A Birthday Sort of Day

Good morning blog readers! Today is a pretty special day around here....it's my birthday!  :)  Which in my books, makes it a fantabulous day no matter what is going on. 

Granted, it is also make and take weekend at Archivers, so I will be spending most of my day at work helping people make Chistmas cards but at least I get to play with scrappy products all day.  Then later on I will be sharing an extra special birthday dinner with my family which should be really great. :)

I also got my very first birthday card for this year, and guess what? I made it. My church sent me one of my  very own creations to wish me a happy birthday.  :) This is the card I recieved in the mail...

Does it look familiar...its because I posted it last month. He-he....my family and I really got a kick out of this one.

So in honor of my birthday, I thought I would share my birthday cards that I made for November. I was able to play with some really cool techniques on these and I absolutely LOVE how they turned out. :)

For this fabulous card, I was able to play with several techniques. I first diecut the label shape from one of the Tim Holtz Alterations dies. I then stamped the branch and cute little owl from Hero Arts onto the label with Memento ink. I also found this great sentiment from Scrappy Cat with little stars in the letters to add to the project. I then colored my card with Copic markers. It turned out really well and the coloring went pretty quicky considering that I colored 40 of these babies. :)  I then distressed the edges with Tim Holtz Antique Linen Distress ink and my ink blending tool.  Finally I stamped this woodgrain stamp from Hero Arts with Walnut Stain Distress ink and pop-dotted the label piece to the card. Definately a card that both guys and girls will love. :)

This next card uses one of my favorite ever Hero Arts stamps...Silhouette Grass. My coworkers think I am crazy for loving this stamp so much but I see *tons* of possibilities here. 

The inspiration for this card came from an SEI paper pack called Charlemagne. The copper and tan combo, highlighted with the turquoise and black accents really struck me as a beautiful autumn color combination and I thought it would translate beautifully into this card.

First I diecut my white cardstock with another one of my favorite Tim Holtz Alterations dies and then I stamped the Silhouette Grass stamp with Versamark and embossed it using copper embossing powder.  I then used Tim Holtz Antique Linen Distress ink and my ink blending tool to color the edges of my image. I stamped one of my favorite birthday sayings from Hero Arts on turquoise cardstock and cut the ends to create the banner shape and pop-dotted this to my card. I still felt that it needed a bit more so I added 3 turquoise gemstones in a cluster to the front to finish my project.  It really was a fairly simple card design and I was able to create 40 of these in just one evening. :)

Well that's it for this post. Hope you enjoyed the cards and have a wonderful day everyone!

Until next time,

Janeen :)

Distress Ink Goodness

Hey there my fabulous blog readers. Here we are on day 2 of my 30 days of blog posts.  Today I want to share some links and goodness about my one of my absolute favorite scrapping/card making products - Distress Inks!!! :) 

Ahhh, inky goodness! And it comes in 36 yummy colors.

And my favorite tool to use with Distress Inks?  The Tim Holtz Ink Blending Tool.

Now, make sure you get the one with FOAM pads, not felt. This lil' baby is fabulous for adding a lighter blended layer of ink to your projects and it is a must have for Distress Inks.

I store my foam pads in little baggies and label each one with the name of the color of Distress ink that I used with it so that I can re-use them. :)

And these are a few of my favorite places to get information and video tutorials for Distress Inks. Check 'em out to learn all sorts of fabulous techniques with them.

http://www.jennifermcguireink.typepad.com/

 Jennifer does AMAZING things with inks and stamps. This is her blog and she often has videos using lots of products and techniqes. To find all her videos, simply go to the link at the top of her blog that says "how-to videos".

http://www.twopeasinabucket.com/mb.asp?cmd=display&forum_id=52&thread_id=2839474

 A series of videos Jennifer did for 2Peas using lots of Ranger and Hero Arts. There are a ton of videos on all sorts of products but the Distress ink ones are my faves. :)

https://www.twopeasinabucket.com/events/7-october-stamping-month-at-two-peas/

A brand new, holiday verison of Thinking Inking with tons of fabulous techniques and ideas.

So give these fabulous inks a try and use them on your next crafty project.

Until next time,

Janeen :)

Crafty Sunday

Hello there! This week I was able to spend some time being crafty and for me that means stained fingers and glitter in my hair. I got some really fun pages completed and was able to play with some of my favorite companies and products.

On Friday, I created my favorite layout from the week. I had been playing around with the idea for this page for awhile but could never find the perfect photo. I was rummaging through some pictures from 2008 and ran across this photo of me with my camera. And then BoBunny came out with this super line called "Mama-razzi" and the colors were perfect, so I knew it was time to create this layout.

The one thing from the BoBunny collection that I didn't purchase were the flowers because I figured I had enough flowers. Well I had a ton of flowers, but none of them were the right color. So I decided to color my own. I absolutely love how they turned out and I want to share the technique. :)

 Materials:  White flowers (Mine are the wildflower mix from Prima), distress inks in multiple shades of the same color, ink blending tool with foam, Perfect Pearls (perfect pearl color), Ranger Mini Mister filled with water, heat gun, Ranger Craft Mat

2. Choose your lightest shade of distress ink. Here I chose Broken China.  Apply the ink to the flower using the ink blending tool. For mine I held the middle of the flower as I inked so that the flower wouldn't tear. Also make sure that you get ink into the crevaces of the flower.

This what the flowers look like with the lightest color on them.

2. Next take your darker shade of distress ink and ink blending tool and swipe the color over the top of the flower. This ink will only reach the raised parts of the petals. Here I am using Faded Jeans Distress Ink.

3. Make your own pearlized mist with a Ranger Mini Mister, Perfect Pearls, and water. I used the clear glitter color called Perfect Pearls on my project.  To make your mist, use a craft stick to scoop some perfect pearls into the mister. Fill the mister 2/3 of the way full with water, screw on the lid, and shake to mix. I glued a pearl on the top of the lid of the mister so I know what is inside it.  I got this tip from one of my favorite artists, Jennifer McGuire. To see more of her tips, visit http://www.jennifermcguireink.typepad.com/.

4. Spray your flowers with the Pearlized Mix. Because of their unique properties, Distress Inks react with water and the colors will bleed together creating a cool muttled look. You could also use Glimmer Mist in the Pearl color for this technique, but I found that the Pearlized Mix works better for me.

5. Dry the flowers with a heat tool. This sets the color and stops it from bleeding anymore. It also speeds up the drying time on te flowers.

This is a close-up of the blue flowers. I used Broken China and Faded Jeans Distress inks  and then spritzed them with the pearlized mix. I totally love the subtle glittery shine they have.

These flowers were created with Antique Linen and Walnut Stain Distress inks. I also sprayed the pearlized mix over these.

Layer your different sized flowers together on your layout and add a flower center of your choice. The top flower here uses a cardstock sticker with foam adhesive dots behind it and the bottom flower simply has a large gemstone adorning its center.

Bonus Tip

To create these cool multi-colored and layered chipboard letters, I first painted them with the greenish-blue color of acryllic paint. After it dried, I then used a tan color of paint and dabbed it on different areas of the letters using a wadded-up paper towel. Finally I used a paintbrush and some copper-colored glimmer mist to paint on some glimmer color over the areas painted tan. It really gave the letters a unique aged look that added to the overall look of the page.

Well I hope you all are enjoying your holiday weekend. Mine was very busy with a going away party for my brother-in-law who is heading to Iraq this summer. We had over 60 people here and it was a blast!!! :)

Until next time,

Janeen :)