Retiring Items

The Last-Chance List is out. This is a list of all the stamp sets that are retiring at the end of the month. They are sold on a first come first serve basis so if you like any of them you had better get them quick.

There is also a retiring list for the Decor Elements as well that you should check out, these are being sold at a 25% discount to boot. Definitely worth a look!

More Flowers, yah!

Here is the other watercolouring card that we did at the May Technique Club. I chose this card because I wanted to use multiple stamps from one set. So that must mean that this gorgeous flower is also from the Bloomin' Beautiful set. This set has some great detailed flowers, perfect for watercolouring because you can really work with the details to get beautiful results.

This card is done with the watercolour paper instead of the regular cardstock. This paper is better because you can really layer colours and add water without the paper curling and bending. This is good for an amateur like me because it is harder to mess up.

Like I said before I'm not a creative genius but I like the way this card turned out. I added highlights to the flower with the same Summer Sun that I coloured the center with. In later versions of this card I did figure out how to better shade with just the Real Red. It just takes some practice I think. The green of the leaves and stem is Garden Green and then I added some Chocolate Chip to the stem, see shading can be easy.

To finish off the flower I roughed up the edges of the watercolour paper with scissors and then ran the edge along the Real Read stamp pad to get some colour. This adds nice definition against the Apricot Appeal DSP layer underneath.

Spring Flowers

Here is a card I made and I can't believe I didn't show everyone earlier! We made this card at the April Technique Class, just in time for Mother's Day. I meant to post these before Mother's Day but apparently the time got away from me. What I did learn from my mother is that I should have included instructions with this one. Instead of opening like a regular card the flowers pop out to reveal the message. It is really cute but apparently also mildly confusing.

The paper that I used is the sale-a-bration DSP and I used matching cs for the rim - So Saffron or Certainly Celery. The ribbon is Pretty in Pink and it matches the light flowers, the dark ones are Rose Red. Now about the flowers... on the yellow card are brighter because they are covered with clear embossing powder whereas the flowers on the green card are just plain. I added some bling to the center of the flowers with dazzling diamonds glitter, but in order to get it to stick to the embossed flowers I had to use Crystal Effects. It was a learning experience to figure out how to get the glitter to stick, you definitly don't use the two-way glue!

May Technique Club/Class

For the May technique I chose to put the focus on watercolouring with the classic inks. This is a great technique because if you have any artistic flair at all you can really get the creativity going. You will notice that I don't have much in the way of artistic flair but I can still pull off a pretty sweet card, if I do say so myself.

I have 2 pictures posted so you can see the differences that you can get in watercolouring just based on how much water you use. The flowers are both coloured with the Elegant Eggplant ink but one is much darker than the other. This allows you to add shadows and shading with only 1 ink pad, so really, anyone can do it!!

The other item to note is that Stampin' Up! has the Aquapainter which is a really great tool for watercolouring and I totally recommend it. But if you don't have one you can just use a good quality paint brush. The ones with the plastic bristles don't work so you really do need a good quality one.

The rest of the supplies for this card are Old Olive, So Saffron ink (for the flower centers) and Chocolate Chip and Really Rust mixed for the flower pot. The paper matches the inks and I used Kiwi Kiss satin ribbon and DSP as well.

Scrapbook Page #4

I know I haven't been as good with posting lately as I normally am. I apologize for this and hope to have some more posts coming up. The last couple of weeks have been a little stressful as my husband and I have just bought our first house. This is way more stressful that I had anticipated especially since it was a bit of a spur of the moment decision! In my house-buying frenzy I realized that I posted my scrapbook page #5 before #4 so here is page #4.

This page is of my daughter with her first degree. We have been going to UBC and doing studies for the infant development and cognitive development labs and this was her first one (she is a post-doc now according to her degrees).

For the background I found a retired SU! paper with numbers on it, they colours are pretty close to Kiwi Kiss and Baja Breeze so that is what I used. The stars are made with the new star punches, I love that there are 2 that you can layer. Something to keep in mind too is that you can run the cardstock through the printer for your journaling, that is what I did with the Kiwi Kiss piece at the top. I'm not a fan of my handwriting so I'm always looking for new ways to journal without actually having to write anything.

Scrapbook Page #5

In honour of National Scrapbooking Month I have a new page done of my daughter. This photo was taken last summer by my mom and it is one of her favourite, with good reason I think!

Because I want each scrapbook page to be different from the others I am having to get pretty creative, at least I think I am. For this one I took a sheet of Kiwi Kiss textured cs and added strips of Bella Rose DSP which I think totally matches her little hat. The photo is matted with Pink Pirouette and Riding Hood Red (lifted both colours from the Bella Rose).

To add a little interest I wove the organza ribbon through the strips, but there has to be a better way than how I did that, it looks nice but was a lot more work than I thought!

Finally I added some journaling that I did on the computer and made the font print in RHR. To carry the strip look through I cut the journaling into pieces and stuck them on.

My goal was met, this page does look different from my other ones so I am satisfied.

Calling all Scrapbookers!

Stampin' Up! is running a new promotion in honour of National Scrapbooking Month. I think this is pretty cool since I didn't even know there was a scrapbooking month, and now I find out we get our own month-not a day but a whole month-how great is that! But back to the promotion. There are 3 parts to this new deal.

First if you buy 3 packs of any designer 12x12 paper (this includes textured, and specialty paper) you get a 4th for FREE.

Secondly you can sign up to become a demonstrator for just $99 with the new scrapbooking starter kit

Thirdly you can buy the Jumble Alphabet set from the new 2009/2010 catty at 20% off.

You can click the link or send me a message if you want more information on any part of this promotion.