Birthday card

This one's for a special friend's fiftieth birthday. Hand stitched with Sulky Metallic threads. Gold embossing done with Top Boss Gold embossing powder and Inkadinkado flourish Happy Birthday stamp.

Thanks for visiting!

Impression Obsession new release stamps!

It's been a while since I've posted. It's been even longer since I created any cards! Summertime gardening and grandparenting ave taken the front seat for me, so it's been delightful to play again in my happy room! I'm LOVING these newly released Impression Obsession stamps!

This card was done with the large Damask Snowflake, which can be found here on the IO website. This stamp is also available in a smaller version. I've used that one to create Christmas hanging ornaments. I'll post those another time. The border was done with Martha Stewart's Lace Doily edge punch.

This card's done with the Winter Wonderland Tree stamp, a Leigh Hannan design. After stamping ang gold embossing, I sewed some seed beads onto a few of the snowflakes. You can find this gorgeous stamp here.

This card was done with the Poinsettia and Holly stamp, found here. I stamped and embossed on cardstock, then stamped and embossed again, twice, on white vellum. I watercoloured the centres with Tombow markers, then cut and pop-dotted them in the centre. I used the Fiskars Holly border punch for the side.

This card was done using two stamps of different sizes, same design, called the Swirl Tree, using Clearsnap Chalk Inks. The large tree can be found here, and the smaller one here. I stamped the side trees with Clearsnap chalk ink, then gold embossed and pop-dotted the centre tree. I embellished the card with a little swirly
hand stitching and beading at the bottom.

Thanks so much for dropping by today.

A Tease...Exciting News from Impression Obsession!

I haven't blogged much this month at all, have been entertaining the most delightful visitor, my four year old grandson Avery. We're both in Quebec now, and I'm travelling home to Nova Scotia on the train tomorrow, back to my own life, crafting, and gardening. YAAAYYY!

I'll have several cards to post on Tuesday, done with newly released Impression Obsession stamps...FABULOUS new designs!!

Now look at this:

IMPRESSION OBSESSION GUEST DESIGNER CALL

How would you like to be a guest designer for one of the nation's largest rubber stamp companies?

Impression Obsession is looking someone to put acreative spin on the great rubber and clear stamps that you know and love.

We have more than 2,000 images in production at any given time and these images can be found at hundreds of stamp stores not only in the U.S. and Canada but six other countries worldwide!

The guest designer position would be a three month commitment to helpus with samples not only for our supplements and trade show displays but forour webgallery as well.

Our store owners rely on the design team's creativity to see just how many ways you can use I.O. stamps! If accepted, you will receive ahandful of I.O. new releases to play with and create!

REQUIREMENTS:

1. Since our Senior Design Team uploads digital images to our gallery, we would hope you would be proficient in photo editing and be able to display your cards in an eye-pleasing way. Ninety-nine percent of the time,we use the artists images for our catalog and web gallery.

2. You would be required to make a minimum of 4 projects per monthand display them on your gallery or blog giving credit to Impression Obsession.

3. Impression Obsession would have access to these designs for use on our website, in our online gallery, for advertising, and in our electronic newsletter. We'll be sure to give you credit!

TO APPLY

Please send four examples of your best work to us by August 30th. Don't forget to include a little bit about yourself, your name, address, phone number, email address, past design teamwork,when and where you've been published and blog or gallery address as well. Send your work to Mitra here:

ioguestdesigner@gmail.com

Please note: Past work is not a requirement for a position with I.O. We are simply looking for talented designers. If you've never been on a team before or have never been published - that's Ok!

I know LOTS of talented cardies out there who'd just LOVE to design for Impression Obsession!

Hope you'll leave a message, just to let us know you've been here. :)

Send in your best work...join the team at Impression Obsession!

Deborah.

Something to Crow About

This is my design team piece for June for Quietfire Design. It is WAY out of my comfort zone.

It's is dedicated to a longtime dear friend, family physician Dr. Deborah Duerden-McDonald, who died October 11th., 2007, eighteen months after a diagnosis of Inflammatory Breast Cancer, and fifteen months after marrying the love of her life, her Jamie. Debbie and I spent many long evenings crafting together, sharing a glass or two of wine. She generously bequeathed me the vast contents of her craft room, many of which were used in constructing this piece.

I'm not sure how well you can see the crows, so here are a couple of pics to show a little more detail. I used a Dreamweaver Brass Stencil, a musical background stamp and a sentiment stamp all from Quietfire Design.

This was posted in the Quietfire Design newsletter today (THANK YOU Suzanne),
so here's a link if you're interested in seeing the construction instructions.



Just a wee plug here, if you aren't signed up for Suzanne's QFD newsletters yet, you ought to think about it. They're like FABULOUS little mini-classes for all kinds of artsy things, and there's a collection of archived newsletters here, which can keep you busy for days! :) To subscribe to all the newsletters, click here, and then click on the top right where it says click here again. :) Thanks so much for stopping to visit again today. I'd love to know what you think (good or bad!) of my "out-of-the-comfort-zone" project.

I've been thinking so MUCH about Debbie lately. This piece reminds me of her, not at all because of the crows (lol), but more because of the sentiment, the music, and the things I used for it that came from her own special creating space. She had the most amazing gift of "collecting people" in her life, and if you were WITH her, you were happy, it's as simple as that. I was so incredibly blessed to be in her collection for so many years.

I'd like to share some pictures with you.

This Debbie and "her Jamie" on their wedding day by the sea, such a short time ago.

She always had this beautiful smile, she could just light up a room.

This is Debbie's "Run for the Cure" team. Debbie is in the centre of this photo...still smiling...
which was taken ten months ago, just shortly before she died.

Thank you for sharing all this with me today.

All about beading

I found a new challenge log...YAAAYY! This week's "This Thursday" challenge is beading. Even though I'm nearly a week late, here's my beaded wisteria offering. I'll be back for the next one ladies! Thanks so much for stopping by today.

Anniversary Card

This is a card for my husband Dennis, who is NOT a "frilly" sort of fellow (are ANY of our husbands? lol), so it's always a challenge to create a more masculine card for him. I liked that the Created by Hand challenge this week is to use only black, grey and and white. I made this card with one of my favourite and often-used Quietfire Design stamps. I embossed a strip of metal with Ten Seconds Studio tools, and painted it with black Alcohol Ink, then sanded it lightly for a little distressing, then added a couple of square Swarovski crystals to the stamped piece, which was cut with Spellbinders Nestabilities dies.

Thanks for visiting today, and Happy Anniversary to my guy!

Impression Obsession Challenge!

The Impression Obsession designers challenged ourselves today...BLING's the thing! I hope you
can actually SEE the bling. Sometimes it doesn't photograph so well.

Here are the cards I created for the challenge. All the stamps are listed for you to see. You can simply click on the name of the stamp, and it will take you directly to the stamp on the Impression Obsession website.

This card uses the floral flamingo stamp . I used Twinkling H2O's and Stickles to make her shine.

This one uses Ms. Lucille, as well as one of the Anytime Sentiments stamps.

This one uses the fabulous Cupcakes set. It's clear polymer, and stamps like a dream!

This one uses another clear polymer set, the Damask Floral. It's so versatile!

This one uses the Cupcakes set too, along with the beautiful Swirls background stamp.

This one uses one of the cupcakes from the Cupcakes set, and one of my very favourites,
the Latte mug by Leigh Hannan. I added a little hand stitching to the coffee steam.

Be sure to look at the fabulous work done by other design team members too,
they'll all be posting sometime today.

You can see Daniela's here

You can see Julie's here

You can see Laura's here

You can see Penny's here

Thanks so much for visiting my blog today!