SLMPetersen

Are you a fan of ink smooshing? I love it but my bestie hasn’t enjoyed much success when she’s tried it.  I recently told her that I think the secret is in the spray bottle you use.  I use one of those little ones you can get in the trial size section of your local discount store.  You know the ones that are about 3 ounces and cost a couple of bucks?  Yep, those are the ones I use for this technique.  I find that anything else gives too much water.  The little travel guys spray a really fine mist.  For Part 2 of my Alaska Scene Card series, I have four cards to share.  If you missed Part 1 you can check it out here .  Onto the cards. For the first two, I created a sunset by swiping some distress inks onto a small square acrylic block.  Once my block was inked I spritzed the block with a fine mist a couple of times and pressed the block to my paper as if it was a stamp.  By using the spray bottle I suggested, you shouldn't get any dr...

I’ve been playing with some ideas for Alaska scene cards. Trying for something that is gift shop worthy, more on that later.  In part one of this series, I'll share some ideas created with stencils and ink blending. I started by using a Brutus Monroe Simple Blend Square stencil, Newton’s Nook Mountain stencil, and a small circle stencil to create the scene of the first card. I also used a stitched square die to cut a window in the overlay to give the feel of gazing out the window onto the rising sun. For my second card, I used the same Brutus Monroe square stencil to mask off the white space and did some ink blending with the same Newton's Nook Mountain stencil.  I added interest to the sky, using the Newton's Nook Cloud stencil to create a bit of a sunset.  I opted to stamp the Reindeer  from Lavinia Stamps directly onto the ink blended panel rather than cutting a "window with a view" for this card.   The third card of today’s post uses the same stencil...

Before we talk about cards today I have a bit of housekeeping.  First, a couple of cancelation will be happening.  I'm discontinuing the From the Studio Table series.  It does not appear to be a popular feature for your Friday reading enjoyment.  I'll also be discontinuing the Shop Updates postings, while not frequent, also not popular with my readers.  Last, but definitely not least, I'm trying very hard to get back into a consistent posting schedule.  Last week went really well, let's see if we can keep up with it this week.  Now onto the cards... I watched one of Ardyth's videos a week or so back and snagged a new technique for double stenciling while ink blending .  I have some more experimenting to do with the technique, but I love the results so far. The long and the short of the technique is that you stencil through your biggest holes first to create your first pattern.  Ardyth suggests tapping the top of the stencil in place to cre...

I'm still working on Easter cards, using a few more scrap to create a fee more stash busting card ideas.  If you read Wednesday's post then you know I did cut enough eggs to build 15 cards.   This time around I had a little fun with the eggs.  I "posed" them in a polaroid frame die cut, as if they were in a bit of a family photo.  Stamped a cute sentiment on the bottom of the frame and added "Happy Easter" to the panel before adding it to the card front. For the next card, I created a little banner of eggs.  Alternating plaid eggs and cream colored eggs.  I stamped a little bunny onto each of the cream eggs.  Punch a small hole into the top of each egg, stringing them onto a bit of crochet thread.  I adhered the thread to the back of the panel, then arranged the eggs and glued them in place.  Adding the Happy Easter sentiment to finish the card panel before adhering it to the card base.   One more egg idea was creating a littl...

I love cards that help me use up all the fun bits of leftover pattern paper.  Let's face it, we all do it.  We save every tiny scrap of our pattern papers, thinking "I'm sure I can still get something out of this."   I doubled down on these eggs and went to town.  I used a die from Simon Says Stamp , but any egg die or even a small oval would work for these cards.   I was inspired by a couple of pins from Pinterest and set about cutting eggs.  I kind of lost track when cutting my eggs, I ended up cutting enough eggs to create 15 Easter cards.  These were fast and easy, a great card idea for mass production. I pulled any scrap from my stash that was large enough to cut an egg from.  Then the eggs were divided into stacks of four based on colors or patterns that coordinated.   Once I had my eggs all cut I die cut some white pannels.  Next, I laid out my eggs to decided on stamp placement.   After stamping each panel I...

I'm new to the slimline card party, and I'll be honest I'm not sure I'm staying.  I'll need to make a few more before I make a final decision, but so far they aren't my jam.  This past week I cased Pinterest for some inspiration and here's what happened. Pin-spiration #1: I was inspired by this card from the  Le nouveau scrap de Christine B  blog.  Yes, the blog is in French, but that's not important.  I was drawn to the kraft and white color palette, and the clean lines of this card.   I'm a sucker for kraft and white.  It's quite possibly one of my favorite combos.  I use a lot of kraft and white paper in my own card style, so that is perhaps why I was drawn to this card when I saw it on Pinterest. I was also very drawn to the big dots, knowing full well I could recreate this look with some ink and my large dot stencil.  I believe in the inspiration card it's pattern paper, but I'm not 100% sure on that.   My next challe...

Monday, I created eight cards by using some bits out of my basket of cast-offs.  I must confess this idea was inspired by watching one of the many Tim Holtz Demo Videos on YouTube.  In the Sizzix Shaping Kit Demo video , he talked about how we should go in the studio and make bits and elements and then make cards from the parts later.  Tim shared how when he used to sit down and just focus on making one card at a time his cards were, well as he put it lazy.  He also talked about how when he was focused on single card production he often wasn't using all his things in his studio to their full potential.  By trying this method of creation, I ended my day with eight cards.  All from things that I cut for other cards, but never used for various reasons. I even found a stitched tag that was never finished. The nitty-gritty of how I went about making parts and then cards all starts with my basket of cast-offs.  I keep a small white plastic basket tucked unde...

Can I just say I love this Tim Holtz bird die? This die was a free with purchase at Simon Says Stamp a while back, and I’m honestly not sure there was any other way to get him. I’m so glad I opted to snag this little guy. The first time using this die I opted for traditional Blue Jays and Cardinals for my color palette. I paired them with my chicken wire embossing folder and some fun speech bubbles for greetings.  I cut card panels with the wonky stitched rectangles die from Simon Says. Then I inked the embossing folder with Pumice Stone Distress Oxide ink before running each of the panels through the die cutting machine. This gave me a more realistic wire effect.  Using some speech bubble dies I had in my stash I created some fun little messages to go with these cute birds. I pulled greetings from several stamp sets, giving each bird a different message. I popped all the speech bubbles up on foam tape. These birds were a lot of fun to use and I'll be working with them again i...

I'm gonna blame these creations on my bestie.  She has been sending me photos of her rainbow card creations and I caught the rainbow fever.  I spent one afternoon making these cards with things I already had in my stash.   The first card was the beginning of the rainbow rabbit hole.  I used one of my Simon Says Stamp Stencils and a selection of Distress Inks.  Then I pulled a rainbow sentiment from a retired stamp set and added a few black butterflies.  I really love using black and white elements with rainbows. Card two uses a Crafter's Workshop stencil with the same selection of Distress Inks that I already had on the table.  I'm not sharing specific colors, because it doesn't matter, pick the colors of the rainbow from the inks you have.  Again I added a sentiment and black butterflies, but I added a few little gems to pull the design together. The third and fourth cards have backgrounds created from spritzing the stencil and making a fir...