Last slider card of the year

This is the last slider card I made this year. This one if for a grand-niece. The stamps are from the Sugarloaf/Inque 262 collection. Why so many slider cards. I've got four cards to make for my grand nieces and nephews for their birthdays. Until I run out of ideas (thanks to the classes I 've taken with Inky Antics) they'll all get the same style interactive card but with different papers and embellishements to make them a bit personalized. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Until my next post,
Diane

Yet another secret message slider card

Here's another slider card for another grand-nephew. The stamps are from the Sugarloaf/Inque 262 set. I still see that set in AC Moore on occassion. I guess they bought a bunch of them. The parade background paper is from K&Co.

Until my next post,
Diane

So I changed my mind

Here's a card I sent recently along with an ATC for a swap. The paper is by K&Co and the stamp is by Stamp Francisco. I added a few old buttons as an embelishement.

Until my next post,
Diane

That winter feeling

It doesn't snow very often here in coastal Virginia. When it does it is usually big wet flakes and doesn't last very long. Right after Christmas in 2004 we got 14" of snow. My husband and I were returning from a pre-holiday ski trip. We were up in New Hampshire and got a week of skiing in before visiting my family for Christmas. We left for home the day after Christmas because a storm was heading to New England. Enroute we called back to the guy that was watching our house and he was saying how much snow we had. We thought he was joking because we were an hour away and there was no snow on the ground. We got about 1/2 hour away and there was a dusting, then more and more the closer we got to the house. It seemed the storm just stalled right in our little area of the world and dumped over a foot of snow.

This year we got a late season snow of a few inches. This was early March and the birds were a bit confused but still found the feeders. This is a female cardinal.

I think this guy is her significant other grabbing a mid-day snack.

I grew up with snow in the winters and still like it but just to ski on. I'm not a big fan of shoveling, I did enough as a kid. I know my abilities driving in it but don't trust others so I'm happier living where we don't get it that often.

Until my next post,

Diane

Children ATCOTM

This was the last ATCOTM (ATC of the month) for this year at the Stampers Corner Yahoo Group. I stamped a Tim Holtz designed Stampers Anonymous stamp on marbled paper I made a while back. I outlined the crown and number with Sakura Glaze and Stardust Markers. The "future king" was stamped with Just Rite stamps and outlined with the Sakura clear Glaze pen. The Heidi Swap clear crown was colored with alcohol inks and a Krylon gold marker. I mounted the marbled paper on Rock King paper by DCWV and then on a piece of light blue card stock.

Until my next post,
Diane

Free Online Class to learn about Wacom Tablets

Do you use Photoshop or other photo editing software and have issues using the mouse in small close areas? If so then this class is for you. Creative Techs Training is offering a free live online class on the use of Wacom Tablet tomorrow, Wednesday, December 9th.

Until my next post,
Diane

This is another secret message pull-out card I made for a grand-nephew. I used paper from K& Co and stamps from Studio G and Just Rite.

Until my next post,

Diane

Anniversary Card with scraps

I saw a few websites about how to do a pieced card (or ATC) with scraps. Rather than try to explain it I'll give you link of Trish Morris' version. I have made a couple of ATC's and cards using this technique. It's a great way to use up your scraps. I used various shades of green paper, some patterned some plain. I stamped with various small stamps and embossed some too. I also used some mizuhiki cord and gold paper with gold outline stickers for a little extra pop.

Until my next post,
Diane

Oh no...no more sheetloads!

For those of you loyal followers to my blog you might remember that I get a lot of design layouts for my cards from this blog called Sheetload. I just discovered yesterday that the December 2009 issue was their last. It was one of those things that started out small and then snowballed to the point of taking over the lives of those that ran it. Supposedly the saved templates will be available for download until at least May 2010 but just in case you might want to head over there and download the .pdf files for future use. Me...I've got all of them on my computer. Some of them I've never made but I downloaded them anyway.


Until my next post,

Diane

A touch of color

This technique generally gets a reaction from folks that don't know how to do it. They'll sort of lean their head like a dog watching TV and think to themselves "how did they do that?". It is really very easy in Photoshop. All you do is open a color photo and (keeping the original in color) make another layer of it in black and white. This is best done using adjustment layers since you preserve your original photo. Next you make sure black is your foreground color and select a paintbrush and paint away the black and white to reveal the color in selected areas. You must click on the adjustment layer to do this. Make your brush bigger and smaller depending on the detail. To clean up edges where you added too much change your color to white to "erase" the mistakes. There are loads of Photoshop tutorials on the web for free, check them out for other easy techniques.

Until my next post,
Diane