Make and Take at Marcos!

I am thrilled to announce that I am coming to Marco's Paper in Centerville OH this Friday (tomorrow)! The card above is the Make & Take Card we will be making while I am there. The card uses two techniques from the Newsletter: Gelato Direct, from the October 2011 issue of the Technique Junkie Newsletter, and Embossed Gelatos, one of the upcoming techniques from the April 2013 issue.

This sentiment on this card is from Verses Rubber Stamps, and the background and dragonfly are both from Impression Obsession.
If you are in the area, stop by and say hello!

And don't forget, this weekend we will be at the Indianapolis Rubber Stamp & Paper Arts Festival:

March 2 & 3 ~ Indianapolis, INIndianapolis Rubber Stamp & Paper Arts Festival
Indiana State Fairgrounds, 1202 East 38th Street
For more information: www.heirloompro.com

Two Tag Easel - Day 23

This is Day 23 of the Technique Junkie Newsletter's month-long 10 year Birthday Celebration - thanks for joining us today!

Today I am showing you a Two Tag Easel from the Stampin' Companion CD. The CD contains 70 tutorials which use Stampin' Up! materials exclusively; as you can see from my Easel, the techniques are easily translated to other stamps, too. The stamps I used above are from Impression Obsession. Of course, if you are a Stampin' Up! purist, then this is definitely for you, too!

Today, I am offering the Stampin' Companion CD as the giveaway (or, if you are so inclined, you may choose a different CD, or an additional year on your subscription). To enter the giveaway, simply leave your name and email address on this blog post and my random number generator will select one winner on Wednesday, October 23. 

Good luck!

Judi Markel is the lucky winner of this giveaway!

All about friends...

We are safely back from our exhibit booh at the Rubber Stamp Show in West Springfield MA. Jane Bosi and I had a great time, and it was fun to meet so many of you at the show. Thank you for coming up and introducing yourself. It is great to put a face to a name! We met many new people, too.

I will be posting the make and take cards we did at the show later this week, but in the mean time, I thought I would post a card that you haven't seen yet.

My card uses a photo stamp from Stampsmith and is colored using the Distress Photo Tinting Technique from the February 2012 issue of the Technique Junkie Newsletter. The background stamp and the sentiment are all from Impression Obsession. Remember, if you use the code TJ at checkout, you will receive 10% off your IO purchase (and who can resist those stamps!).

It appears that we may be adding more shows to our schedule this year, and attending more next. We would love to meet you at a show -- if you go to a show, leave me a message about which one (s) you attend! I would really like to hear from you.

Welcome to the Hop!

Welcome to the hop! Today we are celebrating the Technique Junkie Newsletter's Annual CD sale - all ANNUAL CDs are just $10.00 plus postage!  This is a huge savings, and is a great way to catch up with techniques from previous issues. Each of the CDs has between 70 and 100 tutorials on them, in step-by-step, pictorial format. Information about each CD, with a list of what is on each and a link to order, is HERE:  http://www.techniquejunkies.com/cd-sale-612.html.

 If you arrived from Jackie's Blog, you have reached the final stop. If this is your first stop, I suggest you start at the Design Team Blog so you can see all of the artwork. Each of the designers in the hop are celebrating by showing you a few projects from one of the nine Annual CDs.

As the final stop on the hop, I am featuring CD9. I made three cards from tutorials on the CD, two from the June 2011 issue and one from CD 9's bonus techniques. Each CD has 10 bonus techniques on them that are only found on the CD.

The top card shows the Copic Airbrush Embossing technique. These stamps from Mark's Finest Papers were practically MADE for this technique!

The fishy card in the middle shows the Color Sandwich Technique. I changed it up just a little by switching the fish around so that the colors pop more. I couldn't resist the pearls on the eyes, either! The stamps on the fish card are from I Brake for Stamps.

Finally, the last card features the Negative Strips Technique, one of CD9's bonus tutorials. The Impression Obsession stamps used for this card -- both the front image and the two background stamps, were perfect for this technique.

I hope you have enjoyed this hop! I encourage you to consider the CDs, too, if you don't already have them.They are a great bargain for the price!

Sweet Cupid Wisped Frame

How can I resist giving my youngest son a sweet football cutie pie? The images on the Cutie Pie set from Artistic Outpost are just too cute for words!

And my son will HATE it. But it is nothing against the stamps or the card itself -- he just thinks all stamps are stupid these days. Gotta love 14. It was better when he "helped" me do techniques when he was 8. . So I guess you can say that I made this card for me! LOL

In any case, my card uses the Wisped Frames Technique from the current February 2010 issue of the Technique Junkie Newsletter to highlight my football dude. I have a really cool frame stencil sheet from Impression Obsession that has decorative edged rectangles, and that is what I used for the wisped frame.  I also used the Paper Tole Technique from the June 2003 Newsletter on the football (I haven't added the Crystal Effects yet, but I will). It's hard to see the dimension in the scan, but it is there, and it really makes the "Be Mine" on the football stand out.I colored my dude with Gamsol Pearls, too (June 2006 TJNL -- I am really spanning the years here!).

Happy pre-Valentines day !

TJ Sketch Challenge Card #2

I love a well designed sketch, don't you? Even if it is my own challenge, and I can't win anything...I still love a challenge.  YOU can win, though -- you can become a Technique Junkie Subscriber for life by entering your own card! (Details of the Contest are on this Blog Post.) You do need to be a Technique Junkie though -- and if you aren't, maybe you should be! Only $9.00 for a trial, 3-issue subscription OR $9.99 for one full year (90 Tutorials!) of online-only access. In fact -- you can take an additional $1.00 off either of those prices if you mention the "Blog Sale" -- but that will only be good through Friday, so hurry. It's a good deal!

The card I have today is almost opposite of the first one I posted (in the blog post mentioned above). Where that was was soft and soothing, this one is garish and in-your-face. Bold colors. Bold attitude.

I used the Dabbed Shimmers (February 2010 issue) as the "A" Squares, the Double Embossed Metal (February 2010 issue) for the "C" Squares, and a technique I am considering using in the future for the "B" squares. The Leaf stamp behind the words is from Club Scrap, and the words are from Impression Obsession. I like this bold card.

I hope this card inspires you to try the sketch!

Blogger's Challenge -- Birthday!

When you have teenage boys, no hand made birthday card is ever cool enough. I am always trying to impress my kids with their birthday cards!My soon-to-be Sixteen year old son is VERY hard to impress. Don't get me wrong, he enjoys my stamping work -- just not when it comes to cards made for HIM!

This card was made for his birthday. My oldest baby is turning 16 -- soon to be driving. How did this happen? I am still 30 at heart, so I must have been VERY young when I had him.

But I digress...the Blogger's Challenge was to make a birthday card, so I used a Starch Smoosh background (August 2009 issue of the TJ Newsletter) with some Impression Obsession stamps. I hope I at least get some appreciation from him for using the gorgeous metallic paper from The Paper Temptress!! Hopefully, shimmer will impress him where my skills cannot.

Happy Birthday Ian!

Make sure to check out all of the artwork from the other Blogger's Challenge players -- the link is on my sidebar.