Radiant rain on a frozen winter's day

It's ZERO degrees here today with about 4" of fresh powder. A complete frozen tundra out there....so it's time for a little radiant rain in my life - Radiant Rain Daubers that is. Have you played with these? Available from After Midnight Stamps

They come in 2 fl oz bottles, are totally liquid as in watercolor paints, and go on with a very nice shimmer.

Take the lid off and gently tap until color comes onto your non-stick craft sheet:




Put down 3 colors and try not to overlap them - but it's ok if you do!



Put a piece of glossy cardstock glossy side down into the paint:




Turn it 1 time, about 45 degrees to the left of where you started:



Lift up, turn over and blot one time with a flat paper towel. I prefer VIVA paper towels as they are smooth - no pattern, and really absorb all the excess paint with only a single pat.

Here's the look I got first time!



It you have white areas, just swipe that area of the card back into the paint. These make great backgrounds! To finish off this project, I tapped my snowflake stamp into paint I put on the craft sheet then stamped it onto the background. Then I took 2 images and stamped them with black ink and used Crystal Stickles over the black ink. Comes out almost holographic.

You really need to try this technique to see just how much the Radiant Rain shimmers on the background - it's like Twinkling H2Os....just a whole lot faster and easier! For the final step, I went around the edges with the tip of the dauber.

I do hope you're having fun on this cold wintery day!!!

A call for tubes

or "will I ever learn?" LOLOL! Oh me! Why on earth do I throw anything away? Because it's always the day after they pick up the trash that I get my "brilliant" idea!!! I get my metal from Amaco and it comes in clear plastic tubes. Michaels carries it around here:



and yesterday, I threw out 15 of these tubes! I have always stored my twinkling H2o pots in them....and today, I thought, oh! why not store my perfect pearls in them?



and once that cell in my brain kicked in....it was like...oh! I could store my glitter in them, too!!!




But alas, I have used up all my tubes storing my twinkling H2o pots. See how wonderful? They just fit perfectly down into my storage drawers, I pull them out and I can easily see what I have!



Dare I email my good friends Dawn and Elaine at Amaco and ask them for empty tubes? Hmmm.....what else can we put in them? A really good way to market a product...maybe they could just start selling empty tubes? With the tops on these, you can also hang them on pegs on a pegboard wall. I used to do that....until I decided it was just something else to dust!

Got tubes? I need them! LOL!!!

Card making with mom

When I was in San Diego, I took a class with Michael Strong. Melissa was in the class as well and she did the cards the "right" way. If you look here and go to the second card, you will see the way it was supposed to have been done.

But this is what I did:



I bought the stamp....because I liked the possibilities. And today I've put together kits to make cards with mom and her new friends at the retirement center this weekend. The first one came out fine. I am cutting, stamping, inking, embossing everything. All they have to do is watercolor paint a little bit. I'll be using Luminart's twinkling H2Os for these.



And then I decided I'll take my alphabet stamps in the event they want to stamp a little sentiment on top.



Forthe second card, they will watercolor the background in swipes, then press a paper towel (Viva!) on top of the wet paint. Hopefully some of the paint will go into the paper towel.



For the 3rd card, we'll take that paper towel and tear out the color and use it for background and stamp on top of it. I've stamped and embossed on the tag, so all they have to do is finger paint it and then assemble the card. And use a little white pen if they want.



I'll mix the luminart powder with water on craft sheets and we'll have fun fingerpainting and spritzing the watercolor backgrounds. I did all this on watercolor paper. Should be easy and I hope they end up with some fun cards!

Now I'm not a card-maker....and I never pre-cut and kit for classes. But I figure people who are over 70 don't need to mess with embossing powders, heat guns, scissors and paper trimmers! LOL! Let's see...I have 14 more years to play like this...then will have to find someone who will do all this for me!

It should be a fun weekend!

Oh my gosh!!!

Wait til you see what I did in a single day! Today was Pre-National Scrapbook day at Scrapbook Your Life! And I decided to demo melt art and embossing techniques. So, I truly had no idea where I was going with this, but I demo'd from 10 am - 5 pm. Then taught a class from 6 - 8 pm. Then sat there and put together little cards from the stuff we made today.

It's days like this when my brain just completely amazes me. I truly don't know where it comes from...but it sure is fun!!!

One of the girls wanted samples using my stamps, so I started with Lucy....and I like what I got!



For the crown, we made a mold from a charm, used Platinum UTEE and then colored it with alcohol inks. Of course, a little bling doesn't hurt either!



But her glasses are just too cool! Another mold from a little charm. Used AI with clear UTEE to get a trunsluscent mix for these. So Lucy truly has "coke bottle glasses"!!!



We did silver holographic EP to outline this Lucy....it truly does bling. Painted with twinkling H2os, popped over a matching EP stamp on the background.



Painted her dress, then covered that with GA.



Copper EP to outline the angel. The flower is a Spellbinders diecut in shrink plastic, melted in a pot filled with platinum UTEE. Totally cool!



We shrank lots of diecuts today...colored them lots of ways.




And we did some beeswax collages. White beeswax. Inked. Papers from the store and a doll pattern piece.



Stamped the angel's wing into the wax to get some little swirls




The little paper flowers are perfect for this. The fabric calilillies really stand out



And for the next collage, I started with a napkin. Isn't this just a gorgeous napkin? I wanted to do something with it the moment I saw it!



And here's what I came up with. Twinkling H2os, over canvas board and heat set. Then wax. Then 3 layers of the napkin, one over the other, collaged with beeswax.



Swirls stampet into the wax over the flowers....just love this technique!



Finally, spellbinders flowers cut in red-liner tape. covered in glitter, layered on a card. What bling!!!



My friend, Judi, at A Stamp of Excellence in Canon City Co, made this stamp for me. "It is a happy talent to know how to play!

I swear....that is just a perfect saying for me! LOL!

So, did I play hard today or what? I think it was a really good day! But I really cannot believe that I made all of this in one day!!!

I can barely wait for tomorrow! National Scrapbook Day! I hear the girls are planning to line up outside the front door at 6 am. The first 35 get a goodie bag. Ok....I've seen the goodie bag! I WANT one! LOL! Like I need anything else? NOT! But what fun!

I plan to get there about 7:30....and I'm going to go in the back door, fill my cart to the brin, walk up to the front window and "show off" my "purchases" to those standing in line waiting to get in. I think I'd best put some kind of sign on me....something that says "JLo - troubled child!"

Hope to see you out front in the morning!