I hope everyone had good times with their fathers/husbands! We had a pretty good day. I got up to make a large brunch for Matt - the girls helped me make sausage and sausage gravy, bacon, hash browns, biscuits, eggs, fresh fruit and mini cinnamon rolls. Then we had the girls outside for a while and before you knew it, it was time to finish dinner. While I did that Matt went to pick up the new fish tank. We had BBQ ribs, corn on the cob and cheesy potatoes. Then Matt got the idea that he wanted to go to some batting cages so we with to this place called the Golf Dome. Matt, Madelyn and Grace hit some baseballs then we played a round of putt putt. It was interesting to play as Matt and I each had a baby in a snuggli strapped to us. Then to top it off we got some ice-cream on the way home. It was a pretty good day!
Here is the card I made for Matt for father's day:
I love to do reflective stamping - I haven't done is in awhile so I had fun doing this again.

With this card I did not have the exact right stamp that I wanted to use. This stamp is of a man and little boy but I wanted a little girl. So, I used my impress markers to color the areas of the image that I wanted to stamp and drew in the hair of a girl to make this image work for me. I used watercolor paints to do this image. Because I used the impress marker which is waterbased I did have a lot of running but it did seem to work for this image.

Reflective stamping is a great way to get more out of your stamps. What you do is stamp the image onto wax paper and place it where the relfection needs to be on the paper ink side down. Use a bryer to rub the image onto the paper. This will be a lighter outline in some cases - it works for me. But if you want it darker go over the image with an artist pen.

Stamps Used: Seaside sketches by SU

Cardstock & Papers: Always Artichoke, white and black cardstock, designer paper from a fall stack

Ink: Palette - Noir

Accessories: brads, wax paper, watercolors, impress markers, artist pen

Techniques: reflective stamping, watercolor painting

A few more cards and stuff from the last few days...


I have been pretty busy the last few days and have not been able to post like I wanted to. Since I am starting my new job tody I wanted to make sure I had a lot of things done over the past week. On Saturday Madelyn and I went on a mini road trip. I had to go to Strongsville to pick up a piece of furniture, then since we were not too far away we rode over to Medina to hit up Hollos and Hobby Lobby.

Of course there was a detour and and then the signs just stopped so we drove around lost for an hour. Then we made it to Hollos where Madelyn realized that I was not lying when I told her it was an awesome paperstore! If you do not know, Hollos is a place where you pay $1 per pound of paper. Madelyn got about 3 pounds of paper and was in heaven. I picked up about 10 lbs of paper and now my paper rack is pretty full!

Then I found some really neat red glitterbased cardstock and some 12x12 glossy paper in light pink and blue. Then I found some metallic paper in red and reflective mirror paper! I can not wait to try them all out.

I also made another reflective card with a snowman! I used this card for inspiration. I just changed the colors to blue since its my favorite color. This was my second attempt at the reflection. I first used colored pencil but when I embossed it to give it a icy look the colors looked aweful. In this one I used watercolor pencils and CrystalLacquer, it distorted the colors a little, but not bad.
The background is embossed with my Cuttlebug and a Fiskars embossing plate.

Then I decided to do one of the challenges for the week from SCS. I enjoy doing these when I find time to do them. This challenge was the Sketch Challenge, click here, for the directions. I used a House Mouse stamp for this card. I also saw that some of the House Mouse stamps are now clear unmounted stamps at Hobby Lobby...I believe they were christmas and halloween! The mouse here is also flocked.

Lastly, before I post my last card from this past week. I am very tired from my first day back to work. Not to sure if it is the lack of sleep from last night (I was kinda anxious about today).
Or from being bored today. My new job entails my dept to keep forclosed properties maintained. Its a pretty basic job, but it keeps me busy. I will learn some more proceedures. I was told today that there may be a good chance to be hired on full time. I even heard that some people work from home doing what I would be doing. That would be a great thing!

Now, for my last card. I did yet another reflection card using the TAC set How Swell, I used the mirror reflective paper that I got at Hollos. I colored her with Prismacolor and Tria Pantone markers. I wish that I could have gotten a darker, more solid color from coloring on the reflective paper.

Reflective Remembering


I made this card this evening as it was a technique that I have wanted to try for some time. (Directions located here.)

Basically, I stamped my main image (TAC set Precious Girl) on a piece of watercolor paper, then again on a piece of parchment paper. After I stamped that image I placed it in the location that I wanted and brayerd the image onto the watercolor paper.

I then used a Zig pen (size .005) to add a little more detail (in this case I added a line where the water meets the ground and added a few extra blades of grass.) Once all of the pen work was complete I started water coloring. I used watercolor pencils (I have some from Prismacolor and Dewalt, both good sets). I used the the more concentrated colors on the top image and the diluted colors on the bottom image.

Both the brown piece of CS and the top layer of white are embossed with the cuttlebug. I rubbed the brown layer with the Palette Burnt Umber pad and the 2nd white later with the Toile Pink Palette Pad.

I really like how this turned out, it almost looks too plain looking, but I did not want to take from the watercoloring either. I'd like to try this again with more vibrant colors.