Monthly Archives: August 2016

Merry Medley for a sneak peek

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It’s a bit early for Christmas cards, but I couldn’t resist playing with some of my new goodies. Don’t worry, I’m not switching completely into Christmas mode – I’ve got some new sets from the upcoming holiday catalog which aren’t necessarily Christmassy, but Merry Medley is nothing else!

Stampin' Up! Merry Medley

Merry Medley is one huge stamp – the set consists of a single background stamp and whilst it’s available in clear mount or wood, I’d go for the wood. My favourite types of stamps are photopolymer and after that I tend to go for clear – they are cheaper and take up less space on my shelf. But for background stamps, they are much easier to handle in wood. I also get wood if there are loads of tiny images – especially sentiments that I might use a lot.

I used my stamp-a-ma-jig to line up the image and after stamping off once on scrap paper, stamped in cherry cobbler onto very vanilla. Somehow this paler intensity seems to give an old fashioned look. I decided, unusually for me, that all the card needed to finish it, was a bow. I used one of the two ribbons in the new 3/8″ taffeta ribbon combo pack (the other is emerald envy) and glued a strip around the very vanilla piece before gluing it to a cherry cobbler card base. Then I tied a little bow and attached it with a glue dot.

I hope that you enjoyed the sneak peek of two of the new products; tomorrow will probably be another, but this time non-Christmassy!

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Hang Your Stocking

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Yes, my order from the holiday catalog came – what made you guess?! I didn’t get to play with it as much as I planned because I was cooking Martin’s birthday dinner and also his college room-mate came for the weekend which means we play a bunch of board games. Loads of fun but my fingers were itching to play with my new carding supplies. But I also wanted to save the world from epidemics – we play Pandemic a lot and I love it. So here’s my first card using the Hang Your Stocking stamp set and matching Christmas Stockings Thinlits Dies.

Stampin' Up! Hang Your Stocking - Christmas Stockings Thinlits Dies

I cut a bunch of solid stockings and decorative ones and played around getting the look I wanted. I fairly quickly decided that it looked too busy if all the stockings were completely on the card. Martin suggested just two – hasn’t he heard of the rule of threes?! I cut out gold foil and real red and emerald envy pieces and put them together and played with placement. I used my favourite 6 inch metal ruler for spacing between the stockings (actually I have three, can you have too many?) which went onto a very vanilla base. I think these are some really fun new products and you’ll be seeing more of them!

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Fruit Stand DSP

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I really love the Fruit Stand DSP, especially the paper with the lemons and so I wanted to make it the star of my card.

Stampin' Up! Fruit Stand DSP and Endless Birthday Wishes

I think I achieved that with this super simple and quick card. It would be a great one for mass production using a variety of DSPs. This strip of DSP is about 1 3/4 inches tall and 5 1/8 wide so that I get a very small matt at the edges. I glued it to a mat of whisper white and then stamped the sentiment from Endless Birthday Wishes in crushed curry. This was a bit of a departure for me, a “colouring outside the lines” since the DSP is supposed to pair with daffodil delight. However, this piece looked happier with crushed curry. Hence the card base is also crushed curry.

To make my envelope match, I cut another strip of the DSP at 2 1/8″ by 6 and then glued it to the envelope flap and trimmed off the excess.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Cupcake Cutouts Framelits Dies

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I was not thrilled by the new in color, flirty flamingo but remembering how sometimes new colours take a little time to grow on me, I pulled it out, determined to use it. And I love how it brightened the cupcake and how the Cupcake Cutouts framelits dies really made it sing.

Stampin' Up! Cupcake Cutouts framelits dies and Sweet Cupcake

I stamped the cupcake liner using crumb cake stamped off once for the largest image, crumb cake at full strength for the next one and then soft suede for the most detailed stamp. For the cake itself, I used blushing bride stamped off once, then full strength and then for the detailed image flirty flamingo. It really brought the cake to life. I was so impressed that I chose to cut out my sweet sentiment (part of the cupcake cutouts framelits dies – there’s also the word wish) using flirty flamingo too. All of the stamped images come from the stamp set, Sweet Cupcake.

After cutting out all of the pieces of the card, I decided to start by stamping the sentiment putting the various cut out pieces in place to get placement. Once that had gone perfectly I glued the liner to the card base (if I’d thought ahead I could’ve just stamped on the card, but I guess it’s safer this way!) and then popped up the top of the cake with dimensionals. Lastly I added the die cut word to the card. And decided that the card was complete. I could’ve added some sort of embellishments in the lovely white space but it would have detracted from the star of the card – of which flirty flamingo is a big part. I challenge you to take a colour that you’re only lukewarm on, and make a card. It’s rather fun.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

One Wild Ride

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Today is my brother Martin’s birthday and that’s always a challenge from a card perspective. He has definite opinions on my cards which can be very useful but a trifle intimidating when I’m making his card. Sometimes he’ll say, “it works, but I don’t personally like it” so I just have to hope that this falls into the “it works and I like it” category! He has a couple of motorcycles so when I saw the set One Wild Ride, I knew what was going on his card.

Stampin' Up! One Wild Ride

I actually made this card this morning, the glue probably isn’t quite dry but I was waiting for my order to arrive bringing me the gorgeous luscious copper foil sheets and that happened last night! I thought I’d been efficient getting the stamp set early, but once I saw the copper, I knew I needed it too.

This is actually the first time that I’ve used my copper embossing powder and I really love it – expect it a lot on upcoming cards! Both the image and the sentiment comes from One Wild Ride as does the matching sentiment inside which says “…said no motorcycle rider ever”! I then backed my piece of night of navy (which is an inch smaller than the card stock) with the copper foil and although it looks pretty good in the picture, it’s much more impressive in real life.

Have a great – and creative – Friday.

See you tomorrow,

Liz