Peacock Proud!

I had so much fun with my Hero Arts Peacock Layering Stamp set, as you can see in the picture above.  I made tons of peacocks with various inks and then had fun laying them out into cards.  On some of the cards I incorporated some stenciling done with embossing paste and then colored with inks.  Such fun!  The peacock is my emblem, as many of you know.  I have collected many peacock stamps in my lifetime, but I think this layering one is the most fun.  I also bought the matching die, but I found I really didn't need it, plus it is difficult to stamp in just the right position to use the die, plus you have to add his feet.  I just stamped and then cut by hand--not really such a big job.  Love this stamp set!

We all Scream for Ice Cream!

I love my new Hero Arts Ice Cream Layering Stamp!  Plus, I am in the mood lately for ice cream.  I have decided to have ice cream rather than cake for the September birthdays at church, and I think I will have the children offer the toppings for the ice cream.  For some reason we haven't had our annual ice cream social so this will be a good substitute.

For the card above, I stamped the cone in Clearsnap Chestnut Roan chalk ink and added the details with Clearsnap Dark Brown chalk ink.  I stamped the ice cream itself in Clearsnap Orchid and Lime chalk inks and added details with Clearsnap Pinkolicious and Grasshopper Archival Dye inks.  I did not purchase the coordinating dies for this stamp set, but the cones and ice creams were easy to cut out by hand.  I must have made about 20 ice cream birthday cards!

The kraft background oval die is from Spellbinders.   I nearly had a heart attack embossing the oval kraft die in my Tim Holtz Vagabond machine--I must have used too thick of a sandwich and nearly got stuck--I only was successful by pressing the Go button every little bit, letting the machine rest between presses, and little by little, inch by inch I did get the sandwich to move until all was clear--close call, that one!  I will have to be really careful of my sandwich in future.

 I stenciled the confetti background from a Hero Arts plastic stencil onto white card with regular Dreamweaver's embossing paste and then added color with Tsukineko pigment ink cubes.   A little bit of Prismaglitter later and a cherry on top completed my Happy Birthday Ice Cream cone card!

You can't see the inside of the card in this photo, but I also filled the inside of the card with ice cream cone, too!

Now, let's have some ice cream!

Stenciling again!

Seriously, July already?  I must have been busy, but it's all a blur!  I have started stenciling again, and today I am sharing a cupcake card I made.  New techniques for me--stenciling on black background first of all and second of all using one of the newer plastic stencils for the background.  Here is the card, and yes, I know it's not perfect, but I like it:

Grrrr--just finding my pictures has suddenly become a gigantic problem!  You think you know a system, and then all the rules change!  But I did find it!

I stenciled the cupcakes using white embossing paste (regular) onto black cardstock using a Dreamweaver stencil.  After the stenciling was dry, I then replaced the  clean stencil on top of it and dabbed on color with stencil brushes and applicators.  I found out that you really need a heavy coat of the white embossing paste on the black paper!  You can see my efforts don't quite measure up!  But hey, I'm just getting started again after a year or so!

Oh, I used pigment inks, so it took days for the ink to dry.  But the color pop is WOW!

The background confetti is stenciled in the same way, but with a plastic stencil from Hero Arts (yes, new!) on white card.  It took forever to replace the clean stencil onto the pasted card because you have to puzzle out which way it goes!  But I like the look and will definitely make some more cards like this one.  But better!  I may stick to white cardstock for a while until I get my groove on.

BTW I ordered several more  Dreamweaver stencils from Stencil with Style.  They are going out of business and you can probably only get these brass stencils in future from Stampendous, and a limited number of images at that.  Stencils are disappearing from the Stencil with Style website at a pretty good clip as inventory is reduced.  I love my stencils!  I now have a dedicated drawer in my craft room for them.  I even have an old timey lightbox!  There are tons of techniques to try!

Thanks for looking!  I'll be in my craft room.......