Wow!  Did I ever have fun reading all of the comments left on yesterdays post telling me where all you readers are from.  May I say, I just want to hop in a car, boat or airplane and visit each and everyone of you.  Thank you so much for your comments.  I now feel like I know a little about all of you.  The Internet sure does make the world a little smaller.

And now for the grand announcement!  The winner, out of 428 entries, for Wednesday’s blog candy is, drum roll, please. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Beth Greco, who was comment number 317 and who left this comment:

This is yet another lovely card. Thanks for sharing on such a regular basis. I have saved a whole bunch of your tutorials onto my laptop so I can take you with me when I go on holidays I tried my hand at the Northern Lights one last night and it turned out pretty well.
Thanks for Sharing!
  Beth e-mail me at mzindorf@aim.com your mailing address and I will get these in the mail to you.

Thanks to all for playing along!

Now, I do have a tutorial for you today.

Let’s get started. 

Supplies:

Sponged Soft Sky ink on a 4″ x 4.5″ piece of Whisper White Card stock.  I sponged a bit darker on the right side of the card stock.

Sponged Blue Bayou ink at the top and right side of the card stock.

Stamped flowers with Not Quite Navy ink.

Sponged some Not Quite Navy ink at the top of the card stock.

Tore through the sticky part of two post it notes to create a mask for the sky area.

Sponge Not Quite Navy ink heavily on the un-masked ground area.

Added some Basic Black in at the bottom of the card stock with a sponge.

Darkened the right side of the flowers and stems with a Faber Castell black marker.

Put White Gel pen highlights at the top of the flowers and along the left side of the stems and leaves.

Assembled card front and stamped flourishes with Soft Sky ink. 

Note:  When stamping over multiple layers of card stock your image will have gaps in it, see photo.  I was able to correct the gaps with a Versamark marker since the design was stamp with Soft Sky ink on Soft Sky card stock.

Now that the image gaps are fixed, I highlighted the flourish with a White Gel pen on the left sides of the design.  

Note:  All of my highlighting with the gel pen was done on the left side of the flowers and flourishes and then along the top of the ground to try to create a sense of where my light source was coming from (right side).

Here is the finished card measuring 5″ x 6.5″.

Note:  I will not be posting this weekend due to my, soon to be 5 year old, Grand Daughter’s visit from Fort Campbell, Kentucky.  We are traveling today to get her. 

May your weekend be filled with gentle breezes and the sweet smell of flowers.

Until my next post. . . . . . . .

Hugs to all!

Michelle

Sadly, there is no time for stamping today.  A quick ditty this morning is all I have time for. . . .. . .

A lady and her co-workers go to a bar after a hard days work to unwind.  As she is sitting there the most gorgeous man she has ever seen walked in.  She couldn’t help but take little glances at him out of the corner of her eye.  Much to her disbelief he walked over to her and said “for twenty dollars I’ll do any thing you ask me to do”.  She thought for a moment, reached down and got a twenty out of her purse and said “Clean my house”, lol.

 That’s how I’m feeling today.  Much to do in way of housework.  We are having a birthday party for my Grand Daughter this weekend and I have a messy house to get ready for company.

There are so many comments on yesterday’s post, I’m so very amazed!  I would love to know where everyone is from.  Give me a shout out today by commenting on this post telling me were you live.  I’ll start by telling you I’m from West Alexandria, Ohio.

If you are getting my blog updates by e-mail and you want to comment, please click this link to take you to my blog:   http://zindorf.blogs.splitcoaststampers.com/2008/07/17/no-stamping-for-me-today/

 Don’t forget to stop by tomorrow, Friday, I will be announcing the winner of yesterday’s blog candy.

May your day be a peaceful and relaxing one. 

Until my next post.. . . . . . .

Hugs,

Michelle

As I said before, I love feeding and watching the birds.  I’m a city girl (spent my first 43 years in the city) and then I moved to a rural town and I’m pretty much surrounded by farm land.   Well being a city girl, I got a lesson at the feed store, yep my town has a feed store, lol.  I went in and asked for bird seed.  I was promptly told you can’t grow birds with seed, what I was looking for was bird feed.  Now how did I make it all these years not knowing the correct term for bird feed. :)  Lesson learned!

NOTE:  TIMES UP FOR THE BLOG CANDY! THANKS TO ALL WHO ENTERED. 

Anyway, I have blog candy for you all today!  A set of (16) sixteen, Series 7, Studio G, Clear Stamps.  All you have to do to enter to win these stamps is leave a comment on this post.  If you are getting this by e-mail, please click this link to be able to leave a comment on the post:  http://zindorf.blogs.splitcoaststampers.com/2008/07/16/in-the-nest-tutorial-blog-candy/

I will use a random number generator and will announce the winner on Friday morning, July 18th.  Good Luck everyone!

Below is a picture of the new Stampin’ Up in colors I just received in the mail.  These colors won’t be available until the new Catty comes out.  I just couldn’t resist playing with them, so I used a couple of them in today’s tutorial.  Please forgive me, I just had to, lol.

Supplies:

OK, so I was so excited about my new color options, I started this project and realized that I wasn’t taking pictures, lol.  So the first 3 pictures were staged after the fact.  Bare with me it is 4:00 a.m after all.

Stamped Nest by first loading the stamp with Versamark then with Chocolate Chip ink before stamping on a 4″ x 4″ piece of Whisper White card stock.

Heat embossed image with clear embossing powder and a heat gun.

Colored the sides of the nest with a Going Gray marker.

Stamped the leaves by first loading the stamp with Versamark, then Kiwi Kiss ink, then dabbed a few dots of More Mustard marker on the stamp before stamping.  I like a little texture in my leaves. 

Heat embossed leaves with clear embossing powder and a heat gun.

Sponged some Kiwi Kiss ink on the top left side of the card stock.

Randomly sponged some Baja Breeze ink on the card stock.

Used a 1 1/4″ circle punch and punched the center out of the nest.

Flipped the card stock over and stuck on Stampin’ Dimensionals and stuck it to a 4″ x 4″ piece of Black card stock.

Glued the punched piece of nest on the black card stock.

Stamped the French Script Stamp on the card stock using Baja Breeze ink.

Stamped two eggs on Whisper White card stock using Baja Breeze ink.  Cut them out.

Lightly pressed eggs on to the Kiwi Kiss ink pad to give them a hint of green.

Stamped leaves with Baja Breeze ink on a Kiwi Kiss card stock panel.

Sponged Baja Breeze ink around the card stock edge.

Assembled card and here it is finished measuring 5.25″ x 5.25″.

Don’t forget to comment to enter to win the Blog Candy for today!

Hope you feel safe and secure in your own nest today. 

Until my next post. . . . . .

Hugs to all,

Michelle

I decided to check out the Color Challenge on Split Coast Stampers this morning and found Emily had posted a very interesting color combination. 

The color challenge is to use Stampin’ Up So Saffron, Almost Amethyst and Wild Wasabi.  Here is a link to the challenge if you would like to play  along:  http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=364002

Here is my attempt and the tutorial for this piece. 

Supplies:

Stamped Sun on a 4.5″ x 4.5″ piece of Whisper White Card stock with Basic Black ink.

Sponged on So Saffron Ink, leaving a light spot in the middle of the sun.

Sorry about the photos, I can’t believe how blue this Almost Amethyst ink is looking in the photos.  It really is purple, lol.

Sponged Almost Amethyst ink in the sky area of the card stock.

Tore post it notes through the sticky part to mask the sky area of the card stock.

Sponged on Wild Wasabi ink on the unmasked area to create a hill.

Sponged Basic Black in at the torn edge of the post it notes.

Removed mask.

Inked only the tree part of the stamp (I didn’t want to stamp the grassy part of the stamp).

Stamped Trees with Basic Black ink on both sides of the sun.

Extended the tree trunks with a Black marker.

Added So Saffron Marker to the Sun image.

Colored a little bit of outline on the sun image with an Almost Amethyst marker.

Sponged a little Wild Wasabi ink on the trees.

Attached a panel of So Saffron card stock to a panel of Basic Black card stock and punched small photo corners for each corner out of Basic Black card stock.

Assembled card front and here it is completed measuring 5.25″ x 5.25″.

Hope your day if filled with calm skies.

Until my next post. . . . . . . .

Michelle

I still had this set by papertreyink.com “Pond Life” on my desk from Friday so I decided to give it another go. 

Here is the tutorial. 

Supplies:

Stamped Lily with Salmon ink on Whisper White Card stock.  Turned stamp upside down and stamped lily again with Aqua ink.

Darkened bottom of Salmon lily with a Blush Blossom marker.

Darkened bottom of reflection lily with a Going Gray and Blush Blossom marker.

Put Going Gray marker under Salmon Lily to create a shadow.

Put a fine line of Black marker under the Salmon lily to define shadow.

Colored over both the lily images with a Versamark marker and heat embossed using clear embossing powder and a heat gun.

Using a Mirror Image Stamp (see frequently asked questions in regards to Mirror image stamp) stamp a loose mirror image of the duck with basic black ink. 

Note:  to use mirror image stamp, stamp image on mirror image stamp and the stamp mirror image stamp on card stock.

Defined mirror image of duck a little with a going gray marker.

Stamp duck image above mirror image with Basic Black ink.

Went over both duck images with a Versamark marker and heat embossed using clear embossing powder and a heat gun.

Brayer Cloudy Blue ink over card stock, leaving it lighter at the top.

Brayered Not Quite Navy at the bottom and just a little at the top of the card stock.

Stamped lily pads with Lettuce ink.

Stamped more lily pads, but stamped off once on my scrap paper before stamping image (Second generation stamping).  This makes the images lighter in color.

Sponged on more Not Quite Navy ink at the bottom of the card stock.

Added gray marker at the bottoms of the lily pads and the bottom of the main image duck.

Stamped Reeds with Basic Black ink.

Put white highlights on top lily pad, duck, lily and reeds with a white gel pen.

Glued main imgage panel to a piece of Basic Grey “Archaic” design paper and swiped some Not Quite Navy ink across the design paper and onto the main image panel.

Stamped more reeds with Basic Black ink.

Drew in some of the bottoms of the reeds from the main image panel to the design paper panel with a black marker.  Used a White Gel pen to put highlights on the reeds on the designer paper.

Assembled card front and added Old Olive Photo Corner punches and copper brads.

Here is the card finished measuring 5.25″ x 5.25″.

Hope your day is filled with peace and tranquility.

Until my next post. . . . ..

Michelle