January 2, 2015

Enjoying Life

Amy Jasper As You See It Challenge, Techniques card, challenge, embossing, from my heart, Stampin' Up, technique 3 Comments

Welcome to my blog! My design today is a 5×7″ card for As You See It Challenge #068 featuring the From My Heart stamp set and the Back to Black designer series paper.

I’ve been taking a break from crafty expectations and obligations for the past couple of weeks. It’s time to jump back into all the “doing”, but the sentiment on this card represents the need to not forget the “being”. I have enjoyed playing Rock Band on the Play Station 3 with my family, playing charades, playing boardgames, going skiing, eating too much food and making spirits bright.

“I will not allow my busy life to interfere with my creative living”, has been my motto for this past year. It still applies, but I also need to add that I won’t allow my busy life to interfere with quality time with my family. I thought that was a given, but I think it’s important to remind myself that I need to take the opportunities to play games and enjoy my kids and my husband. Sometimes, I find myself denying them because I’m too busy with things that need to get done. Obligations and expectations that are put upon me mostly … by me.

Do you enjoy the passing of time? Or do you get caught up in the tasks and all the things that you want to accomplish in a day? Could it be that you let too much time pass and nothing gets done? Maybe you got it all figured out and have found balance between family, work, home, and all the things. I’d love to hear your secrets.

It’s a fun sketch with lots of possibilities. You can check out the diversity of our designers over at the As You See It Challenge to see what they’ve done with this one. I wanted my card to be simple, and it is … sort of. I ended up complicating it with twisted layers. LOL!

I started with the idea of using Whisper White craft ink over a section of the Back to Black Designer Series Paper, so that my sentiment could be seen. I found that the thin layer of ink wasn’t quite enough to fade out the black and white design, so I used Versamark ink directly to the paper, then used White Embossing powder over the area and melted it with my Heat Tool.

After giving the powder a minute to cool, I stamped the sentiment from the “From My Heart” stamp set over the white embossing with Stazon Jet Black ink. Still, the black and white pattern in the background seemed to harsh. I decided to fade it out with a bit of Whisper White craft ink. I added the ink directly from the ink pad to the paper, focusing on the edges, then I used a sponge to soften the ink, giving a softer look to the paper.

After all that, I ended up cutting off a lot of the sponged areas as I worked on my card. I’ll definitely use that technique again, though. I quite like the softer look and I suspect it will work beautifully on other patterned paper as well.

I used Whisper White bakers twine and Basic Pearls for the embellishments. Basic Gray, Soft Sky and Whisper White cardstock were used along side the Back to Black Designer Series Paper. I chose to mostly use thin white borders to show the layered edges. I even pulled those angles and thin edges to the inside of this 5×7 card.

I’m trying to make sure that I complete the inside of my cards as soon as I’m done the design as it can be very frustrating to grab a nice card to quickly write in as you run out the door (this happens more often than not, for me), only to find that you forgot to add a writing space inside the dark coloured card base. sheesh!

Because my card is 5×7″, I also needed to use a handmade envelope, which I did using my Envelope Punchboard. I decided to avoid squishing the card by making my envelope slightly fatter. To do this, I added 1/8″ of an inch to the paper size required to make a 5×7″ card, then when punching and scoring, I started with the usual score guide number first, then added a second punch and score on mark that is 1/8″ more. So, the envelope punch board guide says that I needed to punch and score at the 4 inch mark. I did that, then punched and scored again at the 4.1/8″ mark and carried on around my paper following the directions on the punchboard, but adding that second 1/8″ bigger mark. Folding those little score lines can be fussy because they are so close together.

Glad you came by for a visit today.

Be sure to show off your card using the As You See It sketch this week by linking it to the challenge site.

Hope you do!

Amy.

December 19, 2014

Groovy White

Amy Jasper As You See It Challenge As You See It, card, challenge, Groovy Love, Itty Bitty Accents, quick and cute, speed, Stampin' Up, Sweetheart, wedding 1 Comment

An all white card designed for the As You See It Challenge blog. I used the Groovy Love stamp set with the coordinating Sweetheart Punch from Stampin’ Up!

Gotta love the strain of a speed challenge. It’s a good exercise to stretch your creativity and push yourself. These 10 minute challenges are probably the toughest for me. Having to use all white definitely added another creative stretch. Technically, you could add vanilla or grey for this challenge, since they would be considered “shades” of white, but I opted for primarily white.

I managed to finish this card in 9 minutes and 53 seconds. Not too bad, considering the state of my craft room and that I made the mistake of cutting my nails nice and short. (Peeling off the backing of sticky strip with no fingernails and with a time limit can be very frustrating)

The card is nice, but needed a bit of a refining, so I did a second one. See if you can spot the subtle differences and tell me which one you like better.

You can see that I have fewer of the Basic Rhinestones on the second card. I also only rounded one corner with my Corner Rounder punch and lowered the placement of my ribbon. I added the small heart punch from the Itty Bitty Accents Punch Pack. The biggest improvement for me was how I attached the strips of White Organza Ribbon. On the first card, I only put Sticky Strip on the back of the Whisper White Cardstock. This caused the ribbon to float a bit on the front of the card. I tried to anchor it after the fact by slipping a couple pieces of Sticky Strip underneath, but it just got more untidy. The second card used full strips of Sticky Strip across the front of the cardstock to anchor the entire length of the Organza ribbon, then a couple pieces on the back of the cardstock to secure the ends of the ribbon on the back. A much smoother and tidier finish on the second card.

Both cards have the sentiment from the Groovy Love stamp set stamped in Smoky Slate ink. Both cards have Stampin’ Up! Dimensionals under the heart, the first rectangle layer and the second rectangle layer. After all, an all-white card demands layers and texture!!

By the way, did you miss me last week? With the Christmas season upon us, I just couldn’t find the time to share a project with you. Each of my 3 kids had Christmas concerts that week (separate nights), and I was shopping all week to find something to wear to my husband’s staff Christmas party.

(Me + shopping for clothes = forever!!)

Life has been very busy. Take a look at the current state of my craft room. Consider it a representation of my head these days.

I suppose you can guess what I’ll be working on the next week or two. Gotta get this room functional again before the new year!

I know how busy the season can be, but why not take a 10 minute time out from it all and make a card? Load it up to the As You See It Challenge #67 and tell us how long it took. Even if your a little bit over, that’s okay. Stretch your creative brain!

November 21, 2014

Winter Bird

Amy Jasper As You See It Challenge, Christmas An Open Heart, As You See It, aysi63, blendabilities, card, challenge, Christmas, Petite Pairs, Stampin' Up 0 Comments

Check out my design this week for the As You See It Challenge blog using An Open Heart stamp set from Stampin’ Up! I love the blended ombre effect in the winter background.

I was leery of the sketch this week. The small center square bugged me. But the funniest thing happens when I am lacking inspiration with a particular layout or colour scheme: I end up really liking the final product!

I can’t wait to see what everyone comes up with for this one. I found it so challenging! I decided to use the little bird from the An Open Heart stamp set in place of that square. The snowflake sequins (which were too stark white, so I coloured them with my Light Coastal Cabana Blendability marker), are in place of the flowers on the As you See It layout above. The rest is eye candy for me! Techniques and fun! The stuff I thrive on!

I started with a piece of Very Vanilla cardstock and began using sponge and ink to shade the evening sky background. I was inspired by an image I found on Pinterest for this colour scheme and I love it! With a sponge, from top to bottom, I applied Night of Navy, Island Indigo, and Bermuda Bay ink. Once I was satisfied with the saturation of colour, I added a touch of Momento Black to the very top edge to complete the look. The most bottom edge of the Very Vanilla cardstock was left un-inked and I tore the edge for a bit of texture detail.

Then I stamped the branch image from An Open Heart in Night of Navy ink. The pearls were coloured with the Medium Cherry Cobbler Blendability marker and added for the berries on the branch. I then decided to use my Chalk Marker to accent the buds on the end of the branch. The snowflakes were also coloured (as mentioned above) and adhered to the card with a small dab of Crystal Effects. The Merry Christmas sentiment is from the Petite Pairs stamp set and was stamped with Real Red ink.

The blue bird was stamped with Momento Black ink and coloured with Night of Navy and Coastal Cabana Blendability markers and a touch of Dazzling Details glitter was applied to the bird as though a wee bit of snow was glinting in the moonlight. His beak was coloured using a Tangerine Tango Stampin’ Write Marker. I cut out the bird with my Paper Snips and cut his little legs right off so he could be sitting all comfy-like on the branch. I also used my Project Life journaling pen to darken his beady little eye so it would have a little more life in it (a trick I learned in the watercolouring class I took last spring). That sweet little winter bird was then adhered to the cardstock with Stampin’ Dimensionals.

After wrapping the Cherry Cobbler Baker’s Twine around that layer of cardstock, I used Stampin’ Dimensionals to layer it over the thin mat of Very Vanilla Cardstock. This all was adhered to the Night of Navy card base which looked a little flat next to all that deep blue ink, so I added a bit of Night of Navy ink to the edges of the card base with a sponge.

What will you do with this sketch? I hope you’ll share it with us over at the As You See It Challenge blog!!

Amy.