Hello stampers. I truly love the masking technique. It is amazing what one little piece of paper can do when you stamp over it and then take it off. You really create a work of art and transform the look of the stamp. For this card I used the new stamp set Wood Words which will be available on June 1. When I first saw this step I thought the floral image included in it just didn’t fit with the rest of the stamps, but now I am happy that it is in there! Here is the card that I made. I do know that this is not a “Jackie original” but I cased it a long time ago and can’t remember who to give credit to, so if it is yours, please let me know.
It is amazing what happens when you switch up the colours. Instead of Berry Burst I used Lemon Lime Twist with silver glimmer paper and silver thread. It now has a totally different feel to it. What do you think?
Here is a quick peek at how I did the mask. You start with a 5″ by 3 3/4″ piece of white cardstock as your base. The mask is made of computer printer paper and measures 3 1/2″ by 2 1/2″. Simply put a little two-way glue or Tombow on it the night before and let it dry. It will now be tacky and removable. You can re-use this mask many times before it loses its tackiness.
The last trick I want to show you with this card is to cut out a circle out of your glimmer paper. Whenever I am using more expensive paper I try to get the most use out of it as possible. So this has two advantages. One, you get to use the gold circle for another card. Two, glimmer paper is kind of like sand paper, nothing sticks to it very well. So now you can put adhesive in the “hole” and your card front will adhere to it much better!
I purposely used tear and tape so you could see it better. Normally I use Fast Fuse because it is quicker and equally strong. I hope this helps you to see how the card was made. To drive home the point, here is a quick video for you.
I think this card would be great for wedding, anniversary or birthday. Instead of hearts you could use stars. I would love to see your take on this card. Happy stamping!
Hello stampers. I just finished playing with the Soft Sayings Card Kit. Now I must admit that not all kits are created equally. In fact, there are some that I really don’t like at all. This one is different. It reminds me a bit of the kit in last years catalog called Watercolour Wishes. The card bases are really nice, the stamp set is versatile and the cards are really just lovely. The kit also comes with a very nice sized acrylic block and a basic grey ink pad.
I made up half the cards just the way they are shown in the kit and now I have the other half left to play with and try something new. There are twenty cards in the kit so it is nice to be able to make some quick and easy cards and then get more creative with the second half. For the first time ever, there is also a refill kit available if you want to make more of these beautiful cards. The original kit is $46 Canadian and the refill kit is $28.
Here is a close-up of two of my favourite cards in this kit:
The washi tape and the twine as well as the tranquil tide and lemon lime twist leaves and the gold glimmer leaves are all included in the kit. Dimensionals and a mini basic grey ink pad are also included. This kit is great to take along to a trip to the cottage, or camping for a rainy day. I like taking one with me when I visit my 85 year old mother so that we have a nice activity to do together while we chat. She loves to get creative and then be able to give a special card to someone on her mind. I am hoping to offer this as a fun class in August combined with a barbecue potluck. It is always a nice change to come and make a whole stack of cards while visiting with friends and then enjoying great food. Then you get to go home with great cards and a stamp set and block that you can keep using for many more beautiful creations.
When I first saw this kit I knew I would use the pretty die cuts as masks. This morning I quickly made a few very simple cards using our wonderful foam brayers along with night of navy, lemon lime twist and berry burst. I am very happy with how they turned out. Take a look!
No, you’re eyes are not playing tricks on you. This truly was a very quick card and I just held the die cut in place for a mask and it is slightly askew. No time to fix it though. Sometimes there is beauty in imperfection!
I really love how that card turned out. I used three foam brayers, one for each colour: night of navy, berry burst and lemon lime twist. I used washi tape on the back to hold the die cut mask in place. It really is quite sturdy so you should be able to reuse it many times. The last card could easily be used as a masculine card. It uses two colours, night of navy and lemon lime twist.
I hope you like this kit as much as I do. I barely touched the tip of the iceberg as far as all the options available with this great kit. Happy stamping!!
I had a bit of time to make one more card and I decided to use a different colour palette, berry burst and powder pink. Looks great with some of the new glitter enamel dots. I kind of like that I can add an “addendum” after I have posted a blog post. I hope you don’t mind! The suitcase is packed, pedicure booked last minute for tomorrow morning and then I can relax on the plane and hopefully catch a snooze.
Hello stampers! What do you get when you combine sponges, masks and clouds? Not a rainy masquerade party. A lovely, subtle patterned paper for a background. This is such a simple technique and one that is often overlooked. Let me explain what you do. You will need a sponge wedge. I usually cut my Stampin’Up! sponges into 6 pieces, first in half and then each half into thirds like a pie wedge. I then cut out two large cloud shapes using the framelits from the Up and Away thinlet die collection. Using Pool Party ink I sponged around the cloud shapes on a piece of white cardstock. There will be a video at the end of this post so you can see how it is done. A picture is worth a thousand words and a video even more so!!
This is an ideal background for a busy card that has a lot of other details happening. It is also so very easy to coordinate it to suit your card by choosing various shades of blue. Since my “wall” is going to be early espresso and my flowers are going to be red, the pool party is a great choice. Here is one of the cards I made using this technique. I was inspired by Bronwyn Eastley’s card. She made hers with a fall theme since that is the season it now is in Australia.
You may be wondering where all those great supplies come from that are featured on my card. Well….you will be able to get them too on June 1, unless you want to join my team now and get a great deal on the starter kit. You pay only $135 and you get to pick out $165 worth of product AND you get to choose items from the pre-order including this beautiful wood paper, the Colorful Season stamp set(#143726) and the Seasonal Layers thinlets (#143751) or get the bundle (#145348) Click here for that option. The branch, the flowers and the chair as well as the leaf all come from that set. It has all the seasons covered!
This simple card has the sling lawn chair which is a two step photopolymer stamp done in early espresso for the frame and real red for the seat. The flowers are stamped in real red and the branch is cut with a die from the Seasonal Layers in early espresso. The saying is also from Colorful Seasons. Here is a simple video that shows you how to do this yourself. I hope you have a lot of fun with this great little technique.
Hello stampers! If you know me at all, you may know that I can be quite a forgetful person. I made this squash book many months ago and had every intention of doing a blog post on it, but I searched through this entire blog, and there is no post on this beautiful book. So now there will be one! I have also made a video on how to do it, but sometimes a few pictures can be helpful as well. The video is most helpful in teaching you how to “squash” it together the first time. After you do it a few times it just opens and closes naturally the way it should. I used the wedding pictures from my son and daughter-in-law, but you could make this book for any occasion. It is such a nice little book and very portable. I used the Falling in Love designer series paper and gold satin ribbon as well as the new doilies which are unfortunately sold out.
The cover of the book uses the chipboard that you get for free when you order specialty designer series paper, so be sure to save it for this purpose!
You can lightly sand the edges of the chipboard if you like. If you prefer a cleaner look you can also choose to “wrap” them in designer series paper. I just put a 4″ square piece of paper on and then sponged the edges with soft suede ink to finish it. Here are the other pieces you will need to make the book.
I outlined the score lines with pencil so that you could see it more clearly, you don’t need to do this when you are making the book! You will need three of these pieces.
Use fast fuse or tear and tape to adhere the pages together. You can see by the photo how it is done. Put one square in the middle and then the other two are adhered on the bottom left and top right “unscored square”. You will then fold along all the score lines, do it both ways to “limber” it up and then if you are not a logical person (I am not) watch the video to see how I folded it up into a book shape. Once you have conquered that step you can adhere the covers. Don’t forget to put the ribbon on first!
Here is another close-up of the inside of the book:
A great trick for cropping your pictures is to use a vellum triangle. Just take a four inch square piece of vellum and cut it in half diagonally. Then you can place it over your picture to see how it will work to cut the picture. Some work better than others. Your pictures will either be a four inch square or a triangle just the same size as the vellum one.
You also use this technique and this measurement to cut your patterned paper triangles. I find it pleasing to the eye to keep all your pictures going in the same direction and also to not add too many embellishments to the inside of the book, or to the outside for that matter. They distract from the beauty of the pictures and on the outside they are just things that could get caught on people’s clothes, on the inside of your purse, you name it. An accident waiting to happen!
I think that gives you enough details to be able to make this book on your own. Here is the video that I think will also be very helpful. I would love for you to share your success stories when you get your book made. What event are you wanting to document and share? This would make such a lovely gift for just about anyone. Father’s Day is around the corner, bring a tear to his eye with some special photos just for him in this little book.
I know that you love making cards, but are you giving them away? Sometimes we forget that we can not only send our cards to bless people, but we can also make a gift of them for people who don’t share our hobby. Most people still really appreciate handmade cards and love to give them away even if they don’t make them themselves. This beautiful card organizer will help you make a lovely gift for someone. It is quite special all on its own, but if you fill it with cards it is an amazing gift. All you need is an 8×10 inch paper bag from the dollar store. They come in all different colours, but I have used crumb cake and white. The other essential thing you need is the heavy duty cardstock that comes at the back of our patterned paper packs. Do not throw these out, they are useful for many things. Let’s get started.
It is amazing how you really don’t have to do much math to make this bag. Just follow the natural fold. The first big fold that is closest to the handles is exactly six inches, perfect for our 12×12 patterned paper. You cut off the bottom of the bag just above the fold so you don’t have all that thickness clogging up your paper trimmer. Then you cut each corner up to the six-inch fold line so that you can fold up the bottom of the bag to make a flat rectangular bottom.
Now, before you make the bag into a box you are going to decorate your sides. First put the heavy duty cardstock from the dsp on the bag and cover that with patterned paper. I found that for the sides it saved a lot of paper if you layered the 4″x6″ patterned paper on the 4 1/4″ x 6″ piece of coordinating cardstock. That way you just cut your 12×12 paper in half so that you have two 6″x12″ pieces. Cut the 6×12″ piece at 8″, then you will have a 4″ piece left over for each side. Bingo!
When your sides are fully decorated THEN it is time to fold up the bottom edges to make it into a flat bottom. Just adhere the bottom flaps in the logical manner.
After that you stand up, put the 4 3/8″ by 8″ piece of heavy cardstock on the table and adhere the 4×8″ piece of coordinating cardstock to it. Flip it over so that the coloured cardstock is on the bottom. Then put heavy duty adhesive such as Fast Fuse or tear and tape around all sides of this piece. Hovering over it so that you have a birds’ eye view, just set your bag onto the bottom piece and press down. If you want you could add a liner piece to the inside, but I have found that to be unnecessary.
The next step is to put the pleated accordion pieces inside on the narrow ends of the bag/box. Just put adhesive on both flat ends and press into the side of the box.
The next step is to make the dividers. This is super simple. Just take an 8″ by 11″ piece of white cardstock and score it in half. Set them inside the bag with the folded edge on the top. They stay in place really well because of the tension created from the accordion inserts. Add circle tops for labeling the dividers. I used 2″ circle punch and a 1 3/4″ circle punch.
I love how the colours combine here, night of navy with delightful dijon. Remember, delightful dijon is retiring so be sure you are stocked up on all you need. The floral boutique paper is also retiring but I just checked and it is sold out. They are making paper just like it in the new in-colours but you will have to wait until June 1 to get your hands on that! To make the circle labels I used the Designer Tin of Tags stamp set. I don’t often use what I affectionately refer to as “contraband” but every once in a while I have to get my Graphic 45 fix, so I designed a Mother’s Day class using their paper. Here is a picture of that. I have to admit though that I like the Stampin’Up! bag every bit as much if not more for the clean and simple lines. What do you think?
I finally decided to do a short video just to show how to put the bottom of the bag/box on and how to add the accordion fold pieces in the inside to hold the section dividers.
