Happy Butterflies

I love techniques, and subscribe to the Technique Junkies newsletter. I hadn't played much lately, but was really impressed with the samples I'd seen using Reinker splash, so last night I pulled out Palette metallic inks (luscious lilac and satin sage). Very cool results - this card uses the 2nd generation pressing (and it's on matte cardstock) - yes, you'll be seeing something made with the original pressing soon :) I stamped the butterfly (End/Begin), then trimmed and matted the panel. I used Combo Sentiments to add the greeting, using the metallic ink on "happy." I tied on some ribbon and popped the sentiment panel up on foam dots just to add some interest.

This shot captures a bit of the shimmer. I just love sparkley stuff (but you may have already guessed that :) and I just wish that I could capture it better in the photos.

BTW, if you're not a TJ subscriber but are interested, you can get a 2008 online subscription for only $9.95. These are step by step photographed instructions, so they're very easy to follow. There's more info on this over at Pat's blog (the creator/publisher of the newsletter). Check it out!

A Colorful Tea Party!

It's time for another Tea Party, this time hosted by Susan. She made it a color challenge - brown, lime, and teal. Fun, fun! I decided that the lime & teal would look nice with the fossil stone technique - it's an "oldie but goodie" from the Technique Junkies newsletter. Simple and always fun results. I smeared versamagic inks onto a page protector (with the edges cut open); I then spritzed it with some perfect ink refresher, pressed the the two sides together, then inserted some paper to transfer the ink. Lovely!

But what to do with the paper? On this card, I stamped the dandelion (Wonder), and then cut the paper into thirds. To add just a bit more interest, I trimmed a bit more off of each edge, but alternating ends. I then mounted it on wasabi cardstock, and then onto a chocolate card base. It still needed a sentiment, though! I stamped "joy" (from Pear Tree) and then hand wrote "scatter."

I had plenty of the funkified paper left, so I played a bit more. First I dirtied it up a bit by adding some caramel ink, then covering it all with white versamagic. I think I've mentioned this little trick before - it softens the base color, but also mutes the overstamped image by "sucking up" some of the ink. I used the same sepia versafine ink on both the dragonfly and the sentiment (Dragonfly), and you can definitely see the difference. I matted the dragonfly panel with just a hint of teal, then flush mounted it and added three clear dew drops. The wasabi card base is the same that I used to mat the flower on the first card, so you use your imagination to color correct :)

Wanna see what the other cookies have done? Check out In the Works, Mama Dini's Stamperia, Dee's Studio, & Sweet Somethings! And we'd love to have try out these colors, too - just leave a comment!