Stampin! with Jaydee

Patterned Pines - Merry Christmas

Hi Everyone.  Happy Tuesday Evening.

I hope you all had a fabulous long weekend.

The leaves are slowly starting to turn and my summer flowers in the boxes in my deck have lost their sparkle.  I think fall must be on the way.  The hummingbirds are becoming more territorial, a sure sign they are getting ready to make their way South!  As I write my blog post tonight, Bilbo Baggins (one of my Norwegian Forest cats) is curled up between my arms padding and purring.  It's wonderful to be so unconditionally loved... now... if only he would get his big fat paws off my keyboard, I might be able to get this post done!

Tonight's card is using the new Hostess Level 1 set, Patterned Pines.  When I saw this set in the new Mini it was a must have for me.  For those of you who have visited before, you know that I used this set - but the snowflake on this card.  I created this card as part of the Splitcoaststampers Clean and Simple challenge #31.  The challenge was to "pop it up".... Well you all know that popping up parts of my card is not new to me, and I was happy to rise to the challenge :-)  Actually, the hardest thing about Clean and Simple cards is trying to figure out when enough is enough.  

I wanted to frame the central images without using matting.  So the way I chose to do it is with ribbon on the top and then to score two lines just above the Merry Christmas.  Of course, I could not stop myself... I absolutely HAD to use the new Shimmer Paint.  So, my last card using Patterned Pines was in the warm gold tones, this one in the cool silver tones.  I stamped the trees and then cut them out into individual trees.  I used my snail to stick the left and right ones onto the card stock - and then used my Stampin' Dimensionals to pop the middle tree.

I love the simplicity of the card and was happy with the end result.  As I started my Christmas cards early this year..... I'm in good shape and should be able to avoid the last minute rush!

Bilbo Baggins has decided that there is too much light so is lying here with his left paw over his eyes and his furry tailed on top of that... just to make sure he closes out as much light as possible.  

Back to the card... the shimmer paint is fabulous to use and I've been really pleased with the projects that I have used this on.  It took me a little while to work out how best to apply it to the stamps... and then I found the way that works best for me. 

 

Jaydee tip:  

• I shake the bottle and then take off the top. 
• Then I attach a sponge dauber to my finger and use the dauber to gently pick up some shimmer paint from the bottle cap (fits perfectly, I might tell you :-). 
• I then gently apply the paint from the dauber onto the stamp.  I then refill from the cap as and when I need it.

I found that this method works best to get just the right amount of paint onto the stamp; get a very even coverage on the stamp; and don't waste too much paint.   If you have any questions on these instructions, just send me an email.

If you do a closeup on this pic, you can see that there is very even coverage and I love the patterns on these pines!!!  If you like this card, you'll want to use this card I made using the Delightful Decorations set using the same color scheme.

As always, thank you for spending time in my little area of the stamping blogosphere.  Your visit is always appreciated.  

I hope you have a fabulous Wednesday, full of time to do the things you love - with those you love the most.

Peace and hugs

Jaydee

Let me introduce you to Bilbo Baggins..... who loves the heat of the lamps in my photo tent!!!

Halloween Hoot - Sweet Center Witch and Branch Out Forest Scene

Hi Everyone.  Happy Monday!
Two for the price of one visit tonight.  PalspaperArts Challenge 5 is a theme challenge - Halloween.  Well... those of you who visit often know that I couldn't resist this one!  Stampin' Up! has created some fantastic Halloween sets this year, but Halloween Hoot is the one I decided to invest in.  It really appealed to my sense of the ridiculous - and my cards reflect that. :-) You can see my Halloween Hoot collection here. 
Here are the two new ones for tonight.  

I couldn't resist using the Sweet Centers  - hot hair balloon basket again.  A little twist of the unexpected .....This time the witch is powering the basket :-)  I drew the witch with her hair flying and her cape flowing behind her with the bottom of her legs and cape inside the basket of the Hot Air Balloon.  I cut her out, and then stamped the hot air balloon from sweet centers and attached the hot air balloon with Stampin' Dimensionals.  I then attached the whole thing to the card with Stampin' Dimensionals - to give dimension not only for the witch, but also for the basket.  Jaydee tip 1: I colored her in with Basic Black Marker, because I wanted the variation of colors and more of a texture to reflect the light from the moon.  I wouldn't have gotten that same effected if I had drawn her on black paper and cut it out.    I like the fact that the circle in the basket was reflected in the circles in the paper and in the sentiment.  Fun :-)

The second card is a forest scene.  Again from the Halloween Hoot set - minus the witch.  Don't forget, she's just taken off in a hot air balloon and left the rest of the animals from the set alone to get up to no good :-)

I decided to create a much bigger moon this time and put the frog in the tree, as though he had been left to watch over whatever is brewing in the cauldron.  The wise old owl always looks as though he's been imbibing too much of whatever is in the cauldron :-)  The tree is from the Branch Out set.  All other items are from the Halloween Hoot set.  Jaydee tip 2:  When you stamp the Branch Out tree it provides a line for the ground line.  I extended that under the cauldron with black marker to ground the cauldron.

You'll notice I also turned the sign upside down to hang it from the tree. 

Jaydee tip 3:  I needed to highlight the tree - to reflect the light from the very bright moon.  I used my Signo uni-ball white pen to run a fine line down the tree trunk and the branches. 

The grey satin ribbon adds a juxtaposition of normality against the rest of the haphazard scene.  On the forest scene card, I used a sponge and a mixture of Basic Grey and Going Grey inks to create the night sky and clouds.  I stamped the entire image on Shimmery White... when you move the card around you can still get a little shimmer from the card stock - even though I colored it with the greys.  I tore the right hand side of the card as well to continue the theme. 

I hope you enjoyed these two whimsical cards.  I had great fun making them - but they were very tough to photograph.  If you have any questions on how I created them, leave me a comment or send me an email.

As always, thanks for spending time with me in my little area of the stamping blogosphere.... and for those of you who visit often... I had to include this picture... maybe I need to try to keep my cats out of my stamping space.... well... Bailey anyway.  Why is it always Bailey???? 

Those white lines you can see are his whiskers... which, considering you cannot see his face, shows you how long his whiskers actually are!!!!

Have a fabulous Tuesday and I hope you get time to spend doing the things you love - with those you love the most.

Peace and hugs

Jaydee

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Branch Out and yet another Halloween Hoot bonus

Hi Everyone

Happy Wednesday.  I can't believe that it's already Tuesday night and we are almost at "hump" day.  Ever since I was a child and was going through my "I hate school" period, I've really appreciated Wednesdays!  I'm sad to say that I won't be at the Stampin' Up convention this year.  Sigh!

Today, I have one of my all time favorite Stampin Up stamp sets to show you.  Branch Out!  There's a distinctly fall (autumn for my European and Antipodean visitors :-)....)feel to the air right now and it inspired me to use fall colors for this Stamping411 saturday sketch challenge 110.  For those of you who have visited my site before, you know I can't resist a challenge.  You should check out the submissions from the other posters, too.  Always lots of great inspiration for you.

 Once again, I loved the simplicity of the layout.  I used Really Rust for the card stock and the matt.  I stamped the leaves with Really Rust and Crushed Curry.  I stamped the tree with Soft Suede and used soft suede for the circle.  I used the textured card stock for the circle.

I decided to stamp the butterflies in Only Orange - it reminded me of the fact that we get a lot of Monarchs at this time of year.  (In fact we planted lots of Milkweed in our garden to help these amazing little things along!)   I used black StazOn for the tire.  It really gives such a crisp clear image.  I stamped all of this on Whisper White.  I love using the WW for featuring stamps as I like the way the ink takes and the crispness of the image I get when I use it.

The brad is from the Vanilla Hodgepodge collection.

Overall, I was really pleased with the way the card turned out and felt that it captured the fall feel that I was looking for.

As I have received even more requests for Halloween cards - here's today's bonus.  I used the Halloween Hoot.... again! :-) This time I used the witch stamp and decided to combine it with Humor in High Heels.  My friends will understand my absolute NEED to use this stamp..... My DH had to build an entire part of our walk-in closet just to hold my shoe collection!.....

I changed the exposure of these shots, so that you could see the detailing on the black card stock.  I ran it through my big shot on the polka dots and then used my sanding block to subtly highlight the dots.  For this version of the card, I used the retired Kiwi Kiss ribbon.  I also did a version with the Dusty Durango ribbon instead.  The witch image was stamped in black StazOn and I used my Aquapainter and colored the witches face with Old Olive ink.  I stamped the placard in black StazOn, and then stamped the "Best Witches" on Old Olive card stock.  For the inside, I decided to make her a "good witch" and gave her silver shoes!

As always, thank you for spending time in my little area of the vast and inspiring stamping blogosphere.  Your visit is much appreciated.

I wish you an inkspirational day, full of time to do the things you love - with those you love.
Peace
Jaydee

Dasher - MojoMonday 98.... and Halloween Hoot Bonus

Hi Everyone!

Happy Monday.... I hope you all had a great day.  Today felt like Friday 13th for me! :-)  However, I managed to escape for an hour and play in my stamping space.  Yesterday I promised you Stampin Up Halloween Hoot cards... and they are in this post.  However, I wanted to start off with a card using Dasher with the MojoMonday 98 challenge.  Every week the team do a great job with the challenges.  I was so inspired by the sketch... even though there's a circle in it!  What is it about challenges and circles these days! :-) 

So.. you will probably be seeing a couple of different cards with this sketch this week.  I have two versions of the same card.  I couldn't resist using Dasher.  So, question for you all.  How many cards can Jaydee possibly make with Dasher?  This is the 5th that you are seeing.  It's amazing how much use I can get out of a stamp which costs less than $9.00.  To be honest, I haven't seen a bad card made with Dasher on any of the forums.

Here's today's version... in fact there are two for you.  I decided to try it with an Old Olive ribbon ... and then one with the Crushed Curry polka dot ribbon.  Leave me a comment and let me know which you think works best.  I love them both, but for different reasons.  The fact that there isn't a single version here shows you that I couldn't make up my mind!!!!

I love the simplicity of the layout.  I really love the Crushed Curry as an accent on the Christmas cards.  I created a 5.25 x 5.25 card in Shimmery White.   I inked the Dasher image in Old Olive and then used my Crushed Curry marker to color in the horns.  I matted the square with both Crushed Curry and Whisper White.  The sentiment is from the Christmas Greetings set.  I hope you like them.  If you like the Dasher cards, then you might like these ones, which I published previously here and the second card down here and.... one more here.  Enjoy!  For under $9.00 it's an astonishingly versatile stamp!

Now... for you Halloween lovers... I promised you a Halloween card made using the Halloween Hoot.  Here's one.  I promise you another one tomorrow night.  

I found it really hard to actually photograph this card, but I had great fun creating it.  

I stamped the Cauldron in Versamark and then used black embossing powder to create it.  I stamped the witch in StazOn and colored her face, the lacy hem of her dress and the band of her hat with in color markers.  I then stamped the sign, the sentiment and the owl.  Finally used the moon stamp and the "bubbles" stamp.  I used the Uniball pen to color the moon.  I used sponges to ink in a twilight sky.  I also layered black and basic grey paper to give a little depth to the ground.  I "buried" the sign in the layers, almost as though it was a gravestone that was falling over.  The key for me was the sponging.  I wanted to make it look as though the sun was picking up the key areas of the scene.  What was difficult to catch was the fact that I'd used a gel pen to highlight areas.  You can see it close up.. but on the photo, it was pretty tough.

I hope you enjoy.  And for you Halloween Hoot lovers, I hope you found another little piece of inspiration.  If you need more - check here and check back tomorrow, as I will have another Halloween Hoot bonus.

As always, thank you for spending time in my little area of the blogosphere.  Your visits, and comments, are much appreciated.

I wish you an inkspirational day full of the time to do the things you love - with those you love.

Peace

Jaydee

Halloween Hoot - Halloween is a Hoot!

Hi Everyone,
I know we still have a way to go before Halloween, but I couldn't resist using the new Stampin Up Halloween Hoot stamp set (111582) when I saw the MojoMonday Challenge 95.

 As you can see, I'm still working to try to get the right exposure, angles, etc. on the photo's - but I promise they will get better!

Card Recipe:
Basic Black (102851), Dusty Durango - textured (115719 - in colors card stock pack) and Old Olive (100702).  I embossed the cauldron with Basic Black Emboss Powder (109133).  I masked off the area where I was going to stamp the witch and turned her upside down to make it look as though she had tripped over the toad and fallen into the cauldron.  I stamped the witch in StazOn for a crisp clean image, and colored her lace in Old Olive ink.  I stamped the toad in Old Olive ink (102277) and colored him with Yoyo Yellow and Dusty Durango marker pens.  The bubbles were stamped in Dusty Durango ink.  I stamped the broomstick (some would say that it's my form of transport :-) ).... in StazOn onto the textured Dusty Durango card stock.  I then layered the images with a piece of Dusty Durango card stock and a piece of Dusty Durango polka dot ribbon (115609).  I then mounted it onto a Dusty Durango A2 card.  The lighter background allowed me to easily stamp a greeting on the inside of the card.

I used my Big Shot (my favorite all time tool) and the texturz plates to create the embossed circle background.  You can see the dots in the top left hand side of the card, where they were highlighted by my light. 

Jaydee tip: When using the texturz plates, especially the polka dot ones, you can use a sanding technique to actually take a little of the color from the paper.  This highlights the raised dots. I took a sanding block and very gently rubbed over the dots in a circular motion all over the black cardstock after I had run it through my Big Shot. (You will see me use this technique fairly often, especially when I use the polka dot ribbons.)  Additionally, if you want the dots to be more raised, put a couple of pieces of spare card stock underneath the texturz plate when you run the paper through the Big Shot.

To keep the circle theme going, I punched out the sentiment and mounted with a Stampin' Dimensional.

Well, I love this set.  So..... look for some more examples. 

On the personal front, a little warmer and more humid today.  I had to save wildlife this morning - in my pyjamas.  Not a sight you want to see before you have had breakfast I can tell you!  I heard a strange squealing as I got out of bed (no... that wasn't my husband horrified by the sight of me in my pyjamas!!!!) .....and then heard my cat growl as he looked out of the bedroom window.  His growl told me that we were being visited by "Cookies 'n Cream"  - a local kitten.  (She's gorgeous, I might tell you, but really shouldn't be running around the area.)  Anyway, I looked out of the window and she was chasing a baby rabbit.  It was the baby rabbit that was squealing.  So, I ran downstairs, and managed to distract Cookies so that the baby rabbit could get away.  In case you hadn't noticed by now..... I love animals and have a reputation for rescuing just about anything!

Have an inkspirational day and happy stampin' and, as always, thanks for stopping by!
Jaydee