A Small Glimpse Into My World

21 Comments February 26, 2008 zindorfstamps

Oh, it’s not fancy, but it’s functional, lol. This is a glimpse of my desk in my craft room. I call it the craft room because I have many hobbies. Can you tell I like to have my coloring tools very, very near me when I’m working. Prismacolor Pencils on left in a bucket, ink pads straight ahead, markers to the right.

Today I thought I would just show you how I have my Prismacolor markers organized. I just bought this set off of e-bay for a very good price. Set of 156 markers for $225. They didn’t come with the rack to put them in, but that’s ok. I had my son make me a cubby hole set up, which works wonderfully.

So now I have all of my markers in one place. Each cubby hole for the Prismacolor markers has a tag at the top telling the number range for the markers in that particular cubby. Makes finding a marker much easier.

Now, if you know me, you know I’m a visual person. So I cataloged each marker, so I can quickly find a color.

I just printed out a list of the Prismacolor marker numbers and colored a stripe of that color next to it.

Hope this glimpse didn’t scare anyone. Like I said, not fancy, but functional!

Hope your day is bright with color.

Watercolored Two Scoops

6 Comments February 25, 2008 zindorfstamps

Decided to get the watercolor paper out last night and play with a new set of stamps I bought from the Basic Grey line. These stamps are Two Scoops/Flower Swash.

Supplies:

Stamps: Basic Grey Two Scoops/Flower Swash

Paper: Watercolor Paper, Purely Pomegranate, Soft Sky

Ink: Stampin’ Up Soft Sky, Not Quite Navy, Old Olive, Always Artichoke, Eggplant Envy, Purely Pomegranate re-inker

Accessories: Stampin’ Up markers Gable Green, Elegant Eggplant, Always Artichoke, White Gel Pen, Flower punch, Brads, Ribbon, Brayer

Recipe: On Watercolor paper, brayered on Soft Sky, Not Quite Navy and Old Olive. Stamped Flowers and stems by coloring stamps with Stampin’ Up markers, Always Artichoke, Elegant Eggplant, huffing on the stamp and then stamping it. Sprayed the paper then with water, really soaking it good and dropped drops of re-inker purely pomegranate where the flowers are.

Dried paper with my heat gun, restamped again using the same technique and a stamp-a-ma-jig. Colored in the leaves and stems with a Gable Green marker and put White swirls in the flowers with a white gel pen. Center white flower was punched from Whisper White card stock. Since the design turned out pretty wild, I decided to keep the layout very simple. This almost went in the scrap heap last night, but I put it a side and worked on the layout this morning. It’s growing on me, lol.

I want to answer some questions that were left here yesterday:

Chris asked, how do you go about choosing a color palette? Well Chris, I usually use an inspiration piece for color selection. It depends on my mood and what appeals to me that day. When I look at art, it’s the color that grabs me first. I keep a Microsoft Word document that I cut and paste ideas in, pictures, sketches etc. It’s were I go for inspiration for sure. I use to keep a notebook with ideas in it, but that got way out of hand and I was killing a lot of trees, so I’ve gone electronic.

Tina Delong asked, if I give classes or teach in any shops? Tina, not at the present time. Stamping is my way of relaxation and it doesn’t work for me if I put pressure on myself to make money at it. I love to teach in a very informal setting, like here at the house, lol. So if you are in the West Alexandria, Ohio area, let me know, we can get together and stamp some 🙂

Earline Gordon asked, Will I ever write a book about techniques? Earline, I haven’t even thought about that at all. My hope is to put as many techniques on this blog as I can. So keep checking here, it’s free!

Hope your day is filled with color and joy!

Smile Sheep

8 Comments February 24, 2008 zindorfstamps

I can just about find inspiration for cards anywhere. The inspiration for this was a cute animal sign by Homespun Sentiments I seen at the Flower Factor Store in Centerville, OH.

Stamps: The Rummage Bin Primitive Beginnings, SU Trees Three flowers

Paper: Whisper White, More Mustard, Old Olive, Bravo Burgundy

Ink: Stampin’ Up Soft Sky, Not Quite Navy, White, Really Rust, Bravo Burgundy, Always Artichoke, Palette Noir Black

Accessories: Prismacolor Markers, Stampin Up Markers, White Gel Pen, Ribbon, Brads, Tim Holtz’ Distress Tool, Sponges, Cuttlebug & Cuttlebug Alpa Diecuts, Exacto Knife

Recipe: Brayered Soft Sky & Not Quite Navy at top of Whisper White card stock. Cut hills from More Mustard and Old Olive card stock and distressed the top edges of the hills with Tim Holtz’ distress tool, sponged Really Rust on the More Mustard hill and Always Artichoke on the Old Olive hill to create shadows. Letters were cut out with my Cuttlebug out of Really Rust, More Mustard and Bravo Burgundy. Stamped Sheep on Whisper White with Palette Noir Black ink, colored with Prismacolor Markers and cut out with an Exacto Knife. Assembled Card and stamped flowers on More Mustard hill with White Craft Ink.

For the rest of the day I’ll be working on projects for the March Fan Club Gallery for Splitcoaststampers.com. Sorry, but you will have to check out the fan club gallery on March 15th to see them. I can’t believe it will be my last gallery. The last five months have just flown by. Bare with me in the next few weeks, if I’m absent from this blog for a day or two, know I am just working on my last Dirty Dozen Design Team projects.

But, after March 15th I’m hoping to really make this blog one people will want to come to often if they wish to learn stamping techniques. I was a little scared to start a blog, but now that I’ve had mine up and running for all of one week I’ve found I really enjoy it! I’m hoping you enjoy it to and come away from it each time you visit inspired.

Hope your day is one that makes you smile from ear to ear!

Flourished Collage Card with Flourishes Tutorial

25 Comments February 23, 2008 zindorfstamps

Flourishes are all the craze now. You can get flourish stamps by just about every stamp company out there. I love flourishes! They can add so much to a piece.

I get comments on my cards saying “I can’t believe you cut those flourishes out”. Well I didn’t and today I will show you how to make those flourishes look 3D.

Supplies: SU Soft Sky card stock, Tim Holtz Distress Ink Faded Jeans, White Gel Pen, SU Not Quite Navy Marker, Sponge.

Stamp Flouish with Faded Jeans Ink on Soft Sky card stock.

I like to make my flourishes come out of the shadows. Sponge Faded Jeans in a circular motions, starting from the far left of the Cardstock and working in. You will want it to be a little darker at the edge of the cardstock.

Now to figure out where you want your light source to come from. The pen on the card stock shows the direction of where I want mine to come from.

Keeping your light source in mind, use your gel pen and highlight the flourish by tracing the right side (light source side) of the flourishes. This does not have to be exact.

Now to the dark side (starting to sound like Star Wars, lol).

Your shadow is coming from the left side (dark side), in the direction the marker is pointing.

Traced the left side of the flourishes with a Stampin’ Up Night of Navy Marker.

There you have it, 3D looking flourishes. This is the same technique I used on my Flourished Collage card.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and come away inspired to make your flourishes pop!

Your comments, questions and suggestions are always appreciated.

Woohoo! New Rubber!

8 Comments February 22, 2008 zindorfstamps

Well, I’ve went on a little spending spree as you can see. One of my favorite new places to shop for rubber is Cornish Heritage Farms, here is the link, if you would like to check it out http://www.cornishheritagefarms.com/intro.php?osCsid=dtmnia8l444rr6anm95hm03995

I love realistic stamps and they have them!

Anywhoo, I’ll be spending the morning cataloging my new purchases.

I keep a large 3″ binder that has page protectors in it and a scanned pic of all my stamps in it. When I get new Stampin’ Up stamps I scan the sticker sheet before assembling my stamps.

I keep them organized in the binder by manufacturer. My Stampin’ Up stamps are alpha order in the binder and the stamps themselves are stored on shelfs in alpa order.

My mind doesn’t do well in an unorganized environment, so I keep my craft room very organized. I also clean up after each project so I can start anew with a clean slate, so to say.

Have a wonderfully colorful day!

Orange Poppies Tutorial

24 Comments February 21, 2008 zindorfstamps

As promised here is the Orange Poppies card tutorial using the emboss resist technique.

Stamps: SU Oh, So Lovely

Paper: Whisper White, Blue Bayou, Soft Sky

Ink: SU Old Olive, Pumpkin Pie, Summer Sun, Soft Sky, Blue Bayou, Not Quite Navy, Night of Navy, Black, Adirondack Aqua

Accessories: Versamark pad and marker, Brads, Ribbon, Sponges, SU Markers in Summer Sun, Pumpkin Pie, Real Read & Old Olive, Clear Embossing powder, heat gun.

Load your poppies stamp with Versamark first and then with Black ink (all of my inks are Classic Dye inks), stamp poppies on Whisper White card stock and heat emboss using clear embossing powder.

Note: I have two Versamark Pads, one for this technique and the other, clean one for just stamping Versamark.

Your pad will get colored ink on it, unless you clean your stamp between stampings.

I keep my clear embossing powder in a plastic sandwich sized container and spoon it on. Much, much easier than trying to put the powder back in to the little canister container that it comes in.

Color poppies with Summer Sun Marker.

Add Pumpkin Pie Marker at base of flowers.

Color over poppies with Versamark Marker and heat emboss with clear embossing powder.

Now that your flowers are heat embossed they will resist any ink put over them. I love this technique, it really makes images pop!

Sponge in a circular motion Aqua ink.

I’m asked a lot what kind of sponges I use. Well I’m cheap, so I buy really big bags of cheap sponges at the dollar store, lol. Using such cheap sponges allows me to always use a chunk of a fresh one.

Sponge on Summer Sun ink using circular motions.

Dab on Pumpkin Pie ink in splotches.

Stamp poppies over orange and yellow with Pumpkin pie ink.

Color poppies with markers, first with Summer Sun and then add some Pumpkin Pie at the bases of the flowers. Your just wanting to define them a bit.

Stamp the sprigs using Old Olive ink.

Sponge on right top half Blue Bayou ink.

Sponge on Not Quite Navy ink.

Color in sprigs with Old Olive and Real Red Markers to make them stand out more.

Finish off by sponging on Night of Navy ink.

And here it is ready to assemble.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. I realize it skips around a bit, but that is how my creative process flows.

Please leave me a comment giving me feed back on this tutorial and also any questions you may have.

Orange Poppies

5 Comments February 21, 2008 zindorfstamps

Sneak peek! This is a card I created this morning and did a tutorial on, but I don’t have time to put it on here this morning before work, so I will put the complete tutorial, with step by step instructions and pictures on this even. So visit my blog again this evening!

Have a fabulous, colorful day!

Dirty Girl Challenge for February 2008

6 Comments February 20, 2008 zindorfstamps

Hello and thank you for visiting my blog. A lot of you have left me some really great comments and well wishes and I so appreciate it! I’m feeling the love, lol.

Seriously, I’ve received a lot of requests for more tutorials, so my plan is to put a new tutorial on this blog each weekend, hopefully Saturday mornings, schedule permitting. So be sure to check back often and please leave me feed back on tutorials you would like to see.

But for today. . . . . .

This card was created for the February 2008 Dirty Girl challenge. Every month on the 20th the new and old Dirty Dozen girls (Splitcoaststampers.com Design Team) do a challenge.

This month we were to use a stamp that was designed by a Dirty Girl, past or present.

I used Mona Lisa (Lisa Stahl) designed Cracked Montana Earth Background Stamp. It can be purchased at www.cornisheritagefarms.

I combined it with Stampin’ Up All the Best and Season by Season.
The theme was Spring time colors.

Cracked Montana Earth was the only stamp I had on hand to work with on this challenge so I really had to put my thinking cap on.

If you would like to see all the cards created for this challenge, check this link out: http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/gallery/showgallery.php?si=DCS208&limit=&x=13&y=7

Such talented ladies!

Supplies:

Stamps: Monalisa (Lisa Stahl) Cornish Heritage Farms Cracked Montana Earth, SU All the Best, SU Season by Season

Paper: Whisper White, Cool Carribean, Lavendar Lace

Ink: SU Taken with Teal, Apricot Appeal, Blue Bayou, Distress Ink Peeled Paint, Adirondack Aqua

Accessories: Stampin up Markers, Eyelets, Post It Notes, Sponge

Recipe:

Stamped Cracked Montana Earth Backgrounder on lower half of Whisper White Card stock with Adirondack Aqua, brayered Apricot Appeal, Blue Bayou, Taken with Teal on top half of card stock. Put post it notes along horizon line and sponged Adirondack Aqua at edge of them. Colored Stamp with markers and huffed on it, then stamped it. Put a shadow on flower and stem with markers. Stamped sentiment on each corner with Distress Ink Peeled Paint. Assembled card and added eyelets.

Spring Sheep

6 Comments February 19, 2008 zindorfstamps

This was created for Splitcoaststampers.com color challenge. We were challenge to use the colors Certainly Celery, Pumpkin Pie and Orchid Opulence. Here is a link to the challenge: http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=325717

I started out on Whisper White card stock and brayered on Orchid Opulence on the top for the sky and Pumpkin Pie for the hills in the background. Stamp the hills in Pumpkin Pie and grasses in Certainly Celery. Cut two pieces of Certainly Celery card stock for the grass with an Exacto Knife, sponge Certainly Celery at the bottom of both pieces to simulate shadow. Stamped Trees in Black and flowers in the trees with White and Pumpkin Pie. Stamped Sentiment in White and went over it with a White Gel Pen to make it more noticeable.

Stamped Sheep on separate piece of Whisper White card stock in Black and cut it out with an Exacto Knife.

Assembled card and stamped the flowers along the bottom of card with Craft White.

Flowers were punched from Whisper White and Orchid Opulence card stock.

Stamps: Cornish Heritage Farms Primitive Beginnings, SU Trees Three, SU Season by Season, Double D Grasses

Paper: Whisper White, Certainly Celery, Pumpkin Pie, Orchid Opulence

Ink: Orchid Opulence, Craft White, Certainly Celery, Pumpkin Pie, Black

Accessories: Flower Punches, Brads, Ribbon, Exacto Knife, Sponge, Markers

Hope your day feels like Spring!

Sunset Pine

28 Comments February 18, 2008 zindorfstamps

Supplies:

Stamps: SU Lovely as a Tree, SU Short & Sweet

Paper: White Glossy, Whisper White, Apricot Appeal, Really Rust, Old Olive

Ink: Really Rust, Chocolate Chip, Palette Noir Black, Distress Ink Peeled Paint, SU Reinkers Barley Banana, Summer Sun, Pumpkin Pie, Really Rust, Close to Cocoa, Chocolate Chip

Accessories: Old Olive & Black markers, White Gel Pen, Tim Holtz tool, Sponges, Ribbon, Brads, 1 1/4 circle punch, Heat tool

Loaded the Tim Holtz tool, starting with the lightest reinker color, Barely Banana, I applied it to glossy white card stock using a bouncing motion. Continued to add reinkers in the same manner moving out a bit with each color in the following order, Barely Banana, Summer Sun, Pumpkin Pie, Really Rust, Close to Cocoa, Chocolate Chip.

Heat set the colors using my Stampin’ Up Heat tool. Note: if you don’t heat set it, the color will stay wet a long time on the glossy card stock.

I cut a circle with a Stampin Up 1 1/4″ circle punch out of Apricot Appeal card stock and rolled edge on Really Rust ink pad, adhered to background.

Cut a curvy edge on pieces of card stock, 2 pieces of Whisper White, 1 piece of Apricot Appeal and 1 piece of Really Rust card stocks to layer as the ground. Adhered all but 1 piece of Whisper White.

Using Stamp-a-ma-jig for placement, I stamped the Pine tree twice, once in Peeled Paint and again in Black moving the image just a hair when stamping the black to create a shadow. Note: you need to give lots of pressure on the tree stamp, due to stamping on multiple layers of card stock. My image had gaps in it where the ground met the background. I used an Old Olive & Black marker to draw in the gaps.