October 3, 2014

Winter Joy

Amy Jasper As You See It Challenge, Christmas, Techniques As You See It, card, challenge, Christmas, Gorgeous Grunge, lovely as a tree, masking, Stampin' Up, star confetti punch, technique, wonderful wreath 9 Comments

I love designing with my Stampin’ Up! inks, paper, stamps, and tools. I’ve fallen in love with this beautiful sponged winter landscape technique using Lovely as a Tree.

It’s Friday, which means it’s time for another As You See It Challenge card. We’re on challenge #56.

I was teaching a technique card class last night and we were working on a project using the technique in this video and remembered I needed to design a card for the challenge blog today. I thought I would use this great sponged landscape technique and add my own touch and style for my As You See It design.

If you click on the link for the video above, you’ll see how the trees and hills were created. I used Island Indigo and Night of Navy for my sponged hills. Mossy Meadow ink was used to stamp the coniferous trees while Night of Navy ink was used for the deciduous trees. For the snow, I simply used one of the splatter images from the Gorgeous Grunge stamp set and stamped it multiple times over the completed winter scene with Whisper White craft ink.

You can see in the above picture that my JOY cutout (from the Wonderful Wreath framelits) looks a little bit different than a regular die-cut piece of cardstock. We were shown this technique at a workshop at the Inspire.Create.Share Stampin’ Up! Convention this last July. The look is achieved by layering 5 or so cuts of the same framelit or punch. To make it easier to adhere each layer together, you can apply an Adhesive Sheet to your cardstock before cutting out your image. I chose to use Night of Navy cardstock for the bottom layers, then top it with Whisper White cardstock for my JOY image.

I added some Basic Rhinestones to the tree in the foreground and a little Silver Glimmer paper star on the top that I cut using my Star Confetti Border Punch.

The inside layer of my card shows a couple of trees stamped with Night of Navy ink, then sponged over top with the Island Indigo and Night of Navy combo of inks to coordinate with the card front.

Hmm. Now I’m thinking I should have added snow to those little trees inside my card. I might just go back and add that yet!

And, of course, I really like Stampin’ Up Dimensionals, so I used them to pop up the white matted layer over the Night of Navy card base.

I hope you’ll try this cute sketch! Go on over to the As You See It Challenge Blog and check out what the other designers have done. Then give it a go yourself!!

Amy

September 26, 2014

Inspired Thank You

Amy Jasper As You See It Challenge, Techniques 2014, altered DSP, As You See It, AYSI#55, card, challenge, embossing, floral framelits, kinda eclectic, Stampin' Up, technique 4 Comments

So glad you could stop by today and check out my design for the As you See It Challenge Blog. I used the Kinda Eclectic stamp set for this unique framelit card.

The challenge today is a little different as it’s a “fill in the blank” challenge. Where do you find inspiration?

Oh, so many places!

This particular card was inspired by online sources. I was looking for a technique to show my Monthly Stampers group for September and I came across a tutorial on how to use your framelits to cut a fancy edge on your card. I found this video on Pinterest that explains how to use a framelit to cut only the edge of your card.

I also found inspiration through Pinterest when I saw a fabulous display of colour combinations using Mossy Meadow, which is the green card base you see here. The colour combination was a lovely fall colouring, but without the potentially dreary colours that are more traditional for fall. This one included Mossy Meadow, So Saffron, Soft Sky, and Baked Brown Sugar.

Bits and pieces of this design are also inspired by various projects that I’ve seen using this particular stamp set.

I find inspiration all over the place: Pinterest, Google searches, card swaps, Splitcoast Stampers, and random images or art that I see. I have a Pinterest board that is titled “Creative Inspiration” where I have interesting art work, colour combinations, techniques or just something interesting that reminds me of a Stampin’ Up product. I get lots of ideas from looking at other blogs and cards that you post on the As You See It Challenge Blog! So keep posting!

My card was designed for my technique class/monthly stampers group. We used the Window framelits, Good Greetings hostess stamp set, Kinda Eclectic stamp set, Woodgrain Embossing folder, Polkadot embossing folder, sponges with Mossy Meadow ink on the Mossy Meadow cardstock, Back to Black Designer series paper (which we altered by sponging heavily with the Baked Brown Sugar ink), and the Crushed Curry 1/8″ taffeta ribbon.

I hope you’ll share your inspiration with us for Challenge #55 at the AYSI Challenge Blog! I look forward to being inspired!!

Amy.

August 22, 2014

Bloom with Hope

Amy Jasper As You See It Challenge, Techniques As You See It, blendabilities, Bloom wtih Hope, card, challenge, Stampin' Up, technique 4 Comments

Welcome to my blog where I share my love of designing with Stampin’ Up! ink, paper, stamps and tools!

Are you up for something a little different from my usual style? My design today is clean, simple and pretty (at least I think so). The As You See It Challenge blog has a sketch challenge for you this week. I knew right away how I wanted to play with those little rectangles to the left of the design and it would involve flowers!

I wanted my card to be simple and elegant. I had intended on keeping it neutral in colour, but ended up giving it a splash of Crisp Cantaloupe – still soft, still elegant, but adds a touch of feminine grace, too.

I love the Rhinestones!! I coloured them with the medium Calypso Coral Blendability marker. Before I added them, the card was too heavy on the left side. They add balance.

The stamp set I used is the Bloom with Hope hostess set. It is a beautiful set, but you can only purchase it with your hostess dollars when you host a workshop. I’d love to do this card with you and your guests so you can get this gorgeous collection of stamps for free!

I used Very Vanilla for my base card. I honestly am not drawn to vanilla (well, unless it’s ice cream!), but it is much softer than Whisper White and definitely works for a sympathy card. I stamped the large flower on the card base with Crisp Cantaloupe, stamping it off once on a scrap piece of paper so it would be a softer image. Then I used my Stampin’ Write Markers to colour my rubber stamps directly before stamping the images that are on the rectangles. I used Crisp Cantaloupe and Wild Wasabi first, then randomly added daubs of Rich Razzleberry to the blooms and Mellow Moss to the stems. Don’t forget, that whenever you colour your rubber with the markers, you should ‘huff’ on the rubber before stamping your image on your cardstock. This will ensure that the ink is re-moistened and will give you the image quality that you intend.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, ‘huffing’ involves a heavy exhale of your breath onto the rubber while it’s close to your open mouth. While we take the time to colour directly on the rubber stamp, the areas that you coloured first start to dry. The slight moisture from your breath that would normally fog a mirror is enough to re-activate the ink’s moisture on the rubber. It sounds weird, but is a necessary step with this technique.

I layered my rectangles with the thinnest mat of Crisp Cantaloupe cardstock as possible, then matted it again with a wider Very Vanilla. You can see I used Stampin’ Dimensionals to pop up each of the Crisp Cantaloupe layers.

Finally, I used the corner rounder punch on my Envelope Punch Board to round the corners of my card and I stamped my sentiments with Jet Black Stazon ink.

Don’t forget to try this layout for yourself, whether it’s for a card, a scrapbook page, or artwork for your wall. You can take a photo of it, load it to a public site (Pinterest works well), then link it to Challenge #50 on the As You See It Challenge blog!

I’m not exaggerating when I tell you that we are inspired by every card that you share with us. Everyone has their own tricks and style to share, whether they know it or not: the way your tear your cardstock, a colour combination that I’ve never thought of before, little added touches, how you tie your ribbon – I am always learning from other people’s creativity. I hope you will share yours with us on the challenge blog!

As a side note: for the first time, I’m having trouble with taking photos with my iphone. I hope it’s just the light-coloured card design, but I had to fuss with my lighting and angles more than usual to avoid weird lines and halos. You can see one of those halos in the center of my last photo. Taking a good photo of your card is about good lighting, the right shadows, a crisp image, and quality product (avoiding ink smudges or halos, cutting ribbon and cardstock with sharp blades, and making sure that things intended to be straight on your product are actually straight!) – things to keep in mind when you upload to Pinterest.

Sign up this week to be a Stampin’ Up! demonstrator, like me, and join my team!! Stampin’ Up! is offering the kit for the usual $125, tax and shipping free, but you can choose $190 in product for your kit instead of the usual $155 of product. The kit is already a great deal, but now it’s even better!! Check out the SHORT AND SWEET sign up offer by clicking on the link and learn more about it and other promotions currently available.

Happy Stamping!

Amy.