Eastern Beauty Cards

I love the combination of stamps and die cuts, and the Eastern Beauty stamps from Stampin' Up! also remind me of the medallion stamps I love so much from England.  There are so many pieces in this set that it is almost overwhelming!  I had some a-ha moments as I was creating these cards, and thought I would share some with you.

One of the patterned papers is pretty bland (in my opinion) and I was not sure what to do with it.  A google search later, I found that two of the stamps perfectly nest in the open spaces so you can go wild and customize it to be as patterned as you would like.

Two of the stamps fit perfectly in the little spaces of the petals on the medallion die cut, so I had fun playing with that stamp.  I also found that the petal medallion embosses wonderfully, so the first one isn't cut.

This one uses a peek-a-boo approach to color with circles on the back.

This one uses cut outs entirely - just snip around the die cut to pop it out from the paper.  The papers here are from Club Scrap except for the Very Vanilla for the card base and front.

Just having some fun playing with the patterned papers here.  I also discovered that both of the shapes can be layered to have that fun double layer peeking out behind.

Finally, I had some fun mixing and matching some of my paper scraps and the stamps to see what else I could create and using the tassels (not my first choice of embellishments!).

This is a really versatile kit, and I've enjoyed seeing what others have come up with using it.  I hope you enjoy some of these ideas.  My supply list is:

• The Eastern Beauty stamp and die bundle
• Eastern Palace patterned paper
• Eastern Gold vinyl stickers
• Very Vanilla cardstock (love the thick weight for the card bases!)
• Fresh Fig, Tranquil Tide, and Lemon-Lime Twist ink
• Mini Tassels
• Gold 1/8" ribbon
• Celebrate Today (Happy Birthday sentiment - retired SU!)
• Assorted Club Scrap papers from retired kits

Color Burst Powders - quick and easy cards

When I at the Club Scrap retreat this year (registration for next year's is open now!), one of my favorite classes was with the delightful Tricia Morris.  She introduced us to color burst powders.

One technique we learned in class was to emboss a panel using an embossing folder, rub some oil pastels over the top, and then sprinkle with powders and spritz with water.

I love these classes because I learn a technique in Wisconsin, and then I bring the panels home to finish making the cards with my own stamps and embellishments.  Doesn't the white pigment ink look fabulous on the black paper?

In order to use the card design I wanted, I needed to trim a little off to make them "fit."  So, I had lots of strips left over.  I combined them into one panel to make yet another card. This card also uses the wonderful gold pigment ink Club Scrap introduced this year.

You can also combine the color burst powders with stencils and masks for some really great effects.

And, of course, you can just play with swiping up color from a craft mat, or sprinking to make fabulous backgrounds.  This was embellished with some classic stamps from Club Scrap.

As you go along, you create quite a mess.  It's great to have a piece of cardstock ready to swipe up all of that gorgeous color.  Then, you can make even more fabulous backgrounds for more cards. This text stamp is embossed in white on top of the color burst background, and this makes it just pop.

Come back on Saturday to see how these powders inspired me to play with the Watercolor Christmas stamps from Club Scrap!

Transformations Blog Hop - Transforming the kit...

Welcome to the Transformations blog hop, featuring the latest Club Scrap kit.  I love the warm greens, browns and turquoise in this kit, and particularly fell in love with the buttons.  I decided to transform this kit into some cards that you might not think of at first glance.

First, I thought pretty simply about a sympathy card.  I used the ocean and spruce inks on my stamps to give a little depth to the stamping, and used the pop up adhesive in my kit to lift the banner.

Next, I thought about fall birthdays, and (for me!) went a little crazy with layering some punches, dies, ribbon and the button (doesn't it look cute with some baker's twine?).  The background was just stamped with versamark and rubbed with some gold pan pastels.

Finally, if you mix a little red in with the kit, I think you have a fabulous palette for a Christmas card! It probably won't show in the photo, but I used a wink of stella pen to put just the tiniest amount of sparkle on the card.

All of the stamps are from older Club Scrap collections, showing that you can use your stamps with other kits!  Maybe you're not like me, but sometimes I think my stamps only belong to the set of paper they came with!

Hope you enjoyed my look at Transformations - next on our hop is Ink Stains with Roni.  If you get lost along the way or want to check the hop out from the beginning, check out the main Club Scrap post.

Woven Strands Blog Hop - a card collection

Welcome to the Woven Strands blog hop featuring Club Scrap's Woven Strands kit.  This month has been crazy for me - it was such a joy to get this kit and create some cards! The paper in this kit has colors and textures and shimmer that I just love.  The stencil makes a stunning background.

And, more fun with the stencil on a smaller card.

The cutaparts to me looked like great items to use as embellishments for this card, along with the ribbon and a happy birthday stamp from my stash.

My birthday was this month, and I was gifted with new crafting supplies - including this super yummy Ferro textured paint in silver and copper.  I couldn't resist using the stencil with it to create this border piece on this card.  I inked a portion of the stencil in the corner to add some more texture and color to the background.

I also decided to use some pieces from another silvered piece.  In person, the silver is so dimensional and sparkly.  It's really stunning.

A piece of it even ended up on a border strip I created on the "negative" image of the stencil.

I had a lot of fun playing with this kit, and was really inspired by the stencil and gorgeous colors.  Next up is Lillian at the Leaf Studio - I can't wait to see what she has to share with us!  Hop back to Club Scrap to see the full list of bloggers.

Cantina Blog Hop - notebook for a fountain pen and cards

Thanks for joining me today on the Cantina blog hop which celebrates the July 2015 Club Scrap kit - Cantina!  I hope you enjoyed hopping over to my blog from Hetty - if you want to start at the beginning, check out the full list of bloggers over at Club Scrap.

The sunny orange in this kit is remarkably complementary to my new orange pen and notebook, so I decided to make this sweet little case to protect it and carry my pen with me.  It's hard to find a pre-made folio to hold these larger pens, so this is why I love that I can make my own!

When it's open, you can see the pen loop on the left hand side (since I'm a righty).  This is a very easy construction - just two pieces of book board separated by a 1/2 inch gutter. I decorated with a cutout from the Lite kit.

The notebook slides out of a pocket (my pocket tutorial is here - this pocket is 1/4 inch wider than the book height), and I glued a piece of ribbon behind the pocket first, so I would have a handy little place marker.

I've recently decided to dip into fountain pens (pun intended!), and the Lamy Al Star or Safari ones are my pen of choice for now, since they come in so many bright colors (orange, purple, blue/green, neon coral, and more!) and they are affordable.  Many also have matching ink colors, too.  The Clairefontaine notebooks are also reasonably priced, and work well with fountain pen inks.

At the end of the book project, I had some odd scraps left over, and decided to play with making some cards.  The Watercolor Blossoms stamp set from the 2013 retreat seemed perfect to try out Kay's watercolor technique with my gelatos.  I got out a big sheet of paper, and just started playing.  This image is under 4 inches tall, so you could cut your paper into strips to make it easier to work with.

As you can see, some turned out fabulous, and some did not.  There is a bit of a trick to making sure you have just enough water to activate the watercolors, but not so much that things get splotchy.  Some images are fixable - I used a brush after the fact to put some more color on the left hand blossom in this shot.

When all was said and done, I have a lot of floral panels to make sweet cards like this one for my neighbor.

Our next stop along the way is Dishing with Janet.  Hope you enjoyed my post and the entire hop!  Hope to see you next month.

Botanicals Blog Hop - Gelli Printed Cards

Welcome to the April blog hop featuring Club Scrap's Botanical kit.  If you're lost and want to find the entire list of bloggers, check out their post.

This month, I was inspired by the stencil to get out my gelli plate and experiment.  I am also running super low on birthday cards, so I needed to make multiples of cards without having them all look identical.

I started by cutting two 12 x 12 sheets of paper into 4 x 6 pieces.  I used my 5 x 7 gelli plate to roll on color that I hoped (!) would coordinate with the kit papers.  I was going for pastels, but learned pretty quickly that you need a lot of white paint and just a little color to achieve this.  I used a few stencils and fuzzy yarn to create primary prints and then some ghost prints.

If I didn't like a particular first print (or if it was too light), I kept adding ghost prints until I thought there was enough "stuff" going on.  Here is a finished card where you can see stencils, yarn, and a bunch of stuff going on in the background.

For my second layer, I brayered paint onto my plate, covered it with the stencil from the Club Scrap Lite kit, and pulled a print.  I just love this graphic look. The pink paper is from an older kit - Cruisin', but all other papers are from Botanicals.

For some, there was enough ink left for a ghost print of the positive image. This halo effect was pretty cool and totally unexpected!

I added some stamps to some, and embellished quickly with a tag to put a greeting on the card.  The tag was a bit large for the greeting, so I just cut it down a little bit. I love how the layers show through on this card.

This video from Gelli Arts shows some of the inspiration for these cards. I've probably watched this a dozen times - it's just so much fun to see the patterns emerge and imagine what you can do - no print is ever the same even when you start with the same materials and paints.

I hope you enjoy the next stop on our blog hop - Wendy Bellino!

London Calling - cards with british techniques

I really had a great time being a guest artist for Club Scrap with the London Calling Greeting to Go set.  You can see all of my finished cards on the Club Scrap blog.  I'm going to feature a few here with some extra details on the techniques.

I'm not actually part of the hop this month, so if you got lost along the way, check out Kay, who follows me when I participate!

My first technique features some cards made using a Lace' template:

I found these Lace' templates in a craft store somewhere in England.  For the first card, I taped the template to the light green cardstock, and cut around the outside and one side (a different template - not shown - was used for the second card).  I'm working on the backside of the card, and I've used the neon blue ink to stamp the text stamp to add some interest.

After trimming both sides, it looks like this.

Using a bone folder, I folded back the outer triangle and tucked it into the inner triangle.  It works best to have a nice contrast between the back and front, so I did darken up the back by using some darker ink and stamping more text.

I thought it needed a bit more embellishment, so I punched out some hearts, and added those in the empty spaces.

I traced around the template, and used a craft knife to cut a mat for the piece.  These particular templates are no longer being made, but the Cut, Fold, and Tuck dies from Spellbinders will do all of the cutting for you, making this a much easier project!

Many of the stamps in this kit have a great vintage feel to them, so I had a great time using some distress stains to make backgrounds for two of the card panels.  I just dabbed some distress stain in vintage photo, peeled paint, and broken china on a non-stick craft mat, sprayed with water, and swabbed up the color to make two panels.  I dropped water on the backgrounds and sprayed them a bit after drying to create a little more blending and texture.

I used a variety of images from the London Calling stamps to create the background, making sure to use different colors of distress ink (vintage photo and walnut stain) and to spray some of the images to create a bit of random fading and blurring.  I did use an ink blending tool and distress ink around the edges after this to create a nice ink frame around the panels.

I used the frame image from the kit to frame the sentiment.  I embossed the sentiment so I didn't need to worry about whether my image was dark enough to cover up the frame image.

I finished these up with embellishments from the kit for two gorgeous cards.  I love how they started out with the same techniques and colors, but still have a different feel to them.

My last British technique to share is decoupage.  You can find sheets of these in nearly every crafting store.  In America, the Paper Wishes company sells these as Paper Tole.  In England, the technique means to layer progressively smaller images on top of each other to create stunning depth in your cards.  Some stamps, like the one from the main collection sheet, also lend themselves to this technique.

Start by stamping your image on multiple pieces of paper.  My base image will be the blue image since the sky and water are blue (no coloring!).

I added a bit of gloss and shine to "London" by using a clear glue (like Glossy Accents) that was already died red.

For the second layer, I colored the postmark and the bridge.  I don't need to worry about staying in the lines, since I'll be cutting portions of the images out.  I wanted my big ben to be nice and bright in the front, so I didn't color the third image.

Next, trim your images out.  I didn't worry about trimming around the spikes on Big Ben.

Layer all of the images together using foam tape.  You can see the depth of the images here, with Big Ben two layer above the base of the card, but the bridge is only one layer up.

It doesn't take much to finish this card when you have such a fabulous focal image.

If you're not into the work of doing a scene, cutting out a single image and mounting it on foam tape can also be stunning.

The red coloring on the telephone booth and scattered dots in the background comes from a British product - Derwent's inktense blocks.  They are a permanent ink in a block form - you work with them like watercolors.  While wet, you can blend them, but once dry, they have a super intense color and are permanent.  This makes layering colors really interesting.  They also make them in pencil form. We toured the Derwent factory on our honeymoon (isn't my husband perfect to take me to crafty places on our vacations?), so their products hold a special place in my heart.

I hope you enjoyed my tour through some of the details on these cards, and that you have fun creating cards and works of art with the London Calling kit!