Tag Archives: A Dozen Thoughts

Because you care

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I’m having a very CAS (clean and simple) week. My cards are usually CAS; CAS is generally defined as having a lot of open space, minimal (if any) embellishments and clean lines. I look at it as not being overly fussy. It wasn’t a conscious choice to fall firmly into the CAS camp, it’s just that I prefer my cards this way. I was happy to find that there’s an official term for it!

This card though, is really ultra CAS!

Stampin' Up! Because You Care

The beautiful border is from a hostess set, Because You Care and is only guaranteed to be available until today; after that it’s available until the stocks are depleted and then only until June 2nd. So if you want it, you need to move quickly!

It’s stamped on very vanilla in one of the new in colors – cucumber crush. I wasn’t crazy about this colour when I saw it online but now that I can see it in person, I love it. The sentiment is from the A Dozen Thoughts set. To stop the card from being too clean and simple, I gave it a skinny mat of cucumber crush which just finishes it off perfectly in my view. Let me know if you agree. Or not! Since I had the stamp out and inky, I added a stripe across the envelope to match.

Silhouetted Summer Silhouettes

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Firstly I’d like to thank LeAnne for selecting my card as a cut above at The Paper Players this week. It’s an honour to be recognised.

And on the heels of such recognition, I’m entering another challenge on a new to me blog –  Loves Rubberstamps Challenge blog. This one calls for a black and white card with a touch of colour.

Stampin' Up! Summer Silhouettes

I intended to watercolour the background for this card with an aquapainter until I recalled that the watercolour paper isn’t exactly white. So I got out my sponges instead. I made the template from one of the plastic sheets that the photopolymer stamps come on; I stuck the photopolymers directly onto the case. I cut out a square using a framelit from the squares collections (I needed to add a piece of cardstock since the plastic is so thin) and then carefully slid the framelit so that it was only overlapping a little bit (so that I could line it up) before cutting a second square. I can see a lot of uses for this template…

I then used sponges and crushed curry and pumpkin pie to make the background. The two step stamping from Summer Silhouettes is stamped in the momento tuxedo black ink as is the sentiment from A Dozen Thoughts. To keep this card clean and simple, I mounted the whisper white cardstock onto a base of whisper white. The envelope is dressed up with the backgrounds DSP on the back flap.

Moon Lake Watercolouring

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I was looking forward to using the Stampin’ Up! Moon Lake set ever since I’d used it at a card class at Jen’s house. I knew it was waiting for me on my return from Barcelona and I planned to do some more watercolouring. This card took more work than expected – it was originally going to be horizontal and with mats etc. but it didn’t want to play that way.

Stampin' Up! Moon Lake

I used the oval framelits to cut out a template from a spare piece of card and used that to create the water coloured background in marina mist. I squeezed the ink pad to get some ink on the top of the case and using the aqua painter (with very little water in it) diluted the ink and coloured the oval. After allowing it to dry I used night of navy to stamp the image on top. After many many attempts with mats, DSP etc, I finally decided to make this a vertical card and thus I needed a sentiment. I turned to the A Dozen Thoughts set with what is probably my favourite sentiment – I love the typeface of the just because. This is also stamped in night of navy. My new purchase of fast fuse is great for adhering the watercolour paper to the card. I’d better get a refill since I seem to be on a bit of a water colouring kick at the moment.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Summer Silhouettes Watercoloured

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I had so much fun creating yesterday’s card with the watercolouring that I wanted to try more of it. When I first got an aquapainter last June, I tried it once and made a horrible mess and decided to come back to it later. And then blendabilities were launched and I ignored my aquapainter. And quite happy I was to do so! But now that blendabilities have been discontinued, I thought I’d have another go with the aquapainter and I am now delighted that blendabilities are no more otherwise I probably wouldn’t have tried this.

Stampin' Up! Summer Silhouettes

I used my circles collection and made a template out of some scrap and then, holding the template over my piece of watercolour paper, washed a gentle swathe of soft sky and wisteria wonder. After it dried, I took one of the flowers from the Stampin’ Up! Summer Silhouettes set and stamped it (it’s a double stamping process) in island indigo. The sentiment comes from A Dozen Thoughts set.  I matted the watercolour paper (using sticky strip) in island indigo and mounted that on a wisteria wonder base. I of course lined the envelope in the backgrounds DSP.

I’d definitely advise trying some watercolouring. It’s loads of fun.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Painted Petals for getting better

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I was browsing Pinterest looking for inspiration the other day when I came across a water coloured card by Danielas Stempelwelt using my favourite little flowers from the Stampin’ Up! Painted Petals set. I thought I’d practice first on ordinary card stock before using the watercolour paper, partly to decide on the colour combinations and partly to check that I liked the water colouring effect.

I used soft saffron for the water colouring; I put a drop of ink from the re-inker onto a clear block and, using an aquapainter, scribbled some lines letting the colour get lighter as I went down the whisper white card stock. I then decided that the flowers would look best with the darkest colour at the bottom and, happily, I had put my yellow colouring pretty much in the middle of the paper. I used wild wasabi (you thought it was going to be pear pizzazz again, didn’t you?!) for the stems and rose red for the flowers. I also used rose red for the sentiment which comes from A Dozen Thoughts. And then I realised that I liked this look on the white and since it had only been a little wet, the paper was still flat. So I didn’t redo this on watercolour paper.

Stampin' Up! Painted Petals and A Dozen Thoughts

I then noticed that I’d managed to put a little smudge of colour right on the corner of the card. This was actually a good thing because my sentiment wasn’t quite centred. So out came my trimmer and I lopped 1/4 inch off the left hand side. This evened things up and removed the smudge.  This meant that I needed to cut 1/4 off the top and that made the card more balanced since my yellow lines had been a little too low (now that I’d turned the card upside down, that is). Sometimes you just get lucky!

The skinny mat is rose red and I fixed the white layer to it with sticky strip. Just in case the card was going to warp – yes it has happened to me before! Once I get some fast fuse, I’ll try using that. I mounted this on a so saffron card base. The envelope is lined with the matching paper from the Backgrounds DSP.

See you tomorrow,

Liz