Reverse Confetti February Blog Hop

Hi, friends! Happy Sunday! Sunday just may be my favorite day of the week...sleep in, lots of coffee, crafting, reading, and rain:) And on the 8th of the month, a Reverse Confetti Blog Hop! You should have come to me from Leigh's beautiful blog! If you didn't start at the beginning, it's never too late! Start at the Reverse Confetti Blog for a full hop list!

This month, our theme is ABC *anything but a card!* I usually shy away from these types of challenges, they scare me! I'm not good at treat containers and ideas like that. So I thought I'd go a different way and make some tags!

I went to one of Julie Ebersole's classes at Impress today and met up with Amy Tsuruta, Chitali Narla, and a few other new friends! It was soOOOOoo much fun! We made several CAS cards, and had a blast! After all that clean and simple, I was really itching to get messy, so I turned to some gesso, distress inks, distress sprays, and had some fun! I have a small tutorial on how I created these gesso resist backgrounds, lets get started!

First, gather your supplies! Gesso, Distress Inks, Sponge tools, cardstock (I used PTI white cardstock), and stamps (Whole Lotta Hearts by Reverse Confetti)

Next up, you want paint some gesso onto your stamps and then stamp onto the cardstock. I didn't get a picture of this part of the process, but my best piece of advise is to use one of those cheap foam brushes for the gesso and lightly spread the gesso on your stamp. Don't go too thick with the gesso or it'll be gloopy (is that a word? LOL) This is what your cardstock will look like after the gesso dries!

It'll be hard to see unless you get the lighting just right:) Make sure your gesso is 100% dry before moving on to this next step! 

The next step is to start applying your distress inks onto the cardstock. The gesso will resist the ink and you'll get a tone on tone kind of effect. Super fun! DOn't be afraid to really load up on the ink on your sponge tool, lots of ink will create lots of contrast!

I really like how the inking revealed some imperfections in the stamped gesso hearts, it's so cool! I love this technique, hope you give it a try! Here are a few detail pics of my tags. The second tag was created using the same technique, only with Wild Honey, Peeled Paint, and Evergreen Bough Distress Inks.

Love You tag: 

  Heart to Heart, Heart to Heart Confetti Cuts, Pretty Panels Big Chevron, Tag Me Too, Whole Lotta Hearts, Circles n' Scallops

Here is a close up of the cheesecloth I added! I died the cheesecloth with Festive Berries and Picked Raspberries Distress Ink Spray! I also got some sparkly Fun Foam at Impress today, and cut out the arrow and "you" from the black and pink sparkly fun foam, so fun!

 

I Woof You Tag

Puppy Love, Puppy Love Confetti Cuts, Whole Lotta Dots, Circles n' Scallops

That's all I have today, thank you SOOOO much for stopping by! Now you're off to Stacey's amazingly fun blog! Enjoy the rest of the hop and see you around!

***Don't forget to check out the latest sale at Reverse Confetti! 

Click on the heart to start shopping!!!***

A fun tutorial for The Ribbon Carousel!

Hey there! I have a tutorial up on the Ribbon Carousel blog today! Please visit HERE and let me know what you think:)

Mojo 174-Love + a tutorial + storage tips!

Hiya ladies!! Today's post is PICTURE HEAVY so I'm going to skip the small talk, lol! Read on if you dare;)

I made a card for this week's super fun Mojo Monday sketch #174!

Here's my card using stamps from Love Notes and the Jotted Heart and Classy Label dies--

The card base is a piece of Bazzill dotted black cardstock, I have a whole stack of the dotty paper and hardly ever use it so I thought I'd break it out today.

Here's a close up of the fabulous Jotted Heart die and matching stamp from Love Notes! I think if I had to pick a SINGLE stamp as my favorite from this last release, it would be this "love" stamp! I love the elegant font and that "L" makes me swoon:) I thought it would be fun to add this little stick pin to the heart, kinda like an arrow:)

Notice those scallops? That's not an edge punch, that's my Classy Label die! Wanna know how I did it? Keep on reading!;)

First I wanted to show you the size of the Classy Label die in case you don't have it {yet}...

This is the back side of the die, so the cut lines are just a *tiny* bit smaller than what you see, I'm not sure why I took the picture this way, lol!

You want to cut a few labels with your die first. The scallops on my card sample took 2 1/2 full labels.

After you cut them all out, you're going to cut them in half, length-wise so they look like this...

This is just so you don't have to cut as many labels. Waste not, want not I always say;)

Next you're going to glue them to your cardstock. This is the back of the cardstock. As you can see, the straight edges give you a really nice way to make sure your scallops are even! Here's what it looks like from the front so far...

Keep adding scallops until you're finished!

Wa'la! It might not necessarily be faster than an edge punch, but if you don't have one, and you DO have a Classy Label die, you can still have perfect scallops!

In FACT, you can have TWO SIZES of scallops! Here's how to make smaller scallops...

Cut out more Classy Label dies and then cut them in half width-wise like so--

Then add the pieces to your cardstock like I did on the previous sample!

There you have it, two scallops from one Classy Labels die:)

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I thought since I was already boring you to tears with all these pictures, I'd show you how I store my Verve stamps and Verve dies!

I store all my dies in these plastic cases I can get at the 100Yen store for 100 Yen, ha! That's basically a dollar...

The first one holds cuttlebug folders, the second one hold Verve/MFT dies, the third one hold my PTI Impression plates, the fourth one holds my PTI dies, and the fifth one holds my Spellbinders dies!

I used my SU! tab punch to create the file tabs and then just wrote the names of the dies on the tab:)

Whenever I cut extra labels/shapes out with my dies, I just keep them and store them in with the dies in case I can use them some day! Remember...waste not, want not;)

Here's how I store my clear stamps--

The first four are PTI stamps, the next three are Verve, and the far bottom right is MFT!

Here's the inside:

It's kinda hard to read, but the I have them labeled "Verve" then the release month/year, then the stamp set name.

I buy these CD cases at the 100 Yen store also. I get 4 CD cases for a dollar, w00t! I'm going to miss that place when we leave, lol!

Okay, I think that's it from me today, sorry to yap your ears off;) Hopefully you picked up a tip or two on making your own scallops or stamp/die storage! 

Thanks for dropping by today!!

Mystery Monday featuring Dictionary!

Hello! I see you're surviving the first Monday of the new year;) It's really nice to get back into a routine now that the holidays are over! Gym in the morning, walk the dogs, take a shower, have lunch, do grocery shopping/laundry/clean house, then STAMP!!! I've also really gotten into reading again! I've read three in the past week and a half. I used to have a hard time finding time to read, but I now find that I'm a night reader! Whodathunk? I think I'm most into it around 8:00 at night, I could read till midnight! Got my glass of wine, a movie in (I like movies I've seen a gazillion times so I don't have to watch it, lol!), my dogs at my feet, and my book:) I'm currently reading the Black Dagger Brotherhood series and it's just SO good! These books are NOT for kids, fair warning;)

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Okay, sorry for the side-bar, I don't know where that came from, lol! If you're not familiar with the Club Anya Mystery Monday, one of the Team Anya DT pick out a card from The Galleria and we all CASE it! If you play along with us, and are the random winner, you win a free stamp! Sound fun? Why not start on this FIRST Mystery Monday of the year;)

Today, Team Anya is featuring Dictionary! Jess found this fab card to case and we all had a blast! Here's Dictionary's card:

I love this fun layout and that flower cluster on the upper corner!

Here's my CASE of her beautiful card!

I used Amelia from Little Dreamers again (there were so many of you who left me such sweet comments on how do I color hair and what colors do I use, so I used this one and did a tutorial! That's coming up in a bit!) and paired her up with some more October Afternoon:) I pulled the color combo from paper and colored her up with Copics!

I love this fun flower embellishment! That big white rose is by Prima and the smaller roses are from Zva. I also die cut some leaves from a PTI die and then using dimensional glaze created some little water drops on the leaves! 

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Okay, here's my quickie hair coloring tutorial! This is my favorite combo of colors for a brunette and I obviously like high contrast in my coloring. If you don't care for that look, you'll have to do some blending which I didn't add to my toot because I don't do it, lol!

Okay, here's step 1

Step 2:

Step 3:

Step 4:

Like I mentioned, I don't do ANY blending when I do hair like this because I like the choppy texture of the unblended. I'm sure this grates on a lot of people's nerves but I love this look, lol! 

Well there you have it! That's how I color hair (most of the time!)

When I color hair blonde I like to use E50, E53, and E55. For black hair I like C3, C5, C7, and C9. I'm still playing with red hair so I don't have a favorite for that one yet!

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Hope you enjoyed that mini tutorial! I was too lazy to do a video toot;)

Make sure you stop by the other girl's blogs to see how they CASE'd Dictionary's card too!

Team Anya Blog

Jessica Diedrich

Amber Hight

Anna Maria Nilsson

Jen Shults

Kristy Young

**Barbara Sproat-Jan. Guest Designer**

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Thanks for stopping by today! Remember, the Verve previews start TOMORROW on the Verve Blog!!!!!!!

Verve Sneak Peeks, Day 5 ~ Special Announcement

**Please scroll down for my TGF Cheeky Xmas Preview Sneak Peek!**

Okay, by now, you've been wondering what news we've been keeping secret! Well the cat is out of the bag! Verve is now offering DIES!!!! We've only got one right now, but I bet Julee doesn't keep us waiting long for more;) 

Today, the Diva's are showcasing ways to use the amazing Sweet Scallop Tag die! 

I created a snowflake ornament for my Christmas tree using the tag die and wrote up a quick tutorial if you'd like to try one for yourself!

Here are the photos explaining how I created this ornament. If you've never made an accordion flower, all you do is take a 12"x1.5" strip of cardstock/dp and trim the top with a scalloped edge punch. Score between the scallops and then make mountain/valley folds. Secure the ends together with score-tape or other strong adhesive and then kind of flatten it out so it fans out. I stamped a sentiment from Holiday Phrases and created a little banner flag for my ornament. 

Now that you know how to make the accordion flower!

 Here is the tutorial for the rest of the ornament!

Step 1--

Step 2--

Step 3--

Step 4--

I hope you try one of these ornaments! It was so fun to create and really didn't take that long at all. In fact, once I got started I couldn't stop *this is actually my curse in everything I create, lol!*

I thought after looking at my finished product, it could use something dangly!

I cut three snowflakes with my Martha Stewart punch and then hung them off my ornament. I really love how this ornament turned out and can't wait to hang it on my tree:)

Check out the rest of the Diva's blogs and see what they created with the FABULOUS Tag Die!!!

1. Laurie	9. Teresa
2. Charmaine	10. Sankari
3. Lynda	11. Tosh
4. Mercy	12. Jen T.
5. Amy	13. Amber
6. Shannan	14. Jen d.
7. Michelle	15. Andrea
8. Jackie	16. Julee

Not only has Julee come up

with the most fabulous dies, but she's devised the most AMAZING storage concept, and it COMES with the DIE! Check out the Verve Blog for details!!