Good Morning and Happy Valentine’s Day! I was up early this morning, making treats and little cards/”love notes” for the kids’ lunches. They’re getting a bit old — it embarrasses Chris (who will be 14 next monrth) but Lyndsey (16) loves it! Hard to stop even if my babies are growing up!!

I promised samples from last night’s class and here they are! It was super-quick, and as always, super fun! (We did miss Martha though!).

We did two techniques last night — bleaching and kissing! Perfect for Valentine’s Day! I just love the card on the left — great colors — case’d but changed from somebody on Stampin’ Connection I think!

So this is the kissing technique. Taking a solid stamp and inking it with a light color, then taking a second stamp (could be a background stamp or just one with some very interesting pattern to it like the doily stamp we used here) and inking it with a second, probably darker or bright, color. I used one of the stamps from I {Heart} Hearts stamp set which I inked up in Pool Party — I then inked up one of my stamps from the Doily stamp set in Real Red. Laying the solid, inked stamp on the table, I took my patterned stamp and “kissed” it, or stamped the stamp, then proceeded to stamp my card. Does that make sense? The rest of the card is self-explanatory I think. I embossed the pool party c/s with the Dots embossing folder. The small red hearts scattered between the “kissed” hearts are from the Create a Cupcake stamp set.

This is my card which used the Bleaching Technique. The paper is from the Attic Boutique DSP pack. I stamped my image from the Elements of Style stamp set with black staz-on ink. Then, using an aqua painter pen, I dipped the brush into the bleach and “painted” my image. You can’t see the actual technique here, but it lightened the crumb cake c/s enough to make it easy to color in the image with my markers. The ribbon is the Vanilla Satin Ribbon — I cinched it into a bow with an Antique Brad.

Below, check out what I do for these Technique Classes:

Everybody gets a 6×6 piece of white c/x that I’ve printed up the instructions of the featured technique for. I’ve got it down to a science now — I know how far down on my Word document I can write up the instructions for, then I cut and paste it down the page so I can print out two instruction sheets on one 6 x 12 piece of c/s. Each person gets a small piece of white c/s (or crumb cake as above since I needed to demonstrate the bleaching) which they practice the technique on after I’ve demonstrated it. They attach this sample piece at the bottom of the instruction page, then put their page into their 6×6 albums. We then make a full-size card using the technique. In the back of the scrapbook sleeve, they can put in their card or they can choose to use it.

Anyway, hugs and kisses to my faithful followers! Happy Valentine’s Day! Do something fun today!

Jeannie