Thinking of you

 

 

Thinking it is cold and missing the summer!!  I colored these sunflowers last summer and waited till I found a background that suited my fancy.  Here is What I came up with.  Also playing with a new camera.... the flowers aren't this bright in real life!

 

 

 

 

Tommorow I am going to a morning stamp camp and then in the afternoon a road trip with a couple of crafty friends!

I hope you have a nice weekend and thanks for stopping by!

Ginny

 

 

 

 

WOYWW #182 and a lot of redos!!

It is WOYWW#182!!  The free flight trip of  craft desks around the world!  You can go here:  http://stamping-ground.blogspot.com/To start your  hop!    My work desk was a little hectic today (it is Tuesday night here) I worked on a half dozen pairs of cards I needed for different people.  

 

 

And needed to have my PC worked on, I kept getting a dll file error and it was slowing the works down!  My dear Husband took the time tonight to take care of it for me, while I worked at the counter top.

 

My First set of cards I made in part yesterday and redid today;

It was an OSA challenge and I liked the idea but the card just didn't look right to me so today I redid it: 

 

The New card was larger in size, and I added a layer on the 100# paper instead of 80# it is A7.



The next was a pair of Geisha cards ( tomorrow I am going to make cards that are not Asian themed, I am hooked on this beautiful motif!  I need to use my other rubber before it dries up)!

 

The first attempt was another fail, I used a glaze on it and it just looked awful, I was a little disappointed because it is going out tomorrow and I wanted it to be especially lovely, it had to be with that writing on it! So I ripped it down and did another focal, the same as the first sans the glaze.

I lost the faces, and it just looked like a gloppy mess.

 

 

This is better:

 

You can see the difference, I will do the other the one on the left a little later.

 

While my desk was still occupied:

 

My supervisor told me to make something he'd like

 

 

 

he approved.

And then there are the 90:

 

Our Christmas cards that I must get done!

Ahhh Tomorrow!

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a great day!

Ginny M

SAFE and then some!!

Steve  and I decided to venture out today after we walked Luke.  We went to a few stores and surprisingly enough they weren’t too crazy!  One of the stores we went to sold everything you can think of for sports, we were actually looking for binoculars for our bird watching!  As we were going by a gun Isle Steve says “hey look there you go fire proof stamp storage”!!  I looked at it and before I could say anything else about this 6’x4’x4 safe, Steve says never mind we’d go broke buying enough to put your stamps in!   I didn’t say a word, just didn’t want to say and “what about the papers!”  You just got to love my husband, no  wait you don’t have too, but I sure do!! 

I'd have to change the label to 'Stamp and Ink'  Pro Series is fine!

Next thing to work on tonight; our Christmas cards!  all most done!

Thanks for stopping by!
Ginny M

Pie round does not mean E=MC2

The Day After and I have toxic pie syndrome, too much pie makes one toxic!  Actually, maybe I have it because I didn’t eat enough!!  I hope you had a great holiday if you live in the US and for those of you that don’t I hope all is well in your corner of the world!

We didn’t travel anywhere this year, with all our running around in the last 6 months we just stayed home and relaxed!  I cooked a whole big dinner and then we decided to wait for young Steve to come home from work so we could eat together.  Dinner was done at two and we ended up eating at 6:30 it was fun and relaxed!

It was such a beautiful day here in New England; we went for a nice long walk.  This picture was taken along the banks of the Connecticut river, is my walking heaven.  I see bald eagles here and many other birds.  A ground hog charged me on day, I got a little too close to her den.    It was a very interesting event, she ran too me stopped at my feet and looked up with an expression that said, SHOO and take that SLOBBERING CANINE WITH YOU!  Luke must have understood, he came within about 3 inches of her they were literally nose to nose.  She turned around and scampered about two feet and then I saw it , her little hole in the ground.

 

 

Thinking because the house was clean and just about everything taken care of I’d have the day to make lots of cards and take pictures for the studio (  www.maxammadestudio.com )  It is back up after the crash and I am working on filling it.   Instead of being terrifically productive, I’ve been a slug.  I tied up some loose ends which was good, I still need to finish my Christmas cards.

This is a Christmas card I made for the Secret Santa box being mailed for my OSA group,also using one of the new images.  It is more red -red in real life.  Clean and simple, the image printed on the rough side of Neenah 80# natural white Laid finish  card stock. 5x7

 

I’ve been working on new images with my printer becoming a major resource.  I love Asian art work and make quite a lot of cards with this theme.  Washi paper right now is a little out of my budget ball park, But I came across a very exciting website that has thousands of jpg, jpeg, png. Gif, and bitmap images available for download  free!  I downloaded about 70 images and started playing with them yesterday.  Here is the first attempt at making one of these pop, I like it!

 

 

This image was a blue taupe range and I really liked it even thought it was dull.  I ran it through my embosser and then colored it with  expresso dye in (SU).  It really popped!

 

I love this machine and Highly recommend it!

More images

 

Aren't these beautiful!!!  I printed them on various card stocks, and I love how they came out.  Now I know ink is expensive too.  My ink cartridges I purchase on line, they are recycled and I pay 13.33 for color and 6.95 for black.  The color is rated at 500 pages. even if I get half that is is still less expensive to print then to buy pre made papers.  Most of these plain and textured card stocks will be available for great prices in my studio store.  If you are interested before they are up just email me at maxamsewing@hotmail.com  for pricing.

here are two card that I made with the two papers on the right.

 

The Kanji says "thinking of you"  I embossed and colored the panels and then layered.  If you like the Kanji, I have a real treat for you:  I made them myself and you can too!  Go here for a translator (many languages to choose from) http://www.freetranslation.com/  I copy and then past into WORD from there you can adjust it anyway you fancy!!  I still love my kanji stamps, but I really like making my own too!  These card are large 5x7 and will require extra postage, but thats is okay the bases are both 100# paper.

In my next post I am going to try to give a little lesson on paper weights that might be helpful especially to those of you new to stamps!

Have a great day and thank you for stopping by!

Ginny M

Thanks Giving

 

I will enter into his gates with Thanks Giving and into His Courts with Praise

 

Here in the US we will celebrate what we call Thanksgiving Day, in just a few
hours. Most of the hype will center around eating a bird we call the Turkey.
It is a hugely ugly thing, lacking in grace and beauty. As far as I know we are
the only things on the earth that try to eat it on a regular basis, or at least
once a year. All of us here in the US will have many memories good and bad
associated with the day, and will proceed to make many more of both natures.

I would like to make one very important memory in the midst of all of this. I
think it may be a most important memory, and I want to make it in the mind of
God. I want him to remember me, entering into his Gates with Real Thanks Giving
and entering into his Courts with Praise. When I enter through the Gates, I am
leaving behind this temporal world , I am leaving behind this world of
corruption and passing into the eternal , When I enter into his Courts, I come
into his presence, before all that is Perfect and Holy. No place for turkeys or
biscuits and not even my gravy. I want thanksgiving to be part of my life,
everyday . I want God to remember me with Joy.
Have a wonderful day and Be Glad for Jesus loves to the uttermost!

WOYWW # 181

The is going to be a record short post for my WOYWW#180!!  I have a lot of things on my mind right now, mainly people.  For me, this is what this is all about, People.  I make cards for people, and I try to make really beautiful ones to make people smile.  My hope is if I make you a beautiful card, you will see that you are important to me, and that if you open the card I have something important to tell you.   Right Now my friend Victoria and her family in Ashdod are on my mind and thank you readers for praying for their safety, I heard from Victoria this am they are safe right now, She even posted on my blog.  Blogs are part of normal, and when bombs are going off around you normal is something you crave.  I know I lived through my house burning down, normal in crisis becomes totally awesome! 

On my work desk today:  My books of people, these are my treasures, names and addresses and records, people, my world that matters, the people of my life.  and when I am done posting I will sleep and tomorrow make cards and work and food shop and be with the people I am so blessed to have in my life.  My life, my prayers, my mail, my Internet.  With all these blessings I can say thank you Lord for making my life so rich and sweet!
Happy WOYWW#181 and Have a wonderful thanks giving!

For more WOYWW#181 fun go here: http://stamping-ground.blogspot.com/

In crazy times - comfort

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xPzTSpbYmk&feature=related

Beautiful Song by Philips Craig and Dean   "You are God Alone"

Enjoy

REJECTED!!

Yep, my beautiful challenge #199 for OSA was rejected ( I heard you, 'I told you so')  Okay well technically the background was disqualified.  I wasn't supposed to use the image just the colors and in all fairness I think I knew that from the beginning.  So I did want to submit something and I made a new card.  very similar to the first. With the second entry however I used glossy cardstock and a brayer which I had to make a note to self "do this more often" the background came out really pretty.  I did take more photos but somewhere in the events of he days I lost them from my camera.

I tried embossing a flourish , but it was to dominate and I wasn't able to stamp over it well.  So I used a MS glittery pearl paint, brushed it on to my Bamboo background stamp and stamped.  That had the right look and texture.  It didn't over power the bird and it was easy to stamp over.

I added a diamond glitter paint to it, it is drying in these pictures , still looks a little globby .

I used a Neenah solar white 100# for the bases.

My Husband is being so kind to use his day off to light up my life in yet another manner, more lights in my studio!!  He Is Just the BEST!! 
Thanks you for stopping by and I hope you have a great day!
Ginny

Morning Song

Oriental Stamp Arts today offers challenge #199. This is the second time I have participated in a challenge, and I have to say I am enjoying it very much! It is making me get out of my normal M O.
this weeks challenge required us to use this color palette:

Isn't this pretty!! I think so and a far cry from the Neutrals I am most comfortable with. So the Challenge is to use this range of colors. Actually I liked the whole image so much I decided to use it as my background (whoever just yelled "cheater" I heard that and I hope not )!! So the next step was stamp selection which really was no choice at all because when I saw the image all I could thing of if the Dawn and if could sing it would look like this!

It had to be the Penny Black Bird stamp! Next what to do with the size and how to use it.
I decided on making it the background

I needed to find the right complementary colors

I heat embossed the birds with black pigment ink and powder and then colored them with Tim Holtz distress markers. I added some glittery stuff - the white dots - they should be sparkly in about 15 minutes.

I added a Japanese Kanji on the side that says 'Morning Song'.  Google offers a host of translators and as long as your computer supports the alpha base of the language, the sky is the limit!!  And boy can that be fun!!  For those of you who love Calligraphy and words, you know just how exciting that is - everyone else may think we need to get a life, but we know better!!
The next choice was the card base.  Because this is a large 5x7 card I decide to use a 80# ivory laid Neenah paper.  I prefer the 100# for card bases, but with the large size and layers I decided to make it lighter for mailing.  Because the Laid paper has a nice crisp slightly embossed finish it has a very good in the hand feel.  I made sure that the deeper embossed side was on the out side, it looks better and it will be easier to write on inside.  I'll show you this difference between the white and the Ivory:

 

Well when my sweet husband reads this post he will see that I really do need that Nikon Camera That I was playing with in Best Buys when we were out having fun last night!  Because you can't see the difference here : the top photo is with a solar white base and it is distractingly white.  The one below is the Ivory which works with the yellow in the back ground much better!
The finished cards - but not quite dry sparkly stuff.

Thanks for stopping by today, yesterdays India ink is still looking good!
I hope you have a great day!
Ginny

India Ink and a Better Black

I’ve been looking for a cheap source for black inking.  I’ve tried making my own from art store supplies.  Beautiful Blacks in acrylic and oil based fluids.  These paints and inks didn’t work.  So What I’ve tried is good ole’ India ink.  I washed out a SU stamp pad, I love the size of these pads they fit my hand and I can ink up my big background stamps easily!  I wanted to use a water proof formula, as I do a lot water coloring with my stamping.  Normal "stamping" inks run around 5.00 per half ounce,   Good India Ink is about 24.00 for 32 ounces!! So you can see I am hoping this will be the ink and refill of economical choice!

I like the SU pads, they are a great sized and the new foam hold a lot of ink.  I washed out a pad with a color called Starfruit.  The color in my opinion was a real fail.  So if the experiment didn't work I didn't loose a pad of value to me!.  I inked up one corner, wanting to see how the ink would react to the foam.  These inks have who knows what in them and some have resins that become Crunchy on some surfaces (found that out on other experiments!!)  I let this sit over night to see if it was usable in morning.

It seemed fine with a few test stamps, so I went ahead and Inked up the whole pad. This took about 4 dropped fulls of ink. Smeared it around to even it out .

Next I was forced out of my craft room, my husband didn't understand the extreme importance of what I was doing and thought it would be a good Idea for us to go to our Class and then do something fun (that didn't involve stamping). So I left home, went to class, had fun, made dinner and went out again for more fun (Barnes and Noble and I got a Latte and read stamp magazines - That is fun!!). When I came back to my room, the ink had settled nicely into the foam and stamping a good clear black image was very easy.

Not the best picture, but the inking was very good, next i tried watercolors and my TH distress markers (water based)

This worked great!  no smearing what so ever!  It also worked with my Stickles - no smearing!

It did not work with my alcohol markers, they smeared.  That is okay, I can use Stazon for that, I rarely use the alcohol markers.  My preferred methods of coloring are watercolor, chalk and Colored pencil.  I was very excited to discover that the India ink held up to both baby oil and mineral spirits that I use with the colored pencils!  YAY!  Now before I go an buy a gallon of India ink, I will wait to see how the ink and pad hold up together for a few weeks.  I am concerned about it drying out to fast or getting crunchy.

Thanks for Stopping by, I hope you found this interesting!

**** I am posting this a little while later, in case you have come to this post after 11/12.
Trying out the India Ink on a stamp ended up being a total fail, the shellac and resin in India ink set up and caused a drying out of the foam and in general totally ruined it.  What did end up working beautifully was printer ink and you can read about that here along with a traditional ink pad comparison!!***

Ginny

Reality Check and Request

I am  posting  A request today; for my praying friends; to pray for my friend Victoria and her family.

Victoria lives in Ashod and right now she has reported the bombs are non-stop.  There is a lot of fear in the city and tanks are lining up.

 I would ask you to keep Victoria in your prayers for her safety and as we Christians would say, for  a faithful witness to find them and bless them!  Thank you everyone.
Ginny

WOYWW #180!! No Tears Please!

It’s here , WOYWW#180 more riveting footage of what is on my craft desk!!  Well, there is a bunch of us that like hopping around the world to see what the MoJo is stirring up!!  It starts here:  http://stamping-ground.blogspot.com/    at Julia Dunnit’s wonderful blog!   Enjoy!!

 

I thought I would put this picture in, to give you something pretty to look at from the start!

 

I’ve made a bunch of cards this week, but on my desk to day is a project that I started earlier,  and  am expanding!  I started with taking my Kanji Stamps of their wood mounts and turning them into cling mounts, stored in CD  cases in a tower.   The tower  took up 1/3 of my cutting desk. 

 

 

 That desk is shared with my cutting machines and sewing machine (yes it is a little cramped in here – not complaining,  just need to make every inch count!!)  I am running out of room and memory.  I am starting to forget which stamps I have  in my Asian collection.  So in an effort to make more room so I can see what I have, I have unmounted now  197 stamps.  I  wanted to put them right in my work area instead of on the other side of the room.  So I am putting them in a small cart that slides under my desk.  I also keep my  scripture and "Our Daily Bread" stamps there along with colored scraps and on the top my Genesis cutter, a very handy workstation!

 

 

 So in these two drawers I have in an indexed order about 400 stamps, with room to grow!!
Now the question remains should I proceed to unmount more of my Asian collection so that I have room to view other collections?  (by the way I tried to move the camera to make my leg in my jean skirt not look fat. I don't think it worked.)

I'd like to have all the Asian stamps as un mounted except the magenta (they would go on the magenta shelf.  that would give me another shelf and a half.

I told one of my dear stamping friends what I was doing and she just looked at me like I need professional help to over come this impulse, She said the thought of unmounting hers made her want to cry!!  I have the drawer space and I can laminate more 130# paper to make cling cards,   the 197 stamps required 24 pieces of 8.5x 5.5 cards.

Now at least I have more sewing/cutting room

 

 At last  is my work desk, after I finished the unmounting!! not too bad

 

Rubber stamping is a wonderful art and helps me to reach out, But I try to keep everything in perspective and remember this

Mt 6:21 

For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

I am very fond of these things, But I want to remember my God, and Husband, Family and  Friends near and far are my true treasures!

 

 

Thank you for stopping by and my God bless you with Abundant treasures! 

And Lots of stamps and inks!!  Paper too!

 

Ginny M