Monthly Archives: February 2015

A reprise of Swallowtail resist embossing

2 Replies

I was so happy with my previous resist embossed swallowtail card that I decided to do it again . Using a large background stamp as the focal point of the card doesn’t give many options but I like the stamp too much to relegate it to the background. At the moment anyway.

Stampin' Up! Swallowtail

After using the embossing buddy to remove any static, I stamped the image in versamark and used the white embossing powder. This time I decided to use more colour and sponged with both pumpkin pie and daffodil delight in more or less a circular fashion. I added just a touch of real red towards the outside. I think this gives a completely different look from last time. I then cropped the butterfly and added a mat of pumpkin pie. This was then mounted on a base of daffodil delight. Let me know which you like best.

I really should read the instructions

2 Replies

Well I intended this card to be for a challenge calling for hello honey, tangelo twist and pacific point and I added a neutral – sahara sand – but when I went to upload the card to the site, I see that the only neutrals you can use are white, vanilla or black. Oops. Oh well. I find that the benefit of challenges is that it pushes you to try colour combinations that you wouldn’t normally try. As in this case – I’m not fond of blue and yellow together so it was fun to come up with a card that I liked with this combination.

Stampin' Up! Sheltering Tree

It’s snowing outside as I type this so it’s rather nice to be looking at an autumnal scene! I stamped the tree from the Stampin’ Up! Sheltering Tree set in sahara sand on sahara sand card stock. I then used hello honey to stamp the large foliage stamp. I then took the little stamp meant to be the flower heads and stamped it all over the tree using tangelo twist. The bike frame is stamped in my favourite black, memento black ink. I love that the regular stampin’ mist will clean the stamp rather than having to use the special cleaner. The sentiment is also from the Sheltering Tree set and is stamped in tangelo twist. The layer is mounted on a tangelo twist base. I debated whether to use a crumb cake or very vanilla envelope and in the end went for very vanilla. Of course it would’ve been easy to have made my own in sahara sand using the envelope punch board. I’ve lined the envelope using the Backgrounds DSP from the in colours family in tangelo twist.

Sponged Wetlands

1 Reply

Here’s the other card using the Stampin’ Up! Wetlands set that I made when trying to make a clean and simple card with birds on it for a challenge earlier in the week. In the end, I entered a different, cleaner card. I had a lot of fun making this one; it’s always great to get the sponges out. Especially since I was so bad at art!

Stampin' Up! Wetlands

I started with a piece of whisper white card stock and punched out a 1 inch circle. Using a scrap of card, I masked off the horizon and the sun. I sponged the sky with so saffron ink and then moved the sun and lightly sponged that in more of the so saffron. I then took the calypso coral and ran little streaks of it across the sky, including across the sun to suggest clouds in front of the sun. I then used so saffron sponge to soften the sky. I stayed with the subtles family and used marina mist for the water, giving extra attention to the path from the sun. I also sponged a little so saffron on that path as well. The birds are stamped in memento black ink – when deciding where to put them, don’t put the stamp too close to the paper as I did. You end up with a very smudged image. I had to start again! I glued the card stock to a base of marina mist. The envelope is lined on the outside flap with the backgrounds DSP also in marina mist. Just glue the DSP to the flap and use the envelope flap as a guide for cutting with your paper snips.

I definitely recommend getting out some sponges and playing with the backgrounds. It’s a rewarding and you feel like an artist. It’s probably best to do this just before you wash your hair – I find that it’s the best way to get the ink completely off your hands!

Stepped up boho blossom

1 Reply

On Wednesday I shared a card that I made for a CAS and orange challenge. Whilst making it, I lost sight of the goal and wandered off into the realm of pink, aka melon mambo. But I liked where the pink card was going so I decided to step it up a bit as a contrast to the pumpkin pie version. Here’s what I finally came up with.

Stampin' Up! Boho Blossom Lotus Blossom

It’s a bit of a mirror image of the orange one with the punch being used on the melon mambo. I stepped up the sentiment a bit and embossed it in white instead of just stamping it. It’s from the Sale-a-bration set, Lotus Blossom. I then popped up the whole piece of melon mambo with stampin’ dimensionals and added one of the flowers that I’d cut out and this time, three rhinestones.

I originally had two of the rhinestones coloured in melon mambo and one left alone.

boho blossom pink and white

Then I tried old olive

boho blossom old olive

But I wanted something a bit more emerald green. After a chat with Jen this morning, I tried colouring a rhinestone in the lightest night of navy blendability and, after it dried, using the darkest wild wasabi. That is exactly what I was looking for. Here’s a side view showing the colour better as well as the dimension.

Stampin' Up! Boho blossom side view

This definitely demonstrates, to me at least, that it’s worth tweaking a card until you’re happy. And as a bonus, I have some already coloured rhinestones ready to use on another project!

Butterflies thinlits dies for the New Year

1 Reply

I decided to make a card to celebrate Chinese New Year but I don’t have any stamps of goats so I have chosen to concentrate on red and gold instead. At the recent crop weekend, I saw an embossed resist technique using a brayer, elastic bands, embossing powder and sponging. I simplified it for this card.

I liberated a couple of different width elastic bands from the kitchen drawer and wrapped them around my brayer ensuring that they crossed and twisted. I then took a piece of real red cardstock and after rubbing it with the embossing buddy to remove static, inked up my brayer with versamark and rolled it across the card in a couple of directions. Then I sprinkled on gold embossing powder and heated it. It creates a very cool looking custom made DSP.

Stampin' Up! Butterflies Thinlits Dies

Whilst I was contemplating what could stand up to this background, the mailman brought me the Stampin’ Up! Butterflies Thinlits dies and I knew I had to use them immediately! I cut out the middle sized butterfly in real red and in gold foil. I’ve heard that you can use dryer sheets so that you don’t have to poke out all the cutouts but I found that I got dryer debris on my cutting plates and on the die. I decided to just poke out the pieces with my piercing tool. I cut another piece of real red just large enough to fit the butterflies. I glued the gold foil butterfly flat to the card stock and then attached the real red butterfly just in the middle so that the wings give a three dimensional effect.

Stampin' Up! Butterflies Thinlits Dies

I mounted this onto a base of real red. I decided that this card needed a slightly larger envelope so as to not crush the butterfly’s wings. I took a piece of 8.5″ by 8.5″ real red card stock and using the envelope punch board created a 4.5″ by 6″ envelope. I used sticky strip to glue the envelope together and did so fairly loosely so that there’s a bit of extra room. It fits perfectly! I then embossed the envelope flap to match the background.

Real red envelope with gold embossed flap