What Would Happen If...?

What would happen if I took yesterday's cards and added a bit of pressure embossing using my ScorPal?

Something like this, perhaps?



Aww, shucks. I embossed the lines too high and had to cut off a bit of the bottom to get it balanced, but so what? Still quite pretty. What would happen if I tried a Valentine's card?



Sweet! (Even if I do like the scale of the shortened card better....) But what would happen if I rotated it from portrait to landscape? Oh, and switched a stamped and punched heart for the square heart?



Happy sigh.

"What would happen if...?" It's my favorite question when crafting. Sometimes, what happens is a disaster, in which case I shrug it off and try something else. (It took me YEARS to get to this healthy mental state.) Sometimes, what happens is fine, in which case I either leave well enough alone or keep pushing. Sometimes, what happens is totally fabulous, in which case I share it with you!

Well, I think they're fabulous.

Supplies
stamps: Papertrey Sign Language, Paper Tray, Heart Prints
ink: Versacolor
paper: PTI white
accessories: ScorPal, dimensionals, square punch (3/4"), small heart punch

Work It, Baby!

When a good idea comes to you, you gotta work it, baby! Like this...


Oh, yeah! Do it again!


And again!


Oh my gosh, STOP IT!!!


Get OUT! Can she do it again? YES, SHE CAN!


WORK IT, sister!


Whew. That was exhausting.

Supplies
stamps: PTI Sign Language, Paper Tray
cardstock: PTI white
ink: various VersaColor
accessories: 3/4" square punch, dimensionals

Evolution of a Drab Idea

As you may or may not know, I love Barnes and Noble Booksellers. They have books and mochas, two things guaranteed to make me happy. So when I brought home this bag a few weeks ago, the thought popped into my noggin that perhaps, just perhaps, there was a way to make a card using a background stamp inspired by it. As I said on yesterday's post, I need to use my background stamps to justify buying more.


My noggin is completely stupid sometimes. What I was thinking? Woodcut designs are not exactly clean and simple, more like rustic and rough. After murdering many sheets of white cardstock, I had this drab little number:



I ask you, does this look like LateBlossom?

Yeah, I didn't think so, either.

Sigh.

Not unlike a bulldog, I wouldn't let this idea go and drooled on killed some more cardstock until this happened:


Still not exactly a LateBlossom card, but at least it's not drab. Mr. Petroglyph Lizard looks lonely on his frayed blankie, doesn't he? So I decided the miss you sentiment would fit. The two gemstones are just there to balance the sentiment and really should be brads because neither woodcuts nor petroglyphs bling much.

But they WISH they could bling.

You know they do.

Supplies
stamps: various
ink: always artichoke, apricot appeal, pumpkin pie
cardstock: PTI white
accessories: Post-It notes for masks, rhinestones

True Friends

After trolling the Hero Arts catalog for inspiration, I came up with this:



Don't laugh, but this fun card arose from a desire to use background stamps more, in order to justify ordering the two I want from the Hero catty. Seriously. Tomorrow's card is another in that effort.

See the games I play with myself? So sad.

Anywho, the set is Kindred Spirits from SU and isn't really a background stamp, per se. The sentiment is from Hero Arts. I really like how this turned out, and hope you do, too!

Supplies
stamps: SU Kindred Spirits, Hero Arts
paper: gable green, basic black, white
ink: Memories soft green, Palette Noir
accessories: gingham ribbon, dimensionals

Ink Makes a Difference--Enabling Alert

Seeing the coffee cup stamps in the new Hero Arts Catalog sent me to my stash for similar stamps. I pulled out PTI's Warm Happiness and Faux Ribbon and started playing.

The first card I made actually had a colored base (I'll show it later this week), but I wanted to make a one-layer version of it. Here's my first attempt at one layer, which we can all agree has some areas for improvement:



The layout is nice and balanced, and I love how the ribbon stamp grounds the design, but notice how spotty the ink looks. I used SU cool caribbean and close to cocoa. Often I DO get good results with clear stamps and SU classic ink, but not this time. Not sure how that unevenness got into the bottom of the wide brown ribbon line. Also, the cool caribbean is so light that I couldn't really see well to line up the scalloped edge with the flat ribbon stamp, so there is a gap between the two on the left side.

On a heavily embellished card, such a gap might not be noticeable. But on a one-layer card, YIKES!

Simplicity Tip: The ONLY way to use these long, thin ribbon stamps is to use a gridded acrylic block. Lay the stamp face down on your worktop, and lower the gridded block onto the stamp. This way, you can use the lines on the block to line everything up straight. As the above card shows, this technique is not full-proof, but it will work most of the time.

It was worth the effort to try again with different ink. The second version uses VersaColor ink, which is thick and creamy and gives lovely impressions with clear stamps. I used a darker shade of teal (lagoon blue) so I could see the scalloped stamp as I put it down.



As you can see, my aim was much better this time with the scallops, and the colors are much richer and cleaner. The coffee cup is popped on dimensionals. I cut off the handle to give the cup cleaner lines, more like the coffee cup stamps in the Hero catalog. (And also because I'm lazy and it's tedious and hard cutting out the hole in the handle. Just keepin' it real on the ol' blog!)

Another difference between the two cards is how I stamped the steam. For the first, I stamped the very bottom of the steam stamp ON the coffee cup before popping it on the card, and on the second, I didn't. I simply can't make up my mind which version I like better, or even if it makes a difference.

The purpose of this post is to make you feel good about buying different types of ink for different purposes. I find the little cubes and dew drops are a very cost-effective way of getting lots of colors of different inks for different purposes. Of course, make sure you want to DO the different purposes before you invest in the ink, and you can always start small, with just a few pads, to experiment. For instance, I haven't bought any distress inks because I HARDLY EVER DISTRESS ANYTHING.

But I have dozens of VersaColor cubes, VersaMagic dew drops, and Brilliance dew drops. These work great every time with my growing collection of clear stamps, and because I often make OLC's with no colored cardstock, the issue of matching ink and paper doesn't often come up. When I need to be all matchy-matchy, I use SU.

Thank you for reading this long and rambling post. Hopefully, I've enabled you in a good way!

Another Resource for Sending Cards for the Troops

I always try to include some missing you cards in my boxes for the troops. This simple card struck me as particularly good for a guy.



The tree line stamp is from PSX, whose lovely images live on even though the company went out of business years ago. It doesn't show in the picture, but I lined the inside with white paper so a note can be written and read easily. This is standard practice for dark-based note cards.

This card went out in a big box of over 100 cards on Thursday to Sue Salsburg. Her contacts "over there" really appreciate getting cards to send home. Sometimes, they send Sue pictures attached to their thank-you emails, which she forwards on to those who send her cards, so if you send cards to her, make sure you include a note with your email address! Her mailing information is:

Sue Salsburg
11637 Elton Rd.
Navarre, OH 44662

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I'm working on my list of New Year's Resolutions. The crafting ones include more scrapbooking and continuing 2009's resolution to use all my image stamps. One more set got used yesterday! What are your crafting resolutions for 2010? Trolling for ideas here!

Happy New Year

Welcome, 2010!

Before we get started on the new year, I think it respectful to look back on 2009 and acknowledge its victories. I don't like talking about failures. They happen, even to a really good year, but we don't need to dwell on them, now, do we?

1. As Ali Edwards recommended (not to me personally, mind you, but to the world on her blog), I chose a word for 2009 as my theme. It was FEARLESS. Be very, very careful what word you choose for your year. You just never know what might happen!

2. A few weeks later, I started a thread on SCS that celebrated Clean and Simple by putting all my neuroses and insecurities about my stamping out there for everyone to see. Clicking the post button for that thread was SCARY, but I did it anyway. So glad I did.

3. After that, several people asked me to start a weekly CAS Favorites thread. So glad I did it.

4. A few weeks after that, Miss Boo at SCS, who is very active in the challenges there, sent me a PM saying she wanted to try a weekly CAS challenge. Would I be on the design team? Me? On a design team? AAAACCCKKKK! But I said yes anyway. So glad I did.

5. A few people at SCS asked me to start a stamping blog. Easily influenced by even the slightest peer pressure, I took the plunge in March. I'd already started two other blogs, but this one terrified me. What if people realized I was just a poseur, a no-talent imitator, an AR/OCD freak?

6. After the initial shock of cold water from that plunge, I got used to the idea and realized, as I had with the thread in January, that I DID have something to share that was useful to other people. And if I poked fun at my mild AR/OCD tendencies, well, all the better.

7. I fearlessly climbed on the neologism bandwagon by coining the term CASification, or the verb form, to CASify. Taking highly embellished cards and converting them to CAS shows just how connected all card art is: CAS and highly embellished styles are just different sides of the same good design coin. No posing needed.

8. Stamping goddess Jennifer McGuire tweeted about Simplicity. Twice. The Queen of CAS herself, Julie Ebersole, occasionally comments on Simplicity. I'm a celebrity, once removed! *snort*

9. Blog it, and they will come. My subscriber count and Google followers keep growing. I don't feel at all responsible for this. It's the message, not me. ANYONE could do what I do, if they obsessed about it like I do. I'm no crafting genius. (Sorry, Marty! You're so sweet to say so, though!) I'm just a hard worker who is fearless enough to blog about it.

10. It's all your fault. When I first started, I posted sporadically. Now I post almost every day because of you. You embrace the message that Simplicity is the Ultimate Sophistication. You read my blatherings and view my cards, and you take precious time out of your lives to comment, to link to Simplicity from your blogs or various forums, to share it with friends. That spreads the message and widens the circle of CAS appreciation.

I'm not sure what 2010's word will be yet, but THANKFUL is a top contender. Thank you for encouraging me to be fearless. I'm so glad I was.