INSPIRATION CHALLENGE AT THE HOUSE THAT STAMPS BUILT

Greetings blog friends!  

It's time for another What If? Wednesday challenge at The House That Stamps Built and this week it's an photo inspiration challenge.  

Isn't this a gorgeous photo of fall colors?  What inspires you about this photo?  Here is what I created.

My inspiration was the colorful trees and the way the color was reflected in the water.  I used Distress Inks to create my line of trees on watercolor paper and then dragged a water filled brush across each color to spread the color.  The stamps used for this were RI#2719-K "Large Pine Tree" and one of the newest word stamp sets "Thanks".  I'm absolutely in love with these word stamps.

So, we all hope you'll come over and play along...the other Rock Stars have some amazing inspiration pieces you'll love to see.

                                      Deonna - Heather - Joy - Karen - Kathy

For the details on how to play check them out at The House.  If you enter the challenges, you could win a gift certificate for $25.00 worth of incredible stamps from Repeat Impressions.  If you use a Repeat Impression stamp on your entry, you'll be entered twice.  

Also, to help enable you (just in case you're sitting on the fence), pick up the 10% off Code for your entire order of RI stamps on my sidebar. They are one of the finest red rubber stamps available.  

Thanks so much for stopping by!  I love comments so please leave one if you can. 

PROJECT OF THE WEEK

Hi there, Cheri here and I'm excited to be showing you another Project of the Week!  

This is one of those techniques that comes about when you're trying to correct a mistake!  (Love it when that happens).  I'll call it "blending with baby wipes" and the results are fantastic!  

Here's what you need to try this technique - 
~An assortment of color dye inks (I used Distress Inks).  
~A baby wipe cut into the same amount of pieces as you have ink colors.
~Water color paper or some other mixed media paper able to bear up under the moisture.  I wouldn't recommend regular card stock as it often pills and breaks down.

Folding a piece of baby wipe, wipe it across your first color and apply it to your paper, continue and move on to each color until you're satisfied with your piece.

I went for a rainbow background on this card.

After stamping RI Stamp #9202-O "Peacock" in Archival Black Ink (not shown) and drying the image I then fussy cut the image.  I wanted more dimension on the image so applied a coating of VersaMark ink to the entire surface and sprinkled clear embossing powder over it then heat set it.  This gives it a wonderful sheen and helps the colors pop.

This is the final card using this technique...I love how it pops the image.  The sentiment is RI#1112-E "Just a Note".  

Here is another card using different dye ink colors using RI Stamp #2719-K "Large Pine".  On this card, I heat embossed the trees with white embossing powder.  

I hope you enjoyed this project and I hope you'll give it a try.  

CAS CHALLENGE AT OUTLAWZ CHALLENGES

Fall is here, blog friends!!! We had a heavy frost last night and the temps are barely 30 Degrees this morning.  Brrrrrr...

I'm hosting a new CAS challenge at Outlawz Challenges this week, and in honor of fall, it's about foliage.  Not just fall foliage, but any foliage.  It's all beautiful, right? 

Here's my challenge  - We're feeling the cooler weather here in Maine these days and while the green of summer is gone on the foliage the reds and golds of autumn are here.  
October gave a party;
The leaves by hundreds came,—
The Ashes, Oaks, and Maples,
And leaves of every name.
The sunshine spread a carpet,
And every thing was grand;
Miss Weather led the dancing;
Professor Wind, the band....
The sight was like a rainbow
New-fallen from the sky....
~George Cooper (1840–1927), "October's Party," c.1887
This week, your challenge is to show us in clean and simple design some foliage on your card.  It doesn't need to be fall colors, it can be any plant or leaf and any color (s) of your choice.    

I hope you'll all come over and play along.  Remember, Outlawz Challenges is a membership group, it's free, but you have to sign up.  There's a new challenge each and every day of the week, and there are some awesome prizes to win.  

Here is the card I made for the challenge

A few years ago, on a whim, while shopping at Michaels, I bought this leaf foam stamp.  It was only a dollar so I bought it.  For this card, I stamped it twice on CS fussy cutting both images and pasting them together for strength.  I then inked up the surface with clear embossing ink and sprinkled gold ep over it and heat set it.  The results in person are much better than this photo.   

Thanks for stopping by.  I hope you have a super crafty week!