Hello stampers and happy Monday to you. Last week I made another Crane of Fortune card and it has made me want to make more! Crane of Fortune is an Asian-inspired stamp set that is also made with the DistINKtive technique. What does this mean? It means that the stamp is made to look like you have used different colours with it when in reality it is only stamped once. Very clever! Let’s take a look.
Crane of Fortune: Using the Catalog for Inspiration
What do you do when you need inspiration for a stamp set? I would guess that most of us troll the internet. Pinterest, YouTube, Facebook groups or a Google search. These are all great ideas but it can lead you down the rabbit hole of time lapse! Why not do what I did? Just open your catalog and see what our in house artists have done with it. This will usually get your own creative juices flowing and it doesn’t take up a lot of time either. Both of the cards that I am going to share with you today were “cased” from the catalog. C.A.S.E. means copy and share everything.
Here is the inside of this slimline Crane of Fortune card that I made for my Monday Cheer Corner video on YouTube . The colour combination came from the list of colours that were used in the patterned paper in the Symbols of Fortune suite.
Video Tutorial
If you would like to see firsthand how to make this card, you can watch this video. It will have the measurements as well both in metric and imperial.
If you click on the black “watch on YouTube” then you can also subscribe to my channel right away and become a part of that vibrant community as well. Every now and then I offer fantastic prizes to my subscribers just to keep things interesting.
Second Crane of Fortune Card
This second card was made for my exclusive Prime Time group. You can be a part of this group as well if you like! It started as a way to keep my business afloat when COVID first hit. The cost is only $10 a month and you get a weekly exclusive video and a monthly 16 project pdf tutorial. The videos are every Thursday at 10am EST and on Wednesday I post the supply list and measurements so that you can play along. Simply click here if you want to join.
Here is the inside of the card. You can see that I continued with the same colour theme of calypso coral and soft succulent, this time with a touch of crumb cake.
Real Floral Inspiration
I hope you enjoyed these Crane of Fortune cards. Many weeks ago I shared some cards made by an Artisan design team member when this suite first came out. You can see them here.
Yesterday I had the incredible privilege and delight to be able to go to Keukenhof gardens. It did not disappoint! What a gorgeous display of flowers, trees and water. Even the grass is incredible!!
A kind stranger took a photo of us together! We went on a Sunday afternoon so we were still dressed up from church. Bailey came with too and he loved it! Do you agree with me that dogs can smile?
Thanks!
Thank you so much for joining me here today. I love reading your comments and seeing when you share my blog posts on Pinterest or Facebook. You are a very important part of keeping my business vibrant and I appreciate it so much. Comments, shares, orders, participation in either Prime Time or my Training Group, it’s all fantastic!!
I hope you have a super day and a great start to this new week. Sometimes life can be crushingly difficult and then you need to take simple pleasures in the small moments. The song of a bird, the colour of a flower the smell of freshly brewed coffee. Sending hugs and prayers for whatever you may be dealing with today as well. Hugs from Holland!
Happy Monday stampers. Life is grand! It is easy to say that when things are going well, but you have to dig a little deeper to say it and mean it when things are not going well. But life is grand. We need to live every moment, to take joy in the little things because sometimes there are only little things. Today as I was driving home from pickleball I noticed how the sunlight was glinting off the Thames River that runs through town. Now the Thames is not a very pretty river. It is usually muddy brown, but when the sun is glinting off it, wow, it sure does look beautiful. Now I am going to talk about the stamp set Life is Grand. What makes this stamp set so appealing to me is first that the font is large and flowy. Second, it is a distINKtive stamp, which means it shows up ombre, or in at least two colours and that really has a wow effect without you having to do anything for it. It is also not a fussy distINKtive stamp. Doesn’t matter if your ink pad is juicy, it will still give you that beautiful effect. Let’s take a look.
Here you get a closeup glimpse of the beautiful lettering. This was done in Real Red, my favourite colour. I absolutely love it with Granny Apple Green. You probably recognize the frog from So Hoppy Together. You can get this beauty for free with a $60 purchase until March 31. Time is running out!! The toadstool is from a gorgeous set in the annual catalog called Sweet Storybook.
I love everything about this card and I don’t even feel bad saying that even though I designed it myself and am tooting my own horn. This card just makes me feel happy when I look at it. I love, love, love the paper and sadly it is only available until March 31 as a free saleabration item, so if you love it even half as much as I do, you want to make sure you get it. If you live anywhere in Canada you can order through my online store. If you use the host code I will love you just a little bit more and send you a card to thank you. Well, let’s be real, you will get a card regardless because I believe that you deserve to be thanked if you give me your business. The toadstool (or mushroom) is from the set Sweet Storybook. I stamped the base on the white “band” of paper and then I stamped again and cut out just the top of it so that I could have it sticking out above the white band. I love the effect of that and it wasn’t difficult to do. I coloured the grass and the frog with our Blends. They are a wonderful product and at $6 each they are just slightly more expensive than our markers and infinitely better. One last thing to crow about with this card: the patterned paper is cut exactly to 4″ by 6″ which makes it perfect for #loveitchopit. You can get six card fronts out of one 12×12 piece of paper with no waste. It then fits on our Memories and More cards which measure 4 1/4″ by 6 1/4″ and come with their own envelopes. So fast, so easy. The white strip measures 1 7/8″ by 6″.
Don’t you just want to touch your screen right now to feel those letters? Stamped in tranquil tide on Painted Seasons paper, they just pop off the page. I combined it with Wood Textures Paper covering the entire card front. Since the Wood Textures paper comes in 6 x 6 I didn’t feel bad cutting it to 5 1/2″ by 4 1/4″. You can use the remaining bits to decorate the inside of your card if you don’t want to waste it. Another great example of a #loveitchopit card.
I love the effect of stamping on the patterned paper. This works especially well when it is muted background rather than a busy pattern. Both papers are from Painted Seasons, the same set as the bright and colourful paper on the first card. This card would be great for a man, even though it has a linen thread bow. Nothing can come close to our linen thread, and now you can get it in old olive as well.
Here you can see the beautiful paper and the stamp set. You can get them free as a bundle with a $120 purchase or you can get just the paper with a $60 purchase. Let’s take a look at my last card. It doesn’t use this paper or the stamp set but it does use Life is Grand as well as So Hoppy Together.
Oh Granny Apple Green, how lovely you are, both on the lettering and on the frog. One of the things I have always loved so much about Stampin’Up! is the colour coordination. It makes it so very easy to take your cards from nice to stunning. On this card the ink pad, the cardstock and the Blends all match. The balloons were punched out with grapefruit grove and lovely lipstick foil paper and bermuda bay glimmer paper which I believe is still available on the clearance rack. I adhered the bakers twine to the balloons and to the frogs “hand” using our mini glue dots, also the very best in the industry. Just ask my class attendees who have brought “contraband”. Now they are believers too!!
I really hope that you get all you can out of the saleabration promotion which ends on March 31, which is Sunday. I have room for you on my team, and all my customers are also greatly appreciated. Thanks so much for stopping by, I hope you have a super day! Hugs from Chatham, Ontario.
Hello stampers! It is a windy, blustery, cold day here in southern Ontario. A great day for playing with stamps, ink and paper. I have just discovered the beauty of our Lovely Lipstick Foil. Did you know that it is one of the free choices with our sale-a-bration deal? Until the end of March you get to choose from select items with a $60 purchase, and the Lovely Lipstick and Grapefruit Grove foil sheets are one of your options. They are on page 12 of the Sale-a-bration brochure. I have only had a little time to play with it and I love it! It is striking the way it catches the light and how it coordinates with several of our paper collections. It is perfect for luscious Valentine’s card too. Let’s take a look what I have done with it.
The inspiration for this card came from page four of the Occasions catalog where they used a band across the card as well. I thought the foil paper would be perfect for that. Here you can see it in more detail:
Here you can see a few things. 1. The lovely lipstick foil coordinates perfectly with the All My Love paper. 2. The Meant to Be stamp set is a DistINKtive stamp which means the stamps are made so that you get the look of different colours using only one ink pad! It truly is amazing when you experience it. 3. Stamping over top of your sentiment really is pretty!
You can use what is meant to be a Valentine’s set for other things as well. I love it when a stamp set is versatile!
Now this card doesn’t use the foil, but you could definitely replace the lovely lipstick cardstock with the lovely lipstick foil. I so wish I had more time, but you will have to use your imagination!!
For this card I used vellum behind the lovely lipstick foil on top of the card and I also popped it up to make it more of a focal point. I also used the foil paper under the sentiment. It really is a stunning combination with the All My Love paper.
Now this card also has no lovely lipstick foil on it, but I had to include it to show you how beautiful the stamps are in the Forever Lovely stamp set. Here you can once again see that it is a DistINKtive stamp when you look at the lovely lipstick flowers. Do you see all the shading? It stamps like that!! No fancy techniques needed. I absolutely love it. I was playing with the stamps and the framelits and my focal point ended up being smaller than I wanted and that prompted me to use the Delicate Lace edgelits so that I wouldn’t have to throw my lovely piece away! I like how it turned out. I used the Lace dynamic textured embossing folder to make the card feel more Victorian and decadent. It’s all about the textures and the feeling that it evokes. Here you can see all the lovely details even better:
I also used a piece of the Grapefruit Grove foil paper to make a very simple butterfly card. The colours are tranquil tide and petal pink. I was going to play some more to add more layers and details to the butterfly, but really it is already quite stunning. There are four sheets of each colour in this amazing sale-a-bration offering. Just choose item #149712 when you place your order.
Well, that’s it for today people! I hope that I have inspired you with a few ideas of what to do with this amazing foil paper. Both the Lovely Lipstick Foil and the Grapefruit Grove foil are beautiful and with four 12 x 12 sheets in the pack you don’t have to be frugal with it. #loveitchopit will work great with this paper. Remember when you hoard you really don’t enjoy it nearly as much as when you use it to create beautiful cards.
Here is a video I did showing some of these cards under construction.
Hello stampers! Sorry for my long absence here but it was all with good reason. Sometimes life has to happen and some things just have to be let go of for a while. So, with the move into my new house, Christmas with the family and then a trip to my roots in the Netherlands, this blog had to take a back seat. Thanks for your patience!! Today I want to share a card I made using Lasting Lily. This is a free stamp set during the famous annual Stampin’Up! promotion called “sale-a-bration”. This sale has been going on almost as long as Stampin’Up! has been in existence. It is the sale that pulled them from the edge of bankruptcy! Traditionally you could get several products for free with a qualifying $60 purchase. For the last two years they have added some options that you can get with a $120 purchase. This beautiful stamp set fits into the last category.
What makes this stamp set, Lasting Lily, so special? Well, in my opinion, three things. 1. It is a distINKtive stamp set which means that it is made to look ombre, or shaded without you having to do anything special. It works best with a light touch and with an ink pad that isn’t all new and juicy. 2. It has LOTS of great words in it with a beautiful font. 3. It has two beautiful calla lily images as well as a great leaf image that can be used in its entirety or just a half. It can also be bent before putting on the block so you get different shapes for a more interesting bouquet.
I would consider this a clean and simple card. It’s the little details that make this card a stunner. The rectangle stitched framelits are a must have for any card maker or scrapbooker. The rectangle framelits not only “stitch” the edge of the cutout, but also of the part remaining behind! That is why you see a double stitched image. I adhered the “frame” flat to the mossy meadow card base and I popped up the middle rectangle with the lilies stamped on it. The sentiment was also cut out using a smaller rectangle framelit. It is popped up on the right hand side and then adhered with regular non-dimensional adhesive on the left hand side. A few pearls were added just because they add a nice touch. The design element that really takes it over the top? Running the stamped image through the Big Shot with the Subtle embossing folder. It is important to do that step AFTER you are done stamping so that you get a good clear image.
The rectangle stitched framelits come with 13 dies and they are $48. By the time you add the shipping and tax in Ontario you are already at $59.66. Did you know that you can put them in your starter kit? Right now you would only pay $135, but you could pick out $225 worth of product. If you don’t have a Big Shot yet, you could start with that, add the rectangle stitched framelits, the subtle embossing folder and a pack of neutrals cardstock. You would also get a Paper Pumpkin kit. No tax, no shipping as well as 8 catalogs for you to give to people who might someday become your new stamping community and best friends!! No strings attached. Worried about what to do with your kit? Just enjoy it and share what you love and you will be amazed at what can happen! At the very least you can come to my Diva Day on March 23 and get spoiled by me!! Click here if you are interested!
I made a video showing a few tips and tricks with this great stamp set. Lasting Lily is perfect for sympathy cards, but also for other occasions such as birthday, thinking of you and get well, not to mention happy anniversary. I hope you enjoy it and have fun playing with all the great new products in the Occasions and Sale-a-bration catalogs. I am also hosting a Creativity Day next week Thursday for anyone placing a $60 order. Lunch will be included and we will have a lot of stamping fun. All you need to bring is your own adhesive. I have to admit that I do not stay on top of my calendar of events, so the best place to stay in touch with what is happening in my studio is to subscribe to my newsletter.
I would be very thankful if you choose to order online through me! The only requirement is that you live in Canada and that you don’t already have a demonstrator who helps you. It is not my intention to “steal” anyone away from their current demonstrator. Working in the craft industry is not easy and I would never intentionally sabotage anyone else’s business. I hope you have a lovely and meaningful day. As a parting goodbye I thought it would be nice to share one of my favourite memories of my trip to Holland.
