Monthly Archives: September 2014

Blended Santa

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I went to a class at my upline’s house a few weeks ago to play with blendabilities. These alcohol based markers are a lot of fun. They are sold in a pack of three in the same colour – one in light, medium and dark – and the colours blend. Hence the name (My Fellow Americans, anyone? I love that movie – Jack Lemmon, James Garner, what more does a movie need?). But I digress.

The class was on the cherry cobbler markers and for one of the samples we were using the stamp set “Get your santa on”. I had JUST managed to resist buying this one – mainly because I was buying so much else from the holiday catalogue. But having played with it, I had to get it. It’s adorable. I’ve noticed that it takes a while to “get your eye in”. There have been sets that I’ve passed over only to find that when I’ve seen them used, they are awesome. It’s like when you’re scuba diving; to start with, you swear that there are no lobsters. After a number of dives they are everywhere and you can’t imagine how you missed them!

So my set arrived and this is what I created. A CAS (clean and simple) card as is my preference.

santa joy cherry cobbler

Base: 8.5″ by 5.5″ cherry cobbler

Mat: 2.75″ by 3.5″ basic black

Top layer: 2.5″ by 3.25″ whisper white

Stamp set: Get your santa on

Ink: Memento black ink

If you’re using blendabilities, you need to use the memento ink. The blendabilities are alcohol based and the memento ink is water based so there’s no running or smearing when you colour. The memento ink can also be cleaned with the normal stampin’ mist which is an advantage over the stazon black in my opinion – the memento is now my go to black ink. One less bottle to keep track of on my table! After stamping the image, I coloured it with the three cherry cobbler blendies or blendibobs as my friends in the UK have it. Easier to spell anyway. I am no artist. Really – ask Mr Dix – I used to get a decent grade for effort in Art and a C (if I was lucky) for talent. But I’m pretty pleased with the result here. Start with the darkest pen and move to the lightest, blending each colour as you go. Colouring is an incredibly relaxing way to spend an afternoon. I coloured Santa’s boots and belt with an ordinary Stampin’ Write marker in basic black and used a silver marker for his belt buckle. I think he’d make a good gift tag too.

In case my sister is reading this – Happy Anniversary! I’ll share the card later on.

 

 

A mixed mixed bunch

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Last week I created a monochrome birthday card with the mixed bunch stamp set. My critique board suggested more colour and although I thought to start with a couple, they wanted me to go crazy. So I did. And I love the result. And so did they.

mixed bunch multi regals

Base: rose red

Top layer: very vanilla

Stamp set: mixed bunch, Sassy Salutations

Inks: All from the regals family – rose red, elegant eggplant, perfect plum, island indigo, crushed curry and garden green

I think that this is an incredibly happy and cheerful birthday card and I’m very grateful for the CB’s suggestions. I of course used the stamp-a-ma-jig to line up the flowers and lined the envelope with the rose red backgrounds DSP.  Those last two items may be predictable, but they make sense. This card is a little labour intensive due to all the stamp cleaning, but it would be fast to mass produce. I think it would also make a good thank you card or a thinking of you if someone needed a pick me up. Almost as good as a bunch of mixed flowers. 🙂

Technique Tuesday – sponging

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I partially CASEd the idea of this card from Susan Itell, on another stamp from the Seasonally Scattered set,  but she did it with sponge daubers, and I didn’t have any! I just used sponges.

merry silver, wisteria, blue

It’s a very Clean and Simple (CAS) card – my favourite kind of card.

Base: Very vanilla

Mat: Wisteria Wonder

Top layer: very vanilla

Stamp set: Seasonally scattered

Inks: wisteria wonder, night of navy, silver

I inked up the image with wisteria wonder and then took sponges to dip into the silver ink and the night of navy (separate sponges so as to keep my ink pads clean) and applied them randomly to the stamp. Then I stamped onto the cardstock. Clearly this will give different results each time. Just be cautious and ensure that the stamp and sponges are not transferring other colours to the ink pads. I think it’s a very easy way of getting an effective image – and a unique one.

Once you’re done with this card, you may notice that the MERRY doesn’t look quite right. The first R looks as if you made a mistake.

R in Merry

There’s a bit too much white space so it looks as if there’s something missing. I just took a marker and added a few dots so that the R looked a bit more regular.

Coastal Cabana Christmas

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Looking at the title of this post, I seem to be catching the Stampin’ Up! alliteration habit – almost all of the 50 colours have two word names where both words start with the same letter. It does actually help with remembering the colour names.

Apologies for the photo – it looks a bit washed out. I’m getting a tripod any day now, so I’ll be able to produce better photos. Hopefully.

 

ornaments coastal cabana

Base: 8.5″ by 5.5″ coastal cabana

Top layer: 4″ by 5.25″ very vanilla

Stamp sets: ornament keepsakes (retired), good greetings (exclusive hostess set)

Ink: coastal cabana

I stamped the holiday ornament in coastal cabana on a piece of scrap cardstock and then cut it out using the matching framelit dies and repeated it another 2 times. The new trim for the 2013-2015 in colours, of which coastal cabana is one, is thick baker’s twine. I think it worked really well to hang the ornaments and wish that it was available in more than the 5 in colours. Actually they are “in colors” but due to my British upbringing, I add the extra letter. 🙂 I used stampin’ dimensionals to mount the ornaments and the first time, was not careful enough to ensure that the dimensionals did not go over the twine which resulted in a slightly lopsided ornament. Since then I’ve cut the twine just shy of the dimensionals and that works better. Stamping the sentiment in coastal cabana ink finished this card off.

More congratulations

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Yesterday was Julia’s son and fiancee’s engagement party so Julia and I spent the previous three evenings baking. It was fun – we always have fun together – but hard work. Hence the lateness of this post. Here’s the card that I made for Ross and Abby – I hope they like it.

cajun craze congrats

Base: 8.5″ by 5.5″ cajun craze

Top layer: 4″ by 5.25″ cajun craze

Stamp set: Bravo

Ink: versamark

I used the confetti stars punch on the edge of the cardstock and then, after swiping the embossing buddy over the card, stamped the Congrats! in versamark and sprinkled the gold embossing powder over it. After a couple of flicks to the back of the card to remove excess, I used the heat emboss tool. Next I cut a piece of gold foil just a tad under 5.25″ by 1.25″ and adhered it behind the stars. It’s easiest to put the glue on the card in order to avoid the cut outs.

To finish I used the backgrounds DSP to line the envelope. I made this on Saturday morning just before the brunch. Since I really like this design, I think I’ll make a few to have on hand in order to be a bit more prepared!