Monthly Archives: November 2014

Fabulous Four for AAA Cards challenge

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I’m using the partial thanks sentiment from the Stampin’ Up! Fabulous Four stamp set again today for another challenge – this time run by AAA cards.

I say partial – I cut off the second line of the sentiment so that I can add it when I like but I don’t have to mask it when I don’t want it. The two pieces obviously fit together perfectly so it’s simple to stamp with them both when I wish. Yesterday’s card required some fairly major ruler use, today’s not at all. In fact, I tried doing a rather random placement of the flower centres/ starbursts but I’ve come to the conclusion that random doesn’t really work in stamping. You either end up with an awkward space not big enough for another image or two of the images are too close together. Or, as I found yesterday, you’ve managed to make them almost in straight lines which looks sloppy because they aren’t quite lined up.

This is about my fourth version and I’m happy with it  – although now that I look at the photo, not ecstatic. I think I can further improve the placement. I like having three of each colour and them being arranged in triangles.

Stampin' Up Flower Patch in 3 bright colours

The colours that I chose, using the color coach are melon mambo, pumpkin pie and crushed curry and I stamped them on very vanilla. I adore these three colours together which really surprises me because they are so bold and not something I’d have tried on my own. But I think that they make for an incredibly joyful card. As I mentioned above, the sentiment is my doctored stamp from the Fabulous Four stamp set. The other image is from the Stampin’ Up! Flower Patch set and is intended to be one of the centres of the flowers but it stands well on its own. I glued the card to a pumpkin pie base and lined the envelope with the backgrounds DSP in pumpkin pie.

Thankful for the paper players

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I found a challenge at the Paper Players this week which really appeals – a clean and simple card giving thanks.

I decided to use the Stampin’ Up! Fabulous Four stamp set and to do some teal coloured ombre technique. I snipped off the bottom part of the sentiment figuring that I can add it if I like but that this saves masking it! I saw recently, on Brian King’s blog, a card where there were 6 or so colours of blue used. I decided to give this a try in teal. I first tried using soft sky, costal cabana, pool party, bermuda bay, lost lagoon and island indigo but the last two seemed too blue to play with the others. So I was down to four. I switched to a horizontal card instead of vertical and decided to step the sentiment across the card. This required serious use of a ruler and pencil and after stamping. an eraser. I figured out the gap necessary at the top and bottom and also to the right of the bottom sentiment and to the left of the top one. Once I had that done, I drew horizontal lines across the card to show me where to stamp each sentiment. I then drew a line diagonally to show me where each sentiment should begin. It was a bit ruler intensive but it was worth it to have everything in the right place.

Stampin' Up! Fabulous Four in 4 teal colours

I had originally planned to glue my very vanilla stamped card onto a base and played around with various options. I was having difficulty deciding between bermuda bay and coastal cabana when I realised that I didn’t have to choose. So I added a mat of coastal cabana showing only 1/8 inch all the way around and then glued this to the base of bermuda bay. I think this is the first time that I’ve had two mats both of 1/8 inch deep and I rather like the effect. I finished the card off by lining the envelope in bermuda bay from the backgrounds DSP.

PPA Color Challenge PPA227

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I’m just squeezing in under the wire on this challenge – it closes at 1pm today. My friend Jen calls me a rebel; I’m not so sure but here I am again refusing to go in the obvious direction! Here’s the colour palette.

http://stampinpretty.typepad.com/.a/6a00e54f95df92883401b8d08e905e970c-pi

I thought about doing a fall themed card but then I remembered that I’ve just received the Stampin’ Up! Swallowtail stamp and I haven’t used it yet. I also have crushed curry embossing powder and I haven’t used that either. So the direction was set. I started by embossing the image in crushed curry on pumpkin pie card stock but it didn’t grab me so here’s where I went in the end:

swallowtail pumpkin pie old olive crushed curry

This is embossed in black on crushed curry. I then took my old olive blendabilities and used the medium one to colour the body and the wings next to the body changing to the light blendability as I got further away from the body. After that I used the dark pumpkin pie blendability to colour the edge of the wings and the medium to colour next to it. This left an uncoloured crushed curry portion in the middle of the wings.

I had angled the butterfly because I was intending on adding a sentiment but after the colouring I decided that I really liked the clear space around it. I think the butterfly needs the space to breathe.

Since I coloured with blendabilities right onto the card, the colours bled through to the other side. In order to hide that (mostly) I glued a very vanilla piece of card onto the other side with another image of the swallowtail – this time in crushed curry having stamped off once. I tried it in old olive but it seemed a bit of a shock on opening the card. I liked the old olive on very vanilla though and saved that for future use. Here’s the inside of the card now:

inside of swallowtail card

Hersheys Nuggets boxes

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Along with the hersheys kisses trees and the superhero curvy keepsake boxes, I made some boxes to hold eight nuggets to take to the craft fair. I found the directions on Susan Itell’s site. It’s surprising how quickly they come together – I easily made 10 boxes and 12 trees on Saturday afternoon.

choc boxes red

I also made some in green

choc boxes green

and here’s the inside

choc box inside

I don’t have the top note die that Susan used so I used the second largest label framelit and that fit the box perfectly. Pictured above is my first box where I did cut out the one inch square as per Susan’s directions but later on I left that square intact. It made the box stronger although it did mean that it wasn’t as good at sitting open for display purposes.

Staples only had the Avery labels #8460 in large quantities but I noticed that the labels were 1″ by 2 5/8″ and that there were a bunch of others the same size. So I ended up with label #5460 instead (I think it’s just a matter of them being laserjet labels). I stamped the smallest snowflake from Endless Wishes in pool party and then the joy from the same stamp set in real red.

I made five different tops. Using the Mingle all the Way stamp set I stamped the Holiday Happy sentiment in both garden green and real red on whisper white card and then cut it out using the third largest framelit. If I’d have had the top note die, I’d have used that but the labels framelits turned out to be easier since there’s no snipping with scissors – just cut out using a smaller die. The Mingle all the Way was stamped in encore silver ink directly on the box top and surrounded with the smallest snowflake from Endless Wishes. I’m now thinking that the top would look even better if I’d embossed it in silver. Next time I’ll do that.

I also used the santa from Get Your Santa On and coloured him in the medium cherry cobbler which seemed to be the closest in shade to the real red. For my final box top I used the scene and snowman from White Christmas colouring in using the pumpkin pie Stampin’ Write marker and the real red.

I was really pleased with how these came out and they were very enjoyable, relaxing and satisfying to make.

 

Hersheys Kisses Trees

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When I read Susan Itell’s blog as usual this morning, I saw the Hersheys Kisses Tree and since I’m going to a craft fair tomorrow I decided that I needed to make some. Susan found the directions on Brenda Quintana’s site and the tutorial is really clear with loads of pictures. I incorporated a couple of Susan’s suggestions but apart from that was true to the tutorial.

hersheys kisses trees

Susan suggested using some of the leftover cardstock from the trunk to cover the nuggets which makes the trunk more trunk coloured. She also advised using sticky strip to adhere the trunk to the rest of the tree rather than relying on the mono glue. This seemed like a good idea.

I packaged the trees in a cello bag tied with ribbon as per Brenda’s suggestion to prevent any of the kisses falling out although I’d be surprised if they did. They are quite a snug fit. These trees are made in mossy meadow with chocolate chip trunks although I also did some in garden green and they looked good as well. I was really happy that my simply scored board arrived earlier this week – this project would’ve been a pain if I’d been trying to use the envelope punch board or the stampin’ trimmer.

See you tomorrow,

Liz