XOXO My Crafty Friends - Trinity Stamps

Hello and welcome back!  Some of you may know I was lucky to be able to attend Creativation for the first time this January!  It's a terrible time for me to be having fun... tax season... 1099s... payroll taxes... all that nonsense... but I DID NOT care!  I had this opportunity and I wasn't going to miss it.  And I'm so glad I didn't.  Sure... it was awesome to meet some of the celebrities of craftiness and see all of the new products but my very favorite part was the people.  The people I got to meet and talk to while helping my friend Kim from Paper Smooches demo in the Photocentric booth and the bloggy friends I've only known online until that weekend.  I got to meet and have lunch and/or dinner with many of them and THAT to me is what this whole thing is all about.

Above is the gang that met for a long lunch of more talking than eating (Left to right Me, Kim, Lisa Golzbein (her daughter Taylor is taking the pic), Katie Brooks, Shanna Slater, Amanda Wilcox and Taniesa Vlasak from Trinity Stamps.  I also got to have dinner with Michele from CAS-ual Fridays and Larissa Heskett and Kim, but believe it or not none of us thought to get a pic before we left (really???... really!)

The wonderful and beautiful ladies from Trinity Stamps gifted me a couple of the new release items that are in the shop over at Trinity!  The A Crafter's Heart stamp set, the Bold Love die set and some adorable Crafty Heart Sprinkles were included in a beautiful little gift pack and I was so honored to get to take one home!!  I've used these items here today for this Valentine for one of my sweet Crafty Friends!

They all do inspire me on a daily basis... every single one of them.  I decided it was the perfect opportunity to make an eclipse card which I haven't done in a while.  I stamped the Crafter's Heart image onto a die cut cardstock panel.  Then I laid the XOXO dies (and of course I did not cut these apart!!!) over the heart and ran it through my Gemini.  Then I used the XOXO dies to cut another set from some hot pink paper.

I layered my stamped background piece with the cut out XOXO onto some more pink cardstock and then those onto a black base.  Then I layered the pink outline from the pink XOXO into the cut out space and then popped up the stamped XOXO into the appropriate spaces... careful to line up the images on the letters to the images on the background.  Be sure to save your inside circle pieces as well... once I had the XOXO down I added the inner circle pieces back inside and flat.  I colored the letters only after I added them to the card so it would be easier to figure out what the images were that I was coloring!

I stamped an extra envelope with the heart coming out of it separately so I could color it and pop it up also.  It was the perfect accent for my sentiment.  I stamped the You Inspire Me onto black card stock with Versamark and heat embossed it with white, and stamped the Crafty Friend directly onto the card using my Misti of course.  I popped up the black piece just above where I stamped the rest of the sentiment and added a few of my very favorite sequins... like.. the most used sequins I have... from Trinity... you can find them right here!

So I just wanted to send a huge shout out and thank you to every single person I met and talked to during Creativation weekend and thank you Katie and Amanda and Taniesa for this gift!  I have many more ideas for it... good thing because I need to send a few Galentines this year!  The question is... will they get out in time? HAHAHAHAHA... of course they probably won't... but they will get out.

And don't forget about the Turner Syndrome Awareness Blog Hop!  You have until February 7th to hop and comment to win prizes and learn more about this genetic disorder.  You can find my project for the hop here and a link to all of the info you need!

CAS-ual Fridays Full On Floral Eclipse

I'm up on the CAS-ual Fridays Blog today and sharing a card using an Eclipse technique.  If you're not familiar, the Hello in my card is what we're talking about.  It's a raised area that could be a Word like in today's card or a shape or anything really that almost seems to raise out of the background... visible, but you can sometimes almost miss it... almost ghost-like.

Here's how I made mine:

I started by stamping the Full On Floral background stamp onto some mixed media paper in Versamark and heat embossed it in gold.

Next I used Picked Raspberry and Spiced Marmalade Distress Oxides and blended them over the embossed image.  When I was done blending the inks, I wiped over the top of the image with a dry paper towel to remove the ink from the top of the gold to let the shine through again.

 I splattered some water and Gold Color Shine over the top and when it was dry, I die cut the Hello die from the Sweet Friend Dies from the center of the embossed panel (you would want to cut this from whatever area you wanted to add your eclipse to because the negative space will be where you place it.  (Note: Be sure to save those little pieces from the middle of your O's, E's, L's.. you get the idea... because you'll need to place those inside their negative spaces so you don't have white showing through your eclipsed word or shape).

I added all of the layers to my card including the embossed panel with the Hello cut out of the center.  Next I die cut three more of the Hello words from white cardstock.  I glued and stacked all of my Hello words together with the embossed piece on top.  Sometimes I like to offset the top piece just a bit so that there is a tiny bit of the color from the bottom layers that shows around the outside in some places to help the word stand out just a bit.  Then I glued the stacked word into the negative space and added the little center bits that I saved (center of the O, etc).  I also added a thin layer of Glossy Accents to the top of the word... again so that it would stand out just a little bit more.

I included a simple sentiment from the Bushy Tailed stamp set and a few sequins to finish it off.

And there you have it!  A simple Eclipse design with a big impact!  I think it's cool anyway!

I hope you enjoyed your stop!  If I've inspired you and there is something you need to have, you can head on over to the shop here and use this code for a discount on your order!

Happy Mother's Day! With Little Acres

DON'T LOOK MOM AND STAY OFF THE INTERWEB!  Had to pop in a day early to post this because I wanted to tell you about a sale going on over at Little Acres for Mother's Day Weekend!

Right??  Get yourself a Mother's Day Gift!  You know what you want!..lol!

So here's what I made using the latest coffee house mouse set, Cafe Dreamers:

I just LOVE this adorable set... those adorable mice with their coffee (or tea) cups... the sugar cubes, and that little teabag!  I created a table setting... this adorable little boy is sitting with his mom in the early morning while she has some tea and tells him stories.   And it's hard to see... maybe you didn't notice that pretty Sunflower picture on the wall...

... Has an eclipse!  I love these subtle surprises in a card... it's much easier to see in person than to photograph...lol!  But hopefully you can see it pretty good here... I stamped the sunflower from the Summer Blessings set onto the diecut frame and stitched rectangle (from PTI); colored it in, and then I diecut MOM out of the center of it using some MFT Alpha Dies.  I cut them three or four more times in white and stacked them all together.  I added some CTMH Liquid Glass again to make it stand out a bit more.. makes it harder to photograph, but it looks nice in person.

I'm playing along with the Heart2Heart Challenges Mother's Day Challenge for May.  You should check it out here!

And look at this sweet boy listening intently.. he just loves his mom!  

And her in her crown... 'cause she's the Queen... at least for today.... she has her most important make adoring her. (love how the CTMH Liquid Glass makes that tea look real!)

So that's how I'll feel when my boys call me ... they are far away, but I know I'll hear from both of them.  And I hope you have a wonderful Mother's Day too... whether you're a people mom, or a dog mom, or a cat mom, or a lizard mom (I have a lizard grandson and I love him too).  His name is Optimus.  But I digress...lol!  Have a wonderful day everyone!  Hope to see you again soon!  And don't forget to get shopping!

My First Attempt At An Eclipse Card with Honey Bee

Happy Saturday!  So happy you could stop by today!  I've been working on this one for a couple days (not whole days.. just my mornings before work).  I've got two firsts today... first Eclipse style card and first time coloring on kraft and I've gotta tell you, I love both!

I recently got this pretty Zen Floral stamp set during the birthday celebration over at Honey Bee.  I LOVE it!  The border at the top is all one stamp, but I used some of the separate flowers to create the cluster at the bottom.  I will tell you, I do not care for masking so I made a few mistakes because I rushed through it, but in the end I was happy with how it turned out.

I started by cutting out the hugs part of my sentiment from the Kraft Paper.  Because I had to build my cluster, I wanted to be sure I had the flowers where I wanted them and that they'd overlap my die cut.  Then I used some removable adhesive and put all of the pieces back together so that I could stamp over the hugs diecut and have it be seemless.  I stamped all of my images in Versamark and heat embossed in white.  Once that was done I colored it all in with my Prisma colored pencils.  Then, on these eclipse cards the sentiment is meant to be subtle, but since mine was part of the complete sentiment, to make it stand out just a bit, I decided to remove it before I splattered and dotted with some acrylic paint and then some Nuvo Drops.  I cut 5 or 6 of the hugs word out so that I could stack them easily to pop up rather than trying to fit popup tape and it really makes for a nice, chipboard feeling piece.  Then I attached the hugs back to the card in the space it belonged and again, to make it stand out a bit I applied some liquid glass again to bring a little attention to the word.  I used a small layer, let it dry and then applied another.  (I love my liquid glass, but there are some color formulations that will change color a bit when it's applied... see the rose on the end of the word-I'm not worried about it, but wanted to let you know)

Then I finished my sentiment with a couple stamps from a couple different sets in my stash... white embossing on black.. you know I love it.  Popped it up and added a few sequins.

This is one beautiful stamp set and I'll be using it a lot to add some pretty floral detail to many cards.  I have another one to play with too and I'll share that soon.  For this card, I'm entering it into the Honey Bee Buzzworthy Challenge for April to create a birthday card!  You do need to have Honey Bee products bee the feature on your card, but you can use other products (for instance, I didn't have any birthday sentiments, so I built mine from some other sets) and you could win a $15 gift certificate to the shop!  I guess I know what I need next!

I'm also entering this into the Outlawz Twisted Thursday for this week with a twist of Anything Goes and the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge which is also Anything Goes!  You should check these out too!