...and She continues to bubble!

I am having so much fun looking at how to use these bubbles backgrounds with my images. After seeing the branch of leaves hanging over my driveway turn to gold and a few leaves falling I felt it was time to pull out some leaf stamps.

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The background leaves are stamped in distress ink and the ones in the forground are heat embossed with fall splendor embossing powder by Powder Keg. I love these embossing powders with mixed colors. I feel they add more interest to the embossing. After taking MANY closeup pics this is the best I can capture to show the sparkle. Yes, you can click to get a larger view. The paint to make the bubble background was metallic so it sparkles and the embossing has a great shine. Finally the copper foil leaf was stamped with stazon and a few highlights were dry embossed.

PS...Oh fiddle this final picture is still not showing all the sparkle...hmmm...any other suggestions?? Why not just stop by this weekend and we can make some together!

Good morning!

Oh what a glorious summer weekend! A perfect time to unwind from a draining workweek. Last night I had fun looking at some bubble backgrounds I had made earlier(see previous posts) and deciding how to incorporate it into a stamped card. This is my result. I used a new flower stamp from Purple Onion Designs and added a fern and flowers that I dried.

I was happy to receive some blog awards this week. A Thinking Award from my stamping pal Ethel and Nice Awards from Stamp Shack friends Barb and Angie It's great to have stamping pals who share my stamping interests! Thanks so much ladies!! I will be giving some careful thought to passing along some awards!

I would like to start today by presenting Dymphie with the Thinking Award! She shared her enthusiasum and directions for the bubble backgrounds. Additionally she is always making very creative works and posting them on her blog-be sure to take a look! Dymphie thank you for sharing with me the fun of pondering over the bubble backgrounds and many thanks Dymphie for your inspirtation!

Finally another thanks to Barb for pointing me in the direction of the automated number selector! Friday I selected the winner from comments on my color study. And the lucky number is...#9. Kim you are the winner of a Basic Grey Infuse 6x6 paper pack--it will be in the mail soon.

I'm off to enjoy another glorious day...hope yours is too!

Trying to get ahead

Work has been very intense these last few days...but tonight I decided to get ahead and make 2 full loaves of zucchini bread. It turned out perfect! So glad after I tried to lighten the recipe last week and had a creative disaster. Feeling a tad energized I headed out to the gardens only to realize I had two new zucchini that are now much larger than I usually like to pick them. You ask what to do with all the zucchini...
My top three recipes are-
1. This bread which I call Birdseed Bread because it uses millet in it instead of nuts...yup millet is the little round seed you feed to birds. For people you can buy millet in bulk grain section of most groceries.
2. Zucchini Soup-a tomato base with hamburger and lots of zucchini chucks and Italian spices. Sometimes I use this as a sauce over pasta.
3. Zucchini Casserole--lots of shredded carrot and zucchini chucks with a stuffing topping. After baking my eyes always fool my mind into thinking the carrots are shredded cheese.
If you happen to want any of the above recipes I will happy to e-mail them out but it won't be until this weekend 'cause now I have more cookin' to do! OH my stamps are lonely!!

Rockin Blog

Heather is of the sweetest of ladies over at the Stamp Shack. She is a very creative fun person and she nominated me as a Rockin' Girl Blogger. Be sure to stop by her blog We Grow By Our Dreams. Big hugs to you Heather. My blog isn't a month old and I can't quite seem to make time to list more of my favorite bloggers. But that list is growing all the time now that I use Google Reader...what a time saver! Here are 5 of my go-to blogs. I am nominating them as Rockin' Girl Bloggers.




First I want to nominate a person who I met while blog surfing...Nancy hails from the land that is truly the farthest north in the state...where the folks don't see the sunrise for many weeks each winter. Checkout Inkcicles-Stamp Art and Life in the Arctic

One of my stamp pals bounces in several of the same circles and we have enjoy playing in some of the same challenges. Check out Stacy's blog Stacy's Memory Triggers

Ah I have been watching Godelieve's blog for a couple years. If you love making your own backgrounds and want to see some great tutorials Stamping Mathilda Just Paper, Ink and Rubber is the place to go! And if you are new blogger she has some great tutorials for you too.

Some people have so many gifts to share and Jennifer is one of them. A seamstress, an animal lover, a great story writer, and a wonderful stamper who just happens to also be fabulous at coloring. Stop in and see her new blog "Thimbles, bobbins, paper and ink"

Oh-oo I need more than five favs!
But for my last I will select Donna another stamper who LOVES techniques...she is always pulling one pretty one after another.
Check out The Stamp Source

Ladies thank you all for teaching me so much!!

What was I thinkin?

Why or why would I show off some great ink colors and not share more details. Oh silly me!!

The Nick Bantock ink collection is a part of the Ranger products. They are dye based, acid free ink on a raised square felt pad in a container like the distress inks but it is metal instead of plastic. I bought this set for 2 reasons-I love resist techniques which generally call for dye inks and sometimes I like the vivid colors after working with the quieter distress inks for a while. I do find the colors on the labels are not as vivid as the actual colors. Second reason is that while I had been interested in them for some time I happened to be at the right place for a super clearance deal. I would certainly advise not to pass up a good deal if it comes your way. If you want to take a look here is the link to Ranger Ink

Another following-up to the color study:
One great eye caught an interesting view of my last card and asked if it was embossing powder on acetate. Actually that view is really like an optical illusion. The card is made like the others with the focal stamping image on a wider gold purchased dry embossed paper and then on black paper that I sprayed with Kylon's gold webbing. This spray paint is available in other colors too. I usually spray several sheets outside in the summer so I don't have to worry about how to do it in the cold weather. Donna you have a great eye and I may just try a card like you described--I love playing with acetate!

A little color study

I recently bought a set of Nick Bantock dye ink. The colors are scrumptious! I decided to make a little color study by creating a set of cards with a simple design but feauring a different color for each focal image. Take a look at the cards below and leave a message as to your favorite. Of course as always you can double click an image to see it larger. ****Next Friday, I will pull a name from the comments for a little blog candy.****

Ink colors:
Damson Plum
Rose Madder
Deep Turquoise
Vermillion Lacquer
Van Dyke Brown
Lamp Black

This one is for the challenge!

Easy as 1-2-3
The challenge on Caardvarks calls for creating a card with 1-embellishment (stickles) 2-patterned papers of course the background but also the 3-flowers are paper pieced and sculpted. Hmm--m okay nothing like stretching out of one's usual styles :-)



The current Stamp Shack's color challenge is pomegranate, olive, black, and tan. Since I don't have any pomegranate paper or ink I gave some serious thought to making some pomegranate tean and pouring it through a coffee filter and using the filter. But then I decided I really wanted to do more with this new plum ink and this combo would work perfectly so I made a slight change to the color scheme.
To make this one I stamp a french script background in Ranger's tea stain distress ink. The resist is made by stamping the flower in embossing ink and adding seafoam white ep then sponging on the Nick Bantock's Damson Plum ink.
Happy stampin!

A creative break

After a long day at work it is so wonderful to find some time for a creative break. Tonight I stopped in at caardvarks.blogspot.com to see the latest challenge. There it was posted--no more than 24 hours to create something from your scrap basket. Perfect!--not enough time to overthink this card and no searching for the right things to use.


So after a few moments of looking at my scrap basket I pulled out the only piece of cardstock that was the right size for a card base and took out a few things that struck my fancy at the moment. This included a small plastic bag (hmm-m another thing I saved from the trash-just in case), some beads and various pieces that were rejects from earlier projects. I quickly determined I wanted to make a shaker card with the bag and beads and worked on putting a combination together. I am not very experienced at shaker cards and immediately put in about 10 times more items than needed for shaking. All the pieces for the birdhouse and the misc elements came straight from the scrap basket. This was a fun card to create and a great way to spend less than an hour.

Happy day!...It is Friday and hopefully the weekend will bring you some time for stamping! If you happen to have a spare moment you might drop by Art Impressions-they have posted the results of their stamp contest that required the use of the photo of the rocks that I posted earlier. It is now time to vote for your fav... http://www.artimpressions.com/Contest.asp
Thanks for stopping in!