Moved my Blog

I've moved my blog over to wordpress. I liked blogger, but I found some features in Wordpress that I prefer.

Please visit me at my new site at http://seasidecreativity.wordpress.com

Sketch Challenge

Are you a member of the SCS fan club?? The fan club gallery is a source of great inspiration and now fan club members can participate in monthly sketch challenges!! This is my entry and I love how the colors came out.

Supplies used:

Paper: Teal, green galore and white

Ink: Palette Noir, green galore, Zia Colorwash

Other: Acetate, die cuts, clear drying glue (elmers), tissue paper

Stamps: Fantasy Floral Garden by Flourishes

Instructions:

-Stamp images on acetate with Palette Noir, let dry and turn acetate over
-On the reverse side of the acetate, apply glue covering the acetate completely. Spray on Zia colorwash (I used citron and blue topaz) and gently mix the ink into the glue. You can also use a couple of drop of reinkers for this technique.
-Crumble up a piece of tissue paper, then uncrumble and place over the glued and inked acetate. Let dry - this may take several hours!
-Mount on green galore and white.
-Stamp other images with green galore an a piece of green galore paper. Stamp small floral image in Palette Noir in lower right corner
-Punch or die cut two ovals, one in white and one in teal. Stamp "Bloom" in Palette Noir on the white and sponge with green galore.
-Attach all pieces as shown.

Watercolor Dreams

Has it been ten days since I posted?? We've been so busy at the Flourishes Studio and yesterday Jan and I finally took the chance to actually stamp for pleasure!! We both worked with the Fantasy Floral Garden set available at Flourishes. I brought along my Zia Watercolor
Wash sprays - I love these and don't create with them nearly as often as I should.

When you think watercolor, usually you think soft, muted colors but it does not have to be that way. As you can see from this card the colors are very vibrant. Using a black card as the base really makes the colors pop. Here is how I made the card:

Supplies used:

Strathmore Watercolor Paper, cold press, 140 lb

Zia Watercolor Wash Sprays

Palette Noir Hybrid Ink

Rose Red and Black Cardstock

Fantasy Floral Garden Stamp Set

Pop dot and general adhesive

-On a piece of watercolor paper, scribble silver metallic ink in a random pattern and heat until dry.

-Spray three colors of Zia Watercolor washes. For this card I used Citron, Fire Opal and Garnet. Heat set each color before applying the next color. Cut off a section of the paper to use to stamp the "Dream" phrase.

-Stamp images from the Fantasy Floral Garden set using Palette Noir Hybrid Ink (I have come to love this ink more than Staz-On.)

-Mount on rose red and black. The "Dream" phrase is mounted on black and attached to the card with a pop dot.

Fantasy Floral Garden

Here is my latest creation using the new Fantasy Floral Garden set just released by Flourishes and my entry for this weeks sketch challenge at SCS. This set has so many wonderful floral images - you'll be able to create many different looks.

The base card is olive, but the rest of paper is from the Basic Grey Infuse series. The main floral image was stamped in dark brown marvy markers and colored with three different pink marvy markers. The sentiment, from the Flourished Words set was also stamped in dark brown. At the bottom you may be able to see some more fantasy floral images - stamped lightly with olive.

Nestabilities and Cuttlebug

Over the next several weeks, many of you will be receiving Spellbinder Nestability dies. For those of you who will be using the dies in your Cuttlebug, I’d like to share with you my experiences…………

I’ve used cuttlebug and sizzix dies in my bug with no problems, and did not think I would have any issues with the spellbinder dies, but anytime you use one manufacturer product in another, care must be taken.

To use nestabilites to cut in the bug, you will notice that the standard “B” plate sandwich is insufficient – too thin.

Your next attempt will be to replace one of the “B” plates in the sandwich with the thicker “C” plate – giving you a “B/C” plate sandwich – IN MY OPINION, YOU SHOULD NOT DO THIS!!

When I used this sandwich here were my results:

1) I broke 3 “B” plates over the course of my testing. Now you’d think I’d learn after the second one broke, but no, I had to keep on trying. The plates did not break every time, but when you have to exert pressure to crank the sandwich through it is not a good sign. You don’t need a lot of pressure to make the cut.
2) Using the “B/C” plate sandwich the dies often embedded themselves into the plate. I mean really, really embedded. To the point where I was using a screwdriver, butter knife and finally an xacto knife to pry the die off of the plate. More often than not, the resulting die cut was ruined and I had to start over again.

My conclusion: the “B/C” plate sandwich is just a bit too thick.

My solution: Start with your original “B” plate sandwich and add one or two pieces of chipboard, the thickness of your chipboard will determine how many pieces you need. I used two pieces that I cut the same size as the “B” plate and consider it just another plate to use. The chipboard increases the thickness of the sandwich, - thicker than the “B” plate sandwich, but thinner than the “B/C” sandwich. Also, because chipboard is softer than the plates, it has a little “give” to it. My dies cut cleanly and did not stick to the plate.

This is just my experience with these products. You may want to try different options – let me know if you do and how it worked out. I love the bug and the nestability dies – they are both great products in my humble opinion. I would recommend both to any crafter.

Another Peek!!

Here is another card I just made using one of the new soon to be released sets from Flourishes - this one uses the O Christmas Tree set, which contains 25 stamps. There are so many ways to trim this cute tree..

I started by making a card out of Strathmore watercolor paper, which I embossed using the Cuttlebug snowflake embossing folder.

On a small piece of watercolor paper, I sponged blue for the sky and green and brown for the tree, both using marvy markers and a watercolor brush to soften the lines. The ornaments were stamped with staz on, then colored with marvy markers. You can't tell from the photo, but I used a glitter gel pen to add a little sparkle to the ornaments.

The red mat was created using the Nestability scalloped rectangle die cut.

Sneak Peek!!

Flourishes will be releasing three new sets in the next week and I wanted to give you a sneak peek at one of them! Yes, it's Labor Day weekend, but we are working on the upcoming holiday season - even though it's 90 degrees here... This card was made with an image created exclusively for Flourishes by calligrapher Joan Machinchick. More on Joan will be posted on the Flourishes Newsletter in the coming days.

The base card was made using beautiful shimmery white paper. Flourishes carries this paper and has a nice selection of other metallic paper - perfect for holiday and wedding cards. I stamped and embossed the Peace Dove in gold on shimmery paper, and used the Nestabilities oval dies to cut and emboss the white and gold mat. The sheer gold ribbon is from Michaels. The photo just does not do this card justice, as the beauty of the shimmery paper is not seen.

I hope you like this little peek at what is coming...check out the Flourishes boutique in the next week and see what we have to offer.

Make a Wish

Today's post is to give support to GinaK and her new "stamps for a cause" stamp for the Make a Wish Foundation. GinaK will give $7.00 of each set sold to this wonderful organization. We here at Flourishes take today to offer our support to Gina in her efforts to give back to the community. I've found stampers overall to be extremely generous and giving people and Gina epitomizes this character and generosity. Thanks Gina, for all your wonderful work.

Please click on over to Gina's site, make a purchase for this great organization and tell her the ladies at Flourishes sent you.

This card was made combining the Make a Wish Set and the Flourishes Cake Decorating set to create one cake image. The cake and pedestal are from Flourishes, the shooting star, star background and sentiment are from GinaK. The colors were pulled from the colors found on the Basic Grey designer paper.

Elegant ATC Swap

In yesterday's mail I received a package from the "Elegant ATC Swap" I participated in. The swap was hosted by Kelly - aka Littlekel90 at SCS. These ATC's are just so pretty. Thanks to everyone who participated and created these elegant cards!

So, what do you do with the ATC's that you receive? It seems a shame to just file them away in a binder, so what I have done is included some in my scrapbooks, in a personal journal and I've even used several to place on a card front as the focal image for a card. Tell me what other uses there are for these great mini works of art...

Top 50? Top Listed??

Recently I removed the Stamping Top 50 and Top Listed Stamping widgets from my blog. In the past 6 months I have been moving up in the standings reaching the low 200's when, for no reason at all, I lose my standing - getting the old "user not found" error message. E-mails to the Top 50 site go unanswered and I am forced to resubmit and start all over again, with my ranking over 500. After the third time with this happening, I did a little soul searching. Was I trying to win some popularity contest? (visions of high school - ugh..) Was I trying to build my ego up? (perhaps) I realized that the incredibly gifted and creative people who have made it to the Top 50 are deserving and I needed to just enjoy blogging, creating and sharing what I do with my friends, family and those who are kind enough to visit my blog. SO - the pressure is now off!! No more worrying about ranking. I replaced the widgets with a world map, which shows the location of people who visit (this is so cool - besides I like maps) and a slide show of my works.
If you blog, how do you feel about these ranking sites?

Belly Band Card

In June (has it been that long ago?) Cindy showed us a template of a wedding invitation she was working on - a tri-fold card with a belly band. It was my best intention to make a bunch of these for a swap, but we are meeting tomorrow and I've only made one!! Here is how I made this one:

-Take a piece of 12" x 5 1/2" cardstock and score at 4" and 8 1/2" - this gives you the tri fold. I used Making Memories designer paper.

-Take a strip of vellum enough to wrap around the entire card and about 1 1/2" wide - this is the belly band.

-Punch an oval (Marvy punches) from cranberry card stock, stamp patterned stamp with ruby red. The patterned stamp I used was from Impression Obsession - Damask floral.

-Take a 2" square of blush and use the Square Steps punch on all four corners, but turn back and cut off the two sides.

-Stamp "Happy Birthday" - from Flourishes - in Rose red on blush and sponge. Mount on cranberry.

For the inside of the card I mounted blush onto cranberry. Here is a photo of the inside and a closer look at the belly band.

Masking Tutorial

Here is a video I made on masking. It's just under 6 minutes long and is a quick tutorial on basic and reverse masking. I hope you find this helpful. I uploaded it on Google Video - I'm still trying to figure out how to embed it directly onto this post. This was my first attempt at using my webcam and my first try at any type of tutorial - so I was producer, director, writer, editor and star!! Please let me know what you think.


http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=masking_0001

Cake Decorating!!

Here is another card using the Cake Decorating 101 set. This set has so many possibilities...if you haven't seen some of the great creations using this set, check out the Flourishes Designer Gallery on the Flourishes online boutique.

This card started with cameo coral as the base, with a strip of cocoa and Basic Grey Blush decorative paper. I used the Spellbinders nestability set to cut and emboss the vanilla rectangle on which I mounted my cake and pedestal. Here is a closer look at the embossing feature for these die cuts.

Both cake and pedestal were stamped on BG Blush series with cocoa. For the cake, I overstamped SU's filigree to get a more decorative look. A white signo pen was used for highlights. "Happy Birthday" is from the Flourished Words set and was also stamped in cocoa. This is the third card I made for our stamping meeting this week.

Hat's off to CASE'ing

I'll be the first to admit when I CASE a card, as in the "case" with this one. Some time ago Cambria Turnbow's blog had a wonderful tutorial on different ways to use the Square Steps Punch and I just love what she did, so I cased her template for this card. I used a pale blue card as the base (can't tell if its bashful blue) as well as for the 2" square needed with the square steps punch. Pale plum was used for the narrow strip across and for the smaller square (1 3/8" punch). I stamped a flower from the Sassy Stems set and watercolored with moss and rose red, then used a 1 1/4" circle punch. I thought the Sassy Stems flower went well with the decorative paper. The decorative paper is Basic Grey's oh so pretty LilyKate. "Happy Birthday" is from the Flourished Words set and stamped in rose red. This came out so nice that it will be one of the cards we will make during our August stamping group meeting - ladies I hope you like this!!

Using designer paper

So often we buy pretty paper only to have it sit in our stamp rooms collecting dust, waiting for that "perfect" card to pop into our heads or for that special occasion. I'm determined to use my stockpile of paper!! In looking over my stash, I often find sheets of paper that were "must haves" at the time, and now seem out of style.

I was looking for inspiration for some cards to make for our monthly stamp meeting this week, and came across the pretty SU designer paper. I love this paper, but never got around to actually using any!! So, this week our group will be making one of these cards and I hope to make a few extra's for RAK's. The cards were inspired by a few of Tracy Durcan's creations found on the designer gallery at Flourishes.

The paper is all SU - designer paper, vanilla, moss and cocoa. Inks used are cocoa and moss and the ribbons are from JoAnn's. The stamps are from the Flourished Words set from Flourishes.

And the Winner is...................

Jennifer Kronberg!! Congrats to Jennifer as the winner of the blog candy I am offering as part of the Grand Opening of the Flourishes online boutique.

Jennifer will receive two cuttlebug folders, 4 each of metallic blue and red cards, 8 white linen card fronts, and 5 yards each of silver cord and gold thread.

This will be placed in the mail tomorrow - I hope you enjoy the package!!

BLOG CANDY - Flourishes Grand Opening

Whew!! We had a whirlwind day yesterday at the official grand opening of the Flourishes Boutique!! It was hard to keep up with the orders but with everyone pitching in I think we worked wonders!!

To celebrate the grand opening, I am giving away some BLOG CANDY. Eligible participants include anyone who has placed an order with Flourishes. If you've already purchased from us, then you are already eligible. If you have not - what are you waiting for?? Flourishes is having a grand opening special through August 1 - get the combo kit for 15% off!!

Here are the details on the blog candy - make a purchase anytime through August 1 (if you've already done so - you're already in the running).

I will randomly select one lucky customer on August 2 to receive the following blog candy:



-Two cuttlebug embossing folders (yes, two!!) - Snowflakes and Hearts Blocks
-Four cards made from beautiful blue metallic cardstock
-Four cards made from beautiful rose metallic cardstock
-Eight card fronts of white linen paper
-Five yards of silver cord
-Five yards of gold thread

OPEN FOR BUSINESS!!

Flourishes is officially open for business!! It's been a whirlwind for Jan Marie, Sharon and all the wonderful people we've been working with. It's also been an incredible learning experience for all of us as we venture into the e-commerce business.

Our online boutique is up, and while there still may be a few bugs to work out here and there, we are in business. Flourishes is having a "grand opening" special from July 27 - August 1 where you will get 15% off the Combo kit. The kit contains the two new stamp sets, a pack of Basic Grey Infuse 6x6 paper and some pretty ribbon.

Also, check out the designer gallery on the store - our design team has been working hard and have created some incredible cards for you!! Who would've thought that a Cake Decorating Stamp set would yield not only cakes, but also vases and a lamp?? These gifted women have let their creative juices flow - take a look.

Now, I am nowhere near as talented as those ladies, but here is my card......

RAK'ed again!

Take a look at this cute and colorful RAK I received from Sheri Thomas - I love the pinks and blues and she added sparkley glitter in several places to add some dimension. Sheri, thanks so much for the card. Please check out her blog at http://www.stampernmore.blogspot.com/.

Flourishes Design Team and Sneak Peek

Please join me in welcoming the charter Design Team of Flourishes. I am so thrilled to have these incredibly gifted stampers join us and can't wait to see what they create! Many of you may know them from their blogs and from Splitcoast, but if you don't check out their work - I've linked their blogs over on the left.

Flourishes Design Team

Nancy Grant from Alaska

Sharon Johnson from Michigan

Paula Bloom from Texas

Leslie Miller from Oregon

Julia Stainton from Canada

Alex Eaton from the United Kingdom

Tracy Durcan from New Hampshire

Also, check out the new Flourishes Newsletter for more information!!

Now for the sneak peek---we are having so much fun with the new cake set and here is a little peek at it! My favorite parts are the little things hanging from the cake plate - I call them "cake bling!!)

Is there a Designer in the building???!!!???

Jan Marie, Sharon and I have looked at more blogs and galleries these last few weeks than ever before as we search for our design team! I've seen an incredible amount of amazing work - and have even MORE blogs on my favorite list to check - as if I have the time to surf.....

To all of you who expressed interest in the Design Team - I want to say thank you so much. The level of interest and incredible quality of talent made our decision very difficult and we are so pleased with our final selection.

We've notified everyone and we'll do the big announcement on Wednesday - so check back in. Also on Wednesday, I'll have a little "sneek peek" at our stamp set - we've been having so much fun working with this set....

...... Actually, I am taking time out from stamping to post this....having a bit of "designer block"....where are those new designers when you need them!!

Computers, modems, routers, NSR

While I am no computer expert, I have installed my share of printers, scanners, cameras, PDA's, GPS, and tons of software over the years. So, installing a wireless router so that my dear husband can use the laptop (already wirelessly equipped) to surf the net while I'm on SCS should not be a problem, right?

Saturday night: Tried to install several times, broke down and called the dreaded Tech Support for Linksys (the router manufacturer). Spend over two hours with them, with 3 different people, two of whom I could not understand. Frustrated, ended the call with no success.

Sunday: Dear husband finds "geek by the minute" tech support on line and insists we (meaning ME) call them. I say, what do we do after we spend a hour and $120 and still have the same problem? He says this will work. I call, spend an hour with them, they finally say that I have to call my ISP and have my internet password reset and then it will work. Now, I am not a computer expert, but I know this is not going to be the fix, but do so anyway. It does not work. I call back and speak to the same guy, complaining about them charging me without solving the problem. We spend another 20 minutes trying to fix things with no success - they insist it is the ISP's fault. I call the ISP and spend another hour with them, they try to blame the other two and insist there is a problem with my computer (it was working just fine before all this, and works fine without the wireless router). Mad at everyone now, I tell DH I will call a computer person in the morning and get at home support. Hungry and in need of a strong drink we go out to the local sports bar/burger joint and order....but.... oh no...... it is Sunday and no alcohol served in our county on Sunday AAARRRGHH!

Monday: Call Karl's Computer Service serving the Pensacola/Pace area. Karl is retired USN with over 20 years experience. I tell him my woes and he says he will fix the problem within an hour and if he does not he will not charge me. He shows up on time, works on the router for 1/2 hour - no success. Says he has a different router in his car - let's put that one in and see if it works. He pops it in and in 5 minutes we are in business!!

I call Geeks by the Minute and tell them I want some type of refund because they did not fix the problem, we agree on a 45% discount - I grudgingly agree since it was a bad router.

Linksys sends me a customer satisfaction survey to which I blast their use of people who cannot speak English and their inablilty to recognize that their product may be defective.

I send an e-mail to my ISP support telling them they should admit when they don't know what the problem is, instead of passing the buck.

I tell Karl he is the best thing around!! Let me put out a good word for Karl's Computer Service serving Pensacola and Pace area of Florida. If you need computer service in the area, he is listed in the yellow pages...give him a call!

Two more RAK's!

Today I received two more RAK's in the mail!! I just love getting mail and SCS RAK club is great.



This first card is from Debra Tack. This card is so pretty with the green and yellow color scheme. Debra - just last month I ordered the vases set, don't know how I overlooked it for so long. I love the paper you used - thank you so much!!

The second card is from Shannon Erskine and is just as pretty!! The pink and green color combo is so soft and I love the polka dot ribbon. Thank you Shannon!! Visit Shannon's blog at http://www.hoppycreations.blogspot.com/ for more.



Hey - Shannon and Debra - did you guys get together with the color combos? These cards go great together!!

Call for Design Team - Part 2

For those of you who have contacted us, by now you should have received the initial response back. We're reviewing all who have expressed interest and are busy checking out your blogs, galleries, etc. Wow - there are some wonderfully creative people out there!!

For those of you who have not contacted us - time is running short!! We've set a deadline of July 5 to contact us if you are interested. We're looking to make our final decisions within two weeks so we really need this deadline.

If you are not interested, please pass this on to your stamping friends, or feel free to post it on your blog.

Thanks for the interest...keep checking in.

Call for Design Team!!

Flourishes is looking for a few good stampers to be part of their design team. We need people who can create some original stamped items, ie cards, journals, ATC's, etc each month, using primarily our products.

Do you have what it takes? Are you a creative person who can meet deadlines? Do you like getting recognition for your work? If you are interested, please e-mail me at nkirk@aol.com for more details!

Please pass this on to all your friends - we'd like to hear from all of you!!

Another RAK!!

I received this pretty RAK from Deb Albright over the weekend. I love the polished stone technique she used for the front - the photo does not do it justice. Thanks Deb for thinking of me. Check out Deb's great blog at http://turtlechronicles.blogspot.com

Back from Stampfest!!

Wood mounted stamps , unmounted stamps, clear stamps paper, ink, glitter, glue, and what else?? Stampfest was wonderful - my first time there. This morning I was going through my purchases and mounting the rubber to cling foam when I felt the need to take a break. I love conventions for all the new things you get to see. My hands down favorite were the stamps and samples from KT Designs. The coloring on her samples is incredible. The photos I took just don't do justice to her work. See her work at www.ktdesignsonline.com . She showed us how she blends her Tombow markers (she also uses SU markers) and says Marl paper works best for her techniques. I can't wait to try this out for myself...

RAK

I received another RAK in the mail today, this one from Janine Tinklenberg. I love both Palm Trees and Flamingos (how did you know??) and Janine made this very cute card with the wonderful Tickled Pink set. Thanks Janine!!

Please visit Janine's great blog at www.stampspaperscissors.typepad.com

SWAPS!!!!

Each month when our stamping group gets together, we have a swap based on a technique we did the previous month, or something we just wanted to create. I've received some wonderful cards over time from these swaps and thought I should post them. Here are the four from this month - they are just wonderful!!

The upper left card from Sharon uses the polished stone technique. This card is stunning with its multiple layers and color scheme of gold, puple and green.

Next is an adorable card from Missy, who used one of my favorite background stamps - On the Spot. Her color combinations of blue, pink and green are nice and fresh. She finished it off by adding a little glitter to the left portion of the heart.

Cindy's frog card is just sooooo cute!! This little guy is great by himself, but Cindy added those little bug eyes - this card just makes me smile!! I don't have any cute images, but whenever I receive a card like this I see how nice a card can look with just one stamp.

FInally, Jan's card combines a fold over card with a recent SCS challenge. She uses the new Baroque set and combines it with a flower from Stampendous. I love the elegance of this card and the blue and rose color combinations are so pretty.

Thanks ladies, for these great cards!!

ATC for Stampfest

Here is the ATC I made to swap at the Stampfest Convention later this month. I'm really pleased with how it turned out, primarily because I used leftover paper from some wedding invitations I made last year. I've been holding on to the scraps thinking they would come in handy one day, and that day is today!!

I started with beautiful blue metallic paper from Michaels. I stamped the diamond pattern (See D's stamps) with Palette's glue pad and applied white Pearl Ex on top. The swirly flowers (Autumn Leaves) are stamped in brilliant blue. "Love" is from the new, soon to be released set from Flourishes, also stamped in brilliant blue. The hearts are sizzix die cuts, the smaller one was embossed with the Cuttlebug tapestry folder and then applied with Pearl ex to give it some shimmer. Although the photo does not show it the ATC has a nice pearly shimmer to it!

Card Swap

At last months stamp meeting we did a card that had a fold over top (can't remember the exact name of this techniqe). Our swaps are to make a card based on whatever techniques we did the previous month. Here is my version on the fold over card. I used Buckaroo blue and SU decorative paper. The blue is cuttlebug embossed. I used SU's Riveting stamp set in brilliant blue on sage cardstock then used my various sizzix die cuts to mount the image on the nested circles.

SCS Bloggers RAK's

Wow!! In the mail yesterday I received two great RAK's from fellow SCS Bloggers...This first one is from Nancy Elrick of Calgary - I love the pink and black color scheme and have always loved the circle stamps...Nancy - thank you so much for this card!

The second card is from Amanda Sewell from Arizona. Amanda - how did you know that I LOVE the Bella's...and SHOES!! Your color combinations are just great on this cards. Thank you so very much!!

Please check out Amanda's blog www.inkspirations.blogspot.com and Nancy's blog www.nancyscreativemess.blogspot.com for some more of their wonderful creations!

Wedding Invitation

With wedding season upon us, many crafters are looking for ideas for wedding invitations. I thought I would post what I created for a relative's wedding last year. I started with a half sheet of blue metallic card stock for the base (Michael's). Then I took white lightweight cardstock and cut it 1/4" smaller than the blue on each side and stamped a Cala Lily(which was the bride's choice) in ballet blue in the center. I used a computer with a nice script font to generate the invitation and printed it on vellum, which I cut to match the size of the white cardstock. The vellum and white were attached together with a silver ribbon (JoAnn's) and then I used my xyron to attach these to the blue metallic.

Suggestions for those of you who are doing invites....decide on your envelope first!! In this case, the bride wanted the invitation in its own envelope, then have that inserted in the mailing envelope. I could not find internal/external envelope sets locally so I went online and placed the order. After you get the envelopes you can determine what size the actual invitation should be.

WOW - Wonderful News!!

We are soooo excited. The proofs for our first stamp set arrived today at the Flourishes Studio!! We were so thrilled that everything came to a standstill while we inked them up and tried them out. They look great so we placed our order with our manufacturer.

We're planning on issuing two sets for our initial offering and are working on the second set. Can't wait for the official unveiling and we're busy putting together some card samples with the new stamps, basic grey paper and May Arts ribbons.

Keep checking back at www.flourishes.org.

AND THE WINNER IS........KRISTINA LEWIS!!

Congrats to Kristina for her comments about our Flourishes online store.

Kristina, please e-mail me at nkirk@aol.com with your address and I will send the blog candy out tomorrow!!

Thanks to everyone for participating. We at Flourishes have been working with a wonderful web designer and soon we will be unveiling the new look for the on line store. We are also close to issuing our new stamp line - so check back with us from time to time.

Once the new web design is up, I'll be offering more blog candy - so keep in touch!!

Flourishes.....and Blog Candy!!

WOW!! It's finally here...my wonderful stamping friends, Jan Caruso and Sharon Dolittle and I have been working to create our own paper arts company. I'm thrilled to announce that Flourishes is now open for business. We started small, selling our cards at local stores, but soon realized we wanted to do more. Our online store... www.flourishes.org.. is offering some wonderful products.

First - our featured product is a set of Fabriano cards and envelopes. These are so hard to come by and we have a limited supply to offer you. We also offer Basic Grey papers in the 6 x 6 pads and a selection of May Arts Ribbon.

We soon will be offering ink pads, punches and our own stamp line and if you live in the Northwest Florida area, we hope to be opening the studio for classes in the near future.

Now for Blog Candy!! To qualify, please comment on what you think of our new online store and what products you would like to see. I'll make a random selection from the comments on Sunday morning, June 3. The winner will receive this wonderful Summer Leaves set.

Back Home!!

I'm back from a whirlwind trip to the west coast. We hopped in the vette and headed first to Las Vegas, then to Ventura, CA.

The trip was smooth with very little weather problems and little road construction, so we made good time. It's been a few years since we visited Vegas - the city seems to reinvent itself every few years. They'll have to do something about the traffic along the strip though. We took the monorail as well as the double decker buses and still took about an hour to go halfway down the strip.

While in Vegas I stopped at the Viva Las Vegas Stamp Store. I've ordered from them before, via the internet and was curious to see the store. It's a jam packed store with floor to ceiling rubber, but with little accessories. I think they press their own rubber and you can get anything unmounted. I picked up a few mardi gras stamps then headed back to the casino!!

Our stop in Ventura, CA was great. We lived in the area for 17 years and we wanted to go back to see some old friends. Of course I had to visit my old stamp store, Violet's Rubber Stamp Inn. It was jam packed with stamps and lots of other goodies - just as I remembered, but I was saddened to hear that they will be closing the store in August. They are just not getting the return on investment that they used to. I took many wonderful classes at this store, and spent my share of $$ when I lived there, so hearing of the upcoming closure was very heartbreaking for me.

I purchased a few stamps along with several bottles of "Radiant Rain" - which are twinkling H2O's in spray or dauber bottles. I also picked up a set of Terra Bella finishes, the opulence kit, which is a set of 8 pots of a thick pearlized gel medium. I had not seen these before and can't wait to use them. I hope to have a project or two finished and will post them here.

masking

One of the first things you learn as a stamper is the masking technique. So often we stampers want to learn the latest and greatest techniques or use the newest tools that we either simply don't bother with the things we learned when we first started, or that we use masking so often it seems second nature to us. At last months stamp meeting we revisited masking, both masking the image itself as well as doing a mortise mask.

Today's card is my take on simple masking. I started with a quarter sheet of vanilla card stock and used repositionable scotch tape around the perimeter, leaving a nice rectangle in the middle. I sponged regal rose, celery and apricot inks inside of the masked out portion. Using Swirls (Autumn leaves), I bleached using the large swirl stamp, then used ruby red on the smaller swirl stamps. The sentiment (SU) is stamped with ancient page leaf green.

Once I was happy with the colors, and leaving the tape on, I inked the entire rectangle with versamark and embossed in clear (you will want to remove the tape after applying the embossing powder, but before heating it).

I cut the image down so that only a small vanilla border remained, and mounted it on regal rose with a ribbon behind it.

The basic card is apricot with swirls stamped in rose. I covered the card with a sheet of vellum and attached the image to the front.

Jan Caruso's new blog

Just wanted to let you all know that my dear stamping friend, Jan Caruso, has started her own blog. Jan is a wonderfully, creative person and very talented stamper and I am so happy she decided to share some of her creations with the rest of us.

Please check in on her blog from time to time (a link to it is on the left) and let her know what you think.

Welcome Jan, to the blog word!!

a little toile goes a long way

I was in Michael's over the weekend with some friends, primarily to look at the new Martha Stewart products, but also to scavenge through the $1 bins. I like Martha's products - her color palette has always been very pleasing to me, so we purchased some of the paper (and split it up so that we each got at least one of each color).

I was intrigued, so the next day I ventured out to another Michael's, a little further away. I scored big on the clear $1 stamps, and while I was walking around the discount bins, something caught my eye.

In an otherwise empty $1 bin, sat two round buttons. I reached in to get a better look and ....oh no........toile.

Why "oh no" you ask? Well, I don't care for toile...so why were these button calling to me? I found them very pretty. BUT I don't like toile. I stood there thinking....then it hit me.

I don't like toile because whenever I see a room done in toile.....well the ROOM is DONE in toile!!. Toile overload!! The wallpaper, bedspread, curtains, pillows, upholstrey. I get toile vertigo when I see something like that.

A little toile goes a long way.

I realized with this one little button, I would create a simple card with the button as the focal point. My little creation is below. And guess what....I love the little toile scene.

(Martha Stewart paper (swan color), cuttlebug EF (textile), stamp by Fiskars, misc ribbon and a $1 toile button)

Take Ten Design Challenge

The Sring issue of Take Ten magazine Issued a challenge to all readers to submit cards using their design sketch on page 25 of that issue. I've participated in their challenges before and have had cards published, so I thought I would try again. Their deadline is May 1 - here are my submissions.

Martini: stamps from Autumn Leaves (Swirls) and Vap! Scrap (martini), background paper from Provo Craft

Lighthouse: stamps from SU (crosshatch) , PSX (lighthouse) and ERA Graphics (Dream); colorwash sprays from Stamp Zia

Car: unknown stamp, cuttlebug embossing folder

Cut away

This month we tried another technique - cutting away at part of an image to allow the background paper to show through. Alice showed us this technique using a butterfly image and this is my take.....I started with a piece of glossy card stock that I had previously colored using reinkers and water. I embossed the dragonfly images (company unknown for the larger ones, SU for the small) and stamped the cattails (Stampscapes). Using an exacto knife, I cut away at the larger dragonfly wings, to allow the blue card stock to show through. The purple background is stamped with canvas (SU), along with swirls and flowers (Autumn Leaves). The "imagine" embellishment is from Making Memories and is mounted on an oval die cut from sizzix.

Photo Tinting

We had a great meeting of our stamp group this month!! Four different techniques!! Here is my take on one of them, photo tinting. Sherry showed us this technique, where she took a black and white photo and used pastel chalks and a stencil brush to rub color on certain parts of the picture. Now, I know that there are special pens and inks to do this technique, but not having those supplies I used what I have. I took this photo from my photo editing software (Printshop), changed it to black and white and printed it on glossy photo paper. Then I used Ancient Page inks and a makeup sponge to apply green to the leaf and pink to the flower. On my first attempt I used too much pink, so I tried again and this time the pink is more subtle.

For the sentiment (from Impress) I stamped using Staz On opaque cotton white. I have had limitied sucess with this color. It never seems white enough for me...so I used my white signa pen and wrote over the stamped image.

more tri fold....

Another tri fold - cami style. Some time ago I purchased a set of bicycle stamps from Sunday International and have been trying to figure out some way to incorporate them into my cards. While doing these tri fold cards, I began to search through my stash of smaller stamps, ones that would fit in the small window of the tri fold and came across the bicycle stamps. This stamp is just so cute that I will have to find other ways to use it. The paper and ribbon are from SU and the flower is a prima.

Prima's!!

I finally found Prima's at our local Target store!! This is my first creation using these pretty flowers. I started with a red card base and matched the orange prima with a sheet of Basic Grey paper from the Romanii collection. I wanted to have the sentiment (Stampin Up) peek through an oval shape, but just punching one oval did not seem right, so I did a double punch to allow a piece of orange card stock to show through. I layered a smaller white prima over the larger orange flower and found a matching brad to hold them together.

It's been awhile

Yes, I've not posted in awhile - been busy creating some cards to be submitted for publication. I'll post the creations once the deadline for submission has passed. In the meantime, more watercolor!! I love these easy to use colorwash sprays from Stamp Zia - the colors are so vibrant. All the stamps used are also from Stamp Zia.

Tri fold card

Here is my take on the TriFold card technique from last weeks SCS challenge. I started with textured cardstock from WalMart (A stack of 48 sheets of 12 x 12 paper - a great buy at just under $10 - must get more of these) and used my Marvy punches to make the window and frame. The little lighthouse stamp is from PSX. I had stamped this image several times on some background paper made using Posh reinkers on glossy spritzed with water. The images sat in a box for over a year when I realized they were just the right size for this card. The flowers are from a sizzix die cut, the ribbon from Hobby Lobby.

hello again

Yes, it's been a while since my last post, but we had family visiting from Chicago and were busy "offline"!

Now for the latest creation...I'm doing more experimenting with watercoloring - just love the look. This card started with Buckaroo Blue cardstock on which I stamped the Swirls set from Rhonna Farrer - this is just a wonderful set I picked up at Target for less than $10. I used a white gel pen to accent portions of the swirls. For the main images, I used Strathmore 80lb watercolor paper. The images were stamped with black Staz on then colored with Coral and Banana reinkers mixed with Winsor & Newton blending medium for watercolor. I used about three layers of colors, building up the intensity as I went on. A light wash of banana was also applied in the background. I would use a heavier weight paper next time as the 80 lb is a little thinner than what I am used to, and less blending medium as it diluted the colors more than I had expected. I mounted the images on Coral, then Banana and added a ribbon from Hobby Lobby.

(stamps by Stampin up, Rhonna Farrer)

bleaching

At last months stamp club meeting, one of our members revisited a bleaching technique. You emboss the image in clear EB on dark card stock, then bleach out the open areas. The embossed area retains the darkness of the card stock. After a few attempts, you will realize that some cardstock will bleach lighter than others. My SU cardstock lightened up very little. This card stock from Paperbilities was the same - I had to use 3 coats of bleach before I acheived this result.

(All stamps SU, green galore, brilliant blue and versamark inks)

birthday wishes

I made this card for my stamping friend Cindy, whose birthday is later this week. (Cindy I hope you don't see this before we get together on Thursday - but if so - Happy Birthday!). (blogger upload issue has been resolved!!)

The stamps are SU's Happy Harmony, the background paper is Basic Grey the blue background is DCWV from the Spring Matstack. You can't tell from the picture, but the blue has a canvas look to it.

blog woes

I've not been able to upload any photos...blogger says the problem has been resolved, but I still can't upload!!

ATC's

Here are a couple of ATC's that I did some time ago. I like doing these, because you can usually use your scraps to make them. I've traded these in the past, but was at a loss of what to do with the ones I received. I've included several in my scrapbook pages and some I've used in my journals to brighten up the pages a bit. What do you do with yours?

(Palm ATC: stamps by Art Impressions, SU, Limited Edition and Wordsworth, decorative scissors, marvy markers, watercolor and teal paper; Martini ATC: stamps I think are from Rubbernecker, marvy markers, white and red paper)