Just a quick post today with a card that was more of a prototype than a finished piece. I was hoping to tweak it a bit before sharing it with you, but hopefully you’ll see where I’m going with it!
I wanted to try to create a card for this one to mimic a very simple concept that I saw online for a birthday invitation. It was a gate-fold card with a butterfly opening. So, I pulled out my Butterfly Thinlit Dies and started to figure it out. This card was my first attempt:
It was a bit of an awkward fumble to extend the cardstock beyond 11″ in order to make room for the butterfly cut out. This one ended up with a lot of fussy cutting to make it work. I then tried creating a second card with less pink on it (this is a LOT of pink for me, lol!).
So, I went from all pink to almost no pink (just the In-Colour Sequins), but still I don’t feel like I’ve hit the mark with the design or the technique to get there. The second card uses two 5.5″x11″ pieces of cardstock to get the effect on the front. A bit of a cleaner finish that works, but I still want to work on this card design a bit more. I’ll keep you posted.
What do you think? Is this something you’d like to try?
What would you create using the elements of this Assortment Challenge? Can’t wait to see it!
It’s time for another challenge card with my Stampin’ Up papercrafting supplies. I was getting tired of the usual 4 1/4″ x 5 1/2″ rectangles, so I went with circular card today using the Starbust Framelits and some faux water colouring. Gotta shake it up a bit now and then, lol!
I decided to work with my Water Colour Paper, Handpicked Framelits, the From the Garden stamp set, the Mother’s Love Stamp set and some spritzing with water!
I shared this card with my technique class just the other night. My monthly group have become some of my closest friends. They really are the main reason that I have remained a Stampin’ Up Demonstrator for so long! Don’t get me wrong, I love creating with stamps and ink; I love the coordinating colours in paper, inks, and embellishments; I adore the tools and how easy they make it to create something beautiful; but what really carries me through and holds the most meaning and significance for me as a Demonstrator, are the relationships. It’s all about the people, the smiles, the laughter, the playful banter, the excitement and joy, and, especially the silliness.
Here’s the card:
Ah, Blackberry Bliss. I wish you would photograph a bit better.
I think the most challenging element of this card was to stamp the outline image inside the cut out! We tried a few different ways, but the two that seemed to work the best were to lay the Water Colour paper with the cut out (from the Handpicked Framelits) over top of the Very Vanilla circle (cut with the Big Shot and the Circle Framelits), then either outlining the inside of the cutout with pencil, then using the pencil outline as a guide for where to lay your image; or simply stamping through the cutout itself.
In hindsight, drawing the pencil line, then using the Stamp-a-majig would have probably been the best solution to the challenge (sorry, Mom, I should have thought about that!)
The images were first inked either with the ink pads as you normally would, or with markers, then the photopolymer or rubber was spritzed with water before stamping the image on the Water Colour paper. The Mother’s Love set has a very pretty two-step stamping method so that we could do the outline image of the flowers with Blackberry Bliss and Mossy Meadow ink (using the Stampin’ Write Markers), then we could fill in the flowers with the coordinating flower stamp, using Pink Pirouette ink. One important trick with layers of images like in this card, is to allow each layer to dry before stamping the next layer, otherwise you could end up with a bit of a muddy mess as the colours run into each other and lose the definition of the images. When you are impatient, you can dry it a little faster by dabbing the really wet spots with a paper towel and drying the rest with a Heat Tool before moving onto the next layer.
The starburst image is from the Kinda Eclectic Stamp set. I used a piece of paper to mask off the upper portion of the image as I wanted only the lower portion of the stamp to show on my card (to work best with the challenge sketch). I originally used Sahara Sand ink for that image, but you can see that it looks very yellow here – I think the stamp had not been cleaned after it was last used – oops. When my stampers recreated this card, they used Hello Honey, which worked quite nicely to mimic this unknown colour, lol!
Once all the images were in place, I sponged Pink Pirouette ink all around the edges of the Water Colour paper to give it a soft finish. It still didn’t look done, so I got a hold of my Gold Glimmer pen, Blackberry Bliss marker, and my Pink Pirouette marker and added randomly placed dots around the flower clusters. Up on Dimensionals, it went over top of the Very Vanilla circle and the Linen Thread bow was added with a dab of Multipurpose Tombow Liquid Glue.
Now, who to give this card to for spring? – I think it looks like a great Mother’s Day card. What do you think?
Be sure to try out the sketch at the As You See It Challenge Blog and share it with us there. Inspiration comes from every card I see, so bring it on!
The As You See It Challenge Sketch #079 is bold and simple at the same time. This week I worked with heat embossing, Blender Pens, a note card project, and Envelope Liner Framelits.
Here’s the sketch challenge I started with for this project:
At first glance, I had NO idea what to do with this sketch. So, I started by looking at the largest sentiments that I had available, then carried on from there. I hadn’t even mounted my Big News stamp set yet and it was perfect for this layout!
In the end, my card became a note card size (3.5″ x 4.75″), but only because I changed my mind a few times as to what I wanted it to look like and eventually it had to be cut down to the size you see here.
I used Very Vanilla cardstock and stamped the sentiment in Jet Black Stazon ink. It looked too flat, so I applied Clear Embossing powder over the ink and heat set it to give a glossy finish (did you know you could do that with Stazon?!). I then stamped the flowers from the I Like You hostess stamp set with Versamark ink and heat set the Gold Embossing powder over that. Next, the flowers were coloured with Classic ink using a Blender Pen (pulling those out again now that the Blendabilities are discontinued…sniff…) I used Blushing Bride, Wild Wasabi, Hello Honey, and Wisteria Wonder ink for the flowers, then finished them off with a few blobs of Dazzling Details glitter glue which I spread all over the flowers and leaves with the tip of my finger. The wee flowers were topped off with small Basic Pearls.
You can see the glitter from the Dazzling Details glue a bit better in the above photo. Did you notice the envelope liner in this photo? I used the Gold Soiree Specialty Designer Series paper and my Envelope Liner framelits to create the elegant look to this Crumb Cake Note Card Envelope. It’s very handy to have paper that coordinates with the I Like You stamp set!
I used Blushing Bride cardstock for the base with a very thin border around the Very Vanilla layer. The bottom corners were all rounded with my Project Life corner rounder punch. I topped the front of the card with a piece of Gold 1/8″ ribbon.
Simple.
Pretty.
The outside of the envelope was stamped using the I Like You flower image as well, but with Gold ink.
And it all comes together! Whah whah!!
Now I’m ready for the next wedding (come on my single friends!! Bring it on!) when I will use this gift card to top off the amazingly expensive and perfect and fabulous wedding present that will go along with it.
Why don’t you give this sketch a go? Don’t forget to show it off at the As You See It Challenge blog. I know you will inspire me with whatever your take on the sketch may be. I can’t wait to see what you come up with!!
