Category Archives: stamping

Dec26

Sharing Some Sparkle

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Sharing Some Sparkle

Today’s giveaway is a video tutorial about pearl powders. There are two major sources for pearl powders: Ranger Industries, and Jaquard. I use both in the video, although I do use more of the Pearl Ex powders from Jaquard, simply because that’s what I have more of. The major difference in the two brands is the formulation. Ranger’s Perfect Pearls has a binder mixed in that allows you to just use water to adhere your pearl powder. If you use Pearl Ex you need a binder, like Ranger’s Perfect Medium, or a liquid glue, or gum arabic.

I hope you find the video fun and useful! There are four ways you can add shimmer to your pages in this tutorial. It’s slightly less than 15 minutes, and, since it is on Vimeo, you can download it for later viewing if you so desire.

Pearl ex powder page from Heather Dubarry on Vimeo.

I’ll be back tomorrow with another giveaway for you!

Nov30

Thank YOU!

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Thank YOU!

This month has been so much fun! I hope you found some inspiring and useful information in this month’s card series.

Let’s finish up with a quick and simple card:

thanks you card

The card base was stamped with a large background stamp in an ink close to the color of the card base to create a tone on tone look. A single piece of patterned paper, with a piece trimmed off and reversed to create a contrasting line became the main structure, and a single phrase banner stamped and trimmed out became the focal point of the card. A few self-adhesive gems, and the card was done!

Which brings me to the main idea behind this card, and most of the cards I make:

Simple is lovely. While cards with lots of layers and papers and embellishments and techniques are fun, it’s not necessary to have it ALL on one card. Choose a technique or embellishment, and let that shine.

When you have time, and extra postage, play with adding lots of techniques and stash. When you want to get a lot done in a short amount of time, keep it simple.

Thank you so much for playing along with me this month! Let me know what your favorite card was.

If you signed up for my mailing list after the first of November, or if you haven’t sent me a reply to the sign-up email, you’ll be getting another email from me tomorrow. If you want to get one of these cards from me, make sure you reply and share your snail mail address with me. I can’t mail them if I don’t have an address to send them to! Cards will be going out on Monday!

Nov27

Getting Grungy

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Getting Grungy

Are you making anything yummy for Thanksgiving? I’m hosting this year, so that means the cooking starts today. Since I am guaranteed to be making a mess today, how about a grungy card?

grungy tower

This one was fairly quick to make with a brayered background, a couple of Tim Holtz stamps, a little additional inking around the edges, and some patterned paper. The background was inspired by this class taught by Bobbi Lemanski and Kim Ziehr of Raisin Boat for True Stamp. I didn’t have the exact supplies as used in the class, so I experimented with what was on hand. This one is a bit blotchy. But, it works for a grunge style card, don’t you think?

Don’t forget, if you want to get a card in the mail from me, you need to be on my mailing list! I’d love to send you one!

Nov26

Happy Accidents

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Happy Accidents

One of the things that will really make you happier as a crafter is learning how to let your mistakes marinate, and figuring out how to use them as a creative catalyst.

As I may have mentioned on numerous occasions before, I make a LOT of mistakes. Many of those mistakes are the result of simple user error. I either was not paying attention, or was fumble fingered, or just plain careless. It happens. It’s no big deal when it happens, unless I decide to let mistakes and errors stop me. Where’s the fun in that?

Today’s card is one of those mistakes that’s become a happy accident. I really like how it turned out, but you may not like it. The effect is very subtle. It’s really pretty hard to see in person, let alone in a picture.

subtle wheat

As I was making the background for this card, I was aware that I might have trouble with it, simply because I have been using different types of inks on different surfaces for ages. I experiment! It’s fun. 🙂

This is mirror cardstock. It has a very smooth, coated surface that resists most inks. Alcohol inks or solvent inks work fine on this. Other inks? Not so much.

Since I haven’t tried Memento ink on this surface yet, I decided to give it a whirl, and see what happened. Memento says it will dry on most surfaces, although some surfaces may require heat seating the ink. So I stamped this stamp in Memento black ink on the alcohol marbleized cardstock.

It wasn’t a perfect transfer (stamps tend to slide on super smooth cardstock like this) but it worked. I set it aside to dry and worked on other projects. After awhile I came back to it, and it wasn’t dry, so I heat set the ink for a little bit. Set it aside, and after waiting a bit more, checked to see how the ink was. Rubbed a tiny corner, and smeared a bit of ink. So I set it aside again, this time for a few days while I got other things done.

I find letting troublesome projects rest allows me to come back to a project with a fresh, optimistic, and creative eye.

In this particular case, I decided to just try to remove the still tacky ink with a paper towel. First I blotted it, and then I gave the background a quick rub. As I did so, I noticed that the spots where I had removed ink, had also taken the alcohol ink underneath off as well. The result? Ghostly wheat grass all over the background.

Cool!

A quick embossed, colored and matted wheat stamp, and the card was done.

What do you think? Can you see the ghostly grass? I’m having a hard time getting a good shot for you.

ghostly grass

Ah! That’s better!

 

Nov25

Simple and Gorgeous Technique

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Simple and Gorgeous Technique

Most stamping techniques aren’t hard, but they can seem intimidating until you try them. This is one of those techniques. Let’s break this down into steps, so you can see just how easy this can be.

shadow block technique card

1. Start with the shadow stamp. (This is a stamp with a solid shape like a square or rectangle or circle on it.) Choose a pigment ink that’s very light. Do a test stamp first to make sure the ink is light enough to stamp over. This particular image was stamped three times, reversing top and bottom each time. If you have a bigger stamp, you won’t need to stamp it multiple times, but this was the effect I was looking for.

2. For the main image, choose a stamp with a solid surface, not an outline.

3. Choose dye inks for the main image stamp. If you have small ink pads, that will make it easier to keep the colors separate, but the normal sized ink pads will work as well. If you turn your stamp upside down, you’ll be able to see where you’ve inked, and where you haven’t more clearly.

4. After you’ve applied your dye ink to your stamp, very lightly stamp in onto a piece of scrap paper, and then stamp it firmly onto your shadow block image.

5. Finish up the image however you want. In this case, I trimmed the image, inked the edge, and mounted it onto a couple pieces of patterned paper, with a piece of ribbon and rhinestones to finish it off.

It really is that easy to do. Try it! You’ll like it!

Don’t forget if you want to get a card in the mail from me, make sure you’re on my email list!