from my ink pad to yours

Soho Birthday Love

Crisp Cantalope is one of the soft new In Colors that Stampin' Up! is introducing with the new catalog release in June. Isn't it lovely in the this Soho Subway print.

• While there will be a pretty Crisp Cantalope ribbon available when the new catalog truly arrives in June, it wasn't available for preorder. So, I made my own by mixing several drops of reinker in about 1/4 cup water and smooshing a piece of Very Vanilla Seam Binding into it. Hang it overnight to dry and you're good to go.
• The image/sentiment is from Label Love which has a matching Artisan Label Punch.
• Other shapes in my focal point include the Early Espresso Apothecary Label and the Crisp Calypso Modern Label.
• Just a bit more texture with the Early Espresso Core'dinations embossed with the Delicate Designs embossing folder.

Secret Garden Triple Play with whitewashing

I've seen this whitewashing technique done on Crumb Cake paper by a few different people (I think the first was Karen Barber's lovely card.) and have been wanting to try it myself on River Rock. Then, when I saw yesterday's Splitcoaststamper's color challenge for River Rock, Not Quite Navy, and Baja Breeze I knew it was time to give it a try. A couple of other challenges came into play too.

The Paper Player's Challenge #142: a one layer CAS card.

Splitcoaststamper's Free 4 All challenge F4A165: be inspired by something on Pinterest

    Christmas Baubles by Danielle Daws  I had been eyeing this card as a way to try out this technique on a little smaller scale

Splitcoaststamper's Color Challenge CC423: Quite a River Breeze (Not Quite Navy, River Rock, Baja Breeze)

• Basically you emboss your image(s) on colored card stock. Most examples I've seen were done on Crumb Cake or kraft.  I masked off the sides of the card so that I jsut stamped on a narrow panel.
• The sentiment is another greeting from Wonderful Mother.
• Then paint the flowers in with white craft ink. 

• After this dries you can color them in and the color will be much more true than if you had tried to color directly onto the colored card stock. I used my aqua painter with Baja Breeze and Not Quite Navy. 
• I added white lines with my gel pen.
• While I'm not that crazy about the way I arranged the flowers here, I LOVE the technique and am thinking of all kinds of variations to try another day.

I wasn't sure how much color I wanted to add to the flowers so I took a picture before adding more Nto Quite navy to the centers of the large flowers:

(I was having trouble getting my River Rock color to show true in my photos. On 80% of my shots I ended up with something that looked more like Crumb Cake. Can you tell I was all over my house trying different light sources on these?)

Happy Stamping!

Red Label

Sunday's Featured Stamper on Splitcoaststampers is Robin aka Missro who has a lovely gallery. When I spied a pretty card done with an Apothecary Labels stamp in red and ivory I knew I had to get my labels stamp set out to and spend a little time with one of my all time favorite stamp sets.

Robin's card is far more intricate and layerd but I did try to keep to the red and polka dot idea.

• I colored my flowers with a blender pen and the Real Red ink pad plus the Summer Starfruit and Pear Pizzazz markers after stamping the image in Always Artichoke.
• I sponged a bit of Soft Sky ink on the background - should have done that first but it was an afterthought. Pool Party would work too if you don't have Soft Sky. That is a color that will be making a come back in June.
• The red layer is cut from Real Red Core'dinations card stock and embossed with the Honeycomb embossing folder and lightly sanded.
• While Robin used the dotted embossing folder I decided to switch it up a bit and emboss my card front with the Distressed Dots background stamp.
• After I took the picture I moved the Vanilla Seam Binding Bow over a bit to the left and I liked it better. My battery is charging so I can't retake it right now. Like I think I've said before: there's nothing like a camera to tell you what you could do better!

Here's a close-up:

Thanks so much for stopping my little blog!

Wet/Dry Embossing

 I played around with my Flower Garden Textured Impressions Embossing Folder yesterday.

I used So Saffron, Pumpkin Pie, Pear Pizzazz, and just a touch of Early Espresso markers on this one. I left Plenty of paper on either side of the image before pushing through the Big Shot so that I could paly with the image placement. Double Seam Binding bow. Sentiment is from Wonderful Mother stamp set. You're ready for this Mother's Day aren't you?

Here are a couple of others plus a mini tutorial I put together:

"Wet" Dry Embossing Mini Tutorial:

Supplies :

Embossing Folder

Big Shot with standard cutting pads

Markers

Card stock (light color or neutral)

Spray bottle with water

Extra dies or books (to flatten paper)

Color the raised area of one side  (inside) of your embossing folder with markers. You could use either side but don't color both sides.

I think it's best to lay your folder onto your cutting plate before misting it with water.

I've found that the colors are more likely to run into each other if you hold it in your hand while you spray it. Of course, if that is part of the artistic effect you want to achieve by all means let it tilt all you want. It's kind of hard to see in the photos but once you do this yourself you will see that spritzing the ink with water actually makes it appear more vibrant.  Usually 3-4 spritzes will do the trick. If you spray parallel to you folder just letting the water fall onto the folder instead of spraying directly onto the folder you will get less movement of your ink. Keep in mind that moving the ink around may also be the look you want to achieve. You can't really do this wrong.

Place your paper into the folder. Close it and cover with a second plate before running it through your Big Shot with your regular embossing folder sandwich. When you are done you will see something like this:

Allow to air dry for a short while and then apply weights to flatten over night. I usually place on an acrylic plate and cover with one of the larger dies. If the paper is still a little wavy I often reinforce the piece I've trimmed down with another piece of card stock that's just a tiny bit smaller.

Sometimes I like the image I get right away. Sometimes I'm less impressed. But just about everything ends up being card worthy. It's amazing how a simple setting will set these off:

This one is a CAS sketch challenge, turned on its' side. It is a 4 x 5.5" card.

This is the one that I liked the least.Maybe because I thought the green was too bright. I had switched to Gumball Green with a touch Eggplant Envy at the flower centers. Once it was mounted though it's practically a masterpiece, no?

Inspiration Challenge

Have you seen much of this silhouette?  It's from Million-Dollar Moments, one of the Stampin Rewards aka hostess sets available with the Spring Catalog.

I saw some retro silhouette wall decals shown with a polka dot tablecloth on Splitcoaststampers Inspiration challenge site, mydeco.com and pretty much imagined this card just as it turned out. That usually doesn't happen!

• I'd ordered the Patio Party papers just a few days before the Color Refresh was announced. I thought this group of papers might stick around for another year but now that Baja Breeze is retiring I guess that isn't possible. Anyway, I'm still glad I ordered it but I wish it had more sheets of this awesome Summer Starfruit Polka Dot print. 
• I like skinny black layers. This one is trimmed just 1/8" larger that the DSP.
• The silhouette layer is popped up on double dimensionals with a little bit of gray striped Washi tape in the corner.

above & beyond color challenge

This week's Splitcoaststampers Mixability Challenge, Pop Goes the Color Wheel, is  to use either the warm or cool side of the color wheel and then add one accent with the opposite side of the wheel. I started with a warm card first but haven't managed to finish that one yet so here is the "Cool Card":

• I started with a piece of Chevron embossed cardstock that had blues greens and purples in it from coloring on the folder with markers running the paper through the Big Shot.
• Since the piece had more white than  color in it I started sponging, mostly with Island Indigo, plus a little bit of Rich Razzleberry and Night of Navy thrown in for good measure.
•  I stamped the words from One in a Million in Island Indigo on a strip of Pool Party card stock.
• I played with quite a few reds and oranges before deciding that I liked this Poppy Parade ("vintage color") butterfly the best in terms of making the contrast between cool and warm.
• Layering the colors onto a Whisper White card seems to help make the warm - cold contrast pop.

Thanks for stopping by!

Epic Day This and That Washi Tape Duo

I could just tell you that I am im love with the Epic Day series of product but how about if I use one more post to show you? I was just playing with the epic day washi tape the other night and decided to layer some stripes and see where it would take me:

 

Here are a few more shots:

I kept on using the Basic Gray/Basic Black Two Toned ribbon from Monday, but toned it down with a knot instead of the big bow.

 

The sentiment is from the stamp set Field Flowers and is stamped in Basic Gray ; Bitty Butterfly is punched from This and That Epic Day designer series paper.

I used the left over die cuton this Graduation card. The sentiment is from the set Blue Ribbon and is stamped in Basic Gray. The ribbon is Stitched Grosgrain in Basic Gray. If I wanted a card for a girl I might have used the big two-toned ribbon again but this stitched ribbon lets me give it a special touch without seeming too girly.

I couldn't let any of the trimmed washi taped pattern go to waste so I decorated the inside.

Sending a Butterfly Kiss

I set out to make a card last night that would pull together the luscious wide two-toned gray ribbon and the This and That Epic Day paper. As you may have noticed I've been using more bows lately. Sometimes these are easy to add but often I struggle with balance and maing my focal point clear. Here's what came from my efforts:

• I cut into a sheet of DSP with larger honeycomb patchwork pattern.
• I had uncovered a Whisper White Honeycomb piece as I had been cleaning and thought the two might work well together. An interesting aspect of this group of papers is that they can be used with both Very Vanilla and Whisper White. I like the texture the honeycomb adds to the card.
• I had tried a border between the two papers with the ribbon but it didn't quite work so I thought I'd try using the Washi tape knowing that I could easily remove it if I didn't like it. But I liked it!
• I played around with diecuts and various sizes of butterflies cut from the DSP, but nothing felt quite right.
• I set that part aside and moved on to the tag ending up with the skinny tag from the Lots of Tags sizzlets. I stamped "sending a KISS" from Petite Pairs and added a little punched butterfly. The tag is tied on with linen thread.

• Once the tag was on it made the large bow a clearer focal point, which in turn made it easier to add a somewhat smaller butterfly as an accent. The butterfly accent is made with a die cut butterfly, a punched butterfly and a sliver of Basic Gray card stock.

Here is a peek at the inside and the rest of the sentiment:

 

I hope your week gets off to a great start.

Thanks for stopping by...

 

White Embossing on Epic

I took a break in cleaning up my stamp studio this afternoon to play along with the Featured Stamper Challenge at SCS. This week's Featured Stamper is Lin, aka Bearpaw, and though you will enjoy her whole gallery, I was inspired by her most recent card which featured white embossing on patterned paper. Here's what I came up with:

• I chose the paper from the This and That Epic Day Designer Series Paper. Pool Party and Basic Gray make one of my favorite color duos.  I'm so glad that we are getting an additional lighter gray in with the Color Refresh. It will be fun to add that to this mix.
• I trimmed my paper to 5 x 3 3/4" and white embossed the image and sentiment from Just Believe.
• Since I knew I would want to pop this piece up from the card with dimensionals , I applied my paper to another piece of Whisper White card stock that I cut to be just a smidgen smaller than the paper. You could cut it the same size but this usually saves me from having to retrim the card stock because I didn't get it placed just right.
• I tied a Pool Party Seam Binding ribbon around the peice before attaching it to my card.

Back to straightening the studio. Hopefully I'll be done before Sunday night popcorn!

 

 

 

Congrats #1 with Epic Day tape

My package with Stampin' Up!'s This and That bundle arrived yesterday and I couldn't wait to play with the washi tape. So I got right to work on a couple of challenges that called for strips of paper (or tape) and Calypso Coral.

The Color Challenge is from Splitcoaststampers and calls for Calypso Coral, Baja Breeze and Basic Black. I like these colors together even more than I expected. The Mojo Monday sketch challenge this week looks like this:

Not only did the color challenge use one of the colors in the washi tape but it also gives me another chance to play with Baja Breeze which is, surprisingly, one of the colors leaving our line-up with Stampin' Up's Color Refresh. I realized as I played with this combination that I have quite a collection of Baja Breeze ink pads. Aside from my original pad, I had purchased the Craft ink refill and blank pad because I had to have a pad dedicated to my favorite Baja Breeze. This last year, the first pad that I bought in the new foam pads was Baja Breeze. I even had back up spools of Baja Breeze Seam Binding...

• I started with three strips of the Calypso Coral tape (from the Epic Day This and That designer washi tape) on a black square. I love how parts of the tape design are somewhat translucent so the tape looks a little different on different colors of paper. Can you see the subtle hexagon/honeycomb in the tape? It shows a little more in the Basic Gray Stripe tape pattern. Check out the rest of this washi tape package:

           

• I added the grad sentiment with my retired Baja Breeze craft ink. I think the stamps in the Blue Ribbon set are great with this modified chalkboard look.
• To keep going with this look I smudged a little more ink onto the black with my sponge after rounding opposite corners.
• The ribbon piece is probably self explanatory but I did use Basic Gray ink - black would have been too, well just too.
• The seam binding ribbons were wetted and scrunched to make them look a little weathered. Did you know that adhesives do NOT stick to wet seam binding. No, not even your little mini glue dots, Liz.
• The card base is Crumb Cake with layers of Calypso Coral and Honeycomb embossed Baja Breeze.
• I added the (sponged) black Curly Label to the sketch just to help balance the design.

You can see the other parts of the This and That Bundle here. As impressive as they are in the pictures I can tell you that they are even more inspiring in real life. It might take a little work to get up the nerve to cut into the Epic Day pack of paper. It is gorgeous!

Until next time...