What do you think about melted pearls?

I don't know if everyone is familiar with this technique...

Melted pearls is where you clear emboss an image, and apply Perfect Pearls or Pearl-ex to the embossing with your finger or a paint brush. You can apply different colors of pearls to different areas of the embossing. You then re-heat the embossing to incorporate the pearls. The last step is to buff the cooled cardstock with a Swifer cloth to remove any excess pearls. You end up with multicolor pearlescent embossing.

Some tips I've learned are:

• You really don't need much pearl powder. Too much is just wasted and blows all over the place when you try to reheat.
• The pearls will stick a little better if the embossing is still warm, but cool enough not to smear.
• You can heat from below to avoid blowing powder everywhere. But I tend to over emboss when I heat from below for some reason. I think I get my gun too close.
• In my experience, you need to play with colors a little. The embossing is not always the pearl color when you finish.

I have mixed feelings about this technique. Sometimes I think its kind of cool and sometimes I think it just makes a mess! What do you think? Like it or hate it?

Here is my sample. I used Ranger Brand Perfect Pearls. The Flower and background is done with Forever Violet, Berry Twist and Blush (see what I mean about the colors?). The stem is Forever Green.

.

A friend of mine had a 40th Birthday last week. Since I'm 41, I thought it best to rub it in a little...
All stamps are by justjohanna. The patterned paper is the wonderful Blush collection by Basic Grey.

Hey! I won a contest...

They had a little contest over at A Shade of Blue (a wonderful papercrafting forum by the way, with a great gallery and awesome members). The challenge was to create a project using eyelets. Well - I put flowers on a tree. Thanks Melanie for picking me!

I got my snow day!

We had a Valentines Snow day! The kids were all off school (a little upset about postponing school parties, but not enough to matter). We all hung out and goofed off all day. I did get my DH's valentine card made just in the nick of time.

I've been seeing all these cool cards done with black and white patterned paper - but I don't have any. So I tried to make my own. The base paper is the justjohanna shrubbery stamp. The cross piece is made from randomly stamping 2 justjohana stamps - a flourish-y tail and a head piece. Both are intended to "fancy up" any of her bird images, but I like them as a background. The rest of the stamps are justjohanna also.

Valentines Day...

Your Candy Heart Says "Hug Me"

A total sweetheart, you always have a lot of love to give out. Your heart is open to where ever love takes you! Your ideal Valentine's Day date: a surprise romantic evening that you've planned out Your flirting style: lots of listening and talking What turns you off: fighting and conflict Why you're hot: you're fearless about falling in love

What Does Your Candy Heart Say?

Drats! Rejected again...

I tried to interest Rubber Stamper in this tumbled tile coaster for their call for alcohol ink projects. No luck.

Oh well, at least now I can get rid of the ancient, coffee stained envelope that was acting as a coaster next to my computer.


This is one of those projects that looks better in real life than in a picture. The tile is covered with Ranger alcohol inks (stream and lettuce) and then some copper Metallic Mixitive (also by Ranger) is added. Then the whole thing is stamped with a background stamp (by Eureka rubber stamps) in black Stazon. The last step was to add a square of cork shelf liner to the back. Very quick and actually quite nice in real life.

Hoping for a snow day....

Well... it looks like we're going to get rain though. I wouldn't mind if New York sent a few of their inches of snow down here (and I'm sure they'd love to send them). I love snow days because they shake up the routine. Of course - I work from home so I don't need to worry about the commute in the snow!

As soon as I saw this stamp - it said "snow day" to me. While all us adults are grousing about shoveling and traffic and having no bread, milk or TP - there are the kids. Excited beyond belief, playing in the snow with wild abandon All stamps by The Angel Company. Background is drunken chalks with Brilliance Platinum Planet added.

Border punches

Do you ever buy supplies that you think are just wonderful at the time, but then they sit there unused? That was me with this Fiskars border punch. It was still in its package 6 months after I bought it. I finally pulled it out and discovered I really like it. I guess I did know what I was doing in the first place (hee hee). Here is a card I made with my much maligned punch:

I liked it so much I bought another!

Time to stop and think....

My friend's Father-in-law died yesterday. He has been very ill, had dementia and had fallen an broke his hip. Because of all the complications, they could not do much except make him comfortable. So in some ways, the passing was merciful.


There are a lot of things I've been putting off - till I have more time, or the kids are older. We've been talking about an extended family trip to Disney World for years now. My parents live in Michigan, my brother and his family in California and my family is in Pennsylvania. The idea is to all meet up in Florida, rent a condo and "experience the magic" together. I was trying to wait - my twins are only 4 and I wanted them to remember it. But maybe waiting is not such a good idea. Something to ponder....


Tree stamp by The Angel Company. Sympathy stamp by Club Scrap. Colored with Prismacolor pencils and odorless mineral spirits.

Stamping or Stickers or both??

I've never been one for stickers. I guess I'm a stamping purist or something... and using stickers seemed like cheating somehow. But I'm beginning to see the error of my ways.... It all started with a collection pack of Basic Grey that included cardstock letter stickers. Pretty handy things really. Then I discovered self adhesive chipboard shapes and all was lost. Lately I've been seriously eyeing rub-ons too.... oh where will it all end!

Here is a card that uses those Basic Grey letter stickers. The background is done by clear embossing the justjohanna paisley heart on watercolor paper and then doing a color wash with three colors of Twinkling H2O's.

OK... I'll try blogging too....

Seems everyone is trying this Blog thing, so why not me too. I have to tell you I probably have about 20 started, then discarded diaries and journals behind me. I'm hoping I'll do better at this.... mainly because I'll be posting about my favorite subject (well one of them anyway).....

Papercrafting

I'm hoping to share some of my creations plus some of the things I learn along the way. I tend to learn by messing stuff up, then doing it over the right way - so maybe I can save you some time and supplies.



I recently became a design team member for justjohanna rubber stamps. I love her whimsical, doodle-y, images which can be combined to tell little stories. This card shows Candace, all decked out for spring in her polka dot hat. The card layout is from a Splitcoast Stampers card sketch challenge.