Whatever Floats Your Boat

Good evening!

I have a couple of cards to share tonight celebrating Gina's Lucky Seven Stamp set sale this weekend! The prices are so great that it's worth taking advantage of them to stock up on gifts even if you already own all the stamp sets! I love blow-out prices, don't you!?

My first card is made with Asela's Zoo Animal's stamp set - this zebra is so cute! I can't help but think of the Madagascar movies whenever I see him... lol!

I made my card based on my STV Sketch challenge that you can find HERE. I love all the layers this sketch has! Here's the inside view of this card...

I stamped the zebra in white craft ink and embossed with white embossing powder and then colored in a few of the stripes with my Koh-i-noor white colored pencil. I really like how it looks kind of like a chalkboard!

Next, is another card with Rupa's Whatever Floats Your Boat stamp set ...

I have used this set a lot but this is the first time I've inked up this little mouse - he is so cute!

I stamped him twice on GinaK's 80lb. cardstock and colored with copics - paper piecing and popping up the mouse from his cheese-boat for some added dimension. This Cosmo Cricket paper was a perfect addition with those little fishies... lol!

I love this fun sentiment...

Here's the inside of the card - more of the delicious paper! I kept it blank inside - just room to sign everyone's name for the birthday boy.

Thanks for checking in with me tonight - I'll have some more cards from these two stamp sets to share with you tomorrow night!

There are a few other Design Team members that are sharing projects with the Lucky Seven stamp sets too tonight - so, hop over to these blogs for more inspiration and ideas!

Theresa
Donna
Cindy
Jen Marie - one of our CenterStage Design Team members!

And, Melanie has shared her famous Tip Sheets for her two Lucky Seven Stamps sets (Jumping for Joy and Cuddles & Hugs) over on StampTV in this discussion. You can save the PDF files for your own personal use!

Jessica

Take Flight with Polished Stone... take 2

Good morning!

Today is the last groupings of polished stone cards I've got for you... I hope you haven't gotten tired of them yet! Polished stone is one of my very favorite techniques because of the quick elegance it adds to your focal image. Experimenting with colors is always fun too!

My first card is full of a variety of shades of pinks - and the black onyx papers and embossing powders really help the pink pop!


The inside is very similar to all the other cards I made and shown so far...

And finally, the last card with some deeper pink & reds...

I really like the rich colors of this card! Once again I used Ranger's Alcohol Inks and blending tool on my polished stone samples, but you can get the same results from your Dye reinkers and Rubbing alcohol.

However, I really like the Inkssential's tool because I don't always like touching cotton balls... it gives me the 'heebie jeebies' sometimes - am I the only one that that happens to? lol! It also keeps my fingers free from ink stains.

I went super easy with this final card - I just added a sprinkling of flowers to the bottom of the card, so it almost looks like the butterfly is flitting around among the flowers.

I don't always need to share the insides of my cards, I just like to, to show how quick and simple it can be to finish it off by adding a strip of paper and a flower. It feels a little more polished and professional for me when I give out my cards.

Thanks for endulging me these past 3 days while I've been showing my Polished Stone samples that I've made into cards! If you haven't tried the technique yet, be sure to watch Gina's video over on StampTV and then give it a try! It's one of the easiest techniques out there and always has such a wow factor.

Jessica

Take Flight with Polished Stone...

Good morning!

Before I share my cards with you today, I want to let you know that I am now selling my cards over at Etsy. If you are interested in purchasing a card you have seen recently on my blog, let me know and I will list it for sale over there. Thanks!

I have some more scrap polished stone cards to share with you this morning. It was so fun over the weekend, pairing these demonstration samples with some patterned paper scraps and making them into cards.

The first card today was a really hard one to get a good photograph of - the colors are Perfect Plum & Chocolate Chip (from SU) along with GinaK's Chocolate Kiss for the cardstock base. The photograph below shows the colors okay but washed out the sentiment...


Once again I used Ranger's Alcohol Inks & blending tool for the polished stone - but since it's been so long since I made this I don't remember which ones I used, sorry! After it was dried, I stamped the butterfly from Take Flight in versamark ink and embossed it with Black Tinsel embossing powder. It has a really beautiful glitter to it that you can see better in the first photograph.

While I was making these cards this past weekend, I decided to make them all thinking/praying for you cards so I used Gina's Punchy Words for the front sentiments and her Not Forgotten sentiments for the inside. It's always good to have these kind of cards on hand, don't you think?

Next up is a brighter polished stone card... this time with reds...

You can see a little better on this card that after I did the polished stone on glossy paper and embossed the butterfly with the tinsel embossing powder, I dabbed the edges of the paper in versamark and embossed each side with the black embossing powder too. I think it's a fun way to add a border, without having to use paper!

The black cardstock is GinaK's Black Onyx and the patterned papers are a from a couple different paper packs from SU - Saffron & Riding Hood red are the basic colors.

I have one final grouping of Polished Stone butterfly cards to share with you tomorrow here on my blog. I hope you'll be back then to check them out!

Jessica

Polished Stone Blues...

Good morning!

It's Wednesday and you know what that means - a new stamping technique video from Gina has been added to StampTV! This week, she is showcasing polished stone and adding some fun new products to her online store to help make this technique even easier.

Several months ago, I did a demonstration using Ranger's Alcohol inks and Inkssentials blending tool. To kick it up a notch, I stamped the butterflies from Take Flight in Versamark ink and embossed them with Ranger's Snowflake or Black Tinsel embossing powders.

While cleaning my stamp room over the weekend, I found 7 samples that I saved from that demonstration because I wanted to use them on some cards. So, I sat down one day and put them all to good use on some cards that I'll be sharing with you over the next couple of days.

I dipped the edges of the main images in versamark and embossed with the same powder for a quick border. I paired this sample with some more scraps from my patterned paper box - it ended up matching SU's Blue Bayou cardstock pretty well.

I decided to make all the polished stone samples into 'thinking of you/praying for you' cards, so I turned to my two favorite GinaK sentiment stamp sets: Punchy Words and Not Forgotten. You'll see these same sentiments on all my cards over the next couple of days...

Next up - a turquoise polished stone card...

This was a super quick card to put together, because I really wanted the main image to take center stage...

Isn't it pretty? If you have tried polished stone before and used a regular Metallic reinker, you may have noticed that it never dries fully and has a tendency to smear.

That's the beauty of Ranger's Metallic inks - they are specially formulated for glossy surfaces and techniques such as this one, so they dry completely while still maintaining their glorious shine! I LOVE them and am so glad that Gina has decided to add them to her online store.

Once again the inside of the card is super simple. I used lots of Stampin Up's Tempting Turquoise patterned papers - remember I'm trying to use up my scraps!!

And finally this one - a little more elegant...

This time I used some darker blue Ranger inks and embossed the butterfly with Ranger's Black Tinsel embossing powder. I have been using GinaK's Black Onyx paper as a neutral a lot lately and really like how the black makes the colors pop!

See what I mean...

I used Stampin Up's Brocade Blue cardstock along with some black patterned paper. I sponged some Navy ink on the blue prima flowers to help them work better with my card. I did some more sponging on the inside of my card too...

Thanks for sticking with me through all these photos today! Check back in tomorrow as I will have a couple more Polished stone Take Flight cards to share with you then!

Jessica

When's Lunch!?

Good morning!

Every morning when Gina comes into work, she asks Shelly and I - "When's lunch!?" It's pretty comical because she starts asking at 9:30 in the morning so we usually end up eating lunch by 11:30!

We're used to eating so early because Gina suggests lunch so many times in the morning that we're starving by noon - lol!



My card was made with a recent sketch I shared over on StampTV - it's a fun one that allows you to use lots of patterned papers.


The sandwich is from Gina's stamp set called My Tailgate or Yours and the sentiments are from Rupa's King of the Grill and Gina's Punchy Words and You are my Sunshine. I really like how these sentiments worked together...

The inside sentiments are from Gina's Simple Pleasures stamp set. All the papers and embellishments are from Basic Grey's Mellow and Offbeat collections.

Enjoy YOUR lunch today! lol!

Jessica

Guava Birthday Wishes

Good morning!

Here's another card I made on Saturday using a digital image from Butterfly Garden by MyGrafico. Once again I printed the image out on GinaK's Pure Luxury 80lb. cardstock and colored the image in with Copic markers. Using a variety of Stickles along with my Quickie Glue pen & Doodlebug's Clear glitter, I added a ton of 'bling' to the image.

I've been in the mood for orange lately, so I pulled out a couple of Copic markers to color the flower and decided when I was finished that one of SU's InColor from last year Groovy Guava was a good match.

I recently got some of Basic Grey's new papers & embellishments and was pleased to see that the Marrakech buttons worked perfectly with the colors I chose. I love it when that happens!

I added this last photo, to show the detail of the flower center - I added a page pebble to the center to help it pop a little more. Then, I took fruit punch & diamond stickles and carefully went around the images. The leaves have eucaplytus stickles and the outer scallop flower has diamond stickles.

The swirls are doodlebug's glitter with the Quickie glue pen. The precision you can get with that pen is awesome - perfect for detailed images such as this one.

This month's theme album for PaperCraft Planet is Birthday - so I decided to make this a birthday card. We always need those, don't we? The sentiment is from GinaK's Punchy Words. I love using this set because all the images either work with this SU Word Window punch or a Scallop circle punch.

Have a great rest of your day!

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

Window Card

Card details: Punchy Words, Nestabilities, Cuttlebug, Nana's Nursery Boy Pack, paper piercer, SU blue bayou ribbon

Good morning!

Since so many of my posts lately have been so long, I'm going to keep today's short and sweet!

Like many of you, I love my Nestabilities! They make layering a breeze and are also super easy to use to make window cards.

This photo shows the window better. Can you see all the circle shapes I cut out? The ladies were busy with the dies and the Cuttlebug on this one in a recent Nestabilities 2: beyond the basics Class.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

Jessica