Wednesday Morning Post for January 25th

 Good morning, thanks for coming to visit me in cyberspace on this wonderful Wednesday.  Strap yourself in, get a huge coffee or tea because I have several projects to share today.  The first of which is a 12x12 layout of my boys playing in the snow.  The supplies for this project were a Christmas present from my hubby.  How did he know what to get me?  I ordered it for him.  I purchased this kit online and it was super cheap (I think around $3 or so) and it came from close to here and came quickly.  The papers are from Cosmo Cricket and the line is Twist and Shout.  I did not hand cut all the letters for the title, they are die cuts, I did however add Crystal Effects to them and also to the robot, and all the cogs.  Yeah, I went a little Crystal Effects crazy.  At one point, I thought I was finished so I put it up on the board to be photographed and it looked a little flat so I added all of the metallic elements, brads and the CE accents.  Much better!

 The next few projects you will notice have some similarities.  I told you that I get onto a technique, product or colour combo and work with it for a wile until I tire of it.  I don't know what to call this technique, maybe ink collaging?  Distressing?  Not sure, but essentially what I did is stamp a background on white cardstock, then versamark ink an image, stamp it and then clear emboss.  Pretty simple so far right?  After heating up the embossing powder I used my Stampin' Sponges and two or three ink colours (in the first example Not Quite Navy and Soft Suede) and alternately rubbed ink in colour blocks onto the white paper and over the embossed image.  I then removed the ink from the embossed image to reveal a white silhouette, this process is called "Emboss Resist".  After all that I used my colour spritzer tool and a Not Quite Navy SW marker and blew blobs of ink onto the collage.  Now something that I didn't do on this card that I meant to but realized when it was too late was to spritz it again with Perfect Pearls mist by Ranger.  I did do this for the next project though.

Stamps: En Francais (background), Just Believe (flowers and greeting), Four Frames

 Accessories: Soft Suede polka dot grosgrain ribbon, flower button, Decorative Label Punch, Aquapainter, Bella Bleue DSP, colour spritzer tool with Stampin' Write marker

 

I gave you a close up of this one to show you the effect of the Perfect Pearls Mist, this one is Turquoise.
Stamps: Woodgrain Background, Friends Never Fade, Baroque Motifs
Colours: Not Quite Navy, Pool Party, Soft Suede
Accessories: Pool Party 3/8" Ruffled Ribbon, Colour Spritzer Tool, Spellbinders Blossom Tags and Accents, Tim Holtz Brackets edge die, the Twinery twine in Cappuccino, button from neutrals collection

This last card uses the same technique as the previous two but is a little more involved... I started off with a piece of First Edition Specialty DSP and made two patches of emboss resist.  I added more stamping in my chosen ink colours (the wings of the snowboarder, the dots in the corner and the fleur de lis motif), I then colour blocked with my sponges and then I came back in with some black ink to add more accents (stars and crown).  At this point I should have misted with the Perfect Pearls, but once again forgot, so that came at the end after all the elements were put together and adhered to the card.  This time I used Kiwi Perfect Pearls mist to bring out the kiwi kiss ink I used.
Stamps: Extreme Snowboarder, Extreme Elements, A Little Birthday Cheer
Colours: Not Quite Navy, Tempting Turquoise, Kiwi Kiss
Accessories: Spellbinders Lacy Pennants dies (for banner), 1" circle punch, Circle Designer Brad, Clear Emboss powder, Stampin' Sponges, Perfect Pearls Mist in Kiwi

Okay, that's all for today.  I do have another 12x12 layout that technically I should be sharing because it was completed this week but I think I'll save it for next week when maybe I won't be feeling so creative.  I hope you are enjoying the new format of my blog and the projects that I have shared this week.  Come back again next Wednesday for more paper crafting inspiration.  E