Monthly Archives: October 2016

Festive Birthday Designer Series Paper

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Mike ran around the office and gathered birthday wishes from people onto the 8 1/2 inch by 5 1/2 inch card that I made yesterday. And at the end of the afternoon, he told me he was out of space and could he please have another! So, when I got home, I made another large card out of a single piece of card stock.

Liz Bailey Stampin' Up! Demonstrator - Festive Birthday DSP - Hello You thinlits dies - Crazy about you

I wanted this one to be completely different and so I checked out my stash of DSP. I love the Festive Birthday DSP, it’s so loud and so fun. I first cut out the happy using the Hello You thinlits dies and figured out how much DSP I needed. Then it was a matter of positioning things and finally stamping the “birthday” from Crazy About You in melon mambo. Then a bit of a trim on the DSP to get the look that I wanted (I didn’t want the “happy” to sit over any emerald envy) and I stuck everything down. The card looked best with a coloured card base (emerald envy) with a whisper white top layer and so to ensure that Mike has (hopefully) room for enough messages, I stuck a piece of whisper white on both sides of the inside the card.

I used another 12 by 12 piece of retired DSP for the envelope – this was It’s My Party from last year – and made it at 11 1/2 square. Not that the card is any bigger than yesterday’s but yesterday’s card was a tight fit. This works a little better. Hopefully it’s large enough for all of the well wishes!

I hope you enjoyed today’s project. Please use the hostess code to get free product; the current one is XD4D794N (if your order is over $150, don’t use the code, you get the rewards, but you still get the free gift from me). Click here to go to my online shop or here to join my team. To sign up for Paper Pumpkin, click here. The “buy 3 get one free” offer for DSP is good for the rest of the month – and the Festive Birthday DSP that I used today is included in the offer.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Totally Trees

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I think I mentioned that I’ve been making birthday cards for people at work. Of course, working in a big IT department means that eventually I’ll be giving out 250 per year but I think I can manage that. If I plan!  Wednesday is Fred’s birthday – he’s on one of my three teams and his buddy asked for a large card. Or two of them. He’s been working at our company for a decade or so and therefore has a lot of friends. So I took a piece of card stock and folded it in half for the card. And realised that it’s hard making a large card – our stamps are not made expecting there to be such an expanse of card. It was a toss up between cup cakes and trees. And as you can probably guess, taking in mind the title, Totally Trees won out.

Liz Bailey Stampin' Up! Demonstrator - Totally Trees - All About Everything

I started with the ground which I bent a little on the block and then stamped in the middle in old olive. I added more to get to the edges of the card and then used the grass stamp to add a little texture. I then stamped a selection of trees in soft suede and added their splodges in various fall colours. The trees are turning here in New Jersey so it made sense to me to use cherry cobbler, pumpkin pie and crushed curry. My card is “not a patch on New England”, to quote my sister Caro, who coincidentally also used fall colours on her blog today but definitely fall based.

Having stamped my trees the really tough part of the project was looking for the right sized and shaped sentiment. Everything looked too small in the expanse of white space or as if it were trying to take over the card. Hence I’ve used a paper pumpkin stamp from April and nestled it in amongst the trees. The crushed curry enamel dots came about by accident but they improve the card. I had a smudge of ink there and they saved my card!

As I was slightly intimidated by the size of the card, I made my top layer and inch smaller and added a cherry cobbler layer. It makes the card more special, really frames the main part of the card and reduces the available stamping space! A win-win.

This card really started with the envelope size. I checked how large an envelope I could make and realised that by folding a piece of 8 1/2″ by 11″ card stock in half I would need 11″ by 11″ for the envelope. Obviously the DSP is 12 by 12 so I could have gone slightly larger, but that would have meant cutting up a 12 by 12 piece of cardstock for a not much larger card. This is perfect – and uses up a piece of retired designer series paper (Confetti Celebration from 2 years ago if you want the specifics) which happened to be in the right colours.

I hope you enjoyed today’s project. Please use the hostess code to get free product; the current one is GWTDK7RM (if your order is over $150, don’t use the code, you get the rewards, but you still get the free gift from me). Click here to go to my online shop or here to join my team. To sign up for Paper Pumpkin, click here. The “buy 3 get one free” offer for DSP is good for the rest of the month – just a week to go!

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Star of Light

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With just over 2 months to go until Christmas, here’s an easy card that is elegant, luxurious but easy to mass produce. I’ve used the Star of Light swoosh again and have it bursting out from the sentiment in a celebratory way.

Liz Bailey Stampin' Up! Demonstrator - Star of Light - Christmas Pines - Holly TIEF

I made half a dozen of these cards and if you have them lined up in a production line, it goes pretty quickly. First I took my 6 pieces of very vanilla cut for the front of the card and stamped the cherry cobbler swoosh – it’s not pretty where they all meet up, but that doesn’t matter. Whilst the cherry cobbler was really drying, I took scraps, rubbed with the embossing buddy and stamped the Noel from Christmas Pines and sprinkled with the copper embossing powder. I had them all carefully laid out around me so that I could heated them all in one go. Next I did my big shot work – I cut out my sentiment using one of the layering ovals and the scalloped mat in cherry cobbler, also from the layering ovals. By this time, I was sure that the cherry cobbler ink was dry and wouldn’t attract any stray bits of the copper embossing powder and so I went back with the embossing buddy, added a few stars (from Star of Light) and added more copper embossing powder.  Then it was a simple matter of putting the sentiment together and carefully popping it up on dimensionals before putting my layer onto the cherry cobbler card stock. To make the card extra luxurious, I dry embossed the envelope flap with the holly TIEF.

I hope you enjoyed today’s project. Please use the hostess code to get free product; the current one is XD4D794N (if your order is over $150, don’t use the code, you get the rewards, but you still get the free gift from me). Click here to go to my online shop or here to join my team. To sign up for Paper Pumpkin, click here. The “buy 3 get one free” offer for DSP is good for the rest of the month. Here’s a quick reminder of the papers included in the offer.  It’s really easy to find the four that you want. Or the eight…

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Paper Pumpkin October 2016 Alternate 2

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Welcome to my Paper Pumpkin October 2016 Alternate 2. I’ve yet to make any of the cards as per the kit, I’m having too much fun making alternatives! The background crackled stamp gave such an intriguing texture to the leaf a few days ago, that I was quite fascinated with it and wanted to make it the star of my card. And I think I achieved that. I keep picking up the card and looking at the shiny copper and touching the texture!

Liz Bailey Stampin' Up! Demonstrator - Paper Pumpkin October 2016 Alternate 2 - Season of Gratitude

I stamped the crackled stamp three times in versamark on elegant eggplant and then heat embossed with the copper powder. I love how it came out and I couldn’t bring myself to cover it up much at all.  So I left it the full width of the card on top of a elegant eggplant mat. The card base is tip top taupe and is also used for the sentiment which is also from this month’s Paper Pumpkin kit, Season of Gratitude. This was also heat embossed in copper (note to self: get another pot before really starting Christmas cards!) and cut out with the layering ovals framelits. I also cut out a piece of copper foil with the next size up in the framelits.

Loads of copper going on here – I like how it looks with the elegant eggplant. In fact, this combination may have me making more elegant eggplant cards than I’ve done lately. I find that there are colours that just don’t get used much at all. I think I’ll look through my cardstock and pull out another underused one as a challenge to myself. Want to join me?

I hope you enjoyed today’s project. Please use the hostess code to get free product; the current one is XD4D794N (if your order is over $150, don’t use the code, you get the rewards, but you still get the free gift from me). Click here to go to my online shop or here to join my team. To sign up for Paper Pumpkin, click here. The “buy 3 get one free” offer for DSP is good for the rest of the month.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Paisley Framelits Dies Again

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As you may have suspected after yesterday’s post, this one features the Paisley Framelits Dies again! But my pile of copper foil cut outs is still waiting for use, today I used mint macaron. I expect to play some more later today…

Liz Bailey Stampin' Up! Demonstrator - Paisley Framelits Dies - Petals and Paisleys Specialty DSP - Suite Sayings

I cut my piece of the beautiful Petals & Paisleys Specialty DSP to the same height as my delightful dijon card base – 4 1/4 inches and just 4″ wide to give me a wide border. The mat of mint macaron is just 1/8 inch wider – I love how it pulls the mint macaron out of the DSP. To make the banner, I first stamped the sentiment from the Suite Sayings set in delightful dijon on very vanilla. This is one of the great things about this DSP, it’s based on very vanilla. I like the warmer feel that this gives. Then I cut down my banner to a smidge under an inch so that it fit nicely in the triple banner punch. I was determined to get the decoration in that I’d cut with the Paisley Framelits Dies out of mint macaron, I started with a square sentiment and played around until the banner made more sense. So I’m happy to say that the banner was appropriately sized the first time (unusual!) to allow for the embellishment which I glued on using little dots of tombow glue. I then popped up the banner on dimensionals.

I hope you enjoyed today’s project. Please use the hostess code to get free product; the current one is XD4D794N (if your order is over $150, don’t use the code, you get the rewards, but you still get the free gift from me). Click here to go to my online shop or here to join my team. To sign up for Paper Pumpkin, click here. The “buy 3 get one free” offer for DSP is good for the rest of the month.

See you tomorrow,

Liz