Christmas Door

Do you love this gorgeous Christmas door? This is Snowy Woods from Artistic Outpost. It's a huge and beautiful old fashioned Christmas set, the possibilities are unlimited! So, how would you like to get some FREE AO stamps? Why don't you submit to be an AO Guest Designer? How fun would that be? You'd get your mitts on these fabulous images before everyone else!!

I took this picture at night, after a day of work, stamping and pumpkin carving, so it's not very good. I stamped the image on SU! Confetti Cream, and embossed with Classy Copper. Then I decided I wanted to add some color, so I went with the marker/watercolor method, forgetting that it doesn't work as well if you don't use wc paper. It worked out just fine, though, because I gave it a PEx wash in Interference Gold. It's really pretty IRL. The DP is BG Blitzen, and there's lots of Copper Stickles, some skittles, magic mesh and a page pebble.

Autumn Picking

I found these ancient SU! rosette boxes and thought the Naturals cardstock would lend itself well to a Fall themed box. I used A Chemistry With Paper's Autumn Picking and All Year Bag Toppers on it. I embossed everything with Classy Copper, and sprayed everything with my favorite Antique Brass Glimmer Mist. I used an SU! punch, a Cosmo Cricket swirl, and making memories & Prima flowers. The mm flower/button kits are my all time favorite flower sets, and I've had a lot of flowers! I am actually loving ALL of mm's flowers these days! The gourd is a foam gourd I cut in half with my TH scissors. Please keep an eye out for new sets from ACWP in mid-November! Exciting!!

HISSY FIT!!

This card took me days to get right, but I am pleased with the final result. It started as a challenge on SCS. We were to use leaves and pink in the same card. Well, this was indeed a challenge for me. I finally settled on this dress, a bit of a copout, I decided. So I didn't finish the card. Later I glanced at the painted dress and was hit with the thought that it would fit a Bombshell. So after MUCH cutting and fiddling, Lady Luck was dressed! I originally planned to hang the purses from her hands, but VERY late in the construction, after I decided to add some Hanna Stamps images, it occurred to me that it looked like she was throwing a fit! I thought a good hissy fit was perfect with her expression, raised arms and the sentiment.

I'm not an especially good engineer, so this card may have been easier for some of you than it was for me. I did have to do some creative cutting and drawing in on both Lady Luck and the Hampton Art Stamps dress. I just took my time and had fun. Don't forget to stop by Bombshell Stamps to see if there's a Bombshell you'd like to dress up!

Mini Purse Box

I love working with this Mini Purse Box from Creative Cuts and More. In a matter of minutes, you have a really nice little gift presentation box! Can you imagine how pleased a six year old girl would be to get this box with a new necklace or bracelet nestled inside? Or how about some Tinkerbelle stuff? I used to love that stuff! They still have it, you know!

This box is cut out of Bazzill, and I embossed all the butterflies with SU! Light Pink. I went over their wings and bodies with Cotton Candy Stickles, added some embroidery floss, a flower eyelet with a brad in the center and some gems. The bigger butterfly is colored with Interference Blue Red PEx, and I glued it down with Crystal Effects. The butterflies are from Creative Play Stamps' Swirl Garden.

Stampendous Angel

I loved this sophisticated angel as soon as I saw it! It's made by Stampendous, and I got it at Creative Play Stamps. They have LOTS of Stampendous stamps, including House Mouse, Gruffies, the bunny ones, Peanuts, and various others, like this one. This was fun to paint, and easy to cut out. CPS has the new Distress Stickles, the new Glitz Stickles, and a big selection of the originals, all on SALE!

Sorry about the weird picture, sometimes I act like I've never taken a picture of a card before! I did not take ONE picture of this card standing up. What's up with that?

Ave Maria

I should take a better picture for you, as I took this one last night after completing this Ways To Use It Challenge over at SCS. If I did, it would be another few days before you saw it, because I don't enjoy taking pictures of cards at all! The challenge was to use only one word on your card. I went for this set, and this word of great import: PEACE. This is from Artistic Outpost's stunning Ave Maria plate. I embossed all the stamped images in my favorite gold, SU!'s Gold Glory. I surrounded Mary with beautiful TINY glass micro beads. These are about half the size of the beads I used on the spiders a few posts ago-they are SO pretty! They also stick better, I didn't have to add any glitter to fill in the holes. I stuck them down with Judikins Diamond Glaze. They stuck instantly and seem to be down for good. The paper is Basic Gray Blitzen, and the ribbon is BG hang Ten. The other sparkly border is Gold Stickles. I never think to use Gold unless I'm making a Christmas card.

Well, I didn't find the electric blanket last night, and I'm still cold! It's parent night tonight at the football game, and as Ross is a senior, I guess I'll be out freezing and probably crying liker a big idiot tonight. Dang! I have no waterproof mascara, either!

Happy Birthday!

Check out this wonderful clipboard that Artistic Outpost Design Team Member Gerrie Johnnic created using the Snowy Woods plate. It's one of the entries in the Project Contest at JustRite - click here to vote for Gerrie's project!
I knew I wanted to use my Adventure plate from Artistic Outpost, but I wasn't sure about the paper yet. While looking through my paper I came across this old SU! Simply Scrappin' Kit called Polka Dot Party. I am generally uncomfortable with brights: don't wear 'em, don't decorate with 'em and don't stamp with 'em. However, I thought this pensive looking little dog could use some cheering up, so that's how I combined this unlikely pair! This is a big stamp, so I made a 5x7 so I'd have room to glue a bunch of stuff on. Why bother if you don't plan to glue a bunch of stuff on? (Except Amy and Lauren, their CAS work rocks!)

Well, it was spitting snow when I left school this afternoon. It's cold and windy here, but not cold enough to really snow, just cold enough to be excruciating outside! I swear, I used to be hot ALL the time, now it seems I'm cold all the time. Right now I'm wearing a tank top, cardigan, and TWO polar fleece vests, plus jeans, shoes & socks. What is my deal? Last night I had six blankets on, then had to get up and put on my Smart Wool socks and a t-shirt over my pajamas! I am going to find that electric blanket tonight before bed if it's the last thing I do!!

Blog Candy over at Chrissy's!

HERE

Simple Joys

I made this for the color challenge on SCS yesterday. I don't have the new colors, so I used the old equivalent: Chocolate Chip, Old Olive and Pretty in Pink. This is my sister's stamp set. She and her two daughters were here for a few days this weekend and she helped me organize my stamp room!! Right before she left Denver, I asked her to throw some Christmas stamps in the car for me to borrow. She won't miss them because she doesn't actually stamp, she just buys stamps. She's a scrapbooker. Now I don't actually scrapbook, I just buy scrapbooking supplies! This is a Hero Arts set, and I REALLY like it, and I think this Santa pulls off these colors beautifully!!

Blog Candy Alert!

HERE

Happy Spider Family

Another Coffin Box from Creative Cuts and More! I had this cut in my favorite Onyx Stardream. I used SU!'s cheesecloth background stamp to stamp in Versamark and emboss in Ranger Snowflake. I can't even begin to tell you how sparkly this is! The spiders are from CC&M as well, they are cut out of tacky tape. I put them on the box then covered them with black micro beads. My micro beads secret is that after I apply my micro beads, I add matching glitter. I love the coverage I get with this method, plus it adds sparkle, and that's good, right? Here I used Doodlebug Beetle Black Sugar Coating Glitter. For the eyes, I used red glass rhinestones from CC&M's new wheel. I LOVE this wheel! It was worth every penny! There are so many colors, plus storage and a little mounting wand. It's a new must have for me!!

Autumn Birdhouse

I bid on a lot of stamps on eBay mostly because I liked this one. I didn't realize how big it was from the picture on eBay. This is a 5x7 card, which gives you an idea of the size of this Stampendous stamp. I used my markers and added bits of sparkle with my Niji wc paints, which are a screamin' deal, and I mean screamin'! They were less than $9, and I love, love, love them! I got mine from California Paper Goods. I had never heard of them before, but they came up in a search. I thought their prices were good, and shipping was quick. I ordered the paints, some envelope glue, and gum arabic. My total was around $13.

Coming up: another coffin box from Creative Cuts and More, and a gift box with stamped accents from A Chemistry With Paper! I just need some sunlight, we've had a foggy, dreary day today, so I had to post a card I photoed earlier.

Pyramid Box

I had this Pyramid Box cut at Creative Cuts and More out of Onyx Stardream. It was so easy to stamp, then fold and add cord. Once you got the prototype made, I think you could churn these out at about one every five or six minutes. The spider is cut out of acetate, and I love the way it catches the light. For the eyes, I used gems I already had, but I did want to point out this awesome gem wheel, which I ordered and got in the mail today!! I think it has about a bazillion little rhinestones and some halfback pearls, and let me tell you, I am VERY happy to have this!! There are so many different colors! It seems I am always looking for a color I don't have, and I don't think clear looks good on autumn cards, so clear isn't perfect for everything. Now I have every color I could need!!

The gorgeous swirly stamp is from Creative Play Stamps' Swirl Garden. This is a staple set for me. I have LOTS of swirls and flourishes, and this is the one I always look for first. I just love the way it fills space. I embossed it with VersaMark and Ranger Silver Tinsel.

Big Copper Hello

Sometimes my photography is astonishingly bad. This is one such case. The colors on this card are rich and deep, not pale and washed out! I used a new to me product called Memories Mist, this is Green Tea. Memories Mist is a richly pigmented dye ink spray. It is similar to the more familiar Glimmer Mist, except it does not shimmer, and the colors are opaque, not transparent. I embossed these stamps in Copper on Confetti Cream & watercolor cardstock, then sprayed with MM. You can see the quite dramatic change by looking at the card base, it's Confetti. The MM come with a matching chalk ink pad, so you get another way to apply color. I love chalk inks and this pad seems as good to me as any I've used.

These stamps, and the MM are from Creative Play Stamps. The set is called Big Hello.

Here comes trouble...

I meant to post this a week or two ago, but that's when we were having such computer troubles. One of the times, anyway! So, a bunch of my pictures wound up on DH's computer, and I have to say that out of sight is out of mind for me. I was pretty pleased with this card when I made it, then forgot all about it. This is the Butterfly Queen, and I thought she looked fetching and a little dangerous in Halloween colors. I was reminded of it when Bombshell Stamps came out with LOTS OF NEW STAMPS!!! I hope you take a moment to go check them out. They are really wonderful additions to the line, including a neato ship, a handmade by, and an accessories set for your Bombshells!! There's a set called Ahoy, Sailor, and it has a headshot of a pretty girl, some knots, and anchor, a life vest and some other things. It's a sweet set, and a bit more conservative than some of the racier Bombshells. Actually I could go on about all of them, but it's just be easier if you went and saw how cool they are for yourself!!

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Finally, please take note of the glittered arrow. Sweet Carolina sent me a whole set of Basic Gray chipboard, and some other stuff, and this arrow is from the chipboard. One side is adhesive, and I just poered my Doodlebug Beetle Black glitter on that side, and used a few glue dots to glue it down.

Autumn Picking

Hi everyone! I hope you are having a happy Friday! We have been having some beautiful warm Fall weather, and it puts me in the mood for autumn cards!

I really enjoy working with this set from A Chemistry With Paper. It's called Autumn Picking. I love the font, and I think it's especially versatile because it's big enough to use on a scrapbook page, but not too big for a card. The font also embosses beautifully with Classy Copper, and stamps that take well to embossing are always a hit with me! The bushel basket was fun and easy to color and there are three apple stamps to work with, two loose ones and a pile designed to go in the basket.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend. We are all going to pile in front of the tv and watch a movie. We have The Bucket List, Pursuit of Happiness, Disturbia, Over the Hedge and a House DVD. We also have some bluegrass concert, but I can't sit in front of the tv and watch music. I can't even watch a whole Dave Matthews concert on tv, there's no way I'm sitting through bluegrass. Now live is another story!!

Bountiful Cornucopia

This is another heavily layered card, so I made another envelobox. For those of you who don't know what an envelobox is, I'll tell you! It's a 3D envelope. They are super easy to make with The Enveloper. I got mine with the score board, too. I consider it sort of the scoring tool for dunces. It's by Crafter's Companion. I can make all different sizes of envelopes with it.

I have a Blog Candy alert for you! High Hopes is having a new release and are giving away lots of candy. You can enter today by visiting Bunny-Zoe's blog!

Harvest Bucket

This card is so layered and heavy that I had to make an envelobox for it! I stamped the main image three times, then popped it up twice in different spots. This is labor intensive for a couple of reasons. Obviously the cutting takes time. Additionally, I color all the layers because I don't like the white image peeking out from underneath. It's just a thing with me, I think it looks nicer if everything you can see is colored. Since I am a beginner at watercoloring, The bottom image is my practice run! Then I decide what I'm going to pop up, and only color what I know I will use. My 17yods really likes this card, so that's good enough for me. He said, "That caviar stuff in the corners is really cool!" Some of us call those micro beads, but, "caviar stuff" works for me!!

Alesa Baker Dress Form

I LOVE Alesa Baker stamps! They are so elegant, some of them are so whimsical, but ALL of them are SO pretty and feminine! You can get them from Impression Obsession. This is a LOOONG stamp, so it's rather hard to work with. It is still beautiful, so I drag it out now and then. Here, I stamped in VersaMark, embossed in detail black, then colored with Radiant Pearls. RP's take forever to dry, so when I use them, I generally pour Holographic ep over the top and emboss again. Needless to say, this card has a shameful amount of shimmer!! The papers are HOTP, the flowers are Prima, the sponging Certainly Celery. The sentiment is a gorgeous set SU! sent demos a couple of years ago. I can't remember why they sent it, but I was happy to get it!

Christmas Cheer

This fun set is from A Chemistry With Paper. It has all kinds of fun images. For this card, I made the row of trees my primary image, then added the large tree and the snowman as accents. Next time I will have to do something different with the snowman, he's kind of hard to see, although much easier IRL than in these pictures. This is a good basic Christmas set, it has lots of fun sentiments and other images you will see popping up here in the next couple of months. (These terrible photos are distracting me; it's obvious I did NOT have my ISO set right!)


The row of trees is stamped on a Basic Gray chipboard tag and embossed with a Christmas mix I make myself. Then I sprayed the tag with Candy Apple Glimmer Mist. I also used Ranger Snowflake and Holographic embossing powders, which makes for a very sparkly card. It is my personal opinion that Christmas cards should sport SERIOUS SHINE!!!! Holographic is a basic ep for me. I would be lost without it, I use it on probably 45% of my cards. Snowflake is much more specialized. It has a white, not clear base, and the glitter in it is about twice the size as the Holographic. The glitter in the Snowflake actually LOOKS like little holograms, whereas the glitter in Holographic actually looks exactly like SU!'s Dazzling Diamonds or Art Institue's Angel Dust. And now today's tretise on embossing powders is officially over....

CPS 85 & Artistic Outpost

Artistic Outpost os sponsoring CPS 85. If you aren't familiar with CPS, it stands for Card Positioning Systems. In other words, it's a weekly sketch challenge. Now I should probably double check before I babble on, but I THINK Tami Mayberry is the main sketch designer. Then they also have a very talented design team who work with the sketch every week to show you just how gorgeous it can be! This sketch was hard far me, as I don't like symetrical sketches with small pieces. It's not that I don't like the look of them so much as that it's just super hard for me to get everything measured! Measuring takes the fun out of it for me because I'm so bad at it!

This card uses the new Bluebird plate, which you can buy bundled with Snowy Woods for a huge savings! They are both spectacular stamp sets, and you will be seeing them pop up here regularly!

I've been tagged!

Thanks so much to Jo and Amy! Both of these gals have really wonderful blogs, Amy is the finest CAS stamper around, her work just makes me sigh! Jo is a spectacular scrapbooker, and in addition to her talent, you get to see her three beautiful children every time you visit.

Here are the gals I'm sending (girls, you can snag one or both of these awards because I love all your sweet blogs!

Amy
Corie
Gwen
Jane
Carolina
Lauren
Jenn

More Halloween Fun!

I think I've made more Halloween cards this year than I ever have before! Now don't you think that Halloween cards are something we stampers use as an excuse to stamp and buy stamps? This is a blown up version of a Frankenstein card I posted a couple of weeks ago. That one was note card sized, this one is 5x7. I have a huge box of 5x7 envelopes and I have really been enjoying working with that size.

I used my ever present Black Diamond Stickles. Are Stickles a bargain, or what? I use mine constantly, and I have yet to use up a bottle! That might be because I have so many, but still, my favorite colors get quite a workout!!

Big Bear

This gorgeous bear stamp is from Creative Play Stamps. You can get it individually, or with a wolf. I haven't used the wolf yet, but it will show up around here sometime soon. CPS sends their stamps with FREE cling foam. I so rarely do manly/outdoorsy cards that I felt a little out of my league. The stamp is striking enough not to need a whole lot of help, though. I added a few of those plastic bubble things, what are they called again? I lost one during the construction of this card and I have never found it. I have no idea where it went. My theory is that it slipped into the stamping time space continuum. ALL of my cuttlebug folders are there, too., except the one new one I just got from CPS.

The ribbon slide is from Creative Cuts and More. You can have it cut out of two weights of chipboard, and you can also get it cut out of cardstock. I asked for both to be done, then I just ran the Bronze Stardream pieces through my xyron and stuck it to the chipboard. It worked pretty well, and looks awesome!

Tiny little card!

I wanted to work with Artistic Outpost's brand new Bluebird plate, and I thought it would be fun to make a tiny card. This little card is slightly smaller than an ATC. I made it smaller so it would still fit in the envelope once folded and embellished. I love this plate, and I love Almost Amethyst, so I put the two together. AA is hard for me to capture digitally, so when I used my photo correcting software it turned very blue. There are Primas, a stick on gem, embroidery floss and some retired SU! lilac ep. I also used an SU! punch to highlight a section of the stamp. For that section I did not want to emboss because you lose some of the incredible detail that is so integral a part of Artistic Outpost stamps. Here's the latest AO news:

It's OUR Anniversary and YOU get the presents!

We are so excited to be celebrating our ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY!

It's truly overwhelming to think how fast this year has gone. Twelve months ago, we only had eight stamp collections and a big dream. Today, we have over 20 collections and we have made friends with so many wonderful people just like you who enjoy creating with our images. THANK YOU for a great first year!

To celebrate we have many Anniversary Specials in our store, and also some Blog Candy to giveaway!

Our Anniversary Specials:

• You will find our original "8" collections are all on sale for a limited time for $9.99. They include: Thai Buddha, Chinese Proverbs, Singing Cowboy, Distant Generations, Polaroid Cutie, Hair is Important, Christmas Stories, and Ave Maria.
  
  
• We also have bundled together our last release Vintage Halloween and Route 66, for a limited time, you can get both plates together for $19.99.
  

New Release Specials:


We are also pleased to introduce two new stamp collections: Snowy Woods & BlueBird.


Snowy Woods is a larger collection of unmounted stamps measuring 8.5" x 11". This plate is full of vintage images of Santa and peaceful winter scenes. For a limited time, this plate is on sale for $19.99.

Click here to see wonderful artwork using Snowy Woods images.

BlueBird is designed to reflect both winter and spring. We hope that it provides creative inspiration for you throughout the winter months. For a limited time, the Bluebird plate is on sale for $9.99.

Click here to see wonderful artwork using BlueBird images.

As an added bonus, you can purchase both new plates for $28 in our Bundled Special. That's a $36retail value!!!