Hearts Bloom

Posted on January 15, 2010 by Cathy

Wow – this month is moving fast. Valentine’s Day is right around the corner!

I really like Valentine’s Day. We keep it pretty simple around here – but my girls get a little surprise during dinner. Last year I decorated Target mini mailboxes. I’m not sure what I’ll do this year. I guess I better get thinking!

But I did want to let everyone know about the new Hearts Bloom Paper Kit in the paper garden Projects Store. I think the papers are so fun and also versatile. It really is a fun kit to play with

I used the Hearts Bloom kit to make this card. I also used the Impression Obsession Heart’s Nest cling stamp. I just love this stamp – the image really makes me smile.

To make it easier to color all those thin branches, try embossing it instead of just stamping. For this card I stamped in Versafine Vintage Sepia and then embossed in clear. Then I just colored away with Copics - the embossed edges keep the marker point inside the lines. ( Note – the Copic markers can dissolve some metallic or colored embossing, but is fine with clear embossing.)

All the papers and ribbon are from the kit. Here is a picture of the kit contents:

Kit Contents:

6 sheets 12″x12″ Pink Paislee double sided patterned paper from the Cupid Collection. (2 sheets each of Bow and Arrow, Hearts Bloom, and Bullseye)
2 sheets of 8.5″ x 11″ Prism cardstock in Suede Brown Dark
2 sheets of 8.5″ x 11″ Prism cardstock in Frosted Teal
2 sheets of 8.5″ x 11″ Prism cardstock in Baby Pink Light
2 sheets of 8.5″ x 11″ Prism cardstock in Blush Red Dark
2 sheets of 8.5″ x 11″ Prism cardstock in Spring Willow Medium
5 yards of different coordinating ribbon including Sheer Pink organza, 2-tone aqua and green woven satin, red grosgrain, brown grosgrain, celadon green grosgrain.
A packet of coordinating buttons and pearly Champagne Dew Droplets

I hope everyone has a great weekend planned. I’m supervising 2 Girl Scout Cookie Booths – but the weather is supposed to be in the 40′s thank goodness. And the girls do have fun at the booths – especially when they are not freezing. I’m hoping to do something crafty too!

Chester is settled into his new home. He had a little puppy playdate with one of my friends’ dog and he is exhausted! He had to get a bath though – what a muddy dog!

Hello Hugs!

Posted on January 8, 2010 by Cathy

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Hello everyone! I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. 2010 – can you believe it?

I know I have not posted in a while – things have been so busy – with you too I’ll bet.

One thing I want to mention up front – I had a total hard drive failure on my main computer over the holidays and I’ve spent the last 4 days trying to restore everything from back up (yikes! what a mess!). If you contacted me by e-mail and I have not responded, please send your mail again. It might have gotten lost in the restore process.

On the plus side – we got to spend time visiting with extended family over the Holidays - which was great (although I have to admit that my pants are all a little tighter after all the partying!).

chester1 We also added a new little member to our family!

Meet Chesterton (Chester for short) – our new puppy. He is very cute and really quite a gentleman for a puppy.

(In case you are wondering, he’s named after G.K. Chesterton, the writer. We are really hoping he has common sense too!)

He is a mix of golden retriever and poodle. We have some allergies in our extended family so I wanted a poodle mix to help prevent any problems.

Right now he is a kitchen dog (till he learns proper bathroom etiquette).

If you are allergic to dogs, don’t worry. Chester is not allowed in the store (although I bet he’d love to chew on the paper crafts! You should see him go to town on newspaper).

Hmmm… maybe a little about the card…..

I used the Bella and Bronte clear stamp by Mo Manning (my oldest DD simply ADORES this dog – just like Bella. The other girls like him but J is head over heels).

The image is colored with Copics. Here are the colors I used.

One thing I wanted to mention – sometimes it can be hard to blend red copics – especially the darker reds. They are very heavily loaded with pigment and can travel outside the lines more easily when you blend. It can also be harder to “correct” mistakes with the colorless blender with the reds. The pigment is so saturated that it tends to travel everywhere instead of nicely going back where it is supposed to.

One thing to try is to color your red, and then use a lighter shade to remove color where you want highlights, instead of coloring lighter and then blending in the darker. I did this with Bella’s boots on the card.

You just need to be careful not to over saturate the red with alcohol and push it outside the lines. If you do the color removal while the base red is still damp, the highlighted area will have soft edges. If you want harder edges, wait for the red base to dry.

It just a technique to try and see if you like it or not. I use color removal for highlighting quite often (and not just with red). Maybe because I don’t plan ahead enough???

To make the ribbon slide tag, I just cut and embossed my ribbon slide die once in white and once in blue. Then I used a sharp craft knife to cut around the inside on the tag. Then just layer the white in the blue.

Here are all my card pieces. All of the supplies came from the Frosted Winter Paper kit. The kit has patterned paper, cardstock, ribbon and embellishments. The colors are really great.

Well, that’s my news for today. Stay tuned for some exciting new happenings in the Paper Garden Projects store. We are going to be 2 years old in just a couple months!

chester2 Say goodbye Chesterton….

New Greeting Farm stamps featuring Miss Anya

Posted on June 13, 2009 by Cathy

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Nothing quite like new rubber stamps!

As soon as I got the Rain, Snow, Shine Miss Anya set, I had to try it out. Greeting Farm stamps are so fun to color. They have enough detail to be interesting but still have space to color and blend.

My initial plan for this card was to paper piece the coat and the umbrella – but I got carried away coloring with Copics and this is what happened. I guess I’ll have to make another card to try the paper piecing.

The papers used here are from the Urban Prairie Paper Pad (one of my faves). I used the Labels 4 Spellbinder die to cut out the image. I inked the background with a duster brush and Broken China Distress ink.

And I got to use my new ZigZag boarder punch. The punch cuts the zigzag and then embosses stitching above the zigzag. It was so easy to trace the embossing with an Inkessential pen to create stitches.

The paper flowers started out white – I just colored them with the same Copics I used for the stamp – I love being able to do that.

The set has 3 very cute images. I want to try covering the sunglasses on the “Shine” stamp with Crystal Effects to make them look like glass.