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!

Still playing catch-up

The challenge at SUO inspired me to just get this posted already - tea and cookies qualify as yummy in my book! This was another of my previous club session projects. I love these boxes and I've been saving lots of photos of how others decorated theirs. (See here, here and here for examples of where I got my inspiration.) Here is how my box turned out.

I featured the Kind & Cozy stamp set to go along with the tea theme. The colors go along with the designer paper (So Saffron, Calypso Coral, Lucky Limeade, Island Indigo, Very Vanilla, Basic Gray - yeah, it's old paper...) The tag was punched with the tag topper punch, and I made the tassel with coral baker's twine. I embossed the plastic sleeve for the box with the hexagon embossing folder, which goes along with the hexagons in the DSP. See the little bit of crimped ribbon? I was reading about someone doing that on Splitcoast Stampers and decided to try it. The ribbon is 5/8" vanilla satin ribbon, which will be available again in the new catalog - yay! I also used the new Fast Fuse tape runner adhesive - it's stronger than SNAIL but just as easy to use. I covered a 5/8" strip of vanilla card stock with adhesive, attached the ribbon, and ran it through the crimper. Just make sure that the strip of paper is completely covered with adhesive - the ribbon will only crimp where it's attached to the paper.

Here's a side shot. The cookies are really thin European style and I found them at Walmart. They fit perfectly in the box - and they are indeed yummy! You can't see this but I put a little card stock divider inside the box to separate the tea from the cookies, and the cookies are in a gusseted cello bag.

I'd better get back to working on my projects for THIS week's club. I think I'm coming up with some cute stuff and I hope I get time to share it soon!

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!