Embossing Paste Goodness

I love playing with embossing paste.

 It can make for such a dramatic background.  I used this piece to create a card around the Freshly Made sketch.  

 I started out with a piece of watercolor paper.  I sprayed it with some Tattered Angels Chalkboard spray in Valencia.  That is such a neat color because it has a metallic gold undertone.  I didn't cover the entire paper.  When that was dry, I added white embossing paste through a Tim Hotlz stencil.  The "hello" is a die from Mama Elephant and the butterfly is by Recollections/Michaels.  

Here is the Freshly Made Sketch.

Plus it fits the Time Out challenge.

Thanks for visiting, Linda (lbpost)

Digital papers, Sketches and Scraps

I just love sharing so here goes...

 First up, the Unscripted sketch for this week.

 It was so fun giving my card a masculine twist. 

 I used two different digital papers, printed out on white cardstock and the old fashioned car is also a digital element from Times and Seasons by Echo Park. Fun stuff. 

 And, remember my paper tape from Target? I just placed strips of it along the side of a piece of white cardstock.

 I then stamped this Sweet Pea stamp from PaperTrey, Inc along the side. I love stamping it in an outline style.  I also sprayed some Chalkboard spray on it.  Caution, don't stamp over the tape unless you use Stazs On, my ink didn't want to dry on the tape. 

 And, I wanted to also play along with the Moxie Fab Practical Solutions challenge to use scraps. 

I was sitting at my desk and I spotted a piece of paper that I had played with alcohol inks on. I love to play with that stuff and find color combos that look neat. This piece had been set aside.  I was looking at the backside of the paper.  Those inks spread through to the reverse side and it just seemed to be saying that I needed to stamp something on it so I picked up this butterfly stamp by Stampers Anonymous.  I only had to stamp the butterfly with black ink and I had a really cool looking image. The dots are circles punched from a piece of cardstock that I had stamped with yellow ink using a background stamp from the same set. LOVE what neat background paper that stamp makes.

Thanks for visiting, Linda (lbpost)

Paper Smooches SPARKS challenge and more

Today is the day for a new challenge at the Paper Smooches SPARKS blog, March 22 - April 4.

 Talk about adorable!

 Of course, I wanted to start with the bunny since Paper Smooches has a cute bunny stamp and they are the focus of the inspiration piece.  Notice my background? I used one of PS's new background stamps.  I stamped it repeatedly with white ink on white cardstock and then embossed that with white embossing powder. Now let me tell you, this was something I am not going to try again soon.  It is basically impossible to line up images when they are stamped in white on white!!! I sprayed this piece with a few colors of Chalkboard spray.  I used pastel shades to match the cute bunny ears in the inspiration piece but I wanted to have green be one of the main colors.

 I kept the coloring of my bunny to a minimum and then used the chevron background stamp to mimic grass behind the bunny.  I had to include a cloud in my little scene.

And, for something new to me...

 I played along with a new sketch blog, retro sketches.  Plus I am also playing with the Practical Solutions week: Household items challenge at Moxie Fab and that is to use "found" pieces on a card. 

 The apple stamp is by Paper Smooches and I paper pieced the two sides of the apples with patterned paper.

This is fun, for my "found" items, I spied the cute bag that apples came in that we had picked up at Targets.  The green print is from the label, the bread tag was used to close the bag and that cool bow is the neat thread net that held the apples. I just couldn't throw that stuff away, it is so soft and made a fun accent.

Thanks for visiting, Linda (lbpost)

Taylored Expressions Christmas

I love when we have a sponsor at Card Postioning Systems sketch blog and this week was especially fun with some new Taylored Expressions stamps. 

I love the elegance of this set of stamps.  I loved them so much that I created two cards this week.  I used the same red patterned paper because it just seemed perfect.  Notice my punched bottom edge to my card, love this EK Success punch.

 I stamped the sleigh and embossed it with a cranberry embossing powder and then sprayed the white cardstock with ChalkBoard spray by Tattered Angels. 

For this card I used the reindeer stamp and one of the great sentiment stamps from the same set. The label that the sentiment is stamped on is a punch by EK Success.

The reindeer was simply stamped with black ink and then embossed with clear embossing powder.  I love how easy it was to get another elegant look.
Thanks for visiting, Linda (lbpost)

SKETCH 190-a – CELEBRATE THE SEASON card

Materials:
Stamps – Sparkle and Cheer clear set/Courtesy of Taylored Expressions
Cardstock – Core Expressions/Core’dinations
Patterned paper – My Mind’s Eye
Stamp pad – Clearsnap
Embossing powder – Clearsnap
Spray color – Chalkboard/Tattered Angels
Lacey border punch – Martha Stewart
Self Adhesive Rhinestones – Queen & Co.
Sandpaper
Foam tape

SKETCH 190-b – THAT BRINGS JOY TO US ALL card
Materials:
Stamps – Sparkle and Cheer clear set/Courtesy of Taylored Expressions
Cardstock – Core Expressions/Core’dinations
Patterned paper – My Mind’s Eye
Versafine black stamp pad
Clear Embossing powder – Stampendous
Border punch – EK Success
Label punch – EK Success
Self Adhesive Rhinestones – Queen & Co.
Sandpaper
Foam tape

JustRite 12 Weeks of Christmas Blog Hop 8

JustRite Stampers’ newest

Wednesday feature,

12 Weeks of Christmas Blog Hops 8!

Every Wednesday up until Thanksgiving, some of your favorite designers will be joining some of the JustRite design team for a series of Christmas blog hops, showcasing

 JustRite’s entire

Christmas Collection of stamps!

And don’t forget that JustRite has some Christmas stamps in their newly released CLING line of stamp sets you can find them HERE.

This week, the designers joining the JustRite design team are the Flower Soft and The Shabby Tea Room challenge blog design teams! So mark your calendars for Wednesdays at 9am Central for great Christmas gift, card & project ideas,

starting at the JustRite Inspiration blog!

I always love snowflakes of any kind and size so I wanted to use this great set of Christmas themed stamps that includes a couple snowflakes.  The patterned papers are brand new from Nikki Sivils, Scrapbooker. Another thing I love to go along with snowflake images is the color blue and notice how I paired these prints with the green for my card base.

I stamped the circle frame image on white cardstock with Versafine Black ink and embossed it with clear embossing powder.  This piece was punched out with a circle punch and matted with a slightly larger black punched circle and then matted again with a slightly larger, scallop circle punch. 

Now I generously filled the middle of my white, framed circle with the Aleene's Tacky Glue and sprinkled on the Polar Ice Flower Soft.  I am pretty sure the white is my favorite of the Flower Soft colors, you can't find a better look for "snow".  The snowflake was also stamped with the black ink and embossed with the clear embossing powder.  I colored portions of it with a couple shades of blue Copic markers and then sprayed the entire piece with a blue Chalkboard Glimmer Mist.  I cut out the snowflake image and attached it to my Flower Soft circle with foam tape for added dimension.

Now for a tip:  I read this one time, I think on the JustRite blog and it has helped me so much. When you use JustRite stamps and use a center image and a frame image in the sets they come in, these can be stamped very successfully. However, sometimes I like to use the middle images alone, especially the words and I could not figure out how to stamp these without black ink on the edges.  The tip that I read is to trim these stamps to take off those excess areas of rubber. These stamps have ridges on the back side so that they work with the JustRite blocks and I would have thought that trimming them would not have been a good idea but it works perfectly and makes these stamps so much easier to stamp a great image of.  My photo gives you an idea of what this looks like.

Now for the hop. Here is the entire list but from here you can hop on over to Deb's blog.

JustRite Design Team:
Sharon Harnist
Angela Barkhouse
Sankari Wegman
Stephanie Kraft
Kazan Clark
Michele Kovack
Kellie Fortin
Barb Schram
Debbie Olson
Becca Feeken
Heidi Blankenship

Flower Soft Design Team:
Jeanne Streiff
Debbie Seyer
Gini Cagle
Linda Beeson
Deb Felts
Cibele Glazer
Vicki Garrett
Dina Kowal

The Shabby Tea Room Design Team:
Debbie Marcinkiewicz
Nicole Segnere
Clare Buswell
Pattie Goldman
Lisa Golzbein
Cathy Clark-Sanite

Before I go, I just have to share some photos from our weekend. This was our third pumpkin patch visit this season! We are usually lucky to get to one but with a 2 1/2 year old grandson, pumpkin patch visits are FUN!

This was a hay bale maze, where you go until you run into dead ends. Well, dead ends were no problem, he would just crawl up on the hay bales and walk on top of them!

Throwing handfulls of hay was also a fun activity!

This is a pumpkin patch with an ocean view!!! Beyond those palm trees is more farm land and then the coast. The pumpkin patch goes up a hill so I was standing up the hill abit.

I loved these pumpkins with their long, skinny stems. Thanks for visiting, Linda (lbpost)

MERRY & BRIGHT card

Materials list:
Stamps – Whimsical Christmas and Christmas Nested Sentiments/JustRite stamps
Polar Ice Flower Soft
Tacky glue – Aleene’s
Cardstock – Core Expressions/Core’dinations
Patterned paper – Something for Everyone collection/Nikki Sivils
Black Versafine stamp pad
Clear embossing powder – Stampendous
Scallop circle and circle punches – PaperShapers
Border punch – Recollections
Machine sewing
Copic markers
Chalkboard spray – Tattered Angels
Self adhesive rhinestones – Queen & Co.
Sandpaper
Foam tape – 3M

My favs from CHA - photos

My favorite and more unexpected find was this adorable booth for "the girls' paperie."

Everything was so cute and I loved the product.

The Jillibean Soup booth

On the top of my list of "must haves" are these great, corrugated letters by Jillibean Soup. Is this project just adorable?

This is how the letters come and so when you punch them out, you also have the left over background paper.

The letters used and their really cute buttons too.

The October Afternoon booth
I have a couple companies that I could just use everyday and October Afternoon is one of those. Here are two of their new lines.

The October Afternoon gals used small layouts for their examples. They were so cute, like mini 12x12's. I liked how many they could get in a small space.

***

The Tattered Angels booth

I always love what Tattered Angels comes out with but a fav are those adorable, little black transparency shapes. They are the perfect accent for all kinds of things and can be used just like they come or they can be accented.

A new find at Tattered Angels that I want right now are Chalk kinds of sprays. They are more matte and just look wonderful.
***

The Maya Road booth

Their design team always just plain rocks the examples. They need step by step demoes of everyone of them.

Here is another "must have" on my list, more cute Maya Road flowers. I just love this style.

How cute are these little blocks to show the colors of the Claudine Hellmuth paints?

***

The Jenni Bowlin booth

I have a couple more "must haves" on my list from this company. These buttons! LOVE the colors and the shapes.

And these way adorable butterflies! Love the thickness of them and the prints and colors.

Look at how the butterlies and the buttons are used on this layout.

Adorable use of the Core'dinations cardstock.

Love the simplicity of this layout.

***

The Cosmo Cricket booth

Can you see the Core'dinations cardstock for the background? Such a perfect look with these papers. Cosmo Cricket is one of the companies that have partnered with Core'dinations with some amazing embossed cardstocks.

One of their new collections.

More photos later

Thanks for visiting, Linda (lbpost)