Give Peas A Chance!

My first post is up over at the RubberMoon Arts blog (read it here)!

I sound like a broken record (or glitchy mp3 for those of you too young to understand the implications of a broken record), because I keep saying "I'm so excited to be part of this Creative Dream Team!" But I am. Not only is it a wonderfully supportive group, but Holy Inspiration, Batman! I can only sift through the blog posts for so long before my head is so full of ideas that I feel like I'm going to explode.

The above card is what I designed for my first post and you can read up on how I did it by following the link above.

Stay tuned, because I have all kinds of fun new RubberMoon stamps to play with!

Viva Las Vegas Stamps - August Challenge

There I was, complaining about the Summer heat (as usual). I was trying to find a way to distract myself from my sweaty puddle of discomfort when I saw the August challenge over at the Viva Las VegasStamps blog. I decided to play along. The prompt was the color orange, and summer and girls and well, pretty much anything goes. So I designed the above card using three different VLVS stamps:
Leapfrog Lady
Diving Lady
and the quote.

I stamped the images and quote using StaZon Jet Black Ink on glossy white cardstock. Then I colored in the images with water-based markers and sponged around the edges with an orange-y water-based ink. Just to add some bling - because that's how I roll - I "colored in" the diving woman's top with yellow Stickles.

It should be noted that I have been a huge fan of Viva Las VegasStamps practically since the day I began stamping. They offer tens of thousands of different stamps. Really. They cater to every rubber stamp need you can imagine, including my own penchant for sarcastic and whimsical stuff. They also have a great variety of naughty stamps - as naughty as you can think it. I'm a fan of that, too. Go figure.

In 2006, a couple of years after I'd fallen headlong into the addictive world of rubber stamps, I was fortunate to meet up with a group of friends for a rubber stamp convention in Las Vegas. One afternoon, we ditched the convention and made the trip to the VLVS store. I am not joking at all when I say that the place is a stamper's wonderland. My friends and I happily fell down that rabbit hole and whiled away that entire afternoon looking at rubber stamps. It goes on record as one of the top ten afternoons of my life and it's probably why I can't use a VLVS stamp without breaking into a somewhat enigmatic grin.

After all, I'm trying to not take this non-permanent life so seriously. Rubber stamps help.

Can You Digi It?

Hello, Crafty People! Uh... maybe that should be Crafting People...?

This is my first post as a new member of the Fitztown Creative Team; the challenge is "Anything Goes". It's been a busy week, and I will admit that I'm sliding this one in like it's bottom of the ninth and the score is tied. On that note, I apologize that I don't have step-by-step pictures to go with this post as was my intention. I just didn't have the time.

This really was a new endeavor on my part. I have never used digital stamps (aka digistamps) before, so I wasn't quite sure what my real reaction was going to be. My reaction was that I like it. The cool thing about digistamps is that once you receive the image, you can resize it to be whatever you want. The flower vase above could have been an entire 8.5 x 11" page, or I could have reduced it to half an inch (or smaller, I suppose). That's a pretty neat feature because when it comes to standard rubber stamps, the size you've got is the size you get.

The image I chose is Fitztown's Garden 9. Once I resized this image to fit the 3.75 x 5" piece that I wanted it to be, I printed it out and went to work. I began by coloring in the leaves, flowers, and the vase. I dabbed some cinnamon colored Stickles in the centers of the flowers for a little shimmer effect, and set it aside to dry.

If you're at all familiar with my work, you know that I like messy. Some people call that distress, but I don't like the word distress. It sounds too frantic for a process that is so much fun. So then, my next step was to get messy. I schmeered some Rock Candy Distress Crackle Paint (made by Ranger) over the image. Again, I set it aside to dry.

As soon as it was dry, I sponged a light turquoise ink over the entire piece to bring out the crackle effect and to give it a more country antique look. That's all there was to it.

I encourage you to try out some digistamps. I can already see that I'll have plenty of fun with them.

Have a craftastic weekend!

Hurricane Barb Strikes Again

Hello! I thought I'd start you off with a project that I worked on in June. Otherwise, there's nothing significant about the picture above. Well, nothing except that someone commissioned it, didn't like it (which is absolutely fine), whereupon it was immediately snatched up by someone else. There's a lesson there for you hesitant artists and crafters. Art is subjective. Someone is going to hate it, someone is going to love it. Don't let anyone's opinion of your work get you down.

But. That's not why we're here today. We're here today because I have huge news! I have been asked (and of course I've accepted) to be on two... count 'em... 1, 2 (wooHOO!) Creative Design Teams. I am so thrilled that I'd be dancing if it didn't get in the way of trying to sip coffee and make art. (Note: Jitterbugging is not a friend of the finely drawn line. It does, however, make for some fascinating abstract.) Anyway. Yes. I'm now on two design teams and I couldn't be more excited. I will be designing cards and crafty projects using stamps from RubberMoon and from Fitztown. Of course, I'll also be blogging about those projects and giving you helpful how-to's and stuff like that. What's cool about it for me is that I get to be part of a couple of amazingly creative teams - I can't wait to see what my co-conspirators cook up each month.

So, life just got busy. Very busy.

Here's what my desk looks like mostly clean and waiting for me to begin.

Here it is six cards and a little over two hours later.

And, just in case you need an aerial shot...

That's it for today, my friends. I have a bigger mess to make, and never enough time in which to make it. I encourage you to get messy. Some of my best stuff has come from accidentally getting paint or ink slopped in the wrong place... now I do it on purpose and people think I'm a genius.

Now, about all that jitterbugging... remember the old Fats Waller tune, The Joint Is Jumpin'? Well, in the same vein of passion and abandon and joy, this studio is stampin'!