Saturday, September 28, 2013

Speedy Fox & Friends - Back to School & CCEE1339 - Fruit

My card this weekend is for two challenges -- Speedy Fox and Friends are celebrating back to school; and the  CCEE Stampers are celebrating Johnny Appleseed Day by making a card using fruit -- extra points for apples.   I made a slate board using some wood designer paper and black cardstock -- and the Chalkboard Technique for the message.  I found the perfect designer paper for my background.

Be sure to check out both the Mark's Finest Papers blog and the CCEE Stampers blog to see the rest of the cards for both of these challenges.

Stamps:  Mark's Finest Papers - Lesson Learned
Paper:  MFP Deep Scarlet, Black Linen, Snow Storm Smooth; Recollections Apples DP, unknown wood DP
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, SU Whisper White
Accessories:  Copic markers, Detail white embossing powder, Corner rounder, Pop dots

Friday, September 27, 2013

Halloween/Harvest Blog Hop Day 4 - Holiday Table Settings





Welcome to the Mark’s Finest Papers a Heinrich Co. Halloween/Harvest Hop. We have some great tutorials for you to make some fun and easy projects for this Halloween/Harvest Season. We will be giving away two stamps sets during this hop, so two lucky people will go home with both of these fabulous stamp sets. Be sure to comment on all the designers’ blogs. Our hop will run from September 24th-27th. Our two winners will be announced on September 28th. 

September 24th - Treat Holders
September 25th - Polished Stone
September 26th - Treat Bags
September 27th - Holiday Table Setting

All our tutorials along with many more are available on MFP SpeedyTV.  The company blog has direct links to the tutorials! http://marksfinestpapers.blogspot.com  

There will be nine people at my house for Thanksgiving dinner, and these name plates and napkin rings will make the table look festive. I have included the tutorial for these table setting items in the post below.  BTW, Doug and Kathi are two of my children.



Be sure to check out all of our designers who participated in our hop. The more you comment the more chances you have to win one of these great stamp sets.


Thanks for stopping by! We hope we were able to inspire you with ideas for your Halloween/Harvest season.


Holiday Table Settings Tutorial

To make your holiday table more personal, we will be creating name placecards and napkin rings.

Supplies used for both projects:

Colored and neutral cardstock
Patterned paper
Stamps
Coloring medium
Paper cutter
Scoring tool
Ribbon
Adhesive
Scissors (not shown)



STEP ONE

For name placecards cut colored cardstock to 5” x 5”.  Retain the remainder for napkin rings. 




Score each 5” x 5” piece at 2 ½”.  Fold.






STEP TWO

Cut patterned paper to 2 ¼” x 4 ¾”.




Adhere to front of folded base.





STEP THREE

If you plan to use your computer to generate the names, create your document with the names – sizing the font so that the names will fit within a 1 ½” x 4” area, off-center to the right. 





Cut apart the names, making sure that the cut pieces measure 1 ½” x 4”.  





If you will merely write the names with a marker, cut your neutral cardstock to 1 ½” x 4” and adhere to base.  I created my names on the computer.


STEP FOUR

Stamp and color your holiday image.  Cut out and adhere to base.






Here are several completed name placecards.




STEP FIVE

Take the remaining section of the cut colored cardstock and cut in half longwise to 1 ¾” x 8”.






STEP SIX

Cut two pieces of ribbon for each holder and tape at either end of the base.  To ensure that the ribbon would not pull out later, I put some narrow Scor-tape behind the ribbon, applied the ribbon to the cardstock, and then taped it down with Scotch tape.





 STEP SEVEN

Cut a strip of patterned paper to 1 ½” x 7 ½” and adhere to base.





 STEP EIGHT

Cut a strip of neutral cardstock to 1 ¼” x 6”.  




Stamp as desired and adhere to base.




 STEP NINE

Tie ribbon.




Here is the finished project.



Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Halloween/Harvest Blog Hop Day 2 - Polished Stone





Welcome to the Mark’s Finest Papers a Heinrich Co. Halloween/Harvest Hop. We have some great tutorials for you to make some fun and easy projects for this Halloween/Harvest Season. We will be giving away two stamps sets during this hop, so two lucky people will go home with both of these fabulous stamp sets. Be sure to comment on all the designers’ blogs. Our hop will run from September 24th-27th. Our two winners will be announced on September 28th. 


September 24th - Treat Holders


September 25th - Polished Stone


September 26th - Treat Bags


September 27th - Holiday Table Setting


All our tutorials along with many more are available on MFP SpeedyTV.  The company blog has direct links to the tutorials! http://marksfinestpapers.blogspot.com


I just recently learned how to do a very pretty background technique  --  Polished Stone (tutorial one post down), which is the highlight for today's blog hop.  Here is my card:



Be sure to check out all of our designers who participated in our hop. The more you comment the more chances you have to win one of these great stamp sets.


Thanks for stopping by! We hope we were able to inspire you with ideas for your Halloween/Harvest season.

Polished Stone Background Tutorial

POLISHED STONE BACKGROUND

By Lois Bak

Supplies needed for this background are minimal:

Glossy cardstock
Cotton ball
Metallic Mixative
2 Regular Re-inkers
Fixative

















STEP ONE

Randomly drop Metallic Mixative around the glossy cardstock.  I used gold mixative.














STEP TWO

Saturate the cotton ball with alcohol.  Make sure it is good and wet.



















STEP THREE

Drop the reinkers onto the cotton ball – two drops of each color should be sufficient.

















STEP FOUR

Dab the cotton ball onto the glossy cardstock. 














STEP FIVE

Continue dabbing all over the cardstock.  Make sure you dab on the metallic drops sufficiently to break up those droplets. 














STEP SIX

Continue dabbing until the whole piece of cardstock is covered and the Metallic Mixative is diluted.   The wet cardstock will buckle; but, as the ink dries, it will flatten out.















STEP SEVEN

Spray the cardstock with fixative.
















STEP EIGHT

When the ink is dried, complete your card.
















You can use any combination of colors you choose.  Here is a piece of cardstock on which I used red and turquoise re-inkers with gold Metallic Mixative.  Unfortunately, you can see that I didn’t dilute the gold mixative enough.














Here are several other cards I made using this technique.  The first one uses mustard yellow and tan re-inkers, with gold mixative.
















On this card (which uses green and purple re-inkers with silver mixative), I stamped directly onto the Polished Stone background with StazOn ink.




Saturday, September 21, 2013

Speedy Fox & Friends -- Follow the List

During last month's Dare to Get Dirty challenges on Splitcoaststampers, I saw this die on a card and fell in love with it.  It is one of the elements on the recipe for this week's Speedy Fox and Friends challenge -- 1 die, 2 stamps, 3 colors.  My two stamps actually come from two different MFP sets (Christmas Cardinals and Holly Jolly Greetings), and my three colors are red/green/brown.  (I made the assumption that the white cardstock didn't count as a color nor did the black ink.)   I added some 3-D red lacquer on the holly berries.

If you're good at following a list and would like to play along with us, post your card on the MFP Blog and maybe you'll win a free stamp set.

Stamps:  Mark's Finest Papers - Christmas Cardinals, Holly Jolly Greetings
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black
Paper:  MFP Deep Scarlet, Snow Storm Smooth
Accessories:  Copic markers, Memory Box Merry Christmas die, 3-D lacquer

Thursday, September 19, 2013

CCEE1338 - One-Layer Card

This week is National Singles Week, so, as hostess for the CCEE Stampers this month, I challenged the rest of the team to celebrate by making a one-layer card.  For my card, I colored the flower image with markers and then stamped it in the corner.  The markers give a bit of a water-color look to the flower.  I like to draw a single line frame on clean and simple cards -- it pulls the image and the sentiment together.  Be sure to check out the CCEE Stampers blog to see what the rest of the team did.

Stamps:  Mark's Finest Papers - Nature's Brushstrokes
Paper:  MFP Premium Heavy White
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black
Accessories:  Memento Markers - Bamboo Leaves, Tangelo, Tuxedo Black

Saturday, September 14, 2013

Speedy Fox and Friends - The Letter "G"

The Speedy Fox and Friends challenge this week is all about the letter "G."  My card has several "Gs" in it:  Grill, Grass, Green.  Plus . . . the Memory Box die that I used to cut out those little utensils, mitt, and apron is called Grill Masters.


Check out the rest of the team to see how they used the letter G.  If you'd like to play along, make a card and post it on the MFP Blog.  You might win a free stamp set.

Stamps:  Mark's Finest Papers - Tailgate Party
Paper:  MFP Deep Scarlet, Snow Storm Smooth; checkered and grass DP
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black and Rhubarb Stalk
Accessories:  Copic markers, Fiskars grass border punch, Memory Box Grill Masters die, Oval punch

Friday, September 13, 2013

MFP Blog Hop Day 4 - Tailgate Party


Sept. Blog Hop! 

This month's New Stamp Set Releases are

 Featured Sept 10 - Koi Fish
Featured Sept 11 - Primitive Farm 
Featured Sept 12  -What a Scream
Featured Sept 13 - Tailgate Party

Please hop along with us! You have a chance to win one of the above stamp sets! Just comment on the blogs listed below (don't forget this one), each day for more chances to win! (You do NOT have to comment on all the blogs each day! The names are drawn randomly!) All four winners will be announced on Sept. 14, 2013, on the Mark's Finest Papers blog. You can go back and comment if you missed a day. (HINT: The more you comment, the more chances you have to win and comments on the MFP blog count twice!)  The deadline for commenting is 10 PM EST on Friday, Sept. 13,  2013.






 The special stamp set we have for you this month is:

"Holiday Tag"


 The mini stamp set we have for you this month is:

"Nature's Brushstrokes"
                                                      




Well, here it is Friday already.  My challenge today is a Color Challenge -- Rust, Tangerine, Lime Green, any Neutral.  Today's set is a fun one -- the letters in several of the sentiments are individual stamps, so you can stamp a single letter in the pennant, which is what I did; and then I hung the pennants from a piece of twine to form a banner.  The football is stamped on Rust cardstock, cut out, and then run through my Big Shot using the Tiny Bubbles embossing folder, which sort of makes it look like a real football.


As a bonus today, I made a card using this month's mini set, Nature's Brushstrokes.  Even though it has many layers, I would still consider it a Clean and Simple card.  I colored the image with markers.



Thanks for stopping by my blog today.  I hope you've gotten lots of inspiration from my cards this week.  Be sure to check out what the rest of the team has created using today's set.  Here's the Design Team:

PattyLois (that's me), JaneDebbiePamPatThrfity StamperMarilynnKarenBonnieKathyAngela,
CathyToniSueJanineAn'JenicKateShirleyMarks Finest Papers, a Heinrich Co.



Thursday, September 12, 2013

MFP Blog Hop Day 3 and CCEE1337 (Fun Folds)- What a Scream


Sept. Blog Hop! 

This month's New Stamp Set Releases are

 Featured Sept 10 - Koi Fish
Featured Sept 11 - Primitive Farm 
Featured Sept 12  -What a Scream
Featured Sept 13 - Tailgate Party

Please hop along with us! You have a chance to win one of the above stamp sets! Just comment on the blogs listed below (don't forget this one), each day for more chances to win! (You do NOT have to comment on all the blogs each day! The names are drawn randomly!) All four winners will be announced on Sept. 14, 2013, on the Mark's Finest Papers blog. You can go back and comment if you missed a day. (HINT: The more you comment, the more chances you have to win and comments on the MFP blog count twice!)  The deadline for commenting is 10 PM EST on Friday, Sept. 13,  2013.






 The special stamp set we have for you this month is:

"Holiday Tag"


 The mini stamp set we have for you this month is:

"Nature's Brushstrokes"
                                                      




Today is Technique Challenge day on my Blog.  I love making Halloween cards, and today's set has lots of fun Halloween images.   My first card, which is also for the CCEE Stampers challenge to use Fun Folds, was made using a technique I found on one of the Technique Junkies Newsletter CDs.  It's called an Inside Out Card.


And here's where the "inside out" part comes in.


If you'd like to play along with the CCEE Stampers, check out our blog and make a fun fold card of your own.

I also made an Inside Out Card using the extra set for this month, which is called Holiday Tag.  It contains images for Christmas (Santa, Candy Cane, and Gingerbread Man), as well as a tag on which they will fit and several appropriate sentiments.  I used the cute gingerbread man on my card along with some coordinating patterned paper I've had for several years.  (Gotta use up that old stuff to make room for new stuff!)


Here's the inside.  The "Merry Christmas" is actually from another MFP, aHC set called You Are an Angel.



Thanks for stopping by my blog today.  Be sure to check out what the rest of the team has created using today's set.  Here's the Design Team:

PattyLois (that's me), JaneDebbiePamPatThrfity StamperMarilynnKarenBonnieKathyAngela,
CathyToniSueJanineAn'JenicKateShirleyMarks Finest Papers, a Heinrich Co.