July blogcandy

Melissa - 24:th

Anita - 27:th

Bunny Zoe's - 28:th

Tab - 29:th

Make it crafty - 31:st

Debbie - august 1:st

If your name is Patsy C - DON'T LOOK! :)

Finally a card from me and let me tell you: I had so much fun making it. A dear internet friend of mine is having her b-day soon and I decided to make a special card for her. She mentioned in her latest e-mail she was into pink/green and shabby chic at the moment. I found these papers that are both and since the colourcombo is one of my favourites I was excited to start. Choosing an image was tricky, but as soon as I saw this stamp called Untouchable by Linda Biggs (plate 81) I knew it would be perfect. I wanted to make it super girly and summery and wanted to add more embellishments and details than usual. I think I managed to learn something new as the card is a bit outside my comfortzone with all the details. If nothing else I managed to learn to measure the whole paper properly, or at least try on a piece of scrap, before I go all out with the punch, lol.

The little butterfly on the stamp is the exact shape and size as one of the butterflies on the borderpunch. I cut it  out, embellished and raised up the wings a bit.

Challenges:

Bunny Zoe's - fun in the sun
By the cute and girly - things w wings
Crafts and me - add a flower
Magical monday - use texture (dryembossed butterflies)
Paper sundaes - beach or summer
Passion for promarkers - sketch
Simon says stamp and show - embossing (the butterflies are dryembossed)
Southern girls - happy birthday
Stamp challenges - something embellished
Totally gorjuss - punch or die

Dryembossed papertechnique

Hope you are having a wonderful summer. I just got back from a vacation to Mallorca with lots of inspiration. I originally wanted to make a "usual" card, but started playing with an idea. This technique took me about 5 minutes to come up with and about 20 minutes to finish the whole card. Don't you just love when everything goes right? Haven't had that in a while :)

The image I've been playing with is one of the first ones from sweetpea, plate 18.

What I did was dryemboss  a piece of white paper (I use to stamp on) with a cuttlebug folder. I used the one with little dots. I then inked up my stamp in black ink and stamped it off on the backside of the embossed paper. You want to stamp where the dots are sunk in, otherwise you won't get a clear image. Then I coloured the all of the image in twinkling H2Os. I only have 3 colours, but it was just perfect. Don't use to much water, because what happens is that the sunk in dots will stay white while the details of your image are coloured. Finally I attached the image to another embossed panel - this time leaves and added a coloured butterfly in the corner. It's very simple, and I like the organic look. The dots also work beautifully with this image. All the colours are shimmering, although it was a bit hard to photograph.

Hope you got inspired and are having a great day.

Challenges:

ABC challenge - Past challenges: V is for violet (from may 25:th 2011)
Simon says stamp - anything goes
Stampin' for the weekend - wings and things
Stamptacular - animal antics

Offer sunday and monday only at sweetpea stamps:

Free shipping to USA destinations.

All other countries will only be $5.00

This is for orders placed Sunday, July 17 & Monday July 18

(past orders excluded)

plus each order will receive 2 extra unmounted stamps from us as a gift with purchase. Only one per person.

Pointillism colouring

I don't have a card for you this week - instead I would like to show you a new colouring technique. Unfortunately I can't take credit for it which makes me a bit annoyed that I couldn't come up with it. The reason is because it derives from an arttechnique called pointillism and having an education in arthistory, well, you get the idea.

Pointillism is a technique where tiny dots of colour are put next to eachother and form an image. It's mainly associated with an artist called Seurat that used this way of painting at the end of the 19:th century.

The principle of this technique with stamping is the same as you would use when colouring in your usual fashion. In fact to make it easier you could have two of the same image and colour one of them the way you usually do. This way you will see where the shades will be.

For my image I used two or three shades of the same colour. The image I used is from Elaine Cox and it's called Kimono lantern fairy from sweetpea stamps

The most beautiful view is the one I share with you

I'm so happy to show you my project this week. I've made an ATC - an artist trading card, which is about 2.5x3.5". It's basically like any trading card (and about the same size) and you change it with other artists the same way. It's such a brilliant way to use up those small scraps of pretty paper, small embellishments and your favourite small stamps - or parts of your bigger ones. The stamp I have used here is called Arden, by Nikki Burnette from sweetpea stamps. The text stamp is also from sweetpea and can be found on ching chou kuik's plate #42.

You might think that this kind of small thing goes fast to make, but since I'm not used to this size it took about as long as a card. I really liked working like this because it made me focus on more details. Usually I don't want to overwhealm my card, but here it's almost a must, otherwise it's just an image on pretty paper. You have to add some oomph ;) My oomph is adding glitter to the patterned paper's flowers and the girl's hair and wings. I also added dimensional glaze to her hair to make it pop. I machined sewed around the border of the patterned paper before attaching it to the darker pink cardstock. I also stamped the text and embossed it with silver embossing powder. I coloured the image, cut it out and attached it where the sewing line is. By placing her this way it looks like she's inside a frame and her wing goes outside of it. I love this illusion of a frame.

I had so much fun with this that I think I'll have another go at it. You should try it too and send your creation by e-mail to the sweetpea blog to showcase next time we have out customer submission week.

Multicoloured blocking

I've had so much fun playing with today's card. It's a technique I've never used before I think and I came up with it all on my own (although I had inspiration) I'm proud of it and thought I'd share it with you.

If you're not very happy with your colouring of the sweetpea images  - you don't have to be! There are so many ways to use your stamps and this is one of them.

I started by inking different stamps in different bold coloured inks on white paper and embossing them with clear embossing powder. After the powder has cooled off I inked the whole image with a contrasting colour with a direct-to-paper technique (which means you dab the inkpad directly on the paper) When I was happy with the result I wiped the images to remove any ink that was left on the raised embossed part. This will make the images pop. Finally I cut out different sized blocks and mounted them together. I added the little ribbon and bow to add some more interest to the card.

It's a super easy technique and I hope you'll give it a go. All you need is some embossable inks (I used small versacolor) and some clear embossing powder. Have fun!

Images used - all by sweetpea stamps:
ching chou kuik: Seahorse plate 79
ching chou kuik: cheshire cat illusion plate 41
ching chou kuik: autumn harvest plate 57
Elaine Cox plate 102
Meredith Dillman: peacock fairy plate 76
Nikki Burnette: Tulsa
Sentiment: plate 30

Challenge:
Papertake weekly - here comes the sun

Win some sweetpea stamps

One lucky winner will win a $44.44 gift card for Sweet Pea Stamps

How????? All orders placed from Sunday June 19th- July 4th will be entered in the drawing.

When????? Winner will be posted on the sweetpea blog and notified on July 6th

Go shopping

(PS. Have you seen the new look of the sweetpea shop? Click the link above to check it out. There are tons of new stamps in.)

AND

there will be a candy drawing every wednesday. Check out this link for more info.

June 25th- June 26th;

spend up to $25 before shipping, get 10% off your order

spend up to $25- $50 before shipping, get 15% off your order

spend up to $50 - $100 before shipping, get 20% off your order

spend over $100 before shipping, get 25% off your order

past orders excluded

Phone/address book

I hope you are enjoying the summer and playing with your sweetpea stamps. I still have a lot I've never used and this is one of them. It's by the very talented Meredith Dillman and is called blue fairy from plate 76. Isn't she gorgeous?

I've been in desperate need for a new addressbook the last couple of months. I have everything written in a simple notebook with no order and it's been driving me crazy having to flip through the whole thing to find what I need. So during my last flipping I got really annoyed and decided to make this book I've been planning for ages. You can use it for anything you might need to find fast: your kid's friends numbers, people on your Christmaslist or why not a page per month writing down how much you've exercised or your measurements.

I started by cutting out 6 pages in cardstock and 2 in patterned paper for the front and back. I used a qk die so the holes were already there for the brads, but it's easy to make yourself. You will need to score on each page to make it possible for it to open. I also cut out 6 qk tabs in the same cardstock. The pages and tabs are inked on the edges with distress ink to give a neater look. The image is coloured with promarkers and the background with distress inks. The fairy has some sparkle on her wings made by a sakura gelly roll. I also used one of the corners from Holiday (plate 12) to add some interest which I'm very happy with. I inked one corner in a purple distress ink and stamped on all 4 corners of the image. Finally I attached the tabs, image and brads. Finally I'll be able to find what I need quickly!

Challenges:

Stampin for the weekend - lemon and lime

Decorated envelope

We make all these beautiful cards, but I forget or don't have the energy to decorate the envelopes (that's why I mostly use clear envelopes to let the card shine through). A friend of mine is always decorating hers and it's such a treat to see her envelope in the mail. Here is an idea how to decorate your average boring white envys with your favourite sweetpea stamps.

The stamp I have used is one of the stamps from plate 94 by Meredith Dillman from sweetpea stamps. I made the white panel for the address by sticking a rectangular post it, using it as a mask. Then I stamped the image with black ink and dabbed around with some distress ink. I also used a small dabber to add ink to colour the image itself. Finally I used a tan and pink promarker to add shade to the left side of the girl and added some glitter with a clear sakura gelly roll. Isn't this a fabulous way to let the recipient get excited about what's inside?

Challenges:
papertake weekly - anything goes

Def Leppard, Alice Cooper and Thin Lizzy concert Dublin, Ireland

Sorry for being abscent my friends. My mojo has been gone lately and in the beginning of the week I went to Dublin for a romantic getaway and to see a concert. It was four hours of pure bliss. First an hour with Thin Lizzy, then an hour with Alice and finally a spectacular two hour show with Def Leppard. This was my third Alice concert and first DF and TL. It was slightly strange that Thin Lizzy and Alice were the warm up bands :D

I got some fab pictures that I'm very proud of. Enjoy!

Thin Lizzy (in case you didn't see their sign)

Alice Cooper:
No more mr nice guy

Cold Ethel:

Def Leppard:

Singing one of my favourite ballads:

Here we didn't sing loud enough and they asked us if this was all we got...After asking if Belfast were better (where they had played the night before) the roof lifted, lol. Nothing like some good old competition.

Not bad for a standard digital camera with a 12x zoom, huh? Although I was standing as fourth person from the stage for the first two sets. I almost got some fake blood on me that they threw from the stage during the Alice gig:)