Monthly Archives: February 2015

A cold and snowy sheltering tree

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Inspired by yesterday’s eight inches or so of snow, I pulled out the Stampin’ Up! Sheltering Tree set and proceeded to do a wintery scene. Although a white background would have given the impression of lots of snow and cold, I wanted to have white snowflakes and a white snowbank so that wasn’t going to work. Hence I have used soft sky. I think it looks chilly enough with all the white and the stark tree which is stamped in early espresso.

Stampin' Up! Sheltering Tree

Once I’d stamped the tree, and after re-inking my versamark inkpad, I stamped the bank from the set a few times and sprinkled on the white embossing powder. I then carefully stamped the little snowflake images in versamark as well before using more of the white embossing powder. As I was heating the powder, I realised that due to re-inking my inkpad, I’d got out of the heat embossing routine and forgotten to use the embossing buddy. Normally if such a thing happened, I’d redo the card but since I’m stamping snow, I decided that little spots of extra white made sense. Next time I’ll re-ink the inkpad after doing my heat embossing rather than before.

The sentiment – also stamped in early espresso – comes from the same set and then I mounted the soft sky on a base of more early espresso.

Crazy about bordering blooms

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I’m trying not to ignore my stamp sets from the annual catalogue for the new ones in the Occasions 2015 one and today pulled out the Stampin’ Up! Bordering Blooms set and decided to ink up a stamp that I haven’t used before. I couldn’t quite make a card with just the older sets and confess that I also used the Crazy about you set from the new Occasions catalogue! As I have mentioned, I was in Barcelona for three weeks to learn Spanish and it was fantastic. The people there are warm and friendly and I decided I needed to make some thank you cards. I stayed in Gloria’s house, with a number of other students, and she is a delight. She intimidated me hugely to start with since I could barely understand one word in twenty but by the end of the three weeks, we sat happily at the table chatting away in Spanish (mostly – my fellow students and I had to exchange a few words in English) for several hours. I’m not saying that I’m fluent, – far from it! – I have to deduce some of the content. But anyway, Gloria, this one’s for you.

Stampin' Up! Bordering blooms

I stamped the image from the bordering blooms in memento black on whisper white card stock. The leaves are coloured in the two lightest shades of the old olive blendabilities. The flowers are coloured in all three shades of the rich razzleberry. I cropped the image fairly severely (more so than my original intention) and bordered it with basic black 3/8 bigger in all dimensions. Currently I’m concentrating on having different sized borders and frames for some fun. I also stamped the Thanks from the Crazy About You set in memento black. The card base is old olive. There’s another unused stamp in this set, I think that will be inked up soon.

 

Happy February

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I’m a bit late posting today; I got back yesterday from three weeks of Spanish school in Barcelona and although I managed to schedule all the posts for whilst I was away, I didn’t have time to get a few extras done to allow for jet lag!

I was happy with the Hello January card from last month so I decided to continue the theme. This card uses the Stampin’ Up! Hello You thinlits dies and the Perpetual Birthday calendar stamp set. The base is real red and the very vanilla piece is 3/4 inch smaller in both dimensions. I had intended on adding another layer of blushing bride but it just seemed too much after the stamping. I used the heart stamp from the Perpetual birthday calendar and stamped in real red and blushing bride. The February also comes from the Perpetual birthday calendar stamp set. The happy is of course cut out from real red using the Hello You thinlits dies. I have had a lot of success by running the die through the big shot half a dozen times before trying to coax the card off the die. I was also going to add some of the heart stickers from the perpetual birthday calendar kit but that seemed to be overkill.

Stampin' Up! Hello You thinlits dies

If you ever get the opportunity to go to another country to learn another language do it! It was an amazing experience. It was pretty scary the first day, being in a country where I could basically just ask for water, wine or the check but really, what more do you need?! It was incredible how quickly I learned to understand and speak more. The people in Barcelona are extremely nice and friendly and generous. They all seemed so delighted that I was making the effort to speak in Spanish, that they would patiently wait as I stumbled through my phrases. I’ve made a number of new friends and if I could, I’d go back tomorrow!