Tuesday, March 31, 2015

SOS #195: No Foolin'

It's Tuesday, and time for a new challenge at Shopping Our Stash. This week we celebrate that tomorrow is April Fool's Day, and we're using "faux" techniques. Check out the SOS blog for links and more ideas from the Design Team gals.

For my faux technique, I tried something new, and used the Faux Mother Of Pearls technique. After much playing, I decided this was the one I'd show you:


I apologize for the worse-than-usual quality of my photos, and amazingly that is possible. I took this at a crafty retreat, and I was at the mercy of the ballroom lights. ;/

I made the background by dabbing some pearl acrylic paint onto a piece of white card stock, and once it dried, I added some Tumbled Glass Distress ink. Then I took a slightly damp paper towel and dabbed the ink off of the painted areas. It's shiny!

I then used my MISTI (sorry, but I worked TOO HARD on that background to stamp the sentiment crooked more than once ...) to stamp the sentiment in Memento Luxe Grey Flannel and clear embossed it.

I used a Mama Elephant stitched die to cut the rectangle, then mounted it with foam tape to a white base.

Here's my attempt at a detail shot to show the shiny:



So, why not try a faux technique and play along with us over at SOS?

Thanks for stopping by!!

Stuff I used: vat of clear embossing powder, Mama Elephant dies, and the following:



Saturday, March 28, 2015

Succulents

One of the fun things about getting together with other crafty people is you get to play with their stuff. That sentence sounds really weird out of context, but you crafty people know of which I speak.

For example, there has been a recent craze over succulents ... cactus ... plants I can kill without even trying. I'm not a lover of succulents, and have no desire to own the stamp sets, but if they are here, I'll play! So I did.

Here's a card I made using the Hero Arts Succulents set:


I inked up the pot image and wiped off some of the ink from the back of the pot. I didn't want it showing through the succulent image later. Then I stamped the succulent image and just colored away to the best of my ability.

Next I played with one of the Simon Says Stamp succulent sets, and made this:


Along the way I also played with someone's Hero Arts Ombre ink pads, and I decided I actually liked my own ombre version better (it's a control thing), which I made using my MISTI. I've done a photo tutorial here about how I do this.  I used three colors of Hero Arts inks: Soft Pool, Pool, and Tide Pool.

This stamp set comes with both the solid and outline stamp images, so I took the opportunity to make two, and I outlined one of them so you can see the difference:


I may have stamped the second one a bit darker, but the outline really does make a very dramatic difference with the image!

Because I could, I die-cut four of the shapes and stacked them up, then put the colored one on top. With so little else on the card, I really like the dimension.

Wow, two cards and it's only two pm. This could be a productive day!

Thanks for stopping by!