Keep the Sunny Side Up

28/01/2016

Good morning everyone!  I hope your week has gone well and you've found some crafting time.  Well the awesome news is the brand spankin new Pink Ink Stamps have been release, and I know you're going to love them.  It's like coloring in a mini coloring book...just fabulous. I've used a couple of the new stamps in today's card, Breakfast Special and the sentiment Keep the Sunny Side Up.  I think this stamp is just so much fun and oh so unique.  I wanted to make the color of the design seem like egg yolks and did a distress ink background.  I stamped the circles in a solid yellow ink and then stamped the image on top.  The image was colored up with mostly Copic markers and a white gel pen. Below is a video showing how I put the card together and a quick peek at the rest of the new stamps.

Pink Ink Stamps and Distress Inks from Shelby Thomas on Vimeo.

The Earth Laughs In Flowers

09/01/16

Hello! I have a springlike card to share with you today created with some of the pretty new stamps from Pink Ink Stamp Company!

I colored this design, called Earth Laughs, with my Copic markers. It was a fun design to color. Kind of like the adult coloring books that are so popular right now. I didn't do much shading because the spaces were so small, but for this kind of highly detailed image, you really don't need the shading. The background was created by blending some Dusty Concord Distress Ink onto a piece  of watercolor paper blending out lighter at the top, then sprinkling with some water.

You can find this pretty stamp at Ellen Huston or you can find a retailer on the Pink Ink stamp site.

Thanks so much for stopping by! Have a great weekend!

Kay :)

Pink Ink Wood Mount Stamp, Earth Laughs

Ranger Distress Ink Pad, Dusty Concord

Doodle Butterfly

04/01/2016

Good morning everyone!  I hope all of you had a fantastic holiday season and that your 2016 will be happy, prosperous and healthy. Nothing gets your day off to a better start than butterflies...even if it's just thinking of the day they are back and it's no longer winter!   I just love this new butterfly stamp from Peggy Jo called Doodle Butterfly.  It's just perfect for any level of colorist to get their color on!  I pulled out my Clean Color II markers and a few Copics.  I colored the background of the butterfly with my Copic and then colored with the watercolor markers.  Copics and waterbased products make for awesome friends.  Neither one re-activates the other nor causes running/smearing.  I've stamped this sweet stamp 3 times to fill the front panel.  The background was done using distress inks, water and some acetate for placement.   Thanks for stopping by today for a visit!

Curlicue Heart by Sharon Harnist

With the holidays almost over and Valentine’s Day / Spring weddings on the  horizon, it’s time to start thinking ahead! So today I have a sweet love-themed card to share with you.  This is Pink Ink’s generously-sized beautiful Curlicue Heart stamp. It measures approximately 2.75” wide x 2.50” tall.  I have gold heat embossed it onto a white  Inchie Arts 3-inch Art Square and watercolored the image with Peerless Watercolors. To give the image a homespun quilted look, I used a square stitched die to emboss stitch lines into the Art Square, then layered it onto a pinked-edge dark pink square die cut.  The image was then layered onto a white card base embossed with hearts.  Gold thread was wrapped up and placed behind the image, to resemble a bird’s nest.  Wishing you all much love in 2016!  Pink Ink products used, available online through Ellen Hutson LLC: Pink Ink Wood Mount Stamp, Curlicue Heart Or check Pink Ink's website to find a local store near you that carries our stamps, or to order wholesale.

Just The Right Tag

12/20/2015

In some ways it's been a little harder to feel the Christmas spirit this year.  Probably due to the grim news and blustery politics of late.  On the other hand, I am feeling warm and fuzzy about having my son home for Christmas...it's been a very long time since he's celebrated with us.  His birthday is just two days before Christmas, so it has always been a "twofer" holiday for our family.  He's been enjoying cooking for our little family and is plotting the main dish (Chicken Jardiniere) for his birthday dinner.  We've also been making batches of Chez Noel cookies, one of my mom's delicious, old timey recipes. (You can find it at the end of the blog post). As the holiday draws near, nothing helps to get me in the mood like dragging out the wrapping paper rolls, ribbon spools, scotch tape and scissors!  I put on my favorite Christmas tunes and I am off and running. I am one of those types that loves to wrap presents.  I even volunteer to wrap other people's presents!  However, my downfall are those tedious Christmas tags.  For some reason, after wrapping everything I dread scrounging about for an appropriate tag.  This year, all I had left were the mismatched, leftover, weird and wonky ones.  So...what's a crafty person to do?  Devote 3 hours to making a big batch of tags (36 in fact!) and I didn't cut into a single new sheet of paper, just used snippets and scraps from the "red & green" bag.  I put all of my favorite Pink Ink Itty Bitty stamps and old scalloped punches to work, reeled out several yards of pretty twisty colored twine and voila!  Tags.  Plenty of them.  Pretty ones.  That match.    Stringing tags by my favorite window, listening to The Eddie Higgins Trio Here's a close up of some of my favorites And here is the whole batch! So now I'm done with the tags and the cookies and the wrappings and am ready for our birthday/Christmas dinner...finally feeling the "spirit" that had eluded me.   And this is my wish for you, that you are able to connect with whatever small and simple things that bring you peace and joy at Christmastime.     And now... Lois Johnson's Chez Noel Cookies                                      Oven Temp. 350 degrees Shortbread Base Layer: 3/4 cup butter at room temp. 1 1/2 cups sifted flower 3 Tbsp. sugar Mix and press into 15 1/2 x 10 1/2" sheet pan.  Bake 15 - 20 minutes Pecan Topping: 1 lb. box dark brown sugar 3 egg whites 1 cup chopped pecans 1/2 tsp. vanilla Beat egg whites until still and fold into mixture of remaining ingredients.  Spread on top of first baked mixture.  Bake until brown - about 15 - 20 minutes more. Enjoy!

My Little Factory

12/12/2015

Every Christmas I debate with myself over making a batch of homemade cards.  I mean, with a whole stamp company at my disposal you'd think I would delight in the task, but time is precious in December, and finding the hours to make 25 + cards by hand can be difficult.  But this year in particular, it seems as if peace is a very precious thing as well and to sooth my soul I wanted to make a card to sort of "wish the world" a Merry Christmas.  So I used Pink Ink's "Angel On High", "Peace On Earth" AND "Peace & Love" stamps to get my message across.  I knew I wanted a pretty, soft subtle card this year.  I just haven't been in the mood for boisterous Santa Clauses and sweet candy canes.  Instead I chose a palette of soft sage green with muted gold metallic accents.  To create my "factory" I first color the images...adding a touch of gold metallic paint to the angel's dress ribbon, then I cut the images and all background papers to size.  I measured and cut 2 lengths of olive green organdy ribbon (4.5 inches each) for each card.  Next, I attached my angels to gold metallic card stock "mats" and placed four squares of foam tape on the back corners of each angel with gold backing unit (leaving paper covers on).   Angel cards all in a row, with ribbon, envelopes and adhesives...what fun! At this point I attached the smaller green paper piece to the center of the larger one.  I then ran my tape runner around all four sides of the back of the larger piece and wrapped the ribbon pieces diagonally around each corner, pressing firmly on to the adhesive.  (You could also tape the ribbon ends down with regular scotch tape for extra security). Now the two separate pieces are assembled; sticking down the larger papers on the center of my card and attaching the matted angel to the center of the green papers.    The last part of my little assembly line was dotting each card with 8-9 dabs of Stickles platinum glitter glue and (after dry) using a metallic gold prisma pencil (#PC950) to add "star shines" around each glitter dot.    I added glittery stars with Stickles platinum, accented with prisma pencil "shinys".   And on the inside - Pink Ink's "Peace & Love" stamp along with my own greeting Homemade cards take time and thought, but I cherish all those on my "list" and want them to receive something pretty, made by my hands, and to wish them peace this Christmas.

Baby Hats

10/12/2015 Hello! I have a fun card I made today with some adorable new stamps from Pink Ink Stamp Company! Their new spring release is available now! I wanted to use something that wasn't super springy, since it ummm... isn't even the first day of winter yet :) So I chose the cute little baby hats! Baby's are born all year, so you could quite possibly need a baby card in December! So when I first saw this stamp, I thought it was adorable, but wasn't quite sure what to do with it. I studied it for a few minutes and then I thought "wouldn't they be cute all randomly stamped to created a background! So that is what I did here. I stamped them with waterproof black ink onto watercolor paper, and watercolored them with my Zig Clean Color brushes.  I cut a little off the bottom edge and added a pink stitched scalloped border, then layered that over some pale blue card stock. I stamped the sentiment on a stitched banner flag and then layered it onto a bigger one cut from the same paper as the blue underneath.  Thanks so much for stopping by! All of the supplies I used on this card are listed and linked below! Hugs, Kay :) Pink Ink Wood Mount Stamp, Welcome Little One Pink Ink Wood Mount Stamp, Baby Hats My Favorite Things Die-namics, Blueprints 20 ZIG Clean Color Real Brush Marker, Set of 60