Guest Designer Jenn Shurkus - Part 3

Well, I hate this - but this is Jenn's last post as our guest already. Time flies (especially before Christmas, right?

Jenn has a great project to share with you again, it's bright and cheery and brings some warmth to this cold time of the year :)
The best thing about it - she has a step-by-step photo tutorial on her blog - so go and check it out (and SUBSCRIBE to her blog, cause she's amazing!)

Using stencils is so popular right now in all kinds of papercrafting projects. I wanted to share a fun way to use these stencils in a different way!

You start by using the stencil to spread the Texture paste through. 
Clean the stencil
Heat set the Texture paste
Position the stencil back in place over the texture paste and use it to sponge color just on the paste areas.
Clean the stencil
Start from the beginning
To see a photo tutorial visit my blog (use this link:http://shurk.us/create-smile3 )




Use a heavy weight cardstock to hold up to the Texture paste. I used Distress watercolor paper (my fave!)
Use painters tape to hold your cardstock and stencil in place. 
I chose to use Texture paste instead of embossing paste because I wanted my colors to be really vibrant and pop off the page. Texture paste works best when you will be inking. I also get a better result from Texture paste when I want to heat set it to speed up the process.
Be sure to clean your stencil in between each step. You don't want the Texture paste to dry on your stencil and you don't want any left over ink to be on the stencil and mix with other colors.

Thank you to Christine and Create a Smile for having me as a guest designer! I have had SO much fun playing with your stamps. I already placed another order and will be featuring them in my COOL-est Card Series in Januaury at shurkus.com!

Jenn, it was our pleasure to have you - we enjoyed all of your creations and your extremely professional work! You are amazing, thanks for being you!

Guest Designer Jenn Shurkus - Part 2

Happy wednesday!

As you all know - wednesdays are dedicated to out guest designer. Jenn Shurkus is our guest for November - and we're so happy she brings some inspiration our way.

For today she crated a cute funky card using Perfect Tune - I loooooove the dimension she added. Take a look:

Sometimes simple cards are the best cards. You can jazz up a simple card with just some foam tape and paper piecing. 



I started by stamping the radio and speech bubble on Neenah cardstock. I used copics to add color to these images. I stamped another set of each of the images and colored the speaker part of the radio and the little heart in the speech bubble. 



I used Smokey Gray Versafine to repetitively stamp the speech bubble to give a subtle background. Be sure to stamp off the edge to give movement across the card. I also stamped the radio on the card and paper pieced the speaker on top. This way I didn't have to fussy cut the antennae and the copic markers wouldn't bleed through the card. I added a little bit of Rock Candy Distress Stickles to accent the radio and the heart on the speech bubble. 

Don't you just love that fresh CAS look? And Jenn makes it all look so simple!Better hop over to Jenn's Blog and check out all her awesome work!

The new sets (3 of them) will be relased next friday - there are peeks on our Facebook-page so check it out!

Thanks for taking the time to stop by! :)

Guest Designer Jenn Shurkus - Part 1

Hi everyone - I am happy and proud to introduce our November Guest Designer to you:

Jenn Shurkus.

 

I met Jenn when I was on the Sweet Stamp Shop Design Team and I love her designs and her creative ways to express herself. She is a lovely, kind and positive person and I love to read her Facebook posts. She loves her cat just like I love mine, she loves the sea and the summer... we have so much in common. What else do I need to invite a great designer to be our guest? ;)

Here's some info about her:

Jenn lives in New England, with her kitty Mister Harley and her boyfriend Chris. She's been papercrafting for 15 years, and has played multiple roles in the paper craft industry as an independent store manager, designer and teacher. With a degree in graphic design she is also Copic and Ranger certified. She is part of the Simon Says Stamp.com design team and the Lawnscaping Challenge Design Team. Jenn loves to show people new and clever ideas to design their cards and projects. She has a flair for the "artsy-fartsy" without going over the top. She designs her projects in the way to inspire, but not intimidate. Jenn is eager to share her creative passions with others and encourage their artistic growth. She currently is teaching classes with Lawn Fawn, Hero Arts, Ranger and more. You can read more about her, and her handsome kitty Mister Harley and wicked cute boyfriend Chris on her blog {creative chick} http://www.shurkus.com/

Jenn created something I have been waiting for: Project Life Journaling Cards! (Did you know I bought a Project Life "starter kit" - made one... well, let's call it "layout" and dropped the ball? LOL) I looooooove how these turned out! They are so inviting to write down some things that you love about your cat or stupid things that your cat does. (They ALL do stupid thing, don't they?)

What I also love about them is that they were inspired by Jenns gorgeous cat Mr. Harley... This is him:

Enough talk now, time to take a look at Jenn's awesome Journaling cards:

Don't you just LOVE them?
And this is what Jenn had in mind:




I recently went to a crop and got a whole bunch of pocket scrapbooking layouts done. It was a wicked fun time! I also realized how fun it would be to create some custom cards perfect for my layouts. Every layout my handsome kitty mister Harley made an appearance, so I thought "why not make some cards unique to him?" The kitty in the "your view" set is perfect to color like any kitty.








I started by stamping the kitty in versafine smokey gray on Distress watercolor paper. I then smeared some of my distress inks ( black soot and tattered rose) on an acrylic block. This is now my paint palette where I watercolored the kitty to look like Mister Harley. Confession: I do ad a bit more black, since he is so white because I think it helps the image stand out better! Once I colored a few of these I fussy cut them out and then used them as embellishments on the pocket scrapbooking cards!



Be sure to use a permanent ink when watercoloring. My favorite is Versafine.
If your image gets too wet, zap it with your heat tool so your colors won't feather and bleed. I did this before coloring his ears and nose pink.
You can omit part of a stamp by just inking what you want as I did with the speech bubble- adding in "Hello" instead.

 Now hop over to Jenn's Blog and check out all her awesome work!

We're still looking for 1-2 new Design Team members - maybe it's YOU!

You still have 6 more days to give it a try.

Have a nice day