Busy Crafter at Work

My Almost Double Digiter is crafting tonight. She pulled out some of her Paper Pumpkin kits and set to work. Here she's using the Essentials Paper Piercing pack, that was a bonus gift in a Paper Pumpkin kit last year, along with my Paper Piercing Tool and my Stampin' Pierce Mat. I can't wait to see what she creates.

A Wallet Card for Dad for Father's Day

Earlier this week I came across a neat Wallet Card on the "You're Filling Dad's Wallet?" post on the Chaos Served Daily Blog. I loved it, but I didn't have the clear embossing powder that she used. I mulled it over a bit and decided to combine her wallet design with the Faux Stamped Leather technique I shared on my "Leather Look for a Man or Woman" post earlier this week. It makes a great Father's Day card, and it can hold money, gift cards, or photo cards, or all three.

First I cut a piece of 3 x 8 1/2 piece of Early Espresso card stock and scored it at 4 1/4. I stamped a stamp from the Lovely as a Tree stamp set and a stamp from the April 2015 Love You a Lot Paper Pumpkin kit using Memento on the card front. I placed the cardstock on my Stampin' Pierce Mat and, because I don't have a stylus yet, I used the point of an empty mechanical pencil to trace around both images.

Next I lightly sponged over the card front with the following four colours in this order - Hello Honey, Pumpkin Pie, Tip Top Taupe, and Baked Brown Sugar.

I rounded the corners with my Envelope Punch Board.

I decided the edges of the card front needed more definition so I sponged around them with Early Espresso, but because I don't have an Early Espresso ink pad, I used my Early Espresso Stampin' Write Marker and scribbled over the top of a clear block, before using a Stampin' Sponge to pick up the ink and sponge it around the edge of the card.

With the card front still on the Stampin' Pierce Mat I used my Paper-Piercing Tool and a stencil from the Essentials Paper Piercing Pack to pierce all around the edge of the card front. I free handed the piercing on the card I featured a in the Faux Leather post earlier this week and it's okay, but I like the look of the piercing with the stencil better.

Next, following the instructions on the blog I linked in the opening of this post, I cut more pieces of Early Espresso for the inside of the card
- one piece 2 1/2 x 8
- 2 pieces 2 x 3 3/4
- 2 pieces 1 1/2 x 3 3/4
I sponged all around the edges of these pieces with Baked Brown Sugar, and did some extra sponging in the middle of the smallest pieces.

Using Memento ink and stamps from the April 2015 Love You a Lot Paper Pumpkin kit, I stamped greetings on the smallest pieces, giving them more of a leather look.

Using my 2-Way Glue Pen I adhered the stamped smaller pieces to the bigger pieces just around the sides and the bottom, making little pockets.

I scored the 2 1/2 x 8 piece at 4 with my Stampin' Trimmer scoring blade.

Then I adhered the pockets to this piece, just along the bottom and sides, making more pockets.

I decided to pierce around the edges of these pieces before adhering the whole thing to the inside of the card, once again just along the bottom and the sides, making one big pocket, like the bill pocket in a wallet. I left a small space on each side of the middle bottom without any adhesive so that the wallet would open and shut right. When I adhered it I folded the middle piece and placed it just on one side of the inside card and folded the card over the middle, instead of placing it flat out, to help it fit right for opening and closing and putting things in. (I hope that makes sense). I left it a while to let the glue set.  This is what it looks like opened up.

Sadly I adhered the inside part up from the bottom a little too much so bills stick up over the top a little when you put them in, but it's not too bad. If/when I do it again I will adhere it down a little further so bills fit better.

I am planning to get some gift cards to put in the other pockets, and I made some photo cards of our children to fit in them. I used my Pages program to get the photos the size I wanted, 2 1/4 x 3 1/4, printed them on cardstock, cut them and rounded the corners with my envelope punch board.

It was a bit of work, but I really enjoyed working on this card. It is a great card to make for a male any time of the year.

Too busy for a finished product again

These are some things I've been working on. Hopefully I'll have at least one finished product tomorrow.  We'll see. I'm giving my girlie some undivided attention right now for a bit.

See the balloons? I was experimenting with the kissing technique. I'll tell you more about that another day. I used a stamp from the Celebrate Today stamp set and another one from the Butterfly Basics stamp set.

The other pieces are a Father's Day card idea I was working on using stamps from the retired Wood You Be Mine stamp set and some stamps from the April 2015 Love You a Lot Paper Pumpkin Kit. I was really hoping to have it done in time to get to my dad for Father's Day, but I failed at that again. (sigh)

Off to watch a movie and eat some snacks!

All Kinds of Embossing

This card was inspired by the Tuesday With the Team: A Watercolour Card post on the Canadian Scrapbooker Blog this week. I loved the look of the card on that post and decided to try to recreate it with my own twists. I love the watercolour technique used for the focal point on the card and I had a new stamp that I thought would work perfect for it.

I cut a 3 1/2 x 3 1/2 piece of Watercolour Paper and stamped it with the flower from the Best Thoughts stamp set using VersaMark. I then sprinkled it with White Emboss Powder and set the powder with my Heat Tool. It's hard to see the image on the paper but it's there.

Then I used a paint brush, water, and ink pads to colour the image. I squeezed my ink pads before opening them to get a little ink on the inside cover and then used my paint brush to mix a bit of water in with the ink to use to watercolour. Someday I'm hoping to get the Aqua Painters for this, but my paint brush works for now. I used two of the 2014-2016 In Colours, Mossy Meadow and Lost Lagoon, and two of the 2015-2017 In Colours, Watermelon Wonder and Delightful Dijon.

I cut a 8 x 5 1/2 piece of Watermelon Wonder card stock and scored it at 4 1/4 to make a 5 1/2 x 4 1/4 card base. I stamped a greeting from the Best Thoughts stamp set onto the card front using VersaMark. I then sprinkled it with White Emboss Powder and set the powder with my Heat Tool.

Then I embossed the card front with the Lovely Lace Embossing folder using my Big Shot. I stamped and heat embossed the greeting before using the embossing folder because it would have been harder to get a clean, clear stamp and heat embossing on top of the textured surface created by the embossing folder.

Before adhering the watercolour piece to the card, I ran all of the outer edges of the piece over the VersaMark ink pad and then dipped each edge in the White Emboss Powder and set the powder with my Heat Tool. This gave the piece a nice finishing edge all the way around. I adhered the watercolour piece to the card front with Stampin' Dimensionals.

The Best Thoughts stamp set I used on this card is one of five special stamp sets that are exclusively available for purchase by those that host a Stampin' Up! party. You can see all five of the Exclusive stamp sets on pages 179-181 of the 2015-2016 Annual Catalogue.

If you would like to host a party and become eligible to purchase either one of these beautiful sets, let me know and we'll set up a party. All you have to do is invite your friends and provide a snack. I'll do the rest. We could even make this card at your party. I'd love to hear from you.

Leather Look for a Man or a Woman

The Ways to Use It Challenge at SplitcoastStampers this past Thursday had a "Go West" theme to it and included links to a number of different techniques that I wanted to try out. I finally decided to try the Faux Stamped Leather first. I didn't have a lot of the supplies that she used in the tutorial so I substituted and changed it up a bit and used what I had.

I decided to make a 4x4 card so I cut a 4x8 piece of Sahara Sand and scored it at 4. Then I stamped an image from the Butterfly Basics stamp set using Blackberry Bliss on the card front. I placed the opened card on my Stampin' Pierce Mat and, because I don't have a stylus yet, I used the end of a paintbrush to trace the outline of the stamped images. Then I sponged over the entire thing with Hello Honey.

Then I sponged over the entire again thing with Pumpkin Pie.

And then with Baked Brown Sugar, which is a retired product and no longer available.

And one last time with Tip Top Taupe.

Next I placed it opened up on my Stampin' Pierce Mat again and used my Paper-Piercing Tool to pierce holes all around the edge of the card front.

To finish the card I stamped a greeting using a stamp from the Butterfly Basics stamp set using Memento ink.

Lots of people tend to think that browns and the leather look are masculine looks, but females like leather and browns too, so it's good for either sex.

This was fun to do and I think I will be trying it again, possibly using different colours. I need to get more browns to get an even better look, but I'm pleased with how it came out.

A card for the artsy type

This is definitely not a card that would appeal to everyone, but I do think there are people it will appeal to. It has a definite artsy/grungy look. It is the result of a few inspirations all mixed together.

The focal point of this card was created way back in April when I did the Watercolours Ways to Use It Challenge Part Two: Embossing Folder Stamping. For the card featured in that post I used one side of the embossing but I also decided to try the same technique on the other side of the embossing folder, but I just used regular card stock instead of watercolour paper. The card stock curled and twisted and didn't lay flat so I just laid it aside thinking I might find a use for it some day because I did think it was kind of cool. Today was the day.

Way back in April I used my sponges to add colour to the Lovely Lace TIEF. Then I misted the folder with my water using my Stampin' Spritzer before pressing the 4 3/4 x 3 1/2 piece of Whisper White card stock on top of it. When it was dry I stamped the greeting using a stamp from the Butterfly Basics stamp set. I laid it aside in my scrap box until I picked it up today.

I liked the little rumpled look of it and decided I didn't want to try to flatten it so I adhered it to a 5 x 3 3/4 piece of Crisp Canteloupe in such a way that it retained it's rumpled look.

When I got that done I remember that there was a challenge on SpiltcoastStampers recently that involved rolling the edges of papers on a card. It was the Try a New Technique Challenge the week of June 8th. I decided to try that technique on this card. First I rolled the edges around a pencil but I wanted the roll to be tighter so I tried the skinny end of a paint brush. That looked a little better.

I adhered the matted piece to a 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 card base and inked the edges of the card base with my sponge a little with Crisp Canteloupe and Blushing Bride.

As I said, it's not a card for everyone, but someone would definitely appreciate it.

New Embossing Folder Technique

I was browsing pinterest and came across a pin from Robin's Craft Room's New Stamps 1: Circle of Spring post. She had layered some card stock and then embossed all the layers at once. This was a new idea to me and I had to try it. I used her card design as inspiration, but I did change it up a little.

I cut a 4 x 5 1/4 piece of Whisper White card stock, a 1 x 3 1/2 piece of Watermelon Wonder, a 1 x 3 1/4 piece of Delightful Dijon, and a 1 x 3 piece of Mint Macaron. I adhered the coloured strips on the Whisper White and stamped a greeting from the Sprinkles of Life stamp set with Tip Top Taupe.

I then used the Zig Zag TIEF (Textured Impressions Embossing Folder) and the Big Shot to embossed the whole thing.

Next I used the new Tree Punch to add some decoration. When I first got this punch I was a little frustrated with the thought that you had to punch everything out of the one piece of paper at the same time. I knew I would want to punch the different items with different colours and I thought it was very wasteful to punch the whole thing out of each colour. I played with it a bit and figured out earlier that you could cut little strips of paper to punch just the part of the punch that I wanted in whatever colour I wanted without having to punch the whole thing. I put a note on my punch so that I would remember what size strip I needed for each item. You still get some waste but it's not too bad.

I cut a 1 inch strip of Tip Top Taupe and stamped the tree trunk from the Tree Punch with Tip Top Taupe on the strip before placing it in the punch to punch it out.

I cut a 1 1/2 inch strip of Cucumber Crush and stamped the tree leaves using the Cucumber Crush before punching it out.

I used part of the 1 inch strip of Watermelon Wonder that I had cut earlier and stamped the flower a couple of times using Watermelon Wonder before punching them out.

I adhered the tree and flowers and added tiny pearls to the flower centers before adhering the piece to a 5 1/2 x 4 1/4 card base.

The Sprinkles of Life stamp set is extra special because for every set that is sold Stampin' Up! donates $3 to Ronald MacDonald House Charities.

More inspiration from my sister's house

No finished product to show today, just something I'm working on. The picture below shows a beautiful piece my sister has hanging over her fireplace.  I was intrigued by the design and took a picture of it, thinking I might like to try to duplicate it as a feature on a card in the future.  The picture above is my second attempt at trying to duplicate it. Still not quite happy with it yet.

 The picture below is my first attempt at duplicating it. Almost quit trying because it turned out so bad, but I decided to try again and the second attempt is much better than the first.

For both of these attempts I used a Stampin' Write Marker and stamps from the Perpetual Birthday Calendar stamp set.

These stamps actually have a lot going on in each stamp but I masked off part of each stamp so that I could stamp just one image for each stamp.

I'm away from my stamping supplies for the weekend so I'm not going to get to try it again until I get home. I've also had trouble connecting to the internet here so I missed posting last night. Hopefully it won't be too long before I get to try it again and finally feature it in a card.

Super simple card, inspired by a couch cushion

Below is a picture of my sister's couch cushion. I just got home from spending some wonderful days at my sister's and she laughed at me one day because I took a picture of her cushion. I told her I liked the look of it and I thought it might inspire a card. Above is the card that it inspired.

This card is super simple to make. I used four of the new 2015-2017 In-colours for this card, but I'm thinking I might try it again with different colours because I really like it, and it really is fast and simple to do.

All I did was ink up my Clear Block A with the ink and stamp it on the card stock. Yep, I just dapped the block on the ink pad until it was good and inked and then stamped it onto the card stock. So simple!

When I had the pattern all done, I drew some lines with a Stampin' Write Marker.

Once the lines were all drawn, I stamped a greeting using the Tip Top Taupe and one of the greetings from one of my favourite Paper Pumpkin Kit stamp sets, from the All Shook Up Paper Pumpkin Kit.

And that's it! Easy peasy! And pretty cool!