An Amuse stamp from Julie

When Julie was in Seattle she got me this stamp which I had picked up and put down, picked up and put down and ultimately left there ( there is only so much a girl can pack in a carry-on!)

but I love this little stamp. Wanted to make a little card with it and this idea kept calling me so here it is.



The background is from Starving Artists- Doodle Factory Urban- http://starvingartistamps.com/doodlefactory_urban.html, stamped with soft sky on Soft Sky CS- both retired from SU - again the stamp is from Amuse - U colored in with opaque white sharpie and colored with copic and oranges highlighted with crystal effects. Miss U from simple alphabets from PTI. Tied with soft sky ribbon - again retired- it seemed an appropriate color for Seattle skyline. Thanks Julie!

Lynda

Friendly Wheels unmounted Card

I wanted to show a sample of the card using the unmounted Friendly Words stampin Around. The central image is stamped using Basic black with Le Jardin Botanique stamp set and colored in with markers- pretty in pink, rose red and old olive and blender pen. It is stamped on the new Taste of Textiles cardstock- this one is so shimmery - it is perfect with the organza ribbon. the long sentiment on the bottom is stamped with kiwi- also from the wheel and the sentiment in black. The cardstock is pinke pirouette on the left, ridinghood red on the right all on kiwi kiss base. Simple but really shimmery and pretty IRL.

The new Stampin' Up Catalogue will be here in just a month and previews start tomorrow and I CAN'T WAIT! I will show you some samples from the new catalogue as soon as I get my samples photographed.

Lynda

Stampin' Around- unmounting

I did this post a while ago and forgot to post it- I have a sample to show you to follow so here it is:

The Friendly Words wheel is ripe for unmounting. I have heard of people unmounting the wheel in the past but I really like wheeling big sheets of paper using the stampin' around ink instead of doing short runs the way we do with cards so I have always resisted UNTIL NOW- at least with this wheel.





The words are so beautiful and I wanted to be able to accent a section of it. so yes. I am crazy but I bought another wheel just to unmount- so I got something like 14 little stamps out of that one wheel which is still a bargain and you waste one little word- Confidant- that overlapped with another image. The hardest part was trying to figure out how to cut it- sharp scissors worked well for me but be forewarned- some words were a little tight cutting. This is the sentiment I used on the 3/30/09 post on the Manhatten Flowers Embossing Folder Card sample #1.



I am just praying that Stampin' Up will come out with clingmounted stamp options as many other companies do, in the future- it will save wood and shipping- and me having to mount it. Even if they cost the same, it will save so much space for those of us space challenged stampers, hint hint......



I just saw some stamps being sold at Cranberry Hill Merchantile in Sunnyvale, CA by Darcies in the larger DVD cases in clingmount the way I have been storing my larger stampsets so maybe somebody is listening!



Lynda

More Fifth Avenue Flora Watercolors

I really love this technique of watercoloring so much I made a whole sheet of these flowers which was really easy to color. I then used the leaves from God's beauty set to stamp the leaves in artichoke on white CS and used the aqua painter to make the

color "bleed" to our advantage this time and this is what you get. I love the flowers in the silver mint julep cups like they do in the south and with all the ciecut flowers in the flowerpot cards I've seen I thought this was a prettier version. Use a silver cardstock and fold it over and tape the edges to make a pocket. I scored grooves in it before taping to make it look more like the mint julep cups. Use dimensionals to raise up the flowers so it hangs over the cup. I put clear microbeads using tombow multipurpose glue on the center of the blue flowers.

This is the same flower cut out and leaves this time stamped onto the white topnote diecut. I cut out another to mount with dimensionals.

In this one I used the beautiful white organza ribbon to make the leaf accent. I used texture plates the create polka dots on the bottom of the CS- although hard to see and pink pirouette CS to make the scallop outside and regal rose on the white oval inside

Enjoy!

Lynda

Starting a new diet.

I have been on a diet all my life- name the diet and I've probably been on it- yes I know - I am a doctor and know the science of weight loss but as a woman who reads Vogue and watch what not to wear, you just can't help wanting to be thin and wear high heel shoes sometimes even though you know your feet will hurt at the end of the day. It's my right brain telling my left where to go. Since I have been on my " I will eat what I want in moderation to be healthy and stay as active as I can diet" I have been pretty stable but as I am approaching that lovely middle years of my life, the weight seems to be slowly creeping up although I have not changed my life much otherwise. Found this at http://zoelifecreations.blogspot.com/ - I may have to give this diet a try.......

Carrot Cake with Orange Cream Cheese Frosting and Arthritis Walk

Tyler and I have done the Arthritis Walk to raise money for the Arthritis Foundation since he was 1 year old- It used to be him in a stroller but now he raises his own money and walks it all. He has beaten me in almost every year with the money he raises for this good cause. I guess cuteness counts! Our team including ever vivacious Julie, her son and Linda raised almost $2000 this year. Tyler saw a young man who lost his vision from his arthritis at the walk and he commented that he did not know arthritis could do that and how sad that was. I told him that rheumatoid arthritis that the young man has is a disease that affects the whole body not just the joints and we need a cure of this disease some day and that is why we are working so hard to raise money for this cause. Thank you to all of you on the team and who donated to our cause, it will make a difference!

This year it was at the Guadalupe River Park and the San Jose Shark mascot was there so we got to goof a little before the walk. I think Tyler's favorite part was the candy tables they have as you go around. His right pocket was busting with candy at the end of the walk.

I've gotten a couple of requests for my Carrot cupcake recipe that I made for Tyler's birthday celebration at school so I thought I'd share that here. It's from America's Test Kitchen recipe book.

Carrot Cake- makes one 9x 13 sheet cake or 24 cupcakes.

Adjust oven rack to middle and heat oven to 35 degrees. Lightly coat the pan with vegetable oil spray and line bottom with parchment- or use cupcake liners.

Whisk together in large bowl and set aside:

2 1/2 Cups AP flour
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp salt

Whisk together in large bowl until forthy and sugar is mostly dissolved about one minute:
4 large eggs at room temperature
1 1/2 C granulated sugar
1/2 C packed light brown sugar

While whisking above egg/sugar mixture, slowly add in:
1 1/2 C vegetable oil until thoroughly combined and emulsified about 1 minute.

Whisk in the flour mixture until no streatks of flour remain.

Stir in 1 pound of peeled and grated carrots. (Best to use shreddding disk on food processor or large hole of box grater- DO NOT USE PRESHREDDED CARROTS as they are too thick and will leave you with a crunchy cake.

Pour into prepared pan and bake until wooden skewer insered comes out with few crumbs attached 35-40 minutes- rotating pan halfway through baking. (for 24 cupcakes bake 30 minutes) Let cool in pan on wire rack 2 hours.

option: stir in 1 1/2 C toasted and chopped pecans or walnuts and 1 C raisin into the batter with the carrots.

Orange Cream Cheese Frosting: This is the most yummy soft frosting ever! and it only takes about 30 seconds to make total with a food processor! Although it may take a good 5 minutes to lick the bowl and the spoon after.....

Process in a food processor until combined about 5 seconds:
8 oz cream cheese softened
5 Tablespoon unsalted butter softened
1 Tablespoon orange juice
1 Tablespoon grated orange zest

Add 1 1/4 C confectioner's sugar until smooth about 10 seconds, scraping down bowl and blades as needed.

Enjoy!

Lynda






Lynda

Eastern Influences, watercoloring with watercolor crayon

I have a huge collection of Asian inspired images and yet I add another- I love this set from Stampin' Up with the swallows flying around. It is so lovely. This is a CASE from a card by Iliana Crouse. This card uses all the images in the set and is a good way to play with the watercolors as well.

Take the Stampin' Up watercolor paper - it is more fine than regular cold pressed watercolor paper you find in local art stores and takes stamping well. Use StazOn as you will be watercoloring and you don't want the image to bleed. I watercolored the flowers with cameo coral lightly leaving some areas white. It's always best to start with the lightest color first and work toward the darkest.

Then I used the aqua painter to pick up some darker colors- pixie pink and real red and starting from the darkest corner I brush toward the light end again leavingsome light edge showing.

This is the progression from right to left on how it was colored in with the finished panel on the bottom. I used old olive and artichoke for the leaves and chocolate chip for the branch.

I layered it on ridinghood red CS and mounted on Kiwi designer series paper wrapped with ridinghood red taffeta ribbon. The tag is the symbol for beautiful embossed in black after stamping with versamark pad punched with 1 1/4 and the red in 1 3/8 -tied with linen thread. Ridinghood red CS was stamped with the flowering branch and swallows in versamark and clear embossed for subtle look and holes pierced in the corners. It was then mounted on Kiwi base CS.


This was another project we made at our last workshop.

Happy Mother's Day

When I was in Seattle, I learrned a watercolor technique that WOW'd everyone. It was a wet on wet watercolor technique using classic refills.

Take Fifth Avenue Floral and stamp in versamark on shimmery white CS and heat emboss using white embossing powder. It will look like this.

Place the CS in a waterproof container- here I used an extra stampcase and spritz heavily with water. I just use one of my empty stampin' Mist bottles clearly labeled as water so I don't get confused.

There should be pools of water to which you add drops of refill colors- I started with cameo coral then added pretty in pink, pixie pink, summer sun, rose red. Best to start light and add other colors in. It will flow into the water that is already there. Summer Sun muddies up the colors so play with it and see what you like.

I actually used an old CD to put drops of color labelling with a sharpie so I don't confuse the colors.

It may look funny but let it dry and it will look great. If you angle it up a tad while it dries, it pools the colors and that is pretty too.

This is the finished card with the rose cut out and mounted on Stampin' dimensionals. Regal rose CS base, white CS die cut with Top Note, Little Leaves diecut with Big shot -Kiwi designer paper and organza ribbon put through with slot punch. Sentiment is from a retired set from SU.

Happy Mother's Day to you all!

Lynda

p.s. Little Leaves IS the name of the die in the current SU catalogue page 200- check it out!