Inspire Me

New Release Announcement!!!!!!!!

I am so excited! This is the first time I get to share the exciting news about a new release. Tamp-a-Tiles has just released their new ATC card tiles. (have to learn how to insert a jumping for joy avatar) The website is so close to being ready that I'm going to share it with you tonight. Terry's new and fantastic web site is- Drum roll please- www.tiles4art.com. And here is my first ATC Tamp-a-tile card, just in time for Easter

This is ATC sized at 2.5 x 3.5".

I first stamped the background with an outlines background stamp in Khaki chalk ink. I then placed the ATC tile over it used my Pebbles Chalks to color it in. With a pale yellow in the corners working into a light green and an orange in the center. My Thumper stamp is from All Night Media, the Disney collection. Don't you just love Thumper?! He's always so bright and cheery. I colored him with my copic markers in C3, Cool Gray / B02, Robins egg blue, RV04, Shock Pink / RV23, Pure Pink / R29, Lipstick Red. I then went over the colored areas with my Spica markers to give Thumper some sparkle. I wish I could get his glimmer to show better for you. His white fur is accented with White Liquid Applique. Happy easter from I Brake for Stamps + Eggs & flower from Buttons galore. The nice thing about my Copic markers is that I can change the colors of just about anything to match my project. In this case I changed the center color of the eggs to orange & green to match my ATC card. In the past I've made several ATC cards, they are just so much fun to make. Just because the canvas is smaller in size doesn't take away from it's potential to be creative.

Terry currently has several ATC tiles available and she should have them all on-line by March 15th. However if you can't wait just contact myself or Terry directly and tell her, "I CAN'T WAIT ANY LONGER!" I just know that she'll let you in on this exciting news and get you what you want.

Tamp-a-Tile chalked Butterfly

My goal the past month has been to show you and maybe even entice you to seeing what an asset these tiles are to the mediums you already have in your studios. Like your stamps, papers, chalks, Twinkling H2O's, acrylic paints, Pigments, Glitters, Stickles, colored pencils and so much more. They are simply a new, innovative way to create colorful backgrounds or shapes. Each tile is a tool that makes masking easy! You can use the tiles as a template, as a die for creating shapes, or to create unique frames.

For today's example I used the butterfly tile.

There are 8 sections to this tile. The inside frame measures 3.5" x 4.5" and the outside frame measures 4.5" x 6".

To achieve this finished card I:

1. Stamped my background before I even placed the tile on my paper. Using yellow cardstock from Kaiser I stamped the background with my French Quarter set - # 50386 - from Inque Boutique. I randomly stamped my paper with these stamps and Bottle ink from Adirondack.
2. I then placed my butterfly tile over my stamped background and removing one section at a time I used chalk from Pebbles to bring out the design. I trimmed my image to 3 3/4" x 4 7/8" (I know I need to get better with standard measurements - sorry).
3. To further enhance the butterfly I outlined the outer edges with yellow stickles and the inner sections with my Copic super brush Multi-liner.
4. I matted my finished piece onto a 4 11/16" x 3 5/8" piece of the same yellow that I had started with.
5. To create a ribbon effect I stamped a 1/2" x 5 1/2" strip of green metallic with a border strip from the same stamp set. I adhered the strip to the upper portion of the card, then added the matted butterfly.
6. The rest is pretty simple, a few eyelets, 2 acrylic flower buttons & my saying adhered to a 1/4" strip of the green metallic.

This card could have been finished so many different ways and have been for so many occasions. Such as a birthday, hello friend, etc.

I have a few more projects to show you with the tiles and an exciting announcement to make and I just checked with Terry and her website is almost ready! The finishing touches are being put on as we speak, so stay tuned!

Tamp-a-Tile Bullseye Guest Designer

Lots of times I like to have friends over to play. So I decided to highlight some of their work - so you could see how different we all create. This day, my friend Ginger also played with the Tamp-a-Tiles and immediately fell in love with them! She chose to use the Bullseye template and created this awesome card:

She started by using a card I had posted a while back and this was her final result. I just love it! It's so awesome how no two cards come out alike when you are using the Tamp-a-Tile system. She airbrushed the four corners with a three color combination of Copic markers. She Airbrushed the inside circle in a light purple and the center with another shade of purple. She outlined the center circle with a yellow Copic super brush multi-liner. Ginger then stamped the flower images with Firecracker designs Scatter Joy set. The medium flower for the center and the large 4 1/2" flower for the outer circle. She then used three colors of Stickles, magenta, fruit punch & Turquoise. The border was created using the Corner Tag punch from Tonic and the Tonic Border punch system. She added rhinestones for that all important "Bling" and her card is ready for many different occasions.

Let me show you a small comparison of the two cards:

Ginger's Card on the left and the sample on the right. Isn't it cool how each one used the same tools and yet each has it's own flair.

Thanks Ginger for letting me share your awesome work!

Tamp-a-Tiles featured artist

I'm still not done showing you all the wonderful things you can do with Tamp-a-Tiles. I've featured the hearts, bullseye & goddess. Today I want to show you another artists take on how she uses the tiles. Ann Clack has given me permission to share these two projects with you and I encourage you to go and visit her gallery at Split Coast. I promise that you won't be disappointed, it's fantastic!!

Here is her first card using the oval tile: Isn't this just adorable?! She sponged in the inks to create her background.

She added swirls by stamping them onto the background, four eyelets and then created another oval which she stamped her focal image on and turned the oval to make it "pop". I just love how she did this. Thank you Ann!

Ann's next card she used the hearts and when I saw this card my mouth just dropped open! Yeah try not to picture that :) Her version is just so soft, touching, romantic - well see for yourself:

Again so beautiful! So don't just take my word on how cool these are, look at what Ann did with hers!

So thanks Ann for sharing with us. If anyone else has played with these please share with us, it's so great to see how different and exciting other artists styles are. And yes, we are all artists so that means you too!

Okay I just got in new tiles, so hopefully you will be seeing one of those designs tomorrow. And I have some very exciting news - I can't totally share all of it but I can give you a hint. If you like working on smaller cards you'll love the upcoming release. Oops hope I haven't spilled the beans :D

Tamp-a-Tile, Goddess with chin hairs

So the other day I made a very glitzy and artsy goddess. Today's Goddess is still a goddess in her own right she's just a little more worldly. (Said with a huge grin on my face)

Okay, let's start with the background which I used the Goddess Tamp-a-Tile to create. I chose to use my watercolor pencils which had to be dusted off. On watercolor paper, I colored each section leaving the goddess portion uncolored. I then used my Stampin Up blender pen to soften and blend the lines a little more. I tore around the background and colored it with my black watercolor pencil and again smudged it with the blender pen. Then to add a little more dimension to my back ground I randomly airbrushed with my Copic marker # RV42 Salmon Pink. (Now I will point out one flaw and that is the purple mark on the left. A chalk ink pad fell onto my work and left that mark. I wasn't sure what to do with it and couldn't find any embellishment to place over it so for now it remains visible but hopefully not distracting) I then mounted my background onto a piece of purple passion leopard cardstock by the Scrapbook Diva, Danielle, herself. I have every color of leopard paper she makes and it is fantastic! It comes in cardstock weight and text weight. Plus she has lots of other cool things on her website.

I then stamped my "chin hair" goddess (I'm going to call her Fern - After a dear friends' mother who would say something like this and still wears leopard print pants (You just gotta love her!) from I brake for stamps on to a piece of stampers select cardstock from papertrey. Here is what comes with the set from I brake for stamps. These stamps from Della at I Brake are amazing quality. They are deeply etched for perfect & clear stamping every time. I know this set is going to bring hours of fun! Next I colored fern with my Copics. I used the following colors:

RV11-Pink, RV23-pure Pink, RV42-Salmon Pink, E000-pale fruit pink, E33-Sand, E71-Champagne, Y21 Buttercup Yellow, Y28 Lionet Gold, R29 Lipstick Red, B60 Pale Blue Grey and 0 Colorless blender. I then cut Fern out and added a little bling with my stickles. A red dot on the purse and feet, fruit punch on the lines of her pants, and yellow in her hair. After she was dry I adhered her to the center of my background (Where normally the goddess image would go) using the thinest foam mount I had.

The saying was stamped on lavender cardstock with Concord distress ink from Ranger and outlined in Lavender stickles. That is also popped using regular pop foam squares.

Well I hope you enjoyed "Fern" and I will be introducing you to her other friends shortly. Can you tell that I am just having way to much fun with these Tamp-a-Tiles? I can't wait until her website goes up, still having some server issues but Terry is working on them daily.

By the way be sure to go on over to I Brake for stamps as she is having an awesome sale. While you are there be sure to sign up for her e-mail list and you will always find out when her specials are running.

Take care.

Tamp-a-Tile Goddess - Alter me beautiful

Every once in a while I have to divert from the norms and just go a little wild. I'm that way even in my own life. So sticking with my Tamp-a-Tile designs and my promise for the Goddess I just went wild..........

The Zebra background is actually my design space. It's all done in zebra and leopard prints. I'm all about the animal prints, bling - lots and lots of bling, sparkle, jewels, feathers and yes even fur. (But for fur only vintage since it was fashionable back then. I can't really bring myself to think about the new furs and how they come about) So when I started to play with this tile the goddess in me took over. Let me start by showing you what the goddess tile actually looks like out of the package.

There are 8 pieces to this tile and the inner frame measurements are 3.5" x 4.5" - while the outer frame measures 4.5 x 6 - Just to give you an idea for size. Anyhow as I said she just sort of evolved. I placed the tiles onto a sheet of black bazzill bling and painted a layer of gold specialty glaze from Making memories onto the bling. I knew I wanted something sassy and that I was then going to use my stickles. So not knowing how transparent some of the stickles might be I still wanted some gold shine to show through. I then traced each piece of the tile (One tile at a time - lifting it out, tracing and placing it back). I did choose the stickles colors for a reason. Being that this is a goddess I wanted to represent everything that surrounds her, the yellow is for the bright uplifting sun, the red for her capacity to love and care in her heart, the aqua for the refreshing and soothing waters, and the patina which represents the earth that helps to keep her grounded. I had to do it in sections allowing dry time in-between. I also cut out the goddess using tile #5 as my pattern and covered her in gold stickles. Gold since it is a precious metal - like us. I beaded her little belt and gave her a crown since every women should be treated like and feel like a queen. (Which by the way is the nickname my friends have given me since they say my DH spoils me) She is the adhered with two layers of pop dots to be higher than everything else. Basically she keeps her grace and beauty and always rises above.

I then decided to cut apart my stickled tiles into sections. The only one that I adapted is tile #4, since I had made that part of the sun and earth. Then working it like a mosaic I adhered it to a piece of black kromkote. The kromkote was then edged with a Krylon gold leafing pen. I then added a three inch strip of feathers from Zucker. The feathers represent all that is beautiful in nature as they just sort of flow and bend to the trials of the day but always bounce back to their original beauty. (This strip came all put together with beads and all. I loved it when I saw it and it's been in my office for months just waiting for this.)

The tag is actually a large tag from Bazzill that I covered with a sheet of Pearlescent Swirl in Pink by WorldWin. I adhered a strip of beads from Conso (available at your local fabric store) to each side of my tag to represent the jewels (family & friends) in her life. The stamped and embossed swirls are from Inque Boutique's French Quarter set. The swirls representing her flowing grace and how she blooms out at any point.

Finally the key is to go with the saying. The saying "Make the most of YOURSELF for that is all there is of you" So it means the key to your inner goddess is to make the most of YOURSELF for that is all there is of you. As always a few more blings are added and the gold wired metallic sparkle ribbon at the top represents the phases of her life and how they all blend together to make her who she is.

Here is a close up of my goddess without my zebra wall:

Thanks for letting me stray and having some fun. We are all Goddesses in our own ways. I would love to hear from you what makes you a goddess.

And I would like to challenge all of you to create your own goddess tag and share it on your blogs or favorite web site. If you'd like to link it back to this blog I would appreciate that. But have fun and think about what makes you a goddess in your own world.

So "BLING" on ladies!

Tamp-a-tile Birthday Bullseye

Still using my Tamp-A-Tile Bullseye, indulge me for one last time then I'm moving onto the Goddess tile. That tile must have been made just for me, ha ha.

Using the bullseye tile again I created a flowered birthday card by:

1. Taking out the four corners of the tile and airbrushing a pink, purple and yellow Copic marker colors, using the brush end of the marker to create a splatter effect. Place the corners of the tile back into place.
2. Remove the larger circle and airbrush Copic marker VO5-marigold. Put tile back into place.
3. Remove center circle and airbrush the same color. This time I left some definition around each circle and added a line of color to the inside of the large circle using Copics Super Brush Multiliner in yellow.
4. For my flowers I used the Scatter Joy stamp set from Firecracker Designs by Pamela Clark. It's an amazing set with the largest flower measuring 4" across. Now that's a flower! (just a sidebar note: if you haven't checked out pamela's stamps be sure to do so right away. She has great sets and you'll be seeing a lot more of her stamps in my projects since I love  them) I stamped the inner circle flower in Ranger Distress Concord ink. I place 1 large Rhinestone in the center and surrounded it with 8 smaller rhinestones. They were originally a pale lavender and just didn't stand out. So Copic to the rescue again, I used my VO9-Violet and re-colored them.
5. After stamping the large flower on the outer rim I then added some Bling. I traced the petals with stickles in yellow and purple.
6. I matted my flower on pink Kaiser cardstock and then on a blue 6 x 6 card. Since I felt that I had too much empty space on the front of my card I decided to trim the front of the card to match the size of my pink mat. That left room to stamp Happy Birthday on the bottom and emboss it in yellow. So even though the card opens up the sentiment stays in plain view. So the inside can be used to hold a gift card.
7. To finish the card two re-colored rhinestones were added to the embossed flowers.

I hope you have enjoyed the bullseye series and that it gave you lots of ideas. I would love it if you would share some of your Tamp-a-tile ideas with me also.

At this point Terry, Tamp-a-Tiles owner is almost ready to reveal her new website. So until then if you are interested in purchasing any of the 32 tiles, please contact me.

Have a great day!

Tamp-a-Tile Bullseye baby snuggle

Back again with another tamp-a-tile Bullseye project. By the way in case you were wondering I am not working for Terry (Owner of Tamp-a-tiles) I just love her product and she is a small company so I always love working with small companies. Small companies are what started this whole industry.

I do want to take a moment and share some comments with you. It seems that most of you enjoy the tutorial parts of the blog along with product reviews. So my goal is to make each posting a little of both. By focusing on one main product per month (this month is Tamp-a-Tile) you will get not only tutorial info but well tested product review. Please feel free to comment on any part of these posts. It only helps to make them a useful tool for all of you.

Here is probably my most favorite card yet with these tiles.

Lots of fun things going on with this card so I think I'll try to explain it in steps.

1. To create the yellow card I used Stardream Gold metallic paper from CutCardstock. I cut it to a 6 x 6 finished card size and stamp my background around the edges. My background stamp is no more than a 1 x 1 stamp that I must have picked up somewhere along the way. So use whatever background stamps you may have. I used Khaki VersaColor pigment ink.
2. I then stamped another background with the same stamp and ink on white stampers select cardstock from Papertrey. This time I did the whole background.
3. I then placed my bullseye tile on the stamped background and used Pebbles Pearlescent Chalking sets in Shimmers and Jewel Tones. I've never been big on chalk but these are awesome to use, they don't rub off and give such great results. I highly recommend them. For the center circle I first used the pale white shimmer and then went back over it with one of the pale pinks. This gave me a peach colored feel.
4. Next I removed the second circle. (Place the center circle tile back onto your project) I used a pale blue for this. Which when it rubbed over the Khaki background made the background places a little darker. It was a nice enhancement. Place that circle back in place.
5. For the four outer edges I removed the entire tile and rubbed with a yellow shimmer. Being sure to rub it into the blue circle for a seamless blend.  While the tiles are removed go back and blend the center circle into the larger circle either by rubbing with a cotton ball or by picking up more color onto a cotton ball and rubbing the edges.
6. I also took one of the blue shimmers and rubbed my outer edges. That's all there was to creating my background.

Now for the stamps. The Bear on the moon is by Inkadinkadoo and I stamped with Versamark and embossed with Ranger fine detail black. Next I colored with my Copic markers using these colors; Y11-Pale Yellow, Y04-Acacia, B52-Soft Greenish Blue, B91-Pale Grayish Blue, B99-Agate, YG45-cobalt Green, YR24-Pale Sepia, YR61-Yellowish Skin Pink. I then cut the bottom portion of the blanket off and pressed each piece into Versamark. I covered them with clear embossing powder. I wanted them to have a shine like a true crescent moon. I popped the moon on thin foam mount and the blanket portion on thicker foam mount. Hoping to make it look more fluffy. And adhered the pieces to the center circle of my mat.

I used a vellum sticker tag from Stickopotamus and stuck it to a piece of my stampers select white cardstock. I stamped my snuggle saying from Sugarloaf in Ranger Distress Mustard Seed ink. Again I covered with clear embossing powder. I then rubbed the entire tag with blue shimmer chalk, and tied a ribbon to it.

I added a small baby safety pin to the tag. Here's where Copic Markers are so cool. That pin was a very pale yellow and it didn't really show. So I colored it with my blue copic marker and it turned a pale shade of green - Just perfect. The same goes for the button - it was blue and bright white checkerboard. So I cored over it with my pale yellow Copic marker and it now blends perfectly. Added a small ribbon through the holes and tied.

To put it all together I matted my card front on a dark blue cardstock and then to my 6 x 6 stamped card.

These tiles are just too much fun!

Tamp-a-Tile Bullseye for Love

Well might I say what fun it was to have blog candy last week! I'll be doing a lot more of that coming up. In the meantime I have been playing with my Tamp-a-Tiles more. This time I went with the bullseye tile and the possibilities are endless. Here is my Love card:

I wanted some very muted colors that I thought would blend well together so for this card I used my Cat eye chalk inks and my Brilliance ink. The center circle is done with Wisteria and applied using my Pebbles Pom Poms and holder. For those of you that aren't familiar with this tool when you depress the plunger at the top three prongs come out to grab the disposable pom poms. It's great for paints, chalks, inks, glue, basically anything you can thing of that needs to be applied to your projectnd is the In My Heart collection (D1245). What a set!  I used the center heart for the center of my card - after which I traced the image with Red Stickles for some added "Bling", the arrow through the heart for the upper two corners, the corner stamp for my corners, the I love you and the small single heart to stamp randomly around the large circle. This is a beautiful set even for Anniversary's, Weddings, basically anything to do with Love. Everything was stamped with Cranberry ink from Color Box. I mounted my finished card front onto Curious Iridescent Cryogen White paper from CutCardstock. Then matted that onto my card made from Black Kromkote. Finished size is 5-1/2" x 5-1/2". I added a small piece of red satin 1/4" ribbon and four clear rhinestones and that finished the card. I have to tell you that this card with the tiles worked up so quickly.

Okay back to the project........I applied the Wisteria chalk ink in the center and also all around the outer ring. Along the outer ring I also smudged in some Cranberry ColorBox pigment ink. For the center ring I applied Brilliance Pearlescent Purple. Let me just tell you that this ink moved like soft butter. It was amazing! Plus it gives that part of my card a soft sheen. Because the Brilliance ink is a pigment ink I then removed all of my tile section and using my finger I just rubbed the inner edge of the circle to blend it into the center circle and did the same with the outer. Fingers are still the best tools sometimes. This awesome stamp set is from Close to my Heart a

Tomorrow I'll share a card with you that I'm putting the finishing touches on now, still using the bullseye I went with a different theme and completely different stamps. So stay tuned!

For all of you New Englanders that woke up to somewhat of a mess this morning I hope that you took a moment to drink in the beauty of frozen ice dripping from the trees and a fresh smooth coat of snow in your yards. After being inspired by that beauty, you probably did just like my DH. *#@%! Snowblowers don't work on this stuff and you barely can move it by hand. But it was beautiful :)

Enjoy your day and share with me what inspired you this morning?

Blog Candy & More Tamp-a-Tiles

Hello everyone, I am so excited that my Blog has reached 10,000 views. That just blows my mind! So how about a little celebration with some blog candy featuring one of my newest and favorite products? Just answer a few simple questions and then on Thursday through the random number generator we'll have a winner - woo-hoo! Here are the questions:

1. What would you like to see more of on this blog? i.e. more total projects, tutorials, product reviews etc.
2. What is currently your favorite thing to play with -(craft related, please) 

Guess that's about it for questions, not to hard. Here's the blog candy

A new tamp-a-tile, cards, stamps, rhinestones, ribbon and embellishments - Yum-Yum!

I look forward to your answers and good luck!

So onto another tamp-a-tile sample. I stuck with the heart tile since it's the perfect time of year and went to another medium. Dreamweaver paste and Luminarte Polished Pigments. (Forgive the lines in my card, not sure why my scanner did that.) I started with a mauve colored cardstock and stamped images from Rubber Stamp Tapestry's love set. I then doubled matted using Murdock Country Creations Polish Stone paper and edged my mats with a copper leafing pen from Krylon. On to the tile. I started with a piece of cardstock cut to fit and smeared a thin layer of Black matte paste from Dreamweaver over my surface. When that was dry I placed my heart tile over the paste and lifted one section out and applied my  Stamp and Stick glue pad using a small brush to the area. I heat set for @15 seconds and then applied my polished pigments. I did that for each section. What I got was a card that looks like soft sparkling velvet. So rich and smooth. You may ask why did I use the black paste? You could have used any of the matte paste colors from Dreamweaver, it wouldn't matter. As long as you use your stamp and stick glue pad and heat set you can apply any of the polished pigment colors. In retrospect what i should have or could have done was to leave the four corners black for a very dramatic look.

Polish Pigment colors used:

• Autumn Skies
• French lilac
• Pink Grapefruit
• Sunburst
• Jasmine

To recap we have now used our Copic markers & airbrushing system, Glitter, microbeads, inks, paste and polished Pigments using just one tile. The versatility is amazing. Stay tuned in for more samples and a scrapbook page to come!

Don't forget to enter for the blog candy! Have a great Day!