Long time no BLOGGING!

Now that the hub-bub of the first week of school is over, I find myself more relaxed and a lot less consumed with school. I'm really excited about my group of students this year and I feel they will need much less maintenance behaviorally this year. So, I feel I'll have a less stressful year this year for sure and hope to have lots of weekend time to work on cards, make video tutorials and enjoy relaxing weekends with my family...Oh by the way, I think my Dad has hit his mid-life crisis a bit late...but I'll tell you about that another time.

Anyway, I've had some card photos sitting in my computer waiting to be blogged, but September gets away from me. Come to think of it, I don't think I took any photos of this year's Back To School Card I sent to each one of my students this year. Every year I send a "WELCOME TO OUR CLASS" card to my new students and this year I found some cute Amuse stamps that worked perfectly. I'll have to make up another one (I made 20) and get it posted so you can see this year's card. Thought I'd get online and post them before they disappear into the abyss of my photo files!

The birthday card was made for my Mom. Her birthday was Sept. 5. The background was made using Ranger distress inks and three colors of glimmer mist. Pretty sparkly IRL. The sentiment stamp (I love the elegant font) comes from Kodomo stamps. Colored the bling with my Copic markers to match the color scheme. I really liked how this card turned out.

This second card below was made for my parents 41st anniversary on Sept. 7. I had the card base/pp already cut and hadn't used it for a long time so I decided to use it in their card. Cuttlebugged the flower (the A2 Cuttlebug folder with the flower flourishes) and cut one of the flower flourishes out. Used some stickles to give it more pop. Added a little button tied with DMC floss and applied it to the base with pop dots. Used my nestie ovals to make the sentiment. Sentiment is from TAC.

The card below was made for the Nautical challenge hosted by Artyfarty at Stamp Shack a few weeks ago. I tried to take a close-up shot of the photo so you could see the shimmer that the glimmer mist showed. I hadn't done it before, but I learned that you can color right over glimmer misted paper using your Copic markers (see the sailor and his "girl"?) It didn't hurt the markers and it made the color look a lot like the SPIKA pens or the glittery Gelly Roll Pens. You'll have to give that a try sometime!

Here is the full card. You can see the background stamp is a marine map of somewhere and I popped the ships wheel image with pop dots. After spraying white cardstock with assorted Glimmer Mist-and blow drying it afterwards, I Used Versafine Onyx ink for the images and heat set them before adding my copics. The sentiment is from TAC and it says: Abundance is: unexepected treasures (on the inside).

This card below was also made for a challenge on the Stamp Shack. This was a recipe challenge where we were required to use these ingredients: Brads, Ribbon, Stickles and a Tag...After taking the photo, I realized I didn't add the stickles to his belly, the brads and his "spikes" so I added those after... Stamps: TAC, PP: TAC, Tag: Quickcutz, Ink: Memento Black and Colorbox Chalk Blue, Brads: MM, Twill, Recollections.

The final card I'm posting today (below) was also for a challenge at Stamp Shack. We were required to use Distress inks. I used three colors of Ranger Distress ink pads for the background. After inking up the glossy paper, I crinkled the paper up and added a bit more of the blue ink...Which really made the wrinkles pop. I think the background reminds me of those old shutters with the paint just weathered so much. The images are new Poppy stamps. I love the little chunky kids. Also added some star punches with stickles added for sparkle and used my Martha Stewart Loopy border punch to finish it off.

So that's it for now. I'm working on another Ready, Set, Stamp video and that should be posted and live by next weekend.

K