Six Inchies of Snow

We're expecting yet another 6 inches of snow tonight so I thought this would be the perfect time to share my latest batch of inchies, made for a Winter/Snow inchie swap.  The six inchies were fun.  The six inches coming tonight, I don't know...not so much.

I used tons of different stamps, inks, techniques and what-not, but as best I can recall I'll try to give the details.  From left to right, starting with the top row:

1.  This one uses a technique I invented using Fiskars texture plates.  Just rub the plate with a couple colors of Ranger Distress Ink, spritz with a little water and lay a piece of paper on top for a second or two and the remove the paper and let dry.  The snowflake plate that I used here makes some amazing snowy skies.  The sentiment is from smARTworks and I embossed the whole thing with clear embossing powder.

2.  The background is light blue card stock sprayed with some Smooch Spritz.  The snowflake is embossed with white EP and highlighted with some Stickles.

3.  I stamped the little penguin with grey ink, did some simple coloring, cut him out and mounted him to a scrap of printed paper.  The inchie is glazed with Ranger Glossy Accents.  Once everything was dry, I added a small green crystal.

4.  I stamped the image with blue chalk ink onto lavender paper and highlighted the snowflake with a silver glitter pen and a lavender crystal.  This one is also glazed with Glossy Accents.

5.  These penguins are part of a much larger stamp by Serendipity.  I stamped them with black ink onto printed paper, embossed with clear EP and colored with Prismacolor pencils.

6.  For this one, I stamped the fourish, from I Brake for Stamps, onto a scrap of printed paper and embossed with ivory/gold EP. 


Thanks for stopping by my studio!

100 Inchies

After making and trading inchies for about a year, I had quite a pile of them tucked away in a basket.  Now, what fun is that?  You can't see them in a basket.  So here's what I did with 100 of them:

I took a 12" by 12" Ampersand Art Board and sponged it with various shades of brown acrylic paint.  Then I just stuck my inchies on with some red liner tape.  It looks awesome hanging on the wall next to my work table, and I can enjoy looking at my inchies all the time now!

Only 50 more to go until I can fill up another board!  If you'd be interesting in swapping inchies with me, just post a comment here and let me know.

Just checking in...

I've been busy working on things but really haven't had anything to post here.  Finally, though, I have a couple of things I can share.

First, I guess I should confess that I've become an Inchie Addict.  I've been doing some swaps on RubberStampChat, and I'm totally hooked on these little things.  Why?  They're tiny, and I've always had an inexplicable desire to make things in miniature.  They're easy, or at least they can be.  They can be made from the tiniest little scraps--again, the inexplicable tiny attraction.  They're FUN!

These are some of the inchies I've made for recent swaps.  I've used all kinds of stamps and techniques here so I won't detail everything here.  But, if you have a question about anything, just drop me an email.

The second thing I have to admit is that I really, really enjoy drawing portraits.  This is a real revelation to me because when I drew my first portrait (the one of my grandson), I didn't so much do it because I wanted to, it was more because I felt that I should try at least try one.  But it was fun!  And I want to do more!

So right now I'm taking Cindy Wider's Portraiture in Your Pyjamas on Drawspace.com, and the second thing I have to share with you today is a graphite portrait I did for that class. 

Well, that's all for now.  Have a great weekend, everyone!

My Neighborhood

Don'tcha just love this? That's my little house in the suburbs in the middle there.  I have big trees in the front yard and quilty stuff all over house.  I'm just a regular slice of Americana, I tell ya.

I made these great little inchies by punching out parts of border stamp from the House and Garden sheet from Starving Artistamps.  They are colored with Copic markers, and the printed paper is Basic Grey June Bug. 

Have a wonderful day!

Happy Dog Biscuit Appreciation Day

It's true.  Today is actually Dog Biscuit Appreciation Day.  I don't have a dog, but if you're a dog owner, give your dog a bone today on me! 

So why in the world did I make this card? Dog Biscuit Appreciation Day was the holiday that was randomly chosen for the February 1 to 1 card swap at Rubber Stamp Chat.  It's a fun challenge because you sign up before you know what the holiday will be! 

I, for one, was very happy with the holiday selection since it gave me an opportunity to use one of the cute little pups from my smARTworks Dog Daze set.  Believe it or not, the set doesn't come with a suitable sentiment so I hand wrote one.  I stamped the images on kraft paper and colored them with Copic markers.  The base for the puppy panel is a twinchie made up of  4 inchie squares put together, and the papers I used are from a 6x6 pad of Basic Grey June Bug paper.  For some reason (more than likely user error) my camera wasn't dealing with the black on red very well, so I do apologize for the quality of this photo. 

Knick-knack-paddy-wack...

A Quickie Inchie

I only have time for a very quick post this morning so it seems fitting to share a card that was very quick to make. 

I started off by stamping my image (smARTworks Inchie Blocks - Set 4) onto a black Inchie square with Cosmic Copper Brilliance Ink.  When it dried, I added a Prima crystal embellishement.  I made my background with a piece of Basic Grey paper (Scarlet's Letter 6x6) with some copper ink rubbed on the edges, stamped the sentiment (from the same smARTworks set) and put it all together with a piece of velvet ribbon.

Well, that's all I have time for right now...have a wonderful Saturday!

Just Because

Just a quick post this morning. I have busy day planned...I need to put the final coat of paint on the dining room, hang the new curtains, pick up the mess in there, tidy up the house, run to the grocery store, and get dinner going because Rachel, Tim and the kids are coming over later. Phew! Wish me luck!

This is another card using smARTworks Inchie Blocks - Set 4 and the Square Say set. I stamped both with Vintage Distress Ink and colored the pear with colored pencils. The paper printed paper is from Basic Grey (Marrakech) and the right-hand panel is made using a Technique Junkies tutorial called Brushed Inks.

I plan to be back here tomorrow with a new card and pictures of my finished dining room.

"See" you later!

Random Thoughts.....and a Card

We decided to extend our long weekend by a couple of days, so I've been off work since Wednesday. Extra time off...never a bad decision!

We went to see the Patriots play the NY Giants Thursday night, and yeah, I know, it's preseason and you never know who they're going to play, but seriously, couldn't Tom have played for a couple of minutes? Sigh. At least they won the game.

My dining room has been in need of some sprucing up since we bought this house. Finally, the old 1980's wallpaper is off the walls! Now we need to prep the walls and paint, and I'm hoping to actually start painting today. Problem is, I just don't have any motivation today. Ah well, maybe once I get started...whenever that is...it's already past 10 a.m. here. Procrastination. It's a terrible thing.

And a card...I do have a new card to share! This one is made with images from the smARTworks Little Bits #1 set and a sentiment from Inchie Blocks - Set 4. For my inchies, I washed the background with shimmery watercolors, stamped the flowers, and then colored them with Prismacolor pencils. I added the dotted borders with a black pigment pen. All in all, a pretty easy card!

Enjoy the weekend! We're having a run of spectacular weather here for a change...hope it's nice where you are, too!

One Card, Three Challenges

When I set out to do some stamping this morning, my thought was that I would do a few of this week's challenges on Splitcoast. I didn't intend to do them all on one card, but that's how it turned out!

I started off with the Inspiration Challenge (IC193). Using the first thumbnail as my inspiration, I thought it would be cool to make inchies in those colors. Somehow, thought, none of the images I grabbed seemed to lend themselves to being stamped in those colors. Plus, what I really wanted was to emboss them in those colors, and I don't have any good red or purple EP. But, still, I the those colors, so let's stick with them.

Hmmm...now what. Well, the Ways to Use it challenge (WT231) this week is to use variegated colors, and that seemed pretty interesting. So I colored my inchies squares in variegated shades with my Copic markers, and stamped the images with Versafine black ink. Then, just to add some shimmer and shine, covered the fronts with Versamark Dazzle and embossed them with a couple of coats of clear EP.

Now for a layout. Sketch challenge SK241 to the rescue! The blue and green papers are Basic Grey Periphery, and the purple one is a Bo Bunny paper from deep in my stash. I distressed the edges and sponged on some Ranger distress in matching colors and also embossed the purple with my Cuttlebug. The buttons I used are a mix of vintage buttons and Basic Grey.

Phew! Now that was challenging!

Catch ya later...I'm off to see the Moody Blues tonight.

An Inchie and an ATC

Miss me? I was on vacation and there was supposed to be internet access, but that was not the case so I was forced to take a vacation from everything. Not a bad deal, actually. Don’t get me wrong. I do this blog because I enjoy it, but it was so nice to just spend a week with no definite plans or schedule. But, now I’m back and reality beckons.

I have a couple of things to share with you today. The first is an ATC that I did with my new Caran D’Ache Pablo colored pencils using a reference photo from the monthly colored pencil challenge on Wet Canvas. Nice pencils! The leads are soft and creamy, but hold a point without crumbling, and the colors lay down nice and smooth. I think these will be my go to pencils for working on papers with a smooth finish. The paper I used for this ATC is Strathmore Bristol Vellum.

My other project is a card using some more of the cool inchie stuff I got from smARTworks. I used shimmering watercolors to paint the inchie, and I think the rest if fairly self-explanatory. As always, though, please ask if you ever have questions about how I did something. I answer all questions so don’t be shy!

smARtworks is having a big 40% off sale on rubber right now so if you've been thinking about shopping, now's the time!

smARTworks Tea Party 21 - Pass the Salt!

This was a fun challenge! Donelda asked us to use the salt technique somewhere on our cards. Believe it or not, I had never tried the technique before. Well, it turns out that it's wicked fun! Just create a wet wash with your choice of watercolor media (I used watercolor crayons), drop grains of salt into the wet paint and let it dry. Magic! I was having so much fun that I made 10 backgrounds before I knew it!

Here are the cards I made with two of them. The first one incorporates my latest addiction--Inchies. I stamped the butterflies (Inchie Blocks - Set 4) with Chestnut Roan chalk ink onto a piece of leftover piece from a watercolor wash I had hanging around and colored them with Prismacolor pencils. I cut out my squares and mounted them onto white Inchie Squares and covered the edges with more brown ink. For the background piece, I did a wash with shades of brown and yellow. The paint had dried a tad too much before I added the salt, but I still liked the effect, so here it is. The sentiment I used is from the Indigo Bunting set.

The second card I made was completely inspired by the background, which reminded me of a star galaxy. For this background, I blobbed three different colors onto a really wet piece of watercolor paper and added the salt while everything was still quite wet. Keeping with the swirly star galaxy theme, I chose a flower from the Star Flowers set and colored it with Copic markers. The center of the flower is a round paperclip attached with a large round glue dot. After I attached the clip, I sprinkled on micro beads to cover the exposed adhesive. It's much prettier IRL!

Susan, Dina, Donelda, and Giovana are joining the party this week, too, so be sure check out what they did. This was a fun challenge, and unfortunately, it's the last one for a bit. The Design Team has decided to take the summer off, but don't worry...we'll be back! In the meantime, we'll be participating in other challenges, and of course, we'll be posting on our blogs.

Got Inchies?

I do!!! And so can you...smARTworks now has a whole line of Inchie stamps AND they carry Inchie Arts products! I just got my order of goodies yesterday, and today I plan to play all afternoon. Yup. Life is good!

Here's my first card for the day. I used the sketch from Card Positioning Systems (CPS121), which is perfect for showing off an Inchie. I used the birthday cake from the Little Bits #1 set and a sentiment from Square Say. Believe it or not, I colored the cake with Copic markers. You need to have a very light touch, but you can color tiny areas with the brush tip.

Gotta go...I've gots lots more stamping to do!