SMARTWORKS Rubber stamps, 3 cards

There are still a couple days left to get stamps at 35% off at SmartWorks Rubber Stamp Co y'alls. The sale ends on Oct 31, 2008. They have such a wide variety of images -- vintage, modern, country, all the holidays, florals, 3-step stamping and a lot more.

SALUTATIONS STAMP SET
I got this Smartworks Salutions stamp set a while ago and have been meaning to make a bright and pretty card with it. I found this Basic Grey paper in my stash and thought that pink tulips would look nice together!

I used my brush art markers by Marvy (Dee Gruenig) to color directly on the stamps. I used a few colors of pinks and greens together to get some dimension and shading on the tulips. After marking up the rubber stamp, I huffed on it with my breath to give it a bit more moisture then stamped it. You can use this technique if you want a lot of shading to show up on your stamped image. I then went in and colored the tulips with more light pink. To make it shine I added pink stickles (cotton candy) over some parts. The pink frilly photo corner was made by cutting a paper triangle then cutting the long edge with scalloped scizzors. For the final touch I punched 3 tear drop shapes. I thought I'd make my own fancy corner instead of buying one more die cut. The 3 lines on the botttom pink piece were made with the scoring blade on my paper trimmer since I don't have a Scor-it or Scor-Pal yet.

stamps: SmartWorks BFL-05 Salutions set (pg 73)
paper: SU kiwi kiss & pink pirouette, white, basic grey
inks: Dee Gruenig brush art markers, SU pretty in pink marker
accessories: ribbon, Martha Steward border punch, SU key tag punch, bling, decorative scizzors, fiskars tear drop punch, paper trimmer with scoring blade, cotton candy stickles


MUG TRIO STAMP SET

I made this card for my dear friend and one-time secret sister Valoria. She was assigned to be my secret sister for one entire year and then we met at the end of the year! Pink is her favorite color and I wanted to thank her for taking me out for my bday last week.

Since this is a 3-step rubber stamp I first did the base of the coffee mug using Stampin' Up's pretty in pink. Then I stamped the 2nd layer with Regal Rose, and then the final 3rd layer was stamped with chocolate chip. The final layer is basically where the shading goes (the shadow of the cup that isn't exposed to light) so it should be the darkest color. I had to use a stamp positioner to line everything up which is why it turned out so perfectly matched up. Mine is from Stampin' Up.

I used scalloped decorative edged-scizzors to make all the scallops.

stamps: SmartWorks DK-07 Mug Trio set, coffee beans - unknown stamp
paper: SU pretty in pink, chocolate chip, creamy caramel, whisper white, Kelly Panacci sandylion dp
inks: SU pretty in pink, regal rose, chocolate chip , creamy caramel, hot cocoa pastel sailor pen.
accessories: scallop scizzors, paper trimmer with scoring blade, paper & fabric flowers, half pearl.


BLOOM WITH JOY STAMP SET
The sentiment *May your day bloom with joy* (pg. 25) is also a SmartWorks stamp and comes with 3 little flowers. SmartWorks has tons of sentiments and a very large catalog you can view page by page and download, it's all pdf. I paired this sentiment up with this cute StampingBella *FlowahBella*. (I added more curls to her hair with a permanent black pen.) I used an orange spica glitter pen on her dress and sakura glossy glaze pens on the flowers and pot. The large flowers in the background are from TAC.

stamps: SmartWorks WD-41 Bloom With Joy, StampingBella, TAC
paper: SU regal rose & wild wasabi
inks: SU regal rose & wild wasabi, handsome hunter, chocolate chip, close to cocoa
accessories: ribbon, spica glitter pens, sakura glaze pens available at CPS