About Me

I am a new empty nester, and I love to make cards and ATCs. I am always looking for ways to use the product I have, to learn new techniques and ways to do things, and most of all, to have fun with the creating of my art.

Friday, July 1, 2011

Moving Blogs

OK, this morning, I did it.. I moved (well, still getting there) my blog from http://froggietalks.blogspot.com to HERE  All that I can say is that I LOVE the control you can have with Wordpress, although I'm the first to admit, it's a learning curve, but there are a lot of tutorials to help.  The one thing is, for what I wanted in my blog, there weren't tons of options, but IMO it did have more options than Blogger.  Not that I hate Blogger or anything, but with so many other people having such issues with Blogger, I thought it was a good time to move.

Any comments or feedback on the new blog would be appreciated.

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Lily Pad Giveaway!

“I became a Member of Lily Pad Cards today! Go become a member for a chance to win a collection of Hero Arts stamps. Contest closes at 11:59 p.m. EST on Friday, July 15!

Monday, June 27, 2011

Jay Gee's Nook Challenge 8 Card


This is my first time doing Jay Gee's challenge.  I found it a nice challenge from what I usually do.  I started with a kraft card base, and stamped Hero Arts Cling Dots in Victorian Velvet distress ink.  I cut a piece of Certainly Celery cardstock 1 inch wide and 4.25 inches long, and stamped Hero Arts Friend Definition in Shabby Shutters distress ink. I adhered the Certainly Celery piece to the base cardstock.  With the circle, the flower image was originally stamped in Victorian Velvet ink, but it didn't show, so the flower (Hero Arts) was stamped in Chipped Sapphire ink on pink bling Bazzil cardstock, and I used a 2.5 inch circle punch to punch out. Once I knew where I wanted the flower to sit, I adhered some Sookwang tape to the card base, extending to the edge of the card.  Taking some Ribbon (Michaels) I attempted to do some ribbon pleating.  This was my first time doing that, and I am pretty happy with the result. I cut the end after I was done pleating, and taped it to the inside of the card.  I foam mounted the flower on top of the beginning of the ribbon to hide the other end.  I finished the card by stamping Hero Arts "Congrats" in Chipped Sapphire distress ink on the bottom right hand corner.

I realized a little too late that I had missed the entry deadline for this challenge, but it was still fun to do.

Saturday, June 25, 2011

A Challenge Card



This card fulfills three challenges: the CAS-ual Friday challenge 8 card, which was to do something edgy with your card, The Play Date Cafe challenge 87, which was to use slate blue, barn red and grey on a card, and the current Hero Arts challenge, which is to do a congratulations card.  I started with a slate blue (as close as I had) base, cut folded and scored to a standard base card.  I then had fun, and tore the card to give an edge.   I inked the torn edge in Stormy Sky distress ink.  I used some gingham patterned paper in slate blue and barn red, cut it to length, and taped it to the underside of the card.  I tried to do a different edge again, but it didn't work.  I rounded the bottom corners.  Using Pumice Stone distress ink, I stamped the butterfly (Hero Arts) twice, once on the base cardstock, and once on the reverse of the gingham paper. I cut out the butterfly from the paper, and foam mounted it to the card.  I tucked just a touch of gingham ribbon in red from the tail of the butterfly.  I stamped "you did it!" (Hero Arts) in Pumice Stone ink. I finished by adding some grey pearls to the butterfly.

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Playing with Watercolour Pencils





I was able to buy some Faber-Castell Watercolour Pencils for a great price a couple of weeks ago, and on the weekend I finally had some time to play with them.  All stamps are Hero Arts.  I started by stamping the flowers from Peeking Posies onto watercolour paper with Black Onyx Versafine ink.  I used a variety of colours to colour in the flowers (hey, it's a good excuse to see what each colour actually looks like :) )  Once I was happy with the colouring, I used a small paintbrush that I dipped into water, and smoothed out the colour.  I was happily surprised to see that the colour did indeed intensify with the water added to the pencil colouring.  I trimmed the images to size, then cut some black cardstock to be a .25 inch bigger all around, and mounted the flowers onto the black cardstock with foam tape.  I took some cardstock in coordinating colours and cut to a 4.25inch square card base.  I adhered the black squares onto the cardstock, then used the Just My Type set from Hero Arts to add the sentiments.  As tempted as I was to add some detail onto the background of the card, I resisted, because I really wanted the flower image to stand out.

I am now officially loving watercolour pencils :)  I think that Faber-Castell has 60 colours available, I will have to do a hunt to collect the other colours.

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

PDCC86 and CFC#7


This is my entry for The Play Date Cafe Challenge 86 and the colour block challenge for CAS-ual Fridays Challenge #7.  I started with some Making Memories League Varsity cardstock, that I've had for ages, and made a quarter fold card base with the orange side.  Taking the flip side (the hollyhock colour), I cut a one inch wide strip from it, stamped the Hero Arts Envelope Pattern on it in Worn Lipstick Distress ink, and mounted it to the top of the card base.  I used a 2.5 inch square of the sky blue on the Varsity cardstock, and stamped Hero Arts Musical Walk in Weathered Wood Distress ink, and foam mounted it on to the card.  The pink seemed a tad overbearing, so I cut a .25 inch wide strip of the pale blue, and adhered it to the middle of the pink strip. I used the Hero Arts stamp Enjoy and stamped it on the right hand block in Worn Lipstick Distress Ink.

Friday, June 17, 2011

Baby Cards








These are the cards that I am doing as a set for my oldest, who has several older friends who are expecting.  I used my all time favourite sketch, and just changed up the images, paper and orientation of the cards.  For the boy cards, I used a blue striped card base, for the girl cards, I used SU Pink Pirouette cardstock as the base.  The images are all LawnFawn, stamped on a 2 inch circle and coloured with markers.  The patterned paper is DCWV "The Blossom Song" stack.  The sentiments are LawnFawn and Inkadinkado.

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Bird, Music and Masculine card

 This card fits in with the Scrapbook Expressions challenge (Birds and/or Music) and the PaperPlay Challenge (masculine) card.  I started with a white card base, and stamped the Hero Arts Musical Background in Antique Linen Distress Ink. Taking the bird on a branch stamp from Tim Holtz, I stamped it in the middle of the card in Vintage Photo Distress ink.  I took the crown, also from Tim Holtz, and stamped it on the card in Wild Honey Distress ink, and on some scrap white cardstock, cut out, and foam mounted on the card.  I used the sentiment (Studio G) and stamped it in Wild Honey Distress ink.  I finished the card by rounding the two right hand side corners.

The Lawnscaping Challenge 11

This is my card for the Lawnscaping challenge 11, which is a sketch.  I started with some Pink Pirouette Cardstock, and stamped the Envelope Pattern from Hero Arts in Spun Sugar on the card base.  I used some patterned paper from DCWV, cut a .75 inch width 12 inches long.  I cut the patterned paper in half, so that when I adhered it to the base cardstock, there'd be just a bit to trim on each side.  Once that was done, I stamped the carriage and sentiment (LawnFawn) in Plumeria chalk ink.  Using the same pattern paper (the other 6 inch strip), i stamped the carriage wheels and trim in the Plumeria ink, cut out and paper pieced to the card.  I finished the card by adding some white dash lines around the edge of the card... sadly, with the shadowing, it wasn't quite even, but gives a real homemade look to the card.

CFC006 and PDCC85 Card


This is a card I made this weekend.  It satisfies two challenges, the CAS-ual Friday Tic Tac Toe (buttons, flowers, twine) and The Play Date Cafe challenge 85, which is to use Blueberry, Cream, and Dusty Rose.  It also works with this weeks Fall to Layout from Clean and Simple Stamping.  I started with a Dusty Rose Bazzil base, and folded it so it was a landscape card. I then added two lines of twine on the bottom third of the card.  Taking a half of a cream circle, I stamped the sentiment (Studio G) in Victorian Velvet Distress ink.  I have some Prima  flowers that I've had for eons, and took some blueberry (or as close as I could get it) flowers from there, as well as some Prima cream flowers.   I used button brads in cream to attach the blueberry brads to the  card, and blueberry  brads to attach the cream flowers to card.

Saturday, June 4, 2011

The Play Date Cafe 84 Card


This is my card for the Play Date Cafe challenge 84, which was to use a reddish purple, medium blue-green, and a light plum.  For my one layer card, I used Pale Plum cardstock from SU (retired) cut, scored and folded to a standard sized card.  I used a flower from Hero Arts Real Flowers set, and stamped it in Colorbox Berrylicious Chalk ink three times.  I then used a green marker from Marvy,  inked the stem from the same stamp set, and stamped the stem for the flowers, re-inking the stem for each image.  Once that was done, and I knew what I wanted to do with the sentiment, I realized the card needed something more.... so I used Milled Lavender Distress Ink, and stamped the Hero Arts Envelope Pattern on the card base.  I inked the sentiment (Hero Arts) with the green marker  and stamped it in the right hand corner.

This card also satisfies the CST challenge this week to use flowers on a card.

CAS-ual Friday Challenge 05 (2 Cards)



These are the two cards I've done so far for the CAS-ual Fridays challenge 005, which is a sketch.  For the top card, I used  Pink Pirouette base cardstock, Pure Pomegranate cardstock (SU), and a butterfly that I embossed from Magenta.  The doily half is from WalMart.  To do the butterfly, I inked it with pigment ink, heat set, edged it in white, heat set, then stamped the flower (Hero Arts) in Black Staz On ink.  I then covered the butterfly in Versamark ink, then used UTEE to emboss 3 times... I learned this technique from my friend Elaine R, who owns Scraps N More. I foam mounted the butterfly to the doily, then finished the card with some sheer white ribbon from Michaels.

For the second card, I started with a base of Real Red cardstock (SU), then cut the front about 1.5 inches from the top.  I took a piece of white cardstock, and adhered it to the red flap to make a full card.  Using the leftover piece of red cardstock, I cut the piece to size, and rounded the corners.  I added the white doily, which I stamped the flower (Hero Arts) in Mustard Seed distress ink. I stamped the sentiment (Hero Arts) in Colorbox Frost White ink.  I completed the card by adding some yellow ribbon from Michaels.

Thursday, June 2, 2011

June Christmas Card Challenge


For June's Christmas card challenge,  it's a colour challenge: Red, Cream and Gold.  These are the cards that I did for the challenge.  I used some cream and gold patterned paper, and adhered it to the base cardstock ( 3 Red, 2 Cream).  I took a sentiment from Quietfire Designs, and stamped it in either gold or red on the base card.  To finish, I adhered a Quickkutz poinsettia that was already assembled. Please link your cards in the comment section or email me HERE with a photo of your cards.

Thank you for looking!

Lisa S Photography Tutorial parts #2 and #3








These are the photos I took using different apertures and ISOs.  For the life of me, I can't remember which photo is which, but I did have fun playing with the camera.  Enjoy!

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

CAS-ual Friday and Hero Arts Card


These are cards I did for the Hero Arts challenge this month (flowers) and they also fit the CAS-ual Friday challenge (bling).  The flower images are done on alcohol inked vellum, then stamped in white ink, and embossed with white EP.  I tried just using Versamark, but my pad must be getting dry, I didn't get such great results.  I learned the technique from Sue HERE

Thanks for looking!

Monday, May 23, 2011

Lawnscaping and Scrapbooker's Paradise Challenge Card

This card I made yesterday for the Lawnscaping Challenge and the Palying in Paradise Challenge 16.  The Lawnscaping challenge was to use Polka Dots, and the Playing in Paradise challenge was to use only black and white on the card.   I started with a black card base, done to a standard sized card.  On some scrap white cardstock, I stamped the Hero Arts Cling Dot pattern in Versafine Onyx Black ink.  While I let that set, I found a white Cuttlebug embossed piece, trimmed it to 3.75 x 5 inches, rounded the corners, and adhered to the black base cardstock.  I rounded the corners of the black cardstock.   When the polka dots were dry, I stamped the dress from LawnFawn's Happily Ever After set, and cut out.  I also punched a 2.5 inch circle from the polka dotted cardstock.  I took the dress, which was stamped in Versafine Onyx Black, and added Star Dust Stickles all over the dress, and let dry.  While that was drying, I punched a 2 inch circle in black card, and a 1.5 inch circle in white card.  I layered them onto the polka dotted circle.  I stamped Cheers from Happily Ever After in the Onyx Black ink on the 1.5 inch circle.  Once the dress was dry, I trimmed a piece of scrap black cardstock to size, rounded the corners, and adhered the dress to the black cardstock with foam tape, then used foam tape again to adhere the black cardstock to the embossed piece.  I just used double sided tape to adhere the three layers of circles together, then used some foam tape to stick the circle to the white embossed piece.

Sunday, May 22, 2011

CST Challenge Card

CST is a group on Yahoo Groups for Canadian Stampers.. I have been a member there since 2003.... it was the first group I joined, with some prodding from friends who were already members.  The challenge for this week was to use ribbon or buttons.  I used both.  I started with So Saffron (SU) cardstock, cut, scored and folded to a standard sized card.  I stamped the Hero Arts stamp Envelope Pattern in Scattered Straw on the card.  I found a 2.5 inch circle of Apricot Appeal cardstock, and a 2 inch white scalloped circle blank.  I stamped the Poinsettia (SU) in Scattered Straw, and did the over stamping in Wild Honey Distress ink.  I stamped the sentiment (Inkadinkado) in Scattered Straw, realized it was too pale, so I over stamped it in Wild Honey.  I had some scrap ribbon that I used to anchor the layered circles to the card.  To finish the card, and add some interest, I added 3 red buttons, tied with pale yellow embroidery floss.  I also added some red Stickles to the poinsettia.  I happened to be working on Christmas card designs when I saw the challenge, hence a Christmas card in May.

Saturday, May 21, 2011

Lawnscaping Challenge blog!

If you want a weekly challenge, head over the the Lawnscaping Challenge blog HERE.  Using LawnFawn are not essential, if you don't have any, and it's a lot of fun!!   I am off to do the newest challenge, Polka Dots!

PDCC82 and CFC3




Well, I actually had time to stamp today, when I wasn't helping hubby, who was being kind enough to make some templates on the computer for me :D.  This card fulfills 3 challenges, The Play Date Cafe Challenge 82, CAS-ual Fridays Challenge 3, and the Hero Arts monthly challenge, to use flowers.  I started with a chocolate brown card base.  To the base, I added some pale yellow patterned paper, cut to 5.25 x 4 inches, with 3 rounded corners.  I took a 3.5 x 4.75 piece of white cardstock, and using some straight edged scrap paper, distressed the middle portion in Tumbled Glass and Vintage Photo Distress ink.  Once I was happy with that, I stamped the flower (Hero Arts - Real Flower clear set) 3 times in Walnut Stain Distress Ink.  Using the Tumbled Glass Distress ink again, I stamped the sentiment (Hero Arts) on the bottom white portion of the white layer.  I rounded 3 corners of the white cardstock, and adhered it off centre to the yellow patterned paper.  To finish the card, I added 5 pale blue gems to the top left hand side, and 3 tiny clear gems to the bottom, just underneath the beginning of the words.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

CAS-ual Friday Challenge 2




 This is my entry for the CFC2 challenge this week, which was to use twine and buttons.  Well, I needed to make some Christmas cards, so I did.  I started with some Cool Caribbean cardstock, cut to 5.25 x 4 inches.  I used my SU paper piercing set to pierce around the edges of the card, having the pokey side up for the front.  After that, I ran my Broken China Distress ink over top of the raised cardstock, and I also did a bit of sponging on the edges of the cardstock.  Then I took some Antique Linen Distress Ink, and sponged some ink on some other spots.  I took the sentiment (Inkadinkado) and stamped it in Broken China ink.  I found some hemp twine, and ran three lengths of is across the Cool Caribbean cardstock, putting it at angles.  I used a now retired SU set to stamp the poinsettia on Antique Linen Distressed cardstock, in Tea Dye and the over stamp in Walnut Stain.  Foam tape over a section of twine I taped together made  the focal point.  To finish, I cheated and used three button brads that I had in my stash on the bottom right hand side of the cardstock.  I took a white cardstock base, sponged Antique Linen Distress Ink around the edges, then I foam mounted the Cool Caribbean piece to the sponged card base.


Photography Assignment from Lisa S






Lisa Spangler has an assignment for those of us who want to learn to use our cameras better. This week's lesson is learning to use the white balance.  Now, I am not a camera guru, but I was quite frustrated when I wasn't able to change my white balance at all.. because I couldn't find the setting!!  I know my camera is almost 2 years old,  and it was an inexpensive one, but I know the setting is somewhere, I just couldn't find it today.  So I have 6 pictures of the card in different light and settings.  The 2 photos that have an ocean background was taken at a local church basement.. it's a recently built church, but the lighting in the basement, surprisingly, is really nice. The card is white, but with the fluorescent lights of the church, the card has an off white/ivory feel to it. the next 4 photos were taken in my apartment, in overcast light.  The 2 white background shots have a very different tinge to them. The close up shot has the grey from the table reflecting back up on it, while the farther away shot has some natural light showing on it a bit more.  The last two photos were taken with a grey fabric background on the card. The close up looks almost pale silver from the reflection of the fabric, while the farther away one looks like it's been distressed with Antique Linen Distress Ink.. I suppose it's from the combo of the grey and the natural light.

I need to find the white balance on my camera, although my memory tells me that I only have the automatic setting, and see what else I can do with the camera.