Rock Paper (Scissors) Watercolor + Happy Stamptember!

*Compensated affiliate links used where possible at zero cost to you. No posts are ever sponsored or paid.*

I'm so excited to see what Stamptember has up its sleeve this year, and so I thought I would answer some questions I've gotten in my live class group!

People like me, who design projects for Stamptember don't know anything about what is going to happen on any days except the days for the products we are working with! So it's as much of an exciting surprise for all of us as it is for you! The only products I know about are the one that are collaborations I'm a part of or the SSS product I've received like today's amazing 3D embossing folder. 

Other than that, I'm just as on the edge of my seat as y'all. I won't see anything that is live right this minute until you do, and that's why it's such a fun month!

But as we kick it off tonight, I have a super fun mixed media card with this stunning 3D embossing folder! I will be back on Thursday with the technique video for this card, and you will love how simple and easy it is to get this gorgeous gilded patina look! In addition to the embossing folder, I used this stone paper, this watercolor and this Merry Christmas word topper die and this gold paper. If you want to see the rest of the first day's release - then click here with me and get ready for some fun. I've never been a present shaker - so I do love the surprise of this event.

Loveyameanitbye.

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Swearing Always Helps + New Embossing Tool!

*Compensated affiliate links used where possible at zero cost to you. No posts are ever sponsored or paid.*

I love snarky stamp sets. There's a balance though. They shouldn't cross from snarky to gross, or snarky to mean. Just snarky & funny is my fave, like this set for my sentiment today. 

I ink blended with this stencil and then just cut an opening for my sentiment. Anyone who has ever been a passenger in my car knows that the complicated compound cusswords I craft artisanally are little works of art. And it's been proven that swearing is good for you. LIKE BY SCIENCE. 

Now, as with all things, context matters. Where and when you choose to cuss says a lot about your manners. Alone in my car - good manners. At the Whole Foods salad bar? Bad manners. So choose wisely.

But the most exciting news today is this awesome new powder tool for embossing! This thing is so well engineered - it's like the iPhone of powder tools.

You prime the amazing little brush by pumping it - it gets the powdered bentonite clay (super safe, natural powder that's used in face masks (check out Living Clay, which I use on my face and for bug bites) - down into the fibers of the brush - the brush is black so it's super easy to see that it's primed. I won't use talc, and I find the cornstarch ones a bit sticky feeling on my hands. This one is so precise because of the brush and no touching those gross little bags. I love it! The cap keeps it all super neat and tidy when you're not using it - unlike my dusty bowl of bags, which went out with the trash today!

Really genius design. Look how sleek it is! And see the powder chamber? She sells refills, so it will live forever! Yay for non-disposable tools!

Then she has these ADORABLE precision stencil brushes. These are great for intricate stencils, or stencils with multiple images per stencil - and the tops are flat like a traditional stencil brush - the traditional stencil brushes I have are quite stiff though, and these are really soft. They come with a little loop so you could hang them all on hooks or a spinner. 

Here are all the supplies I used today:

Sassy Sentiments Clear Stamp 4x6 –... [ THR ] Overlapping Circles - 6x6 Stencil –... [ THR ] Mid Century Modern #1 - 6x6 Stencil –... [ THR ] Bitty Bunny Blending Brushes – The... [ THR ] Cottontail Powder - Refill – The... [ THR ] Cottontail Embossing Powder Tool –... [ THR ] Understand Blue MINI Slimline Folded... [ CTC ] Understand Blue Slimline Folded... [ CTC ] Understand Blue Card Making Bundle #3... [ CTC ] Understand Blue Card Making Bundle #1... [ CTC ] Understand Blue Card Making Bundle #2... [ CTC ] Sakura CLASSIC WHITE Fine Line 05... [ SSS ] Art Anthology BIG CRAFT MAT 24x36 311473 [ SSS ] MISTI Stamping Tool [ MSP | SSS | ELH ] Rotatrim Professional Series Cutter -... [ BLIC ] Teflon Bone Folder - Ellen Hutson LLC [ ELH | SSS ] Crafter's Companion GEMINI... [ SSS ] Scor-Pal MINI SCOR-BUDDY Scoring... [ SSS ] Storage Envelopes, Medium 25pk,... [ ELH ] CheckOutStore Stamp & Die Clear... [ CHC ] Extra Large -50 pk, Avery Elle Stamp... [ ELH ] Lawn Fawn STAMP SHAMMY Cleaner LF1045 [ SSS | CST ] Airtable: Organize your stamps & dies [ ART ] Amazon.com: Living Clay [ AMZUS ]

Can you believe it's almost Labor Day? I fully expected the pandemic to make time pass more slowly, but it's been the exact opposite - it's just rushing by!

This weekend was the beginning of our bulk pickup window, and so we finally got rid of a chair that Maddie had scratched. It was a really nice chair - wide arms for books and beverages - cherry, and could fold flat to be a single bed - sort of a fancy futon. It just needed a new cushion cover, but I never had any luck selling it.

The junker trucks rolled early and so it was out there for less than an hour. These are just the people that take the stuff and sell it - not the actual city people who just dispose of it all - so I am always hoping that the junker people get it first - ideally nothing would sit there until the city comes at the end of the week.

This is also our first bulk pickup since the pandemic - they had canceled them for a year, which was a real bummer.

The junk truck that got our chair had scored a washing machine before they stopped at our house - that's an amazing deal, because I think they make the most off scrap metal.

Word on the street is that you can make quite a bit of money doing this job - and with the volume of trailers we see each time, I'm pretty sure that's true. They're so efficient too - it's kind of an amazing process to watch.

But anyway, since we had to convert my little library to a home office, we had no room for the chair, and now it's in a better place.

Now I'd just like to get rid of my dining room table and chairs! Who ever talked me into that dumb purchase? It's literally been used maybe two times in 17 years. Dumb.

It's hard to get rid of nice furniture these days! No one wants it - they all want IKEA and stuff they can order on Amazon. 

I'm starting to see the beauty of nearly no furniture, instead of tables and couches that are there just for show. 

Next weekend is my Use Those Gel Press Prints workshop, so I'm looking forward to doing a little organizing while that is taking place. You can sign up any time - it's not a date-sensitive class.

I hope everyone in Louisiana is safe this morning! What an insane weekend this one was. 

Loveyameanitbye.

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CURRENT COUPON CODES
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10% off at Sweet Sentiment with code UNDERSTANDBLUE
10% off the whole store at A Colorful Life Designs - LydiaFan10
5% off at LBC here with code LYDIA5
Phone stand for filming link below in the banner - 20% off sitewide with code UNDERSTANDBLUE

VIDEO: How about some Kit-TEAs

*Compensated affiliate links used where possible at zero cost to you. No posts are ever sponsored or paid.*

At one of my retreats, we did a super fun, late night session in the kitchen where we watercolored with instant coffee - doing different amounts of water to get different tones. 

The instant coffee we used was these little rock like things - I can't remember the brand. But I popped them in my retreat box, because I figured - it's little coffee rocks - they'll never go bad. But when I opened them at the next retreat, they were moldy - so they don't live forever. 

But in an experiment for another retreat, I discovered some magical properties of one of my favorite teas - Hibiscus. 

Whenever I would go out to eat with my dad - who drank GALLONS of tea every day - he would give a speech to the waitstaff when he ordered his tea that went something like this. "I would like iced tea. I don't want it to taste like roses, or camels, or waving fields of canola or candy canes or ocean waves or tropical breezes or silly string - I WANT JUST TEA. DO YOU HAVE JUST TEA." It was always very dramatic, and every now and again, we'd be at a place where the only tea option was passion flower mustard seed mint mango surprise, and the level of disgust on his face when he opted for water was HILARIOUS.

I, on the other hand, have no such standards. While I love plain black iced tea the best, I'm 100% willing to try your strawberry jujube tea. At least once. And I hate water, so I'd definitely never choose that. 

My pantry is full of flavored teas, and one of my faves is this Hibiscus tea. I like it hot and cold.

But anyway - before this retreat, I wanted to see if some of the teas with flowers and fruits would make pretty watercolors, and indeed - they do. Not all, but the Hibiscus is very dramatic - AND the color changes as you'll see in the video! So for this first card, after I soaked the teabag to get the splatters you'll see in my second card, I cut it open and put the wet tea leaves all over a piece of watercolor paper and just let them sit and I got the wash on this card. In the video I'll show you how to do the fur detail on these little kitties I used.

This kitty is sized purrfectly for a mini-slimline so I splattered the panel with tea, colored and die cut the kitty and matted it. 

Here's the video!

Here are all the supplies I used today.

Cats are Family – Picket Fence Studios [ PFS ] Cats are Family Coordinating Die –... [ PFS ] Plans with My Cat Stamp — Sweet... [ SWT ] Plans with my Cat Sweet Slices Metal... [ SWT ] Faber-Castell Polychromos Pencils and... [ BLIC ] Amazon.com : The Republic of Tea... [ AMZUS ] Amazon.com: Really Good Stuff E.Z.C.... [ AMZUS ] Understand Blue MINI Slimline Folded... [ CTC ] Understand Blue Slimline Folded... [ CTC ] Understand Blue Card Making Bundle #3... [ CTC ] Understand Blue Card Making Bundle #1... [ CTC ] Understand Blue Card Making Bundle #2... [ CTC ] Art Anthology BIG CRAFT MAT 24x36 311473 [ SSS ] MISTI Stamping Tool [ MSP | SSS | ELH ] Rotatrim Professional Series Cutter -... [ BLIC ] Teflon Bone Folder - Ellen Hutson LLC [ ELH | SSS ] Crafter's Companion GEMINI... [ SSS ] Scor-Pal MINI SCOR-BUDDY Scoring... [ SSS ] Storage Envelopes, Medium 25pk,... [ ELH ] CheckOutStore Stamp & Die Clear... [ CHC ] Extra Large -50 pk, Avery Elle Stamp... [ ELH ] Lawn Fawn STAMP SHAMMY Cleaner LF1045 [ SSS | CST ] Airtable: Organize your stamps & dies [ ART ]

How do you like your tea? Cold? Hot? Flowery or black? In Texas, tea is our water. UNSWEET - do not even start with me on sweet tea. That was brought to Texas by interlopers in the 90s. Unsweet used to be the only option at restaurants for most of my life. Ah, the good old days.

Hope you have a great weekend!

Loveyameanitbye.

Like this post? Never miss a post by following me!

CURRENT COUPON CODES
15% off anything at Marker Universe or any of their other sites - Understandblue15.
10% off at Sweet Sentiment with code UNDERSTANDBLUE
10% off the whole store at A Colorful Life Designs - LydiaFan10
5% off at LBC here with code LYDIA5
Phone stand for filming link below in the banner - 20% off sitewide with code UNDERSTANDBLUE