Highdesert Stamper – Artistic Inkspirations

I taught a class yesterday showing my stampers how to make these cute little boxes. I had “requests” to do certain colors for them, so all the papers you see used here ARE retired, but hey….they wanted these colors and they turned out so cute!! I haven’t received my new papers yet…… they came, they were damaged, they’re being replaced (Stampin’ UP! is SO WONDERFUL about replacing damaged merchandise) that I had to use some retired papers. Besides…what’s retired here, may NOT be retired in UK, AUS, or other parts of the world where you can buy SU products. So hopefully you’ll get some good ideas. I found the tutorial online, but when making it from the instructions provided, they were incomplete, so I modified the instructions so they’re complete and easier to follow.  I hope you enjoy my GAME NIGHT box I made.   My neighbor suggested we make some more with the Jackpot  paper, and coordinating Game Night stamp set to make some more boxes, then  get some decks of cards and put into them (they hold 2 full decks of cards) and send them to our TROOPS. So I will use up my Jack Pot  paper making these little boxes for our Troops overseas.  You could use any paper or decorations you like to make these boxes.

Here’s the Game Night box:

Jackpot w/Game Night stamps

Box in Lilac and Lavender:

Box in BERMUDA BAY!

Here are a few of the cards the ladies made to go into the boxes:

Lavender and Banana

Lavender and white w/embossing

Bermuda Bay: new JUST BELIEVE ss

Bermuda Bay w/scrunchy flower

On this last one I talked Christen into making one of the scrunchy flowers for her card. It ended up being one of her most favorite cards! Very simple.. but very pretty!

They all did very well!! This was a “creativity class” where they had to make up their own card designs and figure out how they wanted to decorate the fronts of the boxes. I did pull down some other samples of cards from other box sets to give them some ideas..but over all, I think they all did a FANTASTIC JOB!! Good job Ladies!!

I went out to my stamp room to make a card for the COLOR Guest Designer challenge my friend Sharon Field in Fla. has on her blog….. I got a bit sidetracked. I had been wanting to decorate some more of the little books I had found at our local drug store… someone asked where I got these since they are plain and READY to stamp and decorate.  I don’t know if they have any more in, since I bought all they had several months ago. Who knows… they may have a ton more! So go check out your local drug stores in their school supply and notebook section… you may find some treasures to decorate!  Here is my latest little book. It’s not here any more…. it sprouted wings and flew out with the mailman…someone lucky is getting a surprise!!

I tried making it bigger…. it got so big you couldn’t see the whole book on the page.. so just click on the picture and it will bring it up larger in a new window.

I used several little punches and a band of “homemade” grass.  I didn’t have any more of my favorite vanilla smooch spray (used it all up…that stuff is addictive to use, and use, and use…..)  So I tried the Champagne shimmer paint! Boy is that fun to work with!  I added a pearl from our new jazzy pearls available from SU to set off the flower a bit. What do you think??  Would you like to get one of these in the mail?

I don’t know how many of you have ever “traded” Artists Trading cards… They are small, compact, and easy to make or can be very “tedious” as the one I’m going to show you.  They were orignally started in the 1700′s as miniature portraits that were sold.  During the Impressionist age, Artists cards were traded to study each other art styles and techniques.  If you’d like to read about their history… here’s a link. They’re very interesting.  I have traded Oriental style ATC’s,  “vintage” style, and now we’ve done a 44 color Stampin’ UP! style. I will be posting all of the Color Families over the next few weeks, on Mondays… so come back and check to see the next batch!     Enjoy.

Bashful Blue colors

Recipe: Stamp sets: Puns from the past, Charming

Card stock and Ink: Bashful blue, whisper white; Accessories: Eyelet lace border punch, crimper, new tiny flower punch from Itty Bitty Shapes, boho blossom punch, jewelry tag med. punch, Vanilla smooch spray, lt blue embroidery floss (ties on tags), pearls from pretties kit, BS Lattice emobssing folder.

Techniques: ined embossing,  I teach this in a class–it is NOT the brayered folder technique; “ruffled” borders.

If you’d like to take a class and learn how to make this card, contact me at “highdesertstamper@gmail.com”