Laid Back Sunday.

Whenever I design a card and I ask my husbands opinion, many times he will tell me that he thinks it's got too many elements or is too busy for his taste. I think that might be a guy thing. So when creating a masculine card, if I want him to like it (and maybe some other guys too) wouldn't it be wise to keep it super simple?

Here is a simple card I did with my club members last week. We used our brayer, baby wipes, and reinkers to make this wonderful background on glossy card stock.

First we wheeled on a background using versa mark ink and tied a ribbon around the card. We stamped the sentiment and main image in black stazon ink.

The background color of the sky is cameo coral and ruby red mixed reinkers.

This was a very simple and quick. Have a laid back Sunday!

How PSYCHED am I? Stamping411 Blog Announcment!

I'm so excited about a new blog all about the beginner stamper that some friends and I have launched TODAY!!! There will be weekly sketch challenges on Saturday, and back to the basics instructions from how to read a ruler onward! This is our first sketch challenge and I sure hope you decide to play along. All you have to do is make a card, take a picture and upload it. Then link it to the new stamping411 blog and you could win a prize! How fun is that? Just for making a card! I sure hope you'll play along! If you do decide to play, and post to a public forum like splitcoaststampers, please use the code SSC101 so we can find your submissions!

Here is the sketch challenge and my card for the challenge. I made this card for a dear friend going through a terrible time with a hubby that is VERY ill. I think of her often and although I can't call her every time I'm thinking of her, I can send a card.

If you feel so inclined, please say a prayer for my friend Michele, and for her husband Dean, who has been having one problem after another with cancer treatments. Wishing them God's Speed to a full recovery.

Please check out the new blog by clicking here, and leave us a comment so we know you're watching! Rubbah Hugs,
Selene Kempton

Bloggers Challenge ~ Graduation Card

TGIF!!! I swear that this set is going to retire.. How do I know? Well, it's been on my shelf for two years, and I just mounted it to make this card for bloggers challenge! I know that these colors are going to retire and I'm a bit sad about it.

I'll be stocking up to get a few more packs of these colors that I just cant live without. Seeing the incolors go is sort of a graduation of sorts, but we have to say goodbye every year. Et tu.. LOL I really am sad and love my pacific blue, and pink pirouette... oh i love all the in colors of 2008.

I had a blast making this one. I had a little buckling going on under my ribbon tie. I saw another blogger girl, Tiffany, do this with the hardware and wanted to try it myself. All in all, I had a great time making this and now need to send one of the belated graduation cards that i've been meaning to send out! Please check out what the Bloggers Challenge Designers are up to. I can't wait to see what they have come up with!

Window Sheets are the rage!

I had so much fun playing with my new stampin up window sheets that I didn't just make one! I made 4 and I have some supplies leftover, and plan on making more!

What are window sheets? Window sheets can come plain, or be pre-printed with designs that are ready to go.

What can you do with them? For these cards, I used the preprinted ones, but I also stamped right on them with white stazon, used rubons on them and more! Here are my 4 creations and a short video from stampin up to help you get creating with window sheets. Enjoy!


















































Our window sheets bring a whole new look to your creations. Use them on scrapbook pages, embellish them with Rub-Ons that you use as overlays, or layer them on card stock. Create shapes with the Big Shot die-cut machine, sponge the edges with Craft ink to color, or make see-through boxes. There are countless options! They come in two different thicknesses, as well as a printed option. Window sheets provide a lot of options, and Shannon West is only too happy to share those options with you in this video.

Mojo Monday ~ On Thursday

I actually made this mojo Monday card on Tuesday this week. With long weekend camping trips it seems to throw me off for the entire week. Anyway, here's another mojolicious sketch to play along with.

If you like sketch challenges, check back here on Saturday morning. A few friends and I are starting a new blog that will feature a sketch on the weekend and will go back to the basics for a stamping how to of sorts. Our first post is, "how to read a ruler" and moves forward from there. There are so many new stampers that get their bag and are frustrated with the "how to cut the paper" challenge, and we are encouraging these folks to play along by providing measurements. I'm very excited.

Anyway, what a fun sketch this one is. I started by sponging a bit of baja ink on the fabric flower from the pretties kit. I also used the same ink to sponge around my card front (second layer) and to stamp my butterfly and sentiment. I cut the butterfly out leaving a bit of white and used snail to attach the flower to the two panels. Then i used a dimensional to attach the butterfly, and a glue dot to put the half bead pearl on there. This was a quick and simple card with a gorgeous layout! Awesome and mojolicious!

The Sizzix Big Shot.

The Sizzix Big Shot for Stampin' Up! product line is a big deal! With the Big Shot you can cut over 50 different material types and duplicate creative and intricate designs quickly and easily. We've designed exclusive dies that coordinate with current Stampin' Up! product lines--such as our stamps and punches--as well as Sizzix dies that coordinate with the Stampin' Up! look and feel. Our product line will continue to expand, so check back to see what exciting new things are on the way.


If you have any questions, please just send me an email at e.selene@verizon.net.

DCBD 129 ~ A sketch challenge

I had a bit of trouble with this sketch. I'm not sure why, it's pretty cute. I flipped the sketch and broke out some of my rubons from the mini. I like the way this one turned out, it's simple and cute. Have a great Wednesday!

Also, please check out what the other diva's are doing on the diva coffee break blog.

Meet Shelli!

There's only a few days left to get your scrapbooker starter kit for only $75! View a great video about Shelli Gardner and her vision for stampin up now, and moving forward.

Would you like to be part of a wonderful team? My team members enjoy monthly team meetings, and support. Click here to go to my website and then click "join now". My authorization password is camping.

Cracked Glass

This was a card I did with my technique junkies group. The center image features the technique called cracked glass.

I also used the colors from the Late Night stampers group.. I'm up camping this weekend so although I'll be posting pictures... I'm camping! Hope you enjoy this one.

Bloggers Challenge ~ Patriotic

Good Morning Stampers! I'm so excited it's Finally Friday! Today we take off for the mountains for 3 days!! Woo Hoo! Today's bloggers challenge was to do a patriotic card. I have events at my house for the troops (one coming up in june) and yet, when I looked on my stamping shelf, I couldn't really find a patriotic stamp.,.. So ~ of course ~ I improvised!

This memorial day, please remember those who risk their lives everyday, so that we can live with some peace and tranquility here at home. Let's not forget all of those who lost their lives to protect all of us. God bless all the military people and their families that have to stay on the home front with kids and not much support while their spouses are away.

First I pulled out my red, white, and blue cardstock and my stampin pastels. I used the chalk lines technique for my background. Super fun and simple, just take a sponge dauber and smoosh some chalk into your cardstock. When the surface of your paper is covered, just take the white eraser that comes with your pastels and a papercutter, and erase some lines. I like to use the papercutter measurement lines to make my lines uniform.

Next, I took some scrap paper, and covered the paper with versamark and irridecent ice embossing powder. After heating I punched out three sparkly stars. I punched out 3 matte stars for behind. For the middle one, I pulled up on the red matte, for the one on the right, I pulled the matte right, and for the left i pulled left.. So the stars almost look like they are shooting up from the center.

Finally, I chose the wish big sentiment. This card could be birthday, graduation, sent to a service man or woman. I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. Please check out what my girlfriends are doing for this challenge here. They are all super talented and worth checking out. Please leave them a comment so that they know that you've been there!

A New Baby Card

Another color challenge. My friends over at the late night stampers yahoo group issue weekly challenges to make creations and this week it was a color challenge. I purchased this new set from the mini catalog, with the intention of making up some new baby cards. The addition of the third pair of boots under the bench.. So adorable.

The color challenge was to use Kraft, Chocolate Chip, Ruby Red and Old Olive. I added a bit of blue to the boots only, to signify a baby boy. Simple yet adorable, I added some crystal effects to the boots to make them look like shiny rubber. I hope you're having a Wonderful Wednesday and I hope you have time to stamp something fun today!

Selene Kempton~

DCBD Color Challenge ~ You're absolutely fabulous

I was feeling completely challenged today by this color set. When I say the regal rose and Riding Hood Red, but that's the whole part of a color challenge. Using ALL the colors without skipping any...

So ~ I was thinking about the beautiful sunny day and strawberry picking coming up and that was the inspiration for this card.

I inked my strawberry up with certainly celery, and regal rose and added riding hood red, and artichoke for accents.

Next, I went to my designer series paper. More specifically, I started looking through my textured cardstock DSP. I really like that you can make a card base out of dsp. For the inside and for all the white layers on this card I used shimmer white. I love stamping on shimmer, especially when blending colors and watercoloring because it holds up really well with water and the ever so slight shimmer makes every card so pretty. I used my cropadile to make the holes in the scallop because the layer seemed very green... :) Either that, or I was thinking a white gel pen with some dot's going around would have been nice... What do you think? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this or any of my creations.

Also, please check out what the other diva's are doing on the diva coffee break blog. They never cease to amaze me with their creations!

Two Great Challenges ~ One Fun Fathers Day Card.

My husband Brian is very much into honey. One of his best buds at work actually makes his own honey and has my husband fascinated to the point that he's thinking of getting a hive for us. I'm not so crazy about getting a bee hive, unless it's somewhere where I won't have to see it. :) Nice supporting him, ey??

Anyway, when I saw the color challenge from Kristina Werner and the Mojo Monday sketch challenge, I instantly saw a way for me to use my just buzzing by set to make him a Father's Day Card and have fun with both challenges. The inside of the card reads "have a wicked cool Dad's Day" ~ totally stolen from Adam Sandler, but what can you do?

So more about the card... Did you know that if you mix a sage shadow watercolor crayon with a bashful blue (using a blender pen), you get baja? Totally fun! I had a really good time using inspiration from two of my favorite challenge sites. I started the challenge by pulling out all the colors in Kristina's challenge. I thought that they reminded me of something I could use with a beehive. It just so happens that it coordinated perfectly to match it up to the mojo sketch.

Challenges are a wonderful way to get the creative juices flowing. Besides, it gave me a chance to take a break from cleaning. I'm redecorating my stamp room (again), and it's a bit of a mess right now.

If you have a chance, try one or both of these challenges.

I hope you have time to stamp something fun today!
Selene~

Welcome to the May 15th & 16th Blog Tour ~ Tour #5, Stop #20

Thanks for taking the time to visit my blog, I hope you will leave a comment so I know who was here and be sure to subscribe to my blog updates. You can do that to the right --->

Welcome to my blog!! My name is Selene Kempton and I'm so excited about the blog tour today and to share this fun project with you! I decided to share another box today. This time, it's a box to house 7 cards for a girlfriend. I started with my basic box (listed about a week ago on my blog with directions), and changed the dimensions a bit to create this card holder.

I started with the box itself and quickly scored it at 3" and 9" and flipped it and scored it again at 5" and 8" a few cuts and adjustments and I had a quick box. I layered some designer series paper on the front of the box and labeled it "cards", but it still needed a little something. I had a leftover birdy from a package of chipboard. I grabbed a sponge dauber and my tempting turquoise craft pad. I added ink to the front of the chicky, then heat set it with my embossing gun.

I let that cool off, and then I took the smallest flower from my featured stamp set ~ Garden Greetings ~ and inked it up in versamark. I stamped my flower right on the birdy. Next, I took some iridescent ice embossing powder and poured it on top.

Quick tip: whenever you're embossing something, in addition to using an embossing buddy, it's good to have a paintbrush near by. I used my paintbrush to clean up my birdy **before** I heated the embossing powder to melt it on. The word "cards" on the front of the box was also stamped in tempting turquoise craft ink, and is pretty sparkly in real life from the iridescent ice EP.

I knew this project was going to take me a bit, because I wanted to fill my box with a bunch of cards, so next I took an 8 1/2" x 11" piece of very vanilla paper, and made my own background paper. I simply stamped the entire piece of paper with the flowers. It's important to start with the largest flower first. I picked the lightest color for that one, and then I went to the medium image and so on. If you start with the smallest flower first, you may not have enough room for the bigger images. :)

On to my main card element. For many of the cards, I decided to use Kelly Purkey's paperpin technique. You use mod podge to stick 3 layers of paper together, stamp on them, then paint each layer with crystal effects to seal it. The way I learned this technique, I was "supposed" to use stazon and here's why... The regular classic inks are water based and crystal effects is water soluble, so if you don't do it properly, your ink could run and you could end up with a mess! The trick is to paint a thin layer of crystal effects on your stamped image with a paint brush and let it dry, before using a big thick layer on top. This helps seal your image and makes it so your water based ink doesn't move! Shown here is the layered image on my cardfront. I used dimensionals to attach my pin, but in reality, if I were making this into a pin you could wear on your jacket, you just need one of those pin backs and you can use crystal effects to adhere it to the back of your pin. If you are going to do that, make sure you seal the entire paper (including the back) with crystal effects so that water wont be able to get to it. Once the crystal effects is completely dry, a little rain water shouldn't bother it.

Next, I want to highlight another cool product I used while creating this set of cards. I just love the flower brads with this stamp set. The brad, fits perfectly with the smallest flower image and for all three flower images in this set! I couldn't leave the brads plain! I mixed a little crystal effects with some dazzling diamonds and WOO HOO!!! It's sparkly!!

Now that I have shared with you some of my favorite highlights of this card set, I'll tell you the cards went together so very quickly. I used very generic and simple layouts and added the fancy flowers to many of the cards as the "wow" element. I really had fun with this set!

Finally, I'd like to share a small image of each of the 7 cards in the set. If you're looking to see it in a larger photo, just click on the thumbnails below. Please note, some of the cards are still wet! I really laid the crystal effects on thick. That will just protect those gorgeous pin embellishments. (you can see other projects made with this technique a little further down on my blog). I think these are wonderful, quick, cards that are easy to reproduce. I had an extra piece of stamped cardstock that I didn't use in this set. I'll be posting a page in the next day or two, I hope you come back and visit soon.

I hope you enjoy all the other bloggers. There is some beautiful work out there! And I hope you have time to stamp something FUN today!

Thanks for stopping by! Don't forget to book mark my site because the links will disappear at midnight on May 16th. Also, please leave me a comment to let me know how you liked my blog! If you want my updates right in your inbox when I post, go to the top right hand side of my blog and enter your email address. Thanks again!

DCBD 127 ~ How cool are those brads??

This week's diva coffee break design challenge is a sketch. I'm exhausted tonight, but I knew if I didn't take a few minutes to do this that I'd be late, and I hate being late!

So ~ I pulled out one of the sets that has become a staple in my stamping arsenal. I received this stamp set for free this year at the stampin up sponsored ~ managers reception. When I got the set, I remember thinking to myself, "I'll never use this" but after playing with this set just once, I realized how versitile and beautiful it is.. All I can say is, I was PSYCHED when I decided this card needed a little something and realized how well our flower brads coordinate with this set! I felt truly challenged by this sketch, but overall I'm happy with my creation.

Want to play along? Make a card with this sketch idea, then submit it over at the diva's site! I check the players every week, so I'll be interested to see what all of you come up with.

Scrapfest is back! ... and we're working with chipboard.

What can you do with chipboard? You can cover it with paper, sand it, punch it, put bling on it. You can color it with "craft" ink, heat it, sponge it, and so much more! With six AWESOME pages to be completed in 3 hours and all you need to bring is some adhesive! Class space is limited to 8 per session. Classes will be held friday June 5th at 6:30 and Saturday morning at 9 am. Click here to download the registration form.

Mojo Monday ~ Happy Birthday!

When I saw the sketch over at the Mojo Monday blog this morning, I knew I wanted to use this set to make a card... and maybe a scrapbook page. I only have a few hours while my daughter is in preschool, so I just did a card for now.

I had fun playing, this card has a ton of dimension with cut out images, crystal effects, glitter, rubons AND beads. I used Stazon ink to stamp my images and then used a watercolor crayon right on the image. I blended the color out with a blender pen. I cut the images out carefully, then followed the sketch!

This was a fun card to make. :)

I could see making a few more of these! Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a terrific week!

Selene Kempton~

Happy Mother's day!

I don't have much time to talk today, because I'll be busy relaxing! My good friend Lisa had a baby this week! Isn't that fun! I pulled this card off my shelf for her.I really like this layout so I sat down with my daughter and we made this card for her grandmother. Memere is always taking care of us all and I think it's important to celebrate every mom, mom to be and grandmother on this day!

If you're a mom, take some time to sit and relax today.. If you're not take some time to let someone know (who is a mom) how special you think they are. :)

Happy Mothers Day!
Selene~

Bloggers Challenge ~ Mothers Day Project

I was bouncing around on line this week and ran across Kelli Purkey's pin technique on Amy Celona's blog. I decided I wanted to try this awesome technique. My pin is pinned to my card and ready to remove.

The card was made for a single mom, girlfriend. I don't know how she does it and I'm inspired by her. When a divorce gets ugly, there's not much you can do. However, she rises above all the pettiness and puts her kids first. She puts her own issues aside and doesn't let the kids see the real deal. That is strength. I thought she deserved a card, that took me all day. :) this one did between layers, but I had a blast.

Happy Mothers Day!

Selene~

DCBD 126 ~ Make a project using the big shot ~ how to make a basic box

When I saw what the challenge was this week, I was really excited. I got a new die in the mail because my good friend ((and BFF)) got it, and when I saw what she made with it ~ of course I had to have it! Although, I saw something more!!! I decided to use these colors because I have been playing with the flock together paper all week. I used it for my team meeting swaps, to get my birthday cards in the mail for May, a sympathy card, and now I was thinking that I'm going to need something to wrap my gift for mom with! I am really surprised how far one pack of designer paper goes. Now I'm addicted to these colors!

Have you ever purchased a gift, bring it home, get ready to wrap it and all you have is Christmas paper?? I started making boxes to wrap my gifts about a year ago when I was late on buying wrapping paper for my nephew's birthday.. anyway I'm rambling... To make a basic box, you take a piece of paper and score it equally on 4 sides. So in this case I lined my paper up to the 3" mark and scored it 4 times.

What's AS important as making a box bottom??... Making the top! I want my box top to slide easily over the bottom, so if i'm using the same size paper, the sides need to be a touch shorter and the inside measurement of the box needs to be bigger. So ~ my measurement needs to be shorter on the 4 sides, does that make sense?? So, I scored my next piece of 12 x 12 at 2 15/16" of an inch.. or one line on the paper cutter towards the 2". :)

Next, I cut 2 inches off each side of the box top, making the cover a little less than 1" tall. This makes it much easier to put the box cover on and take it off. Then you have a piece of cardstock that is scored like this picture. I then cut in 4 places (on the red). If you bend the cardstock back and forth for the rest of your box, then add some tombo multipurpose adhesive (or sticky strip) you can stick your box and box top together at this point without much trouble.

I like the tombo glue, but you really have to be careful not to use too much. It can get very messy, very fast!

Here comes the FUN part! I took my new daisy die and cut some of the flock togehter DSP with it. I cut some leaves out of garden green cardstock and layered it across my box base with the tombo adhesive. Then I just alternated colors when it came to building my daisy. I thought about adding some color to the tips of the flower with a sponge, but when I laid it down, I thought the cut cardstock looked so crisp and clean it didnt need it. It did, however, need to "say" something. I took another die that had a bunch of words and cut the word love. It looked a bit distorted, because it's meant to be shown with other words, but I thought it looked almost custom because it frames the flower on the top of the box.

I had a blast making this and hope you'll try making a box and then use some funky embellishments and show me a picture! Check out what some of my girlfriends are doing over at the Diva's Coffee Break Blog and add your submission to Mr. Linky! I can't wait to see what you come up with!