Cheery Windowbox

31/3/2015

Hello friends! Today I have a sweet card I made with some beautiful stamps from Pink Ink Stamps.  I stamped Cheery Windowbox and Saying Prayers on some white card stock and colored them with my Copic Markers. I decided to try something a little different for my background around the image. Instead of just some blending, I added a few dots with the darker grey color after I had gone around the image with the lighter shade. I thought it added some fun detail :) I then cut it out with a stitched rectangle die and added a little twine bow at the bottom. I then mounted the whole panel to an A2 top folded kraft card.  Supplies used from Pink Ink Stamps: Cheery Window Box 2239 Saying Prayers 10121 Thanks so much for stopping by! Hope you have a wonderful week! Kay :)

Classic Sailboat

3-27-2015

Good morning everyone.  My name is Shelby Thomas, and I'm so pleased to be part of the wonderful Pink Ink design team.  When I first started out in the crafting world, these were some of the first stamps I learned to color and still amongst my all time favs!  I fell in love with this stamp when I saw it.  I currently live in landlocked Colorado and dearly miss the Great Lakes region where I was born and raised.  This stamp is about as close as I come to sailing in Colorado!  I love to use brighter colors in my designs and this sailboat was just asking for some yellows and reds!  This fabulous new stamp is available on-line at Ellen Hutson and you can find it HERE. The Classic Sailboat was colored up with Copics and I also did a reflection in the water.. Update:  To create the reflection, stamp the sailboat onto cellophane (I used some old packing from a stamp set I had laying around in my craft room) using the same type and color of ink for the original image (MFT hybrid black licorice).  Line up the stamped image on the cellophane underneath the original image and press down.   The inking will be lighter and perhaps not as crisp as the original but that's also more true to reflections in water. The sentiment, Aloha, was stamped twice in black Versafine.  Thanks for stopping by today, and I hope your weekend is wonderful and creative!

Bits of Sea Glass

3/26/15 My brother and his sweetheart took a weekend trip up to Mendocino.  It's a small, picturesque town high up on the Northern Californian coast.  He sent photos of their visit and one picture showed a hand holding tiny bits of sea glass gathered at Glass Beach in nearby Fort Bragg.  The beach was a disposal site long ago and apparently the dumping ground for millions of glass bottles and jars of every color.  Over the years, the glass was worn down into smoothish pebbles that are comingled with the sand.  There's less glass now than there used to be, but it's still one of my favorite places in the world.  I find it extremely calming to sit on the sand at Glass Beach, scavenging for the jewel-like bits, sorting them by color.  Call me a kindergartener, but I love to sort!  I have baggies at home of "Coca Cola" aqua glass, "beer bottle" brown, and the rarest of all, "Phillips Milk of Magnesia" cobalt blue.  Back in the paper crafting world, I also sort my papers - by color, by shape and by size.  Of course patterned is in one box and solid in another.  The 12" x 12" sheets go here, strips go there and the smaller pieces (under 4.25 x 5.5" card size being the deciding factor) go in their own spot.  When it comes time to make card samples, (and I make a lot...see below) ALL the paper comes out willy nilly!  You never know what is going to coordinate interestingly with what and to find that serendipitous fit, you've got to see them side by side.  So I make a huge mess and finally, when I start not to be able to find what I'm looking for because it's covered up by paper piles, I sort it all again.  Sort of like life - messy and neat, then messy again.  Because I make discoveries with the mess, not the neat piles.    So, I hope you "find your beach" as the saying goes, and if you feel the urge, go ahead and sort your sea glass too.

Singing Bees and Dancing Daisies

3/19/2015

The other morning my husband called me over and invited me to take a Facebook quiz, identifying cartoon characters from my childhood.  Now as a child, I was a (very) early riser and as a consequence, used to watch a ton of old cartoons before everybody else was up.  (Davey and Goliath at 6 am Sunday morning anyone?)  So, I aced the quiz and thought it was way too easy.  I mean Popeye?  Why not Prof. Whattasnozzle...now that would have been a challenge!  It made me think about those old cartoons and about drawing in general.  Many kids work at copying their favorite characters and I was no exception.  It is a good drawing exercise and really makes you appreciate the line work of the artists. All this leads me to rubber stamps.  When I'm drawing a stamp I try to make the line work clean and smooth ~ with a good balance of detail and areas to color.  I'm sure at times that elements from those old cartoons creep into my work.  I particularly loved the "Silly Symphony" type cartoons with dancing bees and singing daisies.  Here are a few examples that were both fun to draw and are fun to color~ "Miss Kittykins" no. 2211, the tilted "Wacky Cake" no. 2210, and my "Baby Owlie" no. 2213.    One of the classes I teach is "Oodles of Doodles", which tries to bring out everyone's inner cartoonist by adding patterns and embellishments (and maybe even a dancing daisy or two) to stamped images.  The pictures we see as children are imprinted on our brains.  Sometimes it just takes some instruction and encouragement to bring them out.  I think those cartoonists must have loved their jobs because doodling can be so relaxing and fun!  I'm glad to have those happy early morning memories and to have drawing be a part of my daily life. hint:  "google image" Prof. Whattasnozzle

Market Basket Thinking of You Card

3/18/2015

Hello everyone!  My name is Heidi Blankenship and  I am so excited to share my first project with you using Pink Ink Stamps.  I was so happy when Peggy contacted me to join her design team.  I am looking forward to sharing my projects with all of you. For my first card I stamped the Market Basket image on to white cardstock using Memento Rich Cocoa ink  and colored with Spectrum Noir™ Markers.  Then I created a die cut and stamped the Thinking of You sentiment at the top.  I inked the edges of the die cut with Antique Linen and Vintage Photo Distress Inks.  The card base is brown with a layer of kraft cardstock.  Then I added a couple layers of My Mind's Eye pattern paper from the Pretty Things Collection.  I added some 3D Foam Squares to add some dimension to the label die cut.  To finish off the card I added a twine bow and some flowers from Wild Orchid Crafts. Thanks so much for stopping by today! Supplies: Market Basket 2241 Thinking of You 10122 Heidi

The Flower Girl

3/12/15

I was getting ready to schedule this week's post and looked at the proposed date.  Tomorrow is 3/13/15, which would have been my mother's 90th birthday.  In honor of that, I decided to create a special post dedicated to my mom, Lois Johnson. Pink Ink has a lot of flower stamps ~ all kinds, in every sort of container.  I love flowers, I enjoy drawing them and they are popular.  I think they are nature's "jewelry", and the verse, "Solomon in all his glory, was not arrayed as one of these" rings very true to me.  I grew up with a mom who appreciated beauty and tried to create it in many different ways.  In her day, I'd have described her as a "jack of all trades", though now you might say she had a wide skill set, especially regarding anything crafty. Mom was a florist among other things.  She learned the floral trade in one of her many (wildly varied) jobs as a young woman and she was very good at it.  Later in life she had a retail flower and gift shop called The Flower Girl.  Her arrangements, while somewhat traditional, had a great color sense, were well balanced and skillfully made.  She could whip up boutonnieres, wedding circlets and wrist corsages with the best of them.  She dreaded the early morning treks to the San Francisco Flower Market and she was a billing softie, but among the flowers she was in her element!  Even I got recruited for the occasional wedding (and still know how to wire wrap a mean carnation).  Together we created all the flowers for my own wedding...the manucurist that day was appalled that my fingernails were full of eucalyptus pitch! So here is a sneak peek of a brand new floral stamp called "Summer Planter".  It will be out in April, ready for coloring as your heart desires.  Happy birthday Mom, love you. Summer Planter was colored with Prisma color premier pencils nos. 908 dark green, 911 Olive Green, 913 Spring Green, 926 Carmine Red, 931 Dark Purple, 939 Peach, 994 Process Red, 1004 Yellow Chartreuse, 1014 Deco Pink, 1018 Pink Rose, 1021 Jade Green, 1031 Henna, 1051 Warm Grey 20%, 1063 Cool Grey 50%, 1089 Pale Sage and 1096 Kelly Green.  Whew!

Saying Prayers And Sending Love Card with Pink Ink Stamps!

03/10/2015

Hello friends! My name is Debbie Seyer and  I am so excited to share with you my first project using Pink Ink Stamps.  I was very excited when Peggy contacted me to join her design team.  I started my stamping hobby using wood mounted stamps and I really love Peggy's style!   I used one of my favorite color combos to create my first project because it reminds me of spring and right now I really need that reminder!

I stamped the Folk Art Flowers image 3 times using Espresso Truffle Memento Ink onto white cardstock and colored them with my copic markers.  Using a square die, I die cut them out and mounted them onto a matching scalloped square die.  I stamped the sentiment Saying Prayers onto white cardstock and handcut the banner.

This was a fun and relaxing card to create!  I hope that who ever I send this card too will feel happy and bright, just like my card!  Thanks for stopping by today!

Supplies:

Folk Art Flowers

Saying Prayers and Sending Love Sentiment

Debbie 

  

The Little Laddie

3/5/15

Several years back, in the heady days before the tumble of 2008, my husband shared season tickets with a few other fellas for Golden State Warriors basketball.  Right now the team is on fire, but back then...well, not so much.  Our seats were behind a group of Irish nationals who would repeatedly encourage the team by shouting out "Let's go laddies!!"  My husband and I liked that, and took the cheer home with us where it somehow morphed into calling our son Max, the "little laddie".  Recently I read a post on line about the treasured "little kid" years - the golden years of say 5 to 11, before those little ones transform into sometimes not so easy to love teenagers.  The post spoke about how many parents put so much effort into creating opportunity for their youngsters to experience awe and wonder... at trip to the beach, to see Christmas windows in the city, or a visit to Disneyland, so we can experience it again ourselves through their eyes.  It struck a chord with me.  My son is now 25 and living his life as a scholar at virtually the other end of the world - Jaipur, India.  I miss him very much and get nostalgic sometimes for those "little laddie" days.  Though I'm not there yet, I have a sneaking suspicion that having another shot at this sense of wonder is what being a grandmother is all about.  So I'm making him a card, because nothing says love quite like a handmade card. It's early March and this is going to be a St. Patrick's Day card, to wish him luck on his journey.  I'm using Pink Ink's "Lucky Day" greeting (no. 10117) with the "Cheery Windowbox" stamp (no.2239) colored in a myriad of greens.  With it, I'm wishing luck across the seas to my own little laddie and sending wishes of happiness to all of our little lads and lassies that we hold so dear.  Colored with Prisma Colored Pencils Nos. 908 dark green, 909 grass green, 910 true green, 911 olive green, 913 spring green, 994 lt. yellow green, 1006 parrot green, 1016 deco aqua, 1089 pale sage, 1096 kelly green and accented with 951 copper.  I added the wood grain effect on the box by drawing with a stylus.  Trimmed with pale green and white twine by Divine Twine.

Sending Love with Pink Ink Stamps

3/2/2015

Hello Pink Ink Stamp fans! I am excited to be posting my first post as a design team member for Pink Ink stamps!  

For my first card, I used the lovely Wings of Love stamp. Isn't that stamp beautiful!! It looks so detailed, but it really only took me a few minutes to color. 

I used my Copic markers and only three shades of red, three shades of green and two shades of warm grey.  The kraft colored background mat, I cut out of kraft paper and speckled with some white acrylic paint. I mounted everything with foam tape for a little dimension. 

Supplies:

Wings of Love stamp

Thank you so much for stopping by! Hope you have a wonderful week!

Kay :)