Monthly Archives: January 2016

Party Pop-up thinlits dies for PPA

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When I got home from work on Thursday, there was a box full of new product at the front door. Although this was my first day in the office for the week due to being sick, I could not resist a little play. I made yesterday’s card for Komal (she loved it – it’s wonderful how giving a card makes people happy) and then instead of going to bed, I had to play with the Party pop-up thinlits dies. I loved Brian’s colour combination for the Pals Paper Arts challenge this week so much that I looked through the It’s My Party DSP stack again for a suitable paper for the back of my card. It’s really simple to do – I cut the mint macaron a quarter inch smaller than the card base and folded it in half. The party pop-up dies have arrows on them that you line up with the central crease and then a roll through the big shot and you have this great pop up card.

Stampin' Up! Party pop-up thinlits dies

Just glue the DSP in place onto the melon mambo cardbase and then attach the mint macaron as well. Make sure you push the crease of the mint macaron well into the crease on the card base. The amusing thing about making this card is that after you’ve done all this, you still have the front of the card to do! Fortunately I persuaded myself to go to bed at this point.

I decided that balloons were the perfect image for the front of this happy and fun birthday card and pulled out more new items – the Balloon Celebration stamp set and it’s matching punch, balloon bouquet. You can get these as a bundle together and save 15%.

Stampin' Up! Balloon Celebration and Balloon Bouquet Punch and Party Pop-up thinlits dies and It's My Party DSP stack

I first stamped the bundle of strings in basic black and then stamped various sized balloons in mint macaron and melon mambo on scrap paper, decorating some with the bubbles. After I’d arranged the balloons, popping some up with stampin’ dimensionals I decided that I needed a sentiment. Since the balloon strings are in the middle of the card, it just didn’t work putting anything either side so it needed to be a banner. The triple banner punch came in very handy – it’s not an essential tool since you can use other punches or scissors for the banner end, but it’s makes it so much easier. The sentiment is also from the balloon celebration set.

I decorated the envelope with another piece of the same DSP as is inside the card. I just cut a strip of the DSP, glued it to the outside of the envelope and trimmed off the excess.

Here’s the banner which inspired this card

PPA-283-Jan14

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Grateful Bunch for PPA

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I’ve been trying to get back into the habit of entering challenges – over the holidays most challenge sites took a break and so I got out of the routine. But they are not only fun but sometimes push you to create better cards than usual. I’ve definitely found that it’s extremely helpful to be on a Design Team because you HAVE to make a card. There’s no deciding that the sketch or colours aren’t quite your thing. I’ve been really pleased with the two cards I’ve produced for the CAS Colours & Sketches challenges so far this year. You have been there to check out the challenges haven’t you? Today’s card is for the Pals Paper Arts challenge, a fun colour combo selected by Brian King.

Stampin' Up! Grateful Bunch and It's My Party DSP stack

The banner which inspired this challenge is

PPA-283-Jan14

and Brian pulled it from the It’s My Party DSP stack so it made sense to flip through that stack to see if anything would work with my planned flower from Grateful Bunch. I embossed the partial stem in black on watercolour paper and, using my aquapainter, coloured the leaves in mint macaron. On a piece of scrap watercolour paper, I embossed the flower which I gave a pale melon mambo wash, again with the aquapainter and then punched it out with the blossom bunch punch. I have to say that punching out watercolour paper needs serious hand strength – or just put the punch on the table and press down with your hand and arm and whole body weight. Much easier! By the way, you can get the stamp set and punch as a bundle and save 15% which is definitely the way to go.

I really liked this mint macaron print from the It’s My Party DSP stack and decided on a nice wide border around the watercolour paper before gluing that to the melon mambo card base. Definitely a fun card. I’m going to give it to Komal at work. I gave a birthday card to her buddy last week and Komal instant messaged me to let me know that her birthday is in May. I don’t think that she needs to wait until May, a Happy Friday card seems like a good idea, yes? Komal is one of the happiest people that I know, she’s very positive and always smiling. This happy card seems to really fit. I hope that she likes it.

I finished it off by lining the envelope with the same DSP so that it coordinates. I really love this DSP stack, it’s 48 sheets of happy 12 ” by 12″ designs. It’s not cheap (and in fact I split it with my sister) but it’s a lot of fun paper.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

What I love – CC&S

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It’s time for another challenge at CAS Colours & Sketches. This time a sketch. If you follow my blog, you know that I find these challenging so it was with trepidation that I started thinking about this, the first sketch that I’m doing as a Design Team member. It has morphed quite considerably from where I started!

Stampin' Up! What I Love and Happy Heart TIEF

and here’s the sketch which inspired this card

I started off with a horizontal card and a flower instead of a heart although even then I had an embossed panel with the edges of the cardbase showing. I had been wondering about a St. Valentine’s day card for my class next week when I don’t have the obvious new St. Valentine’s set and I think that’s what led me to the Happy Heart TIEF. Since this is an older TIEF, it’s not a 6 by 6 inch one and thus it forces you to make a vertical card if the whole panel is going to be embossed. The original had been a thank you card, but I suddenly remembered the lovely sentiment from the What I Love Sale-a-bration stamp set which I’ve stamped in real red. Then of course, there had to be a real red heart. I got out all three of my punches that have hearts. The hearts border punch was too small, the sweetheart punch was too big but the itty bitty accents punch was just right. 🙂

And it was easy to decide what needed to go on the inside of the card:

Stampin' Up! What I love and Happy Hearts TIEF inside of card

In this photo you can also see that I popped up the oval with stampin’ dimensionals – not only do I like the effect but it’s easier to fix it to a textured piece of card. I finished the card off by embossing the centre of the envelope flap with the same folder for coordination.

I hope that you’ll pop over to CAS Colours & Sketches and check out the rest of the inspiration provided by the Design Team as well as making your own card for this sketch.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Endless Birthday Wishes for Caro

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Today is my sister Caro’s birthday. Happy Birthday Caro! You can easily give her a present just by visiting her blog here. Thanks.

Stampin' Up! Endless Birthday Wishes and Hello You framelits

Last week I was making bokeh backgrounds for my card at CAS Colours & Sketches and I made a couple at the same time. Since the technique tends to alter the look of the ink colours due to blending, it wasn’t going to work for the challenge since I felt that the card really needed a night of navy mat. I stuck with the smoky grey cardstock though since Caro tells me that I need to get over my issue with grey. And it’s her birthday, so it’s all about her.

To make the background, I put equal numbers of dots of pool party, marina mist and smoky slate onto an E block, spritzed with water and pressed the block onto some watercolour paper. I left it to dry for about a week – not that it needs that long, but I hadn’t decided what to do with it next.

I was really pleased with the card that I made for the challenge last week, both the background and the sentiment hanging off the edge. Here’s a reminder in case you missed it

Stampin' Up! Greetings Thinlits dies

I wanted to do the same kind of thing. But, of course, different. I got out the Hello You thinlits dies and cut out the happy in night of navy and then with my fingers crossed, stamped birthday (from Endless Birthday Wishes) onto the watercolour paper. I then cut out the end loop of the y in happy from watercolour paper and a scrap of night of navy and built up a support for where that loop falls off the watercolour paper. Then it was a simple matter of constructing the card – I’m a fan of fast fuse for attaching watercolor paper securely, the 2-way glue pen for fiddly gluing and the multipurpose glue for everything else. I lined the envelope the same as the previous card – using the Neutrals designer series paper stack and the envelope liners framelits. I hope that Caro approves.

See you tomorrow when it’s time for another challenge over at CAS Colours & Sketches. In order to schedule my post with that of the challenge, it will go live just before 8am EST.
Liz

Hello Birthday Girl

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Here’s a quick and easy birthday card using some of the smaller stamps in the Sale-a-bration set, Hello. It’s easy for the big hello in the set to overshadow the others.

Stampin' Up! Hello

I knew that I wanted the sentiment to be surrounded (somewhat) by the fun birthday hats so I stamped that first (in rich razzleberry). Then I added the pacific point hats and lastly the rich razzleberry ones. Unusually, all freehand since that seems to suit the hat. I glued the piece of whisper white to a pacific point card base and that was it. Very quick, very CAS (Clean and Simple).

You could buy all the supplies for this card (just click on the scrolling store below) and it would be enough to get the stamp set free. You’d have enough card to make 48 cards with a lot of the whisper white left over and many more options for cards with the stamp set. Sale-a-bration is a fun time! Not only can you earn freebies but if you become a Stampin’ Up! demonstrator during this time, you get extra in your customised starter kit.  There are 11 freebie offerings at the moment with another limited offer batch to arrive on February 16th, the same day that three of the items (including today’s stamp set) are no longer available.