Distress Stripes

I saw a variation of this in one of my Technique Junkies Newsletters and thought it looked very cool and quite simple which made it right up my alley. I used my Distress Markers (which I haven't used nearly enough; darn that not enough time to play with my cool new stuff issue) and the Ranger Specialty Stamping Paper. I tried it on regular white matte cardstock and it didn't work at all. If you are going to use the Distress Markers, you really do need to use the Ranger Paper. It has a coating on it which keeps the ink on the surface.

So, you need three coordinating colours of Distress Markers. I started with the middle colour (light, middle, dark) and drew a few lines in a small area. Then I took the lighter colour and drew lines above and off to the side and I took the dark colour and drew lines below and off to the side of the middle colour. By starting in the middle, I was better able to get it centred. Then I took a mini mister with water and spritzed it to spread the colours. You want to work relatively quick before the markers really dry or else the colour doesn't move very well. When it dried, I just stamped a quick image and saying, mounted it and called it done.

Definitely my kind of card and I do think this might be one of my new favorite techniques.

Retro Week: Tuesday

This card is using an old technique from Technique Junkies (definitely check them out!).


It's fairly simple. Stamp your image and then stamp a flourish and just punch random holes along the flourish. Put a contrasting colour behind and you have a very cool look!

Another Distress Burst

June's Technique Club technique was Distress Burst. I first saw a variation of this technique in Technique Junkies (if you don't receive it, check it out; it's amazing). She used Bingo daubers, but I don't like those colours, so I never really did it. I did try it with some form of Radiant Rain or something, but I can't remember what the product was. It was one I didn't really like, so I didn't really ever do it.

Fast forward to June and I was sitting at my craft room desk and I had a brainwave and thought I'd try it with Distress Stains. It worked great.

The technique is so easy really. You literally just pounce the Distress Stain down on the paper. The harder you pounce it, the more of a starburst pattern you produce.

The first couple I did, I tried colours I normally like together, but then I didn't know what to do with the background. For this card, I used more colours of the same tone and then used it as a background for an image and then mounted it on a larger card. I really like how it turned out.

The stamps in black are from a set by Hampton Arts. The yellow stamp is one of my favorite background images from "I See Paris" by Tim Holtz.

Happy Spring

It's such a glorious Spring Day here today. I love Spring. The snow is starting to disappear (although this will take a long time this year), but the grass is starting to show and I think I even saw some buds starting to grow on the trees.

I have a box of product sitting in my craft room just waiting to be opened. I am hoping to do that shortly!!

In the meantime, here is a card done with the Aged Metal technique from Technique Junkies which I have used for the Kayric Club this month. For those who have signed up, I sent an email with information and an electronic sample. The real life ones are coming shortly! For anyone who isn't a TJ subscriber, I totally recommend it!

It's been awhile ... again

I seem to go in bits and spurts. I will go hard and create a bunch of stuff and then I have to tend to real life demands and catch up on everything I've ignored while creating, and stamping and scrapbooking takes a back seat. I keep thinking that I will commit to crafting a little bit each day, but the reality is that I have 3 small children, a husband, a household and a business to run and sometimes those take all my time and I can't get in there. Or, I'm just tired and don't feel like it. And that's OK. I am jealous of people who can stamp for an hour or two every day, but often their children are older and I don't want to wish my time away. It would be so nice to have time every day just for me, but I know that will come one day and I'll be wishing that I had my children in my lap instead. Or, at least sometimes I might.

So, the reality is that sometimes I'll be here blogging away and other times I won't. I hope that my readers understand. Many of them know me and know I'll always come back. I love playing with my stamps and my room will always draw me back and then I'll share here.

I invited my cousin over to scrapbook on Thursday and I felt more like playing, so I flipped through some old Technique Junkies newsletters (I LOVE those things) and found a cool technique to try. I really like when I find a technique which uses stuff I already own. I know that seems odd for someone who sells stamping supplies, but I also believe it's my duty to show people what they can do with supplies they already have. And, in the end, I often find that they order more of those supplies anyway. And if they don't, then that's fine! I always hear people say, "I need to use what I have." And I agree. There are monetary and space limitations; we can't simply have everything new. But that said, a new technique with existing product will always be cool.

So, a new technique. This one is so easy (really, I shouldn't need to write that since I don't do complicated ones). You will need a die cut machine (Cuttlebug, Big Shot, Wizard), embossing folders, Distress Inks, fun foam, spritz bottle with water and white matte cardstock. I often demonstrate techniques with Distress Inks and I'm asked if you can use other dye inks instead. The answer: in my opinion, not and get the same effect. You could probably make it work, but the Distress Inks are made to be work well with water and the colour won't break down like with other dye inks. I love my distress inks and except for a permanent black ink, they are the ones I reach for 90% of the time.

First step is to run your fun foam through your die machine in an embossing folder. You might have better luck to heat your fun foam a bit before doing this. You will not get as deep an impression as if you used paper (and since it's so thick, you may need to change your sandwich), but that's fine. Then choose two colours of Distress Inks. You are going to ink most of your fun foam with your lighter colour (just rub the pad directly around on the fun foam). Then go back and add a second colour in a few areas. Spritz with water and place your cardstock on, rubbing over it from the back. Peel it up and you have a very cool watercolour type stamped background. Put aside to dry or use your heat gun if you are impatient (ie: me). Then you can flip your fun foam over and do the same thing using the other side of the fun foam to get the negative version of the design.

I made quite a few of these the other day and just labeled the fun foam with the name of the embossing folder so I could use them later.

Today, I'm just going to show the background I made with the Seeing Spots folder. I really love the big dots of this folder; it's easily one of my favorites. And it looks very cool when you used the negative of it! For this sample, I used Victorian Velvet and Dusty Concord Distress Inks.

Here is the positive side.


Here is the negative side.


I'll be back over the next several days to show you the cards I've been making with this technique. I hope you enjoy it!!

You will get your fingers dirty doing this one. If that bothers you, you can wear gloves or you can try a Craft Scrubbie by Ranger which does a fantastic job taking the ink off of your fingers.

A Demo Night

It's been awhile since I had a Demo Night, so I've scheduled one for this Thursday, February 3 from 7 - 9 pm if you are interested and able to attend.

I really enjoy doing Demo Nights. It's always fun to have people around and have that energy pulsing. It's also really good for me since it gives me a push to play and find something cool to demonstrate.

With that in mind, today was the day. My sister is over scrapbooking and I pulled out all my Technique Junkies newsletters. I love those things!! Normally, when I'm looking for a technique, I will work backwards through them, but this time, I grabbed an issue from a couple of years ago and flipped through it. There was a technique which called for Shimmer Paints, but did not give a name brand or anything, so I remember skipping it since I didn't know what product they wanted. Today, however, I had a lightbulb moment and thought I'd try Lumiere Paints. When I first started selling stuff, I ordered several jars of Lumieres because I knew I had heard of a technique with them somewhere, but to this day, I haven't found out what that was. It's OK, though, because, today, I learned something I can do with them.

I'm not going to detail the technique until after the Demo Night so that those who come can oooh and aaaah, but I will share it sometime afterwards.

So, here is a little sneak peak.


I hope to see you Thursday. If you can come, just let me know so I can prepare!

More Salty Glimmers

I loved playing with the Salty Glimmers technique I posted about yesterday (have I mentioned how much I LOVE my Technique Junkies newsletter??). I did the small blue panel, but I wanted to try a whole background. I did the technique with the Walnut Stain glimmer mist I made using Distress Reinkers. It came out very dark and dramatic. Quite cool actually.

The instructions tell you to let it air dry. Anyone who knows me, knows I don't have a whole lot of patience to wait for things to dry. Besides, when I want to make a card, I never think to make the background ahead of time! I used to have a ton of backgrounds which I'd make and then put aside, but I never used them. I want to make the card from start to finish and I always wanted a colour or technique I didn't have in my stash, so now I just make whatever I'm going to want.

Anyway, back to being impatient. I made a purple background using a Dusty Concord spritz I made and threw the salt on it. I figured that if I just used my heat gun, the salt would go flying everywhere, so I grabbed some paper towel, wadded it up, and lightly dabbed the bulk of the wet stuff off. Some of the salt stuck to the paper towel and some stayed on the paper. I did this until most of the pools were absorbed and then flipped the paper over and flicked it from behind so that the salt would come off. Then I heat set it for a few seconds. Then flip and flick and heat set again. When it was dry, I just picked off the last few pieces of salt. Voila, a cool background and no waiting. My kind of technique. And as an added bonus, when I soaked up some of the ink, it lightened the background so it wasn't quite as dark.

After I had my background, I ran it through the scallop border by Tim Holtz. Then I cut a darker purple piece with the same border (I cut the purple piece slightly wider so that I could line everything up later). I then lined it up so that there was a small shadow at the bottom and cut off the extra on the other three sides. I stamped some background Tim Holtz images from Urban Chic and then stamped the bird (Tim Holtz: Urban Tapestry) and saying (Tim Holtz: Urban Chic) in black. Adhered it all to a white card and stamped the saying (Tim Holtz: Just Thoughts) in Dusty Concord Distress Ink.

Butterfly Glimmer

I actually did some stamping yesterday. I have been so caught up in scrapbooking, that I haven't done very much stamping lately. I love playing with new techniques, but I get in a groove with scrapbooking and then I can't seem to switch. I will have an idea, but I'm almost scared to try it because I'm worried that it won't turn out and I'll be upset and depressed (not seriously depressed, but in a way that doesn't make me want to stamp; maybe more of a frustrated thing). I seem to have a mental block lately about how to finish off a card. OK, I have the main part done; now what do I do because it needs something, but I don't know what. And I'm generally a minimalist, so I struggle with just leaving it knowing I want to do something else.

Anyway, I find the first few cards I make are all right, but then I can generally get back into my groove.

I received my Technique Junkies Newsletter awhile ago and since I've been so busy, I just put it on my craft room desk so that I can look through it later when I have time to play. I love my TJ newsletters as they are always full of cool ideas and often use product I already have (huge bonus!).

The technique that caught my eye yesterday was "Salty Glimmers" and it was kind of a play on what we used to do years ago, but it's beautiful and so I was so excited to try it again. I love that some of the techniques we did years ago keep coming back in various variations.

With this technique, you need to spritz your white matte cardstock with water and then spritz with a glimmer mist. I wanted a blue and a brown (I'll show that one tomorrow), but didn't have the right colour in Tattered Angels or Smooch Sprays, so I created my own with Distress Inks, Perfect Pearls and a mini mister (I've mentioned how to do that before, but if you don't know how, just ask and I can explain it!). When the paper is wet and shiny, throw some sea salt chunks on it. I remember doing this with watercolour paper and water colours. In my memory, the salt chunks pulled the colour so that area was lighter, but in this case, they pulled the colour and made it pool around it and so you got dark areas. It was quite cool!

These do take awhile to dry as they suggested you air dry them (more about how to get around that tomorrow). So, I walked away and came back after the kids were in bed so that I could try to make something out of it.

I also wanted to play with my new Plaid embossing folder from Sizzix. I embossed a piece of Core'dinations paper and then sanded it to use as my background. I love it!!

When my glimmer piece was dry, I stamped my butterfly (Fontwerks) with Silver Staz-On, but it didn't show up well, so I overstamped it in Chipped Sapphire Distress Ink. The Staz-On will resist the Distress Ink, so it came out like a shadow which I thought was very cool.

Overall, I like this card well enough. It won't make it into my favorite pile, but for the first card back in awhile, it's fine.


The Plaid folder comes bundled with a Snowflake one. I already had a Snowflake folder from Provocraft, but I really wanted the Plaid one. I do quite like the Sizzix Snowflake one though as it has some bigger snowflakes, so I'm happy I got the set.
I did keep playing with this technique and will have more to share tomorrow.