Monthly Archives: June 2016

Blooms and Wishes for CAS C&S

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Happy Thursday which means another challenge at CAS Colours & Sketches. It’s the fifth Thursday in the month so it’s a double challenge – colours AND a sketch. I got to use a couple of new and so far unused sets, Blooms and Wishes and Penned & Painted and I can see a lot of use for these sets in the near future.

Stampin' Up! Blooms & Wishes and Penned & Painted and Endless Birthday Wishes

Here’s the banner which inspired my card.

Fun right? I’ll be interested to hear how the rest of the design team cut their curve. I used a plate and my piercing tool and then used paper snips. Once I’d cut my curved piece of whisper white, I stamped my images, the flower in bermuda bay from Blooms and Wishes and the ladybird and centre of the flower from Penned & Painted using melon mambo and daffodil delight. Next I took the Endless Birthday Wishes set and curved the photopolymer stamps for the greeting to match the curve of my card. After stamping that in the right place, I attached my homemade DSP with the tombow glue.

Don’t forget that today is the last day to take advantage of two Stampin’ Up! offers  – firstly if your order (you can club together with friends) is over $350 you get an extra $35 in Stampin’ Rewards on top of the 12% that you already get. So if you hit $350 right on the nose, you’d get $77 in free stuff! The other offer ending today is if you join as a Stampin’ Up! demonstrator. As usual you get $125 of product for just $99 with free shipping (a $12.50 value) but you also get to add two free stamp sets to your completely customisable starter kit. Depending upon which sets you choose, that’s just over $100 of more free stuff. And if you never buy another thing, that’s fine. Or if you do choose to buy, just $300 of sales (sales to yourself are included) keeps you enjoying a 20% discount. It sounds too good to be true, but it’s not!! Just go to the Become a Stampin’ Up! Demonstrator page over on the left to join up.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

 

 

Love You Lots

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Apologies for the lack of posting yesterday, it was the second day in a row that I awoke to no power. And after a day at work followed by a mandatory work event, it was pretty late when I got home and hardly worth posting. So here’s the card showcasing another stamp from the Love You Lots hostess set that I’d intended to post yesterday.

Stampin' Up! Love You Lots

This is all one stamp and I love the elephant and his friend the mouse; it’s a totally adorable image. Here I made a general card that I can add a sentiment to the inside when I come to use it. I stamped the image in my favourite archival basic black and, after leaving it for a few minutes to ensure that it was really dry, used smoky slate and an aquapainter to colour it in. To give them something to stand on, I used pear pizzazz and layered the colour three times (with drying times in between) so that I have dimension rather than a flat wash of colour. Before putting my watercolour paper on a pear pizzazz card base, I added a mat of basic black which is just 1/8 inch larger than the watercolour paper. And it’s that easy – a quick clean and simple adorable card. As I said earlier in the week, you need this Love You Lots set!

See you tomorrow,

Liz

 

Paper Pumpkin June 2016 Alternate 3

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So here’s my Paper Pumpkin June 2016 alternate 3 using the washi tape as I’d promised. In fact, I let the washi tape dictate the complete colour scheme but I took the layout from the current challenge at Freshly Made Sketches.

Stampin' Up! Paper Pumpkin Banner Surprise

And here’s the banner which inspired my card

I’d been contemplating what to do with some of the washi tape from this month’s Paper Pumpkin kit and this sketch seemed perfect. I started by adding a strip of the washi to my thick whisper white card. Then I stamped the sentiment from the kit in peekaboo peach and followed that by using versamark and gold embossing powder. I punched it out with a 2 inch punch. For the second circle, I decided on a smaller piece of peekaboo peach with the second stamp from the kit embossed in gold aswell – it’s punched out with the 1 3/4″ inch punch. I glued the peach circle down but popped up the main element using dimensionals. My sister Caro had told me that she’d recently tried washi as an envelope decoration, so I tried that. Although I miss the envelope liners (and chances are that if there isn’t an envelope photographed, it’s likely using a liner), I now think more about liners rather than just automatically dressing up the envelope that way. That’s a good thing!

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Love You Lots hostess set

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I was intending to play with washi tape for today’s card, but yesterday afternoon I was showing Julia the new stamp sets that I got earlier this month. And I realised that I haven’t yet played with Love You Lots. It’s one of the hostess sets which means that it’s only available using Stampin’ Rewards but it also means it’s very good value. The 8 piece set was just $9. This set also lends itself perfectly to the current challenge at CAS on Sunday, which is black, white plus one colour.

Stampin' Up! Love You Lots

I started by watercolouring the image until I realised that I was just layering on more red to get to what is full strength real red so what was the point? Especially when I layered a little impatiently without waiting for the previous layer to dry and the edges started to blur. So I stamped the image using the archival basic black onto ordinary whisper white card stock, coloured it in with a real red stampin’ write marker and cut a black square at 2 1/8 inches to give a small frame to my 2 inch square of whisper white. I then positioned the image and used my stamp-a-ma-jig to get the sentiment where I wanted it. Only after that was done successfully did I add the image to the card, popped up with dimensionals. I’d like to say that my stamp was still inked up and so I used it for the envelope, but actually I’d already cleaned it. I’m sure the extra cleaning – and thus conditioning – is good for the new stamp! I’ve a good mind to go and play with the rest of the adorable images in this set now.

Whatever you’re doing, I hope you’re having a fun weekend. I’m going to spend the afternoon crafting.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Seaside Shore and By The Shore DSP

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I’m really late posting today – I intended to do so this morning but the week has been long and full of hard work and I was unable to finish my card and post it before my hair cut appointment. After that I went for lunch and a pedicure with my friend Julia amid lots of laughter and conversation including some about stamping. And that’s always fun. Julia loved the Seaside Shore set and was impressed with my sea like background – I had to admit it’s from the By The Shore DSP! I love how it gets darker, it’s perfect for a sea shot where the light disappears the further down you go.

Stampin' Up! Seaside Shore and By the Shore DSP

I used a trick that I recently saw somewhere about making new stamps work better. It’s to use versamark, wipe it off on your hand and then use the stamp pad. I didn’t go with the “wipe it off on your hand” method, but stamped it numerous times so that the versamark disappeared and then used the archival basic black. It seemed to work fine and I didn’t end up with a sticky hand, but it definitely did improve the intensity of ink when stamping. Then I used my daffodil delight stampin’ write marker to colour in the rest of the fish.

I glued my piece of By The Shore DSP to a card base of dapper denim and then positioned the angels. A fun card that I could use for many occasions – I’ll add the sentiment to the inside when I need it and thus can tailor it to the occasion.

See you tomorrow,

Liz