Inkspiration for Stamping and Scrapbooking

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

Enjoy Family Day!

Here in Ontario, some of us are enjoying our first ever Family Day. This is a provinical, not federal, holiday and not every one is getting it off, unfortunately, but it is a step in the right direction. Hasn't it always felt like such a LOOOONG time between New Years and Easter? We needed an extra long weekend in there!

So in honour of Family Day, here's a card to remind us to Enjoy! I chose bright bold colours, because it is very dull here today.

Here's the recipe:

Cardstock: Pixie Pink, Basic Black, Glossy White, Whisper White

Ink: Pixie Pink, Only Orange, Yoyo Yellow in Classic, marker and craft, Staz-On black

Other: Sponges, Clear and Irridescent Ice embossing powders, Word Window punch

Leave me a comment if you have any questions. Meantime, Enjoy Every Moment of Family Day!

Happy Stampin' and Blessings, Ann

Silk Scarves in Pretty Boxes

Aren't these beautiful???

These are gifts I made for family and friends:

These two were both tea-stained before I stamped. I used the Garden Whimsy and Priceless sets for the scarf on the left. The scarf on the right uses LOTS of stamps from these sets - Enjoy Life, Priceless, Big Pieces, Little Pieces...

These two scarves are stamped on the white silk:

The scarf on the left uses Blossoms Abound. The scarf on the right (inspired by on eI saw on SCS by Diane) uses LOTS of stamps and colours from these sets: Wild Rose, Blossoms Abound, Heartfelt Thanks.

Well I could not just fold these up and put them in a re-usable Christmas bag, like we usually do for gifts - they'd slide around and become a crumpled mess. So I visited Mirkwood Designs and found a template. In retrospect, I wish I had chosen a slightly bigger box yet, or tried to size up this design, but aren't these so cute?

This design is two parts, the lid and the bottom. I prettied up the boxes with ribbon and the stick pins and beads from the Pretties kit and enjoyed using up more of my stash of Dashing patterned paper.

Here's a picture of all of the boxes together - each is a little different:

I'll be back on January 1st or 2nd with some scrapbook pages I gave as gifts. Then on to the new catalogue!

Happy stampin', Happy New Year, and BLESSINGS! - Ann