Inkspiration for Stamping and Scrapbooking

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!  

  

Gift for the Teacher

Oh so frustrating - I had this post done and went to save it and it disappeared, so here we go again!

Last minute Annie here spent the evening making this stationary ensemble as a thank you gift for Sarah's teacher.

This is a box with a pull-out folio, and the genius behind the design is Andrea Walford. She's brilliant when it comes to boxes and packages!

Without a template, I thought I'd give it a go.

I started with Elegant Eggplant cardstock, because Sarah said Miss Jackson loves purple. Do you realize we don't have any designer paper with purple in it? Well, we have one, but I don't own it. Not even in my stash of retired paper. So I went with the paper from Crew Cut Girls because it has a bit of gray in it that I thought would work with the Eggplant, and then the pinks and greens would brighten it up.

The set used is new - like out of the yet to be released new catalogue - new! It's called Fresh Cuts. All colouring was done with a blender pen and the Elegant Eggplant, Regal Rose, Pretty in Pink and Wild Wasabi inks.

When you tug on the ribbon handle at the right, this slides out of the box...

... well it's this when you flip it open once.

I thought the greeting was appropriate for a teacher:

May happiness touch your life today as you have so often touched the lives of others.

That sentiment comes from a set in the Occasions mini called For Father. See, it's not just for fathers. :-)

When you flip these pieces out, you get...

... this.

Each pocket holds 2 thank you cards and envelopes.

Unfortunately I don't have photos of the cards - they got lost in uploading. The joys of technology - it's only as good as the operator!

In addition to this boxed set, Sarah made a cardstock basket onto which she wrote all kinds of sentiments and memories of grade 3. She used some eggplant grosgrain to tie in a bag of Steeped Cherry Rose Sencha. We also added some Geronimo Stilton and Magic Treehouse books. I added my Tart & Tangy card using the chalkboard technique - you can see it here. So she's receiving something for herself and something for her classroom - I hope she likes it!

Scrapped Wall Art

Look at what I made!

This was a class at Scrapfest in nearby Kitchener, and I finished it up this week by finally putting my photo in it.

This is an artist's canvas frame that's been painted and inked.

The paper is new 12 x 12 printed watercolour paper(non SU!, but we can hope something like this is in the works...). I watercoloured the pre-printed images using my Aquapainter. You could using SU!'s watercolour crayons, pencil crayons or markers to do the watercolouring, but since the instructor - the fabulous  (and Canadian!) Trisha Ladouceur had watercolour paints by Tsuskinko, I think, there and I hadn't tried them before, I used those. We watercoloured the frame and cut the centre out. On a second different watercolour paper, we watercoloured the flower and word and cut those out. They are placed on the square frame with lots of Stampin' Dimensionals. Lots and lots of primas adorn this frame  - Trisha is a PrimaDonna (code for on the Prima design team) afterall! Some Crystal Effects offers some clear sparkle too.

My wedding was a late August date and our colour was a grape-y plum. But I wanted my piece of art to go in my stampin' area which is in these yellow, orange, green-y shades (striped curtains set the tone), so I changed the photo to sepia to better suit the colour scheme. I love this piece and I love have a photo of us in my workspace!

I've got more not quite done projects, so I'll be back soon, I hope, with more to show you (but I also have lots of writing to do for my day job, so stampin' time is a rare commodity these days)  ... Stay tuned!

Happy stampin' and blessings - Ann

Let me know what you think - I love hearing from you!

I don't remember if I showed you this one yet...

Elephants may never forget, but I do!

I don't remember if I shared this card with you, yet.

This is one I made for a little swap I hosted featuring sets that are new in this catalogue. The images are stamped in Staz-On on shimmery white cardstock. I coloured the images with Watercolour Crayons and then blended the colours using the AquaPainter.

I love the Berry Bliss paper, so I used those colours to inspire this card with a Pomegranate base, a Close to Cocoa layer and the Pomegranate double stitched ribbon for accent. Although we don't have a Pomegranate crayon, the Rose Red works in a pinch - it's fairly close though not quite as rich.

I get quite a lot of natural light in my studio, but last week was a rather dull week, and I couldn't get the lighting right on this photo - so my apologies for the shadow of the camera, and the slightly too bright contrast on this one. I'm getting better, though!

I've shown you a few things done with Watercolour Crayons.I love how versatile they are - and how many different looks you can achieve using them! And that you can get them in all 48 colours + the neutrals. If you've thought about investing in the Wonderful Watercolour Crayons, Sale-A-Bration is a great time to do it! Each of the 4 colour families is $24.13. The Neutrals are $12.04 and the AquaPainters is $20.41 for 2 (different tips).  Add in a package of Shimmery White cardstock and a package of Watercolour paper and you have the watercolouring supplies on hand whenever you need to colour your line-art images. AND if you splurge on it during Sale-A-Bration, you will also receive 2 free items from the Sale-A-Bration brochure. Sets like Merci and Friendship Blooms would allow you to put your new watercolouring supplies to use right away! Feel free to contact me if you'd like to place an order (Canada only).

Happy Hearts Elephant

Isn't this elephant adorable?

This is from the Happy Heart Day set, a really cute little set ideal for the colourer in you! I VERY carefully cut the greetings off the elephant and the mouse and mounted them on the ends of the blocks to increase the versatility of this set. Last week, my mom used this elephant to make a very sweet baby card (sorry, I forgot to get a photo...)

The image is stamped on SU!'s watercolour paper in Staz-On. I coloured directly on the paper with the Wonderful Watercolour Crayons and then used the Aquapainter to blend the colours. I love how you can layer on the colour with these crayons. AFTER blending with the Aquapainters, I realized this elephant needed a little colour in the cheeks, so I added in the Pretty in Pink crayon over the gray - and look how nicely in shows up.

I traced the butterfly outline with the white crayon but found it doesn't blend much on the Basic Gray cardstock. Truly the watercolour paper allows you to play!

Other cardstock colours are Going Gray and Purely Pomegranate. The card is finished with a length of wide Rose grosgrain.

Remember you can take advantage of SU!'s Happy Heart bundle for just under a week. You can get this set, the ribbon I used here, a bolt of wide red grosgrain, and a package of small cello bags (great for treats) for just $39.94. That's 27% off the original catalogue price - it's almost like getting a roll of ribbon and the bags for free! Contact me to order your bundle - I can ship anywhere in Canada.

Til next time, Blessings & Happy Stampin'! - Ann