Post #2 for the Summer Card Class II-Week 3, Day 4 Homework

By day 4 of this week, I was wrung out. I could not create anything even though the artists showed us really fun techniques. I am not sure if it was the colors that were hard or having my brain come up with one more new idea.

I kind of went easy with myself on day four's homework. The instructions were to use a technique you had never used before. While I did not exactly use JJ Bolton's exact technique, I used the spirit behind it. If you knew me, I am NOT a metallic person. I like sparkles and shine but silver and gold-not my thing on a card or a scrapbook page. (With jewelry-that is a WHOLE different ball of wax, but I digress.) So in the spirit of JJ Bolton, I used gold on my card instead of the Kraft color.

One reason that I did not use her technique was the lack of small die cut letter dies. I don't own any. I also didn't have any more gold paper. I was going to make my own but alas, my gold pigment inks had DRIED UP. (They were probably about 8 years old so I didn't really expect much from them anyway.) Due to the lack of supplies, I had to improvise. I decided to cheat and stamp the word in brown first and then stamp it again with Versamark ink and emboss with gold. For the most part, I really like how it came out.

I did want to clarify that I stamped the medallions in the different colors BEFORE I stamped the sentiment. Masking glitter embossing powder is difficult. How would I know-remember I told you about mistakes? That is what you get  from trying to be LAZY!!

After all my stamping was complete, I still thought it needed something so I decided to add the gold gems. They were not exactly the same gold as the sentiment but I thought it was close enough. So what do you think?

Thank you for looking!!

Nora

Supplies:

Dark Purple Ink-Stampin Up!

Summer Card Class II, Week 3, Day 3 Card

I have 3 days worth of homework from the Summer Card Class II to put up in separate posts so I am going to make this quick today.

Even though this was Day 3's homework, I created the card last night. I had a REALLY difficult time with this weeks color schemes. I also threw out about 6 cards-some half completed, some all the way completed-because I did not like how they came out. That is really rare for me!! I usually can make a card work but not this week!!

For the first card, I used the sketch #2, this weeks colors and took some elements that I liked from Shari Carrol's post and some from Melissa Phillip's card.

From Sherri's post, I decided to color in my flower, which I die cut out of an old book. I did not use Copic's like she used but instead used a combination of brown mist spray on the whole flower and then inked just the edges in dark purple ink. I also liked Sherri's trick of not winding the twine around the card when using it like this. It really does save on how much you use!!

I created the patterned background paper on this card myself. I stamped and embossed the leaves and then used an ink dauber for the blue and Kraft ink. I really like how it came out. I still am not a huge fan of embossing because of the mess but the results can be spectacular. The purple leaf element under the flower is also stamped in clear ink and embossed so that the purple color would stand out a bit more.

The idea that I took from Melissa's card was adding the Washi tape to the middle of the card, under the twine. I could not fix the color but that Washi tape is really more of a Kraft color then how it is showing up on screen. It was the perfect added touch to the card.

Things I learned from today's guest artists:

• I am terrible at using paint daubers. My first card I created for this was complete but I threw it away. I tried Lisa Spangler's dauber technique across the front of my card (at the end of course) and I blew it. It looked awful. Since it was one of the last things I did, I had to throw it out. That will teach me!!
• I really like die cutting and using fun things to color them in besides the actual stamp!!
• Making patterned paper is FUN!!!

So that is my homework for day 3. Thank you for looking!!!

Nora

Supplies:

Dark Purple Ink-Stampin Up!

Summer Card Class II, Week 3, Day 2 Homework

Is there really only three days, including today, left of this fabulous class? I am going to miss it!!

I had such fun with the technique I used for yesterday's homework and I made a huge MESS!! Embossing powder and powdered pearls (which I didn't even wind up using on my project) were everywhere. However, I did use products that I have not used in literally about five years. If you wondered, UTEE is a long lasting product.

I decided to use Jennifer McGuire's embossing technique the moment I saw her video. Die-cuts+heat embossing-what could be more fun? I started out by gluing two pieces of white card stock together like Jennifer said to do. I then die cut using the hexagon plate from PTI. At first I was going to use the negative as my base. I cut a piece of it off the whole with an exacto knife. I then I inked it up using VersaMark ink, holographic embossing powder, powdered pearls and eventually UTEE and heat embossed each layer. After it was done, I couldn't figure out what I wanted to do with it. So I started anew with the positive hexagon pieces.

First I stamped each hexagon in a different color using the two purples and the blue from the color scheme we were given yesterday. Next I used VersaMark ink and UTEE, heat embossing each tile them three times each. After I did all that work, I changed my mind AGAIN!! I originally wanted to do a Kraft card stock base and thought that the heat embossed tiles on white card stock would not look right on the Kraft background. So I die cut the hexagon plate from PTI again but out of a double layer of Kraft card stock. This was problematic because the card stock I was using did not want to cut right, even with a shim.

I stamped each hexagon, embossed them all and changed my mind for the fourth, and last time. I did not like the way the colors looked after being heat embossed on the Kraft. They were too dark and the plum purple looked ugly. I decided to use the light blue base for my card and use the white embossed tiles. By now, I was three hours into this project and if I  had stayed with the original idea, I would have been done already!!!

Below is what the final out come was. I really love how it looks.  My only wish it didn't take me four tries to get it right!!

If you look closely, you can see bits of the glitter from the holographic embossing powder that was randomly in the air as I was embossing the the hexagons. A bit annoying to me but the card is DONE!!

I think you can see the embossing a little better from this view. It looks shiny!!

I was going to finish the original card last night but just ran out of energy. I think this is my first card I have made for this class that hasn't had anything super dimensional on it!!

Thank you for looking!! Happy Wednesday!!

Nora

Supplies:

Close to Cocoa and Perfect Plum ink-Stampin Up!