I'm alive

hi blog readers.. I'm not sure how many of you are still with me it's been almost 3 months since my last post. As you know my dad has been battling multiple cancers for the last 3 years. on August 5th at 2:39pm we said goodbye for the last time. He was in so much pain at the end. I'm so thankful that hospice came in to help the last 2 weeks. I know you don't personally know my dad but let me tell you a little bit about him.. My dad, Scott Douglas was the most caring loving person I've ever met. He was in the Air Force and later became a machinest owning his own business for almost 20 years. He was a competition shooting champion holding some state records in Utah. We loved to spend time together laughing and doing things like camping, fishing and just plain old hanging out.

My dad was 49 when he passed away. He was only a month and half from his 50th birthday. Next week on the 22nd we will celebrate his birthday.

I'm sorry you guys.. I just can't write anymore. Once I pulled up the picture I started crying and I can't seem to stop. I haven't seen this picture in a couple years. This was taken in October 2007 after we shut down his machine shop because that's what caused his cancer.

I hope to be back to blogging soon. I need an outlet. For now take care and be safe.

Vicki

Not again!

Wow time has flown by me! I haven't blogged in so long. I'm very sorry to my followers. This past month has brought some real highs and lows... As you know my dad is fighting multiple types of cancer right now... I found him in a confused state and not breathing right in early june. He was taken to the hospital and spent a little over a week there. He has been diagnosed with blood clots in the lungs and in his back. I almost lost him. They say if I hadn't found him when I did he'd be gone. I'm so thankful for the gift I've been given with my dad.

The good news.....

Queen Kat Designs is coming out with a new line... It's a fun and funky collection of all my favorite things... distressed, rock n roll, industrial and graffiti. The collection includes DIY distress stamps that you can use to distress things that aren't distressed already like this flower....

For this pretty blue flower I used the new Tattered Floral die cut from Tim Holtz.. I glued pages from an old book to some chipboard and cut them out. I stamped them with one of the new distress stamps and inked them up with Broken China and Faded Jeans distress inks. I've been making my own paint daubbers lately and used one of them here. It's kind of a brassy red. I think the correct name is Ruby Red Metallic.. (I'll blog them soon)

Then I just free hand cut the stem and leaves and used Crushed Olive distress ink to color them up.

I will have more sneek peeks for the new Studio 77 line soon. The whole collection (the beginning of the collection anyway) will be released on July 7th with the rest of the CHA releases.

Stop by and save up to 60% now at QKD.

Till next time,
Vicki

Diamond, Diamond- lie to me baby

Welcome!!! I'm so excited to share this card with you today. She's a bling princess if I ever did see one.
This is one of our new releases in the "Sin Bonnet Sue" Collection. I've used some icey colors on this card with lots of bling. The purple background is actually metallic cardstock that's been embossed with the Cuttlebug Diamond Plate embossing folder.

And as I said on Monday's post, I am showcasing the bracket template I made... Well ok... now that I look at it, this is a different bracket than I used on Monday... But hey, it's a bracket. lol. The blue paper is from Pink Paislee I believe. I hand dyed the lace on this card as well. I used the Dusty Concord Distress Ink and my foam applicator for this lace.

The saying on this card just cracks me up: "Diamond, Diamond in my hand... how much money will you command? Like she's a diamond mafia momma. :)

Now hop over to Shannon as she reveals another new release.

New Stuff...

Hi guys!! long time no blog.. I'm so bad at this blogging thing! I really wish I could find that 25th hour. Anywhoo.. I'm here now. I have a new QKD release to share with you. I surprised everyone, even the Royal Court today with a new release by Che! She's called Seraphim and she's a "paper doll" stamp. The set includes: a parasol, bunny, shirt, skirt, dress, top hat, Seraphim and 2 hair bows! I had a lot of fun making this card. I hand dyed the laces, I sanded some cardstock, got inky, sparkley and topped it all off with some metallic silver cording that used to be in my grandmothers sewing stuff! What more can you ask for in 1 card??? How about a shaped edge??

I made a template a while ago for this "bracket" like edge and I've used it quite a few times now and each time it looks different! You'll see on Friday another way to use this template as well. So make sure you come back here on Friday! We are releasing 10 new stamp sets and having a special court blog hop.

Until then... Happy Stampin'
Vicki

And the SECRET is...

Hi Stampers!
Queen Kat Designs is proud to announce that we are changing our stamps from clear polymer to Grey laser etched rubber! That's right, REAL rubber stamps!! I am so excited, I've been chomping at the bit driving all my Facebook friends nuts with hints it's unreal.

This move comes for a couple of reasons.. #1 I can acheive more deatil in our stamps with a laser machine that I ever could with polymer. and #2 Health risks. Unless I catch myself on fire with the new machine, there's no health risks for me in making the stamps where as submerging my hands 6-9 hours a day in photopolymer and breathing the fumes didn't do me any good.

The Royal Court is so STOKED for this change they can not wait to get to work with the stamps. The machine just arrived yesterday and I'm still setting it up. I plan to have the rubber stamps in the store and starting to ship on May 1st just in time for National Scrapbook Month.

The stamps will be unmounted and will come in sets or sold as singles as we've always done it. No changes there. :) We will sell EZ Mount foam for you to mount your stamps on. It's on order and hopefully will be here sometime next week.

So... right now, ALL QKD stamps left in stock are 50% off! Come and take advantage of the sale and clear us out of clear stamps to help make room for the rubba!

There's still part of the secret that it under wraps that only 1-2 people know about.. I'm still working on the product but it'll be announced soon and will be shipping May 1st as well!

If you have any questions, please feel free to let me know!

until next time.. Queen Kat

You're probably wanting to see the difference in the stamps, huh?? Can you guess which is rubba and which is clear polymer?

Busy!

Wow!! I can't believe this month is almost over and I've blogged once! Man I'm bad!! Well.... I've been keeping a HUGE secret that has to do with Queen Kat Designs and I'm just going to blurt it out soon if Friday don't come!! There are only a small handful of people who know and they are bursting to tell too. :) But I've sworn them to secrecy. Please come and join in the fun over at the castle. We've moved and I'm going to spill the news there first on Friday, so be one of the first to know and come join us! Here's some news I just put on the QKD blogs..

Come over to the QKD Contest blog and vote for your favorite card. Each month we have a card contest with a great prize. Since April is our birthday month for the Royal kit we are giving the winner a mini kit made up of things from our great royal kits!Also....

Come over and shop the QKD clearance sale. We are clearing out ALL of our stamps to make room for new ones. Don't be frightened, we are going no where! We are just turning up the greatness!

ALL stamps are 30% off!! Shop now for the best selection.

Have a fantastic stampy day!
Queen Kat

Enamel Flowers

Hey there! Happy Easter.

I hope you had a wonderful day. Mine was filled with family and nummy food. Last night I ran down to get a Melting Pot from Michael's so I could try some of Suze Weinberg's techniques... She's the guest designer for Queen Kat Designs for the month of April. :) I was watching some you tube vids last night and came across one that made these pretty flowers using Prima's and UTEE in the melting Pot. So today I melted up some UTEE and made me some flowers! Here's my finished product...

I just dipped them into the UTEE face down and swirled them around with a bamboo skewer and used tweezers to take them out then cooled them down on my craft mat. It's very simple to do. These pictures do no justice what so ever! If I have some free time this week, I will make a video of how to do it. They shimmer and shine and are oh so pretty. Here are some more shots...

The teal flower was used on my Dad's Easter card. I want to try the technique using other colors to make them more vintage looking. I am waiting for the new Petaloo Color me silly white flowers to come out in stores so I can ink them up with the new Timmy inks. Oh I can see so many possibilities with them and my melting pot.. :)

Until next time...

It's Blog Candy Time!

Thanks to everyone who chose to enter my blog candy here. It's now closed. Although I only reached my 150 follower goal on Facebook's Networked Blog thingy, I'm going to still hand out 2 candies!! I'm going to pick randomly from the followers of my blog. If you're the lucky winner, please email me at info@katstamps.com with your address and I'll get it sent out ASAP. Drum Roll please meistro.....

Networked Blog Winner: Jodi Burkhart Neal

Blogger Winner: Jessica Buike

How were the winners chosen? Point n click. I pulled up lists of my followers and closed my eyes, pointed and who I clicked on first won. :)

I woulda used the random.org but each time I pull up the list the followers end up in a different order so that didn't work out.

Thank you all for entering. I hope you'll keep following me and enjoy all of the crafts n things I have to share.

Take Care!
Vicki

Lets Get Inky!

As promised.. Here's my tutorial on how to make your own custom dyed ribbon...
Supplies:
Hug Snug Seam Binding
ReInker (any kind will do)
Mini mister
Water
Non Stick Craft Sheet
Plastic Baggie
Paper Towel and extra water for clean up

Step 1: Put about 10 drops of reinker into your mini mister (If using a Distress Ink Reinker use 1 full eye dropper of ink) fill the rest of the mister up with plain water just to the bottom of the threads on the bottle to allow enough room for the mister tube to displace the water when cap is on. Screw cap on and shake it baby! you now have your own dye.

Step 2: take your seam binding (I work with pieces that are 2 yards long) and lay it on your craft sheet. And spray away...
In this tutorial I used the new Crushed Olive Reinker from Tim Holtz. As you can see the color comes out kinda light so you'll want to spritz away until your color appeals to you..... Step 3: Keep turning the ribbon making sure you get all of it sprayed so you leave no white spots unless you like that sort of thing. Some do.. but I don't it bugs me to look 1/2 finished.I take ribbon and rub it all over my craft mat to pick up the excess spray so I don't end up wasting 1/2 a bottle on my mat that will be cleaned up and tossed in the garbage.

Step 4: When your color is achieved, ball your ribbon up and stuff it into the very corner of a plastic baggie... This will help ad crinkles and creases to the dried ribbon.
Step 5: Using a paper piercer or needle, poke holes in the baggie to ventilate so in case you forget to take the ribbon out of the baggie for a couple days, you're less likely to have musty or moldy ribbon. (BIG thing!!! Don't forget!)Step 6: Cut the very tip of the baggie off for even more air flow. The ribbon will NOT dry overnight in a closed plastic baggie no matter what anyone tells you. Wet + no air flow = wet and musty= YUCK!
Step 7: Set aside and take the ribbon out the next day. Note.. The ribbon will not be totally dry when you take it out of the baggie. I just take mine out and kind of loosely undo the "wad o ribbon" and let it air dry another night. You can heat set it with a heat tool but this may relax the ribbon and not leave you with the crinkles.. SO.. if you like crinkles.. don't heat it.. If you want it flat, heat away. And you can even iron it at that point if you want it flat.

So I'm sure some of you are asking.. What colors have I tried? Well.. Here's a picture of some I made yesterday.. Note these are not 100% dry but they are done up through step 7.

Blue: Distress Ink in Tumbled Glass with some Adirondak in Stone Wash
Purple: Close To My Heart Hydrangea
Orange: Orange Brilliance (has a pearl shine)
Pink: Distress Ink in Spun Sugar
Red: Cherry Red by Memories
Brown: CTMH Chocolate
Yellow: Wild Honey Distress Ink (this is my new favorite color!)
I hope you'll try out my tutorial. I'd love to see what you make!
Now go get inky! :)

The true love of ink....

Ahhh I feel a little bit better now that I have gotten inky.. As many of you know my family is going through a rough time right now as my dad's cancer has spread to his brain. There are 15 tumors there that they can see.. They've taken him off Chemo and put him on radiation for the brain. We don't know what to expect but are praying for a miracle. Thank you to all of you who have sent me messages on Facebook, texts and emails my family truly appreciates all of the prayers.

So... Today... I got in a roll of seam binding.. I wanted to make some crinkle specialty died ribbons to use with my new Tim Holtz Distress inks.. So I made up all my little mini misters and water and sprayed up some ribbons! :) I'll have a tutorial here soon. I'm letting them dry over night so I can have some dry ones to show ya. But beware... This may happen...
And... a tip... either wear gloves or wait to get a mani! :)Be back soon!

Royal Court Team Contest...

SCROLL DOWN FOR MY BLOG CANDY

Straight from the QKD blog.. go and enter!

There's a contest going on! If you're a new follower of our blog, please let us know who sent ya. The royal court is having a contest. Comment here with the name of the person who sent you an invite to join. The person with the most "team mates" at 12:00am MST on 3/20/10 will win a $20 QKD stamp shopping spree as will 1 team mate of theirs drawn by random.

This contest is also going to be running on the Castle message board, & all of the QKD blogs:
Whimsical Ink Sorority
Dark Ink Sorority

So make sure you follow them all. Each place you follow will be 1 chance to win for you & your team captain!!

Leave a comment here if you are now a follower via blogspot follow or Networked Blogs (1 entry only for this blog)

Make sure you tell them I sent you!!! If I happen to win for having the most people on my team, I am going to put all of the court members names into a hat and give the prize to them and one of you will still get a prize!

The Queen's Back...

SCROLL DOWN FOR BLOG CANDY

Here ye' here ye' all hail the Red Queen... hehe. I just had to share this card I made.. I used the new Wonderland Friends stamp set from QKD along with a new border punch I picked up. I love how it turned out. I stamped the image with Momento ink onto watercolor paper and colored it in with my Tombow markers. I added some red stickled to all he hearts in the image.

For the large flower on the bottom of the card, I layered some primas and a red chiffon flower I made with a bridal flower and a silver brad. The chiffon I used has dots of red glitter on the fabric already so that just added more pizzazz. :) Oh.... I also random stamped the red cardstock with the playing card from the Fairy Queen of Hearts stamp set from QKD as well.

Have you stamped today?? until next time.. Vicki

Milestone Blog Candy...

Are you ready for some nummies??? Well here it is... I'm trying to get 150 followers on my blog.. In both places.. the blogspot followers and on my Networked Blogs on Facebook. They are both on the right hand side of my blog -->

If I can get 150 on each of them by 4/1/10 April Fools day, I will hand out 2 blog candies!! That's right TWO candies!! 1 winner from blogspot and 1 winner from Networked Blogs! all you need to do is follow me then leave a comment that you're a follower!

I'd love it if you could help me out and post on your facebook, blog or twitter about my candy.

Here's what you could win...

I have two of these 6X6 kits ready to ship right now!! Here's what's in them..

12 6X6 patterned papers from Upsy Daisy
4 Pink tickets and stubs
1 Stamp set from Queen Kat Designs
1 baggie of Flocking
1 yard ribbon
1 yard trim
1 Pina Colada Lip balm from Paradise Sunrise Essentials
6 large brads
A pinch of metallic silver baubbles

So if you wanna win... Make sure you are a follower. Winner will be drawn on April Fools Day! Good luck and thanks for coming by.

A Little MAD....

Hey hey, it's a beautiful day here at the QKD office. The sun is out and it's actually warm. I'm so glad that the new Alice in Wonderland inspired stamps are out now! Because that means I can show you what I've been working on. :)

This is a card that I made using the Mad Hatter from the new Wonderland Friends stamp set. I know the colors are not your usual color combo but I think it works. Strange yes, but who said the Mad Hatter wasn't a bit MAD?? :)

I used the Ace card from the new Fairy Queen Of Hearts stamp set at QKD to random stamp the black cardstock on this card. I stamped it with come Champagne Versamark ink.

*Side note: I have been wanting the new sparkley versamark for some time and I finally bought 2 pads. The champagne and the frost. I'm not even going to open the Frost. It's going back to the store. :( I'm not sure why I got so hyped up about it.. the look is just like regular VM ink only a tad of sparkle... which rubs off as the ink dries.

Next I layered some Jenni Bowlin patterned paper onto some creamy/yellowy Bazzill cardstock and embosses it with my new Moroccan screen cuttlebug folder and inked it all up with my new Barn Door Tim Holtz distress ink pad and foam applicator.

I stamped and colored the Mad Hatter on my trusty watercolor paper, inked the edges with the new light blue distress ink.. the formal name escapes me at the moment.. I added 3 brads and matted it to some aqua colored cardstock. Added a ribbon to the red piece and layered it all on my card base.

Then I pulled out the trusty, handy dandy clear glossy accents and applied it to the glasses, tea pot, tea cup and shoes. I added some red glitter glue to his feather and viola! card done.

If you'd like a chance to win this stamp set, come over and enter the card contest that Queen Kat Designs has going on right now.

Happy Stampin!
Vicki

The Queen's here...

Hey there!!! Welcome to my stop on the blog hop. I have been having so much fun with the Queen of Hearts in the Whimsical Ink line that I had to join in the blog hop today.

This is a 5.5" square card. I love doing square cards yet I don't do them often.. go figure. You can't see it really well in the picture but I used the Heart It background stamp from QKD on the red cardstock in red ink to add a little bit more texture to the card.

I gathered up some tulle for the left side of the card then stitched the Queen on to that with some sparkley black string. After stamping and coloring the cards, I cut them out and pop dotted them on and added some clear glossy accents. I added the sentiment and viola! That's the card in a nut shell.

I hope you enjoyed the blog hops yesterday and again today. We do it each week and have a different theme each week. I know there was supposed to be a sketch today but I squeezed this card in at the last moment.

The new stamps will be available in the QKD store tomorrow!

Happy Stamping and hop over to the ever so fabulous Sally Lynn MacDonald. Sally is our guest royal court member for March.

Happy Stamping.
Vicki