My CHA blast of a trip!

Ok, so i promised photos and things from CHA... and then the MTME release was happening and then the PMS release was happening and whew, i'm just finally getting around to it! Some of these pictures are "borrowed" from others but they are all of my trip. :D It was SO much fun and i definitely cant wait for the next one!

Here is me with my basic expression for the entire trip... a big goofy grin on my face!

Let's start at the beginning....

Ginger and I began the long drive first to my parents and then got up at 5 am to drive to chicago from indiana. We arrived on the very last day of the vendor show (not the smartest move, we missed all the swag giveaways!) and were told to head straight to the Provocraft booth because they had the most giveaways, etc.

We stood there, got as many raffle tickets as we could and didnt win a thing. And lost lots of valuable time that we SHOULD have looked at other things. Live and learn, right?

This is when i saw Kimmie Reid! That was fun!!! I've known kimmie online for awhile, but it was fun to introduce her to ginger who is a HUGE fan.

This picture is actually from the last day, but our first picture was blurry and this one is much cuter. :D

Then i got my first moment of feeling über special.... i'm just walking... i I hear, is that Katie Cotton?! What... someone RECOGNIZED me?! Are you kidding? I spin around and it was the wonderful Jessica Diedrich! And she was with Sara Henton!

At that moment, i decided THIS was why i came to CHA. The new stuff is cool. The giveaways are fun when you can get them. The shopping is well... SHOPPING, but actually meeting the people you feel you've known for years.... priceless!

Also at the vendor show i got to meet this wonderful lady!

Realize my ASTONISHMENT when she knew WHO I WAS?! This is Debbie Olson. And when i said my name, she said and you're from Greenville South Carolina! My jaw dropped to the FLOOR! Turns out that she is from south carolina originally so she has always associated it with my blog.

I also got to meet Marianne Walker of Copic Stardom!

I have followed Marianne's blog since my first site of copics almost 3 years ago. LOVE her work!

Then after the vendor show closed, we got to meet up with our roomies! These pictures were actually taken on day 2 when i was suffering from the worst headache i've ever had! They couldnt have wanted to take pictures when i was a little perkier? hahaha!

I finally got to meet up with one of my design team members, Maria. I love this girl! She is just as sweet if not more so than i expected her to be!

In this picture is Ginger, our new friend Jen and myself... I loved meeting this girl and finding a new friend!

Here's another shot of meeting lots of new peeps and meeting some i've "known" for years! What fun this night was!!!

This is mostly the unity and ippity gang... plus a few extras (um, like myself, but many of them i felt like i've known for years) the group grew and grew! My standout from this shot is my new friend Pinky! Um, can you pick her out of the crowd? HAHAH! This girl rocks and oooooozies creativity!

Ok... onto day 2... the first day of the Super Show!

More meeting up with friends... Here's a picture of Marti and I

So marti and i totally did NOT recognize each other! BWAHAHA. We were chatting away about Viva Decor pens and then i said my name and she said OMG, katie, it's Marti! And we both had head smacking moments! I missed Suzanne Dean by THIIIIS much she said and i was totally bummed i never got to meet up with her since we are on the Copic Creations design team today and i just love her. :(

Here i met up with Cammie King, another blog i've followed for quite some time. She knew who i was too. Again... feeling quite special!

These gals I've known since i hopelessly followed them around when i discovered Unity.

It's Maren, Jimmi and I.

I totally wish this pictures didnt turn out blurry.

Man i need to figure out my camera phone settings!

Let's start day 2...

Here's Ginger and I doing a hopelessly fabulous make n take. We decided to revisit about the 6th grade making shirts at camp! We also did a heinously fabulous glitter card! I may just have to post it tomorrow! I'm telling you, it's faaaaaaaaabulous!

Here is Shermaine Smith and I...

I've known shermaine since back in the day as well but i was really happy to sit, chat and get to know this wonderful gal better!

Ok... i love this woman!

This is Angela, owner of Unity Stamp Company, which i'm sure you already knew.

Once upon a time i was a hopeless Unity ADDICT. Ok, i still am, i really need to pull out some unity that i havent had as much time to use lately! Angela has always been so wonderful since I started my own stamp company and has offered the best advice. I'm so glad i got to meet her in person!

So this concludes the photos i have of my trip! I met so many other people that I dont have pictures of. it was a wonderful trip! I'm SO glad i went!!!!!

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Just Us Girls Chalkboard Challenge

This week's challenge over on the Just Us Girls challenge blog was a technique challenge!

It looks like so much fun i just HAD to try it out! For some reason, i love chalks. I own a whoel drawer full! Maybe it's because they look like eyeshadows to me! hahahah! Sadly though, i rarely break them out. Especially since i've been doing less scrapbooking and working with diecuts and more and more coloring.

Still, the "chalkboard" technique was not even one i had ever heard of! Now i've colored an image using chalks and versamark ink... but not white ink on dark paper. The whole idea was very very fun to me! You can check out all the details on how to do this on the Splitcoast site. The queen of techniques, Beate, has done a fab job on a tutorial for this! Check it out HERE!

And now, onto my card!

I opted to not use black cardstock for a true chalkboard effect and used brown. Even beate did this so i know it's "ok". hahaha! I stamped my flower image (from Paper Makeup Stamps friendly flowers) in white ink on brown cardstock and then used shimmery chalks to color it. I did not wait for my ink to dry. I did the same for my sentiment (also from PMS). I then used my um... fudgadoodle i forget their name, but a set of word windowish nestabilities to cut out my senitment! hahaha. I used the largest die (it comes in a pack with 3 dies) I still wanted this to stand out. And i couldnt just make a mat for it. Well i could, but I would have had to handcut it. Thats when i got the idea to use my new loop punch from martha stewart. This is the corner version. Instead of putting the cardstock snug in the corner, i put a rectangle piece of cardstock in so that i was chopping off the whole end. Cardstock was an inch wide. Then i trimmed away the excess to get the shape you see here. Here is a close up detail shot of the punch out.

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I actually created this card the other day when i was playing with my new jewel tone shimmer chalks by Pebbles Inc. i'm telling you.... i love these chalks! I learned a little trick that you can post to your blog days before (thank you Lauren Meader!) so i have a couple of posts ready for while i'm out of town! I just think this is fabulous! Haha. Ok, and on to the card!


I feel like this isnt a typical card for me. It's a little more subdued than what is my norm. However, i'm in the process of coming up with some card designs to do sets of for a fundraiser craft fair my church is doing in October. Seeing as i wont be able to do much October 1st when this craft fair is said to be, i'm trying to be a little ahead of the game! I'm also doing LOTS of stamping on candles and i'm so pleased with how they've turned out so far. I'll try to remember to take pictures of the ones done so far the next day i'm at the church crafting, but i've left them there so i cant post pictures now.

I started this card with a simple brown base and patterned paper by Anna Griffin. The stamp set is Everyday Blessings by PaperTrey . I love this set. The sentiments are fabulous and there are SO MANY in the set! I stamped the cross on the white cardstock and then stamped it out again on some scratch cardstock. The scratch cardstock i cut out and put a little removable adhesive on the back to use as a mask. (my super helpful tip is if you do this with a set, save your trimmed out image so you dont have to go thru the process the next time). After putting my mask on top of my stamped cross, i used the jewel tone chalks to add a shimmery halo around the cross. I did layer 2 colors for a little added depth, but it was so so easy! Then peel off your mask and viola! The shimmer looks fantastic, but it's very hard to capture the look on camera. So just trust me on this one. I then layered my sentiment on top. In my recreations of this card, i'll probably move the sentiment down as it's a little hard to read where it is now.

The stitching is actually just rubons by Kaiser Craft. I was pleased with how easily they came off the backing, but not pleased at how easily it stuck to my fingers! Just an FYI when you're handling them!

Thanks again for stopping by!!!!

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Papertrey ink birds of a feather

Ok, so i'm posting twice for today! Because of my serious lack of posts from last week. :)

I was seriously hurting for some mojo when i made this card. I was feeling pretty nauseous and acid refluxy and i couldnt even concentrate let alone be crafty. But somehow this card emerged and i was actually quite happy with it. I will say i dont think it photographed nearly as nice as it turned out because you cant see all the shimmer and glitz. But since i discovered a new to me technique, i want to show it anyway.



Here is my sympathy card using Papertrey's Birds of a Feather. This set is just stunning to me. I just love the font on all the sentiments included. The sentiment and flowers on this card are also from this set.
I knew i wanted to use this set because i just wanted a very pretty sympathy card to send to someone from church. Remember my no mojo when starting this card. I picked out a bird and just stamped it on a piece of white cardstock. I also stamped out the with sympathy sentiment but ended up not using it.
I pulled out a scrap of one of my favorite patterned papers (maker is Graphic 45) I'm tellin ya, if i had an entire pad of this paper, it still wouldnt be enough. You may remember i used these papers for a set of cards i did awhile back using the same brown card base. I love blue and brown together. I then scalloped the scrap using my new Stampin Up Scallop Border Punch.
I inked the edges using Cat Eye Chalk Ink.
I then cut my birdie bird out using my Creative Memories circle custom cutting system and also did a mat out of another piece of scrap paper.
Then i looked at my card and i was stuck. Just simply stuck! So i decided to just stamp on the dark brown using white daisy pigment ink by Close to My heart (my fav for pigment white ink... and heads up, ctmh has decided to do their vanilla cream and colonial white in the pigment base as well! Oh i am just so so so excited!!!) I was going to just stamp my flower once, but then it just grew and grew. Also to note, this is a 3 step flower so i was able to position each piece just where i wanted it on the card. This is one of my favorite aspects of the PaperTrey stamps!
So now what... i thought as my mojo was still a little slack (though i was feeling a little better as my card started to come together. Thats when i remembered my jewel tone chalks by Pebbles Inc that i just bought! I had no idea how i was going to use them, but i was bound and determined. Now i'm sure many of you reading this are probably saying oh yes i chalk over ink all the time. Well this gal had never even thought of it! Not with a color ink at least. I use chalks ALL THE TIME with versamark. So i wanted to test it out. Now the key to get this technique to work for me was to pounce the chalk not rub. I was loosing the image of my flower when i rubbed. So i alternated my colors and just pounced a bit on top of the white flowerand suddenly before my eyes was this beautiful shimmer among my flowers. Needless to say, stumbling on a new technique definitely kicked up my mojo. I then stamped out my with sympathy sentiment also in white daisy but left it solo so it would pop out. I did then take my atyou spica pen in clear and just added glitz all over the . It's all around the sentiment, within the flowers and outlining my birdie bird. Now let me tell you, my atyou spica pen is one of my favorite "tools" but i've never gotten it to photograph how stunning it really is. So i highly suggest you buy one to see for yourself. You'll be pleased, i guarantee it!!
Some simple 1/8" satin brown ribbon finishes off my card. And there is my mojo-less card which i thought turned out pretty sweet.

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Chalking and Versamark

A neat way to color is using chalk with versamark (or other embossing) ink. It's super super easy and give a soft look.
Here's what you'll need to start...

* Stamp of choice
* versamark (or other embossing ink, though i recommend one that is "sticky" like versamark)
* chalks of choice

here's a video tutorial of the process (ignore all the noise in the background - i'm hosting a crop at my house and there are lots of ladies cropping away as well as a crying baby and my child getting in the way!)


http://s235.photobucket.com/albums/ee296/makeupbykatie/classes/?action=view¤t=MVI_4298.flv


(sorry its only a link - my video wouldnt upload to blogger!)

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Chalking Diecuts

First of all i wanted to say.... This weekend is the Spring into Summer crop over at SwapsNMore! Dont know what swapsnmore is? I havent been doing my job. It's a swap site of women who love to swap! And we scrapbook and card make and chat a lot too. I'll be teaching some tutorials this weekend for the crop. If you are interested in joining the group, go to
http://groups.msn.com/swapsNmore/general.msnw and click join. You will be approved shortly and then can start cropping to your hearts content!

Ok - on with the show....

Do you ever like the idea of using a diecut on your scrapbook page or swap piece but then think it just looks too... BLAH! I agree. I'm not very big on the 1 dimensional aspects of plain ol' diecuts. I do however, think they can be FABULOUS with just a little bit help. I like to chalk to shade the diecuts. It's kind of like doing makeup to me! :) All you need is a basic set of chalks and a little know how of highlights and shadows and you can chalk away!!!! I'm going to show an example of a dinosaur (that i actually used in the dinosaur swap on swaps n more a bit back)

First i started with a plain ol' diecut. This little cutie i cut with the Paper Dolls cart from my cricut. Pay attention to those lines that were cut in the dinosaur. They'll help you with shading later!

Next i chalked his belly. Now i could have cut the dino out in another color, cut his belly and glued it on top like a paper piecing. That would have worked just fine and in some diecut cases, i do a paper piecing effect. This time, i kept to all chalks so you could see everything you could do with easy. I just took a different color chalk (in this case yellow) and chalked up his belly to make it appear a different color. Easy Peasy.

Next i did all of my shading. This is what really makes the diecut look 3D. Follow those lines that were in the diecut. But also shade the areas "where the sun don't shine" like under his tail, feet, chin, etc.


Now it's time to add your highlight. You can use white (i did in this case) or a much lighter version of what the color of the diecut is. Normally, the white is my first choice. To highlight, you will use the white on the tops of where the sun hits. This may not just be the top of the head! I chalked the dino's scales down his back, and head, but also the tops of his thighs, arm, etc.

Next add in the little details. I take a (normally black or maybe brown) pen and go over those "cut lines" from the diecut to make sure they are going to stand out. Most of the pen work won't really show up in the lines, but it will be just the little extra oompf you need. This might not be needed at all on a diecut on a lighter paper color to begin with, but for my red dino - it was needed. I also blackened in his eye so it could be seen better, etc.

Another detail for me was the dino's teeth. Chalked them white didnt make them look any different than the other highlights on the dinos skin and most dinosaurs i know of dont have red teeth. Ok, so i dont know many dinos... but i still didnt want him to have red teeth. So i took a white gel pen (this one was actually a white souffle pen by gelly roll) and colored them in. Gel pens work great for coloring in on darker cardstock!

And drum roll please... here is my finished diecut!



Hope you enjoyed this tutorial. Its a great way to make some elements for your scrapbook pages and cards. Diecuts are cheap, chalk lasts you eons and they really stand out on a page or card!

Thanks! Feel free to leave comments or ask questions but if you do make sure to leave your email so i can respond back!

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