New and Improved

First things first . . . You may have noticed Inking Aloud has a new blog header. I created it all by myself this morning, after Cosmo decided at 6:00 AM that since he was tired of sleeping, I should be too. So, once I was somewhat awake (and he had decided to go back to sleep!), I headed to the computer and played around with Photoshop Elements until I came up with something that I felt was useable. I've been thinking about doing this for a while, but just hadn't gotten around to it yet. You would think that 2/3 of the way to a masters degree in instructional technology, I would have learned something about this kind of stuff along the way. Well, I haven't, so there was a lot of trial and error involved, but I think it came out okay in the end.

Also, the Feedblitz issues should be solved now (thanks, Feedblitz tech support!). If you have subscribed to Inking Aloud through Feedblitz but haven't been receiving regular updates, you should start to see them. Thanks for your patience.

For the past few weeks, I've been hard at work on swaps to bring to my first SU! Convention this summer. I don't want to share the actual card designs I'm using yet, but here's a preview of a kind of card I'm bringing for a special swap. This is a CD shaker card. I found a tutorial for this fun version of a shaker card on Maria's blog, Stampin Inspirations. It uses a CD sleeve with a clear window to hold the confetti (or whatever you choose to use as "shaking stuff"). The card is really easy to make and is something a little different.

The multicolored flower confetti was the inspiration for the bright colors of this card. I used the bright pinks, purples, and blues from the confetti to pick my paper and image colors. They match my new blog header, too! The CD sleeve is stamped with the Scatter Sunshine Jumbo Wheel in Orchid Opulence. A trick I learned while making this card is that if you get some ink on the window part of the CD sleeve when you're stamping, it just rubs off, so there really isn't a need to mask the center.

The main image is from the soon to be retired Living Large stamp set. I had gotten a few images from this set through the SCS WISH RAK forum and was enjoying playing with them. The images are fun to color in and can be used for a lot of occasions. When I saw it on the SU! retiring list, I decided to order it. I knew I'd regret it if I didn't purchase the set while I could.

Materials Used:
From Stampin' Up!: Living Large and Happy Everything stamp sets; Scatter Sunshine jumbo wheel and handle; Orchid Opulence, Taken with Teal, and Basic Black Classic inks; Orchid Opulence, Cool Caribbean, Taken with Teal, Pink Passion, and Whisper White cardstock; Coluzzle and oval template; silver cord; 1 1/4" circle punch
Other: Prismacolor pencils; 1" circle punch (Marvy Uchida); blue eyelet (Making Memories); confetti (Retro-Daisy style, from Michaels); CD sleeve; orchid grosgrain (AC Moore dollar bin)