from my ink pad to yours

White on White Wedding Card

Today's Mixed Media Challenge on Splitcoaststampers is Snow so I thought it might be time to do a white on white card I've had in mind.

I first cut a heart from watercolor paper (#122959) with the Bloomin Heart Thinlit Die (#140621) and then cut two more hearts from thick Whisper White (#140272). They were layered all together using a 2-Way Glue Pen (#100425). I like to layer die cuts, especially tone on tone die cuts to help them stand out from the same color background. Then I mounted the thick heart on a non Stampin' Up! 5" x 6 7/8" watercolor card so that I could match the not quite white, not quite vanilla color of the heart. I embossed a flower from Bloomin' Love (#140643), cut it with the matching die from the thinlit set and added some sparkle with Clear Wink of Stella on the petals and a small rhinestone (#119246) in the center of the flower. "Wedding Wishes",  from another 2016 Occasions set, Rose Wonder (#140697) is embossed with silver embosssing powder (#109131) on the lower right portion of the card.

 I hope you got to spend New Year's the way just the way you wanted to.  Here's to a wonderful 2016!

Watercolor Embossed Poppies

I hit triple today with this card. The pinterest picture challenge (Poppy Cake)  from SCS's CAS challenge, SCS' Mixability challenge to use splatters, and the Color Throwdown Challenge:

 

• I took out my ink refills and Flower Garden embossing folder for another variation of Wet/Dry Embossing. I used the refills because I wanted my red to be intense. The green was actually Gumball Green but it too is quite intense and looks close to Graden Green.
• I've never been much of a splatter person. I just set the art piece in the waste basket and flicked some ink onto it with my paintbrush.
• "Above and Beyond" is from one of my favorite word sets, One in a Million.
• Stamping your sentiment on a vellum strip allows you to try out different sentiments with an image or layout with out risking a mistake to your base image.
• If you've followed my blog for the past month or so you know I've played with this technique quite a bit lately. You can find out more about it by checking out my Chevron Cards and an earlier Manhatten Flower card.

Of course Stampin' Up! has an awesome Poppy stamp, Pleasant Poppies which would also be perfect for this challenge but I don't have it. Not yet anyway.

I don't have time to write much more this morning but I thought you might like to see the other ideas I tried out for this challenge before deciding I like the embossing folder card the best.

Reverse masking with Henry aka Henriette.

More maksing with Bloomin' Marvelous

Same idea with Fabulous Florets.

Happy Stamping!

 

Easter Blessings

Easter Blessings is a single stamp from Stampin' Up!'s Spring catalog.

• I've used it here on a background piece that I made while playing around with a mixed media challenge (Water you doing) to use water with some form of ink.
• I used markers to ink Vine Street embossing folder and then spritzed water on the folder before running it through the Big Shot with my white card stock.
• I used the embossed framelit technique for the oval.
• I did the same type of thing on an acrylic block except I used re-inkers instead of markers. The acrylic block then became the "ink pad" I used to stamp the butterflies from Papillon Potpourri.
• Yes, I do finally have my own butterfly punches and stamps!
• The Easter Blessings stamp is really big enough to carry it's own weight as the focal point. The butterflies might have been a little over the top with this card but they are on there and they aren't coming off.

Wishy Washy Tape Challenge

This week's technique challenge on SCS is to use Washi tape or make some. I had picked up a few patterns of tape while exploring some shops in Des Moines with my daughter last November (Small Business Saturday!) As of Monday I had not started to unroll any of them so I vowed to try them out this week.

This simple card uses up the last of the butterflies that I had stamped with Liz's Papillon set which she shared with me last month. I really need to order this set for myself today! The greeting is from Teeny Tiny Verses. It's not a card that has any particular recipient in mind but someday I'm sure I'll be glad it's in my card stash.

Quite the picture, huh? I think I chose this tape because the background color to the roses looked like Pool Party and I was right. It was a great match. The gingham came along because I wanted to make sure I had something to go with the roses. I ended up moving the tape around a little and wrapping the gingham around the bottom edge card stock so that it didn't overpower the rose tape.  The Real Red trim above the roses is from my Tasteful Trim die. I adhered the trim to another piece of paper so that I coud use my paper trimmer to cut it down the middle.

Here's  close-up of my Pool Party embossed Secret Garden Flower. What do you think of my leaves?

 

 

 

Ombre Hearts

I bet you thought I must have enough Valentine cards by now. Well, Im sure I'll find uses for these. Here is one that I did for the CAS challenge at SCS this week. The challenge this week was based on a featured stamper, mamasix. She made an adorable embossed circle card in Valentine colors that I thought could easily be translated into a Valentine. It turns out I am not that good at putting down random hearts and I ended up coming up with this symmetrical Ombre type arrangement. I also tried adding other elements (Another challenge was to bring balance to a card with a large and a small element) but nothing really looked better than leaving the heart alone.

• This smaller hearts are made with the small heart punch and a retired heart trio punch.
• The large heart is cut with a heart framelit.
• The colors are Pink Pirouette, Pretty in Pink, Regal Rose, and Melon Mambo.
• The embossing is done with the Vine Street embossing folder which is one of the free items available with a $50 order during Sale-a-bration.
• The Whisper White card is 4 1/4" x 4 1/4".
• I used double layered demensionals to give this an extra lift.

Folk Art Valentine a la Secret Garden

A little bit of clear embossing, a few passes through the Big Shot, a Crumb Cake card base and voila, a folk artsy valentine. The flower (from Secret Garden) embossing on the heart mimics the look of a wrapped up heart. I thought of adding in some white gel pen but decided to leave that experiment for another card. You might not see it in the photo but the leaves are embossed on Wild Wasabi. That is why one turns up and the other down. I could have made them more symmetrical if I had not embossed them. But, I like the curve that having them turned that way provides.

Feeling a little guilty about how simple this was, I added a strip of white die cut "eyelet" from the Finishing Touches set.

Do you like this color combination? For me it is a classic. It was about the only combination that I liked with my first ever Stampin' Up! inkpad, Glorious Green. Wild Wasabi does fill in nicely with more uses! One of the other cards with a similar combination is this card. Others are here and here.

 

Simple Swallowtail on Crumb Cake

This is one of the first cards I made with the large new Swallowtail stamp. It was also my trial run for the So Sorry set.

I like to use a brayer when applying craft ink to large detailed stamps. It helps preserves the detail. Both the greeting and image are embossed in white.

I made up variations of this with different greetings as part of little Christmas gifts for some of my co-workers. Very quick to do!

Hearts a la Honeycomb

This simple little number features the Honeycomb embossing folder from the new Spring catalog. I tore six adjacent hexagons that had been embossed onto Very Vanilla ultrasmooth card stock and mounted it on Ivory Naturals layers with dimensionals. Then I punched out Cherry Cobbler hearts from various patterns of paper with the small heart punch. They fit perfectly!

I added the "love you" sentiment from Itty Bitty Banners, though it also looks great without a sentiment. I photographed it both ways:

Well, back to getting my house undecorated and ready for one of my favorite stamping events of the year, "Stampin' at the Pad", with members of my downline. The week after next we'll spend two solid days together getting samples ready for Sale-a-bration and spring workshops.

A Simple Welcome to Summer Smooches

Happy April! No April Fools Day jokes here but I hope you had a chance to pull a good one on somebody.

This simple Lucky Limeade and Whisper White card shows off the  Summer Smooches Designer Series Paper (125409),  a paper pack that will be in the new catalog in June but is also available this month as part of Stampin' Up!'s April preview offer.

The flower is made with the Blossom punch (Occasions Mini) and its center is one of the Summer Smooches Fabric Designer Brads. This set of brads, along with the Summer Smooches Decor Stencil will only be available during April and will not appear in the new catalog. I curled the petals of the flower with a pencil. The greeting "thinking of you" comes from the set Three Little Words. The green leaves are actually from a five petal punch flower. I just scored the center veins.

I've started a Bright Blossoms (stamp set)/Summer Smooches board over on Pinterest. Check it out.

 

                             

Summer Smooches Designer Series Paper                        Summer Smooches Fabric Designer Brads

#125409  $10.95                                                                        #125589  $6.95

You can see the whole Summer Smooches Collection on

my Stampin' Up! website: Products/Shop Now/Home/Shop by Collection/Summer Smooches

 

Other products in this card:

Three Little Words double mounted stamp set #113254 $13.95 IBC p.166

Blossom punch #125603 Occasions Mini Catalog p.17

Whisper White Card Stock #100730  $8.50/40 sheets IBC p.180

5 Petal Flower punch #119880 $16.95 IBC p.210

        (Check out the clearance rack if you would like to save a few dollars on the old style punch!)

 

Simple Card with Simple Accessories

This simple card is one that I put together during a lunch break one day last summer while I was at convention. I had just a few supplies with me but they were enough to create this card featuring the Best Friends Forever and It's Your Day, two of the convention stamp sets. It would be easy to change out the saying with one that is a little more oriented to Valentine's Day.

• The card is Crumb Cake with a Pink Pirouette heart
• The Designer Series Paper is Belle Chateau
• The taffeta ribbon is Soft Suede, as is the ink.
• Embellishments: Basic Pearls and, of course, a Stampin' Dimensional to pop the heart.

Have  a fun weekend!