Monthly Archives: May 2016

Chalk Lines and Wetlands

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This week’s challenge at Less is More is for a one layer card and the theme is At Sea. One layer cards are tricky and having looked at the Design Team’s inspiration, I’m not as happy with my card as I was. But they can’t all be my best card can they (by definition!)?

Stampin' Up! Chalk Lines and Wetlands

I decided to use my favourite birds from the Wetlands set and I’d been wanting to play with Chalk Lines some more before it retires. So first I stamped the birds in early espresso (as part of my plan to use brown more often) onto a card base of soft sky. After making sure it was really dry, I rubbed the embossing buddy over the card to remove static and stamped the image from chalk lines in versamark. A sprinkle of clear embossing powder and a blast of the heat gun gave me what looks like a wavy sea to me. I dithered about adding a sentiment but after hovering the sentiment from Watercolor Wishes (no, it’s not quite worn out yet!) over the card, decided to add it. It’s also in early espresso.

I used my beloved envelope liners framelits dies and the soft sky backgrounds DSP that retired last year but I’m still working my way through some of the colours!

I’m planning on offering a paper and ribbon share so that you can get a taste of all of the new goodies without having to take out a loan. I think I’ll take a share myself so that I don’t have quite so much DSP to use up – I don’t seem to be good at using an entire pack.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Remarkable You for CASology

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I seem to plan a lot of my challenge cards at the weekend and so I’m always sliding in under the wire if I enter the CASology challenges since they end on Mondays.

Stampin' Up! Remarkable You and Thoughts and Prayers

The week’s challenge cue card is rather fun because it can be interpreted in a number of ways. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a mathematician and although I’ve managed to fight my need for symmetry quite successfully, I can’t go as far as torn edges! Not so far anyway. So since I haven’t embraced torn edges on my cards, I decided to go with a sympathy card. Sadly, I think that I’ll be needing one soon.

I started by stamping the leaves from the Remarkable You set in the archival basic black ink onto watercolour paper. It’s actually the first time I’ve inked this up – I’ve used all three of the flowers though. I really love this set, it’s great for watercolouring. I then stamped the sentiment using the same ink, it’s from Thoughts and Prayers in case you were wondering. I left the watercolouring for last because it would be irritating to mess up the sentiment after finishing the rest of the card and it gave the archival black a little more time to dry.

Stampin' Up! Remarkable You and Thoughts and Prayers

For the watercolouring I went back to mossy meadow again. I adore this colour. I tried to put a fairly pale wash of colour all over the leaves and then make it slightly darker where there was shading. My first attempt was too harsh with not much success at blending, but this one worked out better. I really like watercolouring even though I’m not great at it and since it’s a fairly casual medium (sometimes) it doesn’t seem to matter. I’d encourage you to grab an aquapainter and have a go. It’s very rewarding. And if you don’t have it yet, Remarkable You is a great set to start playing with watercolour.

I put a very skinny mat of basic black around the watercolour paper – it really makes it pop. And then onto a mossy meadow cardbase.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

World Map before it retires

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World Map is one of the first stamp sets I bought. I intended to make a Father’s Day card with black embossing. It was a dismal failure because it was my first time at embossing and it was late evening and thus very hard to see whether the powder was melting. Plus, I had no idea what to expect. In the end, if I recall correctly, I just stamped the map in black ink. So I wanted to go back to my original plan and emboss the map.

Stampin' Up! World Map and Starburst Sayings

I started with a piece of very vanilla and was reaching for the black embossing powder when I remembered that I have it in early espresso and my resolve to use more brown. So after using the embossing buddy and stamping the map image with versamark, I sprinkled on the early espresso embossing powder. It’s quite hard to see it melt, even in the middle of the day but this time, almost two years later, no powder fell off after I’d “finished” embossing. Next I used my aquapainter with no water and pressed my marina mist ink pad to get some ink on the list. I added one drop of water and started colouring in the water on the map. The reason for doing this almost dry was that I didn’t want to saturate the non-watercolor paper. Once the seas and oceans were completed, I coloured the land similarly, this time using crumb cake.

I used fast fuse to fix the piece of very vanilla to an early espresso card base and then pulled out Sunburst Sayings for a small and simple birthday greeting. Finally, I’ve found where this sentiment came from – I was looking for it a couple of days ago. I stamped it in early espresso on crumb cake – isn’t it interesting how the watered down crumb cake ink on very vanilla looks so different to the card? – and then popped it out with the 1.5 inch circle punch. I also had the 1 3/4 inch punch so I made a mat of early espresso for the greeting. I popped this up with dimensionals. I finished off the card by lining the envelope using the retired backgrounds DSP (there’s a replacement at the moment) and the envelope liner framelits. If you want the framelits, don’t forget that they are retiring at the end of the month.

Stampin' Up! World Map and Starburst Sayings

Looking at the order information, I can see that my Paper Pumpkin for this month is likely to arrive on Monday as is my pre-order. I won’t know what to play with first!

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Acorny thank you

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Today I decided to make a card using one of the sets that isn’t actually retiring because I’m grateful that it isn’t – Acorny Thank You!

Stampin' Up! Acorny Thank you and Watercolor Wishes

Although I didn’t get completely off the retired list! I used the stamps with versamark to create a fun background on mossy meadow card stock. I just put pairs of the photopolymer stamps each onto a block and stamped randomly away ensuring that some of the images were off the edges of the card to give a sense of the pattern continuing. Since I had the versamark out, I also used it for the sentiment which is again from the Watercolor Wishes set and I heat embossed using the gold embossing powder. I cut this out using the retiring ovals framelits and made a frame using gold foil and the next size up oval framelit. Construction was a simple matter of using multipurpose glue and then popping up the sentiment with dimensionals.

It didn’t make the photo, but I used my envelope liners and the retired backgrounds DSP to dress up the envelope.

I can’t believe now that I was reluctant to get the Acorny Thank you set – I couldn’t see much use for it, but it’s one of my favourite sets now. I’m sure that this will happen to me again with the new catalogue!

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Chalk Lines for CAS Colours & Sketches

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Today is the beginning of Caro’s first sketch challenge over at CAS Colours & Sketches. I hope that you’ll pop over to see what the other design team members have created as well and to join in the fun yourself.

Stampin' Up! Chalk Lines and Watercolor Wishes

Here’s Caro’s sketch which inspired my card:

I took liberties by adding a sentiment but it’s clear that the sketch inspired the card! I used the stamp from Chalk Lines which I’ve never inked up before – just in time since the set is retiring at the end of the month. I decided to go monochromatic and inked it in watermelon wonder and stamped on very vanilla. I turned the image through 180 degrees for the second stamping to create a very symmetrical look.

Next I added a sentiment in watermelon wonder which comes from the Watercolor Wishes set. Yes, again. I am definitely overusing this set! Have you ever found a set that just works everywhere and you can’t stop inking it up?

I then added my very vanilla piece to a watermelon wonder card base. And that’s the very CAS card for this week’s challenge.

I hope that you’ll have a go at this challenge – it would be great to see you in the gallery.

See you tomorrow,

Liz