Birthday Wishes As You See It

I've been having a wonderful week with my youngest daughter and oldest grandson, Parker.  He's about 27 months old and is chattering continually and I'm getting good at understanding most of what he says!  It's so heart-warming when he says, "I love you, Nana!" They will be staying with us until Monday, when Pat, Jaimie's husband, gets back from a band trip he was leading down to San Francisco.  Yesterday, Parker was with his other grandparents and so I had a chance to make some more cards.  One of the first I tackled was the As You See It Challenge Design Team card for Challenge #29.  Here's the sketch:

As you can see, Amanda has created an amazing sketch for us once again.  I have a Birthday Stamper's Dozen coming up on Monday, so I decided to make this a birthday card.  As I did yesterday, I also used one of my Pinterest Colour Palettes for the colour combination.  Here's the one I chose:

As I mentioned yesterday, Pinterest is a great place to look to find good colour combinations.

Here is my Design Team sample:

• Wow, I love this colour combination.  I'm starting to get awfully attached to Summer Starfruit.  It is slated to be retired in June, but I'm not going to be happy about that.  Let's start a Summer Starfruit rescue campaign!!
• The other colours are Basic Gray, Crisp Cantaloupe and Sahara Sand.  They look so amazing together!
• I didn't have any rickrack designs so I chose to use some Gold Sequin Trim instead and then added a few loose sequins on the background.

• The flowers are again from the Flower Shop Stamp set and punched out with the Pansy Punch which coordinates.  I stamped them in Crisp Cantaloupe, Summer Starfruit and Sahara Sand.
• The sentiment is from the Four You Stamp Set and is stamped in Sahara Sand ink.
• The DSP fragments used here are from the Neutrals Designer Series Paper Stacks and Sweet Sorbet, one of the free rewards during Sale-A-Bration, which ends March 31st.  Don't miss out on the benefits!

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

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New Year's Card for Pals Paper Arts

Pals Paper Arts Challenge #185 has been out for a while, and as I was looking around for inspiration today, I found their sketch, and decided to make a New Year's card with it:


                                               
  It's a mixture of new and old products, but definitely on the glitzy side:

• I don't know if I'm breaking a cardinal rule of the Arts, but I'm mixing my metallics!  This card features gold and silver embossing powder, gold foil sheets, silver glimmer paper and gold sequins. I like the way it looks so, if it looks good, break all the rules!!!
• I decided New Year's was a good celebration to use up some of my Modern Medley designs that I tend to overlook.  Here I mixed a mosaic design with some variable width stripes.  I'm such a rebel today!

• Everyone watches the clock for midnight New Year's Eve, so I used the Clockworks stamp set for that great pocket watch.  I had to use the Stamp-a-ma-jig to center the clock face, but I had SUCH a hard time with it.  Part of the problem is that my Clockworks set is clear mount and that can pose a problem with two-step stamping, especially if you have to clean the stamp in between stamping the acetate of the Stamp-a-ma-jig and inking up in Versamark so you can add embossing powder.  The cleaning of the stamp moves it slightly on the clear mount block.  If I had it to do over, I would definitely get this set in wood mount, and that goes for any two-step stamping set.
• The sentiment is half of one of the Christmas Messages set stamps.  I carefully inked it up in Versamark ink as well and embossed it with gold embossing powder.  Don't forget to use your embossing buddy for these kinds of projects, so you don't get embossing powder where you don't want it.
• I used an old neglected friend, the Curly Label punch, for the sentiment and it was just the right look! Yay for old friends:  "Should Auld Acquaintance be forgot...."

What are your plans on New Year's Eve?  We are going with two other couples to see the Hobbit Part 2 and I am so excited about that.  Have I mentioned that I am a huge Tolkien fan?  And that the Lord of the Rings Trilogy is my favourite movie series ever?

 

Click on any of these products for a direct link to my Stampin' Up! On-Line Store!

• Clockworks Clear-Mount Stamp Set
• Clockworks
• Christmas Messages Wood-Mount Stamp Set
• Christmas Messages Clear-Mount Stamp Set
• Modern Medley Designer Series Paper
• Gold Foil Sheets
• Silver Glimmer Paper
• Basic Black 8-1/2X11 Card Stock
• Versamark Pad
• Gold Stampin' Emboss Powder
• Silver Stampin' Emboss Powder
• Embossing Buddy
• Stamp-A-Ma-Jig
• Heat Tool
• Curly Label Punch
• Gold Sequin Trim*

*Available starting Jan. 3, 2014 from the Occasions Catalogue.

Experimenting with Peachy Keen and the On Film Framelits

I love movies!  My favourite activity besides stamping is watching videos with my hubby.  So I was really excited to see the On Film Framelits, bundled with the Peachy Keen Stamp Set in the new Occasions catalogue.  I've tried before to make a film strip and it was difficult.  Now we have a framelit to do that for us, and it looks so much better!  And there are other great framelit shapes in the set as well.

I set out to experiment last night with some of the new products and this is the result:

• I found out a lot about these products in my explorations.  First, the Gold Fancy Foil Designer Vellum.  Beautiful product!  Those embossed gold dots not only look great, but they serve a very useful purpose - they hide the adhesive, whether it be a glue dot or snail or a Dimensional. So no worries about how to adhere the vellum without exposing the adhesive!
• The tag was made from Basic Black cardstock using the new Scalloped Tag Topper Punch. This punch is used a bit differently from other punches. Be sure to read the instructions.  You should know that you are restricted to a tag that is two inches in width or it won't fit into the punch. Otherwise, very easy to use.
• The filmstrip framelit needs to have some waxed paper between the Brushed Gold cardstock and the framelit to make it easier to remove from the framelit after running it through the Big Shot.  Then it works like a dream.  Just make sure to remove the layer of waxed paper from the framelit each time, otherwise it will build up and eventually cause the framelit to be unable to cut because the built up layers of wax paper become too thick.

• The camera framelit.... well, it is backwards to the stamp, unless I am using it wrong.  I think you would have to use it on it's own. This framelit is very unique because it embosses as well as cuts, but the camera is not symmetrical and so, if you try to die cut the stamped camera image, It doesn't line up properly.  You would have to do it from the back of the paper, and you wouldn't get to see all the embossing.  That's also rather difficult to line up.  Too bad, because it's an awesome die.
• The gold sequin trim gives a great flashy accent when used like ribbon.  It is easy to separate the individual sequins as well and those would make great accents on their own.  I found that the best way to adhere it was to press glue dots to the spots where you wanted the sequin trim to be and then press the sequins onto the glue dots.  Trim the thread well and you can even add a glue dot to the underside of a stray sequin and affix it over the leftover thread to hide it.
• I think Peachy Keen is a very versatile stamp set and I'm looking forward to using the other images soon.

Hope you enjoyed that Sneak Peek!  I have one more entry tomorrow and then I will be taking a week off to spend with my family over Christmas.  I will still have posts for you, but I will be highlighting my favourite designs of the past year.  I will return with fresh material on Sunday, Dec. 29th, just in time to say good-bye to the Holiday Catalogue.  There are some products from the Holiday Catalogue that will be carried over and still available after Jan. 2 until June 1.  You can see the Carry Over List here.

Thanks for allowing me to share with you.

• Crisp Cantaloupe 8-1/2" X 11" Cardstock
• Crisp Cantaloupe Classic Stampin' Pad
• Brushed Gold 8-1/2X11 Card Stock
• Jet Black StazOn Pad
• Basic Black 8-1/2X11 Card Stock
• Whisper White 8-1/2X11 Card Stock
• Gorgeous Grunge Wood-mount Stamp Set
• Gorgeous Grunge Clear-mount Stamp Set
• Crumb Cake Classic Stampin' Pad
• Peachy Keen Stamp Set *
• On Film Framelits*
• Gold Fancy Foil Designer Vellum*
• Gold Sequin Trim *

*From the Occasions Catalogue, available for purchase Jan. 3