Tag Archives: Helping Me Grow

Cupcake Party for CC&S

It’s Thursday and that means that it’s time for another challenge at CAS Colours & Sketches. And with this sketch challenge, I’ve just completed my first month as a Design Team member. It’s fun and it’s definitely going to pull me out of my comfort zone and that’s a good thing.

Stampin' Up! Cupcake Party and Helping Me Grow and Have a Cuppa DSP

Here’s the sketch which inspired my card

I was going to use vellum but that was getting too fussy so I looked for a DSP with small images that would work showing just at the corners. And found just what I needed when flicking through the Have a Cuppa DSP stack. This obviously led me to the Cupcake Party stamp set. This card has been through many iterations – it was all in wisteria wonder, then I added melon mambo before finally deciding on cherry cobbler because it made the cherry believable. I still wasn’t happy with the card last night until I realised that it was the missing border that was bothering me. The sketch doesn’t allow for matting so I used the line of dots stamp from Helping Me Grow instead. This seems to give all the white space some purpose rather than it just being there.

I punched out the cupcake liner from the Merry Moments DSP out of the annual catalog; I chose this because I needed a very small pattern for the little cake. I even punched the cherry out of the same paper managing to get it without any of the gold dots. The top of the cake is stamped in wisteria wonder and punched out also.

I hope that you’ll pop over to the challenge page and take a look at what the rest of the Design Team have produced and then have a go yourself. It’s fun to push yourself.

I also hope that you’ll take a look at my post from Tuesday and enter to win the blog candy that I’m offering to celebrate my 400th post. You have until midnight (EST) on Friday to enter. Sorry, it’s only open to US residents.

Stampin' Up! Lotus Blossom and Heappy Heart TIEF and Jewels basic rhinestone and sequin trim

Here are the supplies that I used to make the card.

See you tomorrow,
Liz

Helping Me Grow Again

Here’s another use of the Helping Me Grow stamp set, this one a bit more sunny as I promised yesterday. These flowers definitely wanted to be sunny.

Stampin' Up! Helping Me Grow

Learning from yesterday’s card, I went straight for the stazon black to stamp the image on the water color paper. At least, I meant to. Somehow I ended up using the memento black instead but still cleaned the stamp with the stazon cleaner. I’m not sure what I was thinking!

I started with the centres – in crushed curry. Next were the watermelon wonder flowers – these were done in a fairly pale shade of watermelon wonder to start with with some extra colour layered on afterwards. The sepals are in a fairly strong mint macaron with the stalks just having a pale wash of the same colour. There is also a very faint wash of mint macaron around the flower heads which make them pop more without getting in the way.

I like to use fast fuse to keep the water color paper under control. I miss the wiggle room that the multi purpose glue gives but maybe that was making me lazy. I like to line up two corners and that means (assuming that the paper is cut correctly) that the layer will be right. It’s better to line up the longer side since there’s more distance to highlight any lining up issues.

It’s less than a week now until everyone can order the new goodies, including the Helping Me Grow stamp set, from the Occasions catalogue.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Helping me Grow

No – the title isn’t some  deep dark comment on life, it’s the name of the stamp set that I used today. Helping Me Grow is a new stamp set in the upcoming Occasions catalogue which is live on January 5th. I tried looking at DSP but nothing was leaping out at me today so I went simple. Just some watercolour paper and ink.

Stampin' Up! Helping Me Grow

The first attempt wasn’t so great – I’d take a picture but I wrecked it trying to save it. There was a little bleeding of the black ink (I used the new archival black) but the real disaster was the fast fuse that I put on the back of the watercolour paper grabbing onto the basic black mat before I was ready. I tried to trim and fix it. I even ripped the black off the back but when I tried to trim the watercolour paper a little, my trimmer mangled the paper – probably because the glue was there. So, I started over. This time I used stazon black. I used perfect plum for my watercolouring again and actually I prefer my second attempt. It’s more watercolour like  and less perfect.

As you can see in the close up, I have layered the colour and left white gaps here and there. My original attempt was a bit monotone.

Stampin' Up! Helping Me Grow

I added a narrow black mat and then put this onto the perfect plum card base. My sister asked if it’s a sympathy card. I suppose it could be. I wasn’t planning it, I just picked the colour that felt right. Maybe tomorrow I’ll try the happier flower!

And a very warm welcome to my new blog follower. I’m so glad you joined in.

 

See you tomorrow,

Liz