21st Century Pillow Book

Greetings! Do you have a fear of spiders? I know several people that do. I happen to not be the biggest fan of how spiders look , but I really appreciate what they do for the environment. I was inspired by the very cool web in the Spider Fear stamp set from Stampendous . I started off by creating my background with glossy photo paper and Ranger Alcohol Inks . There are many options for types of paper that can be used with alcohol inks, but I like how inexpensive photo paper is, and I can get great results. For this background, I used Stonewashed, Eggplant, and Stream. I also used Ranger's Blending Solution to help move the color around. After I was satisfied with my background, and it was totally dry, I inked up the spider web with StazOn ink in Jet Black . I like to let the stamp sit on the background for a little longer than a regular ink just to be sure that the StazOn transfers well. Next I applied my spider and sentiment using the same ink. I mounted the backgroun...

Hello! Today is my first official post for the White Rose Crafts LLC Design Team! I am so thrilled to be a part of this wonderful group of ladies, representing a fantastic online shop. This is Release Week over at WRC, and the newest subscription box, called "The Glory of Autumn" will be shipping shortly. In celebration of this new kit, the we are having a blog hop. I do not have the new subscription box, but I do have a lot of the "add-ons" that are available for purchase. To check all of these awesome items out, you can head over to the " October Subscription Kit Add Ons " section. You can get a 10% discount on these items when you use the code HAPPY FALL. Here's my card. I started off knowing that I wanted to use one of the beautiful Small Red Mulberry  Skeleton Leaves from the add-ons section. From there, I decided that the leaf should be framed in some way, so I applied VersaMark ink with a stencil brush to the border of the Thinking of You ...

Hello! This week, the Stampendous team is sharing projects featuring some of the new Parisian themed stamps and dies. Before I get to my card, I wanted to let you know that I am participating in the very first Doodles Paper Playground Blog Hop , and i would love it if you could check out my other post HERE . I promise, it's worth it! On to Stampendous... For my project, I decided to work with the Fleur de Lis die that is in the Paris Bonjour die set. There is no accompanying stamp for it, so I decided to use alcohol inks to create interesting patterns for my die cuts. Also, I really wanted to use the new "hello" stamp, and have it look as though it had been die cut. I simply traced the full stamp on to my piece of vellum and fussy cut it out. Now it looks like it has been die cut! My full instructions are below. Supplies: Stampendous : DCS5105: Paris Bonjour Die Cut Set SSC1283: Big Words Thanks DCP1006: Fitted Frames Set B Other : My Colors Cardstock: Sky B...

Hello there! I am very happy to announce that I will be staying on as a Doodles Paper Playground Designing Diva. I had so much fun last month as a guest, so I was thrilled when the team was asked to become a bit more of a permanent fixture. There is no new release this month, so the other Divas and I will be sharing projects using the pre-released selection of Sparkle Blends. Which, is not a bad thing, because there are so many beautiful colors and objects in each of the blends, you're sure to see something new each time you check out a project! Today, I am featuring the Unicorn Sparkle Blend, which may very well be my favorite of them all. There are so many amazing colors, including lots of opalescent sequins and gems, plus a ton of totally adorable and impossibly small Fimo pieces. Today I saw a bow, smiley faces, pizza, and an adorable purple cat when I poured the blend out to work with it. Next time I am sure I'll find something else! Check it out! Not a single stamp w...

Hello! Today, I wanted to share the Valentine's Day cards that I made for my kids. Like many crafters, I've been playing with alcohol inks again lately, and I had a bunch of backgrounds that were ready to get used. I pulled one that had Cranberry, Eggplant, and Raisin and got to work. I used an older Sizzix Thinlits die of a heart, and cut out 8. I ran my paper through my Big Shot machine twice with each heart because I used photo paper to create my backgrounds and it doesn't always cut cleanly the first time. Then I used gold foil cardstock from Recollections and die cut 2 different arrows, also from Sizzix. I knew I wanted a sentiment strip across the middle of the card, so I pulled out the Hero Arts You Are Loved Messages . There are so many beautiful sentiments in that set. I stamped the You Are Loved with VersaMark and then embossed with Detail Gold Embossing Powder from Stampendous. My background needed a little more of something....so I went with an older And...

Greetings! This week. the Stampendous Team is sharing projects using the new 6"x 6" cling rubber stamps. These stamps are BIG. But don't be overwhelmed! You can easily use small portions of these babies and come up with some amazing things. For my card today, that's exactly what I did. I chose a small portion of the Sunny Sketch stamp and made a fun card. The full instructions are below. Supplies: Stampendous : 6CR004 : Cling Sunny Sketch 51839 : Quest Texture Cube FRL03 : Copper Lux Mix MPW811: Mixed Media White Paper Other : My Colors Cardstock: Parrot, Evergreen Imagine: VersaFine Ink in Onyx Black, On Point Glue, Delicata Ink in Celestial Copper Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers: 022, 030, 034, 036, 041, 044, 047, 050, 051, 052, 062, 070, 080, 081, 082, 303 Ranger: Distress Ink in Milled Lavender, Peacock Feathers, Tumbled Glass Scrapbook Adhesives: EZ Dots Cosmetic Sponges Directions: 1. Stamp the Sunny Sketch Stamp on to Mixed Medi...

Hello! It's Day 27 of the 31 Days of Halloween. Today I am sharing a card with another alcohol ink background. I shared a couple of those last week, but you'll see that this background looks different from the others, as you really ca't make 2 exactly the same. I used Ranger's alcohol inks in Stonewashed, Eggplant, Cornflower, and Pitch Black. The stamped image is from Stampendous, though this particular stamp is no longer offered on their web site. Sometimes you just need to break out some of the older stuff, right? This is a much bigger image that the little coffins I heat embossed on my first alcohol ink background card. I want to remind you that there are pretty strong fumes emitted when you heat the dry alcohol ink, so please be very careful, or try another technique altogether. But as I heated this (I used VersaMark with Detail White Embossing Powder), the background actually started to crack. This was really more due to the Glossy Photo paper I used, rather...

Greetings! Can you believe there are only 10 days left to the 31 Days of Halloween? Today I've got another card with an alcohol ink background. Admittedly, I made a whole bunch of these at once, so I will have one more of these backgrounds to share at a later date. What I love about them is how very different they can look from each other, even if you are using the same colors. I thought this particular background looked very much like a sky, so I really wanted to use this older stamp from Stampendous . It's not available on the Stampendous web site any longer, but they do offer lots of other stamps that you can use to get a look similar to this one. As in my post yesterday, I used Ranger's Alcohol Inks to create this background. I used Stonewashed, Eggplant, Cornflower, and Pitch Black on Epson Glossy Photo Paper. I blended the colors with Ranger's Blending Solution. Forgive the glare of my light in the photo above, but I wanted you to see the magnificent shimm...

Hello! It's Day 20 of the 31 Days of Halloween. My card today was inspired by Jennifer McGuire. Do you watch her YouTube videos? She is just so clever and inspiring. So she posted a video the other day about using alcohol inks as backgrounds for cards. I've done this before, but not for some time so I was excited to do it again. I created this background on Glossy Photo Paper from Epson. I used alcohol inks from Ranger in the colors Black Soot, Eggplant, Cornflower and     . I dripped the colors on the paper and used Ranger's Blending Solution to move the color around. After that, I broke out a coffin from Bombshell Stamps and inked it up with VersaMark ink. I used Detail White Embossing Powder on the coffins. If you try this yourself, I highly recommend using small images that can melt quickly. You don't want to heat up those inks....they emit quite an odor that I am sure isn't very good to breathe in. I used one of Stampendous' new border dies on the...

I was on the TTIC forums the other day (big surprise!) and we were discussing ways to distress paper. I had mentioned the Burnt Paper Technique developed by Ranger for Tim Holtz’s Distress Inks (cannot live w/out these!!!). Some of the girls didn’t know what it was… so I described the technique… but it’s always better to see pictures. So… here it is! So, let’s start with the colors. You need Antique Linen, Walnut Stain (or Vintage Photo), Fired Brick, and Black Soot. You can add a little Tea Dye too, if you’d like. 1. Tear the edges of your project (I will eventually put this little piece on a card) 2. Start with Antique Linen, buffing the edge of your project with the pad, or if you're comfortable with a sponge, you can use that. You will go in the deepest with the Antique Linen. All other colors will be less represented, if that makes sense. The sponge will give you a softer look too. I wanted to make what I was doing pretty harsh and obvious, for the purpose of this tutorial. ...