Whimsy Order!

Lookie what just came in the mail for me :) I ordered the Kenny K and 2 carousel horse stamps, and they included a freebie!  It says "LOVE is the greatest treasure" and has little swirls and cupids on the ends! Plus it arrived in less than a week!  It's a great company with excellent quality stamps.  If you haven't already, you should check them out here.

Hopefully PupPup will sleep most of the afternoon so I can play with my new toys lol

Tutorial - Glitter Ritz & Outline Stickers

So today's post was going to be about the ATC I made for this month (Theme: Birds), but I decided to make it into a tutorial instead, and kill 2 birds with one stone (pun intended? lol)

Tutorial: Glitter Ritz & Outline Stickers

So I used one of my favourite, yet time consuming, techniques on my ATCs this month:  Glitter Ritz with outline stickers.  You will need the following items:

1.  Outline stickers - I usually use 'Peel Offs', but there are other great brands out there too, so make sure you experiment!
2.  Peel Offs Magic Tape (pictured below)
3.  Glitter Ritz 
4.  Double Sided tape- I used Sookwang tape for this
5.  A pin
6.  Tweezers
7. A dry paintbrush or cloth - Used to wipe off excess glitter
8. Xacto Knife

At this point I only took off the background, not the outer border, so ignore the fact that it's still on there lol

So this first thing I did was to take the stickers out of the package, and peel off the background and outside border parts of the sheet.  Like I said, I was doing this to make ATCs so I needed to do 11 of these birds, which would only leave one on the sheet.  If you only need 1 or 2 for your project, just cut them right off the sheet and then peel the background off of your cut outs.

Next, cut a piece off of your Magic Tape (MT) that is slightly larger than your sticker. You don't HAVE to cut it small, but I find it's MUCH easier to work with if I do.  Press it down over the sticker, and rub over it well, making sure the outline sticker adheres to the MT.

Flip everything over and gently start to pull back the with backing of the outline sticker.  Try not to pull the backing 'up', aim to almost fold it in half backwards and pull away so that the sticker releases from the backing and sticks to the MT.  This is where the pin comes in handy.  Use the pin to help release the sticker from the backing, and to get all the little parts that don't come off as easily.

The goal here it to have the entire sticker with all it's inside parts transfer directly to the MT, sticky side UP, as seen above.

Once your sticker is successfully adhered to the MT, flip it over and stick it to your double sided tape.  Rub down on it so that it adheres to the double sided tape.  Your first few transfers with a new piece of Magic Tape will be more difficult as it's still really sticky.  And sticky on sticky is NEVER fun to deal with.  As you will find out a couple of steps from now lol  Pull the MT off in the same way you pull the sticker sheet off in the last step, pull back, not up.  Use your pin again if you need help getting the pieces off.

So your next step is to cut your stickers out.  You could technically skip this step, but it's a HUGE waste of glitter, and you all know how much I love my glitter :)  I painstakingly cut out the first 10 birds with scissors.  It was NOT FUN AT ALL.  Then I had an "I wonder..." moment and tried a blade, and OMG SO MUCH EASIER!  USE THE BLADE FOLKS!

This is when things get a little bit difficult.  As you know you now have a sticker stuck to double sided sticky tape.  And you need to remove some of the sections out of the inside of your outline.  We all know the formula: sticky + sticky = STUCK.  Well here is where your tweezers and LOADS of patience come in handy.  I wanted to accent certain bits with one color and then do the body another color.  You can do it all one color, or you can use more than I did, it's absolutely your call.


I pulled out the pieces for the beak, the accent dots, and the eyes (mind you after I took out all the eye stickers, I realized I pulled the wrong ones out.  Should have been the tiny dots, not outline of the eye.  Sadface.)  Use your tweezers and the pin to help get the pieces out.  But take them out gently.  Remember, the whole thing is only LIGHTLY adhered to the backing on the OTHER side of the double sided tape, the part that is meant to release easily for when you want to adhere your stickers to the final project.

Pour a small amount of GR over the exposed bits, rub it in a circular motion with your fingers, tap off the excess, and use your dry paintbrush (or equivalent) to get all the extra glitter off.

Repeat the above steps with the main sections of the body.  Here is where you have to be REALLY careful about pulling the sections out.  They are much bigger and therefore are much more resistant to your pulling.  Go slow, take deep breaths, and take breaks if you need to.

Use your next color to fill in the bigger sections, rub in with a circular motion and dusting off the excess as you go.  There you go!  Your stickers are done!  I know it is a pain to do them, but the results in person are oh so amazing! 

Here are my finished ATCs:

And here are a couple of cards I made about a year ago with the same technique (and sheet of stickers lol)/  The scroll was cut out with my Cricut and just stuck to the double sided tape.  MUCH easier to do, but only useful if you are planning to use only 1 color of glitter on your image. 

I really do love the finished product when using this technique, but it can be a real pain, so I only do it about once a year lol  I think I'll sit down one weekend and just make a big glittery mess of my craftroom and get a bunch of them done.  I've been collecting outline stickers for years and they (and my Glitter Ritz collection) are DYING to be used!

Fab contest over at InkStains blog!

Hey guys, you absolutely MUST check out this amazing canvas album!  I love everything about it and I am absolutely inspired to try making my own!

Image belongs to InkStains blog :)

Canvas Mini Album Part I: How To

Canvas Mini Album Part II: Vintage Beach Album

If you check out Part 2, she's having a contest and the winner GETS THIS BEAUTIFUL ALBUM!  Go check it out peeps! 

Sunny Summer Weekend :)

It's Sunday night and Oscar is out sleeping on the couch with J, so I figured I'd throw together a quick post.

It was a gorgeous weekend here!  On Saturday J & I went down to the Farmer's Market with some good friends of ours to have a little look around.  It was SO crowded because Tall Ships 2012 is this weekend.

Regardless, it's always fun to people-watch...

It's hard to tell from this pic, but she has socks on with those sexy heels lol Oh my.  Moving on...

We had a nice walk around and then got some fresh samosas and other Indian yummies from a little booth at the market.  It was SO good!  I really need to search out a good Indian restaurant locally.  Comment if you know of one!

After eating we popped outside and guess who was pulling up to the dock?  THEODORE TUGBOAT!

I've never seen him on this side of the 'Big Harbour' before, so it was a nice treat :)

Same place we had our wedding pictures done, almost 6 years ago :)

We walked around for a bit more, took a couple more pictures and then J dropped me off at my parent's place so I could go down to Carousel for Demo Weekend with Mom.  Lots of amazing demos, as always, and a cute little Snowman card Make n' Take.


Today I tried to decide on a plan for July's ATC theme of Birds.  It's due next weekend, so I figure I should get started.  I was able to figure out an idea, so hopefully Oscar will be nice and sleepy tomorrow so I have time to do get them done.


I spent sporadic moments playing in the final Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend Event.  This time they released the Sylvari & Asura classes (for those that are not gamers, ignore all this.  It won't make sense lol).  I really enjoyed the little bit of time I spent on both of those classes.  I didn't want to play too much, because I wanted to have something to look forward to for release.  Here's a couple of screenshots I took.

Sylvari starting area.

My Sylvari

Asura starting area

My Asura

I know you are all dying to see how adorable Oscar was this weekend, so here's some random shots of him too.  He's now 10 weeks, and about 4.5lbs.  You're welcome :)

I'll try to update soon.  Hopefully with completed ATCs!  Tell me how your weekend was!

Seashore Mini Accordian Scrapbook

So we all know by now what a sucker I am for awesome scrapbook paper.  Well I bought a couple sheets of this awesome Nautical/Seashore paper from Carousel, and as usual, didn't have a specific plan in mind for it.  Well a couple of weeks ago, I sat down and just let the creative juices flow, and this is the end result.

Front

Back

Full view

Pages 1 & 2

Pages 3 & 4

I'm really happy with how this turned out!  The paper I bought was Bazzill Basics Paper called Beach House Shore Collage/Seaside Vines (304277).  I also used some vellum & some cream cardstock I had on hand, Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Antique Linen to 'soften' the edges of all the sheets, except the vellum.  I made the starfish with a random punch I had in one of my drawers.  I have no idea where it came from, so I'll assume it was a dollar store score lol

On the back cover I used the Earth Art International - Seahorse stamp, plus a cheapy seashore stamp set from Inkadinkado.  The navy ribbon was originally from Michael's a few years ago.

I'm still trying to decide if I was to keep it or sell it in my ArtFire Studio.  I'll update when I decide :)

A Birthday Card for Mom

This is the card I made for my Mom for her birthday.

Remember the post I made about my box of scraps?  Well I ended up punching a Starbucks cold cup full of Martha Stewart butterflies out of them.  I had blisters on my hands.  No joke lol  These butterflies came from that session.

I finally got to use my gorgeous new script background stamp & I used some gorgeous floral ribbon that I found at Carousel Rubber Stamps.  The green paper, green ink, and the ink around the edges & on the ribbon are all from Stampin' Up.  I figured now was as good a time as any to start using that stuff.  Gotta say though, not a fan of the quality of their ink.  Glitter accents are Stickles, of course!

I like how it turned out, now to see how Mom likes it :)

Whimsy - Miss Fortune!

Hey everyone!  I know I've been slow to make blog posts lately, but the puppy has truly been keeping me insanely busy! 

Saturday night I got a little break and went to Girl's Night for some crafting fun! We went to Pilot's for supper and then went back to get our crafting on.  This time we were joined by the lovely DC & BD!  Hopefully they will be permanent fixtures in our club ;)  I didn't get anything finished, but I did start with the coloring of this card and had a fabulous time with the ladies!

While J was home on the weekend I was able to get this one finished up, plus my Mom's birthday card (which I will schedule to publish tomorrow, so she can't sneak a peak at it before tonight lol).

Introducing Miss Fortune! 

She is now available for purchase in my Artfire Studio!

She is a Whimsy Stamp from the Kenny K Collection.  I colored her in with Copics, and accents were done with Stickles, Viva Decor, Smooch, and Spica.  The "Make a Wish" stamp & ribbon were purchased at Carousel Rubber Stamps, and the "Happy Birthday" was a freebie stamp that came with one of those fab British mags.  I used Spellbinders dies to cut the ovals.

Let me know what you think!

Introducing Oscar :)

Let me start off by apologizing... I have been a total slacker for the last week and didn't even try to prepare a new blog post.  I had creative block, a book I wanted to finish, and a house that needed to be cleaned. And then Sunday happened.

First a bit of background.

J & I had been talking about getting a dog for about 2 years now, but only really started looking this past spring.  We had pretty much given up on getting a dog this year at this point as most puppies that come into rescues here are for larger breed dogs, and we were looking for something small to medium in size.  Fast forward to Sunday...

I saw a posting on facebook from Atlantic Small Dog Rescue, about a puppy they had just received: an adorable 8 week old Chihuahua/ Cairn Terrier mix. I called J into the computer room and showed him the picture, and we decided that it was worth a shot to fill out the application.  Not long after I sent it in, I got an email back from ASDR saying they got my application, and not long after that, that same lady called to do a phone interview.  Well we got along great, and she said that pending the home inspection, she didn't see why we would have this little guy in our lives!

Yesterday morning she dropped him off and OH MY GOD HE'S PERFECT!  He's 8 weeks old and weighs 4lbs!  And here comes the proud momma picture spam ;)

I totally made that blanket for him the night before he arrived out of a pair of flannel PJ pants my MIL gave me that I had forgotten about lol

Hanging out with his Auntie LA & cousins

Meeting his sister (that went better than I had expected.  Still a work in progress, but I think it will be fine).

Out like a light!

Me & my boy!

Oscar & his baby :)

I'm sure there will be many stories to come about this little guy, so I'm going to stop here for today and "nap while the baby naps".