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.

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.

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!

Fun week with family and friends

The Sheraton was invaded by excited Stampers yesterday. It was the last stop for the Stampin' Up! Open Houses hosted by Stampin' Up! Canada across Newfoundland this week. I was lucky enough to get to attend the event with family and friends at 3 different locations throughout the week. For many of my family and friends this was their first experience with Stampin' Up! and I was happy to share it with them. It's been a crazy, but fun, week!

The focus of these events was to introduce the Stampin' Up! 2015 Annual Catalogue. Each attendee was presented with a physical copy of the catalogue and given the chance to try out some of the product from the catalogue.

Every year Stampin' Up! introduces five new colours to their collection. These In-Colours are only available for two years. One of the activities at the Open Houses gave the attendees a chance to try out some of the product that is available in the new colours. In the Stampin' Up bag that each attendee received was a sheet for them to take to the In-Colour station and use to make themselves an In-Colour product sample guide. I loved this activity! Here's the completed sheet of one of my guests.

To complete the chart we used the 2015-2017 In Colour Cardstock and Classic Stampin' Pads, along with the Itty Bitty Accents punches, stamps from the Over the Rainbow stamp set and the 2015-2017 In Colour Stampin' Write Markers. 

It has been a great week getting to meet other stampers and getting to share Stampin' Up! with my family and friends. I'm looking forward to lots more stampin' fun together.

It was especially nice to meet Dale and Carrie from Stampin' Up! Canada, and Melody from the Stampin' Up! head office in Utah. I think they enjoyed their visit to Newfoundland and I hope they'll come back to visit again.