Just a quick post today with a card that was more of a prototype than a finished piece. I was hoping to tweak it a bit before sharing it with you, but hopefully you’ll see where I’m going with it!
I wanted to try to create a card for this one to mimic a very simple concept that I saw online for a birthday invitation. It was a gate-fold card with a butterfly opening. So, I pulled out my Butterfly Thinlit Dies and started to figure it out. This card was my first attempt:
It was a bit of an awkward fumble to extend the cardstock beyond 11″ in order to make room for the butterfly cut out. This one ended up with a lot of fussy cutting to make it work. I then tried creating a second card with less pink on it (this is a LOT of pink for me, lol!).
So, I went from all pink to almost no pink (just the In-Colour Sequins), but still I don’t feel like I’ve hit the mark with the design or the technique to get there. The second card uses two 5.5″x11″ pieces of cardstock to get the effect on the front. A bit of a cleaner finish that works, but I still want to work on this card design a bit more. I’ll keep you posted.
What do you think? Is this something you’d like to try?
What would you create using the elements of this Assortment Challenge? Can’t wait to see it!
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!
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!
Stampin’ Up Simply Pressed Clay is something I loved the idea of, but up until now had little interest in using the flower or button molds that were available. I finally tried my clay when my new Stampin’ Up, oh-so-fun, Alphanumerical mold arrived!
I love words – the shapes, the meaning, the linear order of them. They are powerful and beautiful and can be smart, witty, sarcastic, sweet, painful and wise. Words give us so many possibilities. Though, I am often tongue-tied by the deeper introvert within me and may not be as eloquent as I would like to be in my writing style, I love that words have the power to evoke emotion, philosophical thinking, a search for meaning, and can open up all sorts of doors in our lives.
(literally – i.e. “open sesame” in the tale of Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves, as well as “Speak, friend, and enter” from The Lord of the Rings. lol!)
I started with a Whisper White cardstock base. It was one that I had accidentally smudged with ink, so I cut a 4.25″ x 5.5″ piece of the Sale-a-bration paper called Best Year Ever and adhered it to cover the entire front of the card base. I felt so clever, covering up that smudge, lol!
I changed the orientation of my card from landscape to portrait and rounded the corners with the Project Life Corner Rounder Punch. I used Blushing Bride cardstock for the squares and I lightly sponged the edges of those squares with Blushing Bride ink. The EAT banner at the top is stamped using my new Alphabet Rotary stamp (more words! So fun!) with Momento Tuxedo Black ink on Whisper White cardstock, matted with Gold Foil paper. I hand-cut the flag end of the banner.
The Simply Pressed Clay was carefully pressed into the letters in the mold, then I place it in the freezer for a few minutes to allow the letters to set before removing them from the mold so they could continue to dry. The first time I used the mold, I dabbed the Embossing Buddy over the mold so it could act like flour in a cake pan and prevent the clay from sticking. This was not such a good idea as it discoloured my white clay with stained gray powder. (I’ll used those letters when I want to take the time to colour them). Once the letters were completely dry, I used Tombo Multipurpose Liquid Glue to attach them to my card front. Then I tucked in my Gold Sequins under the letter “K” in accordance with the stars on the sketch.
For the gold strip, I cut a thin piece of Gold Glimmer paper and adhered the Venetian Crochet Trim to the back with Tombo liquid glue, the attached both together to my cardfront with more glue. Finally, I tied the double bow, using the Fingertip Double Loop bow technique as seen in this Youtube video, and applied it to the Glimmer paper with a Glue Dot.
A fun and pretty word card, playfully commanding that you “eat cake” on your special day!
On a personal note, my family likes chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. We went cross-country skiing last Saturday (as we often do) and found that the warm weather had melted all the snow in the parking lot, leaving us to maneuver through a muddy mess.
The kids commented that it looked like chocolate frosting! lol!
Thanks for visiting today! Hope you’ll play along at the As You See It Challenge Blog and share your take on this sketch!
