Tomorrow!!

I'll be there! How 'bout you?

Awesome new stuff.  New video on Wednesday!

Have a great day!

Gina K. Summer Sale Ending: Lots of Letters and More!

Hello!  My kids are back to school! Summer is over! More on all that later! :)

There's a big SUMMER SALE going on, did you hear?  It ends tonight 11:57 PM Central time, so don't delay! Tons of clear sets, HALF OFF, including... my Lots of Letters and Lots of Letters 2 sets!  These have never been on sale before (and I don't know that they will be again), so this event is the cheapest way to get both alphas for the price of one, which means upper and lower case, numbers and a ton of other fun two step stamping borders and elements for your cards, gifts, tags and scrapbook projects. These versatile image and clean font work with just about everything.  They also coordinate with my Pretty Patterns and Pretty Patterns 2 sets. 

I would have loved to get a new video done with one or both of these sets in time, but it just didn't work out (see end of summer, back to school above!)  so I am sharing just a couple past samples and links to the videos I did make before, if you missed. :)  Below you can see videos and the image sheets for each set.  Hope this helps!
 

 Lots of Letters 2

Lots of Letters 

Happy shopping today!

Video: Torn Gradient

In today’s video, I'll show you how to create a cool, color-blocked look with some ink pads, torn paper and my Wild at Heart set. (Back in stock!  Shop now if you want it, sold out again in one day when we posted the last video) This technique is fast and easy and a new twist on the concepts of gradient and paper piecing in just one project.  Save the remaining torn pieces for layering onto another card!  

 So many gorgeous color combos for this technique, so try autumnal hues for upcoming fall projects. You can also use contrasting colors rather than different shades of one color (like the red to pink shown here.)  Mixing it up will be very striking and unexpected!  And, check out the super minimal supply list below!

Supplies:

Gina K. Designs Wild at Heart, Inspiration Mosaic stamp sets

Gina K. Innocent Pink, Dusty Rose, and Red Hot ink pads

Gina K. Pure Luxury Dusty Rose ( 5 ½” x 8 ½”, scored at 4 ¼”) and White (2 mats-4” x 5 ¼”) cardstock

Thanks for watching!

Gina K. Designs Back to School Blog Hop!

 

Good morning! The Cast and Crew for Gina K. Designs welcomes you to a special BACK TO SCHOOL blog hop! Gina, along with the Cast and Crew, will inspire you with many fun cards and projects for your favorite student, their teacher or your friends that are in the teaching profession!

As you hop through Gina and the Cast & Crew blogs, make sure to leave a comment on each of them because we will choose a random comment and that stamper will win their choice of a Gina K. Designs stamp set with a value up to $23.95!

To see if you are the winner, check the Big News Forum at StampTV a few days after the hop.

There are a number of stamp sets from Gina K. Designs that you can use to create a welcome, thank you or back to school. Today, our featured sets are my Basket Additions 3 and Beth Silaika’s Keep Calm. There are some great stamps to color and perfect sentiments for Back to School! ☺

It’s not too late to make your project or special cards because students and teachers will be back in the classroom soon, but also need encouragement throughout the semester! If you do not have these sets in your Gina K. Designs stamp collection, visit the Gina K. Designs store.

 Additionally, you will probably also see some other coordinating and complementing sets from Gina K. Designs.  The images in Basket Additions 3 all fit as toppers for my Spring, Holiday and Beyond Baskets and Beyond Baskets 2 sets.  I have a couple projects for you today without bottoms, just tops!

I made this calendar card for William, who is going into 5th grade. He loves anything "miniature", so I think he will love the tiny pages!  I will write a special note of encouragement and maybe some of his goals he's discussed with me inside and he can keep this out on his desk and keep track of the school year.
Here is the page I found that has all sorts of mini calendar printables.  I love how the stamped toppers are the perfect length to go across the month pages! I will definitely be making more mini calendar card, so I can do the floral calendar design with the Spring Basket set, etc! (Wouldn't that be great to make a Christmas card calendar with the Holiday Basket poinsettia toppers? The card is the gift, look, a 2016 calendar!)You can print a whole year on one sheet (print two years so you could get the correct dates for the months the school year overlaps) I printed them on regular copy paper and stapled them onto the red mat like a real calendar so you can remove the pages.

I used the heart from Triple Play Fillers (stamped in Red Hot) to show the day they head back, but all the other tiny bits in this set and the Triple Play Frame work great over each of the numbers to mark special days, count down till break, or even mark off competed homework of reading time. I am just so darned excited about this idea, an you tell?  You can make these cards with mini calendars for the teachers and moms in your life, too!  They need to mark time and count down (almost there!!), remember important dates, all the while your awesome card with your affirming message inside is proudly on display all year! :) (For this design, you can stamp "teacher" in place of the I "love you" and "back2school" for your mom friends.)   I colored the image and paper pieced the lunch box with a paper price tag that was attached to a stuffed animal I bought last week, it looked like some little character that might be on a lunch box!

The Gina K Designs products that I used to create this project are:

• GKD Basket Additions 3 and Triple Play Fillers stamp sets
• Gina K. Pure Luxury Powder Blue, Black Onyx and Red Hot cardstock
• GKD Red Hot, Black Onyx ink pads
• Spectrum Noir Markers

Now, this next one, well, let me remind you I also have a middle schooler.  Next year he'll be in HIGH school!  Eek!  That makes me feel like this skeleton looks!  ) So anyway, Jonathan's not really about "apples for the teachers and lunch tins" anymore, you know?  I have to be as sarcastic as he is to find any common ground, so here is my "skooleton"!  

Apologies to all the teachers out there, who do not appreciate this design, but please try to think back to a time when maybe you weren't so excited about going to school!  (I think he's going to love it!)  Everything here is from my Basket Additions 3 set, minus my handwriting, ("Best penmanship, please, class!") in gel pen.  The teacher, I mean, skooleton, (from the Halloween topper in the set), is about as excited to see the students as they are to see him or her, you know?  The desk and black board are just rectangular mats that make it easy to create a classroom scene. I smudged a little white craft ink (also used on the back2school) on the Black Onyx mat edges. Scary is from another greeting is the set, inking up just the "scary".  I used Wild Lilac for the mat to go with his school colors.

The Gina K Designs products that I used to create this project are:

• Gina K. Basket Additions 3 stamp set
• Gina K. Pure Luxury White, Black onyx, Warm Cocoa, and Wild Lilac cardstock
• Gina K. Black Onyx ink pad and White craft pad
• Spectrum Noir markers
• White gel pen

It’s not too late to make your project or special cards because students and teachers will be back in the classroom soon, but also need encouragement throughout the semester! If you do not have these sets in your Gina K. Designs stamp collection, visit the Gina K. Designs store.

Basket Additions 3

Beth Silaika’s Keep Calm

Ready for more awesome creations?! Just click on the links below for more from the Cast & Crew!

Gina K

Beth Silaika

Cat Tidwell

 

Karen Hightower

Kendra Wietstock

Laurie Schmidlin

Sean Fetterman

Tricia Traxler

Have fun hopping!  Thanks for visiting today!

• 
  

Road Trip! Hawaiian Falls Waco

Aloha! The boys and I had the opportunity to make a little day trip to Waco (10 miles north of Austin, halfway to Dallas) this past week to check out their Hawaiian Falls Water Park. When you have a season pass, you have access to all seven of their parks around Texas. How could we not go to try something new?  If you are heading up I-35, this is a great place to stop and cool off!

This is a wonderful park for families with smaller children.  Lots of splash pads, tiny slides, and fun fountain opportunities. It brought back so many good memories of when mine were little seeing the moms just sitting in the shallow water while their kids splashed and laughed under these dumping buckets. A floating foam lily pad still beckoned my boys to play king of the hill, though, even at this age. Not sharing the photo I have of Jonathan's smiling and laughing as he goes for younger brother's throat, ah how sweet! Boys will be boys. 

That is not to say my 13- and 10- year-olds didn’t find lots to do.  It was a nice change to try out some different rides, as each park is different and has some signature slides. One ride especially was different than any other water slide we've ever done, and we've done a lot!  This completely enclosed tube has LED lights flashing in certain parts throughout the ride and it's a really trippy experience! Kind of like being in outer space in the blackness surrounded by stars, in these sections of the tube it was so easy to feel disoriented and you might even be stopping momentarily or even going uphill instead of sliding down.  I don't know how else to describe it! Sounds weird, but take my word for it, worth trying! That was their favorite.  

Their downhill racer ride, called Pineapple Express, also had a unique twist.  Whereas you usually get a clear view of all the lanes in a racing slide for multiple riders, on this one you start in complete darkness, sliding down and having no idea who's really in the lead until you emerge from the tunnel! They don't do this type of slide as much as some of the more twisty ones when we hit water parks, but they did this one over and over.

A smaller park also meant everything was closer together and less walking, which was much appreciated on such a hot day (104!), as well as shorter lines, and not as crowded in the shallower wave pool.  It’s a quieter speed, for us Austinites, but I'm sure this is "where it's at" in the summer in Waco! 

William also went for the $5, all-you-can-play day wristband for this Wipe Out style obstacle.  Great deal!  They have one at our park in Pflugerville, too, but this is the first time we've tried it. An attendant was constantly spraying it down to keep the inflatable from being too hot on the feet, with the slipperiness adding to the fun (and difficulty!), so this can keep your son or daughter entertained all afternoon as the kids take turns and enjoy watching each other getting bonked by the rotating arm.  William allowed himself to get bonked several times, just because!

The cabanas here have table and chairs for 4, plus some lounges to relax on while the kids are sliding without you (I drove 100 miles each way and no one rode ANYthing with me! Harumph. So I actually did lay down a few times)  and include unlimited drink wristbands for 4 and a cheerful server to take your orders and bring your food and beverages.

A couple other things worth mentioning that are a little different from Pflugerville, you won't need to pay for parking (woot!) and there are a lot of trees and grass, and surrounded by hay fields (with big bales of hay, that you could see form the slide towers), so it is a little more scenic and shady. Also, this park does not have a ropes course adventure park, so daily admission is less than the parks that do.  It's all about the water! Check for specials like Buy 2, get 2 Free Sundays, Maui Mom Mondays or $2 Tuesdays with each regular priced admission before heading out! 

I think we are planning to hit the location in Garland this week while we visit my mom who lives nearby, so I will have some pictures and info from that trip for you as well.  I know from the website they have a half pipe slide there, which will be awesome!

Hope you are enjoying these last days of summer! Mahalo!

Video: Sparkling Diamonds

Hello! Today I'll show you how to stamp easy harlequin patterns with just one border and then two step fill it with the solid and patterned diamonds, all from my Triple Play Fillers set. Great for clean and simple cards, this background is so versatile and can go from classic to modern just with the colors and patterns you choose.

Supplies:
Gina K. Designs Triple Play Fillers stamp set
Gina K. Pure Luxury Lovely Lavender (5 ½” x 8 ½”, scored at 4 ¼”), Dark Chocolate (2” x 3 ¾”), Ivory (4” x 5 ¼”)
Gina K. Lovely Lavender, Dark Chocolate, Moonlit Fog ink pads

Thanks for watching!

Video: Faux Etched Marble

In today’s video, I show you how drawing and thumping with your water-based markers onto the bold frame from my Wild at Heart frame stamp gives you the look of a piece of etched marble or granite when stamped. The negative floral design carved into the stamps really pops this way! This direct to stamp technique is perfect for creating interesting, stony textures on your stamped projects, looks beautiful in a variety of colors, and is great for masculine cards. Greeting is from Triple Play Fillers. I shared this technique and similar design in my book Fabulous Stamped Frames (now available as an electronic download for your iPad, desktop or Kindle).

Supplies:

Gina K. Designs Wild at Heart, Triple Play Fillers stamp sets

Gina K. Kraft Ink Pad

Gina K. Pure Luxury White ( 5 ½” x 8 ½”, scored at 4 ¼”, 3 7/8” x 5 1/8”, and ½” x 3 1/8”) and Edible Eggplant (4” x 5 ¼” and 5/8” x 3 ¼”) cardstock

Spectrum Aqua Markers-Essentials Collection (Terracotta and Chocolate)

Hope your week is off to a great start!