The Good Always Wins

Well today had been a rough day, but I am powering through by focusing on the 2 good things that happened; first my package from Sweet Pea Stamps arrived (SQUEE as you all know), and THEN they announced a call for their design team!!! I know right? So if you are interested in being my competition, the call is on their blog. Just a warning, I spent the night fussy cutting the heck out of one of my new stamps to try to make something worthy of joining such an amazing group. So 2/3 submissions are ready.

Now it was pointed out to me that I promised to show you guys my star card a few weeks back. BAHAHAHA. Well let me tell you a story before I show you the picture. So I have see this card a few times, and I found a template and was all like "I can totally do that". Then my printer decided it hated life and I thought "well self, you are pretty darn good at math, you can make a triangle and some folds". Turns out not so much. So coincidentally this attempt uses a  Sweet Pea Stamp... and it is another little dragon man. This one is Lisa Victoria's Dragon Luck... this little fellow wasn't that lucky to end up on this card!! But I like the colouring with the copics so that is a little win. So I know it isn't horrible but the engineer in me can't deal with the non-meeting lines and things. 

Closed

Open (You can see my twitching here!)

Anyway. There will be more tomorrow... school still isn't fixed. But that's ok, I have new stamps!!

I can see the future?

Ok so I really can't, other than the fact that whatever I post after tonight is going to involve some of the awesome polymer clay things using some new Martha Stewart silicone molds I got on sale today. Here is what they looked like before they went in the oven... they look pretty much the same now just, well... harder. Yes I am aware that I shouldn't cook polymer clay in the same oven I food with, but once isn't going to kill us. I am picking up my toaster oven for further endeavors.

So the other thing I bet you are wondering what those Glimmer Misted lollipop flowers look like now that they are dry. In a word, AMAZEBALLS. So great that I used one on this fantastic little birthday card I put together. Now before you ask I have no idea what any of the paper is, it just came out of the pile of scraps in my disaster and there were no identifying marks of any kind. What I can tell you is that this is another fabulous stamp from Kraftin Kimmie Stamps wonderful Three Wishes Set. I stamped her with Memento Tuxedo Black and heat set the image.

I then coloured her with Copics

Skin E00, E02, E11

Hair E13, E17, E18

Veils B12, B00

Body B28, B29, B32 (with tip touching)

Background BV08, BV13

Now I wanted to tie in the colour from the flower a little bit more, so I used the same spray on a light piece of paper and some of my new templates from The Crafters Workshop. The bling in the center of the flower is a bling button from CTMH. Then I stacked it all up and wrote a really sappy letter inside. Enjoy!

Little Bit of Flower Making fun

Ok so the project of the day is lollipop flowers. What you will need to make these is very minimal. You need a few scraps of either polyester or nylon fabric. Definitely nothing natural! Natural only burns, not melts which is what we are looking for. You will also need some sort of either needle and thread or glue dots of some form. And finally a source of flame. I started using a barbecue lighter, but it was a lot of lighting so I switched to a  candle. A word of caution, have an ice water bath nearby just in case!!

The first thing you are going to need to do is cut out an array of different sized circles (they don't have to be close at all) from your fabric, even really small ones. I liked the idea of having a lot layers, so I did about 2 in many of the sizes. The next step is that you will run the edges CLOSE to the flame, not in the flame or it will catch on fire. These fabrics burn fast and this is how burns happen. While you do this you want slowly move the fabric around. You will see the edges melt, and on the smaller ones the circle will start to pucker which will give the finished product depth. If you do have a small bit catch fire, it should blow out easily but you definitely want to keep a close eye on things as you do this

The edges cool almost immediately so you can now move right on to stacking them up. You can then either stitch them together, or use some glue dots. On a few of them I sewed on some button centers. On some of the other ones I sprayed some with Glimmer Mist. Now you have to leave them to dry on their own because a heat gun will completely melt them! The glimmer mist colour will be muted once they dry because the sheer fabric I used won't hold a lot of the dye, but it will have a nice hint. So keep this in mind. You other option is to you know use different colours of material... but really who has money for that sort of shenanigans?

Once they dry you can use them on anything! You can make custom sizes with different materials to suit any project.

Mmmwahahahhahahaha... but Cuter

Well fine, I am a big nerd. In case you didn't know... Anyways I got these great new stamps from There She Goes Stamps,http://www.tsgstamps.com/Cutie_Pi_p/cutie-pi.htm the set is called Cutie Pi (I KNOW!!). I bought them because they have a Pi symbol on it but love the rest of them. So I thought I would concoct a little solution with some of the other cool things I have in my stash right now. Just a plain grey cardstock background, but to spice it up a little I did some first and second generation stamping with CTMH's Lagoon ink. The solid turquoise glitter paper (yep,  it exists thanks to American Crafts, it is called AC duotone Glitter paper... in this case Aqua) was surprisingly easy to cut with scissors. I traced around the outside of my spellbinder's die to get a small border. The stripey paper is from my Mind's Eye "My favorite things" paper pad (also contains mustache paper by the way...). This cutie is stamped on CTMH paper with Memento Tuxedo Black ink and heat set because well I have no patience or ability to plan my creative spurts. I also stamped out the beaker set  and the "According to my calculations UR the BOMB" Sentiment. I wanted to carry the glitter forward and add a little something to what she was stamped on, so I used my CTMH ultrafine glue and some Glitter Ritz to make a border. Just put on the glue and leave to dry for 5 minutes, then you can just rub the glitter on with your finger. Almost no mess for the win.

Now for the down and dirty deets for the colours. It is a combination of copics and Sakura Jelly Roll Pens.
Skin E11, E02, E00
Beakers/ Goggles C1, C2, C3
Hair E13, E15, E18
Clothes/Shoes B02, B04, B06
Beaker (in Hand) YR04,YR07, YR09

Other Beaker Fluids, hair bobbles and some details on shoes are with Jelly Rolls (you know for the added depth of glitter without the work)

I then fussy cut the beakers, threw some pop dots on things and then whacked the whole thing together. I tried to group a few beakers together to create some flow from the sentiment across the image. Then for some added depth I added some Liquid Glass (CTMH order #Z679) on all of the beakers and the lenses of her goggles.

Hope you like it.

So This Card Just Happenned

Well so I have finally organized the HUGE pile of layouts around my scrap room, put them in some semblance of order and went to put them in an album. It was at this point that I realized there were some major events that I had sort of forgotten to scrap... so now I have a semi organized all in one pile of layouts on my floor and a semi organized set of pictures to catch up on. I hate that I can't guess how many pages it will tell me to tell a story, I mean I would hate to miss something right?

In other news I just got me some new stamps from Kraftin Kimmie Stamps. Seriously, they have some super cute stuff, and I think that this little one may have just jumped up to the top of my LOVE list. Her name is Angry Ballerina and I think that I may make cards with her for every person I know.

She is coloured with Copics (Look at me getting all awesome at this blending shenanigans!)

Skin E00, E02, E11

Hair E13, E17, E18

Piggy RV32, RV34

Dress B06, B04, B02

I then fussy cut the heck out of her! The background is a plain white 6by6 card, with a random piece of paper from a swap. The small background is the flourishes from CTMH's The Best Things (C1503) stamped and them embossed with clear embossing powder (Z821). Heat set, let cool, then I smudged some Chalk Inks over it. Sharpie for the line, little bit of Stickles around the end, some CTMH Just Blooms Summer Posies (Z822). All put together it was pretty simple to make, but I really like the look of it.