About Watermarks

Yes they are important IF you want to try to limit the theft of your images. Notice I say limit the theft, not eliminate it. There will always be those people who would rather steal your image, and futz with removing the watermark than make the card themselves. Why? Who knows for sure. Maybe they get their jollies from it, maybe they are lacking creatively and think it makes them look better, maybe they don't know it's wrong (I highly doubt this, but ok), maybe they've been living in a hole for their entire lives, again who knows why some people do the things they do. It's one of the greatest mysteries of the universe *wink*

Here's the thing, personally I don't think watermarks need to be HUGE and placed across the center of the image. My watermark is nice and small, but it's made so that it blends into the image no matter what colors I use for the card. Plus it's difficult to remove easily, even with Photoshop CS!

If you look at the DD gallery (Dirty Dozen gallery) most of those gals have rather small unobtrusive watermarks. To me that's saying something! If the be all and end all artists of SCS aren't marring their cards with these gigantic watermarks, why should you?

I'm not saying you shouldn't have a watermark, especially since SU requires it for web publication, but I'd really rather see the artwork than the watermark!

Here are a couple of samples:





Which one do you like the best? The tiny one? The HUGE one across the card? Or the one with the initials?

Masking Tutorial

Well I got SO many comments on my VSN pre-challenge card about my masking, I thought I'd do a tutorial about it!

Masking is a great technique for creating scenes on your cards. The basic idea is to stamp the front images first and then move your way backwards, by masking off the front images. It doesn't take a lot of time, but you do have to be careful when creating your mask.

Here's what you need: Stamp-a-ma-jig (Lego-ma-jig in my case ;) ),imaging sheet, stamps, post it notes, micro-tip scissors, ink and paper.



First stamp your images on the post it notes, making sure you stamp them over the sticky edge.



Cut out your masks, being careful to cut right on the line or even slightly inside it. This is THE most important step to successful masking. If you cut out the image and leave a space outside of the line, you will have a "halo" around your image.

(Note: I only had to make sure the top of the cow was cut out, because that was the only part that needed to be covered.)



Now stamp your images on the imaging sheets.



Start stamping the images you want in the very front of the focal piece. I used the Lego-ma-jig to help me get them straight.



Once you have the whole front row finished then put the masks in place.



Using your stamp-a-ma-jig line up the first image in your second row (or the next one back in your picture).



I only made 3 masks of the cow, so I needed to move them as I worked my way across.



Once you have all you images in place, remove your masks. Some people save them by putting them on top of the sticker on the back of the wood block. Personally I don't think it takes too long to cut them out, so I don't save mine.



Color your image!



Finish your card! I made another version of my pre-VSN card. I think the "waldo" is a little trickier to find in this one than the last one, but it's still very easy to find!



*** I got a question about my imaging sheet, so I thought I'd answer it here :) I am the Queen of "if something works that's cheaper than the "normal" item, use that instead" Hence the Lego-ma-jig. The imaging sheet is actually the plastic backing that came with a set of Rusty Pickle alphabet stamps I bought (on clearance of course *wink*). It's big enough for almost all my stamps, so I saw no need to buy a "real" imaging sheet. LOL ***

VSN is coming! VSN is coming!

Woo Hoo!!! Ok so it's not until next weekend, but still I'm excited! They just posted the first pre-VSN challenge on Splitcoast. We were challenged to make a "Where's Waldo" type card. So I started thinking I would use Wild About You and add in a bug from Bugs and Kisses, but when I started playing with those images, I didn't like anything I did. So then I looked over and saw my SAB sets. Hmmm the pig and the cow look "kinda" similar... what if ... so that's the thinking behind starting this card.


Then came the time for the sentiment. I was throwing around "Herd you..." or "Sow's it going?" and some other silly cow and pig puns, but in the end I just went with the "Like no Udder" because it seemed the funniest.

Even though you can totally find the pig right away, I still like it :)

If you don't know what VSN is go HERE.

Tag, I'm it!

LOL I've been tagged! Kathy from Kathat Stamps tagged me :) So here goes, a little ABC list to help you get to know me better!

A-Available or Taken: Taken

B-Best Friend: Sarah

C-Cake or Pie: Pie! Peach Pie to be exact!

D-Drink of Choice: Diet Citrus Drop (Kroger store brand Mountain Dew like soda)

E-Essential Item You Use Everyday: my computer for sure! I'd be lost without it!

F-Favorite Color: Certainly Celery and Pumpkin Pie (SU colors)

G-Gummy Bears or Worms: Gummy Bears

H-Hometown: Shillington, PA

I-Indulgence: White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake

J-January or February: January (I don't "do" Valentine's Day LOL)

K-Kids and Names: Kendalyn 3.5

L-Life is Incomplete Without: My family and my friends

M-Marriage Date: September 18. 1999

N-Number of Siblings: one younger brother, Randy

O-Oranges or Apples: Apples

P-Phobias or Fears: Leeches *blech*

Q-Favorite Quote: "It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live, remember that. " - Albus Dumbledore

R-Reason to Smile: My daughter! I love watching her grow and learn new things everyday!

S-Season: Fall, although it's all too short here in Central IL

T-Tag 3 or 4 people: Hmm lets see Sarah, Kurtis, and Barbra

U-Unknown fact about me: I had my hip replaced when I was 17 years old. (Ok so if you've been reading my blog you know this, but...)

V-Vegetable you don't like: Mushrooms (are they considered a veggie?)

W-Worst Habit: I bite 1 nail all the way down almost every time I go see a movie at the theater. I have no idea why.

X-Xrays: LOL should I list them by date??? I have had SO many X-Rays on my hip it's not even funny! Most recent one was Jan 3rd.

Y-Your fave food: Chinese Food

Z-Zodiac: I'm a scorpio

We have a winner!!!

The winner of the HUGE Valentine's Day blog giveaway is...














Jan!!!

Jan said...

Me! Me! Me! Me!!

(I'm sorry you'll be in the hospital, though).

Your new fan,
Jan
happyhomemakerblog.yahoo.com

Woo Hoo! My DD picked #1 from the bucket!

Contact me and I will get your goodies out to you! Congrats!!!

Last Chance!

This is your last chance to get your name in for the HUGE Valentine's Blog giveaway! I will be having Kendalyn pick a number tomorrow at noon (central time).

1st SAB Card

Woo Hoo I got some SAB sets to play with! This is a classic case of having one design in mind and then the card taking on a life of it's own! I started out by Cutting a scalloped square with my Cuttlebug die and stamping that with the pig from Very Punny. I had 2 scalloped squares layered and it looked really cute. Well I started making the base for that card and that's when it decided to morph into this card LOL.


I saw this flower in a recent issue of CK (I think) and I just knew I HAD to try it out on a card. It's such a cool looking embellishment.

Basically you take a Prima flower and push a brad through the hole. Then you take some hemp fiber and attach the end with a dab of glue, and then wrap it in and out between the brads tabs to make the petals. I added another Prima on the back and then opened the tabs of the brad to secure it, but I'm sure if you are careful you can do that through your paper. I then just glued it down to the card.

The ribbon is threaded through a slit created by using the horizontal slit punch in the fold of the card.

This is so far from my normal style, but that's the wonderful thing about stamping. It pushes your creativity and allows you to step outside your comfort zone on small projects until it becomes part of your repertoire.

HUGE Valentine's Blog Giveaway!

Ok y'all, since I will be in the hospital over Valentine's Day, I wanted to thank everyone early for reading my blog! I have put together a HUGE stack of goodies just in time for your Valentine's Cards! There are 4 mini stamps from Michael's, piles and piles of the Cuttlebug scalloped squares (even some shimmery white and a few chipboard ones!), a yard of SU Regal Rose ribbon, punched out QK Paige lowercase letters "love", and piles of the very sought after Giga scalloped punchies, oval, circle and square! These are all in Regal Rose, Pretty in Pink, Close to Cocoa, Chocolate Chip, Very Vanilla, and Whisper White! Just drop me a post here on the blog to be entered. I will have my DD pick a number and that post wins it ALL! I'll take entries until Friday January 19th!



***Just a note***
If you do not enter a name and it just says "Anonymous said..." with no name or e-mail addy at the end of the post, there is no way I can contact you if you win. I'm not psychic! I wish I were though LOL.

Ginormous THANK YOU!

OMG I got the bestest mail yesterday! Not only did I get a bunch WRAK's, I got a HUGE envelope from texasjodylynn! I knew she was sending something, but never in my wildest dreams did I expect this!



There is SO much ribbon there! I'm going to have to make more room for it on my ribbon holder LOL. And isn't that the cutest card! I saw it when she first made them, but IRL it is SO cute! I'm going to have to make these next year for Christmas!

Speaking of my ribbon storage, I think I'll show you! I got the idea from a CK article, but she had the ribbons loose in the CD cases. I loved the basic idea, but did my own thing to make it suit my needs.



I cut some chipboard to 4" x 4" squares and wrapped the ribbon around those, then I secured the ends with a straight pin. The little holes don't bother me, since I can usually hide them when using the ribbons. Then into CD cases with the black inserts removed. The CD cases are really nice cuz it keeps the dust off and keeps the ribbon all in one place! Works for me!

Same but Different!

Disneywed wanted to see our CASE's that were the same but different. SO here's one I did today.

I LOVE taylorexpressions baby card but I didn't have a charm. (And I needed it for a boy ;) ) SO here's my version.

I just love I'm Here! I was able to get it for a really good price, but I think I found out why LOL! Every time I tried to stamp with this hand the image wouldn't come out right. The right side of the hand and the left side on the thumb wouldn't stamp unless I kinda rolled the stamp around as I stamped it. Well I don't like having to fuss like that when I stamp, so I took the stamp apart and fixed it!

First off the right and left hands (and feet) were mounted on the opposite wood blocks, so that was an easy fix! Just 10 seconds in the microwave, and I peeled the rubber and foam right off and switched them. No big deal! I did that as soon as I got the stamps. Then I noticed it stamped funny. I checked the rubber and it is perfectly fine, so it had to be the foam. This is why I always keep both EZ Mount foam as well as regular mounting foam on hand! It's SO cheap, but can really save the day! I bought mine from Cornish Heritage Farms.

Now my stamp is good as new! I'll have to check the others, but I have more foam if I need to fix them too!

Ok back to my same but different card!

Horrors upon Horrors, I can't find my SIGNO White gel pen!!!! It's just gone! WAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! So I couldn't do the stitching up the side or the dots around the scalloped circle. But I think it looks ok without them. I do love the rhinestones under the sentiment. They come in rows all attached, so when you need a few in a straight line, you just peel them off and stick them down. When you want one, you can just trim one away and use it! So versatile! Houndstooth is my very favorite background for baby cards!!! It looks just like a soft baby blanket!

Orchid Wheely

OK today's Technique Lover's Challenge was "What was I Thinking???" We were challenged to use things we bought and thought we had to have, and now NEVER use! As a bonus we were to use staples on our card.

I bought The Wheel Thing after I saw some really cute samples. I still like the shopping cart, especially when you pair it with the gifts from Cool Cat, but that's a whole 'nother post! Now that I have The Wheel Thing, I hardly ever use it! Especially the scooter stamp. So that's the set I chose. I also have a terrible mind block when it comes to Orchid Opulence! BLECH!!! I really, really dislike this color! SO I used it too! LOL Now for the rest of the supplies, I do like them! I just happen to have this ribbon that had Orchid lines running thru it, and it the edges are a PERFECT match to Cool Caribbean! So there was my second color!

Like I said I do like all the things I used on the card, the scallop punch, my Sakura Glitter pen, all the other stamps (Linen, Linograph, & Warm Words), the Starlight Silver ink and of course the rhinestones! And believe it or not, I actually like the finished card. Who knew?

My Baby's Growing Up!!

Kendalyn got new sheets for Christmas, big girl sheets for a big girl bed! So we figured it was getting close to the time she should be in a twin bed rather than her crib.

A little back story.... ever since my hip started bothering me, I have had to send her upstairs for her nap without my help. She is a very independent child and I knew she'd be ok with it, even if she didn't like having to tuck herself in. Well this has been going on since mid November. I've been listening on the baby monitor to make sure she was fine ever since we started this new routine.

Within the last 2 weeks we've notice some of her "friends" (stuffed animals) on our bed when we'd go to bed at night. Rob thought she was bringing them to me in the morning to help wake me up. But I told him that they weren't there when I went downstairs in the morning. Then I noticed a few "friends" IN our bed this week and the covers were messed up. I put 2 & 2 together and realized that she's been sleeping in OUR bed at nap time! LOL I asked her how long she's been sleeping in our bed for nap, and she said "A long time." LOL

So fast forward... we've had 2 extra twin beds here for when guests spend the night, so we took one of the mattresses and the box spring and made her a Big Girl bed! She loves it! We couldn't get her out of it to come downstairs and eat lunch yesterday! I figure once she gets used to sleeping on the mattress and box spring, we'll put the frame under it.



She's growing up so fast! WAAAHHHHHH


The castle is from a story book we have, The Glitter Dragon. I copied/drew the castle from the picture in the book and I had a friend come and paint it for us. I really wanted her to paint a big red dragon on one of the other walls, but things kept getting in the way :(

Oh well, Kendalyn can still be a Princess playing in the fields around her Castle, even with out a dragon friend!

Loads of Love

So this is what happen when my mojo comes back LOL!

I sat down to make a card and I knew I wanted to use Wild About You, so I grabbed that set and then I started looking thru my other sets for hearts, well guess which set happen to be on top? Yup! Loads of Love, so as soon as I opened the box, I saw the pile of hearts and I started to laugh! What a way to come back! With a sick, twisted poop related card! LOL Oh my!

I was laughing so hard while I was making the focal image, my DH just HAD to come over to see what I was doing! Poor elephant, he looks so embarrassed.

I colored the "pile" with prismacolors and blended them with odorless mineral spirits. The original stamp size was too big, so I had to make the "pile" a bit smaller. I only inked up the portion I wanted to use and stamped that. The ground is the A*Muse small oval! I am SO glad I bought this stamp! It makes a perfect "ground" for focal images like this one. The Caribbean layer is stamped in white with Linograph, (I LOVE this background for whimsical cards!)and then I found these self adhesive rhinestones in my stash and I thought they'd be the perfect touch! I'm still laughing! I can't believe I made this card LOL!!!

Me & My Hip (part 2)

So I had my appointment with a new Dr. here in Illinois about my hip. The news is not great, but it could have been worse. I am scheduled for a total hip replacement revision on February 13th.

The replacement I have is a resurfacing replacement. (see other post Me & My Hip) Well in that replacement is a plastic lining between the two pieces of metal. Over time that plastic has worn away. When anything wears like that in the body, particles are created. Well those particles have to go somewhere, in my case they stayed right around the hip area and "ate" away at my bone. Both the hip bone and the femur head have been "eaten" away and are quite weak (I will require a bone graft during the surgery, to repair the damage done to the hip bone.). There isn't enough of my own bone left to do another resurfacing replacement. Plus the resurfacing replacement that's FDA approved, is not approved for revision surgery, which is the other reason for the total hip replacement. I will have to have the stem type replacement now. Fortunately, Science has made huge strides in joint replacements in the past 15 years and the prosthesis I am getting is thought to last 15 - 20 years rather than the 7 - 10 years they lasted when I had my first replacement done.

I've come to terms that I will be in a wheelchair eventually, but not before I've had a chance to live my life and do the things I want to do! I am only 32 years old and I'm NOT giving up yet! I want another child and I want to continue to go camping and hiking with my family. I want to be able to take my family to Disney and walk around the parks and see my DD's face when she meets Mickey! I want to be able to dance with my DH at our DD's wedding (in about 25 years *wink* )! There are so many other things that I want to do with my life, I will NOT give up!

So we just take it one step at a time and do what we have to do in order to make those dreams come true! I have joined Weight Watchers and my goal is to lose 10 pounds before the surgery. That's 6 weeks and 10 pounds, I think that's reasonable! Plus it's a step in the right direction! In total I need to lose at least 60 pounds, 70 would be better, but if I can get back into a size 12 I'll be happy!

Now that, that's behind me, maybe I can find my stamping mojo! It's been gone since before Christmas :( I really need to find it!