August 28, 2015

Halloween Mini Album Page

Amy Jasper As You See It Challenge, Mini Album album, As You See It, challenge, halloween, markers, scrapbooking, Stampin' Up 0 Comments

I have been working on a Halloween Mini Album with all of the amazing pre-order supplies that I ordered! I don’t usually do much in the way of Halloween cards, but I love Halloween/goth designs, so I thought I’d try my hand at a mini album using a simple and effective method of binding that is new to me. I’m not going to go into detail in this post, but will just share one of my pages with you that was designed with this week’s As You See It Challenge sketch in mind.

The sketch is lovely and simple this week, offering so many possibilities. Because an album can be time consuming, I chose to use this sketch pretty close to the simplicity that it is. When you have many pages to design, simple allows it all to pull together nicely.

I used some products for this album that will be available to you by September 1st with the new Stampin’ Up Holiday mini catalogue. I’m so excited for the new products in this catalogue. This time of year is definitely my most inspired with all cozy holidays to look forward to.

The Designer Series Patterned paper I used here is Halloween paper called Happy Haunting, but I love that there are so many sheets in this pack that can be used for other fall-themed projects. This page uses a stamped image from the Happy Scenes stamp set (LOVE IT!), but really the only thing on this page that makes it a Halloween page is the “BOO”. Otherwise it is a wonderful fall image that evokes thoughts of cozy nights with hot chocolate or pumpkin pie. Yum!

It’s the little things on this page that make me smile. I stamped the image with Tuxedo Black Momento ink, then used my Stampin’ Up Write Markers to accent the image with Tangelo Twist and Pear Pizzazz ink colours. A little Basic Rhinestone and the swirl of Silver Metallic Thread give a little bit of subtle shimmer to catch your eye.

Imagine a photo of your cute costumed Trick-or-treater, grinning at you from the pages of this simple layout. This 4×5.5 album would make a great gift. I can’t wait to make more albums like this one using different themes. I can see a lovely black and white anniversary album, a personalized mini album for each of my kids, and a Christmas album, of course!!

I’ll post more photos when the album is complete with the cover and the pull out pieces. I’m so excited to see how it all comes together!!

June 19, 2015

11 Year Old Birthday

Amy Jasper As You See It Challenge As You See It, card, challenge, embossing, markers, masculine, Stampin' Up 0 Comments

The Big News stamp set from Stampin’ Up! is a great choice for an 11 year old boy. My son has a TONNE of birthday parties scheduled for these last days of the school year and that means I have boys on the brain!!

Here’s the As You See It Challenge sketch this week:

And the card I designed:

I used my new Whisper White thick cardstock for the base of this card and let me tell you – it is AWESOME!! This paper holds it’s shape so beautifully for a very professional finish. I’m so glad that Stampin’ Up! decided to offer it.

I heat set the Gold Embossing powder for the sentiment on this card. Cherry on Top Designer Series Paper was used as the colour inspiration as I pulled out the Cucumber Crush, Bermuda Bay and the yellow (but instead of Crushed Curry, I wanted to use the brighter Daffodil Delight for my candles).

I REALLY wanted to put a ribbon somewhere, but as my intent was to create a more masculine card design, I withheld!

My favourite part about this design is the candles. I stamped them very close together in Jet Black Stazon ink in groups of four so I could cross the fifth one over them (fussy cut and on pieces of Stampin’ Dimensionals) to complete the counting in groups of fives. They are coloured with Stampin’ Write Markers in Bermuda Bay and Cucumber Crush with Daffodil Delight for the stars. I also used a Sponge Dauber with Daffodil Delight ink to create the glow around each star.

I like glowing. Glowing is good.

I also like to hear about you. What are your tricks to creating a masculine card? Ribbon? Colours? Styles?

Leave a comment in my “reply” section and tell me what you know!

Amy

April 3, 2015

Starburst Spring Card

Amy Jasper As You See It Challenge, Techniques As You See It, card, challenge, From the Garden, Handpicked Framelits, kinda eclectic, markers, masking, Mother's Love, photopolymer, Stampin' Up, Starbust Framelits, technique, unusual shape, watercolour 1 Comment

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!

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

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!

Amy