Monday, August 25, 2014

Bright and Beautiful Christmas Card

Today's card features the Bright and Beautiful Bigshot bundle from Stampin' Up! The bundle features the Bright and Beautiful stamp set from the upcoming holiday catalog which launches on August 28th and the Stars Framelits set.


I stamped on Bermuda Bay card stock with Silver Encore ink for both the stars and the sentiment. Silver glimmer paper cut out with a framelit provides a nice accent behind the stamped stars. I used Stampin' Dimensionals to pop up the layers of the star as seen in the side view below. The stars embossing folder coming soon in the holiday catalog was used to provide some additional texture to the background of the card. Basic rhinestones add an extra touch of bling.


Materials used in this card:

Thursday, August 7, 2014

CYCI30 With A Sneak Peak Of The Upcoming Holiday Catalog!

Today's card was created for Can You Case It #30, a sketch challenge. You can find the blog post for this challenge and lots of inspiration here.


Mr. Brown, aka the UPS man, dropped off a package today with my pre-order items from the upcoming Stampin' Up! holiday catalog. Demonstrators were able to start placing orders on August 1st while the catalog will go live for customers on August 28th. I decided to ink up one of my new stamp sets and use paper from the new Trim the Tree DSP stack. I really like the size of the DSP stacks and find that they are perfect for making cards.



The stamp set featured in this card is the new For All Things stamp set. I really like the fall sentiment I used above. There are also "Grateful For You" and "Give Thanks For All Things" sentiment stamps, making this quite a flexible stamp set. I am planning on using it for general fall cards for my girls' teachers, thank you cards, and Thanksgiving cards. The angled tag topper punch was used to create the Sahara Sand tag. I folded and then stapled a piece of Early Espresso card stock punched out with the Modern Label punch. A great new tool coming in the holiday catalog is a stapler with mini staples. I found it really easy to use and think the staples are the perfect size for cards! I bought a small stapler from another paper crafting company and had a lot of trouble with it jamming, so I was happy to find the new one from Stampin' Up! works well.

Current products used for this card are pictured below. Thanks for taking the time to visit my blog. Comments are always appreciated!


Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Fun 'N Crafty August Blog Hop

Welcome to the August Fun 'N Crafty blog hop! This month, we are featuring projects using the Big Shot. My Big Shot is one of my favorite crafting tools! The Big Shot and all the available dies make it easy to get the fussy cutting look without all the fussy cutting work, which is perfect for me since my fussy cutting skills are not the best.




Today's card uses the Daydream Medallions stamp set and the Floral Frames framelit dies. During the month of August, you can buy the bundle and save 15% on this stamp set and coordinating dies. I stamped the two largest medallions from the stamp set in Memento tuxedo black ink then cut them out with the framelit dies. The sentiment stamp in the center is from the Chalk Talk stamp set. I punched it out with a circle punch then matted it with a larger circle punched out of Basic Black card stock. The background paper is the Typeset specialty DSP. I accented the medallions with pearls to add a little bling


To give the card some dimension, I used Dimensionals to pop up each of the layers of my floral medallion. The side shot below gives you a better sense of that dimension. It makes the card "pop" a little more in person than the pictures can show.




Thanks so much for visiting my blog! Make sure to visit all the blogs in our hop. Stacey's blog is up next!





Blog hop participants:

1. Tobe B. of The Craft Sea
2.Angela M of Stamp with Angela
3. Stacey L. of A Work of Carte
4. Pam W of Stinky Tofu
5. Jennifer B. of Northwest Stamper




Saturday, August 2, 2014

CYCI29-A Color Challenge

Today's card was made for the challenge over at Can You Case It? You can find lots of inspiration over at the CYCI blog. This week's challenge is a color challenge featuring the colors below:


The new koala stamp came to mind immediately, but another stamper had already used it for her card. Since I prefer to be original, I decided to look through my stash and see if inspiration struck. I came to the Swallowtail stamp and thought it would look great inked up with these colors.


I experimented with coloring it a few different ways and ended up inking up a clear block, stamping it with my So Saffron stamp pad, then spritzing it with rubbing alcohol. I then stamped it to create the background on the Whisper White paper. Staz-on was used to stamp the butterfly on the So Saffron/Whisper White background. I then used my blender pens and Pool Party and Smoky Slate ink to add a little more color to the butterfly. It looked a little grungy to me, so I continued the theme with Gorgeous Grunge used to stamp Smoky Slate blotches onto the Smoky Slate card base. The sentiment if from Perfect Pennants. I decided to mount the butterfly layer off center and like how it turned out!


Friday, August 1, 2014

Project Life...Not Just for Scrapbookers!

My friend Eva visited back in June and we had a chance to craft together. She used cards and embellishments from a Project Life kit to make several cute cards. Today, I decided to pull out the Project Life set that I have and make a couple of quick cards myself. I also challenged myself to use washi tape on both cards. I have several rolls and don't seem to know what to do with it. I used it in place of ribbon on these cards and I do like the look.

The first card is a quick and simple one featuring one of the cards from the Everyday Adventure card set. I punched out the star to cover a little smear my inky finger made on the card. The arrow is from the coordinating accent set.




I'm not sure who I would send the second card to, but I do like the sentiment. Sometimes we need to take the time to just be happy! Again, the card with the sentiment is from the Everyday Adventure card set. The card base is Bermuda Bay with layers of Crushed Curry and Melon Mamba accenting the central card panel.