear Sympathy set. I mounted everything on to blue cardstock and voila! done! Thanks for looking!

New Alcohol Ink Technique!

I must confess I did not invent this technique. I found it on a blog that I thought I had bookmarked but I can't find it now. If anyone knows who invented this technique please let me know so I can give proper credit.

This technique uses Ranger Alcohol inks dripped along the edge of glossy cardstock with lots of blending solution.

I'm really happy with how this card turned out and it has gotten me using my old alcohol inks all over again. All the stamps used are by Art Impressions. I stamped the images with Memories black dye ink.

Thanks for looking!

Life in the Deep end!

I had a super busy weekend with my sister at the Stamp Out Breast Cancer event held at Granville Island weekend. It was great fun and very well organized! I even managed to squeeze in a few classes! :) I should have taken photos during the event but those instructors (Cathie Allen & Julie Ebersol) kept us hopping! I guess Julie did not keep us hopping enough because my sister, Kim did manage to snap a photo of us!

I love this saying by Art Impressions! I needed to make a birthday card for my husband and for some reason this penguin reminded me of him even though he does not wear his pants this high or surf!

It's a fairly simple card I stamped and embossed the penguin image on watercolor paper and colored with my Tombows. I stamped the saying with Versafine Onyx Black on a tag I cut with my Spellbinders tag trio set. The main cardstock is Co-ordinations, the DP is by Fancy Pants the bottom layer of cardstock is Co-ordinations that I ran through my Cuttlebug with my D'Vine swirl folder and sanded to expose the lighter core color.

Thanks for looking!

Lots of Man cards!

The end of May and into June are when all the men in my life have birthdays not to mention my anniversary and Fathers day as well! I made this card for my Dad's birthday. He usually requests Art Impression watercolor scenes when he needs cards for others so I figured it was about time he got one of his own. I'm not going to go into all the steps of this card it would take forever but I will say all the stamps used are made by Art Impressions. I used my Towbow markers as the ink and the scene is on 140lb watercolor paper. Crafty Capers has Art Impressions watercolor classes you can take if you are in the area. One last thing about this card is I thought the main brown cardstock looked a little naked so I used a tree stamp and stamped it with Versamark ink hoping for a watercolor effect. It was a bit too subtle for me so I quickly added some Perfect Pearls powders on top of the ink in Vintage gold. Hopefully, in the close up photo you can see this. Thanks for looking!

Koi Pond

I love fish ponds when I saw this stamp a few years ago I had to buy it however I have not used it much. Naughty me! This stamp is made by Magenta Design.

I started this card by stamping the pond image with Versafine Onyx black on watercolor paper. I then used my Tombow markers and colored it. I made sure to add a little blue color to the background to make it less stark.

I cut out the image with my circle Nestabilities and matted it with another circle of Magenta paper. My blue main cardstock is Bazzill stamped with Magenta's falling petals stamp (stamped in Ranger Cloudy blue dye ink). I used a scrap of Colormates green cardstcok stamped with an Art Impressions leaf stamp stamped in Ranger Meadow dye ink. Along the blue/green cardstock join I added Prima flowers in orange and added flower centers with Rangers Distress Stickles in Denim.

My final steps were to add Rangers Glossy Accents on the lily pads and Rangers Diamond Stickles on the water bubbles.

All items on this card are available for sale at Crafty Capers. Thanks for looking!

Running Free

I actually, made this card before Christmas but did not get around to scanning it before now. I usually give my Dad "man" cards in his stocking for sending to his friends. This is actually the only one I got done! Sorry Dad!

I started with a scrap of glossy cardstock that had been sprayed with Memory Mist ink "pale ale". I then used a Dreamweaver stencil and embossed the horse 3 times with black embossing paste. This took a while because I did not want to accidently squish the wet paste so had to let each horse dry before moving onto the next one. For the record I started with the middle horse. When everything was dry I matted the glossy cardstock with brown cardstock that I had cut with a Fiskar's patterned scissor. I used the scrap "wiggly" brown cardstock as a mask to make the ground below the horses. I used Ranger's Adirondack Espresso dye ink for this. To finish off the card I stamped Art Impressions Clouds in Espresso ink and edged the top and bottom of the card with a Posh Gold Metallic pen.

Another Bird Card

I'd almost forgotten penguins are birds so here is another bird card. All the penguins are from a clear set by Art Impressions. I love these penguins! I started out my stamping the candy cane penguin then cut him out with a circle Nestability and my Cuttlebug. I cut a matching scallop circle out of a scrap of Fancy Pants cardstock. I colored the candy cane and hat with my Tombow (water based) markers. I made my background by stamping other penguins from the set on a piece of Bazzill Bling (shimmery) cardstock and colored all the winter attire red. I used a small Stampendous tag that I colored by rubbing with Ranger Cranberry die ink then stamped a Stampendous Happy Holidays saying in black.

Nothing too fancy but I am getting under the gun to get my cards done! Enjoy.

Lynn's card World Card Day

Lynn whipped up this beautiful card using a new Perfectly Clear Stampendous (Winter Trees) set. She did have to resort to using Art Impressions clouds since the Stampendous set did not have anything like that. She stamped the set with black Memories dye ink and colored it with pencil crayons then used various Stickles glitter glue colors to add the finishing touches. She used snowflakes from the new Penny Black clear set called Crystaline and stamped them with Versamagic Cloud White. The blue cardstock is by Bazzill and probably the striped paper is Fancy Pants. Another neat thing about this card is that is has a different fold. The front panel is actually smaller than the back. The long striped piece is actually on the inside of the card and the deer part of the card is only attached to the front blue cardstock. Hope you are enjoying the World Card day cards.

Leslie's Card World Card Day

We've been so busy at the store I had a heck of a time finding the time to get the World Card day cards scanned. Anyway, now it's done!

This card was done by Leslie Graham. She is Crafty Capers resident "Punch Girl" and can do amazing things with punches. This card used 3 punches plus the scalloped oval Nestabilities. First off Leslie used a Punch Bunch mitten punch and punched the white card. She applied Be Creative tape to the back of the cardstock covering the punched out hole. She then applied Glitter Ritz glitter to the tape. She used Fiskar's Threading water border punch (scalloped with holes) at the top of the white cardstock and Marvy's Southwest notch punch on the corners of the patterned paper (if memory serves me right it is Fancy Pants paper). The let it snow is by Art Impressions (clear penguin set). Ribbon by Crafty Capers.

Day Off! Hurray!

I have today off from the store and didn't get 2 cards done yesterday. Anyway, I made this card last Christmas for my Dad. I always give him a stack of generic cards in his stocking. This one was his (and my) favourite. I was just starting to play with my Tombows and learning to blend them. All the stamps from this card are from a clear Art Impressions set. I love their penguins!! I have bought all 3 sets!

Tomorrow's posting will probably be later since I have to teach early tomorrow.