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

March 6, 2015

Butterfly Bliss

Amy Jasper As You See It Challenge, Techniques Adventure Bound, As You See It, butterflies, card, challenge, photopolymer, speed, Stampin' Up, thinlits 3 Comments

Oh, speed challenges, how I love thee. Let me count the ways: I love you because you are quick; I love you that you push me; I love you that you’re quick; I love that I have time for you; I love that you are simple; I love that you are quick!!

My card today was designed for the As You See It Challenge Blog. The challenge is to create a card from start to finish in 10 minutes or less!! Can you do it? I’m usually just under the wire and find it very challenging. My design style is very … involved. Making a quick card is NOT my usual style at all! But I love that these challenges stretch me and force me to do something simpler. Sometimes I’m very unhappy with my final results, but today, I quite like how it turned out.

Here’s the speed challenge theme:

I decided to try working with a cute technique I saw using the Butterflies Thinlits. The card I saw was simple white cardstock, that had the butterfly cut out of it, then put back in place so that a colourful patterned paper showed through the detailing of the wings. I thought I would turn it inside out just a little bit and have the patterned paper on the topmost layer, with the solid colour showing through. Of course, if I HAVE to use purple (not my favourite for cards), I choose to use the gorgeous, rich, Blackberry Bliss!

9:47

Blackberry Bliss is very striking along side the soft neutral tone of Sahara Sand, so I chose one of the patterned papers from the Adventure Bound Designer Series Paper Stack that has a nice tone-on-tone plaid pattern. This I stamped with the leaf image in Sahara Sand, then thoroughly rubbed my Embossing Buddy over the paper before stamping the sentiment in Versamark ink and heating the applied Black Embossing Powder with my Heat Tool.

Once all the stamping was taken care of, I grabbed my butterfly die and headed on over to my Big Shot to cut it out from the stamped patterned paper. The Blackberry Bliss Satin Ribbon is wrapped around this paper and tied in a bow, then applied to the Blackberry Bliss cardstock layer with many Stampin’ Dimensionals (thin paper that has been heated for embossing, tends to get a bit curvy and needs support). Next, half of a Stampin’ Dimensional was used to attach the cut out butterfly back into its place in the patterned paper. And, finally, all that is attached to the Sahara Sand card base.

Love it, love it, love it. Simple, pretty, elegant, and QUICK!! I could easily whip up a bunch of these in different colour combinations and package them up to give away as a gift. Hmm. Maybe I’ll do just that!

I hope you’ll give the speed challenge a try and share your finished result on the As You See It Challenge Blog. I’d love to see what you do with purple!

Amy

February 13, 2015

Sweet Birthday

Amy Jasper As You See It Challenge, Techniques As You See It, card, challenge, Hooray it's your day, little letter, photopolymer, Stampin' Up, technique, thinlits 1 Comment

What!!? It’s Friday again?!!

The weeks just fly by with my goals for things-to-complete left far far behind! I bought a magnet for my fridge that says this:

So, maybe I didn’t get my craft room cleaned up. Maybe I didn’t get around to getting ahead on any craft projects. Maybe next week will be better … or maybe it won’t. But, you know what? The world keeps turning, which means I get another chance to get those things done.

1. Set a goal

2. Don’t reach goal

3. Revise goal

4. Repeat as needed

Here’s a simple and appropriate theme challenge in the week with Valentine’s Day:

My card is simple, but uses a technique that I saw shared by Jennifer Timko. I have her adorable project pinned on my Papercrafting Ideas Pinterest board HERE. She has a tutorial video to help you create the look with the letters as I have done in my card for the challenge.

I have to admit, that the big chocolate on the front of this card made it off-balance and impossible to stand on its own. In hindsight, I would have used my 1-3/4″ circle punch on the front of the card to allow the chocolate to be adhered inside the card in such a way that it would peek-a-boo through the circle. Then the weight would be more centered in the card base.

Here’s the card without the chocolate heart. Still cute.

I used Pistachio Pudding cardstock for the card base, then there is a thin matt layer of Strawberry Slush cardstock. The patterned paper is a sheet from the Gold Soiree Specialty Designer Series paper. This paper has a unique, almost plastic or magazine glossy finish to it, giving it a wonderful, professional finish for your projects. The Little Letter thinlits were partially cut from the Strawberry Slush cardstock top layer that was stamped with the “birthday girl” image from the Hooray It’s Your Day photopolymer stamp set.

The Gold Bakers Twine is wrapped and tied around the three top layers before they were adhered to the card base with Stampin’ Up Dimensionals. The candy heart was attached with many Glue Dots to make sure it was secured well to the card.

I hope you try this theme challenge over at As You See It this week. So many ways to interpret themes! You could do a card, a 3D project, home decor, or anything to do with “sweet”. Babies are sweet. Success is sweet. Cupcakes are sweet. So many paper-crafting possibilities!!

Happy crafting!

Amy