Wednesday Nov. 22nd

 Just sitting here waiting for family to arrive! It is Thanksgiving evening. This is my first post using my new computer. Thankfully, yes thankfully, you didn't have to listen to my last two weeks of computer  printer woes!! I will look forward to sharing and maybe some upgraded editing for the photos. These cards are easy and done with an easy fold and 'accordion' base. 

                                         

              The snowflake is a die from Elizabeth Craft designs

This is a pretty designer paper from Ciao Bella . And I hadn't made a slimline card for a long time!!

 Thanks for looking & have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

  Mary

Friday

 Good Morning! Awake super early, and again everything keeps crashing, so I am going to try to share some pictures/cards. Not sure if they will be edited well enough, but hopefully you will enjoy. These are simply designer papers from Stamperia. Christmas patchwork.  

             The scallop die is an older spellbinders. I don't have the packaging. I store most dies in Avery Elle or MFT storage envelopes. There are the 6x9 or 5x7 that I use alot. Everything is on a magnet and filed in an envelope in a box with headers like 'grandmas' recipe boxes! Only squares, rectangles, backgrounds, circles, etc: 

                             Don't think the photo box (white on white) showed how pretty this angel print is. Stenciled background.

      Photographed these in a light box and since photoshop is not operable today, please forgive the lack of editing! 

                                                                          Thanks for looking!

                                                          Mary

 

Friday Nov. 3rd

 Wow! What a frustrating week! A big sequence of crazy events led me to have to upgrade my computer. Well, I was so comfortable with windows 7. Yes, 7, so it really was time. Never the right time to have to reinstall ALL of my programs. Not to mention my bookmarks are gone....... wah. The good news is, after talking to Adobe for a couple hours, I got most of my files back. Pictures,  pictures, not in folders, paper that took forever to scan. The bad news is facebook and pinterest keep crashing. My mail is still better on my NEW phone. Actually I needed a new printer so when I got this new one, it wasn't compatible with windows 7............ Enough!

            This is really Thursday now! And we will see if we can get these cards posted! There is a huge problem with photoshop now. 

             This a die.

 This is a big die from Crafters Companion. Just vary the papers. Really quick and easy . It is one of the few you will see that actually feature the nativity. 

 Here is another big die. This is the Partridge die from Crafters Companion.  

                         So easy and a square format for a change!

                                         Thanks for looking!

                                              Mary

Friday

 Hello Hello!! his will be a second part about my experiments with the 'sprays'. Nearly forgot to mention that this started with the Oxide sprays a while ago.  This is the tapestry embossing folder with the oxide colors sponged. Pretty opaque. Wait & I will show you what I did with it. Yes, everything has a use!!

                                                                

           Watch me try to remember what I did with these! Ha. All I know is the blue one is a mica sprayed background, then it was embossed and rubbed gently over the high points with a black archival ink pad.
                                        

              Used cut scraps of the a mica sprayed background. The next one is the same idea with the oxide background that I showed above. I saw it on a Pete Hughes video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDmLH7TexSM

The orange is the back of the junk mica background

More imperfect backgrounds with the mica spray. This just shows what you can do. The white or black flower die background makes a totally pretty summer or wintery card. And the mica background is the junk that was on the bottom of my box!! Anything works.

And the orange/yellow ones were used for the my pumpkins!

                                                 Too fun!!
                                      Thanks for looking!

                                                    Mary

 

Monday

 Monday Mica Sprays!! What can I say but 'WOW", they are so pretty! First let me say I wanted to do a blog and feature the sprays. Well, this is it, but, please go watch the Tim Holtz video! It is everything you need to know about the sprays. It says it is a 2 hour video, but it starts in depth at about the 40 minute mark. It is soooo worth it!

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlICFDHZLpI&t=5027s        

I started by taking random pictures of bottles and spray in a poorly lit room. Yeah. I did. And I did it wrong.... Ok, Tim says there is no wrong, but you will see, I left a 'bullseye' when I sprayed. 

 

 

 

 

     I notice the picture of the bottles were of the oxide sprays... the mica stains are in the background in that shot. I did mix the sprays later, and that is pretty cool. The spray in this is Harvest moon from the 2023 release.

                                  More 'bullseyes' ...

 

Ignore the light fixture reflection the sprays are sprayed on a media mat & then Tim ran his fingers through the ink. Maybe just one color at a time. Then he smooshed (?) the paper into the ink.

 

Me trying to hold the camera and trying the TH technique, yes, me with inky fingers. Did the one color at a time and dried inbetween. Although I added more colors and by the time I finished it looked like the bottom of my paint box anyway!!

 

 

 

I did swatches of the colors I have. Aren't they yummy?? Wrote the name on the backof the swatch.

                                 

                            Here are some cards using the Tim Holtz Joy and Noel... Well, so far, just the Joy.

So much going on here! Check the subtle differences in the colors of the sprays... The darker card was made with 'merrymint' mica spray & the Joy on the 2 top cards were sprayed with 'frostymint. The merrymint is more greenish..... Note the same 3-D embossing folder called 'sparkle' was used for both the darker card and the white card.

                             

                                  

                      I am going to add two more cards. I used Stamperia patchwork Christmas paper. It is older and may be discontinued. I have had it for a long time and just looked at it!!

           The angel is kind of cut off... and reduced, but I imagine I will do it again in another format. There are rectangle  pages and circles to make easy cards.. All of the Stamperia paper pads are awesome! Stay tuned for Harvest moon & Burning ember sprays.... Actually that is what started it for me was spraying the papers for TH pumpkin Edison..

                                    Thanks for looking!

                                               Mary