August 22, 2014

Bloom with Hope

Amy Jasper As You See It Challenge, Techniques As You See It, blendabilities, Bloom wtih Hope, card, challenge, Stampin' Up, technique 4 Comments

Welcome to my blog where I share my love of designing with Stampin’ Up! ink, paper, stamps and tools!

Are you up for something a little different from my usual style? My design today is clean, simple and pretty (at least I think so). The As You See It Challenge blog has a sketch challenge for you this week. I knew right away how I wanted to play with those little rectangles to the left of the design and it would involve flowers!

I wanted my card to be simple and elegant. I had intended on keeping it neutral in colour, but ended up giving it a splash of Crisp Cantaloupe – still soft, still elegant, but adds a touch of feminine grace, too.

I love the Rhinestones!! I coloured them with the medium Calypso Coral Blendability marker. Before I added them, the card was too heavy on the left side. They add balance.

The stamp set I used is the Bloom with Hope hostess set. It is a beautiful set, but you can only purchase it with your hostess dollars when you host a workshop. I’d love to do this card with you and your guests so you can get this gorgeous collection of stamps for free!

I used Very Vanilla for my base card. I honestly am not drawn to vanilla (well, unless it’s ice cream!), but it is much softer than Whisper White and definitely works for a sympathy card. I stamped the large flower on the card base with Crisp Cantaloupe, stamping it off once on a scrap piece of paper so it would be a softer image. Then I used my Stampin’ Write Markers to colour my rubber stamps directly before stamping the images that are on the rectangles. I used Crisp Cantaloupe and Wild Wasabi first, then randomly added daubs of Rich Razzleberry to the blooms and Mellow Moss to the stems. Don’t forget, that whenever you colour your rubber with the markers, you should ‘huff’ on the rubber before stamping your image on your cardstock. This will ensure that the ink is re-moistened and will give you the image quality that you intend.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, ‘huffing’ involves a heavy exhale of your breath onto the rubber while it’s close to your open mouth. While we take the time to colour directly on the rubber stamp, the areas that you coloured first start to dry. The slight moisture from your breath that would normally fog a mirror is enough to re-activate the ink’s moisture on the rubber. It sounds weird, but is a necessary step with this technique.

I layered my rectangles with the thinnest mat of Crisp Cantaloupe cardstock as possible, then matted it again with a wider Very Vanilla. You can see I used Stampin’ Dimensionals to pop up each of the Crisp Cantaloupe layers.

Finally, I used the corner rounder punch on my Envelope Punch Board to round the corners of my card and I stamped my sentiments with Jet Black Stazon ink.

Don’t forget to try this layout for yourself, whether it’s for a card, a scrapbook page, or artwork for your wall. You can take a photo of it, load it to a public site (Pinterest works well), then link it to Challenge #50 on the As You See It Challenge blog!

I’m not exaggerating when I tell you that we are inspired by every card that you share with us. Everyone has their own tricks and style to share, whether they know it or not: the way your tear your cardstock, a colour combination that I’ve never thought of before, little added touches, how you tie your ribbon – I am always learning from other people’s creativity. I hope you will share yours with us on the challenge blog!

As a side note: for the first time, I’m having trouble with taking photos with my iphone. I hope it’s just the light-coloured card design, but I had to fuss with my lighting and angles more than usual to avoid weird lines and halos. You can see one of those halos in the center of my last photo. Taking a good photo of your card is about good lighting, the right shadows, a crisp image, and quality product (avoiding ink smudges or halos, cutting ribbon and cardstock with sharp blades, and making sure that things intended to be straight on your product are actually straight!) – things to keep in mind when you upload to Pinterest.

Sign up this week to be a Stampin’ Up! demonstrator, like me, and join my team!! Stampin’ Up! is offering the kit for the usual $125, tax and shipping free, but you can choose $190 in product for your kit instead of the usual $155 of product. The kit is already a great deal, but now it’s even better!! Check out the SHORT AND SWEET sign up offer by clicking on the link and learn more about it and other promotions currently available.

Happy Stamping!

Amy.

July 4, 2014

Coffee is a Perk

Amy Jasper As You See It Challenge, Techniques AYSI#44, Perfect Blend, technique, watercolour 8 Comments

Welcome to my blog where I share my love of designing using Stampin’ Up! paper, ink, stamps, and tools! I design for the As You See It Challenge blog and it’s time for challenge #44!

I love coffee, especially latte’s from Starbucks. My new summer treat is a Caramel Ribbon Frapp! So so soooooo yummy!

Because I love coffee, I thought I would get some use out of my new Perfect Blend stamp set. I stamped the coffee cup image once on Whisper White cardstock with the Momento black ink, then coloured it with the Daffodil Delight Blendability markers and cut it out with my Paper Snips. Then I stamped the image again so I could cut out just the lid and attach it with Dimensionals. I stamped the image a third time on the Moonlight Designer Paper, so I could cut out just the coffee sleeve and attach it with Dimensionals as well (after adding the Coastal Cabana baker’s twine, of course).

You can see that I used the Epic Day washi tape, the BACK side of the Chevron Natural ribbon (which I stamped on with Stazon Black ink using the sentiment from the An Open Heart stamp set), Bermuda Bay 1/8″ taffeta ribbon, and finally a folded strip of Daffodil Delight patterned paper from the Brights Patterned Paper Stack.

The card base is Crumb Cake cardstock, which has an embossed outline 1/8″ all around the card that was created by using the Simply Scored tool and stylus. I matted that cool background with a thin layer of Bermuda Bay cardstock.

As for the cool background… how ’bout a quick photo tutorial:

My challenge card uses the Honeycomb folder, but this would work for any embossing folder. And you don’t even need the Big Shot for this because it doesn’t get embossed! Just pick which side of the folder you want to use (keep in mind that the raised area that you sponge is what will press colour onto your cardstock).

Spritzing with water is fun! The amount of water you add will determine how blended your colours are. If you want a softer, more watercoloured look, then use lots of water and make it more puddly. If you want a bolder colour, then spritz it only until the colour starts to bead on the folder. You’ll get a different look entirely based on the amount of water.

Lay your cardstock over the ink and press gently with your hands. I used Shimmery White cardstock as it takes water well, but is more white than watercolour paper is … I tried this with Whisper White as well, but it warps the paper a bit – still works, though.

When you remove your cardstock, it will be quite runny if you used a lot of water. No worries…You can pick up that extra water by carefully pressing some paper towel over the image to absorb the excess.I used a little bit more water on the left image than I did on the right image. Also, you should take note that with this particular folder (the Alphabet Press), it actually makes a big difference because the image on the left has backwards letters, lol!So, this is the final result. I used Tangelo Twist, Blackberry Bliss and Island Indigo inks on this one. My card above used Coastal Cabana, Calypso Coral, Lost Lagoon, and Hello Honey inks.

Let me know what you think and, please, play along with the sketch challenge this week! I am always inspired by every card I see and I look forward to being inspired by yours!

So go on over to the As You See It Challenge Blog and load up your design of this week’s sketch!!

Amy.

May 16, 2014

By the Tide Salted Watercolour Background

Amy Jasper As You See It Challenge, Techniques 7 Comments

I am still working out the details on this new blog where I share my love of designing with Stampin’ Up! paper, tools, inks, and stamps. I am excited for all the things I will be able to do with this site!!

Today is Friday!! It’s time for an As You See It Challenge!

The first thing I thought when I saw this sketch was, “Aw, stink! An oval!” I am not a big fan of ovals for whatever reason. So, I decided to skip the oval and do a circle instead! And that, my friends, is what the As You See It challenges are all about. Yay me! lol!

Isn’t the background fabulous!!? It’s so easy, too. I’ve been taking a watercolour painting class these last few weeks (which I’m really enjoying, though it’s harder than it looks). This salted watercolour background was the first technique that I learned. All you need to do is coat your watercolour paper with very watery paint, then sprinkle coarse salt and a bit of finer salt over it, then let it dry! When using Stampin’ Up ink, you can either use the ink like paint with water, or you can cover the watercolour paper with just water (use your aqua painter or spritzer) until it has a puddly layer, then add some drops of ink refill to the paper, spreading it out as you wish with a paintbrush or your aqua painter. Then add your salt. The salt absorbs the colour from the water, leaving a white space around the grains of salt. The coarser salt leaves larger patches, while finer salt leaves smaller patches. If you leave some space that doesn’t have salt, you get a nice random design. If you sprinkle the salt very evenly, you’ll get an all over more even look.

I used salt that I had in the house: pickling salt (hubby made pickled asparagus years ago) and table salt. This background was done with Island Indigo ink refill with an intentional white space on the top of the background, intending to look like the ocean surface.

The Seastar (apparently, it’s not called a Starfish anymore, people) from the By the Tide stamp set is stamped on Very Vanilla cardstock in Baked Brown Sugar and fussy cut before sponged all around the edges with Calypso Coral ink. I also coloured in the dots along the spine of the star with Calypso Coral and added dabs of Dazzling Details.

Other products used include, Baked Brown Sugar cardstock, a strip of the retiring Epic Day Designer Series Paper, Crumb Cake cardstock, sponging with Baked Brown Sugar ink, Gold Baker’s Twine, Gold Foil paper, Gold Sequins, Versamark ink, Gold embossing powder on vellum paper over Whisper White cardstock, 1 3/4″ circle punch, Stampin’ Dimensionals (of course), and Yippee-Skippee stamp set.

I have a couple other cards that I can show you that use this technique, but I’ll share those another day!

Go over to the As You See It Challenge blog, give this great sketch a try, upload your project to your blog, Pinterest, or other site where we can view it and comment on it, then link your project to Challenge #37! If you have any trouble, give me a shout and I’ll help you through the process!