Yikes! I totally forgot to announce the Blog candy winner yesterday from the previous Saturday’s post.  The winner is. . .. . . . . . . . . . . . .  

Phyllis who wrote “Its always a good day when one learns a new technique. Today you showed me how to use plastic wrap other than in the kitchen! And what a beautiful touch it adds too. I’m trying this right after the Cowboy game today. Thanks and have a wonderful day yourself.”

Phyllis, please e-mail your mailing address to me at mzindorf@aim.com and I will put this in the mail to you.

Thanks to everyone that enter.  I wish I had something for each and every one of you.

Hugs,

Michelle

A while back I asked the readers of this blog to leave me a comment telling me their most favorite thing about Autumn.  Close to half of the comments mentioned walking through fallen leaves, feeling them crunch beneath their feet.  I agree whole heartedly that it’s a wonderful thing in the Autumn months.  Today’s card is my version of fallen leaves to try to echo that feeling and put it on paper.

Let’s get started

Supplies:

Stamped acorns by first loading my stamp with Versamark and then loading it with Close to Cocoa ink before stamping it on a 4.5″ square piece of Whisper White card stock.

Heat embossed the images using fine detail clear embossing powder and a heat gun.

Colored the bottom half of the acorns with a Prismacolor Sienna Brown marker.

Colored the top half of the acorns with a Sand marker.

Stamped leaves by first loading my stamp with Versamark and then loading it with Really Rust ink before stamping them.

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

Colored the leaves with a Burnt Ochre marker.

Let the marker dry and then went over the darker parts of the leaves again with the Burnt Ochre marker to give a bit of variation in color.

Colored over the leaves and acorns with a Versamark marker and heat embossed the images with clear embossing powder and a heat gun.

Stamped the leaves a few more times by first loading my stamp with Versamark and then loading it with Always Artichoke ink before stamping them.  Heat embossed the images using clear embossing powder and a heat gun.

Note:  There is no need to wipe the Always Artichoke ink from the already embossed images before heat embossing them.  Once you heat emboss the Always Artichoke leaves the ink will magically disappear from the already embossed images.  Try it you will see. 

Colored the green leaves with a Limepeel marker.

Added Light Olive marker to the darker parts of the green leaves.

Colored over the green leaves with a Versamark Marker and heat embossed them with clear embossing powder and a heat gun.

Sponged, using a circular motion, Chocolate Chip ink all over the card stock.

Decided I wanted a warmer tone to the background so I sponged Really Rust ink all over entire piece of card stock.  A girl can change her mind if she wants, right?

Over stamped the entire card stock with the leaf stamp using Chocolate Chip ink to create the look of brown leaves under the more colorful leaves.

Let the Chocolate Chip ink dry a moment and then wiped the Chocolate Chip ink off of the embossed images using a soft rag.

Sponged Basic Black ink around the edge of the card stock.

Ok, I’m not one for a bunch of embellishments.  It’s not that I don’t own a ton of embellishment.  I have drawers and drawers full of them.  I usually just can’t figure out what to do with them, lol.  I can spend more time trying to place just one embellishment on a card then it took me to create the rest of the entire card.  So I usually don’t embellish.

This is probably the most you will ever see me embellish, lol.

I added punched corners.

Used my Crop-a-dile to add eyelets.  Man those eyelets haven’t seen daylight in over a year, lol.

If you want a cheap solution to ribbon for your fall cards try Raffia. 

Added Raffia and a Tim Holtz embellishment that has the sentiment of Wonderful on it.

Frayed the raffia ends.

Pierced holes in two sides of my out card-stock layer using the Tim Holtz ruler and a push pin.

Dimensionals, Wow!  I really haven’t popped something up for the longest time.

I used lots of them, especially in the middle of the main panel so it wouldn’t cave in. 

Here is my finished card front, popped up and embellished.  It measures 5.5″ square.

Hope you are able to get out today and enjoy the sites and sounds of a beautiful Autumn day.

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

Hugs,

Michelle

Links to all my tutorials can be found here:  http://zindorf.blogs.splitcoaststampers.com/tutorials-ive-written/

Here is a link to my workshop calendar if you want to get info on beginner and advanced Brayer workshops:  http://zindorf.blogs.splitcoaststampers.com/workshop-calendar

Hello all!  A few of you have commented and e-mailed me wondering why I haven’t posted in a few days.  Tell you the truth, sometimes life gets a little to overwhelming for me and I have to just step back, take a breath and regroup.  I really appreciate your concern though.

Todays tutorial is using a retired 2001 Stampin’ Up set “Wolf” and 2006 set “Best Blossoms”.  I love to pick up retired sets on Ebay.  Been wanting this Wolf set for so long, but there is only so much I will pay for stamps.  So I bid my max amount and hope that I’ll win, only on occasion I do.  Especially for some of the highly soot after sets like “Wolf”.  It has taken me 2 years of bidding to get it, but I got it for a fair price. 

Let’s get started on the tutorial.

Supplies, Oops missed the supply photo this morning:

 On with the tutorial.

Loaded my stamp with Versamark, Old Olive and then tapped the stamps leaf tips on a Really Rust ink pad to color the tips before stamping it on a piece of 4.5″ square Whisper White card stock.  Stamped it 6 times.

Heat embossed the images using fine detail clear embossing powder and a heat gun.

Stamped Wolf face with Basic Black ink.

Colored the face with a Prismacolor Cool Grey 50% pencil.

Added some Prismacolor Black pencil to the nose, between the eyes and darker parts of the ears.

Colored the eyes with a Prismacolor Goldenrod pencil.

Colored the mussel and inner ears with a Prismacolor Beige pencil.

Sponged Almost Artichoke ink all around the wolf.

Stamped leaves with Always Artichoke ink.

Wiped the ink off of my embossed leaves with a soft rag.

Sponged Basic Black ink at the bottom of the card stock and a bit around the edges of the card stock.

Stamped some more leaves at the bottom of the card stock with Basic Black ink and then wiped off my embossed images with a soft rag.

Darkened around the eyes, nose and a bit around the darkest parts of the ears with a Faber-Castell fine point black marker to make them stand out more.

Assembled my card front and here it is finished measuring 5.5″ square.

I hope your day is filled with relaxing and fun filled moments.

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

Hugs,

Michelle

Color Challenge Time!  I love the color challenges on Split Coast Stampers on Tuesdays.  I took a stab at today’s Color Challenge CC187 to use the Stampin’ Up colors Chocolate Chip, Kiwi Kiss and Tangerine Tango.  I found this to be a great color combo for Autumn.  Here is a link to the challenge if you want to play along:  http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=388280

You may have noticed lately that I have been trying to make use of the white of my paper.  Today I used the white of the paper and made it my light source in the scene.

Well this is tutorial #130.  Are you crying Uncle?  Had enough?

If not, let’s get started on the tutorial. 

Supplies:

Stamp tree by first loading stamp with Versamark and then loading with Chocolate Chip ink before stamping.  I also did not put the Versamark or the ink on the very bottom of the tree trunk to omit the root part of the stamp.  After stamping I extended the trunk of the tree with a Chocolate Chip marker and colored over the marker with a Versamark marker.

My Whisper White card stock measures 4.5″ square starting out, but I cropped it at the end to measure 4.25″ square due to a nice chocolate chip fingerprint at the top, lol.

Heat embossed the image using fine detail clear embossing powder and a heat gun.

Over stamp the tree a bit to the left by first loading the stamp with Versamark and then loading it with Kiwi Kiss ink before stamping it.  I omitted the root part of the tree again.  Extended the trunk with an Olive Marker and then colored over the marker with a Versamark marker.  Heat embossed the image using clear embossing powder and a heat gun.

Sponged on Tangerine Tango ink, using a circular motion and be more heavy toward the outside edges. 

Note:  If your sponged ink looks really splotchy add more ink until it smooths out.

Sponged on Chocolate Chip ink.

Stamped the top of the tree with Chocolate Chip ink at the bottom of and left side of the card stock.

Sponged on Basic Black ink at the bottom two corners.

Stamp the top of the tree image with Kiwi Kiss at the bottom of the card stock.

Added a few white gel pen highlights to the tree and the plants at the bottom of the card stock.

Here is the card front finished measuring 5.5″ square.

Hope this tutorial has inspired you to use this color combination.  I love it.

May your day be filled with light!

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

Hugs,

Michelle

Links to all my tutorials can be found here:  http://zindorf.blogs.splitcoaststampers.com/tutorials-ive-written/

Here is a link to my workshop calendar if you want to get info on beginner and advanced Brayer workshops:  http://zindorf.blogs.splitcoaststampers.com/workshop-calendar

Coffee is on my mind this morning.  :)  Our power, for some strange reason, has been going off and on this morning so getting my coffee brewed was a challenge in itself. 

This is a little still life scene tutorial.  I was able to achieve this look by using the emboss resist technique.  You can stack any images by heat embossing the images.  You will want to start with the image that will be in foreground, then the middle ground and then put in your background.  In other words, work front to back in your scene.

Let’s get started on the tutorial.

Supplies:

Stamped flower by first loading the stamp with Versamark and then Black ink before stamping.  Note:  I did not put Versamark or ink on the stem part of the image because I wanted to omit that part.

Heat embossed the image using fine detail embossing powder and a heat gun.

Colored the flower with a Prismacolor Spanish Orange marker.

Added some Yellow orange to the inner part of the petals.

Added some Pumpkin Orange to the very inner part of the petals.

Colored the center in with Sienna Brown.

Added Dark Umber marker to the center of the flower, but left the very center light.

Colored over the flower with Versamark marker and heat embossed the image using clear embossing powder and a heat gun.

Stamped the cup over part of the flower with Tempting Turquoise ink.

Colored over the entire cup image with a Tempting Turquoise marker to omit the heart design in the cup.

Colored the coffee in with a Chocolate Chip marker.

Added Taken with Teal marker to the left side of the cup to create a shadow.

Colored over the entire cup image with  a Versamark marker.  Note:  be careful to start by coloring your light part of the image first and then color over the dark part of the image.  The dark part of the image will transfer to your lighter colors if you color from the dark part of the image to the lighter ones.

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

Used a post it note to mask the bottom portion of the card stock.

Sponged Aqua ink in the uncover part to create the wall in the background.

Added some shadow on the wall by sponge Tempting Turquoise ink lightly on the left and top part of the card stock.

Removed the post it note and added some Aqua ink with a sponge to the left of the coffee cup to create a shadow.

Assembled card fronted and added faux stitching by piercing holes down the left and right sides of the card stock with a push pin and a Tim Holtz Ruler (ruler has piercing holes that run the length of the ruler).   Drew a line from one hole to the next with a white gel pen to create the faux stitching.

Here is the card completed measuring 5.5″ square.

May your day start off with your most favorite beverage too.

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

Hugs,

Michelle

Links to all my tutorials can be found here:  http://zindorf.blogs.splitcoaststampers.com/tutorials-ive-written/

Here is a link to my workshop calendar if you want to get info on beginner and advanced Brayer workshops:  http://zindorf.blogs.splitcoaststampers.com/workshop-calendar