Rubber Stamp Spring Fling

I thought I would take some time today to tell you about the Rubber Stamp Spring Fling I went to on Saturday. I had a wonderful time and I was only there for about 1.5 hours. I was inkspired by some of the displays I saw, and I even took pictures so that I could show you. I also learned a couple of new background techniques, and a new Twinkling H2O technique. You can look forward to seeing those sometime later this week.

The first thing that piqued my interest and that I actually ended up buying was a package of Starburst Stains. You can get them on this site: www.lindystampgang.com

Basically, you can do color washes with them, or you can pounce them on your page to create interesting starbursts, or just gently touch them to the page to get a cool stippled look. It takes a couple times of doing it to "get it" right, but once you know how hard or not hard to pounce them -- what fun!!! Oooh and they all have this marvelous glittery sheen, similar to pearl ex, but require nothing for it to stick to the page, and they don't come off on your hands. I got a pack of 5 colors - sea mint green, opal sea oats, glory of the seas gold, azure sea asters and cocklebells coral. I really love the backgrounds you can create with these.

Here are some pictures of cards on the displays that were up that inkspired me in some way:

These gorgeous two were at the Designs Unlimited booth. I picked up some sweet precut ready to stamp pencil toppers and match book notebooks there, as well as a really cool other thing which I am not going to talk about until I post it. I photographed these because 1) I loved that they embossed in gold and silver -- I never think to do that, always, black, white or clear to me, and 2) The watercoloring on these cards was just awe inspiring and sensational!!!

This card was in the Creations Unlimited booth. I just loved the idea of using multiple colors of glitter on the back of the acetate sheet and stamping images in staz on on the front. Beautiful!!! This booth was selling both embossing powders and glitter -- no surprises there!

1. 2. 3.

1. This card was photographed for pure CASEing. I really liked how the sunflower looked over the crimped kraft paper and since I have lots of sunflower images and fall is coming up . . . I took a picture.
2. I liked this one because of the dress. The image is totally not my style at all -- but her dress was done in green microbeads and looked so cool and shimmery in real life.
3. This is a technique that I have never thought about trying before (DUH) that I learned in that booth where both of the other pictures were taken. It was the Rubbernecker Stamp Company booth. The technique is to take your twinkling H2O's and using a paintbrush, paint them onto a solid image stamp and then stamp them down on your paper. I loved the shimmery sample and when I asked if I could photograph it, it was generously given to me! Thanks! I totally want to try a fall card using this technique, I think you could do some gorgeous things.

These photos were taken in the Ecstacy Crafts booth. It was totally and completely packed and had a line up of like 15 people at all times. I wanted to get some ornare stencils because they were gorgeous, but I was trying to avoid lines so I could see everything. I did take a picture of some of the ornare cards though. The flower card is just a stencil overlay and then cut out and spread out a bit. I thought it was a neat idea to use somehow.

So that is pretty much it. I had a fun time. I learned lots and I hope you enjoyed coming with me!