Tag: DSP

You’re Not Old…You’re Retro! (“Free Cake” Birthday Stamp Set from Stampin’ Up)

Hopping with Amy’s Inkin’ Krew for a Birthday Theme!

Hello again! It’s “birthday month” for Amy’s February blog hop! 🙂 I’ve made a card using the “Free Cake” stamp set to show you this time.

I all too often create on a quick timeline, but I had to fly at double speed that night so I could first listen in on our team meeting (while driving home…shh!) and then get my blog link up to the group before the deadline. And I had to create the card, or at least know where I was going with it, before I could do the link. What that means is that I made a REALLY SIMPLE CARD that any of you can recreate. 🙂 #simplestamping for the win.

I guess I have a wacky sense of humor. I like puns and sarcasm and slapping-my-knee funny and maybe slightly snarky stuff. I have several stamp sets in my possession that reflect this. And I recently acquired another one—the “Free Cake” set. It is current in the 2018-2019 Annual Stampin’ Up Catalog (page 70, to be precise). I was a little torn about which combination of stamps to use, so I just had to pick one and start. The good thing about owning the stamp set is that I can make the other card percolating in my brain at any time. 😉

I’m actually making this one for our team swap, which requires me to use current products in case the receiving demonstrator wants to use it on display. This is a big one for me to remember, because I have lots of retired products at my fingertips that I still love to use too. I use things up sparingly. 😉 And I confess that the one I’m sending for the swap is actually my second attempt. I didn’t like how I forgot to turn one of the radios when I was stamping, so I redid it since it may be used for demonstration. Not that it really matters. Either card is fine. I’m merely fighting my perfectionistic streak. 🙂 (And it was such a quick card that I had time to make a second!)

I’ve used the 2018-20 In-Colors (Lovely Lipstick, Grapefruit Grove, Pineapple Punch, Call Me Clover, and Blueberry Bushel) for inks, as well as our Archival Basic Black.  I’m just now realizing that the Archival pad retired. I should have used the Memento Tuxedo Black ink. Oops. 😦 I also used the fantastic Thick Whisper White cardstock for my card base.

I’m a child of the ’80s…mostly. So I remember the big boomboxes and all the other fun things we grew up with. It is unfathomable to me how I could be so OLD already—like, practically middle-aged. Ugh. I don’t even like typing that. But I do love the big transistor radio featured in the stamp set probably because of it. I stamped with the radio rather randomly (with a bit of placement 😉 ) in most of the In-Colors mentioned above. I saved the Pineapple Punch for the stars around the radios on the swap card (though the first card has both). If I make it again, I think I’ll stamp the stars while I’m stamping the radios. It was a bit tricky to place the stars afterward. Sometimes I wiped off part of the stamp so I could work around the radios and not be stamping so many stars at once. (You should see my inky fingers!) I did also use a bit of Lovely Lipstick Stampin’ Write Marker to one of the radios on the initial card when I didn’t get it inky enough the first time, though that card is pictured at the end.

I had already decided to split the matching sentiments between the front and the back, so I knew I was going to put “You’re not old…” on the front and “you’re RETRO!” on the inside. That meant I could keep the front simple and place the opening phrase underneath the featured black radio, which I then stamped on a separate piece of paper, matted with a scrap of Classic Garage Designer Series Paper (the oil/gas can sheet), and popped up with Stampin’ Dimensionals. I chose this DSP because it reminded me of the ’80s stonewashed look up close and was also black, meaning I wasn’t featuring one color over another.

Before I glued the stamped black radio to the DSP, I distressed the white edges with my scissors first. I love the distressed look and don’t always remember to do it. But since this is a gender-neutral card and could go to men, it seemed appropriate. Truthfully, it was also because I need to change the blade on my trimmer, so I was either going to have to trim off the leftover fuzzies with my scissors or make them worse intentionally. 😂

Stampin’ Up has been asking us to create simple cards anyone can make with just a few supplies and to hashtag it with #simplestamping…so this is my first try at that. This month they, too, are focusing on birthday cards and suggested that we use only ink, paper, stamps, and some DSP…so I intentionally didn’t embellish the card further. The front was done.

For the inside, I had to add the “you’re RETRO” saying, but I didn’t want to put only the words, and I also wanted to vary how I do the insides of cards. I tend to default to a fancy-edged die-cut with the words inside and DSP scraps. To change it up a bit, I chose one of the IC inks, Lovely Lipstick, and stamped off on scrap paper first to lighten it up before stamping it straight onto the card (skewed). Then I used my stamping platform to line up the “retro” sentiment and added the “Happy Birthday” from the same set as well. I stamped the words in the Archival Basic Black again and then stamped two star bunches to frame the entirety. (For the inside of the first card, which was now being made simultaneously with the swap card, I used Grapefruit Grove ink without stamping off, and that actually turned out better because it’s a lighter color than the stamped-off Lovely Lipstick.)

I attempted to pretty up the blank envelopes as my team members do. The front turned out great with a Lovely Lipstick tilted radio and two bunches of stars near it, but the flaps–nothing but stars–gave me some trouble. They’ll pass, but I’d redo them if they were more important.

As far as that other card goes, it is not spoken for yet…though I’m tempted to give it to my also-aging brother when his day comes around. What are siblings for, right? 😂😜

The products I used for these cards will be at the bottom of the post. If I can help you order or if you need a Stampin’ Up demonstrator, please feel free to comment or email. I’d love to be of assistance. Sale-a-Bration is the best time of the year to shop because you earn free products with every $50 spent. New choices hit the website on February 15, too. 😁 You can shop with my direct store link in the sidebar.

Thanks for joining me on the blog hop today! To continue “hopping” with our birthday blog group, click the Previous button to go visit Karen Finkle…or click Next to see what Sue Prather created. Links are below as well. Happy crafting!

Previous

Next

  1. Karen Ksenzakovic – https://wp.me/paaNf4-nC
  2. Jaimie Babarczy – https://wp.me/p79UhD-2xd
  3. Karen Finkle – https://karenscardkorner.blogspot.com/2019/02/stampin-up-high-tide-for-amys-inkin.html
  4. Connie Troyer (you are here!) – https://wp.me/p8xvI6-gY
  5. Sue Prather – https://wp.me/p5yitZ-10K
  6. Mary Deatherage – https://wp.me/p5snyt-7lk
  7. Shirley Gentry – https://stampinwithshirleyg.com/?p=3927
  8. Amy Koenders – https://wp.me/p2SFwf-dpz

Product List

Whisper White 8-1/2

$7.75

Free Cake Clear-Mount Stamp Set

$19.00

Free Cake Wood-Mount Stamp Set

$27.00

Classic Garage 6

$11.00

Classic Stampin' Pad Assortment In Color 2018-2020

$33.75

In Color 2018–2020 Stampin' Write Markers

$15.00

Coastal Cabana & Lovely Lipstick Stampin' Write Markers

$6.00

Lovely Lipstick Classic Stampin' Pad

$7.50

Pineapple Punch Classic Stampin' Pad

$7.50

Grapefruit Grove Classic Stampin' Pad

$7.50

Blueberry Bushel Classic Stampin' Pad

$7.50

Call Me Clover Stampin' Pad

$7.50

Tuxedo Black Memento Ink Pad

$6.00

Paper Snips Scissors

$10.00

Stampin' Dimensionals

$4.00

Mini Stampin' Dimensionals

$4.00

Wonderful Moments Bride Card for Bridal Shower, Wedding, or Anniversary

A bridal card for love-themed needs!

 

Welcome to another post for Amy K’s Inkin’ Krew Blog Hop for Tuesday, January 8! This month we are featuring the theme of love with Stampin’ Up products.  I’m making wedding and anniversary cards for my local gift shop right now (along with other themes and random custom orders), so I was very excited to join this hop!

For several days now, I thought I knew what I was going to create for this blog. In the end, I did stick to my original (barely fleshed-out) idea, but did I ever find ways to complicate it. (I always do.) I definitely should have started on it earlier. But I had craft room organization on my mind this week and I got to it when I got to it.

I was able to use several current SU products as well as a couple of retired products and ones from other companies (oops!). The focal point of the card is the bride stamp from the “Wonderful Moments” stamp set, set off by a lace oval from the Delightfully Detailed Laser-Cut Specialty Paper pack and a background of Petal Promenade DSP.

The laser-cut paper is vanilla on one side and white on the other. Since my card base was white and the bride’s dress would be too, I chose to use the vanilla side of the lace oval. And then I decided it needed something else. It felt too plain and too neutral. I kept “seeing” pink with this stamp and card, but the last two wedding cards I created had pink hues in them, so I tried to use other colors.

I have to keep trying. I did manage to sneak in an orange and a dark purple…but there’s still pink. So when I was looking at the oval and trying out colors in my head, I started sponging Bundled Sage Distress ink onto it, thinking winter colors. But then I picked up Tattered Rose and sponged it on too. (Evidently those colors should have gone on in the reverse order.) I added a second layer and different sponging before I was done. And then I got an idea, when I realized that the ink was drying slowly enough to get onto my hand as I held the card. (This is subconscious Pinterest at work in my brain, I think. Lol!)

One of the retired products in my stash that I need to use more of is our Iridescent Ice Stampin’ Emboss Powder. I’ve only used it in small bits until now…but I remembered seeing others do a whole-scene kind of treatment with it. I wasn’t even entirely sure I remembered how this product worked since I bought it late in the game, but the paper was definitely ready to be treated – it was still inky. My friend E assured me that I could indeed use Distress inks for embossing. So I got out my catch-all tray and my coffee filter and proceeded to pour the Iridescent Ice powder overtop (hoping I was making the right decision and not ruining a lovely piece of paper) and then heat embossed it, as the label suggested, three times  before I finally saw the powder changing and understood what it was going to look like or do.

Turns out I love this look. It reminds me of our Dazzling Diamonds Glimmer Paper except it’s not as thick and has slightly different colors. I’ll have to try this technique again sometime. I also appreciate how the pink and green sponged inks are still coming through the translucentness of the embossing powder. It’s faint, but it works.

With the lace oval paper finished, I turned my attention to the bride stamp. I chose Archival Basic Gray ink because it felt like black would be too harsh and bold against the soft oval. I had to stamp the bride several times with my stamp platform because it was the first time I’d used the stamp and I hadn’t prepared it (even though I know better). So my outline got a little thicker than I’d intended, but I’m choosing not to remember. 😉

After she was stamped, I watercolored the bride’s hair, skin, bow, and flowers with watercolor pencils and used an AquaPainter on those places afterward. For the dress, I decided to experiment with some Nuvo Crystal Drops (Ivory Seashell color) new to my stash. Since that is also translucent, I was hoping it would soften the lines of the dress if I covered them with the liquid. I later went back over the dress again, using a paintbrush to smooth out the Drops on the paper. I also took Wink of Stella to the bride’s bouquet (though I erred first and grabbed my White instead of my Clear. Once it dried, I realized what I had done and went back over the bouquet with Clear as well.) It sparkles more in person than in the photo.

So I had one finished oval and one watercolored, Nuvoed bride. I wasn’t sure how to treat the background behind her. In my mind I had seen her on white, but that seemed far too plain now. I thought of putting a watercolor pencil down as a background but couldn’t settle on which color. Blue for sky? (So she’s out in the open, looking at nothing?) Or some kind of background stamp to imitate wallpaper or wood planks? I then decided to think about the Graceful Glass vellum and hit upon an idea I’ll use at a later date, before the vellum led me to looking through my current DSP. I ended up fussy-cutting around her and placing her on patterned paper so I wouldn’t have to mask her for a background stamp or risk ruining something.

The paper I chose to use feels most like a sunset in front of my bride, and it even matched the flowers, hair, and bow I had colored before viewing this paper pack. (That actually happens to me a lot!) Because that was my best background option thus far, I cut (and then recut, due to first error) a notecard/A1 size of paper where the jagged stripe in the paper best flowed beside her dress and body posture. Once I had the background paper glued to the notecard card base, I played with the placement of my bride, attempting to center her and play off the “sunset stripe” to its best advantage while trying to cover the bottom of the dress with the sentiment I intended on using. (Many thanks to patient E for this stage, who was with me on video chat while I created the card!)

Something then made me think about the Rose Metallic Thread I had stored with my baker’s twine, and I decided to do a bow of some sort.  I think I’m not very good at bows with delicate threads quite yet. I ended up laying ATG tape on the back of the sentiment and looping it around and sticking to the tape however it looked the best to me.

The gold-and-white “Best Wishes” sentiment came from a resist coloring pack from another maker. I just left it as is, since I had enough color going on already. It fit with the “brown” tones of the card anyway. The gold on the sentiment appears to have been embossed, though it came that way in the pack and I merely cut it out. I popped up the sentiment with its new metallic loops with Stampin’ Dimensionals foam dots, placing it right above the hollow circles at the bottom of the oval.

The last touch on the front of the card was the tiny little mini pearls I used on the buttons of her bridal dress. I had SU’s white mini pearls from the Notes of Kindness card kit on her dress originally but later changed to even smaller ones from Recollections.

The inside of the card has been kept simple to be size-appropriate for the notecard and also to leave room for the sender to write. I used the retired Petite Pairs stamp set with its “for the new Mr. and Mrs.” sentiment on a bit of the Petal Promenade DSP (from the first piece I’d cut the wrong direction by accident), the current Fresh Fig ink pad, and the gorgeous Stitched Labels Framelits Dies. And then I added two more mini Recollections pearls on the sides of the inside tag. 🙂 (Side note: the Petal Promenade DSP pack is one of my favorite things in this catalog. The papers are just so beautiful!)

If I had set out to create this exact card, even with all the detail, it wouldn’t have taken me very long. But creating from scratch and using trial-and-error means that sometimes happy accidents have to happen to lead the creator to the next step, which later seems so obvious. 🙂 I’m really quite happy with this card now, but there were moments when I wondered where I was going with it. Maybe you’ll find even faster ways to recreate this card. I’d love to see what you come up with! I think this card could be used for a bridal shower, a wedding card for the couple, or an anniversary card. It just depends on which sentiments we use. 🙂

Below are the current Stampin’ Up products I used on this card. If you need any of the supplies, just click on the thumbnail to go to my store or visit this link. I’d be happy to become your demonstrator! Sale-a-Bration (from now until March 31) is the best time of the year to stock up on products and earn others for free! Please use code JJBCPS4W for a free gift when you shop with me! (You can continue with the hop participants below the thumbnails.)

 

Delightfully Detailed Laser-Cut Specialty Paper, 146907
Wonderful Moments stamp set, 147529
Rose Metallic Thread, 146915
Fresh Fig Classic Stampin’ Pad, 147144
Petal Promenade Designer Series Paper, 146913
Stitched Labels Framelits Dies, 146828
Stampin’ Dimensionals, 104430

 

Thanks for stopping by my blog! To continue with the hop, see what Karen Finkle created by clicking on the Next button or visiting her link below. To go back to see Sue Prather’s card, click Previous or her link above mine. See you next time!

  1. Shirley Gentry: https://stampinwithshirleyg.com/?p=3079
  2. Jaimie Babarczy: https://wp.me/p79UhD-2sD
  3. Julie Johnston: https://wp.me/p8SzmQ-29L
  4. Karen Ksenzakovic: https://wp.me/paaNf4-h4
  5. Mary Deatherage: https://wp.me/p5snyt-70J
  6. Sue Prather: https://wp.me/p5yitZ-XU
  7. Connie Troyer: You are here!
  8. Karen Finkle: https://karenscardkorner.blogspot.com/2019/01/stampin-up-nine-lives-for-amys-inkin.html
  9. Amy Koenders: https://wp.me/p2SFwf-cTD

Yes, Another Sympathy (a Decoupage One This Time)

A dry decoupage sympathy card using Stampin’ Up for everything but the main image (at last!).

The hits keep coming. Two more sympathies on my to-do list, along with a celebration theme for a blog hop. For these two, at least it’s a celebration of sorts, though sad now. Still, I feel muddled. My heart aches for them, so I went looking for something that spoke to me and seemed to reflect the people I’m thinking of. My “card toppers” bin bailed me out for the one I’m blogging about today. (The other, yet unmade, will focus on Stampin’ Up’s Graceful Glass vellum DSP and alcohol markers, so stay tuned for that.)

My mother used to say that I was “an accident waiting to happen.” She’d probably still say that, given the chance. That phrase came to me as I wrestled with this card. I began to feel like it was one accident after another. I love how it turned out in the end, but my goodness, the process! (This means there’s hope for me, right?) Another case of “when things don’t go well.” Please tell me you’d never know. 😉

One of my husband’s coworkers lost her dear husband last week, and it’s been such a sad thing. I wanted to make a beautiful card – part masculine in remembrance and part feminine for her – but had no idea where to start. Since I often clean or organize when I have a problem to mull over, that’s what I ended up doing, which led me to the main cross piece seen on the front of the card today.

Finding a brown card base to match the topper was easy; Stampin’ Up’s Baked Brown Sugar, a retired color, matched the foiled copper/silver/gold/burgundy/blue cross the best. I only have so many browns, and I usually use SU for my card bases since I like how the 80-lb weight cardstock stands. (I grab premade bases only if I start with the base first rather than the main image. It’s just easier to match it that way rather than working in reverse.)

During my cleaning spree, I was also looking at and putting away some new SU Designer Series Paper. So when I tried to find paper the cross could match, the blue piece was fresh in my mind and looked prettier than any other neutrals I put next to it. The blue paper is from the Tranquil Textures DSP pack in the current Annual Catalog from Stampin’ Up. It’s not a solid blue, but it it hard to tell that with the dry embossing I put on top of it to give the card some texture. I used the “Oxford” Cuttlebug folder for the textured design. I wanted something light and barely textured like Stampin’ Up’s Subtle embossing folder, but I don’t own that particular one yet.

Here’s where things got tricky. The card is a 5×7 because the cross is so tall. But because it’s narrow, there was a lot of “white space” around it. I don’t like white space (even if it’s blue). So I started to wonder what I could do or put next to the cross to take up the width. A sentiment would only be so big, as well as being awkward to work with around the 3D leaf layers toward the bottom, so I wasn’t sure that was the answer. I thought maybe I could make a decorative edge to the card front at the right instead. I could see it in my mind but wasn’t sure how to achieve it (story of my crafting life, btw). That seemed to be the best thing to try…but all my dies were too small to stretch across 7 inches. Nothing felt right. So that night I went to bed frustrated, having made only the card base and embossing the paper.

The next night I attempted to keep going on the card while I was on the phone. I should have known better. I spotted a long Spellbinders die on my die wall and got all excited because it would fit lengthwise. I didn’t think about the fact that ALL of the edges of the die does indeed cut…until I wrapped a card base around a Cuttlebug plate (so that I didn’t cut through the second layer), positioned the die, and wondered why an inch of the card base separated from itself after I ran it through the machine. (*insert facepalm here*) To my defense, I was still on the phone. LOL

So suddenly I had a card base with one side shorter than the other. That was not what was supposed to happen. Not to mention, the magnetic plate dinged up the middle of the card base, and the B plate left marks on the back side of the base, making it warped and weak. Sigh. Time to rethink. Maybe I needed to make a new card base.

I tried to process where to go next. The decorative edge thing hadn’t worked and I couldn’t think how to make it work other than an edge punch – if I made a new base. I’ve never tried the popsicle sticks I’ve heard about, to keep part of it from cutting, so I wasn’t sure how to do that either (again, on a new base). But I hated to destroy the one I’d just cut. What I did manage to do after thinking was flip the card base around (even though I’d folded it correctly after scoring the first time). That would give me a chance to add paper atop the marked-up part to hide it and also add some stability with the extra paper layers. I hoped. I also took my bone folder and tried to work out the middle bumps and crease it sharply.

Once the base was salvaged, I decided to play with the pieces and arrange them just to see what I could do. I ended up liking a little bit of breathing room between the die cut and the now-shorter edge of the card base, rather than placing the die cut right up against the piece it had just been cut from. And obviously if there’s a peekaboo die, something needed to peek through it underneath. I grabbed more blue DSP and left it as is on the inside of the card rather than embossing it for texture like the front.

I also realized that I needed to run the textured piece through the Cuttlebug again, as one side has trouble with a piece of paper I got stuck in the roller years ago. Part of the paper was hardly embossed, so I realigned it in the folder, flipped it around to the other side that impresses better, and ran it through again. Came out perfectly that time.

The trouble was that when I left that breathing room space between the die cut and the base, it was not centered once the card was opened. I didn’t like that. But it looked like I had enough room to add 1/8″ of ribbon or something else. I chose SU’s gold and white ribbon to match the cross and the browns and loved how it looked.

But then I couldn’t get it adhered. The ribbon is thin enough that the line of Art Glitter liquid glue I laid down soaked right into the ribbon. I wasn’t confident it wouldn’t end up slightly sticking to the inside of the card once it had been closed for a while. But as I told a friend last night, when a person has too much product in her house, she will find a way. I decided to use my Cosmo Cricket Glubers Adhesive Strips. I rarely use them, but sometimes they’re just the best option. They are 1/4″ strips, though, so I took my nonstick microscissors from CutterBee and cut right down one of the strips, eyeballing it to just under 1/8″. And then I placed it with my tweezers and stuck a new piece of ribbon to it. I was much happier with the inside then.

I decided not to stamp a sentiment on the inside yet. I needed to finish up and get to bed and I wanted to really look through my stamps to figure out what I wanted to say on the card. I will probably go back and add one later, but right now it’s blank.

I’ve spoken about dry decoupage in past blog posts. A reader had asked me to do a tutorial on how to do it, and I am working on that currently. I hope to post one soon. For now, here are a couple of closeups to be able to see the decoupage layers that make up the cross. I should have trimmed off the little perforation bumps more as I was making the topper, but it’s probably too late to fix it now.

The cross has several layers of dimension to it in the squares as well as the leaves, which made it interesting to put together. And the leaves are the top layer.

Thanks again for coming to visit my blog! I appreciate your readership!

With Deepest Sympathy, Yellow Flowers and Butterflies

Thanks for visiting my blog today. Unfortunately (of sorts), I’m back with another sympathy card today. They just are not ending! It’s a good thing cards are beautiful. There has to be something redeeming about this season.

I consider this card to have two recipients. It was first intended to go to a dear friend who lost her grandmother – but in my hit-and-miss-mostly-miss craft room time as of late, I’d managed to lay it out but not glue it together before seeing her at an event. So I showed her a picture. She seemed to love it and then told me to mark sending it off my to-do list. Best news ever! …And then a couple of days later I heard about the passing of a longtime church member. 😦 I sadly trudged back up to the craft room and glued it together (being very thankful I was that far along considering my utter lack of time), and I mailed it off this week to his widow. Sigh. So many people to lose lately. I don’t like it one bit. But I hope I can bring some comfort and a bit of beauty by remembering and praying for those left behind.

The card mechanics are pretty simple. White A2 card base with scraps of Stampin’ Up’s Always Artichoke (dark green) behind some leftover SU Designer Series Paper (DSP). I don’t remember the name of the pack it came out of; I just saw this decently sized piece and thought it was pretty enough to use as a focal point. Initially it was a complete rectangle, but I had thought to echo the cut-out corners in the sentiment. Alas, I grabbed the wrong punch…and then forgot to “highlight” the corner with a pearl or gem, though I did sprinkle a few pearls elsewhere. Oh well. You wouldn’t have known, right?

The two butterflies came from generous RAKs (Random Acts of Kindness) from crafty acquaintances I’ve never actually met (but I love how Facebook brings us together…), so I can’t tell you what designers or machines they are from. They are stunning, though. The big yellow one came already assembled, and I have two more like it in other colors to use at a later date. I topped the littlest butterfly with two tiny pearls as well.

The “With Deepest Sympathy” tag came from a pack of sentiments that I’ve now used the last of. (*cheer*) I got it years ago at JoAnn Fabrics in one of those premade card sections like David Tutera or somebody. Pretty easy.

The inside was stamped in Stampin’ Up’s Mellow Moss ink (retired). There are a few favorite colors that I just love and continue to use. This one matches a lot of things I create with and has a good muted, vintage vibe to it.

The stamp on the left came from a retired Stampin’ Up set called Words of Wisdom. It has a lot of great Bible verses and sayings.

The stamps on the right are both from a favorite polyclear Hero Arts sympathy stamp set. I go to it often, but it was my first time using that flower. It stamped beautifully and I will be returning to it in future cards.

So that’s it for this one, a classic, beautiful card made with randomness that pulled together well in the end – despite my missing corner. 🙂 I hope it brings some comfort to the recipient to be thought of since I couldn’t make it to the services. ❤️

————

In Stampin’ Up news, we’re gearing up for the November 1 release of the suite called Snowflake Showcase. These products will all be sold separately – no bundle – and will be available for sale for ONE MONTH ONLY in November. There are two stamp sets, a gorgeous die set, little metal snowflake trinkets that are a little flatter than ones they’ve had in the past (which makes them perfect for mailing on a card or including in a scrapbook), and flocked white “velvet” paper. I personally can’t wait to use that paper. 🙂 A similar treatment is used in the Santa’s Workshop DSP and Memories and More Card Pack for highlighted little bits like candy canes and Santa’s hat, and it feels amazing! Just so pretty and a fun detail to touchable cards. Below are pictures of the upcoming release. Once items sell out, that’s it! So be sure you get them sooner rather later if you’re interested.

If I can help you order, you can find my Stampin’ Up shop link in my sidebar or at https://www.stampinup.com/ecweb/default.aspx. I’m happy to be your demonstrator and get you awesome products so you can create special things. 🙂 Thanks for considering me!

Happiness Surrounds stamp set
Snow Is Glistening stamp set
Snowfall Thinlits Dies
Snowflake Trinkets
White Velveteen Paper

 

Superhero Batman Card for a Super Birthday

Thanks for the click! I feel like the proverbial broken record these days: “I’ve been on book deadline, so I haven’t had a lot of time in the craft room.” And when I’ve been there, I’ve had to do simple cards, which isn’t my true style. It’s been like this for months. Not really enough time to post either, but I try to keep up when I have to. Therefore, my post about Batman will be as short as I can make it. (There’s about another week until I think I can finally create for days on end again, and I can’t wait!)

Despite book deadlines and ASAP work and regular old “life” stuff, our family has birthdays in the latter half of the year, so I find myself away from home more often and scrambling for time beforehand to make birthday cards. I heard that the nephew wanted a superhero party this time around, and even though my gifts didn’t match that, I made sure my card would. I actually bought the “Let the Good Times Roll” roller coaster stamp and dies set months ago for his card. I guess I’ll make that another year. 🙂

I was randomly browsing Pinterest when I was killing time away from home one day, and I stumbled upon a seemingly easy Batman card. It looked simple enough to emulate (or CASE: Copy and Share Everything or Copy and Selectively Edit), which was perfect for my lack of time, but of course I had to put my own style to it too. I knew I had the oval punch and alphabet set she used, so using hers as a guide was perfect. Many, many thanks to the designer for bailing me out when I needed a quick card! You can see the original here: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/250372060519376773/.

As cute as I thought the original card was, I missed the light in the sky – you know, the one that always shows up as a beam whenever they cast the bat sign into the air from the spotlight. So I had to add that to my card, leading to my little bat. (I didn’t have room around the bat to punch the holes like the original designer did.)

To create the light beam, I first used Wink of Stella White and then layered another coat over most of it with either Wink of Stella Clear or Gold. The Wink of Stella line (Clear especially) is a favorite product in my craft room. I love that little bit of shimmer without the mess, and it dries quickly. I kept layering the colors, trying to keep my freehanded lines straight and also get both colors into the beam without one overpowering the other.

Wink of Stella Clear. Photo from StampinUp.com

The oval punch used was Stampin’ Up’s Extra-Large Oval Punch and I just used a scrap of yellow with it. Once I had it punched, I laid it onto my card and marked with a pencil the places the beam of light should theoretically end. I’ve never been very good at drawing 3D things, but I thought this turned out all right.

I do not (yet) own the new Spooky Bats Punch from Stampin’ Up and I’m not a huge Halloween person, so my choices for bats in the oval were limited. I’ve hand-drawn them before when I needed one, but I chose to fussy-cut one out of my paper share of current DSP for this card. It comes from the Toil and Trouble line in the current Holiday catalog. I looked for one that seemed most like the bat sign we know and love and cut it out using my beloved CutterBee microscissors.

Toil and Trouble Designer Series Paper. Photo from StampinUp.com.

Although the original poster used Stampin’ Up’s Labeler Alphabet (and I had intended to as well), for the sake of time, I opted for my SMASH Label Maker, which would save a lot of time of inking and trying to get the letters straight and cutting out the words before gluing them. There wasn’t much in the way of instructions on the packaging, so I still hold my breath and count when I operate it, and I’m still not entirely sure of the best way to keep the words fastened once I have them imprinted, but I keep working with it and learning.

For “To a super nephew,” I added extra spaces between the words and cut apart the words evenly when I was done before haphazardly affixing them first with Scor-Tape (which has mostly worked before). Before I was finished, I went back and reglued them with Tombow Multi, though, and that seemed to keep them where I wanted them, since the edges still wanted to curl up a little with the Scor-Tape.

Labeler Alphabet. Photo at StampinUp.com.

I don’t seem to have a picture of the inside. Maybe I forgot to take one. I thought I used a “Happy Birthday” stamp of some kind since I didn’t say that on the front. Regardless, that’s all there is for this card and blog post! Back to my regularly scheduled edit… Thanks for stopping by!

If you’re in need of craft supplies from Stampin’ Up, I’d love to be your demonstrator! You can shop with me at https://www.stampinup.com/ecweb/default.aspx or find me on Facebook at Constantly Creating / The Little Whatnot Shop. The current Annual and Holiday catalogs have some amazing products this year, and we’ll soon be making cards using the November-only special called the Snowflake Showcase! I recently got some of the flocked “White Velvet Paper,” and it is gorgeous! You don’t want to miss this special!

A Quick-and-Easy Thank-You Card for Amy’s Inkin’ Krew

For my second time “hopping” with Amy’s Inkin’ Krew on Tuesdays, I chose a simple thank-you card that anyone can make.

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Hello! It’s time (somehow) for my second team blog hop with Amy’s Inkin’ Krew! This month’s theme is “Giving Thanks,” so I have a simple thank-you card to share today. It didn’t take much time at all, and it’s one anybody can make!

I’ve remarked in past posts how difficult thank-you cards seem to be for me to get out on time. I found a new way to help speed up the process. This kind of card always brings out the scrapbooker in me. First, there is no stamping on it at all. And second, I used a front piece that is part of a 12″x12″ piece of decorative paper from American Crafts (item # 320490) that I picked up at JoAnn Fabrics in the open-stock paper section some months back. The paper included twelve different “seed packets” that said various things. All show flowers or a type of plant. You can see another example of one here. I merely cut them apart with my trimmer and sorted them by type before filing them for later. They weren’t all about gratitude, but I did set those aside so I could reach them quickly in an effort to get them onto cards and out the door faster. 🙂

So since I knew what main piece I was using, I just built the rest of the card from there, using the colors I saw. I had a retired piece of Stampin’ Up 80-lb cardstock (possibly Bashful Blue) that I cut into two bases, using one for this card and saving the other for later. I chose it because of the tiny little circle flowers behind the orange poppies (if they are poppies). I had to try out several versions of patterned paper for other layers between them to see what looked best. The little orange-and-yellow flowered patterned piece directly underneath is from a pack of retired Designer Series Paper from Stampin’ Up. I had always wondered what I was going to use that scrap piece for. It fit just right. 🙂 The neutral chevrons are from an Art-C Ephemera Pack. It was the only cardstock in the pack and I just wanted to use it up so I didn’t have to keep awkwardly storing it in the package. A bonus was that it toned down the orange flowers and grounded everything with its “neutralness.”

It was actually hardest to figure out the arrangement of the pieces after I knew what matched. I was not following a sketch, instead just making it up as I went along. I rearranged things several times and eventually decided that it was too plain as is – no embellishments?? – so I wanted to add the Pool Party Thick Baker’s Twine (the closest color I had to the blue base)…but I didn’t like any place I put it overtop the seed packet design. And the layers were a little too boring for me just one after another. (Though, granted, that would have been even easier and faster to make!) So I placed the seed packet piece above the chevrons and left a large space for the baker’s twine to go across as a decorative detail. Thankfully I thought ahead a little bit, because I realized before I glued it down that the baker’s twine (rightfully called “Thick”) is difficult to place underneath patterned paper without gaining a large bump in the paper and awkward gluing. That’s where the foam pop-up dots come in.

I used my ATG tape gun to adhere the seed packet to the chevron piece, leaving the top portion unglued, so that it essentially became one piece instead of two. Then I put pop-up dots on the back side of both papers regardless of where they overlapped. Before taking off the backing paper of the pop-up dots, I fed the twine under the chevron layer and arranged where I wanted it to lay in the end. Then I carefully took up the unattached background and pulled off the pop-up dots before placing it down just as carefully (and hopefully straight). I tied the ends of the twine into a bow and moved on.

To bring a little more detail to the card, I wanted to bring out the little dots in the centers of the orange flowers (Merriam Webster tells me those things are called “anthers,” so I learned something tonight). My first thought was to use my liquid Ranger’s Inkssentials Enamel Accents bottle of black, which dries nicely with a bit of a 3D idea off the paper; however, I didn’t have a lot of time and I would have had to move other things to get to it. I had a bottle of Ranger’s Adirondack Dimensional Pearls in the Espresso color nearby that I hoped was dark enough to get the look I wanted without being too off-color. It is more like a lovely chocolate brown, but it seemed to dry a little darker, and since there wasn’t much of it on the card anyway, it worked out well. So well that at first I thought I had used the Enamel Accents after all, when I started writing this post. 🙂 I just slowly worked a little out of the bottle and dabbed the tip near or to the so-called anthers, before putting it aside and letting it dry overnight. They still dried a little “puffy” like I had wanted for texture.

With the inside, I knew I would be writing a long note, because it was also going to be a “catching up on life since I haven’t called” kind of card. So I just used the smallest scrap of chevron paper and glued it horizontally on the bottom of the inside. (And then I ended up writing on it anyway, so I probably should have just left it off.)

So that’s it. To recreate the card, just find one of those 12″x12″ sheets (I’ve seen several kinds now since I bought the first one), cut it apart, and find paper and string to match it. And decorate otherwise if you wish. Easy-peasy. 🙂

Thanks for joining me today! To continue “hopping” with the Krew, you can click the “Next” (forward) button to view Shirley Gentry’s card or the “Previous” (backward) button to view Linda Richenberg’s takes on “Giving Thanks.” I have such amazing team members who do wonderful work. Please be sure to check them out. 🙂 See you next time!

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If you get lost or want to hop around the participants, here is the lineup of Krew members:

  1. Julie Johnston
  2. Karen Finkle
  3. Karen Ksenzakovic
  4. Jaimie Babarczy
  5. Linda Richenberg
  6. Connie Troyer (you are here!)
  7. Shirley Gentry
  8. Mary Deatherage
  9. Sue Prather
  10. Aurora Lopez
  11. Amy Koenders

Batty for You Stampin’ Up Halloween Card for Inkin’ Krew Blog Hop

Halloween is sneaking up on us! To start the celebration, I’ve joined Amy K’s Inkin’ Krew to show some Halloween cards.

Hello, everyone! Thanks for stopping by my blog today. It’s my first time “hopping” with Amy Koenders’s Stampin’ Up Inkin’ Krew!

We are focusing on Halloween cards today. Truthfully, I’m not a huge Halloween fan, so I rarely make cards about it, but I did do this one in the more-recent past using mainly Stampin’ Up products. It’s currently for sale in my Etsy shop (thelittlewhatnotshop.etsy.com).

I used Stampin’ Up’s Basic Black cardstock for a base, layered it with gold metallic foil (which makes for some wonky picture-taking), and then adhered some SU “bat” DSP from the (retired) “Happy Haunting” pack across the bottom third of the card.

I can’t remember the name of the black-and-gold foil bat doilies from Stampin’ Up, but they are fun to play with if you run across a pack. (They’re retired too.) They come with black backgrounds as pictured here or the reverse. The large singular bat is from SU’s “Cheer All Year” stamp set and it was stamped in Memento Tuxedo Black ink.

I used a circle die to cut a white piece for my sentiment – I just laid the nested dies atop my bat doily until I saw the size I wanted. And then I used SU’s retired photopolymer “Skinny Mini Alphabet” and placed the letters where I wanted them.

The only thing that isn’t Stampin’ Up on this card are the little bats flying around the sentiment. I found those on a wooden Halloween stamp and individually inked up the rubber parts I wanted and attempted to place them around the letters. Might have been easier, faster, or more accurate to hand-draw some. I had a lesson in patience that day….

I kept the inside of the card simple with a white piece to write on and more of the bat paper from the front.

Thanks for joining me today! “Hop” on over to Julie Johnston’s blog by clicking “Next” or go back and visit Sue Prather by clicking “Previous” to see what they’ve come up with for Halloween cards!

If you need to hop around, here is the lineup of participants:
Sue Prather
Connie Troyer (you are here!)
Julie Johnston
Mary Deatherage
Karen Finkle
Amy Koenders