Two sketches, two cards

Working on my two cards for club this week, I ended up using two sketches that look kind of similar. The first is Freshly Made Sketches and the second is Seize the Sketch. That's the order I made the cards in - first this one for FMS (oriented horizontally instead of vertically).

 

This card demonstrates three ways to use washi tape that I found on Pinterest. The rosette is a 1 1/2" x 11" strip of Whisper White card stock. Just attach the washi tape to the paper, turn over to score (I did every 1/4"), then fold and put together with hot glue. I covered a retired button with washi tape too - just cover the button with tape and trim the sides. To get the holes open again, use a paper piercer - make sure you move the piercer around inside the hole to flatten down the tape. Just piercing a hole won't make it big enough to thread the twine through. Last I folded over pieces of the washi tape for the little banners. The washi tape and paper are both the retiring Gingham Garden collection, and the stamp comes from Chalk Talk (in Melon Mambo) with the corresponding die.

 

Here's the second card, which I made for Seize the Sketch, but it turned out to kind of work for FMS as well.

On this card I wanted to feature all the new In Colors and the Work of Art stamp set, which I got for free at the catalog premiere event last month. I used generation stamping and also added in the dots from Gorgeous Grunge. The stamped Very Vanilla panel is framed with the On Film framelit. I added the pansy punch flower, a little tab of Tangelo Twist ribbon, and gold sequins - you can pull them off the sequin trim and use them individually. How fun is that? Also, this is really hard to see in the photo, but I tried Sylvia's technique of using a hammer with the Decorative Dots embossing folder on the vanilla background. It seems more subtle on my card for some reason. Maybe because I used the flat side of a meat tenderizer instead of a hammer? LOL. I couldn't find a hammer but I knew right where the meat tenderizer was. I put some foam under the card stock to soften the blow on the table - my stamping table is wood and it came from my grandma's house, so I didn't really want to bang away on it. Anyway, if you have done this technique (or if you try it out after reading my post) I'd love to hear what you did and how it worked for you. We'll see what my club ladies think tomorrow night!

Lovely Reflection

Hey, I know it's been a while. I've been a little - okay, a lot - swamped. I didn't even have time to post my club projects from last time, and it's almost time for our final session before the new catalog! Maybe I'll have better luck this time around.

Well, at our last meeting we tried a technique that's been around a while but I had never done it: reflection stamping. I think my take on it has a bit of an impressionistic feel, which I love. With the tree and embossed background, this is a perfect card for the Friday Mashup challenge. And over at The Pink Elephant they're doing "anything goes" - so I guess that fits!

Lovely as a Tree is a great stamp set for this technique. I used the small single tree on watercolor paper. To get the reflected image you stamp on plastic - window sheet, those clear bags you can put cards in - whatever you have. First stamp the main image, then stamp again on the plastic, turn it upside down, and rub the stamped image from the plastic onto the paper. Since I planned to watercolor, I stamped the tree with black Stazon ink on watercolor paper. With the texture of the paper I got a more subtle reflected image, and I kind of like it this way. For the watercoloring I used Wild Wasabi, Pool Party, Early Espresso, and (for the grass) the new In Color called Mossy Meadow, and I cut it out with one of the oval Framelits. The sentiment comes from A Dozen Thoughts and the idea for the punch treatment using the mosaic punch came from LeeAnn Greff. I thought the woodgrain embossing folder would be the perfect background, along with a strip of wasabi DSP. Candy dots and scalloped trim from the ribbon border punch served as the finishing touches.

My club members were excited to see a more masculine card - I do tend to be a bit girly. You could leave the scallops off if you think those are too feminine and it would still look great. We had fun with this project, and in case you are wondering, Lovely as a Tree is sticking around for at least another year! I think that has to be a record or something. Anyway, I hope everyone has a great week!

Just believe in spring

Is spring actually coming? Today (at least here) the sun is shining and it's almost warm enough to go out without a coat... I'm hopeful that the snow will fully melt soon! I think I was channeling spring when I made this card. Something about it feels fresh, like the spring air outside...

My club will make this card tomorrow. I like to do something with a technique so we're going to do two-tone embossing. Not that there is much to this as a technique - but it's something we haven't done before. I also used the Mojo Monday sketch from this week.

The whole card came from the embossing - I wanted to use colors and I only had Gumball Green and Pool Party, LOL. I thought they would look striking with this image from Just Believe on Early Espresso card stock, and I think I was right - it turned out just like I hoped it would. The circle flower image is from the same stamp set, and the sentiment is from Itty Bitty Banners. I used DP from the 4x6 pack in the spring catalog - the name escapes me right now. And the large scallop trim was cut with the Tasteful Trim die and then embossed with the fan embossing folder. It all went onto a vanilla card base embossed with the woodgrain folder.

I just feel happy after making this - happy to be feeling better and back to stamping, and happy that spring is on its way! I hope you like the card and really appreciate your stopping by today!

Chalk it up

Hi y'all! Well, I haven't gotten around to much stamping this week, but I do have my January club this weekend so I thought I would try to show you the projects we'll be making. First up is a card using the chalkboard technique that's recently been spotlighted by Betsy Veldman and Becky Roberts. The techniques are basically the same, except Betsy takes the extra step of shadow stamping behind her embossed image. Since I'm working with my club and we don't have a lot of time to wait for ink to dry, I followed Becky's take on the technique.

 

I made my collage of stamps on the largest clear block we have so I could ink and stamp them all at once. The various stamps are from six different sets: Bring on the Cake, Friendly Phrases, A Fitting Occasion, Patterned Occasions (an upcoming Sale-a-Bration set), and from the new spring catalog, Make a Wish and Ciao, Baby! The technique is pretty simple: rub your embossing buddy over black card stock, then stamp and emboss with white EP. (I used Versamark for my stamping because it seemed to come out better for the solid images than white craft ink did. It's not perfect, but I'm going with it anyway.) Next take a soft cloth (I used an old handkerchief) to rub some white craft ink over the embossing - it looks like the eraser residue on a chalkboard. Then outline the edge with white colored pencil. I wanted to bring in a little color so I added some Melon Mambo punches, rhinestones, a strip of Melon Mambo DP, and a 1/8" white bow.

 

With all the stamps mounted on a single block, this becomes a pretty quick card. Hopefully my stampers will have fun with it, and I hope you enjoyed it as well. Thanks for visiting and see you again on Saturday!

Something new?

Today I'm showing you the technique card we did at my club. I wanted to do an embossing resist technique and I came up with a variation I hadn't seen before - but I don't want to claim that I created something new unless you guys tell me I did! So let me know what you think - is this a new idea, and if by some chance it is, what should I call it? I will say that as I predicted, this card was hard to capture in a photo. IRL it looks really cool, if I do say so myself!

I first took glossy card stock and embossed the foliage image from Fabulous Florets with black craft ink and EP. (Don't forget your embossing buddy!) Next I mixed Poppy Parade reinker with champagne shimmer paint. Using a foam brush, I brushed it over the whole image, then used a paper towel to buff the whole thing. Finally, for more depth of color I brushed another coat of the ink/paint mixture on top and let it dry. I wanted to see the brush strokes - kind of like lacquer, maybe? - so I made sure all the strokes went the same direction and the color was even. With this second coat make sure you don't use too much ink or the brush strokes will disappear as it dries. This will also take a while to dry - in retrospect, probably too long for club unless we had taken the heat gun to it. My gals ended up taking the embossed panel home separately to put the whole thing together later. Once the panel is completely dry, the very final step is to buff it with a clean paper towel, just to make sure no ink is left on the black embossing.

OK, now for the finishing touches - I embossed three flowers with gold EP on black card stock and cut them out. The sentiment from Happy Greetings is also gold embossed. To stick with the gold I used gold card stock as a layer, and two gold brads in each corner give the card just a bit more elegance and shine. Since I featured some brads as my only embellishments, I'm entering this in the Pals Paper Arts brad challenge.

Thanks for stopping by my blog - I hope you'll play around with this technique and tell me what you think. I'd love to see the variations you come up with!

Sparkly Spring

Is it spring? It's supposed to be - but it doesn't feel like it here in Massachusetts! Well, someday... In the midst of my busy-ness I am planning for my March club this weekend. I wanted to share one of the cards we'll be making, which incorporates a technique I saw demonstrated as a workshop wow at last weekend's regional in Hartford. (Which was awesome - SU demos are so fortunate to get to learn from amazing people!) I'm also entering this card in the Pals Paper Arts embossing challenge.

The technique is handmade glitter card stock. You stamp your image first - I let mine dry for a while before going on to the next step, which is to mix a generous amount of Crystal Effects and Dazzling Diamonds glitter and brush it over the whole panel with a foam brush. Now, when I first saw the technique I thought, how can that be a workshop wow? Won't it take a long time to dry? But really, it's dry in just a few minutes. As usual, the photo doesn't really capture the sparkle - it's similar to the effect you get if you emboss the whole panel with Iridescent Ice EP, but it's more subtle. My image is from Easter Blossoms, stamped with Rich Razzleberry on vanilla card stock and colored with my Blushing Bride marker. Tip of the day: You will want to adhere the finished panel with a strong adhesive, like sticky strip, because it's going to warp a little after it's dry. Get the sticky strip right onto the edges and corners, all the way around, and it'll lay flat.

To finish the card I used the tulip frame embossing folder, three pearls, and a punched sentiment from the same stamp set. I also sponged just a little Rich Razzleberry onto everything but the glitter panel - I didn't think of the sponging until after that panel was already done, but I'm not sure I would have wanted to sponge it anyway... I'll have to try that another time!