Carol Stamps

Challenge: Hasted Halloween

10/14/2018

Over at the Frilly & Funkie Challenge site, the design team says "It's time to get your freak on and go all out for Halloween. We want to see your ghouls and ghosts and things that go bump in the night." So the challenge for October 10, 2018 is enttitled "Haunted Halloween".

I decided to make a notecard in Halloween colors of orange and black, with touches of glimmer and shine. I heat embossed a partial skeleton in white on black card and added some spider webs in silver. I die cut a word in orange, stacked it on three black copies to add dimension and coated it with Wink of Stella. I matted my black card on metallic orange:

Products used in the making of this card were:

Stamps: Stamper Anonymous “Inventor 4” (CMS347) and “Tangled Webs” (CMS346)
Dies: Sizzix Vintage Spirits” (662385)
Inks: Versamark; Wink of Stella “clear” (GL 999)
Embossing Powders: Stampendous “detail white” (47788) and WoW! Metallic Silver Super fine” (WC05SF)
Papers: The Paper Studio notecard “ivory” (225219); Sizzix “Hombre Texture” 6x6 pad (654745)scraps of metallic orange, matte orange and matte black
Adhesives: Xyron 250 Sticker Maker; Scrapbook.com Life Handmade adhesive

I'm also entering this in the Sizzix Share-a Scare challenge

0 Comments

Challenge: October color palette

10/14/2018

0 Comments

The October 2018 color palette for the Lindy's Gang is celebrating the coming of autumn, using "...some gloriously soft colors that feel like fall is here! Warm up by the fire with these beauties as the leaves change colors and start to fall."

I started by creating a tag background using Lindy’s Flat Fabio Spray “South Shore Sand”, Lindy’s Starburst Spray "Steampunk Sepia", Lindy’s Magical “Steam Punk Sepia” and Lindy’s Magical Shaker “Cowabunga Copper":

I added some texture paste and applied Lindy’s Starburst Sprays “Glory of the Seas Gold”. I then overstamped in Archival "Jet Black":

I used Lindy’s Magical Shaker “Oom Pah Pah Pink” on some wetted paper doilies:

I heat embossed a chipboard vine using Versamark and Lindy’s embossing powders “Starbright Gold Green”, “Byzantine Bronze” and “Cleopatra’s Copper”

I cut triangular parts out of the doilies and layered them behind the vine. I then attached the vine to the tag:

Three Prima flowers (in a color matching “South Shore Sand”) and a crinkle ribbon (similarly colored) completed my tag:

Products used in the making of this tag were:

Stamps: Altenew “Sweet Friend” (ALT1859)
Inks: Lindy’s Flat Fabio Sprays “South Shore Sand”; Lindy’s Starburst Sprays “Glory of the Seas Gold” and "Steampunk Sepia"; Lindy’s Magicals “Steam Punk Sepia”; Lindy’s Magical Shakers “Cowabunga Copper" and “Oom Pah Pah Pink”; Versamark; Archival “Jet Black”
Embossing Powders: Lindy’s “Starbright Gold Green”, “Byzantine Bronze” and “Cleopatra’s Copper”
Papers: Paper Doyleys; Creative Embellishments chipboard; Graphic45 Regular Tag Album “ivory” (4501221)
Media” Ranger Texture Paste Opaque Matte
Embellishments: Prima Flowers “Wild Free” (594565); crinkle ribbon
Adhesives: Wendy Vecchi “Perfect Card Adhesive” (47788)

I'm also entering this in the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge for October 10, 2018: Anything But a Card

0 Comments

Challenge: Cityscape

10/8/2018

1 Comment

Simon Says Stamp Monday wants us to draw inspiration from our favorite city skylines to fullfill the challenge for October 8, 2018.

"What does your nearest city look like? Does it have lots of high rise buildings and lots of traffic?"

OK, I have lots of city skyline stamps from both Altenew and Stampers Anonymous. I also have Tim Holtz' Sizzix dues of skyscrapers and villages. But I wanted something different so I searched my stamps and found this [rviously unused stamp set "Dans ma maison" (rough translation "my house" or "my home").

Now my home is NOT anything like the houses in this stamp set. Not even close! And my nearest city is nothing like the city I chose. But having lived 16 years in the San Francisco Bay Area, I fell in love with the LOOK of the painted ladies at Steiner St between Grove Street and Hayes St., right across the street from Alamo Square Park in the Fillmore Section. In fact, one of our co-workers actually lived in one of these pastel Victorians...

To be truthful, San Francisco Painted ladies don't look a lot like the Victorian mansions on this stamp set (one classic difference: the stone/brick trim. Not done in earthquake country... all the San Francisco "ladies" were redwood through and through!). But it was as close as I could get, so... a street of painted ladies as the French might have built them became my project for this challenge.

I started by repeatedly stamping the two stamps on a large tag:

And when I say repeatedly, it was because each image required as LEAST four inkings to get decent detail... even with a MISTI.

I then colored each house with Distress Markers - I think I pretty much used every pastel color in my storage tin!

Final touches included a horizon line, a "Pumice Stone" pavement, and a "Broken China" sky as well as a handwritten caption:

And those who may have read San Francisco Chronicle in the anytime between the late 30's until the late 90s, will recognize Herb Caen's nickname for San Francisco, Baghdad-by-the-Bay, (a term he'd coined to reflect San Francisco's exotic multiculturalism).

Products used in the making of this tag were:

Stamps: Carabelle Studio Art Stamp” Dans ma maison” (SA6028)
Inks: Archival “Jet Black”; Distress markers “Pumice Stone”, “Forest Moss”, “Wild Honey”, Aged Mahogany”, “Broken China”, “weathered Wood”, “Bundled Sage”, “Spun Sugar”, Brushed Corduroy”, Tumbled Glass”, Fired Brick”, Antique Linen”, Scattered Straw”, Black Soot”, Hickory Smoke”, Faded Jeans”, Picked Raspberry”, Cracked Pistachio” and “Squeezed Lemonade”; Fudeball 1.5 “black” (CFR - 150FB)
Papers: Ranger Inkessentials Surfaces “Giant Tag” (ISM55237)

1 Comment

Challenge: Tag It!

10/4/2018

1 Comment

The Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge for October 1, 20218 is to "Tag It!". In other words, to make or incorporate a tag in our makes.

I got a little carried away with my tag and it is a little darker and more "earthy" than I usual do, but I was experimenting with some new Tim Holtz stamps which always lead me to my "earth tone side" (that's my excuse and I'm sticking with it! LOL).

I started with a white tag and Distress Oxides, creating a blended background:

Sorry for the poor focus... My eyes are probably at fault, not my camera.

I stamped a band of "handwritten music" using the darker of my Distress Oxide greens and then stamped (and restamped and restamped again) a bundle of evergreens and pine cones in shades of Archival inks:

You might be able to just make out that my last layer of re-stamping was in Versamark and an ultra-high gloss clear embossing powder. Not exactly the result I was hoping for as the stamp had gone slightly off register and resulted more in a shadow that I wanted.

I stamped the same evergreen bundle stamp again in the bottom left corner (no heat embossing this time) and then a sentiment in Versamark and gold embossing powder:

I outlined the tag with a gold marking pen and added a dyed crinkle ribbon to complete my tag:

Products used in the making of this card were:

Stamps: Stampers Anonymous "Stamptember 2018"
Inks: Distress Oxides "Fossilized Amber", "Twsted Citron", "Bundled Sage", "Frayed Burlap", "Peeled Paint", "Iced Spruce" and "Forest Moss"; Archival Inks "Potting Sil" and "Library Green"; Versamark; Snowman "gold" marker
Embossing Powders: Viva Las Vegas "Ultra High Gloss Clear"; UpTown "detail gold"
Papers: The Paper Studio Large Blank Tag "white" (452946)
Embellishments: Crinkle ribbon (freebie from Funky Junky Boutique)

I also entered this in the Simon says Stamp Wednesday Challenge for October 3, 2018: "Let's Get Ready for Christmas"

1 Comment

Just Playing: Stamptember 2018, part 2

9/29/2018

0 Comments

Last week, I posted some cards I had made for the Simon Says Stamp Stamptember challenge: to post cards or tags or other projects made with stamps from the collaborative company, even if they aren't the special editions... I indicated that, while I do not own stamps by all of the collaborating designers, I do own many. I had posted four cards I had made for other challenges and five cards in this post... and indicated that I would look for more candidates in the last week of the challenge.

Well, I found five more, which means that I own some stamps from 14 of the 18 collaborators!! I guess I should look at the possibilities of getting stamps from the remaining four but it would be too late for this year's challenges.

At any rate, here are my last five candidates:

1. The Greeting Farm

I only own one stamp from this company and I think it may have been a freebie from one of the Create events, I decided to make a small notecard from it: