This week I’m inking up Inspiring Iris for the first time. Why did I wait so long? It’s beautiful and a lot of fun with which to create.
It’s one of Stampin’ Up!’s distinktive stamps – look at the detail on the irises. I look like an artist but actually, the rich razzleberry part is just one stamp! I used old olive for the leaves and outline (2 stamps) and crushed curry for a hint of yellow. And since Beautiful You was out on my desk after Sunday’s Facebook Live (also on YouTube at My Elegant Cards with Liz Bailey – please subscribe), I selected that for my sentiment. One of my work colleagues is a DJ in her spare time and loves to dance. So this one’s for Anusha; I’m enjoying sending cards to my colleagues at the moment to try to give them a smile.
I’m a member of the Talented Tutorial Team and each month the 15 of us create a bundle of 15 tutorials. If you spend $35 with me on product, I’ll send you all 15.
Click on the buttons below to join my team or shop. This month’s host code is above the Shop Now tab in the menu on the left. Just copy and paste it or type it into the box at the bottom of your order where it says HOST CODE and then click apply.
As I mentioned previously, it’s rather addictive making cards using the Brusho crystals, finding different effects. Here’s a happy background that really seemed to suit the dancing lady from Beautiful You. Is she dancing or is this yoga? I’m not really sure. Either way, it seems a happy card for a birthday.
I put a piece of watercolor paper onto cling film and sprinkled prussian blue brusho crystals at one end of it and then yellow on the rest of the card. Holding up the cling film to catch the splatters, I sprayed from the bottom rather than down onto the paper. This gave quite a different effect and made the colors blend differently. And the cling film did get fairly splatters so I’d recommend that! I love how there are so many colors on the card even though I only used two.
Once it was thoroughly dry, I added the happy lady using archival black and added a black mat and a dapper denim card base. It’s rather fun choosing card bases because you never can be sure what will look best before you produce the background. It all depends on your mix of crystals. I recommend gently wiping the background with a paper towel to remove any excess powder and to prevent your recipient getting stained fingers!
I hope you enjoyed today’s project.
Click on the buttons below to join my team, shop or learn how to earn free stamp sets and bundles. This month’s host code is above the Shop Now tab in the menu on the left. Just copy and paste it or type it into the box at the bottom of your order where it says HOST CODE and then click apply.
I did not intend to start teasing you with sneak peeks of the new holiday catalog, but yesterday was my brother’s birthday and of course I wanted to make him a card. My newly delivered products were on the table and before I knew it, I was playing with the Half Full stamp set! It’s crazy when I still have some unused sets from the previous order to play with.
I stamped the line of wine glasses in versamark on watercolor paper and heat embossed them with gold embossing powder. Then I squeezed a cherry cobbler ink pad and used my aquapainter to use that ink for the wine. I echoed the gold with a piece of gold foil for the border and also for the Celebrate – which is from the Beautiful You set in the annual catalog. The card base is also cherry cobbler. The photo doesn’t really do it justice – it’s very hard to make the gold embossing look realistic. There are some fun Christmas sentiments included in the Half Full set which I’ll be using next month.
I hope you enjoyed today’s project. Please use the Stampin’ Rewards code to get five FREE handmade cards; the current Stampin’ Rewards code is ZWHGFAYW (if your order is over $150, don’t use the code, you get the rewards, but you still get the free cards and your selections from my free giveaway). Click here to go to my online shop or here to join my team. To sign up for Paper Pumpkin, click here.
When you spend $50 (before tax and shipping) in my online store and use the current host code (above the shop now button over on the left), you can select a free stamp set (US only)
When you spend $75 (before tax and shipping) in my online store and use the current host code (above the shop now button over on the left), you can select a free bundle (US only).
If you spend less than $50, I’ll still send you 5 handmade cards along with a thank you card.
Today is my third anniversary of being a demonstrator with Stampin’ Up! and I’m happy that I took an extra day off work to spend crafting. It’s definitely a good way to celebrate. When I reflect back over the last three years, I’m struck by how my style has evolved. To start with, I was scared of colour. I remember struggling to use more than one or two on a card – not that I don’t still enjoy using minimal colours, but I have now embraced loud DSP whereas previously, I avoided it. I was also convinced that not everybody could make cards and that I was one of them – now I make cards almost every day and I believe that everyone can – and should! – make cards. I find that the very act of creating something is extremely satisfying and necessary. I used to cook new recipes as my creative outlet which was causing an unexpected problem – we were amassing such an enormous list of dishes that it was hard to fit the favourites in regularly enough! Now, with my creativity being fulfilled with papercrafting, my biggest problem is too many cards and not enough people to send them to, but I’m working on that too. Let me know if you’d like a birthday card sent to you! Having said that I have embraced colour, I am of course sharing a single colored card today – my final in my series of the 5 new in-colors and the Eastern Medallions thinlits dies.
And here are the four previous cards:
I like the simplicity of the scored lines but the DSP is so pretty. I really can’t decide on a favourite!
Here the inner layer is the new Fresh Florals DSP stack – a marvellous collection of 40 sheets of paper; 4 each of 2 double sided patterns in each of the new in colors. I placed the piece of DSP where I wanted it in the middle of a Fresh Fig layer and ran it through the big shot using the Eastern Medallions thinlits dies. Then I snipped off the DSP around the flower, discarded the flower itself and then glued the DSP around the fresh fig flower. I then embossed in white the sentiment from Beautiful You.
I hope you enjoyed today’s project. Please use the Stampin’ Rewards code to get five FREE handmade cards – which I’ll increase to TEN cards if you order today on my anniversary; the current Stampin’ Rewards code is 7UYN7HEJ (if your order is over $150, don’t use the code, you get the rewards, but you still get the free cards). In addition, to celebrate the new catalog, if you spend $50 this month, I’ll send you either the clear or gold faceted gems FREE (let me know which you’d like). Click here to go to my online shop or here to join my team. To sign up for Paper Pumpkin, click here. For more details on my Customer Loyalty Programme, click here.
I haven’t played with Beautiful You lately; the retirement of the Sale-a-bration items as of today meant that I wanted to play with them as much as possible before losing them. But back to one of my favourite sets now.
I stamped two of the three images in the archival basic black onto watercolor paper and then used an unusual for me colour combination of tempting turquoise and tangerine tango. It’s good to shake things up a bit. I used an aquapainter to add the color to the ladies and then added the sentiment. The aquapainter is a bit intimidating to start with – I find it’s best not to have too much water in it to start with. It’s easier to control then – unless you’re trying to do a background and spread loads of water.
This card then sat in the box that I made to hold a number of these cards and it just felt slightly unfinished. Fast forward to this morning when I stamped the umbrella onto a scrap of watercolor paper and colored it in using an aquapainter. I cut it out and popped it up with dimensionals. I am really happy with this extra piece – the umbrella now seems so much more lifelike since the girl’s head really is inside the umbrella. I framed this with a skinny mat of basic black and put all of it onto a tempting turquoise card base.
I hope you enjoyed today’s project. Please use the Stampin’ Rewards code to get five FREE handmade cards; the current Stampin’ Rewards code is A2XGZS79 (if your order is over $150, don’t use the code, you get the rewards, but you still get the free cards). Click here to go to my online shop or here to join my team. To sign up for Paper Pumpkin, click here. For more details on my Customer Loyalty Programme, clickhere.
