Saturday, June 4, 2011

A New Beginning.....

It certainly has been quite a while since I have been able to post anything on my blog.  Life has been full of many challenges and struggles lately and I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. 

First of all - I moved from Washington State and am now living in Medford, Oregon.  It was a huge leap of faith for me and it's been quite the journey thus far.  I have been off work since February 24th and am now unemployed.  It's a long story but one full of many life lessons.  One of which is having honesty and integrity doesn't always mean things turn out the way they should but at least I can look at myself in the mirror everyday and that is priceless to me.  And now I am moving on to new adventures and challenges and I have never been happier. 

I have been in Oregon a week now and I love how much slower life is here.  I no longer have to spend precious time stuck in traffic jams.  It takes only a few minutes to run to the store and get back home again.  Wow - I love it!!  My sister Dana and I will be moving into a two bedroom apartment at the end of June and we are excited about that too.

I now have my own craft booth in a business called Awstruck Collectibles which is located in the main mail in Medford.  I have been busy making many new things so that my sister and I can get the booth decorated and ready for business early this coming week.  It feels like a huge responsibility and yet it is exciting at the same time.  I have taken some photos of my booth and will post them as soon as I can.  And of course, I will post before and after photos!!

Lots of new changes coming soon here on my blog as well as at my Etsy store and new craft booth.



Monday, February 21, 2011

Thank you Greeting Card



This turned out to be an interesting card to create.  I found a great video about a "smooching technique" at Hero Arts and decided to try the technique myself. 

I stamped the flower image three times on the white cardstock.  I stamped the images again using the "smooching technique" for texture and cut out the outside edges of the flowers so I could add dimension to the flowers.  I used mounting tape to attach the top flower to the bottom flower.  You can really see the difference between the two images and I love the look of the top flower.  For the centers of the flowers I used stickles to add some bling to the flower itself.  I used "sage" ink to stamp the leaves around the three flowers.  There wasn't an actual leaf stamp in the flower set - I used an image of a small heart from another stamp set.  I stamped "thank you" with black ink.  I'm not really happy at how faded the ink is on the card but decided to post the card anyway because it took so much time to create this card in the first place. 

The products used are:

Versa Magic chalk  ink - Red Brick and Sage
Versa Fine Dry Pigment ink - Black
Verse Acrylic Stamp Set - Great Friend
Unknown background stamp to create the "smooshing technique"
Mounting tape, adhesive and stickles. 

I've also included a link to the video in case you would like to watch how the technique is done:  http://heroarts.com/blogs/club/