Monthly Archives: May 2016

Balloon Framelits dies for CAS C&S

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It’s Thursday which means it’s time for another challenge at CAS Colours & Sketches. Since it’s the fourth Thursday in the month, it’s time for a sketch challenge which rounds out my sister’s first month as challenge hostess.

Stampin' Up! Balloon framelits dies and endless birthday wishes

Here’s the banner which inspired my card

I decided earlier in the week that I wanted to have a bunch of balloons but the challenge was going to be how to make five sizes! I started with the balloon framelits dies and the orange corrugated paper from this month’s Paper Pumpkin kit. I’m not sure whether using just the paper really counts as a Paper Pumpkin May 2016 alternate though. [Edit: After discussion with my sister, we decided it counts!] I cut out the first balloon and then turned to the circles collection of framelits. I cropped a circle smaller than the balloon in pacific point and then used the balloon framelits dies to cut the neck of the balloon. This made a fairly odd shaped balloon and required a little trimming with my paper snips. I then repeated the process using smaller and smaller circles until I had my five balloons.

I decided to have the balloon strings be gathered at a point off the card, so to ensure that it looked consistent, I used post-it tape to anchor my card a little and placed an X on my grid paper for where the strings would gather. Then I glued the balloons on with their necks pointing towards the X with the smallest one popped up with a dimensional . I then used the string from Balloon Celebration which I stamped in archival basic black.

Stampin' Up! Balloon framelits dies and endless birthday wishes

To finish off the card, I added one of my favourite sentiments from Endless Birthday Wishes in pacific point and then, just as I was about to photograph the card, I added the epoxy star which is one of the embellishments in the Itty Bitty Accents Epoxy Stickers pack.

I hope that you’ll head over to the CAS Colours & Sketches blog to have a look at the inspiration from the rest of the design team and to have a go at the challenge yourself. You don’t have to have a blog to take part, you can upload to public galleries and link to your card there.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Swirly Scribbles Mondrian style

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I’m having a lot of fun with the Swirly Scribbles thinlits dies as you’ve probably noticed. Piet Mondrian was a dutch painter who was known for what he termed neoplasticism – drawings of vertical and horizontal black lines over a white background with the addition of three primary colours. The Paper Pumpkin alternates that I’ve been making lately using the white die cuts reminded me of Mondrian’s work and I decided to use the same idea using the Swirly Scribbles thinlits dies.

Stampin' Up! Swirly Scribbles thinlits and Endless Birthday wishes

So I started by using the Swirly Scribbles thinlits die to cut out the shape in basic black. Then, since I was on a dapper denim kick, I cut it out with that card stock and then also daffodil delight and real red. I used my two way glue pen to glue the piece of basic black to the thick whisper white and trimmed off the ends with my paper snips. Next I took the cut outs in the three primary colours and added them to the card. I decided to leave a couple blank for a more Mondrian like effect. Then comes a demonstration of why I love photopolymer stamps – not only can you see where you’re placing them, but you can bend them. I took the celebrate stamp from Endless Birthday wishes and bent it to match the curve of the thinlits and stamped it in real red.

I bought these thinlits because I loved the circular scribbles but I’ve barely used those yet because I keep using this shape!

There’s less than a week to go to the new catalogue – and thus less than a week left to get the retiring items from last year’s catalogue. Make sure that you have everything that you need from that one before it’s too late!

See you tomorrow – around 8am when a new challenge at CAS Colour & Sketches is revealed,

Liz

Paper Pumpkin May 2016 Alternate 3

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Here’s my third Paper Pumpkin May 2016 alternate – I’m still playing with the awesome die cut card fronts. This one is a lot of fun to make and can be done in any variety of colours. As you may have noticed (!), I’m enjoying using Dapper Denim, one of the upcoming in colours, and this time I paired it with emerald envy (sure to be another favourite) and elegant eggplant. A really rich combination.

Stampin' Up! Many Manly Occasions

I started by grabbing a piece of whisper white, just 1/8 inch smaller than the base and then cut strips of card in dapper denim, emerald envy and elegant eggplant which are 9/16 of inch wide. I positioned a long strip of elegant eggplant (the piercing tool is great for help here, reaching through the die cut front) and one of the strips at 90 degrees to it. Once I had those positioned, I didn’t need to worry and just had fun adding strips to the whisper white. I did check every now and then, that this really was going to work and the 9/16″ was the perfect width and it still looked good. But here’s what my whisper white looked like when I finished:

strips on whisper white for inside of card

As you can see, I just added strips snugged up to their neighbours and it was so easy. Obviously I checked the overall look to help determine whether the gaps needed to be filled in or not before finishing. I then added glue dots to the four corners and to the solid band across the front of the card and glued down the coloured piece. Next was the sentiment which is made up of two stamps from the Many Manly Occasions Paper Pumpkin set, stamped in emerald envy.

I lined the envelope using the envelope liners framelits (retiring) and the retired backgrounds DSP in elegant eggplant. I do have the newer non-retired regals DSP stack but I still have some of the old ones to use up.

I hope that you’re having as much fun as I am playing with this kit!

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Swirly Scribbles for CASology

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I’ve been having a lot of fun playing with the new thinlit dies, Swirly Scribbles and it seemed to pair really well with CASology‘s current challenge.

Stampin' Up! Swirly Scribbles and Hello You

Here’s the banner which inspired this card

I cut out the shape using basic black because it was handy (and sturdy) and tried to use it as a stencil. It was too easy to go over the edges and add extra sweet sugarplum where I didn’t want it so I started again. I still had the remains of the dapper denim that I’d cut out with the dies and I made my own extended stencil. I was going to try to describe this but figured that a picture is worth a thousand words!

Stampin' Up! Swirly Scribbles

Since the die is longer than you need for a standard sized card, it was easy to use some post it tape to keep the die steady in its frame. And as you can see in the photo, there was no longer any need to be as careful with my sponging – the edges were now protected. After I’d used a sponge dauber to sponge on the sweet sugarplum, I removed the stencil and moved it up the card and repeated the process. I really think that the Swirly Scribbles are going to be extremely popular so if you love them, I’d suggest ordering on June 1 to avoid backorder disappointment.

I had intended to use a sweet sugarplum card base but having sponged on very vanilla, the colours weren’t matching perfectly so I switched to dapper denim (fast becoming a favourite) and used the same to cut out the thanks from the Hello You thinlits dies.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Paper Pumpkin May 2016 Alternate 2

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I’m a little late posting today – it’s my father’s 83rd birthday and the first one since we lost my mother last year. He and I went for a fairly emotional walk to the nearby Arboretum which the two of them visited fairly frequently. He approved today’s card and said he preferred it to the one in the Paper Pumpkin May 2016 kit, so I’m calling that a win. I’m really enjoying playing with the die cut cards provided in the kit – I’m going to have a lot of the corrugated orange left because this is my third card that hasn’t used it (I have another all ready to share).

Stampin' Up! Paper Pumpkin May 2016 Many Manly Occasions

The colour inspiration came from CAS on Sunday – the directive is to use white cardstock and three of the following colours:

I’m surprised – and pleased – to find how well blushing bride and mint macaron go together – I’ll have to try them again some time. But, how did I make the sort of Mondrian inspired card? I say sort of Mondrian inspired because he was known for black lines with primary colour blocks – I tried primary colours first, but the white just wasn’t working. This was when I decided to try pastels and realised that the colour palette at CAS on Sunday was perfect.

So first I cut strips of mint macaron, blushing bride and bermuda bay at 9/16 inch wide (just one notch over the half inch on the Stampin’ trimmer)  and made some of them 9/16″  long, other 1 1/8″ inch long and one 3 7/16″. I then took a piece of whisper white 4″ by 5.25″ and placed it inside the card and guessed where I wanted my squares and rectangles. I found that the paper piercing tool was awesome for nudging them around. When I had the colours where I wanted them, I opened the card and made light pencil marks at the corners of one of the blocks of colour. I then put a bit of glue on the back and stuck it down. After the third block, I noticed that things weren’t quite lined up and had to pull off a square to redo it. At this point, I had a “duh” moment and realised that I should stick my piece of whisper white to the card temporarily. So I used post-it tape for this – it worked perfectly.

Once I had all my colour blocks glued down, I added a few circles of post-it tape underneath the piece of whisper white to temporarily hold it to the card base. Then I added glue dots across the central piece and at the corners and the whisper white was perfectly placed. It was easy to open the card and remove the post-it tape.

Stampin' Up! Paper Pumpkin May 2016 Many Manly Occasions

I decided that the card needed a big Happy in mint macaron, using the Hello You thinlits dies as yesterday and the birthday from the Paper Pumpkin May 2016 kit stamped in Bermuda Bay. I finished off the envelope with last year’s in colors DSP stack and the envelope liners.

See you tomorrow,

Liz