Christmas in July

Welcome to our Fun Stampers Journey "Christmas in July" Blog Hop! I'm so happy you're hoppin' along! This is the first stop on the hop, but if you arrived from another blog, just keep hoping until you come full circle.

It's almost crazy to think about Christmas when the temperatures are in the triple digits, but I get to longing for cooler weather, and remembering that I need to get started on this year's Christmas cards. I make a couple hundred, so I have to start early.  Lucky for me, the Fun Stampers Journey new catalog and seasonal mini catalog have some amazing stamp sets that I love!

I'm especially partial to stamp sets that celebrate the birth of Jesus, and what better way to begin a series of Christmas cards than with an angel who announced the birth of Christ?

This is a simple, yet elegant card. It honestly didn't take long to make, which makes it a perfect card. I began with a piece of Whip cream cardstock and applied a Blue and a metallic silver Pan Pastel which has a new partnership with Fun Stampers Journey.

If you've never heard of Pan Pastel, it's an oil based chalk that is  highly pigmented (loaded with color). It goes on the cardstock very smoothly and you can blend it or layer it, or stamp an image with our clear pigment ink and them rub it on your focal panel.

Fun Stampers Journey four sets with seven colors each

 Thanks for hopping to my blog. Please head over to
Wilma Payne's blog to see what she has share.

Full Blog Roll:

Betsye Rose Cimino Erano - betseyrose.blogspot.com    (you are here)

Wilma Payne - stampintotheoldies.blogspot.com    

Carol Moffatt Norby - stampincarol.blogspot.com      

Martha Jackson - www.marthajstamps.com    

Susan Berg - suseadoodledo-journeys.blogspot.com     

Ruth Cooper - www.sassyangelsstudio.com    

Kim Lamos - pinkzebrapapercreations.blogspot.com    

Thank you for taking the time to leave a comment. They are treasured.

Mist Comparison

Saturday is play day for those of us who work M-F full time.  And what better way to play than to experiment?  I always loved science experiments.

As I begin this experiment, I know how I HOPE the results are going to turn out, but since it is an experiment, I am open to surprises.

What kind of experiment could I do you ask?  Let's just say I've been cleaning in my scraproom for a few weeks (seems like I still have a year of weekends left to clean before it's done) and discovered that I have sooo many spray mists by different companies.  I've selected multiple blues for today's experiment.  I've thought about putting some of the mists/sprays that are non-FSJ in the Salvation Army crop sale room, but I have a hard time letting go of things.  But today I decided to 'compare' the mists.  For the experiment, I will 

1. use the same paper for every mist 
2. use the same stencil for every mist 
3. use the same distance, or as close to the same as I can humanly do
4. make sure the mist is spraying correctly before spraying onto the experiment.

 Here's the set-up.  A box that brought me stuff from Amazon yesterday, the Vintage Screen- Stencil which still has paint on it from the last make-and-take I did with it, and a piece of Neenah white cardstock.  I also did a spray at half the distance and without a stencil.

The First spray I tried was something called Memories Mist.  I was pleasantly surprised by this one, and I love the soft color that it gives.  It's like a pastel true blue, and looks powdery on the paper.

The second   spray I tried was the distress Ink.  I was not at all surprised by this result.  One Spray gave good coverage, and I really like how it looks without a stencil too!

I was so disappointed by the results that I got spraying the glimmer mist 3 times, I can hardly see the stencil design.

Spraying the Glimmer Mist without the stencil was a disappointment as well, but I did get a few cool splatters.

Mister Huey was a great Surprise.  it has good coverage with just one spray.  When I sprayed without the stencil, I could literally see it dry, it was so quick.

I wish I were surprised by the lack of color saturation with Shimmer Spray after 2 sprays, but I am not. I will point out that of all the sprays I tried today, this has the most shimmer/shine on the page.

Perfect Pearls did show up on the page, but not as much, and the one that I sprayed without the stencil just made the paper look dirty. If that's the look you're going for, it would be great.

I was not disappointed by the FSJ Splash spray. Lots of saturated color with just one spray. I did learn that if you spray too closely (as I did due to moving half the distance for all the sprays when spraying without the stencil) that there's so much color that it pools up. I think there would have been a larger area covered if I had sprayed from farther away.

I was so shocked at the lack of color from the Prima mist with the stencil. I know the green shows up much better. I sprayed this three times because it just didn't look like it was working, but the paper was wet.  It did look better without the stencil.

Thanks for looking at my blog post. I shall be using the mists more now.

CYCI #127

There is a challenge online that I've seen other people playing, and I decided to try it out.  This week's challenge was to use the colors Blue, Turquoise, and Lime.

I've been wanting to play more with my sprays, and I have the Blue Lagoon Color Splash, Electric Lime Splash, and Turbo Teal Splash which fit the challenge perfectly.  

I used some watercolor paper, and after spraying, I let it dry a little, and then blotted off the extra.

Isn't this quote wonderful? Dreams is one of the ATS stamps that you can get for free by hosting a make and take party.

 I thought about letting the quote be all on the page, but decided to add the butterfly chip (retired item).  But the technique I used can be used on any wood chip. 

I painted the wood chip with the Electric Lime Silk, and then stamped using an image from Ornamental Dream, and placed Journey Twine Black Licorice behind it trying to have three different sizes of loops to mimic the butterfly wings, adding a few Journey Sequins Blue Skies to the card with Journey Glaze 2 oz.. The color in these pictures do not do the card justice.  The Electric Lime is so bright!

 

After attaching the card front to a base of Denim Days 8.5 x 11 Cardstock cut in half with Easy Glide Permanent Adhesive Runner, I also used Ornamental Dream to stamp an image on a cardstock on the inside, using the Denim Days True Color Fusion Ink Pad and Electric Lime Ink Pad.

 If you would like to play along, head on over to http://canyoucaseit.com/?p=3288

Dahlia Birthday

I love the way FSJ modeling paste looks on dark cardstock. It is such a striking contrast. And the Starburst Lines stencil is a perfect frame for bling. 

For the flower and leaf, I stamped and heat embossed onto vellum, cut it out with the matching die, and painted the back with Silks.  The color appears very muted when looking at it from the other side of the vellum.

Thank you for taking the time to look at my blog. All comments are greatly appreciated. 

You're a Star!

This card will be headed half way across the country to TX where my daughter is serving in the Army. I miss being able to wrap my arms around her and feel her, but am proud of the young strong woman she is becoming.

For this card, I used Sweet Berry cardstock as the base with a panel of whip cream cardstock. I squirted a little paint on my pallet and mixed gel medium with it, then spread it on the paper through the falling petals stencil. I then used the same paint to color a couple of the Wood Chips that I got for free because I bought more than $50 worth of merchandise by FSJ. That's a feature called Bloom Benefits that I love!  The Stamp I used was also a Bloom Benefit in 2015-2016.

Thank you for taking the time to look at my blog. All comments are greatly appreciated.

Ornamental Dreams

When I first saw the Ornamental Dreams stamp set in the catalog, I thought it was cool, but it didn't immediately jump onto my wish list. But then I saw this card by fellow Journey coach, Christy Bristow, and it magically appeared on my very next order.  Of course I did one similar to hers, but also wanted to do one that was quick enough to do in a make and take party.

This is the design I can't up with. Of course, for the party I used the new Amazing colors that were just released July 1, 2016. What you do is stamp this medallion multiple times, and then cut out the different layers based on how well the layers stamped. I would suggest cutting outside the squiggly lines, but you could cut on the inside too.  If you will notice by the next photo, some of the inner parts didn't stamp exactly right, but that doesn't matter because the next color will conver them up.

One item I do want to mention is that the fusion ink by Fun Stampers Journey does not bleed when you are coloring with Copics.  This is my case of the card that I loved.

The corner paisleys I stamped directly onto the card, but the center medallion I stamped onto another piece of cardstock and used the matching die to cut it out. Then it was easy to color such a perfect turquoise line outside the stamp.

Thank you for taking the time to look at my blog. All comments are greatly appreciated.

Gone fishing

This card is not one I designed, I saw one like it on Pinterest and loved it. Unfortunately, the person who originally pinned it only pinned the image and not the blog post it was pinned from.  If you know who made the original, please let me know! 

I actually debated about posting this since it's a case (card maker term for copy), but I really want to know who made the first one because I think they are a great card maker and I would love to see more of their work.  

My friend Denise and her husband love to fish and she got the Out Fishing stamp set and the Big Catch set, and she let me play with them. Thanks Denise!

I cut the base out of Beach ball card stock, and the jumping fish I did with sweet pear cardstock, stamped with  green olive fusion ink.  the patterned paper is from an old K&Company collection. I didn't have any Tangerine Fusion cardstock with me, so I used that ink on a piece of the whip cream cardstock. Inking with a blending tool is a great way to change the color or tone of a cardstock to get the color you need. The sun I cut out of summer days cardstock. The guys fishing were stamped with black licorice fusion ink.

The blue fish were stamped with Beach Ball fusion ink onto whip cream cardstock and two were fussy cut. The round one I was able to use the 1 3/4 circle punch with. The open mouth of the fish I colored in using just a tiny touch of Rich coral reinker using the blending brush. 

One thing I would have done differently now that I look back on it, I would have added journey glaze to the jumping fish to make them look wet.

Thank you for taking the time to look at my post. All comments are greatly appreciated.