Isn't this stamp beautiful? I bought it at a garage sale last year and never used it until yesterday. I am posting it so that I can write down how I did this because I used several different techniques on the card.
I used an aqua Mica Magic reinker to pour some ink over glossy card stock. I then placed a sheet of acrylic over it and "smooshed" it around. (Smooshed is a new stamping term I've learned that fits the occasion.) After removing the acrylic sheet, I dried it with my heat gun. I inked the stamp (Magnolia Floral by Stamps Happen) with black VersaFine ink and stamped it on glossy card stock. Heat embossed it using clear EP.
I then used the Copic blender to remove the color from the magnolia blossoms. I colored them with a light pink Copic marker and added a darker pink using a Prismacolor pencil. I blended the dark pink with Gamsol and a paper stump. The rest of the image was colored with Copic markers.
For the darker edges and corners, I used green and aqua Copic markers and blended them with the Copic blender. Over the top of this I used a spruce green Twinkling H2O to create a watercolor effect. As you can image, the H2O beaded up on the glossy CS so I dabbed it with a soft paper towel. All in all, I was pleased with the effect ... but more importantly, I was happy to be able to play with paints.
Good news today! The new Design Team for Elemental Doodles was announced, and I am once again on the team. What fun! My official enabler, Alex, was the one who sent me the information originally about the first design team challenge. This time I sent her the info ... she tried out and is one of the new Design Team members. Congratulations, Alex!

I love this card! But then, I love hot fudge banana splits.
The patterned paper was some I bought from a special on HSN a loooong time ago. I like it and have hoarded it for years. The strip with the saying (Art Impressions) was stamped with Marvy Matchables' Dark Brown on a piece of CS from Coredinations. The border punch is from EKSuccess.
The ice cream scoop (Penny Black) was stamped, colored, cut out and mounted with foam tape. The scoop and spoon were colored with a silver Spica pen; the whipped cream and banana were colored with a white pen. I used Copic markers for the other colors.
Let's all scream for ice cream!

It's hard to be sad about a rainy day when you see such a happy little chick as this one.
You can also tell that I have some new toys! One of them is the set of Small Pinking Circles Nestabilities, and the other one is a border punch from EK Success. I bought both of them at the Heirloom Rubber Stamp Convention at Grapevine from the Stamp On It booth. To me, their display of the Nestabilities was well done, and I liked the fact that I was able to use the border punch on sample card stock at the booth. I have been disappointed with the Fiskars and Martha Stewart border punches because they will not punch card stock. The EK Success punches will.
To make the card, I used an orange card stock for the base with a lighter orange dotted CS layered on top. Before I layered it, I punched a border on the right side. I liked the effect of the narrow strip so left it instead of trimming it as I had originally intended to do.
I used the Pinking Circles Nestabilities to punch an orange circle and a smaller yellow circle. The yellow circle was punched from a paint chip. I wound a darker orange thread around the orange circle, mounted it on the card and mounted the yellow stamped image on top. I stamped the Shower Chick image from Stampendous using Jet Black StazOn ink. I colored the umbrella, flower and beak with Copic markers and had a bit of trouble using them on the paint chip. I found that I had to use a marker that was several shades darker and had to use a dotting motion instead of a dragging motion in order to get the alcohol ink to adhere to the paint chip. I let the first layer dry and then colored it again before I could get the color as well defined as I wanted it to be.
The sentiment was stamped on regular CS and mounted on the darker orange. Since I have divided my clear stamps up so that the same sentiments go in one CD case, I don't know the name of the company that sells this stamp.
That's all, folks. See you tomorrow ... or whenever I get a round TUIT!

I found a new stamp company, or at least new to me, at the Heirloom convention in Grapevine this week. It's called Eccentric Images, and they are that indeed. I loved this little Queen Bee so much that I couldn't wait to use the stamp.
Card base is yellow cardstock, and the patterned paper is adhered to a green CS and placed on the card base. I stamped the bee on more of the yellow and mounted it on the solid green and then on the prepared card. The words were stamped with black ink, and the "Queens Rock" image was punched with a Stampin' Up oval punch. I punched a larger oval out of the solid green and sanded the edges lightly so the white core would show. It's mounted using foam tape. The bee is lightly colored with Twinkling H2Os and with darker Copic markers.
I can't wait to buy more stamps from Eccentric Images. They are available in both mounted and unmounted versions.

I joined a group recently that uses only Magenta stamps. I have been a fan of Magenta for years and was privileged to take some classes which were taught by Nathalie Metivier. What a lovely person!
The swap that I am doing requires that I make two cards a month and send them to two different swappers. This is the card I made for one of the swappers, and I played with colors on the card rather than a lot of "geegaws". (That's a down home term for embellishments.)
The card base was Cougar Opaque and was natural (which is a fancy term for off-white or ivory). I topped that with a light wine colored patterned paper from Hot Off the Press. On top of that I placed a light green CS to echo the green in the image. It's faint, but it's there on the flower buds. More patterned paper and then a rich wine card stock. The image was stamped on a pale, pale pink card stock scrap and embossed with JudiKins' Detail Black embossing powder. I colored the flowers with a Rose Pink Copic marker and then used the colorless blender on the end of the petals to remove some of the color. I went back over the flower close to the center with the Rose Pink to make it even darker than it originally was. Although the center of the flowers is mostly black, I colored the open areas with a Canary Yellow Copic marker. I cut the image out closely with scissors and glued it to the wine CS and embellished the flowers with a few drops of JudiKins' Diamond Glaze to resemble dew on the petals.
The Heirloom Rubber Stamp Conventioon was held in Grapevine this past weekend, and I went to the convention on Sunday. There were several vendors who were not there but also a few new vendors or at least ones I had never seen before. I think some of my favorite stamps were the ones I bought at the Eccentric Images booth. There were two vendors who had Nestabilities, but I thought that Marco's Paper did not have them displayed well. It was hard to see which of the Nestabilities they had because they were scattered throughout the booth. I saw the new acrylic Sizzix folders similar to the ones that are made for the Cuttlebug. These folders will work in the Cuttlebug, and there was a good selection to choose from. I'm not sure the name of the booth that I saw a lot of the Dreamweaver stencils in, but I think it was Polly's Pals. We watched a great demonstration using the embossing pastes, and I bought a couple of the stencils for Christmas cards.
The July convention is always smaller than the January convention, but I thought there was a good representation of vendors this year. I also liked the fact that we were seeing new vendors which means the show must go on!

Today's card looks a little wonky, but that's because I didn't get it in my scanner as straight as it should have been. I can't redo it because it was for a swap, and it's already been mailed.

The card base is white card stock, and the images were stamped with a black ink pad from Marvy Matchables. I punched the images using round circle punches from EK Success. I also punched out circles on a strip of white CS with a punch that was 1/8" larger than each of the stamped circles. I mounted the strip on black CS and then glued the stamped circles inside the larger circles on the black CS. This strip was mounted on aqua CS and then glued to a larger strip of black CS. The black strip was the height of the card base when glued to it.

Coffee, anyone? For someone who dislikes coffee as much as I do, it's a little strange that I love making cards using coffee images. Go figure!
This card was made using stamps from two different companies. The coffee cup image is from A Muse, and the word stamp is from the Coffee Cafe set by Elemental Doodles. I covered the front of the card with a patterned paper from Hot Off the Press, and stamped the images with Marvy Matchables' Dark Brown. The images are edged with a dark brown Copic marker.
Again, it's a simple but, I think, eyecatching way to use these stamps.