Weekly Deals!

Sure hope you like this week's weekly deals!

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There're some pretty cool items at great prices.  

So if anything on this week's weekly deals is on your 

wish list - now's the time to consider getting them.

Keeping it Clean - AAA Cards

Have you had a busy week?

I have.  We've put our house on the market - so I've got 

the cleaning out that goes with that, as well as continuing 

my full-time job and stamping business!  Crazy times, no doubt!!

Since I'm doing so much cleaning - and keeping it clean, 
I've got a clean card today, too!  
The AAA Cards Challenge is all about Bare Naked 

CAS (Clean And Simple) Design this week - and so many 

of you LOVE that!

I so enjoy a one-layer card - so that's what I created for this 

sweet baby card here today.

For this two-week challenge it's all about keeping it clean and simple!

I cannot wait to visit your sites and see what you've done.

You can see that a bit of lighter yellow ink was sponged
after placing the "sun" right in the corner of the card.  It was easy to 
put the rays on the sun - just eyeballing the rays was simple to do!  
So much fun to put the face on the "sun".  When it came to the 
sentiment, I relied on the wonderful Stamp-A-Ma-Jig (one of my customers
couldn't believe there was actually something called that!).  
Fabulous tool.  I use it for everything except the photopolymer stamps 
for perfect placement every time!!
And the finishing touch on this card are the lines of color on the 
bottom - thanks to very large Post-It notes and grid paper for straight lines.

What a fun card.  Love keeping it clean.  Thanks so much 
for stopping by!

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Lovely Amazing You

What do you do when inspiration just eludes you?

For me - I use our trusty friend, Google!

I had this beautiful stamp set, Lovely Amazing You,

magically delivered to my home yesterday.  My fingers just itched 

to create something with it ... only I couldn't think of

anything!  Oh, my!

 

Never fear - I CASEd this card from one I found using Google, and

I just love it!  I'm sending it to my in-laws today, and I can think of

many variations to make now that I've gotten to enjoy

using this stamp set.  It's fantastic!

I substituted a few things on this card - mostly, though,

it's like the one I found on the Internet.  And there was no watermark
on the one I found on the Internet - lesson here, be sure to mark
your cards before you upload them.

Sadly, I can't enter this into any challenges today since this
cute card's not an original. 

Love the card, no matter what.  I think it's classy looking.

Stamping Tips:

• This is a photopolymer stamp set - Stampin' Up! comes out with a new one every month, and this was February's.  When you're stamping with a photopolymer stamp set, I have heard many people in YouTube videos say that you should put a mat underneath your art space so you have some "give" when stamping.  Sometimes I do that with my photopolymer stamps, and sometimes I don't.  There doesn't seem to be the one perfect way to do the stamping for every single stamp set.  I would advise trying it both with a pad underneat your art space and also stamping without it to see how your stamp set works the best.  Trial and error, my friends, trial and error.
• Sometimes Washi Tape wants to curl off of your project.  Burnish it with a bone folder or whatever burnishing tool you use.  That will help it stick to your project better.
• Remember, when your base card stock is dark, it's helpful to adhere a light-colored card stock inside your card for a writing space.  This is a perfect place for further embellishment and will help your card look more "finished".

Hope you have a chance to get inky today ~ thanks so much for stopping by ~

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Thinking of Spring

Are you thinking of Spring?

I know I am ...

And - lucky me - that's the theme for 

The Paper Players current challenge

The colors are monochromatic variants of

Tangerine Tango (a wonderful and cheery color),

and is the theme for the Colour Me...! challenge this week.

Such a fun and easy card - I made two! 

I used the great sketch from the Sketch Saturday challenge ...

Stamping Tips -

• When doing a monochromatic card, it's easy to create lighter shades of your ink by "stamping off" the ink on a scrap paper after inking up your stamp.
• Inking up a brayer will put a great layer of color on an embossing folder.  This will let you put color and texture on your creation at the same time!  Put your paper inside - no matter which side of the embossing folder you inked up, magic happens!  This is a very fun technique that all my customers enjoy.
• Sometimes you just have to "fussy cut" an image for your layering.  Using sharp scissors, like Paper Snips, makes that cutting super easy to do.

Hope you get inky today ~ thanks for stopping by ~

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Rain and Watercolors - AAA Cards

Are you ready for a fantastic challenge?

It's AAA Cards Challenge with Rain...

and it looks to me like watercolors, so that's what I did.

The technique I used is a color wash and then Rubbing 

Alcohol was dripped (sprinkled) onto the watercolor paper before 

the ink dried, and that was it!  

Simple!!

I cannot wait to see what you create with this image in mind.
I'm really looking forward to checking 
out your blogs and commenting.

I'm also hooking up with the Inkspirational Challenge today 
where the word prompt is "Sprinkle" - Love it!!

~Thanks for stopping by~

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