Category Archives: Congratulations

Paper Pumpkin October 2015 Alternative 7

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I found a piece of mossy meadow cardstock that I’d stamped with the leaves from Blissful Bouquet, the Paper Pumpkin October 2015 set. The plan had been to make some kind of DSP with it but other card had been put on top of it and it disappeared. Until last night.

Stampin' Up! Blissful Bouquet and Expressions Natural Elements

I took my gold marker (Stampin’ Up! have retired theirs but sharpies work) and coloured in a few of the leaves at random and I really liked the effect. Unusually I decided to mat it in black and glue that all to a mossy meadow card base before I’d figured out the rest of the card. Even more unusually – and in direct contradiction to what I said yesterday – after trying a few things to add to the front of the card, I settled on my unused pack of Expressions Natural Elements. Everything else covered up too much of my home made DSP.  The natural wood colour didn’t work so I pressed the wooden piece into my versamark and then sprinkled it with gold embossing powder. Apparently I wasn’t thinking ahead too much because this is when I went looking for what to put it on in order to heat it. I was going to use a punch since they’re metal, but my brother objected since there’s a plastic covering. Good call. Because when I got a metal lid and used that, the heat gun blew the word all over the place so the lip of the lid is what saved my piece. Martin suggested, once I was finished, that he has some fine sandpaper in the basement which I could use next time to hold the wooden word in place. Good idea. I’m really pleased with how this came out and even more happy that I have used a previously “hard to use” element. Should I try a wooden snowflake or Rudolph paper clip next?

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Bravo and sponging

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I needed a card because one of my friends has been promoted. So out came the Bravo stamp set and I decided to include a sponged rectangle as I’ve done a couple of times lately.

Stampin' Up! Bravo

I used the square framelits to cut out the rectangle from a piece of card, moving the framelit to elongate the shape. I then used finger daubers to add the ink –  pacific point, melon mambo and pumpkin pie – only very vanilla card stock. I let it dry a little and then, after using the embossing buddy, stamped the image and sprinkled on the gold powder. I used a fine paintbrush to flick away some extra specks of gold and heated the image. After heating, I found that there were a lot of extra specks of gold – presumably the inked rectangle wasn’t completely dry. My sister called at that time and I told her that I was about to redo the card and she suggested emboss resist rather than waiting for longer to allow it to dry. Brilliant idea! So I started with the embossing and then moved onto the sponging – the advantage of this approach (apart from not getting extra gold specks) is that I could more easily place where I wanted the rectangle.

The very vanilla piece is mounted on a melon mambo card base and I made a liner in melon mambo using the retired backgrounds DSP (I realized yesterday that I don’t have the new one in brights yet) and the envelope liners framelits. I hope she likes the card.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

TGIF Challenge Throwdown

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I was browsing some of my favourite challenge sites looking for inspiration when I found a completely new kind of challenge on the TGIF Challenge site – a throwdown challenge. Apparently it runs all month so I’m just getting in before the July challenge finishes. The idea is that there is a list of basic items that you can use and then a monthly basket from which you have to use a certain number of items. Sounds like fun.  So here’s my entry:

Stampin' Up! Delightful Dijon Bravo

Here’s the challenge banner

and the basket of items:

As you can probably see, I used the black cardstock, the balloon thinlits, the Bravo stamp set and the Delightful Dijon ink. I cut out the balloons out of very vanilla and then sponged them with the delightful dijon. Actually to start with, I stamped them with delightful dijon but you can’t see that because that’s the side that’s now stuck onto the card! So after sponging, I stamped the sentiments from the Bravo set in black which I liked much better. I was going to use the white baker’s twine which I pulled through the delightful dijon stamp pad but decided that it was too much for the card. I stuck the two balloons on to the very vanilla piece and then popped up the third with stampin’ dimensionals. I matted this with a thin piece of basic black and then mounted that on a very vanilla card base.

It’s not part of the  challenge – there aren’t any envelopes in the pantry – but here’s the card with a coordinating envelope.

Stampin' Up! Balloon thinlits Bravo

See you tomorrow,

Liz

 

Love is Kindness with Endless Wishes

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I have previously created a very simple, monochromatic card with the Stampin’ Up! Love is Kindness stamp set and now I wanted to step it up a bit. This uses supplies from the current annual catalogue, the new occasions 2015 and the Sale-a-bration one.

Stampin' Up! Love is Kindness

I stamped the image in the memento tuxedo ink so that I could colour using the blendabilities. I used two tones of the wild wasabi to colour the stalks and leaves and then used all three of the rich razzleberry and pink pirouette for the tulips. I also used the colour lifter to add additional dimension. The sentiment is from the Endless Birthday Wishes set and is stamped in wild wasabi. I glued the whisper white card to a piece of rich razzleberry just 1/8 inch larger in both dimensions to create a tiny border.

Do you recognise the DSP? It’s the new(ish) irresistably yours specialty DSP in the Sale-a-bration catalog, yours free with an order of $50 until March 31st. Can you believe that we’re two thirds of the way through the Sale-a-bration promotion?! With four new SAB items being launched on March 1st, I’m already planning my next order.

I took the white and embossed piece of DSP and sponged pink pirouette ink onto it, rubbing the excess off with a paper towel to create the background. The ribbon is the rich razzleberry 1/4 inch cotton ribbon which comes in about a dozen colours. It’s very easy going. I taped the ribbon to the back of the DSP before  attaching the image to it with stampin’ dimensionals. Not only did it give the card some added dimension (hence the name!), it meant that the ribbon didn’t cause the whisper white piece to be lumpy. I then mounted this all on a rich razzleberry base.

The envelope flap is lined with the Backgrounds DSP and I also stamped the same sentiment on the front of the envelope seeing as it was still inky.

Stampin' Up! Love is Kindness envelope

 

Celebrate the Mini Treat Bag

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I was looking for inspiration and checked a few challenge sites and decided on the handstamped colour challenge for this week. Additionally I wanted to play with my new mini treat bag thinlits dies. The challenge banner is an interesting mixture of colours and are combined in a new DSP, the Best Day Ever. Of course I decided to go in a different direction!

I used one of the decorative dies from the mini treat bag collection – the line of stars.

Stampin' Up! Project Life Remember This

After cutting out the stars out of a piece of very vanilla, I was going to colour on the layer below but realised that it wouldn’t be easy to get the colouring in the right place and also there wouldn’t be enough depth of colour. So I cut out little pieces of card stock in calypso coral, crushed curry and coastal cabana and glued them onto the back. I next took another new product, the Stampin’ Up! Project Life Remember This set (it’s in the Occasions 2015 catalog) and stamped the sentiment in calypso coral. I glued the card onto a base of very vanilla.