handmade cards

Have a Bright & Sunny Day!

HAVE A BRIGHT & SUNNY DAY!

Hello stamping friend! It’s Deb here, for the Scrap ‘N Stamp Design Team. I know that winter isn’t quite over yet, but we’re having beautiful sunshine & blue skies here in Vancouver! I thought I’d share some of this great weather, and hope that you have a bright & sunny day, too. The Beach Bunnies stamp set & dies from My Favorite Things are my choice for sharing today. Who can resist smiling at cute bunnies?

BEACH BUNNIES

I love creating happy little scenes with these types of sets. They have all the pieces you need, and using the matching dies makes everything come together so easily. I always recommend purchasing the dies at the same time as the stamp set. I used to fool myself, and think ‘oh, I can cut those out by hand’ – only to be sadly disappointed in ragged edges and snipped off bits. So – personal experience shared – buy the dies! 🙂

Just look at those cuties, having fun – and ice cream!

CARD DETAILS

I decided to frame the beach scene, so I used my Hero Arts Nesting Rectangle Infinity Dies and some blue cardstock to create the frame. Next, I made small pencil marks where the frame was to go, and then masked it off with my Thermo Web Purple Tape. This tape is great, because it won’t tear your cardstock when you remove it. I then used some Distress inks to blend in the sky with Tumbled Glass, and the sand in Gathered Twigs. That was the quickest part – next, you need to create the images.

On white cardstock, stamp each of the images in Memento Tuxedo Black ink. Use your favourite colouring medium; I used my Zig Clean Color Real Brush markers. I kept the colours light & bright, because hey – beach weather! After colouring, use the matching Beach Bunnies dies to die cut each image.

LAYER IT ALL TOGETHER

After you’ve done your colouring and die cutting, you’re ready to layer your scene together. Erase the light pencil marks, and attach your die cut frame to the white panel. Next, stamp the sentiment from the Beach Bunnies stamp set underneath the frame, in Memento Tuxedo Black ink.

Attach all of the die cut images with foam squares or tape, arranging the beach houses in the middle of the frame. The clouds of course go above, as well as the little bird. Attach the ice cream to the hand of the little girl bunny, and attach both of the bunnies outside the frame, on either end of the sentiment.

CREATE YOUR OWN BRIGHT & SUNNY DAY!

Are you ready to have a bright & sunny day? No matter what the weather outside is doing, you can create your own! I hope I’ve inspired you to have some fun, and make your own weather. All of the supplies can be purchased from the Scrap ‘N Stamp online store – you can use the links below to go directly there! Be sure to check out the fabulous new products that have arrived, and look at the current specials. There’s always something you need!

Have a Bright & Sunny Day! Read More »

Categories: Cards, Design Team, My Favorite Things

Tags: beach bunnies, card making, deb smart, die cutting, distress inks, handmade cards, My Favorite Things, stamp and create, zig markers

Color Layering Fuchsia

1 Comment 25 Feb Deb Smart

COLOR LAYERING FUCHSIA

Hello stamping friend! It’s Deb here, for the Scrap ‘N Stamp blog! I hope you’re looking forward to a great week. We in the Design Team have some great projects to share with you. I’m happy to be here to start your Monday off right. I hope that you were able to take advantage of the recent ‘Bundle Up & Save’ sale on select stamp & dies bundles, at Scrap ‘N Stamp. I sure did! Today I have a couple of cards to share with you that I made from one of the bundles I purchased, called Color Layering Fuchsia by Hero Arts.

CLEAN AND SIMPLE

For my first card, I kept it fairly clean and simple. A nice bright white background, and one stem of the fuchsia flowing down the middle.

This stamp set is incredible! When they say ‘color layering’ they mean it! Each flower has at least 4 layers to it, and there are extra layers that you can add to the leaves on the long stem. Because these are photopolymer stamps, it’s easy to see exactly where to layer the next colour. However, if you’re a little timid, you can set up the stamps in your stamp platform, and that stamp that way. I’m still working on adding to my ink collection, so I used ink from my stash on hand.

CARD FRONT DETAILS

First, stamp the long stem directly onto the panel of white cardstock. I used Mowed Lawn Distress ink. Add in the shading to the leaves in a darker green. Stamp the layers for the small bud directly onto the cardstock, as shown. For the other flowers, stamp them onto separate white cardstock. I stayed pretty true to real fuchsia colours, using light and dark purple, and a dark pink.

After stamping the flowers, use your die cutting machine and the coordinating dies, to die cut the flowers. Attach them onto the panel, using foam squares.

Chose a sentiment that you want – I happened to grab one from my stash, that is old – and stamp it in Versamark ink onto vellum cardstock. Cover the ink with Gold embossing powder, and then set it with a heat tool. I chose to stamp onto vellum so that the pretty flowers wouldn’t be covered up by the sentiment.

Finally, I layered the front panel onto a dark purple cardstock, and then onto a dark pink card base. Then I added a few rhinestones from my stash, for a little bit of bling.

MORE FLOWERS TO ENJOY!

For this next card, I added a second stem of fuchsias, and created a background with ink and a stencil.

I may have gotten carried away with the number of flowers – but they’re so pretty! I love to have a real basket of fuchsia at my front door, during the spring & summer.

CREATING THE BACKGROUND

I originally started with a patterned paper background, but decided that it was too busy; it competed with the flowers. So, I put some ink onto one of my clear blocks, and created a wash background with a wet paintbrush on white cardstock. I kept the yellow darker at the top of the panel, and lighter at the bottom.

After the panel had dried, I took a stencil from my stash (I really need to add new stencils to my arsenal!) that is a trellis pattern. I held it in place over the watercoloured panel with purple tape, and applied a medium gray ink. I applied the ink randomly; I didn’t want a solid background.

I repeated stamping the sentiment onto vellum cardstock & embossing it in gold, as I did on the first card. This sentiment is from the Sentiment Collection by Penny Black.

PUT IT TOGETHER

For this card, all of the flowers as well as the long stems were stamped separately, and die cut. Attach them to the front panel with foam squares, and add the vellum sentiment with liquid glue (it won’t show when it’s dry).

Attach the front panel to a layer of bright pink cardstock, and then onto a yellow card base. I used foam tape to attach the layers together.

THANKS FOR VISITING!

I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing my projects today! Please leave a comment, and let me know what you think. The supplies available from the Scrap ‘N Stamp online store are listed below for your convenience. The Color Layering Fuchsia set is available as a Bundle (both the stamps & dies together), as well as separately. Have fun shopping, and creating!

Compensated affiliate links are used where possible, at no cost to you. All products used are personally purchased, unless otherwise noted.

Color Layering Fuchsia Read More »

Categories: Cards, Design Team, Hero Arts, Penny Black

Tags: card making, color layering fuchsia, deb smart, die cutting, handmade cards, Hero Arts, rubber stamping, stamp and die bundles

Alcohol Inks Are ALWAYS Fun!

5 Comments 23 Feb Susan

Hi Everyone! I hope you are all having a great weekend.

This is Susan and I’ve got a fun technique to share with you today. I was playing with my alcohol inks and realized I need more colors. I only have 3 right now and I wasn’t getting the results I was looking for which is okay because it gives me an excuse to buy more 🙂 . So I grabbed my alcohol ink markers and played with those and had a ton of fun.

This is the result of my fun.

To do this technique you are going to need Yupo paper – it’s made for alcohol inks. You’ll need some alcohol ink, either in the bottle or if you’re like me and don’t have the colors you need in the liquid form then grab some alcohol markers. And you also need some Alcohol Blending Solution and a straw.

The first step is to lay down some ink. I knew I was using the You Are Here Stamp Set from Concord & 9th so I grabbed a couple shades of pink for the flowers and a couple shades of green for the leaves. I started by positioning the stamp on the paper and getting an idea of where I was going to need color. I lifted up the stamp and scribbled on the ink in the general areas of where I wanted them.

This next part is where all the fun happens. Take your bottle of Alcohol Blending Solution and squirt on a few drops. You’ll see the ink start to separate and move around. If you want it to move more you can use a straw. Just aim it at the ink and blow through it and you can move the color around. You can add more blending solution and continue moving the ink around until you are happy. The one negative thing about using markers is you can’t add more ink to the mix. If you are using liquid alcohol ink and you want more color just squeeze some on, add some more blending solution and move it around until you are happy with the results. I was going for a softer look so markers worked just fine in this situation.

Next is the hard part. At least I find it hard. It’s the waiting until it’s dry before you can turn it into something. It doesn’t actually take that long but I still found the waiting hard so I helped it along a bit with my heat tool. Not sure I would advise that too much as it did warp my paper a bit. To fix that I ran it through my big shot a couple of times and that seemed to help.

To stamp the image I used my MISTI. I wasn’t sure if I would get a crisp, clear image the first time because I don’t have a lot of experience with this technique and I’m glad I used it. I stamped it 3x using Versafine Onyx Black Ink before I was happy.

Now to turn it into a card. I used the stamp always from the same set as the flowers and stamped that using my MISTI tool. I stamped that 3x so as to get a deep black impression. I set that aside for a bit to be sure that the ink was dry before I fussy cut it out. Next I reached into my pile of designer paper that I need to use up and pulled out a strip of woodgrain pattern. I cut it to 4″ wide and tore the long edges. Next I cut a piece of white cardstock to 4×5 1/4″ and ran it through my big shot using an embossing folder with a swirly pattern on it and then layered that onto a soft pink card base. I added the strip of woodgrain paper and then added the cut out flower image with some craft foam for dimension. Finally to finish it off I added a few sequins with some liquid glue.

I hope you are inspired to give this technique a try.

Happy Stampin’

and thanks so much for visiting!

I’ve linked to a few of the items I used below. Scrap’n Stamp carries a wide variety of colors for alcohol inks – too many to list but if you’re looking for some I’m sure you’ll find it in the store.

Alcohol Inks Are ALWAYS Fun! Read More »

Categories: Alcohol Inks, Cards, Concord & 9th, Design Team, tim holtz

Tags: alcohol ink, Alcohol Markers, cardmaking, Cards, Concord and 9th, concordand9th, handmade card, handmade cards

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