Monthly Archives: November 2016

Mediterranean Moments

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Here’s a sneak peek at a set coming up in the new Occasions catalog that will be live from January 4th. As a demonstrator, I’m able to buy from the catalog tomorrow but I also had an opportunity to order from a selected list when I went to Onstage recently. This set, Mediterranean Moments, was inspired by Susan Nygaard, one of the recent million sales achievers. It consists of four images made for watercolouring.

Mediterranean Moments

I stamped the image in the archival basic black and then used a handful of regals – cajun craze for the bricks, garden green for the chairs and plant, crushed curry for the table cloth. I also used sahara sand for the paving stones and the edges of the chalkboard and a touch of delightful dijon for the lamp. I varied the amount of water that I used to give me different tones of the same colours. So the wood on the chalkboard and the paving stones are both sahara sand, but in such different strengths that they look totally different.

Once I’d finished watercolouring, I cut a piece of basic black a tiny bit larger than the watercolour paper and then mounted it on a delightful dijon card base. It was a lot of fun to do and a refreshing break from the sparkle of Christmas cards. I love making Christmas cards but it’s nice to do something else occasionally.

Get ready to shop! From tomorrow, there will be a Year-End Closeouts sales – a selection of retiring Holiday product, clearance and high inventory items will be discounted up to 60% off. Some will be whilst supplies last so get ready!

I hope you enjoyed today’s project. Please use the hostess code to get free product; the current one is MSJ9ZMGN (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. Don’t forget to keep track of what you spend with me – once you get to $400 you get to select $40 for free. Check my Customer Loyalty Program tab for all the details.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Warmth and Cheer with Stitched Shapes

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I can’t believe it’s almost December, apart from a bunch of Christmas cards I’m completely unprepared. And maybe I should start actually writing the Christmas cards soon. Last year, it was very last minute – crazy I know seeing as I started making them in August! Here’s another card using the Warmth and Cheer DSP stack and the stitched dies – I think I might make a box to go with this set.

Warmth and Cheer DSP Stack - Stitched Shapes Framelits Dies - Suite Seasons

It’s a very simple card to mass produce – it uses a piece of the Warmth and Cheer DSP cut down to 5″ by 3 3/4″ – this is so that there’s enough left of the 6″ by 6″ square to put on the envelope flap. My black mat is 5 1/8″ by 3 7/8″ to provide a little border. This way, my borders are different sizes, it’s a bit too samey if the borders match. So the black shows 1/16″ all the way around and then I put it on a regular cherry cobbler card base.

The sentiment comes from the really versatile set, Suite Seasons, and I actually used retired cherry cobbler embossing powder instead of my preferred clear (mostly because my clear embossing powder has been missing since the crop – probably fell out of my bag during transit). I like to ink up my stamp with versamark and then the colour of choice and use clear embossing powder. This way, the ink is juicy enough to hold the embossing powder and also the colour of the ink ensures that you have a perfect image. The exception is if I’m embossing in white – craft ink is juicy enough without versamark and I still use white embossing powder for this. I only use it because I have it! – must try the clear to see the difference once my order containing a replacement pot arrives.

I hope you enjoyed today’s project. Please use the hostess code to get free product; the current one is MSJ9ZMGN (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.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Jolly Friends with a jingle

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Today’s card was CASEd from the Holiday catalogue – from the card that made me get the Jolly Friends stamp set on page 29. I love the crumb cake tone on tone stamping of the moose and decided that I needed to make a card that way.

Liz Bailey Stampin' Up! Demonstrator - Jolly Friends - Jolly Hat Builder Punch

One moose is stamped in early espresso and I then stamped that again on a piece of scrap and cut him out. All I had to do then was build up Rudolph. I used the jolly hat builder punch which coordinates with the stamp set to cut out a hat and bobble out of real red but used the bobble as Rudolph’s red nose. This gave me the perfect opportunity to use a jingle bell as the bobble which I attached with a glue dot – it still jingles. I love these embellishments! I’ve got a tag swap on Thursday (which I only remembered last night) and I think it will feature jingle bells. For some glitz, I cut out the brim from gold glimmer paper – if you’re careful, it’s easy to just cut out the brim, thus saving the glimmer paper, although there’s nothing wrong with cutting out the whole thing and making more hats! I popped Rudolph up with dimensionals and then put my crumb cake layer onto a real red card base. I used the Holly TIEF to dry emboss my envelope flap – I love this look but I really should use the folder on a card one of these days.

Reminder that today is the last day of the online extravaganza and today is the one day flash sale. Magnetic platform at 35% off anyone?

I hope you enjoyed today’s project. Please use the hostess code to get free product; the current one is MSJ9ZMGN (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. 

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Star of Light in Copper

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I love the new copper embossing powder and also the foil which is in our Holiday catalogue – fingers crossed that it carries over. I wanted to really showcase them this morning so went with the beautiful detailed star from the Star of Light stamp set stamped in versamark, covered in copper embossing powder and then heated. I find that as the card starts to warp, if I turn the card over and heat the other side, it straightens out perfectly. Having a mat to put the embossed piece on helps it stay unwarped; I like to use fast fuse to attach card that’s been embossed, just to be on the safe side. I hadn’t planned this card completely, just knew that I wanted the star, but then the lovely sentiment was a no brainer. So out came the embossing buddy, versamark and powder which I’d just put away!

Star of Light - Liz Bailey Stampin' Up! Demonstrator

To get more copper, I added a mat of copper foil – although I cut out the largest circle stitched shape framelit to use later. I just couldn’t bear to hide all that copper! Then it was a simple matter of adding this to a cherry cobbler card base and the card is complete.

Don’t forget that tomorrow is the last day of the online extravaganza and also that tomorrow has one day specials – if you don’t have the magnetic platform, tomorrow is the day to get it since it’s only $26 which is 35% off. The bell punch is only $10.80 which is 40% off.

I hope you enjoyed today’s project. Please use the hostess code to get free product; the current one is MSJ9ZMGN (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.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Merry Mice in pastels

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I shared a fairly bright Christmas card featuring the Merry Mice. Here’s another one, this one rather more muted. The image of the three adorable mice is again stamped in archival basic black on watercolour paper.

Liz Bailey Stampin' Up! Demonstrator - Merry Mice - Star of Light

I used my aquapainter to colour these in and added more water than usual. So the first mouse is actually coloured in real red and marina mist although he looks pink. The next mouse is in blushing bride and wisteria wonder with a garden green bow in her hair. The third mouse of the trio has more marina mist and real red with real red and garden green lights.I used a little sahara sand for all of their faces, hands and feet so that they weren’t so anemic looking. I matted this with a piece of basic black to make it really pop and then put that onto a garden green card base onto which I’d already stamped the sentiment. This is from the Star of Light set and I (nearly) always stamp a sentiment before adding the main image for two reasons. Firstly, the layers can throw off your stamp-a-ma-jig or block and make things crooked. And of course you can always mess it up and then you’ve got a problem to fix. This way, if it goes wrong, I can turn the card the other way around and put my inside insert over the messed up sentiment. I’m happy to say that this wasn’t necessary in this case.

You can see a hint of the Holly TIEF that I used to dry emboss the envelope flap. It’s a fun and easy – and impressive – way to add interest to the envelope.

I hope you enjoyed today’s project. Please use the hostess code to get free product; the current one is MSJ9ZMGN (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.

See you tomorrow,

Liz