A Twist on Joseph's Coat

I started a class for mid-August with the idea of trying a new stamping technique I'd seen on Splitcoaststampers. The Ladies were lined up for attending, but I still hadn't given it a try myself. I'd read over the idea of Water Stamping and the tutorial looks wonderful. I knew I wanted to use the great set Postage Due...I wasn't sure if I was suppose to use glossy paper or plain...the class was approaching, I gave the technique a try...ack! it didn't work the way I thought it would...panic surfaces. LOL. I scrambled to the inspiration sites.When I laid eyes on a colourful version of Joseph's Technicolour Dreamcoat, I knew the course the class would take! Between this idea and a wonderful swap from Desiree for a versamark resist card using this great set...I was set.
 The original version of Jospeph's Coat is to use black ink, but after playing with this a number of years ago and staining my brayers more than I'd like..I've adapted it to Night of Navy, or Chocolate, even Cherry Cobbler last year for Christmas..but never used such a bright fun colour as Island Indigo. I essentially CASE'd this from a fellow demo. I highlighted the Daffodil Delight and Melon Mambo for the card accents and base instead of Tangerine Tango.

Isn't it fun!? Created by sponging ink over a panel of glossy paper. Heat emboss your image (this one says summer to me, I love the bike.) with clear powder, then brayer over the entire panel with Island Indigo.
I ended up mounting my waterstamped image and we all gave our hand at it during the class, it seemed to turn out better than at first thought. It turned out to be the favourite technique of a couple of the gals. I think they had fun sponging all the colours onto the Whisper White panel.

A couple of them used one of the flower swirls from Flowering Flourishes and accented with a few pearls. Gorgeous. I wish I'd taken a photo to share. I love watching what the women create during the evening. I served yummy Red Velvet Cupcakes, made from fresh beets. They were a hit! (I had an extra made to share with my vegetable farmers at the Market the next night...)

smiles,
Laurie

A Bloomin' Sketch

I needed a third card for an upcoming class and when I saw this sketch, I thought it might be just perfect, with the front panel being just the right size for the Dahlia from Bloomin' with Kindness.
I paired Lucky Limeade with Razzleberry and the fun chevron from Summer Smooches. I'm not sure about the woodgrain embossed piece paired with chevron, but wanted some texture..what do you think?

I think my new favourite sentiment stamp is from Petite Pairs:

                       so many smiles...begin with you!

enjoy your day!

smiles,
Laurie

London Calling

Here's a British flavoured card in honour of the Olympics.
 My daughter and I were in England this spring for a Band trip. We had a fabulous time together. In Oxford, our last place to visit, I browsed the Magazine stands and bought a CraftsBeautiful magazine with this great stamp in it and it included the papers, too! So I pulled them out to play with finally!

We're continuing to watch all the Olympics. My oldest loves Synchro so we were up this morning to watch the duet finals. Our Canadians routine was so dynamic!

smiles,

Laurie

Inspiring Olympics

We are loving watching the Olympics. The Girls have been inspired to work on their gymnastic moves and pedalling their hearts out up and down the road, now! I have yet to see any of the equestrian, but we've been out riding.

Had to delay it a bit this morning to watch our Canadian win GOLD on the trampoline this morning!!!! Wahoo, Rosie!

Last night I decided to make a card inspired by the colours of the Olympic rings! It's pretty simple but I love the colours! These new stamp pads are Fantastic, the image is so rich!

Sail Away!

Oh my goodness, where have I been! I finally started on facebook and I haven't quite got the hang of bouncing back and forth between these 2 social spectra's (is that even a word!?) Hope you're patient as I'm learning.
  I'm sort of on track for the 100 cards in 100 days, making 25 cards over the past week for a swap, but for my own personal goal I'm not including those in my numbers, since I want the inspiration to be creating daily, something that I'm still working on. I'll keep you 'posted' ~haha...pun intended : P  ~on how I make out with that over these coming weeks.

I made this card for a girlfriend's birthday this past week. I love this paper: Summer Smooches...not to mention the set Up, Up and Away. Great classic colours: Real Red and Tempting Turquoise are pulled from the smaller piece of Designer Series paper for the balloons.

100 Years Old

Well, the 100th Year of the Calgary Stampede is over. It started with Parade day and wrapped up with the Rodeo and Chuckwagon finals this Sunday. It's said that it has never rained on the parade and this was another year to boast banner weather for the parade again. It was the first time for my Girls seeing the parade! They loved it! We had a traditional pancake Stampede breakfast downtown and then settled in to watch several hours of pre parade and then all the marching bands and horse troops. My cousin was a clown entertaining in the pre-parade, she looked wonderful. The bands came from all over, the farthest away was New South Wales, Australia...imagine. We headed down to the Stampede Grounds and Midway on Tuesday...the hottest of our hot days. The Log ride was never more appreciated! We all really enjoyed the new Roller Coaster named after one of the Stampede's best bulls ~ Outlaw! I dragged the kids off the rides, just shy of the midway actually closing down for the day!...we're a bit nuts for rides and fun! We have a couple things we do each year, okay, eat, each year: Fresh Lemonades and Weadickvilles Sausage rolls. A favourite tradition of ours is visiting the barn area, we like all the animals and displays but really like to see the piglets and grab an ice cold milk and cookie, a nice break in the long day.
I made this card with the new set, Horse Frontier. With inspiration from the Stampede, I tried to mimic a bandana with the red paper and was really happy when I spied this stamp in the Lacy & Lovely set. I added some white gel pen to highlight a bit. I used the new Midnight Muse blue for layering and ran Espresso paper through the Big Shot with the new Wood Grain embossing folder to create the fence. I wanted a fence post to loop my 'rope' over... The brads were dipped in Espresso embossing powder to accent.

July...Starting again!

Okay, I fell off that train of 100 cards hard...and I really loved the idea and how it felt being creative each night! ...but I'm back at it...I'm participating in a swap with some great gals so I will have some of those to add to the count, but really I like the idea of doing something every day...so that's my back on track goal for the coming weeks! I've been doing some embroidery,  I'm loving that..., so I'll share some of those squares from the sampler. I've also signed up for another class at Big Picture Classes with Nic Howard! and this is the first assignment. Plus I need to work on a couple more layouts over the next couple days. (IRL you can see the words on a piece of acetate saying my life)

It's been a busy few past days. We headed into the city to see Jersey Boys with my Mom and Dad. We all were tapping our toes and have been singing the songs since!  : D
We stayed to watch the Calgary Centennial Parade with the Girls (their first time at the parade.)
Our cousin was in the pre-parade, and some of the Wranglers from Rocky rode their horses, winning an entry award! We have friends in New South Wales, Australia, so it was of special interest to see a marching band from that far away in the parade! We enjoyed it all.
Cary and I celebrated our 15th Anniversary with dinner at East Side Mario's with the kids and our cousins. Reminiscing about our wedding celebrations as it approached and we were visiting with Cary's folks on their visit to the house earlier in the week. We'd had people camping over the Wedding weekend and served breakfast and buffalo burgers for Sunday lunch after the wedding...good memories of great times!