Monthly Archives: March 2016

Paper Pumpkin February 2016 Alternate 8

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I think this is a record – here is Paper Pumpkin February 2016 Alternate EIGHT! After reading my usual blogs this morning, which includes Brian King’s, I decided to make a card for the same challenge that he mentioned – Fab Friday and to also add the extra challenge he undertook – use the soft pastels without making a baby card! My Paper Pumpkin February 2016 set was still out on my table and, inspired by Brian, decided to make my own background.

Stampin' Up! Paper Pumpkin February 2016 Hello Sunshine

Here’s the banner for the challenge

Using just the one stamp from the Hello Sunshine set, I stamped randomly in the three colours, filling the space but with not too much overlapping. I wanted the image to show, not just create texture. Once I’d completely filled my piece of very vanilla I tried it on all three card bases and mint macaron won. I was just about to stamp the happy birthday in mint macaron too but it was just a bit too predictable and I also remembered that I have enamel dots in mint macaron. So I changed the colour of the sentiment (also from the Paper Pumpkin kit) to use blushing bride and added three of the enamel dots.I then popped up the sentiment with dimensionals.

Of course I have to do something to the envelope, and rather than cutting out an envelope liner, I decided to stamp the flap of the envelope in the same way as the background.

Stampin' Up! Paper Pumpkin February 2016 - Hello Sunshine

As with the card background, I stamped off once before stamping onto the envelope flap.

I’m most definitely not short of DSP but it is fun to make your own backgrounds. There are masses of stamps that you could do this kind of thing with if you didn’t get the Paper Pumpkin kit last month.

It’s only 5 days until this month’s cut off for Paper Pumpkin. If you’re signed up by the 10th, you’ll get the March kit, if you sign up after that, you have to wait until April. And since the 3 month prepaid is on sale – and gets you a freebie from the Sale-a-bration brochure, why wait?

Have a great Saturday!

See you tomorrow,

Liz

 

 

Balloon Celebration

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As you’ve probably noticed, I really love the Balloon Celebration set. This is a bit of a surprise to me – obviously I expected to like it otherwise I wouldn’t have bought it, but I didn’t expect to use it quite as much as I have. I used it so much that a couple of weeks ago my sister Caro (blog here) said that if I did another design card using it, I’d probably get a cheeky comment! I forgot to ask how many weeks I needed to restrain myself before balloons were allowed again… 🙂

This card is using the colour palette from a February challenge where I made a number of balloon cards. It really shows how a card is changed by using a different card base.

Stampin' Up! Balloon Celebration and Sky is the Limit

Here’s a previous card but on a white background which gives is a totally different feel.

Stampin' Up! Balloon Celebration and Sky is the limit and Softly Fallling TIEF

So my point today is that it is worth taking the time to try out different card bases to get the look that you want. I almost always try out combinations of different mats and card bases.

To continue with today’s card. To save you looking back, the colours are melon mambo, pumpkin pie and pink pirouette and I stamped the design on each balloon in the same ink as the card

Balloon celebration bubbles

I used the balloon bouquet punch to punch them out and then positioned them over the strings that I stamped in my favourite black, the archival basic black. On this card, the strings came together in one place so they look like an organised bunch (a bow was too much over the top there) whereas on the previous card, the balloons looked as if they’d been let go and were floating off, separating from each other. In my opinion anyway!

The sentiment is from the retiring Sale-a-bration set, Sky is the Limit, but when I checked just now, it’s still available. If you want it, snap it up quickly. The typeface of the sentiments is beautiful. I then mounted the whisper white piece onto a melon mambo card base.

I finished off the envelope by embossing the flap with the elegant dots embossing folder

Elegant dots tief

It’s a very quick and fun way to make a big impact.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Pedal Pusher for CC&S

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There is a new challenge starting today over at CAS Colours & Sketches and it’s a fun colour one. I had the Pedal Pushers stamp set from Sale-a-bration to play with and I decided to use that for the challenge.

Stampin' Up! Pedal Pusher and Paper Pumpkin Hello Sunshine

And here’s the banner for the challenge:

I started with a fairly wet wash of cucumber crush and mint macaron on a piece of watercolour paper. I love the watery look of the diluted wash with the two greens next to each other. Then I stamped the bicycle in the archival basic black and added the basket and the flowers. I coloured the bike with the Stampin’ Write mint macaron marker and the leaves of the flowers in cucumber crush. The flowers are coloured using real red and the aquapainter so that I have flowers coloured in varying strengths. I then realised that I should’ve stamped the sentiment before doing all my colouring, but fortunately I stamped it okay! It’s a sentiment from this month’s Paper Pumpkin Hello Sunshine.

I then matted this with a piece of basic black which is just 1/8 inch larger than the watercolour paper and mounted that onto a real red card base. I was tempted to add the butterfly from Flowering Fields but when I tested it out, realised that the butterfly was much much larger and was about the size of all the flowers put together. It would’ve looked like an alien!

I lined the envelope with the cucumber crush flower pattern from the 2015-2017 in color DSP stack and the envelope liners framelits dies. It’s yet another beautiful colour that I need to use more.

I hope that you’ll hop over to the CC&S challenge log to see the inspiration from the rest of the team and to enter a card of your own into the challenge.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

World Traveler TIEF

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We’re having a few new people join at work and so when I saw the set Welcome Words it was a no brainer to make cards to welcome them to the team. Here’s my latest, this time using my brand new World Traveler TIEF for the background.

Stampin' Up! World Traveler TIEF and Welcome Words

I happened to have a piece of pool party on my “haven’t put the odds and ends away pile” and decided to use it with the embossing folder. I love pool party with lost lagoon so quickly decided to use lost lagoon on very vanilla for my welcome banner and then border it in lost lagoon. I glued the pool party piece to a lost lagoon card base and then popped the banner up with dimensionals, using one of the lines on the embossing to help line up the banner.

I also embossed the envelope flap with the same embossing folder to match. And that’s it. A quick, clean and simple card for today. It’s funny how cards sometimes come together rapidly and sometimes take a long time. I’d spent some time last night playing with the Picture Perfect stamp set and eventually put my card to one side for later because something isn’t quite right. This card just fell together.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

#Imbringingbirthdaysback

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Happy St David’s Day.

I don’t know if you’ve heard but there’s a movement started by Stampin’ Up! training manager, Shannon West, to encourage the sending of real birthday cards. Shannon had been bemoaning the fact for years that Facebook reminds people about birthdays on the day which leads to a post wishing the celebrator a happy birthday but no real card. This year she noticed that this practice had extended to Christmas cards and she decided to post an offer. On Facebook! Anyone who wanted a birthday card from her was to let her know and she’d send one. She carved a stamp with #Imbringingbirthdaysback – she said that she wants people to join in and it’s not just hers but we’rebringingbirthdaysback doesn’t work as a hashtag and becomes werebringingbirthdaysback!

What an awesome idea. Which has grown larger than she ever expected and I believe she has close to 1500 people in her spreadsheet now. Stampin’ Up! asked how they could help and between SU and Shannon it was decided that they would manufacture her stamp and yesterday my sister alerted me to a post on Facebook saying that it would be available at midnight MT which is 2:00am here. I wanted one but I was not planning to stay up until 2. For one thing, I’d baked a batch of Mel’s Chocolate Chip Cookies and feared that if the cookies and I stayed up that late, only one of us would survive and the people in the office would not be happy! Yes, the cookies are that good.

Stampin' Up! #Imbringingbirthdaysback

Apparently this was very important to me – it does fit with my plan to send more cards this year, or perhaps I knew what was going to happen. But I happened to wake up at 2:00am on the dot. And figured – why not place an order. So I did and then went back to sleep. This morning I see that Facebook is full of people saying that they ordered their stamp and then that it was on backorder. Yes. In one night. I don’t know how many they manufactured but clearly it was an experiment since Stampin’ Up! had never done anything like this before. As of this morning, the inventory report shows that 120 are on backorder. I say, get your order in asap (item #143573) so that you get one from the next batch. And get your birthday cards ready to send!

See you tomorrow,

Liz