Ink and Acetate and Glue – Oh My!

First, a quick update on my son Matthew.  He was at the ER for only 2 hours last night – they said his breathing was okay, gave him some cough medicine and sent him home – yay!  We were able to head off his asthma attack with a dose of Prednisone at home and regular nebulizer treatments before it got really bad.  But he is still home from school today – he is not feeling well and has had 2 treatments so far today.  Poor thing – he hates to miss school!

On the plus side, it snowed last night and I didn’t have to clean off my car this morning to take him to school! 🙂

My crafting goal today was to work on my submissions for Take Ten magazine.  Several weeks ago, the editor called me and asked if I would send in some more card samples using the acetate-and-tissue technique (you can learn that technique and lots more on SplitcoastStampers in the ‘Resources’ section.  They wanted 10-15 cards using the acetate technique and grouped into color groups of about 3-4 for each color.  The deadline for the next issue is February 1st which is quickly approaching…

So I finally sat down today to play.  I grabbed a whole bunch of transparencies, a whole stack of tissue paper, all of my ink refills and some stamps.  Boy, this is a MESSY technique! 

Unfortunately, I was almost out of Crystal Effects (poor planning on my part), but I did as many samples as I could until I ran out.  I played with all kinds of different color combinations, different styles and several different stamp types until I got a nice mixture – here’s what I ended up with:

These will take while to dry.  Then all I have to do is take these elements and make them into 10-15 beautiful, original, show-stopping cards somehow.  Hmmm…we’ll see about that!

I won’t be able to post my finished cards here on my blog if they are going to be published, but I can show you those that I decide not to send in.  Here’s one of the pieces that I know I’m not going to use:

I like how it turned out in the photo, but in real life, it’s much darker and you can hardly see the starfish.  But you get the idea – glue, re-inkers and glitter on the back of a transparency with a backing of tissue paper.  I also have to trim off the excess tissue paper around the edges. 

I used brown StazOn for this one – but it just didn’t come out dark enough to send in.  I may make a card with it just to have as a sample – but it didn’t fit in with the rest of my color combos.

The stamp used in this photo is actually one from Stampington.  I used several stamps from them for these projects – I figured that if I did, I might have a better chance of getting published in their magazine!

So…while those are drying, I get to mount some new stamps!!!!!  My Stampin’ Up! pre-order from Leadership arrived today – can’t wait to go play with my new stuff.  Wait…I don’t have time to play!  Oh well…maybe just mounting them and adding them to my stash will be enough satisfaction for now.

And speaking of my stash…my stamp shelves are now completely full!  I don’t know what I’m going to do – I either need to find more storage or sell some of my older sets.  I’m such a collector, though – I don’t know if I could part with any of them.  I’m sure that as soon as I do, I’ll realize that the stamp I just sold was PERFECT for some project I need to do…

Oh, well – I need to figure something out – there’s no room for my new stamps that just came today….

Make-And-Takes for Crop Classix

Whew! I’m done in my craft room for today…my back is KILLING me from being hunched over in deep creative concentration for so long!

Plus, my husband just had to take my dear son Matthew to the emergency room. He has asthma that really flares up when we have extreme temperature changes – last week it was in the 60s here in NJ and this week it’s only in the 30s. And since it’s Sunday night and his doctors aren’t in, he ended up in the ER. He has been admitted for asthma a few times and it’s just AWFUL having a child in the hospital – it disrupts the entire family and poor Matt gets so scared. He’s a good sport though, and takes whatever medicine they give him. Here’s hoping that they can just treat him and release him tonight. I’m staying here with the other two kids and Mike will give me an update from his cell phone when he has a chance.

I thought that I would post my day’s efforts while I have a moment. I wanted to come up with at least 3 simple and cost-effective make-and-takes for this weekend in Cape May – I think these are pretty good. 🙂

First, I’m going to do a sour cream container and piece of chocolate with a stamped label. I like to use white cardstock for these – it seems to be a bit more flexible than color cardstock and seems to roll up more easily without creasing. So I used white cardstock and then used Cranberry Crisp and Regal Rose ink along with the Simply Said stamp set to make a cute little Valentine favor:

I also stamped an address label and wrapped it around Hershey’s Nugget to put inside the container.

I also thought I’d put out a few more containers for other upcoming holidays. Each of these was done using Simply Said plus another small stamp:

Then I also wanted to do a card make-and-take. I was inspired by a swap I received from Kathy Hilden at Leadership last weekend. Kathy is from Shelby Township in Michigan – thanks, Kathy! I loved her color combo and choice of stamps – I just simplified her design just bit to make it more cost effective as a make-and-take (hers is much more lovely – mine has fewer layers and fewer bells-and-whistles ):

I am going to replace the moss ribbon with some cranberry stitched ribbon – I have to place a last minute order for paper anyway and will add that on to my order. There is a bit of bling on the flowers with Dazzling Diamonds – not sure if that comes through in the photo, but it really adds a lot to the card.

So…now I’m doing a 3-D item and a card…I also wanted to throw in a scrapbook page. I’m just going to do a 6X6 single page and then show how to turn it into either an 8 1/2 X 11 or 12X12 with some samples. Here’s the page for the make-and-take:

It’s loosely based on one created by Stampin’ Up! when they carried the AHA stamp set special last year. That’s Bashful Blue, Old Olive and Marigold Morning with some Real Red too. And I used Big Deal alphabet along with Simply Said again for the heart.

That’s all for now – I hear the laundry calling my name…