Pirate LTCs

My inspiration 

Back in August someone posted a pirate postal tracker.  I was excited about the theme but I just don't have the patience waiting for postals to come around.  So, I hosted a pirate LTC swap.

My first idea was to carve an octopus pirate.  But as I was looking at images, I found a Life is Good pirate.  If you know me, I love carving Life is Good images.

Regular tissue paper

I had my stamp image but I needed a background.  In the description of the swap I encourage participants to try something new.  I couldn't use my standard alcohol inks.  I work in a day care and everyday I walk past a framed piece of art that was my inspiration.

Just by looking at the art at work, I thought you cut up tissue paper, "paint" water on your paper, lay down the tissue paper, and let it dry.  As you can see above, that doesn't work.  I got on Pinterest to see what I did wrong.  Apparently, you have to use bleeding tissue paper.  Who knew?

Bleeding tissue paper

I ordered some online, cut it with the hexagon punch, and "paint" the water under and over the tissue paper.  Then you let it sit a bit, peal the paper off, and let it dry.  It was basically love at first sight.  I was a little disappointed with the white spots but I got over it right away when I started stamping my image.

Seas The Day LTCs

Originally, I was going to stamp and emboss my image with brown, because blue and brown go well together.  But then I got to thinking that since it was pirate theme I should emboss in black.

I am very happy with how these cards turned out.  I already plan to use this technique again.  You will actually see that post before you see this one :P

Let's Go Camping LTC

New Distress Crayons! 

I can't pass up a camping LTC swap.  I wanted to, because it had a short deadline, but I can't.  This is my card for brailleboxer's "Let's go camping" swap.

I carved up a camping image from Life is Good.  I love their simple images and this will probably be my annual Mother's Day plant.  I stamped the stamp on watercolor paper and embossed it with glow in the dark embossing powder :D

Let's go camping: Five Star Restaurant 

I really enjoyed coloring the background.  I found these Tim Holtz distress crayons.  There are many different ways to use them.  I colored the crayons on the paper and then painted them with a water brush.  I also played around with rubbing the crayon on Plexiglas and then painting on the paper.  I liked it but it was too light.  I bought a few different packs of the crayons and you will see more of them in the future :)

I ruffed up the edge of the watercolor paper and glued it to a black background.

Life is Good Again LTC

Life is Good Again: Bed & Breakfast

I am hosting a "Life is Good" LTC swap again.  I really like the simple, positive, encouraging messages from the LIG shirts and whatnot.

I like camping and I recently bought a new book of camping scrapbook paper.  I looked around the LIG camping images and picked this one.  I messed up the words on the first go so I just cut them off and carved it again.  I really like the scrapbook paper but didn't want to hide it so I stamped my stamp on vellum and attached it to the paper with a mini glue dot.

I am hosting an event in September and I thought it would be cool to have a trail of these stamps at the event.  I have asked the LTC participants to donate their stamps and I have a few coming in.  If you have a LIG stamp that you are not using, I'd be happy to take it off your hands :)

For my Indiana themed event, I think I am going to call this series of stamps "Life is Good in Indiana."  

Thanksgiving LTC

Thanksgiving: Thank Full

This is my card for the "Thanksgiving" LTC tracker.  I love the simple Life is Good images so I looked for a Thanksgiving theme one.  I liked this one but thought that I would have to make it really big to get the detail and text to look nice.  Then I decided to make the stamp into a shrinky dink.  I probably should have made it bigger but I was worried about using too much carving material.

Shrinky Dinks

The start of this card is a lot like my Gesso one.  I cut my paper to be tag shaped.  Then I tore some old music paper and glued it to the card using Gesso and a knife.  I put the stencil on and put more Gesso on and let it dry.  I hadn't played around with alcohol inks in a while so I wanted to try that again.  I put the ink on the craft mat, sprayed it with a little water, and rubbed my card thru it.

Background before and after the inks

They started off really colorful but I quickly learned that alcohol ink doesn't take well to Gesso.  The color quickly faded.  I still thought they were pretty so I rolled with it.  To jazz it up a bit I sprayed the card with Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist gold spray.

Then came the leaf.  I looked around the craft store for a leaf punch but didn't see one big enough.  I thought about printing one off on card stock to make a template and cutting out my own.  But I ending up ordering some die cut leaves  from Etsy.  They came in 3 shapes and 5 colors.  I took a Distress Stain ink pad and a alcohol ink applicator and rubbed the ink onto the edge of the leaves.

Added ink to the leaves

I glued the whole think together with school glue which was probably a mistake.  Some of the color behind the shrinky dink bled and looked odd.  But it is too late now.  I think they turned out pretty good.

Camping LTC

Camping: Zero Tasking

It is too cold to camp here right now. We have 6 inches of snow on the ground and have broken several records for cold temps. But here's to wishful thinking ;)

I have joined another camping LTC swap.  My card is called, "Zero Tasking."  One of my favorite things about camping is that you don't have to do much.  Yeah, we'll go for a hike, visit the nature center, cook 3 meals a day over a fire, and we might go fishing but there is no set schedule.

I like the "Life is Good" images.  They are easy to carve and positive so that is what I started looking for when I joined this tracker.  I stamped my stamp on vellum using brown ink.  Then I attached the vellum to s'more paper.  I should have carved my stamp a little smaller but I was worried about the text.

Think warm thoughts.

Happy Birthday to me :)

Today is my birthday and I have been very busy.  I am currently hosting 2 LTC swaps that are supposed to start today.

The first swap is called "Anything Easter."  Daddy's Favorite Princess and I are both participating.  My card is pretty simple.  I stamped my bunny on cardstock and painted the eggs with Crayola watercolor paints.  I also put flocking in the ears and on the nose.

The princess carved and colored all of her cards herself (I helped by stamping them).  They are bigger than 2.5 x 3.5 so she folded them in half and put pretty flower stickers on the outside.

The other swap I am hosting is "Life is good."  I am really excited about this set and the cards coming in all look great.  I caved a bubble bath stamp for my cards and made a bubble background.

I have made this background before and had a lot of fun with it.  You take some bubbles and dump them in a tupperware container.  Then you stick a straw in the liquid, start blowing bubbles, drop food coloring on the bubbles, and lay your paper on the bubbles.  Sometimes I keep blowing while I lay the paper on to get it extra bubbly.

In 2014 we are celebrating all the Christmas family birthdays with letterboxes so I am going to plant my "Life is good" stamp and two others.  I have a busy day planned with political fundraisers, school choir performances, craft shows, and more but I think I can squeeze it in.

My Esty shop has been going crazy recently and I had 9 orders in 2 weeks!  Now that things are settling down I need to work on LTCs and I told my hubby I would make him curtains for his garage.  So, I better stop blogging and get back to work!