November 20, 2015

Christmas Fantasy Box – Part 1

Amy Jasper As You See It Challenge, Christmas, Home Décor As You See It, box, challenge, Christmas, edgelits, gift, Itty Bitty Accents, photopolymer, pompom trim, Season of Cheer, thinlits, topper 4 Comments

My preparations for the bi-annual Fly the Coop Mini Retreat are slowly coming together. I love that this retreat takes place in my home, limiting the number of participants to only six people. With the small numbers, we can enjoy the cozy, intimate setting of my home without the interruptions or obligations of our everyday lives getting in the way of the good times we have! Then we can stamp away, finishing all the projects that we brought along to complete!

Things are coming along slowly because I am a very good procrastinator, doing things that shouldn’t really be given that much time when there are other tasks that should take priority. But … because of my amazing procrastination abilities, I have a great project to share with you (when I should have done a much simpler and quicker project instead, lol!)

However, all is not lost, as I will likely use this project (or a very close version of this project) for the Monthly Stampers Group appreciation night and Christmas party that is coming up in December. I get to spoil my monthly group members with special discounts, a free project (this one, whoop whoop!), and Stampin’ Up! door prizes. The members of this group are part of my stamping family and the appreciation night is my opportunity to say “thank you” for their support and loyalty.

Let’s get to the As You See It Challenge for this week. Check it out:

Today, I have a very cool box to show you. I made one only once before, but thought it would be a fun project to do with my Monthly Stampers group. I haven’t completed the inside of this special box yet, so stay tuned for when I share that part with you on Saturday!

I adore how this box turned out! It’s called a Fantasy Box and has a special surprise with the inside design. No scary pop-ups, though. Just something really cool. You’ll have to come back on Saturday morning to see more!

A lot of different Stampin’ Up! supplies were used for this Christmas Fantasy Box. You will find them all listed at the bottom of the page. My favourite part about the way the box looks, is the lid and topper. The Sleigh Ride Edgelits helped me create the sloping lid design.

I’m in love with this box topper. The pine cone was created by layers of paper punched little Gold Glimmer hearts. I adhered them to a mini cone-shape of paper, then wrapped the top with Gold Sequin Trim, finally topping all that with the Gold Satin Ribbon bow.

Can you see the white doily under all those leaves? It is a Spiderweb Doily from Stampin’ Up!! I simply trimmed away some of the edges and used the white side of the doily instead of the black side.

I love that I can use a challenge sketch for projects that aren’t cards. I try to think … outside the box when I design for the As You See It Challenge blog.

Come back on Saturday and check out the inside of this cool Fantasy Box. In the mean time, what will you do with today’s sketch? Don’t forget to link it up with the As You See it page, so we can see what you came up with!

Happy Stamping!

Amy.

Supplies: Coaster Board (not visible), Season of Cheer Designer Series Paper, Red Envelope Paper (not visible), Bitty Banner Framelit, Happy Scenes photopolymer stamp set, Tuxedo Black Momento ink pad, Whisper White cardstock, Real Red Cardstock, Spiderweb Doily, Red Pompom Trim, Gold Sequin Trim, Perfect Polka Dots embossing folder (sorry, it’s a retired product), Lighthearted Leaves photopolymer stamp set, Leaflets Framelits, Mossy Meadow ink, Old Olive ink, Old Olive cardstock, Sponges, Gold Satin Ribbon, Glue Dots, Tear and Tape, Fine-Tip Glue pen, Tombow Multipurpose Liquid Glue, Hot Glue, Big Shot, Stampin’ Trimmer, and Craft Scissors.

November 13, 2015

Deck the Halls

Amy Jasper As You See It Challenge, Christmas, Home Décor, Techniques As You See It, Brick Wall, challenge, Christmas, Happy Scenes, photopolymer, Season of Cheer, sketch challenge, Stampin' Up, technique 2 Comments

Sometimes you need to add to your home decor. Here’s a 5×7″ piece of holiday artwork you can create using Stampin’ Up products.

Of course, I started with this sketch challenge from the As You See It Challenge Blog. Then I decided to go with a circular background instead of a rectangle. Always trying to see things a little differently. Here’s my framed holiday artwork that I ended up with:

I used the Season of Cheer designer series paper to create the layered poinsettia flower. Just a lot of fussy cutting using four flowers that were identical from a sheet of the patterned paper. I adhered the layers together with Stampin’ Dimensionals. Some Cherry Cobbler Dazzling Details glue was painted on the petals to add a little shimmer.

Circle Framelits were used with my Big Shot to create the wreath look with more patterned paper and some Gold Glimmer paper. I even curled the 1/8″ Gold Taffeta ribbon just like you would curl paper ribbon with your scissors. This adds a festive texture to the artwork.

But the beauty of this project is really the brick background.

I started with Kraft paper. It comes in a 12×12 pack and is a different texture than Stampin’ Up’s other cardstock. I ran a 4×6″ piece through the Big Shot with my Brick Wall embossing folder, then sponged it. I sponged it a lot! I used relatively random placements of inks: Crumb Cake and Cajun Craze first, then Whisper White craft ink to soften the orange of the Cajun Craze. Finally, Soft Suede to sort of even it all out. I love how it turned out and will likely share it with my technique class in the new year.

I’m not great at home decor, but I thought you might like to see it on the wall, in my hallway. I thought I should deck my hall with this piece of art. (I know … groan)

Okay, that’s all I’m going to write today. My son and I are heading to Abbotsford, British Columbia, less than four hours from here, for a youth event. Whoop Whoop! Should be high-energy fun!

Have a great weekend and be sure to try this sketch for yourself. You can share it with us at the As You See It Challenge Blog! Hope you do!

October 24, 2015

Woodland Embossing Folder

Amy Jasper Christmas, Techniques card, Christmas, embossing, Stampin' Up, technique, tutorial, woodland folder 122 Comments

The Woodland embossing folder by Stampin’ Up! is so versatile for Christmas, Halloween, fall, winter, summer – it can literally be used for anything!

My new favourite is to use it to create a forest scene. I’ve seen this done by a few other demonstrators, but I ran into a few problems along the way and thought I could share my trouble-shooting with you.

First, here’s the card I made and have since fallen in love with:

To created this card, I used a direct ink pad to embossing folder technique. This has been done before, but this time I used Soft Sky where the lower half of the sky was going to be, then used Pool Party for the upper half of the sky.

My first few attempts gave me blobs and pools of colour that didn’t jive with my expectations. This is likely because my ink pads are nice and juicy. Normally, you want a juicy ink pad for great colour distribution, but it can backfire a bit on you with solid flat sections on a stamp or when you want to use the ink pad for sponging techniques.

You could work with some of these effects for a different overall look, but I was looking for something softer and smoother.

Soft Sky ink – no brayer

Soft Sky ink – spritzed with water – no brayer

Soft Sky ink – with brayer

When I get blotches of ink on a stamp (like when I used my Definitely Dahlia background stamp), I will often roll my brayer over the stamp surface after inking it to thin and smooth the ink. I decided to try it with the ink on my folder.

Once I sorted out my sky and decided on the Pool Party/Soft Sky ink combo, I could proceed with directly stamping my Winter Wonderland trees with Mossy Meadow ink on the Woodland embossing folder. I stamped them in varying heights and was careful to re-ink my stamp each time to ensure every tree was solid.

With my images and inking completed, I was ready to press my Whisper White cardstock. If you lay the paper on the un-inked side of your embossing folder, you will avoid the risk of smudging the ink on the cardstock. I chose to lay my paper dead center on the un-inked side of the folder so that the messy bottom area of my stamped trees wouldn’t show on my cardstock, but I would have a nice tree line showing in the middle-upper area of my cardstock piece.

Fold it all together carefully, holding it so it does. not. move, run it through the Big Shot.

Vacant areas actually work on this project, because it is an art piece. You can interpret those vacant areas as wisps of clouds or even snow.

Finishing the card was simple. I didn’t want to cover up the pretty woodland image, but wanted to highlight it as much as I could. I started with a Crumb Cake mat behind the embossed cardstock and layered that on my Thick Whisper White card base with Stampin’ Dimensionals. The sentiment from the Hostess stamp set, Six Sayings, was stamped in Early Espresso ink on a Whisper White banner. Linen Thread tied in a bow to finish it with a bit of natural texture.

The final touch is adding the 3 sequins (pronounced “seek-wins”, not “sequence”, lol!). I thought of them as Christmas ornaments hanging from the trees, but they could also be thought of as sparkly snow softly falling from the sky.

You can order any of these products by clicking the ‘shop now’ button on my website or by contacting me through my email.

Now, don’t stop there. If you liked this tutorial, go and give it a try for yourself. Don’t have that embossing folder? Play around with what you have and see what you come up with!

Now get stamping!