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!!!