Monthly Archives: August 2016

Serene Scenery DSP Stack

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I made this card for a challenge wanting welcome cards and then missed the deadline, but since we’re trying to hire some new people at work, it will come in very handy. I’m on the design team at CAS Colours & Sketches and last night I was commenting on some of the entries. One of the cards used the Serene Scenery DSP stack reminding me of its beauty and also of the fact that I’ve barely used it. So it was a no brainer to pull it out this morning.

Stampin' Up! Serene Scenery DSP stack and Welcome Words

This DSP stack is 6 by 6 inches which means that if you cut off 2 1/8 inch you have enough to cover the envelope flap to make a matching envelope and you still have a large piece for the card. I trimmed the long side to 5 1/8 inch so that I had 5 1/8 by 3 7/8. A mat of very vanilla measuring 5 1/4 inches by 4 gives a tiny border and fits perfectly on a crumb cake card base.

I added the sentiment from the retired set, Welcome Words. I’d prefer to use a current set, but I don’t believe that I have anything that says welcome. So to match, I stamped this in crumb cake – I tested this on the piece of DSP that I’d trimmed off to ensure that it would be dark enough to show. I like the rather beach look that the crumb cake adds to the weathered boards.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Tuscan Vineyard Watercolor Continued

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Here’s the final card of the ones that I made at the crop using the Tuscan Vineyard set. On this one, I decided to watercolour the entire image and to use last year’s in colours.

Stampin' Up! Tuscan Vineyard and Endless Birthday Wishes

So I started off with delightful dijon for the basket and decided that the other bottle was terracotta and thus I could use watermelon wonder. For the ground and shadow, I used tip top taupe and I also used that for the stoppers. I trimmed down my watercolor paper until it felt “right” and then cut a piece of tip top taupe 1/8 inch larger for the mat. Before committing my watercolouring to the card, I stamped the sentiment (which is from Endless Birthday Wishes) in more tip top taupe on a delightful dijon base. Once that was safely executed, I glued on the watercolouring.

For the envelope, I used the Festive TIEF to dry emboss the flap – and this time I remembered to take a photo to show you! It’s a really fun pattern.

Stampin' Up! Tuscan Vineyard and Endless Birthday Wishes and Festive TIEF

I really enjoyed playing with Tuscan Vineyard and since I have a day of stamping planned for tomorrow, there may well be some more examples of its use in the upcoming week! I hope that you have something fun planned for the weekend and that you have a great Friday too.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Swirly Scribbles for CAS Colours & Sketches

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Good morning. Once again we’re up to Thursday in the week which means a new challenge at CAS Colours & Sketches. This week it’s my very first time hosting a challenge as a member of the design team and although I planned to make my card before setting the challenge, in typical “just in time delivery” fashion, I completed my card last night. I’d been trying a different idea but yesterday morning thought that Swirly Scribbles would be the way and last night after work, that’s what I used.

Stampin' Up! Swirly Scribbles and All About Everything

And here’s the banner showing the three blues that I chose:

Challenging? Yes. But I think, definitely fun. I kept wanting to add a pop of a different colour (not allowed) so this took some thought but I’m extra happy that what I ended up with was a masculine birthday card.

It’s a fairly simple card to put together once you’ve cut out your three swirly scribbles in the three colours being careful not to lose any of the cut out pieces. I started by laying it out on scrap paper so that I could decide exactly how I was going to fill in the spaces. It changed between the scrap paper and the final card! Once I had that decided, I placed the night of navy outline onto the card to get the placement right for my sentiment and started by stamping that in night of navy. The sentiment is from the Paper Pumpkin bonus set, All About Everything that just fits so nicely into the curve of the cutout. Only then did I actually glue down the night of navy outline! I used the 2 way glue pen (because there’s no oozing challenge) and then started filling in some of the gaps with dapper denim and marina mist. Of course I have sufficient cut out pieces to make a couple more of these using the other colour ways.

I hope that you’ll pop along to the challenge blog to see what the rest of the design team have made and to have a go yourself. I’d love to see you in the gallery.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

 

Tuscan Vineyard Masculine Birthday Card

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Yesterday I shared a watercoloured image from the set Tuscan Vineyard as the focal point for my card. Today I’m sharing a card showcasing one of the smaller, more overlooked images.

Stampin' Up! Tuscan Vineyard and Endless Birthday Wishes

I stamped the corks in early espresso on very vanilla and then trimmed to scrap paper to what felt like the “right” size. Then I cut a piece of early espresso 1/8 inch larger to give me my little border. I then took a “card front” which is 1/4 inch smaller than my card base – it’s adds some interest even though it’s the same colour as the card base – and heat embossed the sentiment using versamark and gold embossing powder.  The sentiment is from the must have set, Endless Birthday Wishes. This is one of my most oft used birthday sentiments – not only is it a good birthday greeting, the size and shape of it makes it frequently fit right on the card.

Once I’d heat embossed the sentiment without mishap, it was time to add the image and layer to my card front and then add that to my very vanilla card base. Since very vanilla is a little thin, I always add an insert to the inside aswell to make it more sturdy. This is especially necessary if you have a number of layers on the front so that the card itself is a little balanced. For the envelope, I got out my Festive TIEF and dry embossed the envelope. Adds a really birthday feel, don’t you think?

Yesterday I placed a rather large order from the upcoming Holiday catalog. As a demonstrator, I get to order a month early which is a great perk. Don’t worry, I won’t go completely Christmassy quite yet! The exciting part for non-demonstrators is that now the limited time bundle is available for purchase – it’s available until the end of the month or until supplies last. So if you want it, get it soon!

TH_ThoughtfulBranches_Share_NewDemo_Jul0516_NA

Otherwise, sit back and relax and get ready for a really fun holiday catalog.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Tuscan Vineyard Watercolor

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Apparently when I don’t have a card design in my head, I start watercolouring and then a card will appear. This is what happened with this card – what do you do when you want to make a card and you don’t have any inspiration? Tuscan Vineyard created a number of cards for me this way!

Stampin' Up! Tuscan Vineyard and Watercolor Wishes

I stamped the image in black stazon, grabbed some inks and my aquapainter and started colouring away. I started with the tall trees in always artichoke, a colour that was completely replaced for me by mossy meadow. Now that mossy meadow has retired, I’ve started using always artichoke! Next the vineyards and bushes, round trees and fields were in differing strengths of garden green. I used crumb cake for the mountains and sahara sand for the house. I wanted to make the house stand out, hence the cherry cobbler roof. Finally I coloured the sky with marina mist. Once I’d completed this, I decided to use a cherry cobbler base to pull the house out even more but decided to have double layers of cherry cobbler. Before committing my watercolouring to the card, I made sure that my sentiment was good – it’s embossed in black and from my favourite Watercolor Wishes set.

I made this at the crop and thus didn’t have my dies with me (I’m never forgetting them again!) and had to borrow what was available. I cropped my watercolouring using one of the ovals collection but I didn’t want a really thick border. I actually trimmed down the black oval to the indentation that occurred when cutting it out giving me a smaller border. If you look carefully you can see that the oval isn’t perfect, but until I started writing this, I’d forgotten that I did it by hand, so the imperfections are not jumping out.

I hope that you have some time to play with Tuscan Vineyard, it’s a lot of fun. I have a few more cards made with this set to share in the coming days.

See you tomorrow,

Liz