masking

More Than Cookies

Here’s another moving arm card design using the Nothing’s Better Than stamp set and the Love You More Dies from Stampin’ Up!

I made this one for my husband’s birthday. Inside the card, I wrote that I also love him more than ice cream, coffee, and wine! Though, there are times, in the moment, that I will choose any one of these things over him. LOL! But, if we’re talking long term here, that man will win over all those things, every time!

You can see the first moving arm pop-up card that I made for a class on my previous post. There’s also a tutorial video that will show you how to make the pop-up mechanism so you can create your own moving arm pop-up cards.

I wanted to keep the front of the card relatively simple because the inside is so fancy, but I still couldn’t help but add some sponging on the Crumb Cake layer. I also used a technique shared by Stampin’ Up! 2020 Artisan Team member, Stesha Bloodhart, to colour the letters using Stampin’ Up! Blends Markers. I love the look! I’ll definitely be using it more often.

To create these coloured letters, I first had to adhere a piece of Basic White cardstock to a Foam Adhesive Sheet. I used the Stampin’ Blends Markers, Bermuda Bay (light and dark), Ivory, and Bronze, to colour stripes. After colouring, I cut out the letters with the Stampin’ Cut & Emboss Machine.

You can see on the card that I started with a Basic White card base, then layered the Bermuda Bay and the sponged and stamped Crumb Cake. Those layers were wrapped with Black Baker’s Twine before attaching them to the card base with Stampin’ Dimensionals. To finish the front of the card, the label was attached with Dimensionals and a few Matte Black Dots were added for interest.

The inside of the card, of course, is the fun part! As the card opens, the banners and cookies move out and down from behind the popped up layer.

It’s a delightful surprise!

I added some Basic White layers on the inside of the card, stamped and sponged with Crumb Cake ink. The popped up layer has enough space on it to write a brief personal note. I did a bit of masking on the Basic White piece so I could add a line of sponging under the lettering. I didn’t think about adding the sponging until I had already adhered the white piece to the Bermuda Bay and the Crumb Cake, so I used some Post It Tape from Staples to mask off the area and protect it from getting inky.

The main moving arm is the Bermuda Bay cardstock banner. To this, I added a Crumb Cake banner (sponged with Crumb Cake ink) and the cookies. The cookies were stamped with Tuxedo Black Momento Ink on Crumb Cake cardstock and coloured with Soft Suede Stampin’ Blends Markers before being die-cut with the Love You More coordinating die in the Cut & Emboss Machine.

The small die-cut stitched white banner was cut with a die from the Tasteful Labels Dies. The sentiment from the Nothing’s Better Than stamp set was stamped with Bermuda Bay ink.

Because we are in a pandemic, I’ve had to do my classes virtually, which has limited what I can offer. When my classes were in person, I could use multiple stamp sets for one card design. Now, with virtual classes, I design projects that are paper-technique focused with lots of die-cutting, embossing, and fancy folding that can be created with generic sentiments like “happy birthday” or “thinking of you”. I find myself using image stamps less often than I’d like.

Using the coordinating stamps and dies for this card was so much fun and so satisfying!

If you’re in Canada, like I am, you can order the Nothing’s Better Than stamp set and the coordinating Love You More Dies on my Online Store. You’ll find other fantastic crafting and stamping supplies there as well.

Do the Impossible

My niece is a competitive cross-country skier and has qualified to compete in the Biathlon World Youth Championships in Switzerland this month! Her entire family (my brother, his wife, and the two daughters) all compete in biathlon. I think they’re a little crazy, but I am crazy proud of all of them and their determination and discipline to compete.

The card I made for today’s blog post is for my niece for her birthday (shhh, it isn’t until February). I am so pleased with how I was able to use an image of a jogger and make it look like a skier with a little extra simple drawing skills.

I had this As You See It Challenge to get me started:

For my card, I used the “Do the Impossible” stamp set from Stampin’ Up! One of the images is of two people jogging together. I inked up only the one with the long hair and stamped on Smoky Slate cardstock with Tuxedo Black Momento ink. Then I used a Basic Gray Stampin’ Write Marker to carefully draw in the lines for ski poles and skis. The skis were a bit difficult to get the angle right, but I think it came together. This sketch-style image makes it very forgiving to add to the image like this.

I coloured her ski suit with the Poppy Parade Stampin’ Write marker, trying to make it look like her Canadian racing suit. I even wrote “Canada” on the lower leg, just like the suit has (I thought that was pretty clever, LOL!).

I gave her a headband to keep her ears warm by using that Basic Grey Stampin’ Write Marker again. I used it for her gloves, boots, and some detail on her skis as well. I coloured her hair with a So Saffron Stampin’ Write Marker, but I coloured her face and neck with the Ivory Blends Marker, adding a touch of colour with the Light Petal Pink Blends Marker.

To create the snowy background behind my skier, I stamped the image again on a sticky note and fussy cut it so I could place it over my image to use as a mask. Then I tore a piece of cardstock and lay it over the upper part of my skier and sponged Craft White ink. Then I added a bit more light sponging of the Craft White to the edges of the Smokey Slate cardstock. I stamped the snowflake image from the “Colorful Seasons” stamp set with Craft White ink. The snowflake sequins are from the October 2019 Paper Pumpkin kit!

The rest of the card is pretty self explanatory. I sponged a bit of Craft White ink on one side of a strip of Real Red cardstock before stamping the sentiment using Tuxedo Black Momento ink. Just to the left of that you can see my subtle peeking of silver paper – this is patterned paper from the Feels Like Frost Designer Series Paper pack (not available to purchase again until September). Behind all of this, I have a piece of Smoky Slate cardstock that was dry embossed with the Woodland Embossing Folder from Stampin’ Up! and matted with a thin matte of Basic Grey Cardstock on a Thick Whisper White card base.

And if you have ever seen my cards before, you KNOW I used Stampin’ Dimensionals to pop up some of these layers. Oh yes!!

This card layout could easily be simplified by taking out the extra drawing and the sponging. I think I might make another one with the two joggers from the original image in the Do the Impossible stamp set from Stampin’ Up! I’ll make sure I add a link to this post when I share it!

Now, stop looking at card ideas on the internet and go stamp something!! Why not try the challenge at the As You See It Challenge with us? Don’t forget to share it! We love to see your creations!!

Wild About Vineyards

Another challenge, another half of the month is over! Wow, time goes so fast!

News alert! I am now unemployed!! Whoohoo! This is a GOOD thing, folks. I will now be able to focus on my family, my household, healthy life choices, and, yes, my stamping. Technically, I am employed as an Independent Demonstrator for Stampin’ Up! However, this is more like a hobby that gives me a bit of spending money to pay for my … well, my hobby, lol! I am thankful for the bit of cash that I bring in as a demonstrator to pay for haircuts and vet bills. Perhaps, once my home life is more at a maintenance level, rather than the current “catch up on all the things that have fallen apart since starting a family 13 years ago”, I will be able to put more time into building my business. I am incredibly happy with the last couple of weeks – I have been cleaning, gardening, running errands, cycling, camping, going on field trips, and I am looking and feeling healthier and more satisfied with each day. I am blessed to be able to make this change in my life and I acknowledge all the women who desire to be stay-at-home moms or wives,  but do not have the financial freedom to do so. I wish for you the opportunity to make any changes that you can to live on less so you can spend more time on life. That is my motto for this season in my life, Live on Less, because the things in life that are most important are not the things that cost money, but are the relationships, the experiences, the adventures, and the memories.

The challenge this time is another sketch:My design is a representation of my home here in the Okanagan Valley in beautiful British Columbia, Canada, where we have orchards filled with fruit trees and hills lined with vineyards. I love that I can find wines in my neighborhood liquor store that have been made from grapes that were grown just a moments drive from my house. The coloured image on the card is from the Tuscan Vineyard stamp set from Stampin’ Up!

I decided to use this sketch in a landscape orientation rather than portrait orientation.Wild about Vineyards card design by Amy Jasper www.inkingonthefly.com using Wild About Flowers and Tuscan Vineyard Stamp Sets from Stampin' Up!The image was stamped with Archival Basic Black ink on Watercolor Cardstock, then cut using the largest oval die from the Stitched Shapes Framelit Dies from Stampin’ Up. I coloured the image with the Stampin’ Up Watercolor Pencils and blended the colour on the paper with a Blender Pen. Behind the oval, you can see the 5/8″ Burlap Ribbon and the looped Linen Thread. The burlap was the last 3 inches on my spool, so I cut it into four pieces and tucked it just underneath the oval with Stampin’ Up Mini Glue Dots. For each side of the oval, I tied a large bow of Linen Thread, folded the bow in half so that the loops were together, and attached it with a Mini Glue Dot on the knot to the backside of the oval. This gave a fun loopy look to the thread and added much needed texture to the design.There is a strip of Wood Textures Designer Series Paper behind the oval as well. Behind that, is the Crumb Cake layer, on which I stamped the sentiment from the Wild About Flowers Photopolymer Stamp Set with Early Espresso ink. Because the stamp set is photopolymer, it was easy to get the necessary curve of the stamp on my acrylic block to match the curve of the oval. You may also have noticed that the “Congratulations” from the stamp set usually has a “on your” attached to the same stamp. I simply masked that part off with scotch tape before inking up the stamp, then removing the tape before stamping the sentiment. I like that this allows the card to be a fairly general congratulations card that can be used for retirement, graduation, completing a marathon, surviving the school year (I’m thinking of all the teachers this year who survived fidget spinners, bottle flipping, and general classroom chaos) or even just getting through a rough week and being given a bottle of wine as a reward (believe me, there are weeks when I wish someone would do this for me!)

The Crumb Cake layer also has a bit of detailing added around the edges. I used the Simply Scored Tool and Stylus to create the embossed border around this layer, then lightly sponged some Crumb Cake ink around the edges and over the embossed lines. This added so much more interest to the card, without making the card appear too busy.The rest of the card is just about layering and colour. The card base is Soft Sky, then I used Tempting Turquoise and Lemon Lime Twist as very thin layers to frame the Crumb Cake Layer. Of course, Stampin’ Up Dimensionals are also an important element to most of my card designs. I used Dimensionals under the Tempting Turquoise layer and under the oval to give the card a bit more depth.

The inside of the card has the same base layers as the front of the card: Tempting Turquoise, Lemon Lime Twist, and the scored and sponged Crumb Cake layer.

Now go forth and stamp! Use any of the As You See It challenges as a starting point to get your creative mojo flowin’!!

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