Tag Archives: Elegant Dots TIEF

Designer Tin of Cards Flourish

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A friend of mine came over recently to make some invitations to an annual dinner party and we looked at cards I’d made to get some idea of what she liked. It was clear that fairly monochromatic, florals with texture were the way to go and she then invented what I’m calling the Sam Squishing Technique. “Could we”, she said, “glue the cut out onto the card and then emboss it”. I said let’s try it. And we ended up with the die cut looking embedded into the card. It’s really fun. So, as I told her, I’m stealing it! On Sunday, I got together with a few of my friends to make cards, I showed them the Sam Squishing technique and they approved.

Stampin' Up! Designer Tin of Cards and Elegant Dots TIEF

I cut the die cut from the Flourish thinlits dies in dapper denim and then glued it to a piece of very vanilla – I find that the 2 way glue pen is good for this. Then I dry embossed this with the Elegant Dots TIEF. It’s a great look. I mounted this onto a dapper denim card base and then worked on the sentiment which comes from the Designer Tin of Cards. I stamped it in dapper denim onto very vanilla (I really love these colours together) and then cut it out with a circles die. I cut the same size in dapper denim too. The blue circle is glued to the card front and the sentiment is popped up with dimensionals.

I used the same embossing folder on the envelope flap to tie it all together.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Happy Home and Hello Honey

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Today’s title is a little alliterative (not a word one gets to use often!) and the card is continuing my “use it before it retires” philosophy. I wasn’t happy to see that Happy Home is being retired – I love the Christopher Robin type illustrations. I hadn’t used it with the matching framelit before, so I decided today was the day. I have been through the new catalogue (well, the pdf) a couple of times and I’ve checked with my sister but neither of us can see anything that coordinates with the framelit. I’m assuming that means that there’s a stamp set to coordinate in either the next holiday or Occasions catalogues. I’d say that I’m looking forward to that, but there’s SO much in the new annual catalogue that I don’t have space to look forward to anything else!

So I stamped my favourite image from this set in archival black ink onto very vanilla card stock. This is now the only black ink I use unless I’m doing major watercolouring and need the stazon. The black memento ink has not been used since I got the archival and it used to be my firm favourite! The archival black is a really great ink – it doesn’t run, it gives a great crisp image but you do have to be careful to give it a little time to dry for fear of smudging.

Stampin' Up! Happy Home

I coloured the image using the cover of the mossy meadow ink pad and my aquapainter, making sure it wasn’t uniform so as to give an impression of different depth. Then I used my tangelo twist Stampin’ Write marker for the shirt and the kite. Next I used the Hearth and Home framelit to cut out a Hello Honey window and used the 2 way pen to glue the two pieces together. I really like the 2 way pen for delicate work – there’s no oozing. I wanted to add some texture so I used the Elegant Dots embossing folder and a piece of hello honey which I then glued to a hello honey card base. Delightful Dijon is close, but I’m really going to miss this colour. I contemplated a sentiment from the Happy Home set (some of which are completely unused for no good reason) but decided that the card didn’t need it. I used dimensionals to give the window lift from the texture.

Stampin' Up! Happy Home

The new hostess code for the next four weeks is J46QU3Z6. If you spend $65 with me (before tax and shipping) I’ll send you the pearl basic jewels. All the details are on my Customer Loyalty Program page. If you love the home and hearth framelits and the Happy Home set, you might want to consider ordering them as a bundle – it will save you 15% and of course Happy Home is retiring and is only available as supplies last.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Balloon Celebration

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As you’ve probably noticed, I really love the Balloon Celebration set. This is a bit of a surprise to me – obviously I expected to like it otherwise I wouldn’t have bought it, but I didn’t expect to use it quite as much as I have. I used it so much that a couple of weeks ago my sister Caro (blog here) said that if I did another design card using it, I’d probably get a cheeky comment! I forgot to ask how many weeks I needed to restrain myself before balloons were allowed again… 🙂

This card is using the colour palette from a February challenge where I made a number of balloon cards. It really shows how a card is changed by using a different card base.

Stampin' Up! Balloon Celebration and Sky is the Limit

Here’s a previous card but on a white background which gives is a totally different feel.

Stampin' Up! Balloon Celebration and Sky is the limit and Softly Fallling TIEF

So my point today is that it is worth taking the time to try out different card bases to get the look that you want. I almost always try out combinations of different mats and card bases.

To continue with today’s card. To save you looking back, the colours are melon mambo, pumpkin pie and pink pirouette and I stamped the design on each balloon in the same ink as the card

Balloon celebration bubbles

I used the balloon bouquet punch to punch them out and then positioned them over the strings that I stamped in my favourite black, the archival basic black. On this card, the strings came together in one place so they look like an organised bunch (a bow was too much over the top there) whereas on the previous card, the balloons looked as if they’d been let go and were floating off, separating from each other. In my opinion anyway!

The sentiment is from the retiring Sale-a-bration set, Sky is the Limit, but when I checked just now, it’s still available. If you want it, snap it up quickly. The typeface of the sentiments is beautiful. I then mounted the whisper white piece onto a melon mambo card base.

I finished off the envelope by embossing the flap with the elegant dots embossing folder

Elegant dots tief

It’s a very quick and fun way to make a big impact.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

It’s my party designer washi tape

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Happy February! I can’t believe that we’re through January already – don’t worry, I’m not going to start counting down until Christmas. Yet. I’m ready to continue to work on my resolution to send/give more cards and a new resolution is to kick what the doctor today confirmed is bronchitis. Normally I’m happy being at home since I can card, but I don’t have the energy at the moment. Luckily I was at a crop at the weekend (before the exhaustion kicked in) and made a bunch of cards that I can share with you over the next week or so. My brother made me a washi tape holder and although I didn’t take it to the crop, I did take the It’s My Party designer washi tape since it’s new, I have a lot of washi and I almost never use it. So that was my challenge to myself. One card. With washi.

Stampin' Up! It's My Party designer washi tape and Hello You thinlits dies

So what I found is that if you use some washi, you can make a card very quickly. The hardest part was getting the wispy pieces off the die cut and the big shot brush helps with that amazingly well. I took a piece of very vanilla card and lined it up on my grid paper so that the bottom of it was along one of the lines. Then I took the washi tape and lined that with one of the grid lines too so that I could be sure that it was straight. It looks slightly off in the photo but that’s because part of the card is on the envelope. In real life, it looks straight. One tip about the washi – there’s a special end to the washi when you get it – about half an inch from the end there’s a kind of stripe. Cut that off or the washi isn’t perfect when you put it on your card. I then used melon mambo (as you’ll see in the coming days, I was having a melon mambo weekend – don’t panic, there’s some rose red and watermelon wonder too as well as a couple of cards completely without any pink) to cut out the sentiment from the Hello You thinlits dies. I then perched this on the top of the washi tape and, having put that on a melon mambo cardbase decided that was all I needed. I flirted with the It’s My Party enamel dots but they didn’t add anything, they just looked as if I’d used them because I wanted to use them. In my opinion, they need to be needed.

Stampin' Up! Elegant Dots TIEF

For the envelope, I dry embossed the flap with the Elegant Dots TIEF. It definitely is elegant – I need to use it on a card soon.

I have some classes coming up, if you can get to North NJ check the left hand panel for the link to them. As always, if you have any questions, just contact me and I’ll get right back to you – and I’m fairly sure that email is safe and I’m not contagious that way.

Since it’s 1st February, that means that we’re one third of the way through Sale-a-bration. And only 2 weeks away from the three limited edition free items being retired – and replaced with three new ones. A quick reminder – for every $50 you spend before tax and shipping you get to choose a free item from the Sale-a-bration catalogue (the link to it is on the left). If your wish list is a bit larger than $50, then the best deal is to sign up as a demonstrator and get $155 worth of product for $99 (shipping included). There’s no penalty for joining up just for the totally customisable starter kit if that’s what you want to do. Or you can just stay for the discount. Or you can build a business. The great thing is that it’s totally up to you! If you want to sign up, the link for that is on the left hand side too.

Here’s the list of supplies for this card:

See you tomorrow,

Liz