Monthly Archives: November 2015

Spritzed Embellished Ornaments

1 Reply

I’m still having fun with my water spritzer and enjoying sharing the amazing variety of effects that it produces.

Stampin' Up! Embellished Ornaments

I began this card by covering the stamp from Embellished Ornaments completely in silver ink and then dabbed on some lost lagoon and watermelon wonder using sponges – and being careful not to contaminate the ink pads by getting enough ink onto the sponges before starting. Then I spritzed the stamp with two sprays of water using the spritzer – the lost lagoon ink IS there, it’s just blended in really well with the silver. I then cut this out using the Delicate Ornament thinlits dies, also cutting out the ornament topper and hook out of silver foil. I cut out the hook from the back of the silver foil paper so that it was pointing in the other direction. Somehow it felt wrong having the hook point to the left when the ornament was angled that way too.

Next I used my embossing buddy on the corner of a watermelon wonder cardbase and then stamped the sentiment, also from Embellished Ornaments, in versamark before sprinkling on the silver embossing powder and heating. Then I glued on the ornament using the multipurpose glue. I finished off the card by cutting out the liner using the envelope liners and the 2015 in color designer series paper stack – this time I actually am showing you the other side of the paper. I usually use the words but they didn’t seem to work here for some reason.

See you tomorrow,

 

Liz

Paper Pumpkin November 2015 Alternate 2

1 Reply

Firstly I’d like to thank Lisa for selecting my card as A Cut Above at the Paper Players for last week’s challenge. My sister called me yesterday morning to tell me; since she’s in the UK she’s five hours ahead and could see this before me.

I bought the Expressions Natural Elements on a whim, not sure if they would fit my style of clean and simple cards – but they do. I was trying to create a Christmas card with blue and white and texture for the Merry Monday Challenge and somehow decided to make a Paper Pumpkin November 2015 Alternate idea. I played around for a while before realizing that the square joy stamp would make a great bauble. This is definitely an example of a card which evolved rather than being planned.

Stampin' Up! Expressions Natural Elements and Mistletoe and Holly

I stamped the joy in night of navy on whisper white and after cutting out the three baubles using a retired holiday ornaments framelits set (the circles collection could work although you’d need to add the topper from this year’s delicate ornaments dies) I realized that they weren’t going to work too well on a night of navy base. I really wanted the richness of the night of navy for the card base so I cut some whisper white circles with the bigshot and built my baubles. Then I played with ribbon and twine but nothing looked right. My box of “stuff” was in front of me and the expressions natural elements were right there. Finally a way to have the baubles be attached to something without it being too fussy. The natural look didn’t fit the card so I pressed the wooden piece into the versamark and then sprinkled the embossing powder over it. This is another time where it’s crucial to use Brian King’s tip about a metal tin lid when embossing that I referenced a couple of days ago – and I should have used my brother’s tip to put sandpaper underneath the very light and easily blown around wooden element! I glued the celebrate onto the card using the multipurpose glue. The envelope is finished off using the envelope liners framelits with the regals designer series paper stack.

 

 

See you tomorrow,

Liz

 

 

 

Balloon Bash

Leave a reply

When my sister was over recently, she brought with her a number of stamp sets and left a few here for me to play with which she’ll pick up at Christmas. So it seemed a good idea to get some use out of them! One is Balloon Bash which is now retired but we have a few other balloon sets that could substitute if you, like me, don’t possess this one. I decided to try my hand at a sketch challenge over at Can You Case It?

Stampin' Up! Birthday Bash

Here’s the sketch

CYCI#96

I decided on a sunny collection of colours – actually they are three of last year’s in colours, mossy meadow, hello honey and tangelo twist. They will retire next June so I’m trying to play with them a lot before that happens. I started with the top balloon in hello honey and then added the sentiment from Endless Birthday Wishes (love this set) in mossy meadow. This gave me the placement for the tangelo twist and mossy meadow balloons although this is actually the third time I stamped the card. The first time I managed to get a finger tip in the mossy meadow inkpad and got smudges all over, the next time I wobbled. Third time’s the charm, right? Then I had to decide on mats and card bases – I think I tried all combinations before settling on a skinny mat of hello honey on a card base of tangelo twist. Very happy for a birthday. I lined the envelope using the envelope liner thinlits with some retired backgrounds DSP in hello honey. I find that envelope liners are a great way to use up retired DSP – and I’m keen to do so because I like the new patterns in the DSP stacks. I added it in the scrolling store below so that you can see how beautiful they are. I’m fairly certain that they’ll be on my next order…

Oops – when I went over to link up my card to the challenge site, I found that I missed the deadline and they closed yesterday. Oh well, I got a new card out of it!

See you tomorrow,

 

Liz

Embellished Ornaments Challenge Card

2 Replies

I’ve been playing with the sketch for the Paper Pals challenge for a few days now. For some reason I decided that I wanted to use vellum and that was quite an added twist. I also decided that I wanted to add in the Global Design Project challenge this week which was inspiration from a card by Brian King. I picked the Christmas theme and cherry cobbler from Brian’s card as inspiration.

Stampin' Up! Embellished Ornaments and Paper Pumpkin November 2015 Mistletoe and Holly

Here’s the sketch – not an easy one for me!

pp272_A

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And Brian’s inspiration card:

I decided that the tag and backing piece were going to be a Christmas ornament with a gold foil embellishment as the tag itself. I stamped the ornament from Embellished Ornaments in cherry cobbler on very vanilla and cut it out along with the gold foil medallion using the delicate ornament thinlits dies. I carefully glued the medallion onto the ornament. That part was easy! As was cutting out the ornament top in more gold foil. Even the bow wasn’t too tricky. I then took a piece of vellum from the winter wonderland designer vellum stack and, after using the embossing buddy to prevent stray pieces of powder, stamped the sentiment in versamark. I seem to be getting a lot of use out of the sentiments in this month’s Paper Pumpkin Mistletoe and Holly kit. I then sprinkled on the cherry embossing powder and, putting the vellum onto a metal lid from a storage tin, heated it. This keeps the paper from curling – I got this tip from Brian King’s site. Wow, almost a year ago now, it’s lucky I remembered that he used a lid from a tin of shortbread. I stuck the completed ornament (minus the bow) onto the vellum.

This was when I ran into trouble. I put tiny tiny blobs of glue onto the back of the vellum using the fine glue tip pen, putting the glue where the gold spots were. Perfect. I have read that glue shows through so I was ultra careful. Except, the glue spread and showed. One ruined card.

But wait, maybe I could save some! I cut out the gold ornament topper with the dies first and then the rest of the ornament so that I could piece them back together. Then I left them alone for a few days!

Yesterday I made another embossed piece of vellum and tried cutting glue dots small enough to hide them behind the gold spots. Have you ever tried cutting our glue dots into five pieces? I wouldn’t recommend it. I finally had inspiration – mostly, I think, due to the fact that I hadn’t yet trimmed the vellum down from the 6 inch width. I cut another piece of cherry cobbler at 1/4″ smaller than the cardbase and wrapped the vellum around this securing it on the back with fast fuse. I added the pieced together ornament and added the gold bow with a glue dot – well I had to use them somewhere, they had been tossed aside previously. With no glue showing through, I happily glued the piece of cherry cobbler to the cardbase.

 

 

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Jingle All The Way

2 Replies

Happy Thanksgiving to anyone who is celebrating it today although I’m sharing a Christmas card today! However I am thankful to my sister for bringing this card with her earlier this month because I then had her show me how she made it. I changed it a little by refusing to add glitter. If you want to see her version, here’s the link.

Stampin' Up! Jingle All the Way and Sleigh Ride Edgelits dies

First we made the background by sponging blushing bride onto whisper white going up about a third of the way up the card. Then we added lost lagoon and finally night of navy. We then used a water spritzer and sprayed the card a couple of times to get the starry effect. If you wanted more, you could wet your fingers and flick more water at the card, but I stopped with a couple of spritzes. We put the background aside to dry, weighed down with the wooden stamp set. Then we cut out the trees in both whisper white and night of navy. Caro had already cut the card to the appropriate heights – the night of navy is shorter than the whisper white. I love how the sentiments in Jingle all the way match with the curve of the Sleigh Ride edgelits and picked silent night this time. After that it was a matter of constructing the card. I lined the envelope using the regals designer series paper and the envelope liners framelits.

Caro has made a dozen or so of these and says that they are all different which I can easily believe. The three that Caro, Julia and I made at the crop were all different.

It’s been quite a rough year but of course there have also been a lot of things about which to be grateful and today is a good day to reflect on them. I was extremely lucky to be able to spend about 8 weeks in Spain at the beginning of the year when I was between jobs. I met some great people and learned some Spanish and had a really wonderful time. I know that a lot of people wouldn’t have had that option. I’m grateful that I found a new job and one that I really like – especially with the short commute – where the people are great and were tremendously kind when my mother died. I’m also thankful that the interviewer I feared the most (due to it being on the phone which I do not like, thankfully there was only one of those) has become a good friend of mine. I’m thankful that I can still run after dropping a sushi knife on my foot. It could have been much worse than tendon surgery. And I’m very thankful that I have found card making. Playing with ink and card and stamps (and writing about it) is tremendously satisfying. I never imagined that I was at all creative and exploring this creative side is exciting.

I’m also thankful that I finally got my online shop working along with the scrolling list of products that you’d need to create this card.

So what are you thankful for today?

See you tomorrow,

Liz