February 28, 2017

Faux Coloured Chalk 40th Birthday

Amy Jasper As You See It Challenge, Techniques 2017, As You See It, card, challenge, faux coloured chalk, Gorgeous Grunge, photopolymer, Stampin' Up, technique, tutorial 0 Comments

This faux coloured chalk 40th birthday card was created using Whisper White Craft ink from Stampin’ Up along with their regular Classic ink colours. It’s so easy to create this effect with the see through photopolymer stamps!

The layout of the card is inspired directly from the As You See It Challenge blog. This one is challenge #144.

I finally purchased the Number of Years photopolymer stamp set from Stampin’ Up and was so excited to be able to use it to create this card for my friend’s 40th birthday celebration. I felt inspired to try a technique that I’ve never really seen done before, though I’m sure it has been done by someone, somewhere!

I created a faux coloured chalk by first stamping the numbers and the flower images with Craft Whisper White ink on my Basic Black cardstock. This ink is thick and takes a while to dry, so after stamping, I heat set it with my Stampin’ Up Heat Tool. Once dry, I thoroughly cleaned my stamps and chose bright coloured inks: Tempting Turquoise for the numbers, Cucumber Crush for the leaves, and Flirty Flamingo for the flowers. Since you can see through the photopolymer stamps, I could stamp my coloured ink right over the dry craft ink on top of the previously stamped images. This added a soft shade of colour to the white ink. I found that I could even stamp with the coloured ink a second time to get a bit more colour added to the look.

If you choose to use the Stamp-a-majig positioning tool, you could be even more precise with placement, but I think it turned out quite well with my crazy-eye-balling-it skills.

After everything was stamped, I added some strategically placed smudges of the Whisper White Craft ink over the Basic Black cardstock using a Sponge Dauber and a very light touch. The Gorgeous Grunge stamp set from Stampin’ Up also added some detail to my faux chalkboard.

The lower portion of the card has two diagonally placed pieces of cardstock: Blushing Bride and a strip of the black patterned paper from the Neutrals Designer Series Paper Stack. The Blushing Bride strip of cardstock was stamped with the sentiment using Momento Tuxedo Black ink, then sponged around the edges with Blushing Bride ink. A couple of hand drawn dots were added with my Project Life pen for a bit of detail. The patterned paper was a bit too crisp for my liking, so I sponged all over it, with a heavier hand around the edges, using the Momento Tuxedo Black ink. I adhered these strips to the Basic Black “chalkboard”. I wanted to add a subtle detail using the Black Metallic Thread, so I punched notches into the edges of the layer with my hand held 1/8″ Circle Punch. This allowed me to easily wrap the thread and have it hook into the notches and hold it into place.

The Basic Black cardstock layer was then adhered directly to a layer of Whisper White cardstock. This was then adhered to the Blushing Bride Glimmer paper layer (which was adhered directly to the Thick Whisper White card base) with Stampin’ Dimensionals. I was quite liberal with my dimensionals and was sure to press them firmly to the glimmer paper as sometimes the glitter resists good adhesion.

And the result is this fun faux coloured chalk 40th birthday card!

If you haven’t already seen the other projects that the design team created using this fun layout, be sure to head on over to the As You See It Challenge blog and have a look. Give the challenge a go yourself and be sure to share it with us on the challenge blog using the link on the page. We love seeing what you do with the challenges!!

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April 8, 2016

Happy Birthday Pop-up

Amy Jasper As You See It Challenge, Techniques As You See It, card, challenge, Gorgeous Grunge, pop-up, technique, thinlits 0 Comments

This week’s As You See It Challenge is an assortment challenge! Check it out!

I wanted to use the Party Pop-Up thinlits this week. I love how easy it is to make a cool pop-up card with these! So fun!

The outside of the card is simple layering, but I used a partial die cutting technique to only cut part of the Happy Birthday die for the front of the card. Sorry, I don’t have a tutorial for you (yet). The striped washi tape at the bottom of this card is from the “This is the Life” Project Life Accessory pack. It almost looks like the paper has been cut out!

I used Lost Lagoon cardstock from the 2014-16 In Colors, which are retiring at the end of May! (Oh, how I will mourn for the loss of Blackberry Bliss!)

Soft Sky and Basic Black Cardstock along with stars of Gold Glimmer, Gold Foil paper, some Gold Sequins, and a splash of Gold Metallic Thread, adorn the front. I used Archival Black ink with the spatter from the Gorgeous Grunge stamp set. In fact, this is the ONLY stamping I did on this card.

I kept the inside simple with Whisper White cardstock and a few stars. This way, there is lots of room to write, if you need it.

Super cute, super fun, and super easy!

If you don’t have these Party Pop-Up Thinlits dies, you should get them!

And get some stamping done this week! Play along with the challenge and stretch your creative mojo!

January 29, 2016

Hello (from the other side?)

Amy Jasper As You See It Challenge As You See It, birthday, card, challenge, embossing, fringe scissors, Gorgeous Grunge, hello, Stampin' Up 3 Comments

I can’t get Adele’s song out of my head!! Every time I see this “hello” stamp, that song starts playing inside my mind- then, I start singing it out loud. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a beautiful song, it’s just that I only know the one line “Hello, from the other side”. It plays over and over and over and over and over … yeesh!

But I do love that stamp set. You’ll see it on my card today.

Here’s the As You See It Challenge sketch that I started with:

And here’s my Hello (from the other side?) birthday card:

Is the song stuck in your head, yet?

My colour combination was inspired when I received an order of the packages of cardstock that I happened to run out of all at the same time. I pulled them all together out of the box and thought, “Boy, these are really fun and pretty colours together!” I tried really hard to include Chocolate Chip as it was in the bunch AND I hadn’t used it in such a long time, but I couldn’t make it work. My colours include Blushing Bride, Bermuda Bay, Cucumber Crush, and Daffodil Delight.

I started with a Blushing Bride cardstock base, then a thin matte of Bermuda Bay. The striped Cucumber Crush layer is from the package of 2015-2017 In Color Envelope Paper. It’s not only great for making envelopes or envelope liners, but also works well as a layer on your cards.

I used one of the splotches from the Gorgeous Grunge stamp set, once with Cucumber Crush ink and once with Bermuda Bay ink where I was planning to put my “hello” sentiment. Then I used my trusty Embossing Buddy over the paper and stamped my “hello” (from the Hello Stamp Set only available until February 15th) with Versamark ink. I sprinkled White Embossing Powder over the image, dusted off the excess, and heat set it with my Heat Tool. Once that was completed, I used my Embossing Buddy again so I could do the same process with the “birthday girl” sentiment from the same stamp set and Gold Embossing powder.

(I let out an audible “phew” when I saw how straight it was! … stripy paper is not very forgiving if you stamp crooked)

I was quite excited to use my Stampin’ Up Fringe Scissors. I don’t use them enough! I love how they easily add texture to any paper project. I found that my layers were too perfect for my liking, so I grabbed my Paper Snips and carefully hand cut curved on three of the four fringed layers.

Ah, yes, that’s what it needed.

The 1/8th inch Gold Ribbon was the final touch. I struggled with this. I tried a few different ribbons before deciding on this one.

I didn’t adhere the Bermuda Bay layer to the base with my Stampin’ Up Dimensionals until all the layers were complete.

It didn’t turn out quite how I had it in my head, but I’m happy with the cheerful colours, the stripes (I do very much like stripes), and the way my embossed “hello” turned out. I still wish I could have used Chocolate Chip somewhere. Perhaps that will be my next challenge – use Chocolate Chip. It’s been sadly neglected in my craft room for quite sometime.

Have you done an As You See It Challenge, yet? You should give it a try! It’s a great way to get your creative juices flowing!