Hello stampers! Sorry for my long absence. Today I want to talk to you about our beautiful new bunny stamp called Sweet Little Something. It is the same style of artwork as Baby Bear but it is a little bit cheaper as the sayings are a smaller font. Sweet Little Something has 10 photopolymer stamps and costs $26 while Baby Bear has 12 and costs $32. Both are three step stamps. This may have been a turn-off for some people because it can be a bit tricky to line them up perfectly even though they are photopolymer stamps. With the new Stamparatus coming soon this is no longer an issue. I used the Stamparatus to make my cards and I love it so much!! You can make multiple cards in a fraction of the time with no errors. If the image turns out too light or patchy, you just ink up again and the Stamparatus guarantees that it will line up perfectly. Here is a link to a video on how the Stamparatus works. If you have not pre-ordered one in December you will have to wait until the new catalog goes live on June 1. It will retail for $65.
Besides the Stamparatus, another trick with three step stamping is to start with the smallest, most detailed image first. You want to stamp that one in your darkest colour. The second stamp should be the one with a little more detail and a medium coloured ink. The third stamp should be your broad background image that fills in the rest of the colour and this should be your lightest coloured ink. Here is a graphic to make it more clear.
I’m not sure what happened to the middle bunny, he is a little mottled, I must not have cleaned him properly before stamping, but you get the idea. It can be difficult to distinguish between the two detailed stamps, so my trick is to remember that the first one to be stamped has two clear eyes. I also found that I had to trim my stamps between the legs and under the arms to prevent lines or blotching. It hasn’t seemed to damage the stamp and you can see in the third image that I could trim a little closer, there is a bit of a line that I don’t want to be there.
Here are some sample swatches that I made. This is another great idea to do since you will forget which colours you used and have to do a lot of guessing and recreating to find that combination back. You will notice that one of the swatches is left blank. Yup, I forgot what I used on that one and it is one of my favourites!! Go figure.
You can also see that I definitely had inky fingers while doing this! I am quite in love with this little guy, and yes, I refer to the bunny as “him” since he reminds me of my grandson Leo. Did you know that there is a classic children’s book called Leo the Lop? It is all about a bunny just like this one. Here are the cards I have made with this adorable stamp set.
I know that Corduroy was a bear, but that must have inspired me to use the corduroy ribbon for the rabbit. Combined with the True Gentleman paper it really looks nice. Here is a close-up of the Sweet Little Something bunny:
As much as I love this masculine rabbit, she is also adorable in powder pink. I used the embossing folders from the Petal Palette suite to add some texture to these simple cards.
For this card I used powder pink as the third and final colour along with soft suede and chocolate chip. I inked up the Petal Pair embossing folder with powder pink before running it through the Big Shot.
Using this year’s in colours reminded me that I had an unopened stash of premade bitty bows. It’s a little big for her, but it reminded me of those huge bows little girls used to have in their hair in the 1930’s and 40’s. So while we are on the subject of in colours, why not use tranquil tide as well?
For once I don’t have a video to share with you. My trusted videographer, Rachel is being a nanny this week, so she is not home!! I hope you enjoyed the different versions of my lop-eared bunny as well as the simple tips and tricks to make stamping with him easier. Have a super day!!
Hello stampers. You already know that I love this amazing new product in our Occasions catalog called Brusho. Well, it gets better. I have a very talented team member who just happens to be a watercolour artist as well, and she came and taught our team a few tricks with Brusho. I decided to focus on just a few of them that would translate very well into card making. One of my biggest aha moments was in realizing that you could get dramatically different results by changing the direction of the water spray. I was just spraying from the top down onto my paper. It also makes a difference as to which water spritzer you use. Fine mist will give a different end result than larger droplets of water from a bigger spritzer. Little details that had not even crossed my mind. I had also not thought of running watercolour paper through an embossing folder. Take a look at some of the cards that I came up with and then I will show you how I did this in a video.
With this celebrate card you can really see what happens when you control the direction of the spray. I first put a piece of painters tape across the card about two thirds of the way up. Then I sprinkled a little brilliant red Brusho on an acrylic block and a little Prussian Blue Brusho on another block. I picked up the dry brusho with a dry brush and dabbed it in dots across the watercolour paper along the edge of the tape in alternating colours. Then I misted water on it using an old Stampin’ Mist bottle. I didn’t spray from above, but rather sprayed in an angle away from me. I will show you in the video. Here is a close-up.
I really, really love the look of this. I chose elegant eggplant cardstock to cut out the word “celebrate” which is one of the framelits that you can get for free with a $120 purchase during sale-a-bration. I decided to use this same technique with different colours and then I made an extra piece with the same colours as the background that I could use for my focal point. I was pretty pleased with myself for thinking of that! In the meantime, my to-do list for getting ready for my ski trip was being ignored!!
For this card I used Prussian Blue and Yellow Brusho and I dusted off Dragonfly Dreams with a bit of guilt in my heart for having neglected this beautiful stamp set. I used the watercolour paper on the left to cut out my dragonfly thinlet.
Our mini dimensionals are perfect for popping up these dragonflies and the Stamparatus was great for stamping the sentiment with archival black. I don’t know if you have noticed but it is hard to stamp on watercolour paper. It is a bit rough and very textured and thick, so the stamparatus let me stamp this three times in a row to get a nice dark colour. The sentiment is from So Many Shells which is another great set to have in your stash. I haven’t tried it yet, but I think you could put Wink of Stella on the dragonflies to take it up another notch.
Here you can see the beautiful detail in this technique and you can see the direction the water went. I haven’t felt this artistic in a long time and oh my, it is addictive! Be still my heart. This next card uses a different technique all together.
For this card I used a 1″ wide flat brush to wet the watercolour paper generously. Then I sprinkled on Brusho in “stripes” and then simply went over the powder with my wide brush in long, even strokes. After it was dry I stamped the large tree in archival black and then I embossed the smaller trees in black. This left the large tree looking rather muted, so I stamped over it in versamark and then embossed it too. The sentiment is from Butterfly Basics and I embossed it in silver. Here is a close-up:
The last card that I made was a first for me. I ran the watercolour paper through the Big Shot with the Woodland embossing folder. Then I spritzed it with water finely from a distance so that there would be a fine mist on my paper. Then I sprinkled on yellow and brilliant red Brusho. I made up brown by first making some green Brusho. You do this by combining yellow and blue. When doing this always add a little of the darker colour to the lighter colour, this is much more efficient. After you have green you will combine it with red to make brown.
You need to let your background dry, or speed it along by using the heat gun. Then you can take a small brush and paint the trees brown. This is not very difficult since the trees are raised. The sentiment is from Heartfelt Blooms, one of our fabulous saleabration sets that you can get for free with a $60 purchase.
I hope you have enjoyed learning a little more about Brusho. Once again, I want to sincerely thank Char McGill who taught me these tips. If you want to see her work, please check out her blog. I am in awe of her talent, but it is her personality and sweet nature and sense of humour that have captured my heart.
I will finish this blog post by sharing a video that will show you some of these techniques. Seeing is believing!!
Hello stampers! You know that you have a great stamp set when it takes more than one blog post to adequately feature all the amazing elements. I am not even doing it justice. The more I play the more I want to create with this stamp set. You may not want to buy this bundle, it will prevent you from getting your work done!!
I have to be honest. Sometimes I find embellishment kits a waste of money. There are often elements in there that you simply can’t find a use for. This one is fantastic! You get so many pretty die cuts and vellum embellishments that it is instant gratification to whip a bunch of cards that make you look like you really slaved over them. Anyone who receives one of these over the top cards will really be feeling the love. I took a picture of some of the elements I had laying out before I started my card. This is NOT the complete embellishment kit by any means. Click here to see all of it.
The watercolour paper in the middle of the picture is 4″ by 5 1/4″ and has been stamped using the acrylic block technique shown in the video at the end of this post. Take a look at the finished card. It took about five minutes to make.
I used berry burst and pool party ink pads right on my acrylic block E and then spritzed both the block and the watercolour paper with water before “stamping”. Here is a picture of how I prepped the watercolour paper.
The grid paper is very helpful to align the tape and the cardstock making it easier to get a nice even border. Here is a close-up of the final result of the paper. I wish now that I had rotated it on my card so that you would see more of the pool party. Oh well. Next time.
Here is another card using some of the embellishment kit. The card is mostly in white and silver so the coloured embellishment really pops.
The next card uses a piece of one of the cards I posted yesterday. It had a mat of that beautiful paper from this suite, so I cut out an oval before adhering to the card and covering with the white mat. This paper is so lovely you really don’t want to waste any of it!
This card is clean and simple and really lets the paper shine. The sentiment is from Petal Palette another of my favourite stamps from the Occasions catalog. I decided to try and spruce it up a bit using some other embellishments from the kit and some ribbon. What do you think?
I really do love this sentiment. My job as a Stampin’Up! demonstrator has allowed me to meet so many new people all over the world and I have been blessed and enriched by it in so many ways, so this card is for you my fellow demonstrators and to all my Facebook and blog followers and to my wonderful customers and team members. I hope you feel the love. I made one last card that I totally cased from Dawn Olchefske. Here is the link to her blog. I just embossed my base layer, that is the only change I made.
Finally, here is the video that shows you how to do the acrylic block watercolour background technique. It is easy, controlled and changeable. You can always add more ink and spritz again with water.
Hello stampers! Try saying that quickly six times in a row!! Seriously though, this suite is pretty sweet. Now I really do hate cake decorating, although I do my best to make a pretty cake. This type of cake decorating is more my style. The image in the catalog is quite luscious isn’t it?
I actually got everything in this suite so that I would not be inhibited in my card making and I wasn’t disappointed. The Berry Burst Metallic edge ribbon is my favourite ribbon so far in the book. It is a gorgeous colour and it also ties beautifully. Take a look at the close-up of this card:
There is a lot going on in this card. I used Wink of Stella to watercolour the cake and that is truly a fantastic technique. The picture cannot capture the beautiful sparkle on this card. The fine tip of the Wink of Stella is ideal for colouring this detailed image. I used marina mist, berry burst and old olive. The background is marina mist with the silver embossing paste and the sweet soiree decorative masks. It worked really well and wasn’t runny or messy. It didn’t take all that long to dry either.
The pretty little dies that I used for the top of the cake come in one unit and you can put two strips of paper behind it for quick cutting too. Take a look:
Watercolouring with Wink of Stella also works well with a black image. With this card I also used rich razzleberry and powder pink.
Here is the complete card. The background was done with a watercolour wash technique that I learned from Billie Moan. I will include a video on part two of this post that I hope to finish tomorrow. I added some candles using the decorative masks and silver embossing paste and I didn’t make quite the elaborate bow that Billie did, but other than that, this is a complete case of her beautiful card. You can check it out here.
This suite also comes with a great embellishment kit that includes some handpainted flowers, some foil accented cakes, vellum and silver leaves and flowers, blue velvet ribbon, white clothespins and some adorable tassels with jump rings as well as a yard of washi tape.
On this card I used the blue velvet scalloped ribbon to anchor the cake.
I thought I would include a closeup of the ribbon so you can see the texture. Everything about this suite is simply luscious.
Here you can see the framelits that are included in this suite. There is just so much to play with here!
Now these framelits look quite delicate, but as long as you use the precision plate, all the little bits come out very easily and there is no fussy poking with “pokey tool” or more properly known as the paper piercing tool.
I realize that I have way too much content for one post, so I will continue this one tomorrow with a few more card samples and a video on how to do the watercolour wash background.
Hello stampers. It is still January, but I have learned from experience that now is the time to start getting ready for Valentine’s Day, and Sure Do Love You will help you do that in great style! If you have cards that need mailing or if you need to make a lot of them for your child’s class, then you need a little more time to prepare. I used to do a Valentine’s tea party when the kids were all still home and that was such a lovely tradition. It was so nice to set a pretty table and buy them all special treats and to sit around the table to show them how much they were loved. This Painted with Love suite will help you set a very pretty table indeed. I might just have to theme my coffee and a card class that week for Valentine’s Day.
This is such a beautiful suite. The paper is richly coloured and textured, so much so that you want to touch the brush strokes they look so real. Valentine’s Day is so much more than just giving a card to your sweetheart. I like to use this day to show everyone that they are special and that they are loved. So many people now suffer from anxiety and depression and a small act of kindness can go a long ways. I know that I will use the leftover paper to make pretty cards with the narrow note cards and envelopes and then some Ghiradelli chocolate treat holders which are always popular or some homemade cookies to give to random people that I will meet on my errands on Valentine’s Day. It doesn’t take much to make the world a better place.
The paper in the Painted With Love collection is really unique. It has gold foil accents on one side and brushstroke imagery on the other side. We have never had anything like it before and I love every little bit of it. Some of it is so bold and vivid that you only need a little bit of it on a card, so this paper pack will go a long ways!! I am offering a Suite Share with the paper, cardstock and ribbon for only $16. In the share there is a third of a pack of dsp (4″ x12″) 12 sheets of cardstock in calypso coral, melon mambo and powder pink as well as one yard of gold tinsel trim and one yard of pink tinsel trim.
To make this wonky, artsy sentiment I created a pseudo ink pad with a baby wipe. Just fold the baby wipe in four and then add some drops of reinker. I used mainly rich razzleberry and berry burst and then in the spaces between I added powder pink. I put the baby wipe on a silicone mat to protect my table. The other two hearts are cut out of the Painted With Love paper. The background hearts were stamped with versamark on powder pink cardstock. The gold hearts are stickers from the Painted Love Gold Vinyl Stickers. I popped up the sentiment with dimensionals and behind it I adhered a large bow of powder pink mini tinsel trim. All the coordinating items in this suite make it very easy to make beautiful cards.
After I made my pseudo ink pad with the baby wipe I made lots of solid hearts and also more of these pretty “sentiment” hearts. When I lifted up the baby wipe I noticed that there was a nice puddle of ink on my silicone mat, so I used that as an ink pad to make more multi-coloured hearts. The three colours rich razzleberry, berry burst and powder pink work really well together!
The hearts in the top row were made with a colour wash. I first heat embossed with white embossing powder for the words and then used an aquapainter to quickly swoosh over the words with rich razzleberry, berry burst and powder pink. I had to do it quickly and lightly because I was using regular whisper white cardstock. It worked out perfectly. If you used watercolour paper or shimmer white paper you wouldn’t have to be so careful.
This red and black card uses the paper from the Petal Palette suite as well as the leaf punch and some vellum cardstock. Super simple, super cute. Finish it off with our Silver Baker’s Twine and you have just the right look. I cased this card from Cindee Wilkinson. So nice to get inspiration from other stampers. The paper is actually called Petal Passion and it is also great to use with our new Blends.
By now you may have realized that there are a lot of beautiful things in the Occasions catalog and you want so much but it all adds up so quickly. Have you considered getting the starter kit? While this would officially make you a demonstrator, it does NOT mean that you actually have to demonstrate anything to anyone. You can simply get the kit for the great deal that it is and do nothing further. You could also get the kit and then use your 20% discount to get more items in the next 6 months. Or, like some of our most successful demonstrators, you could decide to share what you love with your friends, family and neighbours and start a great business. No matter what you decide, you can take advantage of the amazing deal with no guilt whatsoever. Stampin’Up! gives this offer in the hope that you will get hooked but they realize that most do not. Either way you will have a nice stash of beautiful products for a great deal. Here is the link if you want lots of products for a small price.
There is another way to get product for free and that is to host a workshop. Right now you can get an extra $35 in hostess products when your workshop gets to $330. I would love to have you and a group of your friends in my stamp room for a workshop or private class. We all need to take some time to have fun in our lives and stamping is a lot of fun!!
I have an extra Paper Pumpkin stamp set and it is looking for a new home! If you comment on this blog post and share in some way, either by pinning one of the images, or sharing a link to this blog on your Facebook page, you will be entered into a draw for this lovely stamp set. Anyone in the world is eligible, how awesome is that?
I love the images in this set. It is even more versatile with three different fonts. It is hard to see the images clearly here so I also stamped them for you.
I made a very simple card using the elements from this Paper Pumpkin which is called Heartfelt Love Notes. Sometimes simplicity is best. What do you think?
Happy stamping, be sure to use your stash to spread a little love and make the world a happier place.
