December 29, 2017

Wine with Friends

Amy Jasper As You See It Challenge 2017, As You See It, card, challenge, Stampin' Up, thinlits 0 Comments

My entire family came down with a nasty bug (probably a type of flu bug, since my husband is the only one who got the flu shot and didn’t get sick!). My son got sick first, then my youngest daughter followed two days later, then my middle child a couple days after that. They were all sick for one whole week each! I kept thinking I was going to go unscathed, but I guess sleeping beside my youngest child through her week of fever and dry cough, I was bound to get it eventually. I only had a fever one day (the kids had it off and on for the whole week!), but after being stuck at home taking care of my kids for 2 weeks, I was laid up for a week as well! That’s a long time to be bound to my house!! When I finally wasn’t glued to the couch, spending most of my time sleeping, I had to force myself out into the real world to catch up on Christmas shopping, decorating and food prep for turkey dinner. As a result, my body has yet to fully recover. It’s been two weeks since I got sick and it’s still lingering. I have that “sexy” raspy voice and I still cough like a smoker in the morning, lol! But I’m grateful that my energy seems to be back to about 90% and I can enjoy some outdoor activities again.

All that to say that I’m happy to get back to my craft room. Even when my kids were sick, I wasn’t able to get away to my room in the basement and stamp. I got a few other things done, like carpet clean my daughter’s new room, while the kids were resting. That felt pretty good. I accomplished something, but was still within ear shot if they needed me.

Now my daughter is fully moved out of the room she shared with her younger sister and is in her new room with the clean carpet! It felt so good to finally do that for her. Having grandma help with the room clean up and purge (the shared room was a junk heap!!), made it a huge success. Next task in the new year is for the girls to pick out their paint colours, so we can make the rooms their own! It’s all very exciting!!

This is a lot of writing already, but let me just add how grateful I am that I was able to quit my job last May and be a stay-at-home-mom first and a Stampin’ Up Demonstrator second. Being at home has made life feel much more under control and less stressful, not to mention more fulfilling. The kids have access to me whenever they’re home and I have been able to begin the process of getting a handle on my home environment. While being sick and while having company visit over the holidays, I have been free to take care of my home and family without having to worry about scheduling around my job or dealing with the stress of finding someone to replace me. Quitting my part-time job to be at home is the best decision I’ve made for me and my family since saying “yes” to getting married to my husband.

My first assignment in my stamping room after the holidays is, of course, an As You See It Challenge card design! I thought about using something new from my Occasions or Sale-a-bration pre-order, but in the end, I decided I should get a bit more mileage on one of my favourite Holiday stamp sets. After all, you CAN still purchase this set until the end of the year – so after reading this, go to my SHOP link on my website and get this stamp set while you still can!I love this Half Full stamp set. It has a few playful sentiments, but I love wine, so, sentiments aside, this set makes me happy!

The card base is Smoky Slate card stock that I ran through the Big Shot with the Brick embossing folder and then lightly sponged Smoky Slate ink around the edges to make that embossed pattern pop.

The next layer is Pool Party cardstock. I added sparkle to it by colouring it with my Wink of Stella Glitter Brush. So pretty and sparkly!! I added a thin Basic Black cardstock mat under a layer of Silver Foil paper and attached it over the winky Pool Party layer.

The silver Foil Snowflake (just half of one) was adhered to the Silver Foil layer before attaching the Whisper White die cut on top with Stampin’ Dimensionals. I used a die from the Celebration Thinlits (what a cute set of thinlits, that is!). The wine glasses were stamped on the Whisper White die cut with Tuxedo Black Momento ink, then coloured using Cherry Cobbler, Daffodil Delight, and Smoky Slate Blends Markers.

The final touch on the card front is the ribbon swag – Mini Silver Sequin, Basic Black Solid Baker’s Twine, and a little peep of the Bermuda Bay ribbon from the upcoming Sale-a-bration Shimmer Ribbon pack (so so shimmery!).I didn’t have room for a sentiment on the front, so I chose “the best wines are the ones we drink with friends” (from the Half Full Stamp Set) for the inside of the card. Behind it, I stamped the large wine glass from the same wonderful stamp set in Pool Party ink (stamped off once to reduce the intensity of colour).

I can give this card at any time to ANY of my wine-lovin’ friends. Wine IS best when it’s shared. So who wants to come over for a glass of wine this week!?

(I’m very grateful to finally have my taste buds returning to normal – wine and coffee just aren’t the same when you can’t taste them!!)

November 3, 2017

Sequin and Burlap

Amy Jasper As You See It Challenge, Christmas 2017, As You See It, card, challenge, Christmas, framelits, thinlits 1 Comment

It’s time for another As You See It Challenge design!

Here’s the challenge sketch:

I decided to use the Lots of Labels Framelits for this one. Here’s my take on the challenge:

I wanted to use some of the Be Merry Designer Series Paper, but I find the Garden Green/Cherry Cobbler/Whisper White colour combo a bit dull on its own. That’s when I decided to add the Powder Pink, Crumb Cake and Sahara Sand into the mix. I think the iridescent pinky colouring of some of the Metallic Sequin Assortments is what makes the Powder Pink cardstock work quite well.

I don’t know if you can really see it in the photos, but the snowflake die from the Seasonal Layers Thinlits is cut from the Dazzling Diamonds Glimmer Paper and is so pretty and sparkly! I wanted it to be popped up off the page, but it’s too delicate to hide a Stampin’ Dimensional behind it, so I first adhered a 1/2″ Crumb Cake circle to the back of the snowflake with the Multipurpose Liquid Glue. After that, I could hide a Dimensional behind that circle without losing the delicate design of the snowflake.

The sentiment from the Teeny Tiny Wishes stamp set, was stamped on the Powder Pink cardstock using Early Espresso ink. Then, it was die cut with a banner die from the Bunch of Banners Framelits for that perfect flagged end (I cut the other end off – two perfectly flagged ends would have been more than this card could handle. lol!

May 19, 2017

Watercolour Floral Anniversary

Amy Jasper As You See It Challenge, Techniques 2017, anniversary, As You See It, card, challenge, photopolymer, Stampin' Up, technique, thinlits, tutorial, watercolour 2 Comments

I admit. There are many times when I find a great card online and I shamelessly copy it. In the stamping world, of course, we call it CASEing: Copy And Share Everything! My design for you today is a CASE of a card I saw and loved; simple and elegant, with a touch of whimsy. If you want to see the inspiration, click here.

And who doesn’t love the look of some watercolouring, anyway!?

The As You See It Challenge Blog has a theme challenge this week.

My card design uses the lovely Flirty Flamingo for the card. I used the Flirty Flamingo cardstock for the base and I used the Flirty Flamingo ink for the sentiment from the Number of Years photopolymer stamp set from Stampin’ Up!

To create the watercolour background, I first used an Aqua Painter to wet the entire surface of the Watercolor Paper from Stampin’ Up! It needs to be wet enough that the water sits on the surface without pooling, but not so wet that your colour just slides to the edges of the paper.

Then I picked up Flirty Flamingo Ink with my Aqua Painter and spread out a few brushstrokes of colour here and there on the Watercolor Paper. I wiped off the Aqua Painter before picking up some Tempting Turquoise ink and added some random swashes of it to the Watercolor Paper. Again I wiped off the colour before moving on to add some Daffodil Delight to the page until the page was full. With each colour that I added, I also took the time to carefully pull a little bit of one colour into the other on the page so they would blend together a little bit rather than having a sharp line between colours. This gave me some soft green, hazy purple and quiet peach tones in my palette.While I waited for my watercolouring to dry, I used my Detailed Floral Thinlit dies, my Big Shot (you definitely want the Precision Plate with these dies!) to cut the floral detail out of the Whisper White cardstock. I stamped the sentiment from the Number of Years stamp set by Stampin’ Up on the card with Flirty Flamingo ink.

When the watercolour was completely dry, I adhered the die cut Whisper White piece of cardstock to the Watercolor Paper with some Multipurpose Liquid Glue (not too much!). The Crushed Curry Baker’s Twine was then tied around these adhered layers before attaching them to the card base using Stampin’ Dimensionals. Basic Pearls were added to a few of the flower centers as a finishing touch.I also used the same technique for the inside of the card, but only used the smallest of the two floral dies from the Detailed Floral Thinlits.

Seriously folks, if you haven’t done any watercolouring by now, you MUST. Go right now and order some Watercolor Paper and some Aqua Pens. You won’t regret having these tools in your supplies!

Be sure to also play along with the As You See It Challenge using this anniversary theme. You never fail to inspire me with your creativity. So bring it!

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