World Cardmaking Day Challenge - Fun With Your Stamp Positioner

Hi! Welcome to the 3pm-6pm World Cardmaking Day Challenge with justjohanna rubber stamps. I'm so glad you stopped by. Your challenge will be to do something different with your stamp positioner. More details at the end of the post. This sample project will be a very simple card using the following supplies:

You don't have to use these exact supplies, but wouldn't you just love to have them? I mean how cute is that Desmond Squeaker bird stamp? There are two of them for this project, the right-facing one and the left-facing one. Also a sentiment stamp. I see here that I've pictured the "Let's Do Lunch" sentiment, but ending up using the "Thinking of You" sentiment. Oh well, you see it really doesn't matter. I chose two 6x6 sheets of coordinating cardstock and the Red Satin Versafine ink. Also, I used my big purple scallop punch as well. Did you notice there is a chocolate bar in the supplies? That is ESSENTIAL to making this project. lol

Ok, so on to the instructions.

Using the stamp positioner, stamp Desmond Squeaker Bird Right on the clear plastic sheet of the stamp positioner. Gee my clear sheet is a little dirty. Shame on me.

Position the clear sheet and the stamp positioner over the bottom left corner of the cardstock and stamp Desmond there. Open the chocolate bar wrapper and take the candy out.

Position the stamp positioner so that Desmond's feet are positioned on the back of the previously stamped Desmond bird. Remove the plastic and stamp Desmond again.

Continue stacking your Squeaker birds on top of each other until you have a whole stack of them. Take a little bite of chocolate. You need it for concentration for this next part.

Turn your paper around 180 degrees (that means turn it upside down) and position the stamp positioner so that Desmond fits between the other Desmond's. I love Desmond.

Do as you did on the first stack of Squeaker birds and stack them up making sure you position them exactly the same way each time. Whew! That was hard work. Take another bite of chocolate!

Here we go again.... Turn your paper upside-down again and start putting Desmonds on top of each other, making another big stack. Just like this:

Are you having fun yet? I hope so. We are making a cool design with Squeaker birds. You don't have to use birds. Think of all the different stamps you have that you can try this with. Don't forget to eat another bite of chocolate.

I cut this piece of cardstock into a 1.75" wide by 5.25" tall strip and adhered it to a 4" x 5.25" background piece (stripes).

I punched out the green scallop with the pink punch and the dark red scallop circle with the purple punch. I stamped the sentiment on the green circle.

I used the stamp positioner again and stamped Desmond on top of the sentiment and then again on a scrap of the striped cardstock.

Cut out the bird from the striped cardstock. You don't need to cut out his feet or the curly-cues on his head. Put adhesive on the back of this cut-out bird and put it on top of the stamped image on the green scallop. Don't forget to eat some chocolate. You've been working so hard! Adhere the green scallop to the red scallop. Right here I cut a thin strip of the dark red cardstock and adhered it next to the green piece with all the Squeaker Birds on it. See it there? Ok, so now adhere the scallops to the front of the card. I adhered the card front to a 4.25" x 5.5" card.

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Here are few more cards I made using my stamp positioner. You can do all kinds of things with it. This one is the justjohanna peacock crown arranged in a circle.

Here is Calvin the snail (justjohanna) in a circle. Isn't it fun what designs come out of playing with just one stamp?

This next card is Debbie's flower. I designed it for justjohanna. I also designed Calvin up there, too. Can you see how I used the same stamp over and over? You have to play with your stamps a little bit before you get the spacing just right, but that's part of the fun!

This card is done using Michelle right for the center of the design and the Swirly Tail in between. I think it gives in an Asian feel.

This last card is done with the Grande Teacup arranged with for teacups in the center (which I've colored in yellows and oranges with Prismas) and then I positioned the green teacups around the outside of the center ones.

I hope I have inspired you to try something different with your stamp positioner. Your challenge is to use a stamp positioner and create something new with just one stamp. You can make a background or you can create a design for the front of your card.

Make sure you post a comment to this post with a link to your creation on your blog or your gallery. I will be choosing a winner for this challenge. I hope you win! Click HERE to see what World Cardmaking Day is all about in the world of justjohanna. Did you know there is a $250 shopping spree on the justjohanna site as the Grand Prize? Yowza! What're you waiting for? You can't win if you don't make a card. Have fun. Don't forget to share your creation!

Late night cards

After cleaning the south end of the craft room today, I had to sit down and make some cards. I got out my September kit from Self-Addressed and made these first three cards. I love this color combination of cardstock, don't you? Yummy! The first card, Feeling Flushed?, is a Get Well card. The sentiment and the little birdie (Adelaide) is from justjohanna. The toilet stamp is from Impression Obsession. The sentiment inside says "Hope you're feeling chirpy soon" and it's from justjohanna. I just love this bra stamp. I don't use it very often because, really now, how often can you use a bra stamp?! In this first bra card, the bra image was embossed with blue embossing powder. The cards from the Self-Addressed kit have a hole in the corner of the card, so I had to work around it. I just used the cut out circle from the front cardstock and adhered it to the inside of the card so it would show through the hole. I put a flower brad in the center of that circle before I adhered it. The second card is my favorite of the night. I used the same papers from the September Self-Addressed kit. The outside sentiment is from Hambo Stamps and the inside sentiment reads, "Happy Anniversary" ad is from justjohanna. This last card is a Thanksgiving card. The stamped image on the front is from Impression Obsession. I colored the image with Prismacolor pencils. I added a little bit of copper stickles to the pumpkins. The sentiment inside says "Happy Thanksgiving". Thanks for stopping by my blog today. I really appreciate you reading my blog and returning to see what I've posted. Please make sure you stop back by this week for some exciting news. It has to do with World Cardmaking Day on the 6th of October, and you WON'T want to miss out on the fun. To make sure you don't miss a single post to this blog, subscribe to one of the buttons on the top right - either by email or by feed. The email function lets you know (by email) whenever I update my blog. The other button lets you add my blog to your favorites and will let you know when I've updated.

Weird Weather

So, we're getting this "storm" from British Columbia. I guess it's on its way out, 'cuz it's not very stormy here today. The skies look all nasty and we got a little bit of rain, but not even enough rain for the kitties to come inside. Plus, it's about 74 degrees outside. There's a nice warm breeze blowing, so I have all the windows open. The wind is blowing pretty quick up in the cloud altitude, because I can look out the window and watch them move right along. The clouds seem to be moving from east to west right now. The first two pictures are from the front of my house and the third picture is from our back door. It's so weird to see the bright blue sky behind those nasty clouds. And what would a post be without a picture of a cat? Here's Cheeto minding his own business for a change. I'm going to go do some crafting. I know, nothing new there. I'm going to set aside the rubber stamps for now and get into my fabric. I got this cool pumpkin pattern from Pam and some neat fat quarters from Quilters Paradise and so I think I'll make a wall hanging today. Oh, remember the felted table runner from a previous post? It's finished. I'll post pictures of that later. Oh wait! I got my renewal for Cards magazine and PaperTrends today. I'll renew Cards, but PaperTrends isn't doing it for me. BUT! Guess what other magazine they have now? They have Bead Trends!! I'm subscribing to that for sure. A six issue subscription (it comes bi-monthly) is $40, but if it's anything like Cards, I'm sure I will love it. Kim and Julie, I will keep you posted!

Luggage Tags

I offered to make some luggage tags for a friend of mine. I don't know what he's expecting, but this is a sampling what he's getting. lol He's putting them in an acrylic or laminated tag, so I had to keep the tags flat.

As you can see, stamped and colored with pencils on the white background tags. The other tags are done by spraying my Adirondack color wash spray inks and painting with my Radiant Rain daubers.They are pretty shimmery.

That's about it. Now on to making some cards. See you soon.

Quick Halloween cards

I felt like I needed to make a bunch of quick cards, so I got a sheet of my vintage Halloween images from Crafty Secrets and cut them up. Then I got my newest 6x6 Basic Grey pads, Mellow and Recess and made some cards. I'm not very good at embellishing. Anybody know a good class I can attend to learn embellishing?

My Cardmaking Helper

I've been working on a lot of projects these days. That's the good thing. The bad thing is that I can't show them to you. Yet. Some of the cards I've made were for the justjohanna design team and I can't share them just yet. The other things I've been working on will be shown in a couple of weeks. Here's a clue: The project will be shown on a website, but I can't tell you which one. And it's not this website, either. Something really cool.

So here's my helper for the night. Cheeto thinks he is a tiny kitten, when in fact he's 8 years old and weighs nearly 20 pounds. So when he jumps up on the craft table to be near me or lay under the light or do whatever he thinks he's doing, he takes up way too much room. I had been working on some Halloween cards when he appeared. He just purred away, totally ignoring my pleas to get his fat butt off the desk, so I picked him up and tossed him on the floor. By the time I turned around again, he was back up there. He's there now. I'm going to bed, and I've left instructions and materials with him how to finish my cards. We'll see what we get in the morning. I'm not holding my breath.

In a Halloween mood

I was in the mood to make some Halloween cards today. I bought a bunch of these neat Inkadinkado stamps from the Cupboard awhile back and hadn't used them yet, so today was the day. I love them all. This first card isn't my favorite. It just seems all jumbled up, but I wanted to use the big green skull. I stamped a bunch of the Versamagic dewdrop ink pads onto the stamp to get the color like that. I got the background paper from the Scrapping Cottage a long while back and just now used it. I think it looks ok, but not fabulous. The next two cards are done using the Inkadinkado stamps, too. The paper is from Memory Box, "Studio" collection. Isn't it the coolest?? Cat sells it. Comes in a 6x6 pack for only $5. Oh yeah, you want some now, huh? I knew it. She has all the newest Memory Box 6x6 packs and of course I had to buy them all. This first card is just paper stripped and then I used the sewing machine to zig zag some stitching over the edges of the papers. Easy peasy. The little brad is from Memory Makers and it says "31". The word "October" is from the Hero Arts set. Easy card. This card is even easier than the last one. I cut the background paper to 4.25 x 5.5 and just stamped the sentiment in the bottom right. Then stamped the skull (inked with various Versamagic colors) above the sentiment. Making Memories brads for the eyes to make it spooky. Are you scared? Thought so. This paper is from the same Memory Box collection. Neato. This last card took awhile to do. The stamps are Lockhart. I love the witch feet stamp. I've noticed so many witch feet stamps out there this year. I colored this stamp with my Prismas. I like all of it except for the green border. Hard to tell from the scan, but I used my green metallic prisma pencil. It's not all that striking in real life, either. I used black glossy paper for the base. The purple stripe paper is Lasting Impressions. The orange cardstock behind the sentiment is something Cat has, and it is very sparkly. You really must get some before it sells out! It comes in more colors than orange, too. Go for it! That's it for cards I've made for today. I made a bunch or the jj DT assignments, but I can't post them yet. I guess you'll have to wait, but while you're waiting, go to Cat's and see the new store. It's fantastic and she has lots of new stamps in. Hurry up. Go already!

How Many Projects???

Confession time. I am a procrastinator. I love to start new projects, but have a hard time staying on task and finishing them. This is a sneak peek of a wool project I started ages and AGES ago. I love this project, too, but have I finished it yet? NO! Well, to be honest, I ran out of Perle cotton thread, so had to go to Fat Quarters to get some more. I got some, but haven't finished it yet. Actually, now I can't remember where I put the purchased Perle cotton thread. (sigh). I only have a small area of this project to finish and then I'll post the whole thing. I love the colors in this project. They didn't photograph well under the incandescent light, so when I finish the project, which is a table runner, I will photograph it outside. The background is black and there are no pinks in this project. Ok, so on to the question of the post. How many projects?? How many projects to you have going at one time? I truly believe I must have Crafter's ADD. I start a project, ANY project, and before I'm done, I start something else. I've just looked into the fabric closet (yes, I have a closet just for fabric - you're surprised by that?!) and saw at least two quilt tops that have to be sewn together, at least 3 new patterns and projects I just bought at he recent quilt show in San Diego. If you've followed my blog, you know that I've dabbled in making wool felt beads from roving. Yes, another project. I think I just like to start new things. I don't think that's anything new to anyone. Like when we buy a new rubber stamp - we want to make something with it right away, right? Ok then. But looking around this craft room, I've got cards to make and finish for the jj DT, cards to finish for my personal stash (pieces everywhere), and lists of projects I want to make for classes for the Cupboard. Not to mention all the craft supplies and personal paperwork I need to put away. It all feels so overwhelming. Is it a sagittarian trait that I do this? I need a personal assistant to get me on track and keep me on track. How ever am I going to get myself organized enough to run a stamp business? I have no idea. How many projects do you have going at one time? How do you keep organized?

We are shakin' and bakin' today!

Living in southern California, we get lots of earthquakes. Daily. Where I live, we don't even feel most of them. A lot of them are in the desert east of us, near Ocotillo Wells or in the Salton Sea area and are around 2.5-3.7 magnitude. Baby earthquakes. But today, TODAY, I felt it and heard it - big time! John and I were sitting on the couch in the living room and felt it shake eveything. John said, "What the hell was that?" I just gave him the look. Sheesh. It was a 4.7 magnitude originating in the Lake Elsinore area. Here's a map. Here's where San Marcos is... See Oceanside on the coast? See the gray line from Oceanside going east? See where it kind of makes a curve up? That's about where San Marcos is. Those long red lines on the map are the major earthquake faults in our area. Neat, huh? Oh, it's now 1:08pm and it's about 95 degrees with 47% humidity.

Look Ma, it's a Koala!

Here is another image I got from Thanh. Isn't he just the cutest koala??

I'm not altogether satisfied with the colors of the koala. In this scan, it doesn't show the pink highlights in his ears chin, eyes or nose. That really adds to the variety of color and gives the picture a bit of depth. The koala's face should be darker in certain areas, but I struggled with the gray colors. I don't color many things with gray because I do find it difficult. First to choose either cool grays, warm grays or french grays. French gray has a lot of brown in it and warm gray has a lot of blue in it.

That's it for the koala. Simple mounting on Prism cardstock. I really do need to work on finishing my cards better. I'm just not very good with embellishments.

Next image: Wolf. Ugh, more grays!!

Finally!

I was feeling cranky, and not only because of the extreme outdoor heat. It was because I hadn't colored anything in so long I couldn't remember. Last night, I turned on the re-runs of "John From Cincinnati" and got out my pencils and went for it.

This image is from Thanh. She sent me a bunch of animal images like this. Isn't it just so cool? It's a big stamp - about 4x5-ish. I didn't measure it, but the finished card size is A2. The background paper is some woven stuff. I don't know what it's called. I got it at Cat's a long, long time ago.

Not much else to say about this card, but that I used a lot of colors on it. Looking at it, I think now it's a bit too yellow in the photo. It's not that yellow in real life. I may tone it down a bit or I may not. The next one I color just won't be this yellow. It felt good to zone out and color. I miss that so much.

It's HOT

It is freakin' hot here! The high today was 86. It's after midnight and it's 73 degrees out and the humidity is 83%. Last night's low was only 68. The forecast for tomorrow is 90 by noon. We have the air conditioning off and the fans blowing. It's tolerable, but not optimal.

In order for me to feel cooler, I wanted to look at a nice refreshing picture. Here is one of John and I in 2003. We were on a boat in the Caribbean getting ready to snorkel off the coast of Cancun. Doesn't that water look fantastic? Oh, it was! Don't you feel cooler now? I know I do.

Oh get this: San Diego Gas & Electric has asked everyone to set their air conditioning to 78 in order to save energy and avoid blackouts due to overconsumption of power on the grid. Let me just say that I think that is a bunch of horse *&!#. They did this to us (California) about 5 years ago and they had rolling blackouts. The actually turned off all the power in huge areas for a period of 1-4 hours at a time in order for the grid to save power. They said it kept the State from shorting out or losing power or some stupid thing. Guess what happened after all that happy crap? They raised our rates! Big time!! I believe they, SDG&E, PG&E and oh hell, what is the other one...... anyways, they're all in cahoots to extort money from the people. Simple as that. Hey guys, remember Enron? hehehe The heat is getting to me. I'm getting cranky. I'm going to bed now.

Entry for Kim's CJ

These are my pages for Kim's circle journal. I hope by the time she reads this blog entry, she has received her CJ because her CJ is awesome!!

Kim's instructions were to do one side of this 4x4 coaster into an art doll of ourselves and to tell some stuff about us. I'm rather tickled with the art doll I made. The body parts are stamped with a stamp from Grand Adventures. It is called the Spirit Doll stamp. This doll was made with the small spirit doll. I also have the large spirit doll stamp. I think this doll really looks like me. If you know me, don't you agree? Well, ok, maybe my head isn't that HUGE but the rest of my body is pretty accurate.

The flip side of the 4x4 coaster was to be filled up with quips of our simple treasures. I had a hard time getting started, but once I got going, I had to pare down the list. I think we get so used to some daily things in our life that we don't realize they really are treasures. I'm not exactly thrilled with my layout on this side of the coaster, but since I was the last one to make her pages, I didn't want to copy others' layouts. They're all so awesome. It's tough to follow such great crafters. You wanna know who they are? Ok, if they have a blog, here they are: Ethel, Angie, Lisa, Clarissa and Kim. So after I finished up Kim's CJ, I posted a picture of my Mini Me on the SS and now I'm doing a Virtual Swap. A virtual swap is where the people who want to do the project, in this case, make a Mini Me of themselves, the let me know via email or PM and I snail mail them some images. Once they've completed their Mini Me, all they have to do is post it in the gallery on the Stamp Shack. It's just fun to see how each person interprets the project.

Wool beads from roving

This project has been on my mind ever since Julie told me about it. She saw it in a magazine and we knew we had to try it. Ok, so here's what it is. It's wool beads from roving. Roving is wool from the animal - sheep, goat, camel, dog - that hasn't been spun into yarn. This first picture is a bunch of different kinds of roving that my friend, Cindy gave me. It's all been carded (cleaned up) and twisted into the hank. I don't know if that's the technical term, but that's what I call it. Most of these hanks have been dyed. Some with kool-aid (yes!) and some with natural dyes. I'm anxious to try them all. Ok, so here's what you need to get started making these beads. You need the roving of course and believe me, you don't need very much of it to get going. All this roving will make a truckload of beads or wood projects. Next thing you need are the felting needles. I got 3 needles for $5 at the quilt show, but you can also get them from the Heart to Hand website. In the close up picture, can you see the end of the needle by the VERY SHARP point? Click the picture to see it bigger. See how the needle shaft is barbed? You can't feel it, but it is cut out so that when you put the needle into the roving, it packs it in. More details coming up on that. Ok, so to get started on a bead, get yourself a hank of roving. In the first picture, you can see I used a fairly small amount of the roving. Oh, his pretty roving has some sparkly stuff it in. Way cool. So, ok, you got our bit of roving, now what? You go to the kitchen or bathoom and run some hot water. Once it's hot, take your fluff of roving and put it in the hot water. You know what happens to a wool sweater or pants when you put them in the washer? Uh huh, it shrinks! That's exactly what we want here. To your now wet roving fluff addt a tiny bit of soap. Just use your liquid hand soap, it's fine. Now start rolling the fluff between your hands in your palms and do it EASY! Don't press hardly at all. It will just start to bind up roll up by itself. As the water runs out between your hands, then put the fluff in the water again. You're going to do this a lot and it's going to take a long time, maybe 5 minutes to make one bead. You need to roll out all the water from the bead. You'll notice that the bead will get tighter and tighter as you roll it between your palms and as you get nearer the end, you can roll it a little harder. The reason you don't want to roll hard initially is that the roving will not bind up in a ball, it will just bind to the adjoining fibers and be flat. That didn't come out right. It's hard to explain. Just don't rub too hard is all. Once your bead is to the firmness of your liking and the water is all out, you set it aside to dry. Once it's dry, you can play with it a bit. Since this was my first bead, I though I'd just go for it. I got a teensy bit of green roving and balled it up (dry) and set it on the round bead. I got my felting needle out and started poking the green roving into the bead. This took awhile since I didn't know what I was doing, but I quickly got the gist of it. You poke and poke until you get the shape you want and the roving is poked down into the bead and even with the surface of the bead. So as you can see, I added more green and some red roving dots. Those little red dots took hardly any roving at all. If you try this, you'll be surprised how far your roving will go. Then I took some cotton thread and added some seed beads. I buried the ends of the thread inside the bead. Oh, I did't use the felting needle to add the beads, I used a regular hand sewing needle. This little bead was made with a much smaller hunk of roving. It is very tight and I love how the variegated colors came out on this bead. According to the article in the magazine, you can embellish these beads with various items: feathers, glass beads, wooden beads, etc., just let your imagination run wild. I'm going to find the magazine with the beading article in it and edit this post. Come back and see. You know you want to.....