Over The Moon Monday - Pick 3 Challenge

Good morning and welcome to another Over The Moon Monday. We had some pretty bad storms during the night, and the electricity went off often. Which means every time it went off, I had to get up and reset the alarm clock. It's funny that I would wake up when it went off, but I guess with all the rain and lightning and thunder I wasn't sleeping the best. Anyway, I did manage to get up on time this morning.

Several years ago I became friends with a salesman that came into the office where I work, and after he retired, he still kept in touch with us. I'm sorry to say that he didn't get to enjoy his retirement very long before he became ill, and I used to send him cards frequently from all of us here at work. His wife told my brother that he enjoyed those cards immensely and always kept them where he could see them. I'm sorry to say that George passed away recently. He was the kind of person who always had a smile and a joke, and he will be greatly missed.

I wanted to make a special card for his wife, so I chose the Fossil Stone technique for the background. I love the way the background always comes out different, but beautiful. I don't think I have ever seen a bad background, even if you use funky colors. For my card I wanted to use muted earthy colors, so I used browns, yellows, tans, and greens.

I squirted small amounts of those colors of reinkers into my "fossil folder" (a page protector that has been cut upon on one side to allow easy access), closed the folder and squished a bit with my fingers just to gently blend the colors. Then I cut my glossy cardstock into 6 pieces. I put the first set of pieces back to back and put into the folder and pressed, making sure I got most of the cardstock covered with color. I did the same thing with the other 2 sets of cardstock. As you can see, each successive time a new set of cardstock went into the folder, the colors became more muted and muddied. After they have dried, you can use them for fabulous backgrounds.

I like the fact that any imperfections (bubbles, lines, etc.), will show up in the colors, hence the name fossil stone. It looks like little fossils in the paper.

I chose to use the last set I made because of the muted colors.

I used a dark brown cardstock as the base of the card. I stamped a large dragonfly onto my fossil stone background. I mounted this onto a dark green carstock. I tore the bottom edge of the green cardstock, and used a black inkpad to go over the torn edge to give it depth. I stamped "With Deepest Sympathy" (from Hero Arts, I believe) with a pigment ink and then heat embossed it with gold embossing powder. I mounted this onto the dark brown cardstock and I was done.

I hope you have a crafty week!

Tuesday Technique - Fossil Stone

Good Tuesday morning! It's a beautiful day here on the Treasure Coast of Florida. The weather is gorgeous, and I'm really enjoying it, especially so late in the year. It won't be long before it's hot and muggy, and then I won't be enjoying it at all!

Here is another card I made using the Fossil Stone technique for the background. You can see more of the background on this one. Again, it's a simple process. I use a couple of colors of re-inkers of dye ink. I have used other ink, but the liquidity (is that a word?) of the dye ink seems to do better. I put a few drops of each color randomly on the inside of a page protector. To better allow me to do this, I have cut one long side and the bottom off the page protector so it opens like a book. I close the page protectors and kind of mix the colors with my fingers, being careful not to mix too much so they get muddy. Then I put 2 pieces of glossy cardstock (back to back, glossy sides out) into the page protector, close the cover, and run my brayer over it to move the ink around. When I'm satisfied with the 2 pieces of cardstock, I remove them and let dry. You can usually get 2 sets of glossy cardstock out of this technique. The 2nd set will be lighter. Now I'm ready to stamp my image or use as a background mat.

Hope you can spend some time crafting today. Why don't you post a link to what you're doing?

Talk again soon...

Becky

Happy Monday....

Happy Monday....I think. I am not a big fan of Monday, and if I had my way, it would be a weekly holiday, but then Tuesday would just become the new Monday...and so on...so I guess I just might as well get used to it. I hope some day I can retire...then I might like Mondays. ;-)

This was a fun card to make. The background that the fish was stamped on is a Fossil Stone background, and one of my favorites. It's very easy to do. I put a few drops of several colors of reinkers between a page protector, then put my glossy cardstock in there so the color gets onto the cardstock. You can do 2 pieces of cardstock at a time. I keep moving the cardstock around, and you get all kinds of things that look like fossils on your cardstock.

I used the Moe Wubba fish stamp (you can purchase it here), and colored it in with markers. Then I covered the fish with versamarker and holographic glitter, which I heat set. I glued everything down, and then took my zig-zag stamp from The Angel Company and "stitched" the card with Adirondack "Lettuce" ink.

I think it will make a great Father's Day card, or a birthday card for a male, don't you think?

Talk to you again tomorrow....

Dragonfly Card

This card looks more complicated than it actually is.

You will need:

• glossy cardstock
• a couple complentary colors of dye re-inkers
• matte cardstock for the backing
• stamps of your choice
• page protector with 3 sides open
• brayer
• embossing powder
• heat gun
• pigment ink

I used Stampsations #371H-18 (Whimsical dragonfly) and My Paper Moon #03-178G (Take a Little Time ) stamps, which can be found here: http://www.mypapermoon.com

First you will need to prepare your glossy cardstock. To do this, cut 2 pieces 4-1/4 x 5-1/2 (you will have one left over for anothr project). Put several drops of dye re-inkers inside the page protector and smoosh around with your fingers. But not too much - you don't want to muddy the colors. Open page protector and put the glossy cardstock inside, glossy side out (back to back). Now run your brayer over the cardstock until it's mostly colored. Some white is okay. Remove from page protector and let dry.

Once the glossy cardstock is dry, stamp your image with pigment ink onto the glossy cardstock, apply embossing powder and heat set. Stamp sentiment in same way.

I cut the 2 apart, but you could just as easily leave them together.

Mount onto the front of your cardstock and you are done!

Easy card that looks good.