Compendium of Curiosities 3, Challenge 3

Happy Memorial Day! Here is my project showing the faux tea rose technique for Compendium of Curiosities 3, Challenge 3 from Linda Ledbetter. All the products used except for the tag base are from Stampin' Up! The flowers were cut using "Secret Garden" framelits and the butterflies are from the "Beautiful Butterflies" Bigz Die.

Card Swap - Ghosting Technique

Here is this month's swap for the Ghosting Technique. Instead of embossing the background with  clear embossing powder, I took a shortcut and used craft cardstock that was already embossed. After sponging on Stampin' Up! Rhabarberrot ink, I wiped the surface with a clean paper towel to remove the ink from the embossed areas. I then applied two different widths of tape down the length of the card and attached a stamped and punched heart with Stampin' dimensionals.

Ghosting Technique

For those of you that are following my blog, you know that I participate in a monthly technique card swap. This month's technique is called Ghosting and involves embossing with clear embossing powder followed by inking the cardstock and removing the excess ink to create an effect called Ghosting. Pretty cool effect!

Embossing Effects

Here are two tags I created as part of an online class I've been taking.  The focus of Day 5 was Embossing Effects.  The technique shown on the first tag is "Sticky Powder with Glitter". Since I didn't have Sticky Powder I used Stampin' Up's Heat and Stick Powder and then applied glitter. The stamp featured is part of the new Festive Flurry set.  

The second tag is showing the "Chalkboard Technique". For this this tag you must use Frosted Crystal Embossing Powder on black cardstock to create the embossed texture essential for applying the chalk. Yes, plain old school chalk.  I used a retired stamp set and brads from Stampin' Up!.

Witches Broomstick Lollipop Treat Holder

For this month's technique we created Halloween treat holders for Charms lollipops. In lieu of instructions, I'm linking to Beth's blog where she used licorice as the base for her broomstick but you get the idea. If you want your broomstick to stand up like mine you'll need to cut off some of the wrapper at the top of the lollipop and make sure your broom pieces are long enough to stabilize the lollipop once you turn it upside down.

Card Swap - Masking Tape Technique

Happy Wednesday! Here is this month's card swap for the Masking Tape Technique. Rather than try to create a faux background or some type of distressed look, I kept it simple and applied the inked masking tape in stripes. I finished the card with a classic stamp from Stampin' Up!, "Lovely As A Tree."

Masking Tape Technique

This month's technique involves placing a large piece of masking tape onto a stamp pad to create a weathered and distressed look. To create the card below  I applied very light ink layers to the masking tape and continued to apply the tape in different directions to stamp off all the ink. If you want a more bold or distinct look just press the tape harder onto the pad. You could even make distressed stripes. I would definitely recommend using the blue or green masking tape used for painting your house. 

Card Swap - Grid Technique

Here is this month's card swap for the grid technique. Rather than use a scoring board to create the grid lines, I used a texture plate which essentially achieved the same look but saved lots of time. The two-step butterfly stamp is from Stampin' Up?. 

Grid Technique

This month's technique involves using a scoring board to create a grid pattern and a base for stamping images. Although it can be somewhat tedious the results are very nice. Please scroll down for the instructions.

Card Swap - Collage Stamping Technique

Here is my card swap for this month's technique. I used Stampin' Up's core'dinations cardstock with the new alphabet press embossing folder to create the background. The lobster, sea horse and script images are from the "By the Tide" set. You can view the instructions for the technique at this post.

Collage Stamping Technique

This month's technique is really simple but the results are quite wonderful. We used several large background stamps and a coordinating flower stamp on the right hand edge.

Card Swap - Foxy Oxi Technique

Here is this month's card swap for the Foxy Oxi Technique. I have to admit this was not one of my favorites. I tried the technique on three different types of paper with mixed results. Honestly it seemed to be more trouble than it was worth. I would recommend using dark inks, applied very heavily since the Oxi Clean lifts the color off like bleach. I also found that applying a heat gun accelerated the bleaching.

Foxy Oxi Technique

Here is this month's technique from my monthly card swap group. The instructions are printed below and I have also included a link to a video demonstrating the technique of applying oxiclean to ink to get a distressed look. My plan is to experiment with different types of paper to see if I can get a more dramatic effect for my swap.

Bleaching Technique

Here is my swap for this month's technique. I used the "Inspired By Nature" stamp again and added a punched butterfly. I applied bleach to the edges of the card and then outlined the edge with faux stitching. The instructions are listed below.

Tissue Paper Technique

With all the spring flowers starting to bloom I wanted to use this retired stamp set called Spring Garden from Stampin' Up! for my next card swap. I had remembered seeing a video a while back from fellow demonstrator Brandy Cox and thought this technique would work perfectly.  You basically stamp on tissue paper, crumple it up, smooth it out and then glue it down.  Simple.

Technique #9 - Double Slider Card

Hi Everyone! This is the last technique for this year, the double slider card.  The instructions are fairly involved so I'm just going to link directly to them. Click here. Hope you had a great time following along.  I'll be posting my slider card swap before Thanksgiving.

Technique #8 - Glitter Window

This month's technique is perfect for winter or Christmas and all you need is clear packing tape and glitter. As an alternative you could probably use a piece of acetate and crystal effects but the tape works perfectly. I would recommend that you use a piece of scrap paper and press the glitter down firmly onto the tape just to make sure that it's all sticking. The instructions are included below.

Emerging Color Card Swap

The toughest part of this technique is finding just the right stamp.  Ideally you want to use a stamp with a decent amount of surface area but you also want some negative space for the ink to penetrate between the embossed areas.  I choose to use the new Papillon Potpourri butterfly stamp set from Stampin' Up!  Below I included some step-by-step photos to go along with the previous directions.

I started by stamping solid circles onto whisper white cardstock using daffodil delight and calypso coral ink.  Now that I'm looking at it on the screen, I'm thinking that perhaps a patterned paper might also work well for this.

Once I had my background stamped I ran a heat tool over the surface just to make sure the clear embossing powder wouldn't stick to the circles.  I then stamped the butterfly images in versamark and applied clear embossing powder.

Next I used a sponge instead of a brayer to go over the embossed images with island indigo ink.  I chose to use the sponge because I wanted to control the intensity of the ink so it wouldn't totally wash out the color of the circles.

Here is a closer view of the finished product.  The texture on background paper is from the new chevron embossing folder. 

Technique #5 - Emerging Color

This month's technique involved embossing over stamped images with clear embossing powder and then finishing off the card with a brayer and raspberry ripple ink.  The other "In Color" used was summer starfruit.

Technique Class #4 - Black Magic

This month's class featured the Black Magic technique.  The only thing I did differently was to go over the colored pencil with a watercolor brush to smooth out the coloring lines.  The results are pretty dramatic.