Whole lot a stampin' goin' on!
Well, I made a lot of progress getting my to do list knocked down yesterday. I want to get my desk clear of all my stamping commitments from the past month so as to get on with all those new stamps waiting for me and those on their way to me! I'm still patiently waiting for my Sale-A-Bration preorder AND my first order from the new catalog to go into picking, so this is as good a time as any to play catch up.
I was really smokin' yesterday and made FOUR cards to complete my assignment from Stamp La Jolla! "Whoa, Nellie!" you're thinkin', "That's sure a lot of stamping for a woman who is a mom, has to keep her house tidy, cook dinner and do laundry!" Well, I confess...the house is still a pit from Christmas and I'm not gonna worry about it until Monday. Yes, my kids went back to school on Thursday, but Dan did NOT. And if it's anything I hate worse than trying to clean around 3 kids, it's trying to clean around a husband! The kids you can chivy around and make them help, but how do you tell a man who just sat down in his recliner to move so you can turn the thing over to vacuum underneath? And how do you vacuum at all when you have a husband who likes to nap as much as mine does? And when he's not napping, he's watching John Wayne movies and it would be sacrilegious to drown out the sound of John Wayne say, "Wahll, pilgrum....", wouldn't it?
I did end up going to the grocery store to get stuff for dinner and get more milk and orange juice, which I swear my family must hold the record for the fastest milk consumption on the planet. But I only made hot dogs for dinner, which saved more time for stamping!
What? You're getting antsy to see these GOJUS creations? Stop yackin' and deliver? Hmph!....Okay!
Ingredients: Stamps - Stamp La Jolla Rose with Tear on Bible, The Lord Is...; Paper - Basic Grey, Basic Black, Purely Pomegranate, Very Vanilla; Ink - Adirondack Pitch Black; Other - Ticket Corner Punch, gold brads, Tria & Copic markers, Sakura Clear Glaze Pen, Double-Stitched Wild Wasabi Grosgrain.
Isn't it GOJUS?!?!? (YILM!) I love this stamp and it is not easy to work with one this large, but it's worth trying, don't you think!
Ingredients: Stamps - Stamp La Jolla Gerber Daisy, Thinking of You Circle; Paper - Pumpkin Pie, More Mustard, Chocolate Chip, Very Vanilla; Ink - Adirondack Pitch Black, SU! Pumpkin Pie, Old Olive, Chocolate Chip; Other - Spellbinders Nestabilities, SU! 5/8" Old Olive grosgrain, Karen Foster Brad Bar, Making Memories brads, SU! Linen thread, Tria Markers.
GOJUS AGAIN!! (YILM!) I stamped the greeting first, then stamped again on a post it note. I cut out the center of the circle to create a mask, which I placed over my original stamping, then stamped the daisy in the center of the greeting. I used my Nestabilities to cut the image into a circle shape, then embossed it as well. The background was created by simply swiping the Chocolate Chip ink pad in both directions to create a weathered look. It can be hard when you're working on assignments like this to create texture when you don't have a large variety of stamps and you are restricted to stick to the company's stamps that you are using! I don't have any filler, texture or background stamps for this company, so if I'm not using patterned paper, I have to get creative. Swiping is really one of the easiest ways to create a nice texture on a background that I know.
Ingredients: Stamps - Stamp La Jolla Wet Hare, Danger! Wet Hare!; Paper - Soft Sky, Real Red, Not Quite Navy, Whisper White, Autumn Leaves Adhesive Mat Stack; Ink - Adirondack Pitch Black, SU! Real Red; Other - Vintage Brads (retired SU!), Red Dotted Grosgrain (Michael's), Tria & Copic Markers, Sakura Clear Glaze pen.
Isn't this STINKIN' CUTE?!?!? (Thought I'd give you a break from GOJUS!!! YILM!!!) I pretty much knew what I wanted to do with this immediately. I used my Sakura clear glaze pen to make the puddle shiny that Hula Bunny is standing on as well as the foot prints I made with my Copic marker. I also highlighted the letters in the sentiment and gave his sunglasses shiny lenses as well. This is one of those cards where I had fun "echoing" elements. What does that mean? Well, when you have this background paper with diamonds in it (which I thought looked like bathroom tiles) it was fun to echo that shape by using diamond shaped brads. And while I was at it, I had made Hula Bunny's shower cap to have polka dots, so I used dotted ribbon to echo that. And the floppy ends of the ribbon echo Hula Bunny's floppy ears. Genius, genius, I know! (YILM!)
Finally, for the pièce de résistance! (Oui, je parle un peu de français, mais je parle français comme un vache espagnol, hélas!) Ah! Pardon mon digression...
Ingredients: Stamps - Stamp La Jolla Satin Flower Square, Happy Birthday; Paper - Green Galore, Basic Black, Pink Passion, Whisper White; Ink - Adirondack Pitch Black, SU! Pink Passion; Other - Copic & Tria Markers, Dotted Organdy Ribbon (Michael's), Vintage Brads (SU!), dimensionals, Stickles.
It's okay to love it madly because it is MAGNIFIQUE!!! I don't really want to send this one off to MaryAnn...sigh...but it must be done! I think more chocolate will be needed to help me get over the separation...
Again, I had to be creative to create texture. I do like using patterned paper, but back when I started stamping, there really wasn't much of it out there AND some people considered it CHEATING! Can you believe that? So I learned to stamp without using it and, honestly, sometimes I find it much more fun to create my own patterned backgrounds! Here I used the same flower stamp, the same color ink as the cardstock I was stamping on, and I tiled the stamp to create a mosaic style background. Because it's the same ink as the cardstock, it creates a very subtle pattern that your eye can see matches the focal image, but does not distract from it. And with this image, I wanted no distractions!
I colored it in with the most vibrant colors in my marker collection, then added some yellow Stickles that just take this whole card from beautiful to SUBLIME!!! (YILM!)
GOJUS, in other words!!! Hee hee...!
Well, more mundane tasks await today. I do have to create and photocopy the church bulletin and possibly take my kids to the library. I will be making spaghetti for dinner and trying to get some laundry done as well. But this evening, I will be stamping, I WILL! I still have new SU! sets from the preorder that I haven't even used and the rest I have only used once! I must correct this stamping imbalance, this inequity! Later, gator!
