Monthly Archives: May 2016

Remarkable You

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I have been meaning to play with Remarkable You for a while and today I realised that if I took off the stalk, it would look like a waterlily. And that sounded like fun.

Stampin' Up! Remarkable You and Tin of Cards

This is a set that I’m happy is making it to the new catalogue. I meant to have a watercoloured background of water or leaves but somehow that didn’t make it to the end result.

I stamped the flower from Remarkable You in melon mambo on very vanilla and then used an aquapainter to put a really pale wash of the same colour onto the flower. I then snipped it out – not as bad as it looks. Next I stamped the thanks, from Watercolour Wishes (yes again, I keep using this set!) in melon mambo and then the border comes from Tin of Cards. I love this border, I’ve only used it a couple of times so far but it creates a beautiful frame. Next I popped up my flower with dimensionals and that’s my almost one layer card done.

Stampin' Up! Remarkable You and Tin of Cards

To make the envelope interesting, I dry embossed the envelope flap with the retired Spring Flowers TIEF. I’m getting in practice for the retirement of the envelope liners framelits!

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Picture Perfect for my sister

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Today is the start of a new month at CAS Colours & Sketches which means that it’s time for a new challenge hostess. This month it’s my sister Caro’s turn and she’s chosen to do a farewell to some of the retiring in colours.

Stampin' Up! Picture Perfect and Watercolor Wishes

Here’s the banner which inspired my card.

Of course, I first thought about flowers or sunsets but it just wasn’t coming together for me and I was determined to make a card that didn’t look autumnal even though these colours hint at it. Then I noticed Picture Perfect in my “staging” area and decided to play with that. I have the majority of my stamp sets in another room but I have a box that my father built for me that holds about 20 sets that I keep on my table and store my “just used” or “thinking about using” sets. Hummingbirds come in an incredible array of colours, some of which look completely unnatural and improbable (just check google), so I felt that I could use these colours to make a fun bird. It also really highlights mossy meadow which is my favourite of these three colours.

It’s a 2 step stamp, officially, although 4 step stamping would be more accurate! I stamped the three body images all in mossy meadow, stamping off twice for the first one, once for the next and full strength for the last. I decided to reuse the “throat” stamp on the wing to add in the hello honey – an idea that I saw on Brandys cards. The sentiment is from the set that is currently my favourite for sentiments – Watercolor Wishes. After stamping the sentiment in mossy meadow, I glued the very vanilla piece to a mossy meadow card base.

I lined the envelope with retired mossy meadow backgrounds DSP using the (retiring) envelope liners framelits. I hope that you’ll take a look at the CAS Colours & Sketches challenge site this week and admire the inspiration from the rest of the Design Team and then have a go yourself with these colours. It would be great to see your card in the gallery.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Paper Pumpkin – sign up now!

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There’s a week left for you to sign up for Paper Pumpkin to get this month’s kit in a box. If you’ve been following my blog for a while (and thank you if you have, and welcome if you’re new!) you know that I enjoy playing with the stamp set that is shipped in each kit and coming up with alternate designs and uses for it. One of the fun things about Paper Pumpkin is that the kit is always a surprise. Some of us like surprises, others like to know what’s coming and this month we have a sneak peek. It was revealed at the Stampin’ Up! onstage event last month and so there’s also a peek for people who didn’t go. This means if you’d put your subscription on hold for some reason, you can see that you need to activate it for this month. The cards look great. I’ve put the image right at the bottom of my post in case you’d rather be surprised.

And in case you haven’t signed up for your Paper Pumpkin yet, here are the details:

  • Each month you receive a unique, surprise kit with a project. It’s colour-coordinated and everything is pre-cut
  • Each kit includes stamps, ink, paper, accessories and instructions – everything but adhesive.
  • Each kit gives you about 30 minutes of fun
  • Your Paper Pumpkin ships around the 15th of the month.
  • You need to sign up for a kit by the 10th of the month to get that month’s kit. If you sign up on the 11th of the month, your first kit will come the next month.
  • A Paper Pumpkin subscription is just $19.95 per month (and shipping is included!) There’s no commitment, you can cancel or put your subscription on hold at any time. You can also prepay 1, 3, 6 or 12 months at a time (great gift idea) and save money with the latter 2 options.
  • Just click on the Paper Pumpkin button on the left hand side to join up.
  • Once you’re a Paper Pumpkin subscriber, you can buy previous kits as supplies last.

If you sign up and name me as your demonstrator, I’ll send you a free gift from me. I’m going to the post office on Saturday to mail a thank you to my newest signee, why not add your name to my thank you list?

Here’s the sneak peek that I mentioned, scroll down…

 

 

 

 

keep going…

 

 

 

 

 

a bit further so that I can be sure you really want to see it…

 

 

 

 

 

 

Doesn’t it look like a lot of fun? Those laser cut cards (there are eight of them) look amazing.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Fluttering Watercolor Wings

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So I finally used the Fluttering TIEF, I’ve had it for ages and just haven’t used it. I have no idea why. But in the shower today, I thought about spotlighting a butterfly over a matching textured background. So here it is.

Stampin' Up! Watercolor Wings and Fluttering embossing folder

I used the Fluttering TIEF on a piece of whisper white (actually also on crushed curry but that didn’t work for today’s project. I’ll use it soon) and then turned my attention to the butterfly. This one is from Watercolor Wings and it’s a two step stamp (actually three, but we never seem to call it by the actual number of steps!). I stamped the solid butterfly in crushed curry and added pumpkin pie for the edges of the wings. Then it was melon mambo for the details. I cut out a piece of melon mambo 1/16 inch bigger to frame this. The textured piece of whisper white is mounted onto a melon mambo card base and the butterfly is popped up with dimensionals.

The envelope is lined using the envelope liners whilst they are still non-retired and the brights retired backgrounds DSP stack. It’s an easy way to dress up an envelope.

I noticed this morning whilst browsing the pre-order items (a perk of being a demonstrator) that there’s a new punch coming out called Sprinkles. It cuts out the confetti that I cut yesterday using the Party Pop-up thinlits dies – much easier to use a punch. I’m going to wait until tomorrow to put in my preorder when cutting blades will be available. But soon I’ll have my hands on the new incolours. Can’t wait!

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Party Pop-up thinlits dies for CASology

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The current challenge at CASology is Sprinkles. I fully intended to use the Sprinkles for Life set (obvious right?) and was undecided as to whether to go for the cupcake sprinkles or the rain when I remembered that I’d been planning on playing with the Party Pop-up thinlits dies. They are being carried forward to the new catalogue so I felt I should celebrate by using them. So I’m going with sprinkles in a confetti type way. Hope that’s okay for the challenge and that it’s CAS enough.

Stampin' Up! Party Pop-up Thinlit dies

I used the Party Pop-up thinlits dies on a piece of card stock that happened to be sitting next to my big shot – turns out it’s tangerine tango. I wanted to see how it looked as a front to a card. I trimmed the edges of the piece so that it actually popped out and cut off the piece making it into a word bubble. I then decided it needed some contrast behind the card and picked gold foil. Perfect. Except the piece needed to go on more tangerine tango but overall it seemed a bit bare. So I cut out another few pieces of the party pop-out thinlit with gold foil so that I could add the curly gold and the stars to the edges of the card. I popped the main piece up with dimensionals. The envelope is lined using retiring in colour DSP and the envelope liner framelits.

Stampin' Up! Party Pop-up Thinlit dies

I used the hostess set, Happy Birthday Everyone for the inside, stamping the sentiment in tangerine tango on very vanilla. I love this sentiment – you need it. Really. And it’s retiring at the end of the month so you need to grab it asap. I added some spare gold foil curly ribbons cut out with the die to embellish it.

Stampin' Up! Party Pop-up Thinlit dies

See you tomorrow,

Liz