Time for another STV sketch challenge!

Good morning!

It's my turn to be the sketch hostess again today over on StampTV, so I thought I'd share my card and sketch with you all today to see if I can entice you to play along with us this week! I pulled out an old favorite card of mine to use for my challenge because of all the layers it has on it.

I stamped the blooms & leaves from Tropical Flowers in Versamagic inks and clear embossed them to really make them pop. Because the ink dries quickly, some of the leaves didn't stay wet long enough to be embossed - but I like the look of some of the leaves 'wet' and others not, so it worked for me.

Here's the basic sketch of my card...

and, if you're up for the challenge - here's the more detailed sketch...


You can choose which one you'd like to use for your card if you choose to play along with us this week on StampTV. You can read all about the challenge HERE. I hope you'll have a chance to play along with us!

Set your clocks and check back in tonight at 10 pm - there's something coming up then from GinaK and the Senior Design Team that you aren't going to want to miss!!

Jessica

Summer Scraps!

Good morning!

Today I have 2 cards to share with you that I made last weekend while challenging myself to clean up by using up scraps that have been piling up in my craft room! The first card used up some the Nautical Netting I have on hand as well as this main image that I colored a while ago and never took the time to put on a card!

I colored the images with Copic markers and used Stampin Up's Cool Caribbean & Taken with Teal inks to shade the water. The seaweed is from Carolyn's Whimsical Autumn stamp set while the other images are all from Gina's Eclectic Summer Stamp TV kit.

Next up, is a card my daughter Ashley helped me make...


We made the card with one of Sizzix's Window die cuts - she was wondering how they worked (and so was I!) so we cut this card out from a piece of shimmery orange Coordinations cardstock. Since it ended up looking like a window, we made a scene with the Martha Stewart fence punch and scrap green papers torn to look like grass. The sentiment is from Gina's You are My Sunshine stamp set.

I had colored the butterfly from Gina's Take Flight stamp set quite a while ago and was happy to finally get it on a card! I colored it in with Copics and then dabbed Versamark all over the image and sprinkled Stampin Up's Iridescent Ice embossing powder over it for some sparkle that won't ever fall off!

If you don't have this embossing powder from SU, you can actually make your own by mixing 2 parts clear embossing powder with 1 part clear fine glitter. It should end up looking the same as this...

I didn't end up taking photos of the insides of these two cards because they were pretty simple - with nothing fancy added. I gave the fish card to my son Isaiah and this butterfly card to my daughter Ashley. I love those two kids of mine - they both such gifts from God to our family!

Have a wonderful rest of your day and thanks for stopping in! Be sure to check into StampTV to check out Gina's latest technique video - Wednesdays are so fun, aren't they!? A new video every week to check out! I love that!
Jessica

Remembering Mom....

Happy Mother's day weekend, everyone!

While this holiday is a joyous one for most of us, but for some it's touched with pain... not being able to spend it with their beloved mothers. My cards today are in honor of those men and women who are celebrating the memories of their mothers.

GinaK's new Not Forgotten stamp set is a godsend for cardmakers who desire to send out a card for just such an occasion as this one. I paired the set for my first card with Asela Hopkin's Friendship's Garden.

My next card uses GinaK's Tropical Flowers and Take Flight stamp sets, along with more of the Rough and Rugged Digital Papers, also from GinaK. It's also the card I'm using for PaperCraft Planet's Sketch Challenge this week.

I stamped the leaves in black memento ink directly on the digital papers for a silhouette look. The butterfly was stamped twice on vellum in versamark ink and embossed with SU's Iridescent Ice embossing powder.

Then, I took a light green Copic marker and colored the backside of the cut out butterfly. After layering it, I added some pearls for the body.

I hope this Mother's Day weekend is filled with wonderful memories of your mother and all she means and has meant to you.

Happy Mother's Day to my mom Linda and my mother-in-law Sandy!

I love you both!

Jessica

Embossed Tropical Flowers

Good morning!

This morning I'd like to share one of my favorite cards that I've made with Gina's Tropical Blooms stamp set. The close up view shows some of the details.....

I punched out a Pacific Point Giga Scallop Oval and stamped the image in white ink and embossed with white embossing powder. The sentiment is stamped in black versafine ink and embossed in clear embossing powder too because I really wanted it to pop.

I ran a piece of SU's going gray cardstock through my cuttlebug with this really neat floral embossing folder and highlighted the flowers with CraftT's Metallic Rub-on paste. This folder is one that comes with die cut words too - in case you were wondering... A pearl finishes off the flower's centers.

I used GinaK's 120lb. cardstock as the base of the card - wow, is this cardstock the best! It is so thick and sturdy. And, based on how many packages we've sent out of this stuff, I know many of you know how awesome it is too! lol!

There are so many people hurting this time of year, it just seemed fitting to make a card to have on hand like this one. I love the sentiments in GinaK's Punchy Words stamp set and use it often on my cards because of the clean, delicate font of all the sentiments.

Have a great day and thank you for stopping by!

Jessica

Tropical Thankyou Flowers

Good morning!

We had our GinaK Designs Work Party last night for all our store workers at a beautiful Italian restaurant. What fun it was going out together along with our husbands! The food was fabulous - especially dessert... *wink* But, the best part was just hanging out together. Alicia and Gina took photos of everyone and will be sharing them on her blog sometime soon, I'm sure.

Rupa Shevde and her husband Wes joined us for the dinner as well. It was a pleasure sitting by them and getting to know both of them a little better. They both are Professors at the UW Wisconsin here in Madison and are renowned scientists well known in their fields... so you can imagine how interesting our conversation was. Can you imagine the "Director of Education" for GinaK Designs talking to a Professor of BioChemistry for the UW Madison ... lol! Seriously though, they both share our Christian faith and are very humble with all of their accomplishments and the conversations were very interesting.

My kids had a birthday party sleep-over with a family friend of ours - so Brad and I had a date night. How great was that, huh? Out for a great meal - and the hubby didn't even have to pay! Thanks, Gina and Tom, for a great meal and fellowship! Brad is wondering where we are going next Friday night for dinner....

Card Details: Tropical Flowers, Punchy Words; Euphora dsp; SU cardstock; Flourish punch; Scallop circle punch; Versamagic chalk ink; versafine black ink; clear embossing powder; SU word window punch;SU organdy ribbon;SU mat; piercer; Tonic punch; White gel gen; rhinestones

So, in honor of our fun night last night, I thought I'd share this thank you card that I made with Gina's new Tropical Flowers stamp set. I added all the supplies I used for the card, so I won't go into too many details here on the specifics. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask!

I'm very thankful for the opportunity to work for Gina and alongside Shelly, Karen, and Judy. You guys are the best! We have lots of laughs every day and really have the best jobs in the world because we work for the sweetest boss ever. Thanks, guys!

I'm off to work in a little while this morning because we are having our Holiday Open House at Gina's store today from 10-4. Gina, Rupa, and I will be there demonstrating a variety of different techniques throughout the day. We'll be showing brayers & spectrum inkpads, Tim Holtz masks, Distress inks, Alcohol inks, Copic markers - to name just a few!

I hope you can pop in and make a free card with Gina, enjoy some holiday treats, and do some holiday shopping.

Thanks for stopping by this morning and have a wonderful weekend!

Jessica

Asian Inspired Previews.....

Good morning!

Haven't the preview cards been fantastic so far?! I have been loving what everyone has been showing and hope you have been as inspired as I have gotten checking out everyone's projects!

This morning we're showing 2 more new GinaK Designs stamps set that will be released this Thursday night. The first one that I'm showing today is from Rupa Shevde and is called Home Tweet Home. It is filled with the cutest birdhouses and birds along with some adorable sentiments.

I stamped the birdhouse and bird in Black Versafine ink and Clear embossed and then colored them in with Copics. I added some Doodlebug colored glitter with my Quickie Glue pen... rumor has it that both of these will be added to Gina's online store with this release! Have you seen how we store these little pots of glitter yet? Check out Gina's blog for the photos. You know that it's all about the packaging for us stampers, isn't it?! LOL!

Card Details: Home Tweet Home, Basic Grey Stella Ruby, Bazzil Cardstock, GinaK Pure Luxury cardstock, Fiskars flower border punch, Kaiser Krafts green and white pearls & Clear rhinestones, Copic markers, doodlebug glitter, quickie glue pen, cuttlebug textile folder, holiday metallic rub-on paste, SU ribbons, Marvy super jumbo scallop rectangle punch, paper piercer

The saffron background went through my Cuttlebug with the Textile Embossing folder. Then, I rubbed the green Metallic rub-on paste that you can find in the Holiday Rub-on set. Another fun little detail is that the Kaiser Krafts green pearls that I used on my card were a little too light, so I took my dark green Copic marker to darken them up.

The sentiment was stamped on patterned paper too and embossed with Versafine ink & Detail clear powder again. Then, I punched it out with the Yellow Super Jumbo Scalloped rectangle punch. After that, I turned that rectangle around so that that stamped side of the paper was touching the foam mat and used my Paper Piercer to pierce inside the scallops. When you turn it around, the scallops all have a nice white edge to the piercing since the paper has a white core.

Next up is Gina's stamp set called Tropical Flowers. This is actually a Stamping Cruise stamp set that was given to all the Cruise Gals, so you may have seen some projects done with it floating around on different blogs and even on Splitcoast.

I decided to stamp the flower images in this deep red Versamagic Craft ink and then clear embossed it before the ink dried. I love how rich the colors look when they are embossed. The leaf sprigs were embossed too.

Card Details: Tropical Flowers, Punchy Words, Basic Grey Euphoria paper, GinaK pure luxury cardstock, SU cardstock, K& Co rhinestone, Darice Rhinestone, Kaiser Krafts pearls, SU filagree flower, pink rhinestone, flowers, clear embossing powder, versamagic inks, cuttlebug textile folder, CraftT metallic paste, white craft ink, versafine black ink

This is a 5 1/2" square card. The colors were pulled from this Basic Grey paper pack... I used Stampin Up's Purely Pomegranate, Basic Gray, Mellow Moss and Basic Black. The pink and red rhinestones along the edge of the gray panel happened because I didn't have enough of one color to have 5 in a row... so I did what us stampers do best: improvise! I used a variety of shades of pink & red. It turns out that I really like how they all look together! I love it when that happens, don't you?

** edited to add: GinaK and Melanie are hosting the 12th Day of Christmas challenge over at PaperCraft Planet today too! The challenge today is to use 12 embellishments on your card. I know that it sounds hard, but I just looked over my cards above and they both qualify for the challenge - and I wasn't even really trying to complete the challenge! I actually have a few other cards that I made last night to share on PaperCraft Planet, but I thought I'd share how easy it really can be to do it.

Check out the main page for more details on how to enter your card to win a free GinaK stamp set. Be sure to add the tag: 12day12 to you photo to make sure it ends up in the album for the drawing. **

Now, be sure to check out everyone else's previews if you haven't already. Here's the links for you to follow....

Gina, Erika, Theresa, Donna, Kurtis, Cindy, Melanie, Emily, Carolina, Joanne, and Cammie

Thanks for stopping by and see you tomorrow with a preview of Melanie's new stamp set!

Jessica