Monthly Archives: January 2017

Hey Chick Happy Day

It’s funny how your opinions of stamp sets change – I was on the fence about getting Hey Chick, but I’ve been having so much fun with it and the new watercolor pencils. I’m so glad that I got it. Especially as it was free – and can be for you too. It’s one of the Sale-a-bration products which means that it’s one of the items you can select every time you spend $50 (before tax and shipping) during Sale-a-bration which started earlier this week and goes on until the end of March.

Liz Bailey Stampin' Up! Demonstrator - Hey Chick

I again used the watercolor pencils and a blender pen after stamping the image with the archival basic black. One tip that I have for you is that you must give it time to dry before using the blender pen or you get a chicken tinged with grey. No need to discuss how I know that! You could use the heat gun but I actually left mine overnight – not on purpose, it just happened that way. I used the daffodil delight, pumpkin pie and bermuda bay pencils, first laying down some colour and then using the blender pen to move the colour around to erase the pencil lines (I love watching that happen) and then blending where the colours change. I added more colour where I felt I needed it and repeated until I was happy. There’s something very therapeutic about this process.

The rest of the card is also easy (luckily since it’s my third make and take at my launch parties) – cut out the image with the wonderful stitched shapes dies, dry emboss a piece of bermuda bay with the Seaside TIEF, stamp a sentiment from the same set on daffodil delight and make it into a banner using the triple banner punch and then construct. I like to use snail or fuse (or a mixture) to adhere dry embossed pieces. And I used dimensionals to pop up the chick – I think she deserves it.

I hope you enjoyed today’s project. Click here to go to my online shop or here to join my team. To sign up for Paper Pumpkin, click here. Don’t forget that buying a prepaid 3 month subscription not only saves you money, it gets you a free Sale-a-bration item!

See you tomorrow,

Liz

 

Beautiful You Watercolor Wash

The new set, Beautiful You, is perfect for the new watercolor pencils and perfect for practicing prowess with an aquapainter. It’s actually incredible how little skill is needed to achieve a great look.

Liz Bailey Stampin' Up! Demonstrator - Beautiful You

For this card, I stamped the image and sentiment, both from Beautiful You, in archival basic black onto shimmery white card stock. By the way, if you’re using your stamp-a-ma-jig, clean it up quickly after using the archival inks. With a little extra effort it cleans right up but if you let it really dry, it won’t come off without the stazon cleaner even though it’s not alcohol based. After letting it dry, I took the daffodil delight watercolor pencil and laid down some colour around the image and then blended with the aquapainter. After that had started to dry, I coloured in the rest of the image using pumpkin pie, melon mambo, old olive, calypso coral and then a combo of the first two on her hat.The calypso coral was just a hint to stop her limbs being stark white. Then as the drying permitted (to avoid bleeding the colours together) I blended the rest of the colours, adding more colour afterwards as necessary – specifically extra melon mambo on the folds of the skirt.

The paper was not quite as flat as when I started so I used fast fuse to attach it to the basic black mat to flatten it completely. More fast fuse to attach this to the daffodil delight card base and the card was complete. I love this image and am really happy with the result here – it looks as if she’s bathed in sunshine and just so happy, celebrating the joys of spring. At least, that was my intention!

I hope you enjoyed today’s project. Click here to go to my online shop or here to join my team. To sign up for Paper Pumpkin, click here. And that reminds me – there’s a deal on a 3 month subscription to Paper Pumpkin going on currently, instead of $59 it’s $55 (137859) priced perfectly to get you a free Sale-a-bration item. Even if you’re a monthly subscriber, you can buy a 3 month subscription and use that and then go back to the monthly subscription afterwards. You’d save money AND get a free product. There’s no downside!

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Dragonfly Dreams

Whilst we’re waiting for the servers to come back up, how about another sneek peek – and in fact another of the make and takes that we’ll be making at my launch parties. This one uses both parts of the dragonfly bundle – dragonfly dreams and the matching Detailed Dragonfly Thinlits dies.

Liz Bailey Stampin' Up! Demonstrator - Dragonfly Dreams - Detailed Dragonfly Thinlits Dies

I started by stamping the beautifully dragonfly in versamark and sprinkled on the gold embossing powder and then heated it. I love this technique and am excited to share it at my upcoming parties. I DID use my embossing buddy but didn’t notice a little stray powder because it was hiding on the island indigo paper and then decided that I didn’t want a one layer card as I was planning. So I cut out the dragonfly which made the card more fun AND removed the embossing powder glitch. Perfect! The lovely sentiment comes from the same set – stamped in island indigo on very vanilla and then added to the island indigo cardbase.

One important tip – I thought I could use snail on the body of the dragonfly and apply it with the dragonfly on the silicone mat to mop up the extra glue. Nope! The snail is too strong and ripped layers off the card stock, so don’t try that! There you go, I’ve saved you a ruined dragonfly. Instead I used the sponge dauber and multi purpose glue and dabbed it onto the body leaving the wings free to move.

I hope you enjoyed today’s project. Please use the hostess code to get free product; the current one will be updated as soon as the site is back (if your order is over $150, don’t use the code, you get the rewards, but you still get the free gift from me). Click here to go to my online shop or here to join my team. To sign up for Paper Pumpkin, click here.

I’ll post again when the servers are back up.

See you later,

Liz

 

 

Sale-a-bration 2017 is LIVE – sort of

Sale-a-bration 2017 is LIVE – sort of. What do I mean by that? Well, today is the first day that you can order from the new Occasions and Sale-a-bration catalogues from which I’ve been teasing you with sneak peeks, BUT there is so much attempted activity, that the Stampin’ Up! servers are down globally. So, although everything is live, we can’t actually order quite yet. I’m sure that their IT department is working furiously to fix this, but for now, we have to be patient. Obviously I can’t update the catalog links until the site is back, nor can I get a new workshop code.

But, I can explain Sale-a-bration whilst we’re waiting! Sale-a-bration is a really exciting part of the year and in three ways.

  • For every $50 that you spend in product (not including taxes and shipping) from today until March 31st, you get to pick a free item from the Sale-a-bration catalogue. In fact, you can’t even buy the Sale-a-bration items, you can only get them for free.
  • If you host a party or just order yourself and your order gets to $250 or more, not only will you earn free Sale-a-bration items, your Stampin’ Rewards (read – more free items) are increased by an extra $25. So at exactly $250, you’d get 5 Sale-a-bration items and $50 of Stampin’ Rewards. At $300, you’d get 6 sale-a-bration items and $61 in Stampin’ Rewards. It’s too good a deal to miss.
  • But if your order is even close to $90, it makes more sense to join the Stampin’ Up! family. Joining during Sale-a-bration gets you more product in your totally customisable starter kit. For just $99 you get to choose $125 in product and it ships for free. So that’s saving you $38.50 right there. On top of that, you also get to select two stamp sets completely free which is a value of up to $104 more depending upon which sets you pick.And if you never want to buy another thing, that’s totally fine, there’s no penalty. But if you continue and sell/buy $300 per quarter (not including this one) you get at least a 20% discount on all your supplies, the chance to order new things a month early, an exclusive magazine, the chance to go to Stampin’ Up! events and more. You might even find that you remove a lifelong belief that you’re not creative. I know I did!

Click here to go to my online shop or here to join my team. To sign up for Paper Pumpkin, click here. When the servers are back up anyway!

I’ll add another sneak peek post whilst you’re waiting.

See you later,

Liz