MFP Blog Hop Day 3 - Pirates 2

Welcome to the MFP Stamp Shop

March Blog Hop

 We're a little late this month due to delivery of our new stamps. 

But we made it before the end of the month so let's get started!!!!

This month's new Stamp Set Releases are:

Featured March 31

Gardenia

Featured April 01

Pirates

Featured April 02

Pirates 2

Featured April 03

Mushroom Selections

Please Hop along with us!! You have a chance to win one of these new stamp sets! Just comment on the design team members' blogs (don't forget this one) each day for more chances to win! ( You do NOT need to comment on on all the blogs each day! The names are drawn randomly.) The winner will be announced on April 04, 2015,  on the MFP Stamp Shop Blog. You can go back and comment if you missed a day. (HINT: The more you comment the more chances you have to win. And comments on the MFP blog count twice.) The deadline for commenting is Friday, April 03, 2015, at 10:00 PM EST.

The background for my first card today is polished stone.  If you've never done this technique, click here for my tutorial on this fun background.  When I was in Joann last week, I picked up a package of nautical embellishments -- specifically for this sailing ship, which I thought would be appropriate for a "pirate" card.

For my second card I actually paper-pieced the bandanna for the skull and cross bones, using a similar scrap of patterned paper as the background.  The Happy Birthday sentiment is from another MFP Stamp Shop set, Island Life.

Please visit the rest of the team members' blogs and comment for a chance to win a free stamp set. Here's the Design Team:

Lois  (that's me)

Pat

Pam Mc

Pam T 

Jane

Janine

Marilynn

Sue

Toni

Karen

Sandy

Vickie

Shirley

MFP Stamp Shop 

Enjoy the Hop. Come on back tomorrow for more creative fun!!

Halloween/Harvest Blog Hop Day 2 - Polished Stone

Welcome to the Mark’s Finest Papers a Heinrich Co. Halloween/Harvest Hop. We have some great tutorials for you to make some fun and easy projects for this Halloween/Harvest Season. We will be giving away two stamps sets during this hop, so two lucky people will go home with both of these fabulous stamp sets. Be sure to comment on all the designers’ blogs. Our hop will run from September 24^th-27^th. Our two winners will be announced on September 28th. 

September 24th - Treat Holders

September 25th - Polished Stone

September 26th - Treat Bags

September 27th - Holiday Table Setting

All our tutorials along with many more are available on MFP SpeedyTV.  The company blog has direct links to the tutorials! http://marksfinestpapers.blogspot.com

I just recently learned how to do a very pretty background technique  --  Polished Stone (tutorial one post down), which is the highlight for today's blog hop.  Here is my card:

Be sure to check out all of our designers who participated in our hop. The more you comment the more chances you have to win one of these great stamp sets.

Thrifty Stamper

Sue W.

Trudy Harris-Thomas

Lois B.

Jane C.

Amy E.

Thanks for stopping by! We hope we were able to inspire you with ideas for your Halloween/Harvest season.

Polished Stone Background Tutorial

POLISHED STONE BACKGROUND

By Lois Bak

Supplies needed for this background are minimal:

Glossy cardstock

Cotton ball

Metallic Mixative

2 Regular Re-inkers

Fixative

STEP ONE

Randomly drop Metallic Mixative around the glossy cardstock.  I used gold mixative.

STEP TWO

Saturate the cotton ball with alcohol.  Make sure it is good and wet.

STEP THREE

Drop the reinkers onto the cotton ball – two drops of each color should be sufficient.

STEP FOUR

Dab the cotton ball onto the glossy cardstock. 

STEP FIVE

Continue dabbing all over the cardstock.  Make sure you dab on the metallic drops sufficiently to break up those droplets. 

STEP SIX

Continue dabbing until the whole piece of cardstock is covered and the Metallic Mixative is diluted.   The wet cardstock will buckle; but, as the ink dries, it will flatten out.

STEP SEVEN

Spray the cardstock with fixative.

STEP EIGHT

When the ink is dried, complete your card.

You can use any combination of colors you choose.  Here is a piece of cardstock on which I used red and turquoise re-inkers with gold Metallic Mixative.  Unfortunately, you can see that I didn’t dilute the gold mixative enough.

Here are several other cards I made using this technique.  The first one uses mustard yellow and tan re-inkers, with gold mixative.

On this card (which uses green and purple re-inkers with silver mixative), I stamped directly onto the Polished Stone background with StazOn ink.