Monthly Archives: May 2015

Flowering Flourishes for the Paper Players

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Firstly I’d like to thank the Design Team 2 at the Pals Paper Arts for selecting my card as a winner this week. It’s an honour to be recognised. I’ve happily added the badge to my awards page.

I’d also like to thank the City Crafter Challenge blog team for selecting my card for their Spotlight Artists award. Two badges in one day is pretty awesome!

The Paper Players‘ challenge this week is for a Clean and Simple “Girly thanks” card. I can definitely do the clean and simple, that’s what my cards tend to be, the girly thanks part needed a little effort.

Stampin' Up! Flowering Flourishes and Painted Petals

This is a deceptively simple card but it took a number of attempts. I started off making a vertical card but it wasn’t going the way I wanted. Then I wanted a large very vanilla border and managed to mess up the cutting and the image portion was too small. But finally, I got it right. The image is from Flowering Flourishes and I stamped it in rose red on the very vanilla (which, in case you’re wondering is 5/8 inch smaller than the card base). The sentiment comes from the soon to be retiring set Painted Petals which is one of my favourite sets at the moment. I then matted this with a piece of rose red which is just 1/8 inch larger than the very vanilla. I like the effect given by a skinny mat. This was then mounted on a very vanilla card base.

I lined the envelope with a piece of the backgrounds DSP in rose red (also retiring but new patterns are coming out in the new catalogue) cut to size using the envelope liner framelits. When I need a liner, I tend to cut out 8 at a time so that they are ready to go. I don’t line the entire envelope since it’s not visible, instead I cut a piece of 12 by 12 into 8 piece 3 by 6 inches and then cut them out with the framelits two at a time. I figure that the DSP is much thinner than the cardstock so two shouldn’t be a problem. I even score them (also two at a time) using my stampin’ trimmer so it’s easy to grab one and line an envelope.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

 

Watercolouring for the birds

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I had some fun with my aquapainter and inks on the images from For The Birds recently. The watercolour paper works brilliantly to ensure that all the water that you use whilst painting doesn’t make the paper wavy. It’s amazing.

Stampin' Up! For The birds

I stamped the image on the watercolour paper using the jet black stazon ink (giving it a moment to dry before colouring). I then pulled a selection of inks and just played away feeling like a real artist with my aquapainter. It looked best with a small black mat and then mounted on a crumb cake base. I love the typeface of the sentiment and was happy that it fit here. It’s stamped in memento black – my favourite black ink.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Cards for the gift bags

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As I mentioned yesterday, I wanted to make some cards to go into the gift bags that I created to thank my new Paper Pumpkin subscribers. The bag isn’t big enough to hold my normal sized cards so since I would need to make envelopes, I turned to the new in colours since I have the new envelope paper in these shades. Or maybe I just wanted to play with more of the new colours.

Cards sized 3″ by 4″ will fit happily in the bag and even more happily I found that an envelope for this size card needs a piece of paper 6″ by 6″ so I can get four envelopes out of one sheet of paper. Very nice.

Stampin' Up! Because you care and Million & One

I started with very vanilla card stock and stamped the sentiment from the Million & One set in mint macaron. This set is retiring so you only have until next week to get it if you want it! I then took some mint macaron card stock and using lost lagoon ink used some sentiments from the hostess set Because You Care. This is also retiring. As you can see, they pair beautifully with the envelopes made with the mint macaron envelope paper and there’s no need for lining since the inside of the paper already has a good liner – like pattern.

Stampin' Up! Million & One and Larger than life

I decided that the tip top taupe would pair nicely with the mint macaron. I decided to take it up a notch by embossing the sentiment from Million & One with gold embossing powder onto the tip top taupe. I then pulled out the Larger Than Life set and stamped the first initial of both of my subscribers onto a very vanilla card in tip top taupe. I’ll have to ensure that they get the right bag! I made the envelopes out of the tip top taupe envelope paper.

If you’d like a set of cards, you know what to do. Subscribe to Paper Pumpkin using the button on the side which will take you to the Paper Pumpkin site with me as your demonstrator!

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Gift bag punch board

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In the new catalogue, Stampin’ Up! is bringing out a gift bag punch board. I already have one – I picked it up in Michaels last year with my sister. So I can show you what it can make.

gift bag punch board

I have a couple of new Paper Pumpkin subscribers and I thought that it would be nice to give them a thank you gift. Plus I’m still on a kick to use up the leftover pieces from my July 2014 kit. I made the two bags out of one piece of DSP – it’s a retired paper from the holiday catalogue – I was looking for something with Soft Sky to match the sticker. The white satin ribbon is also from the kit – there was about a yard left over which was perfect to thread through the bag. The white tags are also from the kit – I added a circle of soft sky to the back to add a pop of colour, cut out using the circles framelits. The soft sky coloured heart is a sticker from the kit (there are twelve of these) and I used the included stamp set for the sentiment in lost lagoon. I happened to have a spool of the Painted blooms cotton twine in soft sky (it was in a crop goody bag) and it was perfect for tying the tag to the bag incorporating one of the kits silver stars. I was thrilled that I still had the tissue paper that the kit was wrapped in – it was perfect to put inside the bags. Now I just need to work on the contents!

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Mondrian background

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This week’s Pals’ Paper Arts challenge is to use three rather vibrant colours. I’ve had it percolating in my brain for a day or two. Earlier this week, I went to a class at my upline Jen’s house – technique Tuesday. One of the cards was making a Mondrian background so named for Piet Mondrian, a Dutch painter whose art consisted of black lines on white with blocks of primary colours. Since the Pals’ challenge needed a lot of white for me to feel comfortable, this seemed like a perfect opportunity to recreate this card – even if I’m not using primary colours.

Mondrian background card

Here’s the banner which inspired this card:

PPA251

Definitely bright and it could be overpowering. So I took a piece of whisper white and cut strips of basic black into 1/8 inch wide strips. The idea here is that all the colour blocks have to be surrounded in black. I used my 1 inch square punch to create some of the coloured blocks and my trimmer to make a 1″ by 2″ melon mambo piece and also a 1/2″ by 1″ tempting turquoise piece. And then it was a matter of just building the card, adding strips of black where I wanted and always ensuring that the colours were surrounded. I found it best to use little dots of the tombow glue – the little black strips don’t need masses of glue – otherwise you get a very sticky card! The card looked best surrounded by 1/8 inch of black so that it looked as if the sequence was continuing – hence I mounted this on a black card base.

See you tomorrow,

Liz