Inkspiration for Stamping and Scrapbooking

Family Tree

At the beginning of each month, Two Scrapbook Friends releases a minature kit called the Monthly Product Challenge. There's enough in the kit to make a single page and it usually only costs about $3.50 - so it's a very inexpensive way to get a page done, if the theme works for your photos.

I purchased November's kit way back at the start of the month, and just got to work on it on Friday.

Here's what I came up with. You must use a little bit of everything in the kit, and you may add to it, if you like. All I added was the chipboard letters covered in patterned paper to spell tree. There's lots of ink and distressing to play on the tree theme.

I turned the diecut tree on it's side to be a branch, and scrapbooked these very old photos (10 years!) of dd and her great grandparents. The stickers that spell the word family were also in the kit, but seemed a bit bright for this layout, so I muted them by sponging on blue and brown ink.

What do you think? 

Like a cookie exchange but better...

The other night, my friend Christa had 4 of us for a Christmas card making exchange. Now I've done lots of swaps before but this was different. Rather than mass produce a bunch of cards and then trade them, we each designed 2 cards and cut the materials for everyone else to make them. It was a lot of fun. I showed you last time, the cards I designed. Here, today, are the cards I made there, designed by the other 4 cardmakers.

Red and silver make this one a classy one to give!

 Purple is such a hot colour this year in fashion and it's lovely on this card, using a retired Stampin' Up! set called Frosty.

Thanks Joyce!

  

Red and silver again - aren't they gorgeous together?

Frosty again, this time with moss, burgundy and gold. 

Thanks Shannon.

A scrappy Christmas card, mosaic style. I love the little touches - glitter on the poinsettias, small bling on the snowflake - a stamped title.

Silver and blue always look great. The centre panel actually came embossed like that, making this a very quick card to put together.

Thanks Pam!

Punches, Thickers stickers, some stamping, ribbons and glittery embossing, make this a fun and glittery card.

The background is patterned paper. Isn't this a fun group of carolers? I always liked the Merry Minstrels set.

Thanks Christa!

We had so much fun, we're talking about doing this again in the new year, with birthday and other occasion cards. I can't wait!  

  

Christmas Cards - a Cuttlebug Card & a Stamped Card

First Christmas cards of the season.

This one uses a Cuttlebug folder, brushed gold cardstock, and bright red cardstock. The greeting was stamped with gold ink and embossed with glitter embossing powder and heat set. Some gold cord to finish off. This would be an easy card for anyone who needs to do a mass production of cards - they come together very quickly!

This one works for the challenge over at

the Cuttlebug Challenges blog.

 

The Christmas cardinal was stamped on shimmery white cardstock with black ink and coloured in with Copics.

Then it was layered on cocoa brown cardstock and a patterned paper that I used a border punch on. Ribbon, inked edges and more layers finish the card.

I joined 4 friends last night and brought the supplies to make these 2 cards. They also designed and cut materials for 2 cards each, so we all went home with 10 cards altogether, some great ideas, and a lovely night of friendship and Christmas cheer. Christa had Christmas music playing, we served some tasty Steeped teas and I brought some shortbread that I made using a cookie press. That was fun & easy. I'll be back soon to show you the other 8 cards.

Lots to Show You Today

This is DD's grade four photo.

White gel pen on the scalloped half circle, Crystal Effects (like Glassy Glaze) accents the paper cut-out flowers, felt flowers, Prima flowers, brads, border punches and ink.

We went camping up north in August and celebrated our anniversary shortly after our return. The views up there inspired this card for DH. The sky is sponged with about 3 or 4 colours of ink. Actually lots of sponging on this card if I recall. Images are stamped on glossy cardstock.

DD had her birthday not too long ago and she & her friends went horseback riding for her party. I borrowed some stamps from a friend to play with the horse theme. Lots of background stamping. The colouring is a combination of Copics and Stampin' Up! markers.

The title for this double pager is Oopsie Daisy and tells the story of the reaction when Sarah's autograph book falls during her character greeting with Daisy Duck. The right page was done first, following a sketch challenge posted by Dee during a recent online crop at Two Scrapbook Friends. The left page followed a little later in the day.

The paper flowers were created by punching out scalloped circles and then cutting in toward the centre. Glimmer mist tints the felt branch. Lots of glitter on the chipboard title. Inked edges.

DD also used the sketch challenge for her 8x8 page - didn't she do a great job!

Come on back tomorrow -I'll have Christmas cards to show you and I'll try to get a few more layouts from Disney posted over the weekend.

Thanks for stopping by! 
 

Christmas Card Classes

If you are attending this Saturday's Christmas cardmaking class at my place, and you want to be surprised i.e. don't want to know what we're making, stop reading now! If you're dying of curiosity, read on!

Attendees will choose 4 of the 5 designs, and then stamp 2 of each to make 8 cards.

  This card is a CASE of one done by Beate Johns, except that I eliminated 1 layer.

It features a new set from the Holiday mini, A Christmas Cardinal, new colour with the Riding Hood Red, new Alpine ribbon from the mini, and new punches, the Scallop edge and the square scallop. The large scalloped square behind the cardinal image is actually 4 punched out squares taped together with SNAIL. The dsp comes from the mini catalogue too!

 

This card is a CASE too from one I saw on Carolin LeBelle's site. I love the poinsettia paper!

The image is coloured in using blender pens and ink. There is dazzling diamonds on the stmaped poinsettias, though it's hard to tell in the photo. Certainly celery, chocolate chip and ruby red make a nice bright Christmas card, don't they?

 

This card was inspired by one I saw on SplitCoast stampers. I copied the colours and sets but changed up the layout just a bit.

This card features the oldy but goldy Lovely as a Tree to create the landscape for the cheery snowmen from Merry & Bright. The snowflakes stamped in Craft white on the lower third of the Baja Breeze cardbase also come from the Merry & Bright set. Love that Riding Hood Red taffetta - so striking with its white edge!

Does the snow glisten enough?

This card is a CASE from Dianne Pappas. The only changes I made were to the ribbon. I LOVE how the felt ribbon looks and feels on this card - it suits the vintage-y theme and the idea of the sleigh riders huddled under their blankets! Colours are Always Artichoke, Kraft, Ruby Red and Vanilla. The image and greeting are both embossed. The set is Sleigh Bells Ring.

 

This last card was inspired by one I saw on SplitCoast but I changed it up quite a bit.

This is Pacific Point set off with white and Brushed Silver.

The white felt flurry has been glitterified thanks to Tombow glue (it dries clear) and the chunky glitter.

If you have any questions, leave a comment. If you would like to attend the class, there's still room for 2 more people. Email me to reserve your spot. Kits are available for $30 + shipping (or pickup) where all pieces are pre-stamped and pre-cut and you just follow the instructions to assemble.

Tart & Tangy class close up

The Tart & Tangy class was a LOT of fun!

I showed you a group picture of the cards earlier, and now you can see each one up close!

This is the faux postage card, which some of you may have seen before, as I posted it way back when I first announced this class.

Faux postage is really just another masking technique and it creates a really fun effect. We used markers to colour the cherries, and then used a sponge dauber to shade in the background.

This is the faux tile card. There are a few faux tile techniques out there; one involves scoring a grid-like pattern on your card, but I've also seen that called a grid card. This technique involves creating a tile like surface by stamping with classic ink, and then smooshing the cardstock in your Versamark pad and clear embossing.

I know there aren't blue apples, but I love this card, and here's why:

  My dining room is adorned with my Delft collection - yes, there's Dutch blood running through my veins and I love the blue hand-painted porcelain that typifies Dutch artwork - I'll never be able to afford a VanGogh or Rembrandt so these hand-painted beauties will do just nicely.

So I used my Delft  trivets as my inkspiration for the faux tile card.

This next card is a close copy of one in a recent Stampin' Success magazine. For those that don't know, Stampin' Success is the monthly magazine that SU! demonstrators receive free full of business and stampin' ideas.

This technique is called the loaded marker. I like the watercolour-y effect it creates. We loaded the side of a light-coloured brushtip marker with darker-coloured ink and coloured with that. The effect is somewhat subtle, but quite pretty.

This card is a very close copy of Sharon Johnston's card found here. She eventually incorporated her card into a kitchen collection gift set - so cute!

You've heard me talk about Sharon before - I love her simple, elegant style. She posts a stamp simply challenge every Friday, and if you want to play along, you'll find the challenges on her blog.

This card incorporates a template, more than a technique, but I loved it so much I included it in the class! There's a little flap on the inside cover that can hold a favourite cherry recipe that you'd like to share, or a gift card or gift certificate.

This card smells so good!

This is a scratch and sniff card. I mixed unsweetened KoolAid with clear and irridescent ice embossing powders and the whole orange slice is the one that produces that sweet happy smell when scratched.

The 3 slices are embossed with irridescent ice ep and look yummy enough to eat, don't you think? They remind me of candies I'd see at my grandparents - those sugary fruit candies. Anyone know what I mean?

This card is inspired by this  one I saw on SCS - only I eliminated the green - we have enough green cards already, and because I wanted the scratched image to be big enough to get lots of enjoyment out of, I went with the whole orange.

So that was our class - if you missed it, I hope you can make it to another class in the future.

Hope these inspire you to get your stamps out and play - there are so many things you can do with a single set. Next week, I'll show you another Tart & Tangy card I'm dreaming up for my team meeting swap card. Sorry, but you have to wait until they get theirs first.

Happy stampin' and blessings,

Ann

Tart & Tangy, comin' up?

Did you say you like your stampin' tart & tangy?

Well, you'll get it just the way you like it at this Wednesday night's class - an evening of nothing but Tart & Tangy ideas!

Here's what we're making! I'll show you pictures of each individual card after the class. The ladies attending get to see it first - that's fair, right?

This is a technique oriented class so we'll be learning these techniques:

• loaded marker
• faux postage
• scratch n sniff
• faux tile
• as well as a really neat cutting trick for the cherry card (which is a very close copy of a card by Sharon Johnston - you've heard me rave about her work before)

The orange card is inspired by one I saw on SCS and I wrote down the name of person who uploaded it, but I can't find it just now; I'll be sure to give credit when I post each card individually on Thursday.

Come back tomorrow when I'll share a little problem and an easy solution for it.

Happy stampin' and blessings! - Ann

Texture Goes Cute

In my last post, I showed you a card that I had made for 2 purposes - to stamp something that meets Sharon's challenge, and to make up something for our stamp club. Well, our club meeting was last night and they loved the card, with its curved corners. And they loved playing with the glitter. The ribbon technique takes some practice, so some got that better than others. That's the way it is with life, isn't it?

This card was a huge hit with them. The texture here is created only with paper. We used the paper piecing technique to create some visual texture on those Unfroggetable frogs. If you haven't tried this technique, you really should - it's very easy and fun!

This technique works really well with line art images. Simply stamp your image twice, once on the cardstock that is your top layer of your card, and once on patterned paper. Trim out the patterned paper piece, cutting just on the stamped line. Adhere the cutouts to the stamped images and voila - cute and easy paper piecing. Try it with such images as funky flowers, animals, shapes, dresses etc. Check your stash, I  bet you have a set this would work with!

The water was created using the Wonderful Watercolour Crayons and the Aquapainter - that's how the dragonfly was coloured in as well. The lily pad and rock are done by punching out the shapes. The Sahara Sand cardstock was crumpled after punching and a little direct to paper with the ink to add some tactile texture and make it appear rock-like. The lily pad was trimmed into with the paper snips and a little additional green was painted on with the Aquapainter and the WWC.

How's this for texture - this one has been sitting on my shelf for about a week now, and every time I look at it, I want to touch that strawberry!

The colours are Real Red and Certainly Celery - the celery changed a little somewhere in the photographing/editing process... I am still learning!

The strawberry comes from the Tart & Tangy set - such a cute, versatile set, isn't it? I stamped the berry in Real Red on to Whisper White and punched it out. Then I used the Tombow multi, fine tip, to spread glue on the hull part. The beads are from the bead duo - so fun! You get big beads and microbeads in matching colours all in one package. So we sprinkled on the bigger tube beads first, and then sprinkled on the microbeads to fill in spots. Then repeated the process with the red duo.

The patterned paper comes from the matching called Summer Picnic and we used the white gel pen to accentuate just a few dots and play up the visual texture a bit.

I hope that gives you some great ideas to try to add texture to your stamped art - now, go get stamping, and leave me a comment to let me know what you think.

Happy stampin' and blessings! - Ann

Enjoy Texture!

This week's stamp club meeting is about texture. I'll show you more of our projects later in the week - wouldn't want to spoil it for them. But I will show you one card we're making.

As well as being a card that speaks to our theme of texture for this week's class, it is also my response to Sharon Johnston's rounded corner challenge of this past Friday. Since I had rounded my corners the usual way on Kristina's colour challenge, I made this card with convex corners, using the ticket corner punch. I used the punch on the layers, and on the So Saffron card base itself.

The Purely Pomegranate layer is wheeled with the Daisy Dash jumbo wheel, which matches the Enjoy Life set so nicely. And you can get the wheel free when you order the set during SU!'s Free Wheelin' promo on until April 30th. The patterned paper comes from the Cutie Pie designer series paper and I stamped it with the "wonderful" greeting from Warm Words.

The focal image, created with stamps from Enjoy Every Moment, is stamped and cut or punched out to build up the layers and I played with the blue cosmo glitter and the dazzling diamonds glitter.

You can see the glitter and the ribbon more closely here:

What do you think of this ribbon treatment? I read about it somewhere, but can't remember where, so apologies to the originator.

Here's a quick how-to:

To ruffle the ribbon like this, you simply start with double stitched ribbon and then gently tug on the white stitching. Anyone whose sewn will know how to do gathering, pulling the thread to create a gathered skirt or apron, for example. This is the same technique. Gently pull those white threads until your ribbon is gathered. Tie the white threads together behind the ribbon and cut the ends. I added a dab of 2 way glue so they would stay behind and adhered the ribbon to the card with glue dots.

Texture? I'd say this card has it: visually with the unexpected corners and glitter, and in a tactile sense, with the ribbon. I'll be back with the other two club cards later this week.

Meantime, leave me a comment to let me know what you think of the card, or to share some of your favourite ways to add texture to a project. 

Til next time,

Happy stampin' and blessings! - Ann

I'm Back with more from last night

Are you just shocked that I've done TWO entries in one day. It's kind of astounding!

OK - I want to show you the rest of the stamping we did at last night's party. By the way, for those of you wondering, I do a few different kinds of parties. There's the total hands-on party, which was what last night was, where I talked the guests through the cards. Guests made 5 projects for just $10 each and they had time to place an order so the hostess got some nice goodies. I do a party that is more of a demonstration style where I demonstrate step by step the cards and then the guests make 2 cards (3 if it's in my studio) and then we have time for ordering and snacks so the hostess gets to tackle her wish list. I also will do a stamp set included party where guests all pre-order the same stamp set and I bring 5 - 6 cards for them to make with their new set. There usually aren't a lot of orders for the hostess, but it is a great night of stamping fun aand guests go home with a lot of ideas.

OK, back to the last 3 cards from last night.

This card was sort of inspired by the one I did with the Stamp Club last week.

I wanted to show last night's group the rub-ons so we used the rounded edged ones from the Perfect day set in the Occasions MIni. These fit the scallop punch perfectly. We rubbed onto the Blue Bayou scrap and then punched it out. I stamped the butterfly from Priceless once on the blue piece to get the antennae, and once on a Whisper White scrap using Wild Wasabi and Blue Bayou and the rock and roll technique. The designer paper is from the Porcelain Prints pack and layered onto the Wild Wasabi. A touch of dazzling diamonds glitter adds a little sparkle to the wings of the butterfly.

The idea for this card came from the gallery at SplitCoast where there are several cards done up in a similar way. I chose this card for a few reasons - one to showcase a Sale-A-Bration set, Birthday Whimsy. Also, because although most of last night's guests were experienced stampers, I knew had 2 newbies so I wanted to do something fairly simple for them. Lastly, I think these colours work for giving the card to a guy or girl. The stamped presents are done using the masking technique, the other "presents" are punched out of the Prints papers and the wide grosgrain is a cheater bow. Fun and easy card to make. Some of last night's guests changed up the design a little to make it a portrait rather than landscape design and that looked great too.

This final card is the first card I made with the Live Your Dream set from the Occasions mini. I cased Sharon at notimetostamp for this one - I adore her classic, elegant style. The card uses Groovey Guava, Garden Green and Chocolate Chip colours. The paper is from the new Afternoon Tea pack also in the Occasions Mini, as is the Chocolate Chip poly twill ribbon. I love the soft feel and flexibility of this ribbon, but you MUST cut it with sharp scissors to avoid fraying. One of the (many) great things I loved about Sharon's card is the focal point on the focal point that she created with the small image. I used the bird stamp in the set and punched it out with the 1 1/4 inch circle punch, layered it onto a 1 3/8 square punch out that has had the corners nicked off with the tag corner punch. Thanks Sharon for your beautiful ideas!

Some of the guests last night flipped the paper and the card looks gorgeous using the reverse sides as well.

Well, that's all for now folks. I may have more for you tomorrow, as we are expecting MORE snow and LOTS of it - the joys of a Canadian winter... it never ends until it's summer! I hope these spring-y cards give you reason for hope.

Happy stampin' and blessings - Ann