Monthly Archives: September 2007

The Way’s to Use it Challenge started off with a Going Grey challenge. How’s that for a little bit of history. There was a thread in SCS General Forums about how Going Gray was never used and I thought it would be a cool challenge…finding ways to use it. Thursday at that point (March 2005 – wow doesn’t seem like that long ago!) had no challenge and so I found myself with a fun hostess job. 🙂

I’ve been loving this new Stampin Up color Basic Gray…I’d been saying for quite a while it was a shame there wasn’t a great gray color in the palette and so I was excited to see it released this July. I think it is such and elegant color. BUT…. I’ve been forgetting to use it! And so, today’s challenge is to find Way’s to Use Basic Gray – not the Basic Grey patterned paper, but the new charcoal color. Of course, if you don’t have the Stampin Up paper…that’s OK! Just use something else by another company. Bazzill Basics has a beautiful Charcoal Gray as well and I do believe there may be a textured charcoal patterned paper in the new Periphery Line by Basic Grey. Check out the challenge at WT132

Happily Ever After

I designed this card as part of an article review for Craft Critique on the new Thomas Kinkade stamps. I knew I’d love them but I found I just couldn’t put them down! I thought it would be great to experiment with the different inks and coloring techniques you could use with these stamps. I’ve heard some people are intimidated by them and I just had to see what worked, what didn’t and if they REALLY were hard to work with. NO! They aren’t! I loved them and found them to be easy to color depending on the technique of course. Cornish Heritage Farms has done an excellent job translating the painting into a detailed image and the stamps, pretty much shade themselves.

I also loved using a monochromatic look for these images. Beautiful in just a shade of ink, I had to try out my Tsukineko silver Brilliance Ink to see how it would turn out. Gorgeous and so easy. The Brilliance ink is a hybrid ink which worked well. I stamped it onto a piece of my Basic Gray cardstock and after allowing to dry, trimmed it to size.

Quick Tip: Make sure you use Hybrid ink or classic ink on detailed images. The Craft ink will just be too thick and gummy to get a great print.

I loved the elegant look and decided to pair it up with my SU Charbon patterned paper. I just adore this paper and the ivory and charcoal color combo is beautiful together. I never would have thought to put these two colors together but I decided I must use them more often! I used a 5.5″ square card base so that I would have lots of room for the large stamp image. The layout design was kept simple because of the busy patterns and the small amount of room to work with.

To embellish the design, I used some of my new May Arts ivory scalloped satin ribbon as a photo corner embellishment. I threaded it through the swirl clip from the SU hodgepodge hardware set and then adhered on the back of the image. The two ivory Prima Flowers are from the Got Flowers Winter Mix bottle and are attached to the image front with my Karen Foster Thumbtack Brads. Inside the design, I computer generated a sentiment.. Happily Ever After…Congratulations on your marriage…happiness always! I just love how this elegant image works for a lot of occasions.

Hope you can join us for the Charcoal Challenge today! Have a great Thursday!

Supply List:

Cardstock: Very Vanilla, Basic Gray – Stampin Up

Patterned Paper: charbon – SU

Stamps: Foxglove Cottage by Fhoms Kinkade – Cornish Heritage Farms

Ink: Silver Brilliance Ink – Tsukineko

Other; ivory ribbon – May Arts, Thumbtack brads “metal” – Karen Foster Design, Prima flowers, hodgepodge hardware – SU