Beautiful Geisha

My wonderful stamping friend Anne Ryan just sent me a parcel full of incredible stamping goodies - key charms, a white gelly pen, white Shimmer spray AND... drum roll... the Asian dreams SU set!!!!! Can you believe it???? I still can't!!!! So I had to create a card using my new stamps right away - this is what it came out.

The background for my stamped images is watercolor paper colored by pressing some green and brown Ranger Adirondack ink pads onto a craft sheet, then misting the craft sheet with water and putting the watercolor paper onto the craft sheet, then I dried the paper with my heat tool. When the paper was completely dry, I sprayed some Glimmer Mist onto it and again dried it with my heat tool.

I stamped my images with Versamark onto the colored watercolor paper and embossed the images with red-gold embossing powder. The Geisha was punched out with a Marvy Uchida oval scallop punch and edged with purple Colorbox Fluid Chalks. Everything was mounted onto cuttlebug-embossed cream cardstock (Plum Blossom folder), then onto burgundy cardstock.

White Snowflake

White Snowflake, what a silly title for this post, are there any other snowflakes than white ones??? Well, look a the card and read about the challenge, then you'll understand why my mind is some white-confused today...


No time to stamp during this week - so I took my chance to spend a rainy and foggy Sunday in my craft room.

This week's Splitcoaststampers Limited Supplies Challenge was a real challenge - only white cardstock, white or clear embellishments, white ink - white ink??? Just kidding, ONE single color of ink was allowed, thank you for your generosity, Holly!!!
The background cardstock was embossed with my new cuttlebug Holly Borders embossing folder. The snowflake was cut and embossed with my cuttlebug snowflake die, then I added a clear rhinestone. The sentiment stamp by Kaleidoskop is originally square and
says "Merry Christmas And A Happy New Year". I used Versamark ink and silver embossing powder, cut it with a circle punch because I thought a circle would fit better to the card than a square, and edged it with a silver Krylon pen. The ribbon is by Panduro.

Anyway, I had fun with this challenge, and I like the result.

Loriot's 60th Birthday

I needed a masculine 60th birthday card... As I'm VERY bad at masculine cards, I wanted to combine it with today's Splitcoast featured stamper challenge to get some inspiration. Today's featured stamper is Julie - you have to visit her wonderful blog: Stamps and Taxes! Julie creates really beautiful cards in a very distinct style - many layers, clear and crisp layout.
I used a stamp with a scene from a German animated cartoon comedy which I really love. It has a very special subtle humor, and I was soooo happy when I once got these stamps...
I took Julie's Halloween Frights card as my inspiration piece, but changed the number of layers, the dp (thought it is also striped), the cuttlebug folder and the size of the whole card. Yeah, and I'll NEVER be able to tie such perfect bows as Julie does...
And... I used the tiniest of all my tiny flowers on the man's suit. You know what the problem with tiny little flowers is? Hmmm, they are TINY and SMALL and hide behind my whole stash of flowers, LOL!!!
So...this card was stamped in two minutes... but it felt like hours to assemble it with this ... bow and this TINY flower!!!!

Card details:
* Loriot stamp: manufacturer unknown. Sentiment stamp: Kaleidoskop. Numbers stamps: Hero Arts
* Ink: Palette Noir
* Colors: Tombow markers
* And: Green and brown cardstock. The dp is from a series called Bohemian Christmas, but I don't know the manufacturer. Burgundy sheer ribbon. Black metallic brads (Making Memories). Cuttlebug embossing folder. TINY Prima flower. Red rhinestone.

Find Joy in Little Leaves

Today's Splitcoast technique lovers challenge is to cut out embossed pieces and create a design with these pieces. What a simple and stunning idea! I had to try this with one of my cuttlebug folders immediately! I sponged the embossed image with several shades of fluid chalk inks (Colorbox), then cut out parts of the embossed image. Some design paper (7gypsies), a sentiment (Stampin'Up), a ribbon - voila!
What do you think?

Elegant Congrats

I usually don't do any color challenges - this was my first one. Actually, I didn't want to do a color challenge today but the SCS "Embrace White Space" DTGD08 challenge. Nevertheless, I needed some color, and I thought something soft to be suitable - so why not take today's SCS color challenge as well and kill two birds with one stone? (uugh, that's kind of a cruel idiom, this one sounds much nicer in German, LOL!)
As I don't have SU inks, I chose Fluid Chalk inks which seemed to me to be very close to Soft Sky, Blue Bayou and Wild Wasabi. A bugged background, some ribbon, some flowers (I love those lacy Prima flowers! Even when they are hard to handle because they tend to tear...), some flat beads - ready.
It's an extremely untypical card for me - not my usual style at all, but I have to admit, I'm just cottoning up to it... What do you think?

Hi everybody!
I'm back from my trip to Sweden - I really had some wonderful days! My dh and I did not only celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary there with our familiy and friends, but also my birthday, and I got tons of new stamps!!! Nevertheless, today it was a no-stamp day, I first had to do the laundry (okay, I know, "stamping ever - housework never", but sometimes it just MUST be done...). So I just loaded up this quick silver wedding anniversary card I made for some neighbours recently. I wanted to show you the wonderful cuttlebug heart and the stamped chipboard numbers. I love this cuttlebug die which not only die-cuts the heart but also embosses it in different ways. And I love those chipboard numbers. They come self-adhesive and already coated with white cardstock, so you only have to stamp onto them! The paper in the upper part of the card is embroidered.

Tutorials wanted?
I have been asked for some stampoard tutorial. Is anybody else interested in such a tutorial? Or some other tutorials on the techniques I use? Please let me know what you are interested in, then I'll upload some tutorials of course! I love to read your comments!