No more Owlets Jumping on the Bed! - Pilin' on another Scene

This week at Pile It On our challenge is to Create a Scene. We're sponsored by Beyond the Fringe Crafts. I've been a fan of this fun site run by Carmen for several years; she has many wonderful images in her Etsy shop, and also provides lots of freebies on her blog.

I already made a card for this challenge featuring her Wonky Silhouette Cityscape digi stamp, but since I own that image I figured I'd take advantage and show off one of her great freebies too! I just fell in love with her Six Little Owlets Jumping On the Bed set (freebies for a limited time!), and decided to make a Halloween-themed scene using it. I remember this poem from my childhood and spent many an hour playing it with my niece (although I see the lyrics now say "bumped his head" instead of "broke his head," like I learned it. I'm all for this kind of language change, as I remember thinking those monkeys were really, really hurt!)

I printed the image onto an orange cardstock base. I made a little "rug" with a striped paper from the same Graphic 45 set as the purple polka-dotted paper. The bed is fussy-cut from a white cardstock, pieced with the purple "bedspread" and colored with Copics and gel gens. I printed the owlets on Kraft paper (the set comes with a separate set of owls that line-up perfectly with the owlets on the main image, so you don't have to cut them from the big image) and colored them with gel and glitter pens.

I typed up the sentiment, printed it on plastic, and used the rub-on technique to transfer it to a wood talk bubble. I used another wood embellishment, this funky little owl, to add a bit of fun. I colored it to match the other owls, and gave it some surprised-eyebrows. I had so much fun making this, and hope my niece likes it!

Lawnscaping #92

Challenges:
Lawnscaping Challenge #92: Halloween or Color Combo (3rd entry)
Bunny Zoe's Crafts October Challenge: Animals
Simon Says Stamp: Use Kraft paper (2nd entry)

Thank you for visiting & inspiring my crafting! Hope you'll join us at Pile It On,

Merry stamping

I've been really into rubber stamping so I haven't been visiting the Crafter's Digital Art Center (CDAC) much. But I'm getting a little bit of stamp-hand, so I decided to take some time with digi stamps. Because Therese Travis introduced me to CDAC, I like to use her images for their challenges. However, they always offer yummy freebies from different artists, so I've taken to mixing & matching the images.

My attempt at this month's sketch challenge came out pretty cute considering there's a ton going on! See, I also wanted to break out my new Christmas cutting files...
I actually had a lot of hits-and-misses with this card. I wanted to make a border with the presents from Firecracker Designs, but I couldn't get it to print dark enough, so I stamped the sentiment from that file onto a piece of ribbon. All I had was satin ribbon, but I do like the concept and how the lettering retains its personality.

Digi stamps: Angel Rainie (PaperFacesDesigns); present & sentiment (Firecracker Designs by Pamela)
Digital cut files: Santa's North Pole Workshop series from SVG Cuts
Supplies: K&Company designer double-sided cardstock, Core'dinations cardstock, HP printer & ink, Tim Holtz scissors, ZipDry glue, Sakura Gelly Roll pens, Elmer's CraftBond gel pens, Sharpies, chalk by Pebbles Inc., Offray ribbon

Mid-day madness!

Even though I have at least two projects on the metaphorical burner, I just had to take a crafting break. It's Tuesday, so challenges abound! I started with the always-interesting Midnight Madness sketch challenge at the Priscillastyles blog, the idea to try my hand at some stitching, a stamp I've been itching to use, and some scrap pieces of handmade Chinese flower-pressed paper.
For an extra element, I did a Google search for haiku about women...and found instead a book review for Far Beyond the Field: Haiku by Japanese Women with a perfect haiku by Sugita Hisajo:

sewing in the lamplight
I teach spelling to my child –
autumn rain

It really is a perfect poem. Nothing can put you immediately into a place and then back it up with your own emotion like a well-written haiku. I used a rubber stamp from Stampin' Up!, plus the printing on acetate technique to stamp the haiku onto the same paper as the image. And yes, I know I'm mixing up Japanese and Chinese elements, but the final result sure is cute!

The frame pieces were trimmed from an especially leafy part of the paper, adhered with help from my Xyron sticker machine, and then hand-stitch in camp-wallet spirit. To add a little something, I cut out the image and quote with deckle scissors. And obviously I can't get enough of hand-coloring rubber stamps! I like all the whitespace, but next time I'll probably add more detail after I've stamped it.

Stamping digital images with acetate

When I started my love affair with piano-hinge books, my biggest challenge was how to neatly double-side on pages that were between one and three inches. Ol' Bessi, my 10-year-old HP 3-in-one InkJet printer, actually does a fairly good job at double-siding, but it's always a crapshoot whether it will work. Honestly, that's the truth across the board in printing. Printing truly proves chaos theory, if you ask me. Also, I needed to cut the pages on my Cricut personal cutter, and there was no way I would be able to do that many times in a row with less than 1/16 inch margin of error. It would be easier to hand-cut the pages in that case, but I didn't want my books to be that handmade. Anyhoo, during the same time I was trying to make a magic picture card with a digi stamp, but the image just wouldn't dry on the acetate. So, in a classic "You got chocolate on my peanut butter!" moment, I realized that I had in fact created a way to stamp the image. I know, I know, what's the point of stamping an image that is printable? Gee, where's your imagination? It adds a completely different effect, plus it totally solves my book printing problem.

The above image, from my poemoir "The Door Won't Stop It", shows my first attempt at stamping the text onto the pre-cut pages. It's basically digital letter-pressing.

This method works perfectly for my needs, so I decided to try it with a full-color image. The results are mixed, but it's so much fun that I thought I'd throw together a quick how-to:

You don't have to do this, but I pre-printed the sentiments and backing papers onto cardstock first. It just worked out that I was able to use just one piece of white.

Reverse/flip/mirror the image you want to stamp (including the positioning), and print at highest quality/output onto your acetate. This only works with inkjet printers . . . I think laser pinters will probably actually print on the acetate.

Carefully place the acetate, ink-side down, onto your cardstock. The blurred effect in this photo shows what happens when you try to do this with one hand while taking a picture . . . it's best to use two hands. In this case, I printed everything on letter-size paper with a half-inch margin, to help with the alignment.

Transfer the image onto the cardstock by rubbing it. Depending on the effect you want and the detail of the image, you can use anything from a bone folder to your finger. My favorite: the top of my extra-large glue stick. However, only use one method. This is what happens when you get nervous and rub it a little more with your fingernail:
As you can see, how you rub on the image really makes a difference in the color coverage. Here's a better, more even version:
Here's the card I made with the images, for the September Sketch Challenge at Crafter's Digital Art Center (CDAC).

Sketch by Lauretta's Digital Stamps
Technique: Spotlighting (there's a great tutorial for true spotlighting at splitcoaststampers)
Birdie digi stamp by paperfacesdesigns
Supplies: Core'dinations cardstock, Stickles, ribbon from Target, HP printer, Recollections cardstock, Grafix clear craft plastic, ZipDry glue, pop-up dots