Monthly Archives: November 2014

The Hero Tree revisited

I’ve mentioned previously that I was in Michaels looking for some scissors for a left hander when I saw this beautiful Hero Arts Christmas tree stamp. Because the tree is so gorgeous, I didn’t want to detract from it or have other elements fighting with it. This time I decided to heat emboss it in silver since the previous two uses had it embossed in gold. It looks as if I’ll have to try it without heat embossing too!

For my base, I used rich razzleberry – in fact this is a one layer card. After rubbing the embossing buddy over the card, I stamped the tree in versamark and sprinkled on the silver embossing powder. As an aside – whilst in Michaels, I also found an embossing tray which catches all the embossing powder and allows you to funnel the powder back into the pot. I had thought about storing the powders in plastic containers with a spoon for ease of sprinkling, but with a dozen or so powders, I didn’t want to use up the extra space. I take up enough (okay, pretty much all) of the kitchen table at the moment as it is! Stampin’ Up! used to sell one but it appears to have been discontinued. I also got a few small paint brushes which are useful for flicking off any stray dots of powder before heating and for helping the last remnants of the powder from the tray into the pot.

Hero Arts christmas tree stamp on rich razzleberry
Back to today’s card! After heat embossing the tree, I rubbed the embossing buddy on the bottom part of the card and stamped the sentiment from Stampin’ Up!’s Good Greeting set in versamark. One more sprinkle with the embossing powder and another round with the heat tool and the card is done. I could have stamped both parts in the versamark and then done just one round with the embossing powder and heat tool but I prefer to do one thing at a time when embossing.

I finished the card off by dry embossing the envelope flap with Stampin’ Up!’s northern flurry embossing folder.  The colour of the rich razzleberry is truer to life here – I need to improve my photography to get the colours better. I may even have to read the manual!

Hero Arts christmas tree stamp with embossed envelope

 

More than nice to have

Earlier in the week I posted a list of the stamping supplies that I absolutely would hate to stamp without – and in some cases, would barely be able to manage. Today I’m going to share my list of supplies that are more than nice to have, they almost made my critical list but I couldn’t in all honesty say that I couldn’t stamp without them. So here’s my Almost Critical Stamping Supplies list!

1. Big Shot

Need I say more?. It can do dry embossing and die cutting which opens up a whole new world of carding. Could I make a card without it? Yes, but I don’t very often! In fact, almost every single envelope has been decorated by it – either by dry embossing or by gluing on a liner cut out with it.

2. Bone Folder

It makes nice crisp good folds. I use it every time I make a card although I know that some people don’t, so I could technically get by without it. I just wouldn’t want to.

3. Colour Coach

The colour coach is awesome for suggesting colour combinations. A couple of my current favourite combinations came from here (for example, melon mambo, pumpkin pie and crushed curry) and I know that I wouldn’t have put them together. It’s great for when you have a card in mind, but not the colour. You pull out your colour coach and flip through until you find something that grabs you.

4. Paper Snips

Stampin’ Up! make a really nice pair of paper snips which make it very easy to snip around stamped images. They are also good for left and right handers – unlike the craft scissors which are right handed. My (also left handed) sister has them and they are very nice and are okay as long as you’re only cutting a piece of ribbon. They aren’t comfortable for long time left handed use.

5. Heat tool

You need this in order to do heat embossing which I adore. So although I could make cards without heat embossing, I almost put this on my critical supplies list! The heat tool works well – it embosses fairly quickly and so far I haven’t burned any paper.

6. Embossing Buddy

This IS critical if you’re doing heat embossing. It helps the embossing powder stick to only the places where you want it – although I find a small paintbrush is invaluable to flick away any stray specks that may still hang around.

That’s it. My Almost Critical Stamping Supplies. Let me know your thoughts.

Ho! Ho! Ho! A trendy Christmas card

Whilst we were at the crop weekend earlier this month, we borrowed the moustache framelit from a fellow attendee, Randa. Caro and I made some superhero boxes using it but she’d also seen a rather cute Christmas card on Facebook pictured from the European convention.

Stampin' Up! Good Greetings on real red with moustache

This card is simple to put together, easy to mass produce if desired and moustaches are very trendy at the moment. Win, win, win, right?

For a change, I made the white mat half an inch smaller than the base so that there was a quarter inch border all the way around rather than my usual 1/8 inch. The top mat is just a quarter inch smaller and showing my usual 1/8 inch border all around. I embossed the sentiment from Stampin’ Up! Good Greetings in white embossing powder (Stampin’ Up!’s really is much better than the cheaper brand I initially used!) and then it was a simple matter of using the framelit to cut out the moustache in whisper white. Actually Caro cranked out a whole bunch so that we could give the framelit back to Randa so it was even easier to just grab one of the precut ones. Thanks Caro! I popped the moustache up on dimensionals. I positioned the sentiment and moustache so that it cuts the card in three which I think is rather pleasing. I ran the flap of the envelope through the big shot using the polka dots embossing folder.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to all of those celebrating today. For everyone else – I hope you have a wonderful day. I intend to have a good one – I’m currently in Barcelona on vacation.

In the spirit of giving thanks, I decided to do a different kind of post today. It is inspired by ten minutes or so last week when I thought that I’d lost my stamp-a-ma-jig and realised that this pretty much made stamping impossible. So here’s my list of critical stamping supplies that I absolutely could not do without and why. I’m interested in your comments on this!

1. Stampin’ Up!’s Stamp-a-ma-jig.

It’s critical to get your stamps where you want them. It’s not foolproof – you still have to get the image on the acetate sheet lined up but as long as you do that, it’s perfect. I also find that using the stamp-a-ma-jig handle to slide your stamp down when stamping prevents you wobbling and removes any chance of extra ink onto your project.

2. Grid paper

I find this invaluable for helping me to line up sentiments or to get images centred. It’s also a good base to stamp on as well as useful to stamp off the excess ink before cleaning the rest on the stampin’ scrub.

3. Ruler

My ruler is also critical. I use it to hold under a sentiment and then see if it is in fact straight on the card by using the lines on the grid paper. I line the card up with the grid paper and then check that my ruler is also lined up.

4. Tombow glue

I started off using snail. And I like it a lot – I still use it for lining envelopes. But I like that I have a little bit of time to wiggle the card around if I haven’t got it quite right.

5. Adhesive Remover

Caro told me that I needed this but I wasn’t so sure. So I didn’t get it for a few months but now that I have it, I use it a lot. It’s obviously great for removing any excess glue (just let it dry before removing it) or sticky patches left by sticky fingers. But it’s also good at cleaning up any wisps caused by a not so sharp trimmer blade (or maybe a cutting mat was requiring a clean)

6. Trimmer

This one’s a no brainer. You can’t make cards if you can’t cut the card to size. I like my stampin’ trimmer – it’s accurate.

I compiled this list by thinking about what I could not stamp without. Could I stamp without my ruler? Probably but I wouldn’t like it. Same goes for the rest. There is another list of items that I like to have, but that’s for another day!

Get Your Santa On!

I’ve really been enjoying the Stampin’ Up! Get your santa on stamp set. I appeared to have a bit of a series going with this stamp set so I decided to continue that with one of the stamps that I haven’t used yet.

Stampin' Up! Get your santa on in cherry cobbler

I stamped the chimney stamp in my favourite memento black ink – you have to use this if you’re going to colour with the blendability markers. I coloured santa’s trousers in the dark and medium cherry cobbler blendabilities and used just the medium old olive for the greenery. I picked the medium daffodil delight for the candles’ flames and used the light cherry cobbler for the candlesticks.

I find it surprisingly relaxing colouring with the blendabilities, I have no idea why. I was at a class recently where we were using the rich razzleberry blendabilities on two projects, so there was a lot of colouring. The class was far more quiet than usual, there is usually a fair bit of banter, but on that night we were all soothed by the act of colouring. Apparently it only works on children for a short time. Shame.

I mounted the whisper white card stock onto a piece of basic black cut just a quarter inch larger than the whisper white. This in turn was adhered to a cherry cobbler base. The envelope was lined with the backgrounds DSP in cherry cobbler.

I use a 3 inch by 6 piece of DSP to create the liner, rather than lining the envelope all the way to the bottom. This means that you can get 8 liners out of a sheet of the DSP. So when I need a liner, I cut the sheet into 8 and cut 8 liners; recently I’ve been cutting 2 at a time since I figured that the DSP is so much thinner than the card stock. I then score them using the stampin’ trimmer and stack my ready cut liners in families. I think that I need to get a little index card box to store them in to keep them neat.