Monthly Archives: October 2014

Another congrats

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This is my first foray into the sketch arena (channelling “My Cousin Vinnie” here). The challenge this week from the Pals Paper Arts is:

PPA224 Oct 16

I am pretty intimidated by sketch challenges and this was no different. But I let it percolate and percolate and a card that I made earlier in the week was almost there. And then I knew what I wanted to do. 🙂

bbs bravo with twine

I don’t like too many layers or fuss, so three bands of something bothered me until I realised that it could be ribbon. Or even twine. I started looking at the new in-colours ribbon but finally decided that twine was the way that I wanted to go. Which restricted my choices a lot (perhaps not a bad thing!). My favourite colours from last year’s in colours are strawberry slush and baked brown sugar. I’m still a bit off pink after my pink cat card so went brown which is a very unusual direction. I checked all of the colours to see what would work and pear pizzazz made the pick. This card is a first in that it has TWO layers of dimensionals.

Card: Baked Brown Sugar, Pear Pizzazz

Stamp Set: Stampin’ Up! Bravo

Other: Baked Brown Sugar baker’s twine, versamark, embossing buddy, gold embossing powder

It’s a Clean and Simple card. Emboss the sentiment in gold and mat it in baked brown sugar. Put the three lengths of twine over the mat and use stampin’ dimensionals to raise the mat off the card base to hide the fact that the twine makes it uneven. I also put dimensionals under the sentiment matting due to the twine. I finally used my crumb cake envelopes since they seemed to match better than the very vanilla.

ColourQ challenge

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So it’s time for another challenge – the colour Q challenge. Lots of colour!

I know that this screams Halloween, but as usual, I wanted to go somewhere else. I tried making an autumn sky but ended up with the foreground not being right. I switched to a White Christmas scene, but my Critique Board (thanks Jen!) pointed out that an autumn sky didn’t really fit with a December Arctic scene and suggested more of an aurora borealis. I sponged on more rich razzleberry and basic black as well as some glitter and spots of white craft ink in the sky and this is where I ended up:

Stampin' Up! White Christmas

 

I had previously had a polar bear on this card but, thinking about Voltaire, removed him. I really like how the sky is so dramatic but having googled pictures of the aurora borealis realise that my card is but a pale copy of the real thing. The photos that I’ve seen as so outrageous as to feel imaginary!

Let your hair down – it’s the weekend!

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I’m really getting into challenges at the moment and this card is for the Hand Stamped Sentiments challenge. It was an interesting challenge because whilst I loved the colours together, when I tried to work with them they lost what I loved. As my mother pointed out (from an experience with patchwork), the proportions of colours make a big difference. Although the colours hint a little towards Halloween, I wanted to go in a different direction. Maybe Jen is right, maybe I am a rebel! This one took a number of days!

let your hair down blackberry bliss pear pizzazz black

For the background, I used a retired wheel stamp, Alhambra, which I converted to a clear stamp – so much easier to handle and very easy to do. Just peel the rubber off the stamp and mount it on the clear mount cling foam that Stampin’ Up! handily sells. I stamped it in Blackberry Bliss on Pear Pizzazz. This was going to be a vertical card but after some deliberation (and sleeping on it overnight) I decided it looked better in this format. The sentiment is from a Hostess Set named Let Your Hair Down which is tremendously good value at $9 for the clear set ($12 for wood) when you pay for it with hostess dollars. After matting the sentiment in the required basic black and adhering this and the background stripe onto the blackberry bliss base, all that was left was to line the envelope. I used a piece from the Park Lane DSP which is so pretty that it’s almost a waste to use on an envelope liner! But still, if you sign up as a Stampin’ Up! demo this month on my team, both you and I get a free pack of DSP for six months. That’s a really good deal!

Continuing Christmas cards

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Here’s another easy to mass produce card if you’re panicking about Christmas looming. It’s very similar to yesterday’s in design, but different in result.

star embossed noel real red

I used real red for the base and mat. The mat went through the big shot in the Stampin’ Up! Lucky Stars embossing folder. I thought that the stars didn’t stand out much, although they seem to in this photo, so I coloured in a few random stars using my gold Stampin’ dazzle marker. After a trip to Home Depot returning via Staples, my brother picked me up some metallic sharpies since I’d been lamenting the lack of a silver marker (it was on my Stampin’ Up! wish list but hadn’t made it to the big time). I found that the gold sharpie was a brighter colour and have been preferring it to the dazzle marker ever since.

I used the gold glimmer paper and the Wonderful Wreath framelits to cut out the Noel – using wax paper in between the paper and die to make it easier to get the paper and die apart. I carefully dotted tombow glue onto the back of the word in order to stick it onto the card.

Merry Christmas – only ten weeks

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If you’re planning on making your own Christmas cards, you need to get started. You have ten weeks from today. But there’s no need to panic – there are plenty of products from Stampin’ Up! that make your cards easy to produce. Here’s one example that you can easily mass produce.

merry night of navy embossed stars

Details:

Base: 8.5″ by 5.5″ Night of Navy

Top layer: 4″ by 5.25″ Night of Navy

Other: Stampin’ Up! Lucky Stars TIEF, Expressions Thinlits Dies (retired), Silver foil sheets, silver sharpie, Backgrounds DSP

You can easily make a mass of these. Cut your A4 paper in two and score and fold it. Make your smaller mat and run it through the big shot in the Lucky Stars TIEF. Then you cut the Merry out of the silver foil sheet. Don’t forget to use waxed paper in between the silver foil and the die to cut the Merry – it makes it so much easier to release the foil from the die. If you don’t have the thinlits dies – go directly to the Clearance Rack, do not pass go, and buy this set! At $14.99 for three dies saying Merry, Love and Thankful, it’s a great buy. After you adhere the Merry to the card, colour some stars in silver. I finished it off in the usual way by lining the envelope using the Stampin’ Up! envelope framelit dies and the Background DSP in Night of Navy.