Wednesday, January 31, 2018

Mom & Me Valentine Ideas and Card for Newsletter Tutorial


I was playing around with ideas this week for my Mom & Me Valentine class coming up on Saturday, February 10. I had several alternatives to choose from and the first was the cuteness of A Little Wild, which produces the little wild animal tags when die cut with the Little Loves Framelits. I also had my latest Paper Pumpkin kit delivered, and the cute valentines in it make a great background for a little hedgehog, from the Hedgehugs stamp set or one of the pandas from the Sale-A-Bration reward, Party Pandas. With the addition of some hearts from the Coffee Cafe stamp set and the sentiments that are part of the Party Pandas and the Hedgehugs sets, or the new Paper Pumpkin kit, I think I have enough ammo for a great Mom & Me class!

Here's a closer look:


  • Those adorable tags from A Little Wild, turn easily into Valentines with the addition of either one of two tiny hearts from the Coffee Cafe set and two of the great sentiments from a Little Wild plus the To: From: stamp.  They are pretty tiny though, as you can see from the comparison to a Hershey's Kiss. 
  • They were coloured using the Stampin' Blends, but as that colour bleeds through the Whisper White cardstock you have to die cut a second label shape from Whisper White to glue on the inside for the sentiment and the greeting. If I was doing this with the kids, I would stamp them on coloured cardstock instead of Whisper White and maybe just add one or two colour accents with Stampin' Right markers instead of filling them all in.
  • The Paper Pumpkin kit valentines I followed directions for except I used the images and sentiments for Party Pandas and Hedgehugs instead of the stamps in the kit and added a few more images.

I am also working this week on my February newsletter, and, as usual, I will be including a free photo tutorial in the newsletter. It will feature the Petal Passion Designer Series Paper and show you how to use the new Stampin' Blends Alcohol markers. My photo tutorials include a list of supplies and measurements as well as links to where you can purchase any supplies you need. This next one will also have a video component for the actual Stampin' Blends colouring part.

Here is the card, which you have seen before on my blog:


That background DSP is normally black and white, but I have made it colourful and the exact colours that I wanted, using the Stampin' Blends Alcohol markers. If you have been wanting to start using these but were reluctant to start because you didn't know what you were doing, it's easier than it looks, as you will find out in this tutorial. Also, if the price for the full set is daunting you, let me know here if you would be interested in being a part of a Stampin' Blends club, which will let you get a full set by paying in a set of 6 monthly installments.

To make sure that you get this free tutorial, make sure you are signed up to receive my free monthly newsletter:


Join My Mailing List
Email:


For Email Marketing you can trust


I Get Cards

Finally today, I wanted to share with you some beautiful cards that I have received from stamping friends in my area:


The card on the left is from one of my Papercraft Cats, Marion Hall, who was very clever combining the Picnic with You bundle with the Waterfront stamp set for a beautiful effect! The card on the right is from a good friend and stamping buddy, Eunice Stoneman, who is on a personal crusade to use up all her old DSP! She's doing an amazing job with it. Some of those flowers are fussy cut and added to the same images in the designer paper for a gorgeous 3D look. I love her colour choices with this one.


The card on the left is from a long time customer, Elaine Walker with a great technique, Triple Time stamping and a great classic stamp set, Betsy's Blossoms! On the right, customer & friend Teri Coady sports up "Hey, Chick", a favourite from last year's SAB, with some beautiful water colour technique. Also that little egg is 3D! How cute!


Two of my Papercraft Cats are featured here. On the left is Karen Bridden's lovely CAS take on the Picture Perfect Birthday stamp set! I love the colour combo she has chosen, and those self-adhesive sequins are the best, aren't they? Another team member and good friend, Doreen Austgarden went tropical in her choice of colours and textures here. I love how the background for the sentiment looks like the ocean!



Monday, January 29, 2018

Feather Together for a True Gentleman


Browsing through my stamp sets, I was shocked to come across one from the Annual Catalogue that I had yet to ink up! And it is one that I loved from the moment I set eyes on it, Feather Together! It's a Two Step Stamping set - actually Five Step Stamping, but so easy with photopolymer and with a Stamparatus - except I had to do the first step by hand because there are only 4 sides, but that's no biggie, unless I wanted to do multiple copies. But you could easily leave out one image without a noticeable difference I think.

This set lent itself well, sentiments and all, to two challenges this week:  Freshly Made Sketches and Color Throwdown.

Here are the challenge banners for both:


I know the feathers are a bit more elongated than the sketch indicates, but I love the look of them for a masculine card anyway!

This is a great colour combo, but I wanted to jazz up one of my feathers with some metallic embossing, when my eye caught sight of a scrap of the Painted with Love Specialty DSP with its gold foil and Calypso Coral and I stamped a feather right on it!

Here's the result:


  • The colours from the Color Throwdown challenge gave a lovely soft look to the feathers and they blended so well together. The two oranges - Pumpkin Pie and Calypso Coral complement each other really well, especially with the addition of the gold.
  • The background DSP, from the Myths & Magic series, is absolutely perfect for a masculine card, in Basic Gray with the lighter fleur-de-lis design. 
  • The feathers from Feather Together were stamped with different colours for the 5 step process depending on the overall colour wanted. The aqua feather had shades of Smoky Slate, Sahara Sand, Soft Sky and Pool Party, while the orange feather had Smoky Slate, Sahara Sand, Peekaboo Peach and Pumpkin Pie. I used Smoky Slate and Calypso Coral on the third sample, stamping right on to the Painted with Love DSP.
  • There are no dies for the feathers so I fussy cut them, but I also add the feathering touch by cutting the narrow fringes in them in two different spots and "feathering" them up, for a more 3D look.


Just wanted to remind you that Sale-A-Bration 2018 is in full swing, and my customers are earning some amazing rewards, not only for shopping, but also for hosting and for joining my team! So far they are all thrilled that they did, because the rewards have been more than they expected! 

Let me also remind you that to receive an invitation to my exclusive Celebrate Sale-A-Bration Party in April, once Sale-A-Bration is over, you need to have earned at least one Sale-A-Bration Reward during the SAB period, by the end of March. So don't wait until the end to place your qualifying orders! There are so many great ones to choose from and you want as much time to play with them as possible!!






In my last newsletter, I promised that I would be loading many of the photo tutorials that I had made for my past newsletters on to my blog site for you to download. These include past tutorials up to 4 months previous to the latest newsletter. I am sharing them with you for free, so just go to the top menu to the Photo Tutorial Tab and download to your heart's content.





Click on the links below to take you to my On-Line Store, where you can read about, look at, and purchase if you wish, the products used to make this card today.


Product List
Gold Cording Trim
Gold Cording Trim
[139618]
$6.25
Glue Dots
[103683]
$7.00

Friday, January 26, 2018

Seasonal Potpourri for As You See It Challenge #168


Hey, Stampers! It's Friday and the weekend, which to crafters means More Time in the Craft Room! It also means there's a new challenge over at As You See It Challenge and this one (#168) is a sketch challenge, which is particularly appropriate for the season, given the conditions in our corner of the world! Here's the sketch:


And here is why I took the sketch pretty literally, making it a seasonal potpourri of snowflakes and Pool Party and Lemon Lime Twist:


It's a little hard to tell here, but it is snowing huge, gigantic snowflakes and has been for a couple of hours! I mean really huge! So I made a card with snowflakes, and in the process, used a few stamp sets I haven't used for a long time like Work of  Art, and Sheltering Tree, along with the Colourful Seasons stamp set, which has been taking a bit of a back seat to the Holiday and Occasions stamp sets!

  • I used Work of Art to create the little pieces of chevron designs in the background. I used one of my favourite techniques, which I call the Whisper technique, to get only patches of the image stamped instead of the solid, full image. I inked up the stamp and laid it very lightly on the cardstock, then applied extremely light touches of pressure on different areas of the stamp, like a "whisper touch". I used Pool Party full strength but stamped off the Lemon Lime Twist once before applying the Whisper Technique.
  • I used the smaller snowflake image from Colourful Seasons for the larger stamped snowflake in Pool Party, and the small snowflake image from Hang Your Stockings in Lemon Lime Twist. The snow flurry stamp from Sheltering Tree was used to fill in the gaps.
  • The die cut snowflakes were made with the coordinating dies for Colourful Seasons, Seasonal Layers Thinlit Dies. I backed the cardstock with Multipurpose Adhesive Sheets before die cutting, so they were easy to apply, just like stickers.
  • A piece of vellum punched with the 1 1/2" Circle Punch separated the two largest snowflakes.
  • See the snippet of Lemon Lime Twist Mini Striped Ribbon  and the Silver Metallic Thread loops tucked in behind the vellum? The rhinestones in the snowflakes finish off the snowy look.
Pop on over to As You See It Challenge today and try your hand at our sketch this weekend!




In my last newsletter, I promised that I would be loading many of the photo tutorials that I had made for my past newsletters on to my blog site for you to download. These include past tutorials up to 4 months previous to the latest newsletter. I am sharing them with you for free, so just go to the top menu to the Photo Tutorial Tab and download to your heart's content.




Click on the links below to take you to my On-Line Store, where you can read about, look at, and purchase if you wish, the products used to make this card today.


Product List
Big Shot
[143263]
$136.00
Glue Dots
[103683]
$7.00