Hi Everyone, I’m back from vacation refreshed and ready to create.  My vacation was one of learning.  I attended the Art & Soul By the Sea Retreat at Asilomar State Park, Monterey, CA.  Where I took a two-day class on making Nature journals from a fabulous teacher, LK Ludwig.  LK has a book out on the subject, which I ordered first thing upon returning home.  Anyway, here is a shot of my nature journal I created.

I learned so many new techniques that I hope to incorporate in my card making.  One for instance is applying Patina to Metal Mesh, like you see on my journal cover.  Yep, that’s right, stamping on metal mesh!

I also took a one day class called Simpatico from the wonderful, Angela Cartwright who is also a published author.  I’ve got her book ordered too, lol.  Simpatico is taking Black and white photos and applying color to them.  Here is a horrible scan of one of mine that I did in her class, but you can get an idea of the technique.

Although we were in the classroom during the day, we were able to enjoy the scenery at Asilomar early morning and during the evenings.  Here is an early morning shot.

My vacation was not entirely spent in the classroom.  Here is picture I took along the coast as we were on our way to spend the day shopping in Carmel.

Ok, enough with my vacation photos.  I can hear you snoring, Zzzzzzz.

I hope this post finds all of you happy and healthy. 

I plan to post a tutorial later today.  Stay tuned because I’m back and ready to do some stamping!

Hello everyone,

I’m going to take a break from blogging until I return from my vacation.  My next post will be April 20th.  In the mean time, please check out and try some of the past tutorials here on my blog.  There is a tutorial tab on the top of this page with quick links to all of them.  There are over thirty, so grab a cup of your favorite brew and stay a while.  Any questions/comments leave them in the comments section under the tutorial you are viewing and I will answer if I can before the 20th.  If I can’t, I’ll be sure to answer them upon my return. 

Thanks again to all of you that visit my blog.  Your wonderful comments have inspired and driven me to keep posting tutorials and in the process I have learned a great deal myself.

Hugs,

Michelle

I just had to share with all of you my excitement.  I have been asked to become part of Gina K’s Design Team starting in May ’08.   Woohoo!  I love her stamps and can’t wait to start.  Also, congratulations to the rest of the new design team members as well!

See Gina’s announcement at this link:  http://blog.ginakdesigns.com/2008/04/04/announcing-the-new-gina-k-designs-design-team.aspx

No card tutorial for today.  I really needed to work on this fish.  I’m off to the Art & Soul Retreat in California in a couple of weeks.  Apparently, when you sign up for the retreat they send you a white ceramic fish and you are suppose to alter it and bring it with you for display at the retreat, yikes!  Well I altered mine alright, pretty wacky huh?

Anyway, just wanted to share my fish with you.  Like I said in a previous post, you all are my friends now and I will share with you the good projects and the bad, lol.  It is painted entirely with Alcohol inks.  I didn’t even use a paint brush, just dropped the color on and held the fish at different angles to get some of the ink to run.  The gold was just dropped on too.  Once the fish was colored I decided to stamp the bird on it.  I used an unmounted stamp with no mount so I could get the stamp to bend with the fish, KWIM.  Since I was using Alcohol inks I was able to use my Prismacolor Blending marker to lift the color off on the bird where I wanted it to be white.  I thought that was pretty cleaver of me, lol.  I also used the blending marker to make swirls in the blue area.   I did add highlights on the bird with a white gel pen, you know I had to use my gel pen, lol. 

Well I have to say, my fish will not come out from hiding until I see some of the other fish on display!  I’m such a chicken 🙂

I think tomorrow I will be making my calling cards for the retreat, so I will have something on hand to give to folks when they want to swap addresses/e-mails.  Of course they will be stamped, so stay tuned.

Hope your projects today come out less wacky than my fish!

Until tomorrow. . . . . . . . . . . .

Each month Jami puts together a Split Coast Stampers Dirty Dozen Design Team challenge for the Current and Alumni Design Team.   Here are the rules for this months challenge that we had to follow:

Everything Old is New Again!We all tend to get so caught up in the latest and greatest stamps, papers, embellishments, etc that we can get into a shopping (and hoarding) frenzy!  So we have to use old stuff for this challenge.

Challenge Focus: Use one of the oldest stamp sets you own along with embellishments and supplies you’ve had for what seems like forever.

Restricted Element: No stamps, tools, or supplies purchased or obtained within the last 6 months. 
Bonus Challenge: Use a technique or style you haven’t used in a long time, but was a favorite at some point in your stamping past.

Well I followed the rules and just use an old Stampin’ Up retired set Sweet Herb, copy righted in 1999.

I also colored my stamp images with regular Stampin’ Up markers.

The main images were stamped on handmade paper that I made myself many years ago when I went through a paper making stage, lol.  I have been hoarding that paper.

Remember those skelton leaves, ahhh I have a bunch of them in a drawer.

It’s nice to know we don’t need all the latest and greatest to make a wonderful card.

Check out this limited supply list for this project:

If you would like to see all of the DD’s cards for this challenge then check out this link:  http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/gallery/showgallery.php?si=DCON308+&limit=&x=6&y=10

How about you challenge yourself to make a card out of things you haven’t used in at least 6 months, I dare ya!

Hope your day is a mellow one!

Hello Everyone, I getting all geared up for my trip next month to California for the Art & Soul Retreat my sister and I  will be attending.  I’m so very excited!  I’ll be taking a 2 day class on making Nature Journals and a one day class to learn how to color black and white photos.

If you want to check out the retreat, here is the link:   

http://www.artandsoulretreat.com/Asilomar-2008.php

Check it out and attend.  I would love to meet you all!

It’s so funny, I need to take some stamps for the nature journal class.  How on earth am I going to decide which ones to take and what inks!  You know the brayer will be shoved in the bag for sure.  I’m planning on taking one suit case just for art supplies, so what if I’m wearing the same outfits over and over again, lol.

Has anyone else prepared for something like this?  Do you have any suggestions?  Check out the link and look at all the things I have to haul from Ohio to California.  There is a supply list for each class, yikes!

I’ll share my projects with you all when I return from the trip, whether they are good or bad, lol.  You all are my friends now,  I can show you the yucky stuff too right? 

Anyway, I am extremely excited to be able to attend this retreat!   Packing suggestions are so very welcome.

One more thing, I already have another tutorial done.  I will be posting it tomorrow.  I haven’t made a card without doing a tutorial on it in over a month.  There has been such an over whelming response to this blog.  I had over 17,000 hits in a month and one day.  Woohooo!  Thanks everyone for your kind words and support this last month. 

Thought I would share a couple of photos I took at 8:00 a.m. this morning.  These shots are from the deck at the back of my house toward the green space behind us.   Like I said we are in a bit of a fog.

We only have a half an acre, but there is a 4 acre green space behind us and a beautiful farm in front of us.

Now this next shot was taken from my front door toward the property across the road.  Hey, that barn looks familiar, yep, it’s the barn in my banner at the top of this page, lol.

This is lake Bob, lol.  Our neighbor is Bob and they are having a little drainage problem on their property.  Kinda pretty with the fog though.  I bet they don’t think so, lol. 

I love living in a rural community, expecially after living in the city all my life.  I think I appreciate the views more.

I’m going to try to get a tutorial done this afternoon for you all, but for now. . . . . . I’m in the fog.

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:

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!

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.

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!

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!