Monday's Ink/Chalk Projects

Kim chalked up the two basketballs, the title, and the cute little basketball shoes to add lots of soft color to her layout.

Heidi made a small gift album about Thanksgiving 2009. She used Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist (in Cherry Limeade and Pinecone) on the flower on the title page and cream background paper. For the inside page, she used Ranger Distress Ink (in Vintage Photo) on the edges of the album and papers and on the pink flowers, and Joann's Brown Pigment Ink for the stamped lines.

Amanda inked the embossing on the yellow strip of paper so it would stand out more and inked the edges of the water drops and the faucet to give them some dimension.. On the background she placed some blue Tim Holtz alcohol ink is a spray bottle with a little water and squirted the paper with it..

Julie used ink around the edges of the layout and to stamp the work "life" "&" sign.

Joni inked the background of this 11x14 canvas with chalk inks. Then added patterned paper that she cut out, inked the edges and some pieces are pop-dotted for dimension.

Jayma used ink to stamp the branches, leaves, and flowers and sponged ink around the edges of the papers for some added texture.

Stamp Challenge Winners

Sarah is our Grand Prize winner and will get her choice of a Stampee Foil.

Priscillastyles

Fancy Melissa

Brae

Thanks to all who participated - it was another great week!!! Winners e-mail me at practicalscrappers@gmail.com to get your blinky!

Guest Designer: GramCheryl

GramCheryl created this layout by using an evergreen stamp to create a tree look for her background. Thanks to Cheryl for joining us as guest designer for the last two weeks!

Sketch Friday

Our sketch this week comes from our design team member Heidi. It makes for a beautiful layout and we can't wait to see what you come up with! Check out our design team samples below.

Jayma

Joni

Erin

Marjorie

Heidi

This week's challenge is Stamps

This week's challenge is Stamps! You can use any kind of stamp - digi, rubber, acrylic, foam - we want to see all of them! This week there will be a top three and a Grand Prize Winner. The Grand Prize winner will receive bonding powder and a Stampee foil of their choice. What's Stampee foil you ask? Go down to the next post and check it out - they are a brand new sponsor of ours and we are delighted to have them! We will be featuring projects with Stampee Foil right under this post every day this week!

Deadline for entry is Saturday at 5:00 ET!

Friday Stamp Projects

Erika used as many font stamps as possible on her layout.

Crystal used a watermark and some paint-themed stamps on the bottom border, some various tool stamps for the accents, and a calendar stamp for the date that we did this renovation.

Sarah’s layout uses stamped journaling boxes, title, and shapes.

Jessica’s card includes a stamped bunny and sentiment. In addition, the taffeta ribbon is stamped with flowers in coordinating colors to bring the final touches to life on this card.

Deanne’s main image is stamped but she also made her own paper. She stamped and heat embossed all the background paper.

Fern stamped "Christmas" with VersaMark onto some red glitter paper and then embossed it using black embossing powder. (Make sure you let the paper completely cool before you start working with it.) She also used a large flower stamp. First she stamped 2 flowers on the back side of the red crushed velvet paper and cut them out. Then she turned them over to the velvet side and rolled the edges. She stacked them and put a big black brad in the center!

Stampee Foils in Gold

Gold and silver foil are a definite way to add real bang to a layout. I used the gold foil from Stampee to be the "fire" coming out of my rocket. I did it with several friends around and it was fun to hear them "ooh" and "ah" as I revealed the result. Although it is a similar process to heat embossing - applying the foil provides a very different look - it is much shinier than any embossing powder I have found. Perfect for rocket fire for those little boy layouts :)!

Thursday Stamp Projects

Erin stamped the background shape with a texture stamp and star stamp, using a diecut negative (star) as a stencil. She used a stamp and her copic markers to make the boy and stars embellishments. Finally she cut out her title, then stamped overtop of it, and coloured it with her copics.

Catherine’s blue card uses the "kissing technique". This technique is perfect for adding texture to your solid image stamps. For this technique she chose a solid coloured stamped (medallion) and inked it with light blue ink. Then she took a script writing background, and stamped and inked that with navy blue ink. She then pressed the script stamp onto the medallion stamp and then pressed the medallion stamp to the paper. Two toned textured image!

Catherine’s purple flower card uses the "popping pastels" technique. To achieve this look she stamped her image with versamark ink on white cardstock then rubbed chalk over the image. The chalk sticks to the versamark but not the cardstock giving a soft muted effect.

On Jennifer’s layout, she masked the area around the photo, then stamped the numerous hearts to create a border. She stamped the white hearts and embossed them. Then she cut them out and raised them up using dimensionals.

Jennifer’s stamped the image on her card using Stazon ink and then colored it with watercolor crayons and a blender pen.

Robin decided to stamp her layout background you see on the upper left. Then she stamped the butterfly with a glue pad and then sprinkled with glitter.

Robin’s card uses the same butterfly stamp on the card, but a different approach. First she sprayed the cardstock with water until saturated. Then she scrunched the cardstock, opened it out and continued to scrunch until she got the desired look. She ironed the cardstock dry, and stamped the butterfly and the sentiment. She created 2 butterflies in this way, glued the bottom one down, and then lifted the top one up with foam glue dots.

Stampee Foils Holographic Finish

Today I had my ultrasound to check in on our baby. I planned to come home and make some patterned paper with Stampee foil that would be the home for our ultrasound photos. Based on the colors I chose it should be obvious - it's a little boy! For today's project I used the silver foil in a holographic finish - as you can see it is giving it an even more sparkly look! I have been applying my foils using an iron - there are two other methods to apply the foil that can be seen here - but I like the iron method best!

Wednesday Stamp Projects

Kerri’s card allows her to share a new technique. I’ll let her explain:

Creating a chalkboard effect with stamps...it's very simple. Stamp with white ink ( I used a pigment ink-- don't use the the white stazon) on a piece of black cardstock. Then use chalks to color over the image. Wipe off the excess powder with microfiber towel (lint free) until all that's left is just the chalked image. You will see the haze like you do when you erase on a chalk board.. I did this on both the front of the card and the inside greeting. I can see this being perfect for end of the year teacher cards and back to school cards as well.

On this card, Kerri did a paper casting technique with toilet paper. It's very cool and very practical-- who doesn't have toilet paper lying around!!

Sherri used a little "bee" digi-stamp: colored it with watercolors pencils, markers, glitter glaze, and cut it out.

Nadya made her own printed background papers for both projects, something she loves to do on her projects. Nadya’s card has a stamped gray/blue cardstock with lots of different swirls. Then she cut lots of different shapes out of it using the cricut and several different cartridges. She then used those die cuts on the card.

After making patterned paper with stamps, and cutting out shapes with the cricut, Nadya uses them on the layout too. She stamped her own background paper for the layout, as well as the title. Which means her embellishments, background paper, and title were all done using stamps!

Jamie used The Stamping Boutique's Rainy Cynthia and her copic markers!

Amy used a pumpkin stamp and added some stickles to it. She stamped it onto a yellow circle so it would be better seen, then glued that to the black scalloped circle.

Barb painted her stamps, then embossed the images with a mixture of Perfect Pearls and water to get a shiny look. She then popped each matted square on 3D dots, alternating with leftover gold coin confetti squares of green and black for a fun border.

Stampee Foils Day Two

Yesterday I shared a card with one stamped image - today I wanted to share a card with multiple stamped images on it. One of my dear friends, Brenda, created this card. Stampee foils come in rolls that are 4.75 inches in height and 5 feet long. The height allows you to be able to cover a large area on a card - just as Brenda did with most of this card! Another cool feature of this card is that she used "watermelon" foil on a bright pink cardstock. It shows up beautifully and the monochromatic looks quite sophisticated.

To check out all the different colors and finishes available in Stampee foil - check out this link.

Tuesday Stamp Projects

Tanya’s project showcases Two-Step Stamping. This involves using stamps that are made to layer one another. She chose the background flower and inked it up, and stamped it on a spare sheet of paper to lighten the ink. Then she took the outline stamp and inked it up, only to stamp over the previous image. The nice thing about this is that you don't have to be precise. Each image will be different, unless you use a stamp-a-ma-jig, which allows you to position the two stamps directly over one another.

The little Japanese dolls on Dianne’s layout were stamped in black and then colored in with a blender pen and chalk pastels. She then cut them out and added them to the tag.

Dianne’s card features a stamped title colored in with a blender pen and markers. She also stamped a flower on the card base in Versamark ink. The delicate flowers are made from tissue paper that she ran through her die-cutter and glued together bit by bit.

Marjorie stamped her images and texts on pattern paper to liven up the circle elements on the page. She also used a coordinating green to stamp out her journaling lines instead of plain black, to keep the journaling block from looking too heavy.

Wanda used a large flower stamp colored with pencils and added a button. Her title ‘Celebrate Spring’ is also stamped.

Corinna used a Unity Stamp Co. circle stamp but instead of putting the circle "around" something, she decided to use it with all the colors of the Easter eggs in the photo to make a colorful background for her page.