Announcement, Announcement!  I will be teaching brayer workshops in the following towns:

Dayton, Ohio at Marco Paper Store (http://www.marcopaper.com/) on September 6th

Fort Collins, Colorado on September 19th  & 20th

San Jose, California on October 24th & 25th

For information on these workshops or to host one in your town, please contact Lisa Itatani at litatani@pacbell.net or  http://flatfishpaperarts.blogspot.com/  while there are still spots open. 

Come join me and let’s take the frustration out of using that brayer an create some dramatic skies together in the process. :)  Hope to see you soon.

Now on to today’s tutorial. :)  

Today’s project shows off the emboss resist technique.  Also, I thought I would celebrate the butterfly while they are still fluttering around in my yard.

Supplies:

Stamped butterfly with Palette Noir Black ink on a 4.5″ x 4.5″ piece of Whisper White card stock.

Colored the part of the Butterfly’s wings and the body with an Almost Amethyst marker.

Colored a part of the Butterfly’s wings with a Blush Blossom marker.

Colored part of the Butterfly’s wings with a Barely Banana Marker.

Colored part of the butterfly’s wings with a More Mustard marker.

Darkened the black lines on the butterfly with a Faber Castell black marker to make the butterfly really pop!

Colored over the entire butterfly, being very careful to stay within the design area, with a Versamark marker.

Heat embossed the butterfly with clear embossing powder and a heat gun.

Using a Stamp-a-ma-jig for placement, stamped the flourish by first loading it with Versamark and then with Stream ink before stamping.

Heat embossed flourish with clear embossing powder. 

Note:  it was not necessary to clean the stream ink off of the butterfly, it just melts right into the embossing on the butterfly when heated.

Sponged Aqua ink onto the flourish area in a circular motion.

Colored in the flourish with a white gel pen to make it stand out.

After assembling card front, used piercing tools and pierced each corner of  of the main image panel.

Added a silver brad to each side of the flourish.

Here you have it the finished card measuring 5.25″ x 5.25″. 

Hope you enjoyed today’s tutorial and will give emboss resist a try. 

May your day be filled with filtered light and colorful butterflies.

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

Hugs,

Michelle

A couple times a year I have to get this old Stampin’ Up set “Cool Cat” out and work with it.  Love this cat!    This morning I felt like getting out the bright colors to liven things up a bit.

Let’s get started. 

Supplies:

Cut a 2.5″ circle with my Coluzzle out of card stock.

Note:  This morning I used a circle cut previously and used in a different project.  Nice to keep these things on hand and re-use them.

Used the circle as a mask for the moon.  I just held it in place as I worked.

Traced a fine line around the mask with a Bordering Blue marker on a 4″ x 4″ piece of Whisper White card stock.

Sponged on some Summer Sun ink.

Sponged on Some Tempting Turquoise ink.

Sponged on some Wild Wasabi ink.

Sponged on some Ruby Red ink.

Sponged on some Chocolate Chip ink.

Removed mask.

Sponged some Summer Sun ink inside of the moon to the left side.

Using my Stamp-a-ma-jig for placement, stamped Cool Cat with Basic Black ink.

Sponged some Black ink at the bottom of the card stock.

Used a white gel pen to color in the whites of the cat’s eyes.

Colored in the Cat’s ears with a Blush Blossom Marker.

Added some dots to the background to look like distant stars.

Figured out what layout I wanted to use and cut my panels.

Distressed the main image panel and the Tempting Turquoise panel with a Tim Holtz distress tool.

Dragged the edges of all sides of the main image panel over the black ink.

sponged Tempting Turquoise ink around the edges of the Tempting Turquoise panel.

Drew in lines using a Tim Holtz ruler and White Gel pen to create a look of brick.

Drew a black line under the cat to create the top of the wall and colored in the top bricks with the black marker to make it flow better from one layer to the next.

The Tim Holtz ruler has holes in it that you can use your piercing tool with to create a faux stitching look. 

Punched my holes around the edge of the card  stock and then used a white gel pen and ran it from one hole to the next to create the stitching.

Here you have it the finished card measuring 5″ x 6.5″.

May your day be sunny and your night sky be bright!

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

Hugs,

Michelle

Today’s post will help take some of the mystery out of buying Deeply etch red rubber stamps, such as this sheet from Innovative Stamp Creations “Friendship”.

When you get your stamp sheet it will look like the picture above.    I cut mine out and cut them very closely to the design.

After they are all cut out I paint Aleene’s Tack it over and over on the back sides of the stamps and let dry for about an hour.  It doesn’t take much of this glue.  The glue goes on white in color but dries clear and is tacky to touch and stays that way.  The tackiness lets you stick the stamp to your acrylic block over and over.

Next, I stick the stamps to a clear transparency sheet.

I put the transparency sheet with the stamps on it and the index sheet that came with the stamps in a large plastic store bag.  I write the name on the top of the bag with a
Sharpie Marker. 

Note:  A copy of the index sheet also goes in my stamp binder for easy viewing and selection.

The Baggie then gets stored away standing up right in a box, sorted by manufacturer.  It is very easy to look through them to find what I need.  They also take very little room to store, love it! 

I found that no foam pad is necessary with these good quality, deeply etched red rubber stamps to get a good stamped image.

Here is the link to Innovative Stamp Creations store:  http://www.innovativestampcreations.com/ischomepage.html

There are definitely a million ways to store stamps out there.  I just wanted to share my storage and prep solution with you.   Hope this took a little of the mystery out of buying red rubber stamp sheets.

May your day be filled with good impressions!

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

Hugs,

Michelle

I’m getting back into the swing of things today after my week off line. 

First things first, we have a blog candy winner!!!

The winner is comment number 133 out of 234.   Congratulations to Linda Patti who wrote “please enter me for the blog candy.. LOVE the framed art work!”  Linda, please e-mail me your address so I can get this out to you.

Thanks everyone for playing along. 

Now for today’s tutorial.  I used the stamp sheet from Innovative Stamp Creations “Marvels of Nature” that can be purchased from their online store found here:  http://www.innovativestampcreations.com/ischomepage.html

Supplies:

Loaded tree stamp with Versamark, then Really Rust ink, tapped the brush end of a Chocolate Chip marker on the leaf area of the stamp and colored in the trunk before stamping it on a 4″ x 5.5″ of Whisper White card stock.

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

Cover 1/3rd of the bottom of the card stock with a Post it Note to mask it.

Brayer on Soft Sky ink over the sky area.  Then brayered on Not Quite Navy ink at the top of the card stock, not covering the Soft Sky ink entirely.

Tore the top of the Post it note to reveal a bit of the white card stock.

Masked the sky with another Post it note.

Brayered on Not Quite Navy ink in the unmasked area.   This created the water and horizon line.

Removed masks.

Sponged on Antique Linen Distress ink on the ground area using a sideways streaking motion.

The distress pads are great for direct to paper techniques since the pad is raised up from the plastic case.

Streaked one edge of the Old Paper ink pad in an upward motion to create grasses.

Added some Peeled paint grasses in the same manner as the last step.

Added a few Chocolate Chip marker branches to the center of the tree.

Added a couple of strokes of the Brushed Corduroy ink pad at the bottom of the Peeled paint grasses.

Rounded the top of the card stock using a circle Coluzzle template.

Assembled card front and added fine lines of Going Gray marker to the corners using a ruler to keep them straight.

Using the brush end of the Going Gray marker, added a thick line to the left and bottom of the Very Vanilla panel to create a shadow.

Added a fine line of black marker to the left and bottom of the Very Vanilla panel to enhance the shadow.

Here you have it the completed card measuring 5″ x 6.5″.

Hope your day is filled with cool ocean breezes and sunshine. 

Until my next post. . . . . . .

Hugs,

Michelle

WOW!  What a great time I had teaching workshops at Lisa Itatani’s studio in San Jose, California.   The ladies that attended were all so sensational and fun to meet, plus super talented stampers.  They learned my techniques and are brayer masters now. 

I just returned home late last night, but I wanted to share with everyone some of the workshop pictures that were taken and I will add more as they are e-mailed to me.

One of the Projects made:

The fun we had:

  Marian Garcia and myself

A Big Thank you!

Thank you so much Lisa Itatani for hosting me!  You’re the best!  

Here is a link to Lisa’s blog where you can get info on her up coming workshops:

http://flatfishpaperarts.blogspot.com/

Future Zindorf workshops:

I don’t have dates yet, but the California workshops were just too fun not to do more so I will be scheduling workshops in the Dayton, Ohio area, Longmont area of Colorado and there is talk of another workshop possibly at the beach in the Carmel/Monterey area of California.  Give me a shout out if you would be interested in one of these workshops so I can figure out how many workshops to schedule in each area.  I like to keep the number of people in each workshop small so I can have one on one time with each person attending.

How about workshops in your area?

If you have a studio that can accomodate 6 people, plus me and would like to host some of my workshops for your area, please let me know (mzindorf@aim.com).  I would love to come and stamp with you.