Stampin’ Blends – ConstantlyCreating.Me

“A Good Man” Stamp Set with Seaside Spray In-Color for Stamp with Amy K’s Tuesday Blog Hop

A masculine card for use during Father’s Day (or any day!) for Stamp with Amy K’s Tuesday blog hop.

Hello again and welcome back to my blog—or thanks for stopping by if you’re a new visitor! The theme for Stamp with Amy K’s current Tuesday blog hop is “masculine,” so I decided to create two “Father’s Day” type of cards that can be used at any time for the guys in our lives. Since they are going to my local gift shop for sale, I needed to create something that didn’t explicitly say “Happy Father’s Day” (best for a longer shelf life!).

I’ve used all current or upcoming products that are available on June 4, when Stampin’ Up customers can order from the new catalog. I was able to preorder some things because of my demonstrator status. So I’m using stamps from the new cling set “A Good Man” and one of our brand-new In-Colors, Seaside Spray (only available for purchase June 4, 2019 through May/June of 2021).

Seaside Spray is a gorgeous color that reminds me of a smoky blue. It’s one of the shades in my valances, actually, so I have a feeling I’ll be using this color for years to come even after it retires. 🙂 And “A Good Man” is one of those casual, contemporary sets that have a sketched look to the images, with some slight distressing on the sentiments.

I began each A2 card with a Seaside Spray card base, taking an 8.5×11 piece of cardstock and cutting it in half. I wanted to use two of the colorable images in the stamp set, one on each card, and quickly figured out which rectangles my chosen images would fit inside in my new Stitched Rectangles die set.

I stamped each colorable image in Memento Tuxedo Black ink and die-cut the first rectangles. Then I colored them with some of our Alcohol Blends: Dark Mango Melody, Dark Old Olive, Dark Smoky Slate, Dark and Light Basic Black, Ivory, Bronze, Dark and Light Shaded Spruce, Dark and Light Balmy Blue, and Dark and Light Real Red. (I need to get a dark blue yet, so I had to color all pants in various shades of black and gray.)

Seaside Spray isn’t one of the colors I own in the Blends yet either, so I used Light Balmy Blue for the sky and border, hoping it would look all right. Turns out it does sometimes…but not if there’s a lot of concentration. I filled in the background of one of the images but left the other white. I wasn’t sure which way to go. Tell me which one you like best. 🙂

Next I die-cut other various-sized rectangles from the Come Sail Away and Perennial Essence Designer Series Paper packs and and staggered them with the images and sentiment block.

I also carefully edged around the border of one of the die-cut, colored images with my Balmy Blue Blend. I wanted to do something in the corners the way I would dye ink, but I didn’t trust myself enough to try it with the Blend. I’ve had to redo enough this evening. I’m actually pretty pleased with how the edging turned out. It was easy and looks clean and simple. I liked it so well that I did it on the second card too, with a Night of Navy Stampin’ Write Marker (but it was much easier to accomplish with the Blend, at least tonight!).

After I placed the sentiment block and glued the rectangles for the first card, I added three Heart Epoxy Droplets to two corners to finish the card.

And here is where I have to confess something. Two things, really. I lost a stamp before I finished my cards or this blog post. Specifically, I lost the main sentiment for the front of the cards. I have torn this room apart, searching through my trash can, cleaning off my desk and the cart next to me, checking my clothes…. It still hasn’t turned up. (Please tell me I’m not the only one this has happened to!) I can attest that the new cling stickers are really sticky, because I had the stamp rubber-side down in the case with the sticker facing up so I could quickly grab it and stamp it after I was done with the inside pieces. I’m certain it’s stuck to *something*. 🤦‍♀️ So... Sigh. I handwrote the same sentiment in a similar kind of font and lightly stuck it to the card—for this blog’s purposes only—where the real sentiment will be stamped in Night of Navy ink on Seaside Spray cardstock. When I find it. Humor me, please. (If I can’t find the stamp eventually, I may just have to repurchase this set because that pair of sentiments is essential!)

This card has now also convinced me that I need to get the Subtle 3D embossing folder. The background still needs something. I thought of stamping too late, after I adhered the rectangles. I’ll pretend I’m going for “clean and simple.”

Another angle, showing the hearts a little better.

And now for my second confession. My roll of Night of Navy/Sahara Sand Baker’s Twine has gone AWOL as well. (I’m betting the cat did it. She’s been known to do so.) So I’m using most of the piece of twine that I snitched at OnStage for my Come Sail Away card I finished later at home. I also cut card #2’s heavy-striped piece of Night of Navy/Whisper White DSP the wrong size…and that was after I spilled ginger ale on four newly opened papers and cut out the wet sections. 🙄🤦‍♀️ Trust me, if I can make cards I’m proud of with all this chaos, anybody can!

So this is what I refigured for the second card, after some challenges (like the fact that I had to use the Color Lifter too, even before I cut the striped piece incorrectly). I used Linen Thread at the bottom of this one. I felt I needed to separate the Balmy Blue Blends background from the Seaside Spray cardstock because, for me, the color difference was too much to have them next to each other. My first thought was to have the striped paper cover the entire card front, but obviously that went awry. I decided that the mistake wasn’t so terrible as to have to redo that too (and I sort of hated to cover up all that beautiful new In-Color anyway), so I just went with it. I hate wasting paper. (My apologies again for the handwritten sentiment. It will look so much better with the real one….)

The insides of both cards are identical, and they went so much smoother than the rest. I was even watching a TV show while I stamped. (That does it—I should always watch TV while crafting. But not in the dim light, because I think that’s when I lost my stamp.)

So that’s it for me tonight. It’s time for bed. Thanks again for stopping by my blog! So sorry about all the mishaps. Some nights just go like that.

If you’re interested in receiving a catalog, I’d love to send you one. Just drop me an email with your info using my Contact Me form.

If you want to continue the hop to see what the rest of my fabulous team members made, click the Next button to see what our fearless leader, Amy Koenders, has made, and if you’d like to go backward instead, click the Previous button to visit Sue Prather’s blog.

Karen Ksenzakovic – https://wp.me/paaNf4-Bn
Terry Lynn Bright – https://wp.me/p8fxPh-80
Jaimie Babarczy – https://wp.me/p79UhD-2Pa
Mary Deatherage – https://wp.me/p5snyt-88U
Karen Finkle – https://karenscardkorner.blogspot.com/2019/05/stampin-up-wood-textures-dsp-for-amys.html
Akiko Sudano – https://stampininthemeadows.com/?p=462
Shirley Gentry – https://stampinwithshirleyg.com/?p=5240
Sue Prather – https://stampwithsueprather.com/?p=4744
Connie Troyer – https://wp.me/p8xvI6-nm
Amy Koenders – https://wp.me/p2SFwf-frW

“Feminine” Blog Hop for Amy K’s Krew (If Friends Were Flowers…)

I’m part of Amy’s Inkin’ Krew Blog Hop with a “Feminine” theme for Tuesday, April 9. See what I created with some paper and dies for friendship and Mother’s Day!

Hello, and welcome back to Constantly Creating/The Little Whatnot Shop! I’m blog hopping with Stamp with Amy K’s Inkin’ Krew today, and our topic is “feminine.” That gives a lot of options for card creation (men being much harder to design for)!

This is really the story of two cards. I’ve been traveling and freelancing again lately, so I haven’t had a lot of time in the craft room. But before I left the state, I started thinking about several different cards I need to send, and I decided to use a flowery piece of the Share What You Love Specialty Designer Series Paper (DSP) as a background for all of them. (I confess, I was also hoping to meet a 4-6-card “use it up” challenge on a Facebook group by doing so. Ambitious for someone who hasn’t been home!)

Last week I cut three card fronts out of one 12×12 sheet of the DSP and still have a couple of scraps leftover for another smaller notecard yet—maybe a thank-you. Of the cards with the bigger sections, one will be for a belated birthday, another became a Mother’s Day card, and the friendship card I’ve used for today’s blog title will likely go to the local gift shop upon my next delivery. I love how the same piece of paper works for each type of card.

I’ve acquired a few off-brand things recently as well, so these cards are not entirely made up of Stampin’ Up products (as my demo status would prefer). But the bulk of them are SU, and you could easily substitute SU’s vases or flower stamps or another sentiment where I’ve placed mine; the design works regardless. I grabbed the “other” products because they were near me (read: not yet put away) and I’m always trying to use up my consumables. (Plus, I needed to finish a card quickly to be able to blog!) In the products list at the end of the post, I’ll add some Stampin’ Up product suggestions you could use to change this card into one of “theirs” entirely, alongside what I did use from SU’s line. 🙂

So, diving into the cards I’ve finished…I have to confess first that I began a card for friendship, forgot what I was doing with it, and turned it into the aforementioned Mother’s Day card. I had the sketchiest of ideas when I started pulling things together—which is probably why I got distracted and it became something else—but sometimes one just has to go with the creative flow. After I finished the Mother’s Day card, it was easier to just emulate the structure for the actual friendship card, only tweaking the materials. As the two are similar, I’ll show the Mother’s Day one here as well. In the pictures, you can see how the flowers and leaves in the Specialty DSP have a pearlized, translucent finish.

For both the blog card and the Mother’s Day card, I began with a Mossy Meadow card base of 80-lb cardstock in an A2 (4.25″ x 5.2″ finished) size, and I cut down the Crumb Cake background with shimmery Rich Razzleberry/Mossy Meadow flowered piece from the Share What You Love Specialty DSP to mostly cover the card front, with a little Mossy Meadow border showing all the way around. The Mother’s Day border is slightly larger than 1/8″, whereas the friendship border is slightly smaller than 1/8″.

The other day, I sat down with my Cuttlebug, my Stained Glass Thinlits and Stitched Labels Framelits die sets, and pieces of Rich Razzleberry cardstock and a random cardstock I ended up with in an order that reminds me a little of Crumb Cake. It is just a shade lighter, so it matches the Share What You Love paper quite well (and it’s another consumable I can use up! Yay!). I made off several die-cuts out of the cardstock and put them on the desk with the rest of my card pieces until I had more time.

On Monday, I tried several of them (unglued) with different flower stickers to see what I liked best together. The Mother’s Day card uses two Stitched Framelits, one of each color, layered together perpendicularly so that the lighter cardstock has a bit more weight to it on the busy background. The additional Rich Razzleberry die-cut seemed to ground the top one and give a fuller look even though I also liked the simplicity of only one Framelit.

For the friendship (“If friends were flowers, I’d pick you”) card, I had originally chosen the vase idea (before I forgot what I was doing) because I saw the sentiment and the vase/flower stickers about the same time, and they made sense to use together. Since I had used the Stitched Framelits on the first card, I used one of the Stained Glass Thinlits Dies for the second. I adhered some sticky adhesive to the back of the die-cut and replaced the square that comes loose when first cut, and then I backed both the “stained glass” piece and the solid square onto some Rich Razzleberry cardstock, using my micro-tip scissors to cut around the edges once they were stuck.

Note: Keep track of how the solid square comes out of the die; it’s not completely symmetrical, and there is a spacing difference when it’s turned the “other” way.

When I positioned the flower/vase sticker and temporarily placed the diagonal onto the DSP, I then felt it was too simple (story of my crafting life), so I cut down a couple of the gorgeous Pearlized Doilies and glued them to the back of the sides of the diagonal, which fluffed out the center in a similar style to the Mother’s Day card. I got three out of one doily the way I cut them, and the center circle is still able to be used for something else.

I wanted to make sure I left room for a sentiment across the bottom on both cards, so I tested the placement and figured out how big the border strip at the bottom would need to be. For the Mother’s Day card, I added 1/8″ above and below the sentiment ribbon I planned on using to darken the ribbon a bit and make it look more finished; then I cut some vellum adhesive to fit inside the ribbon and carefully merged the two. Ribbon is tricky to glue, the way it’s so flexible. It’s not my favorite way of doing it. I was going to wrap the edges behind the DSP, but because of where I’d trimmed the ribbon around the words on the next repetition, I didn’t end up having enough room to tuck it around. So I took pinking shears to the ends instead since regular scissors and a straight cut would cause it to fray.

The solid Mossy Meadow border for the sentiment on the friendship card is about 3/8″, though I didn’t measure. Because the letters are close together on the stamp, I was leery of using embossing powder or getting things too juicy in case they would blur or blend together. I fell back on some old Craft White pigment ink to stamp it, and then I heat embossed it, hoping it would turn slightly puffy but still be readable (I remember doing that once somehow, but since heating it this time did nothing except dry it, I’ll have to figure out the “puffy” process again). And then because I had room at the sides of the sentiment for geegaws, I trotted out my new Heart Epoxy Droplets and colored them with my Light Blackberry Bliss Stampin’ Blends alcohol marker, the way I’ve heard others have done. It actually works!

I’ve made the inside of both cards the same—white paper to stamp and write on, an old random wooden stamp sentiment that fits both types of cards, a little writing room, and a strip of Specialty DSP running along the bottom. And I used some retired heart epoxy sticker gems on the inside of the Mother’s Day card as well. Both cards flip up to open rather than right to left.

I also added DSP to the envelope flaps since the cards are the nicer sort.

Now that both are done, I might like the simpler Mother’s Day card better, though I do love the Stained Glass die. But I’m thinking I should have kept the doilies closer to the diagonal on the friendship card so the overall look wouldn’t spread out so much. Well, next time, I guess. The sentiment may be my favorite thing about them anyway, the way it uplifts and encourages the recipients. The older I get, the more I see how important it is to do that for others. Whose day can you brighten this week?

Thanks again for stopping by to read and say hello! The products I used or suggested will be at the very bottom of the post, after the linked list of hop participants. Clicking on any of the thumbnails will take you right to my online store if you see something you’d like to purchase.

We have a great group with much talent hopping with us today! Be sure to go to the other blogs and see what my team members have created too. 🙂 You can follow the linking list through each person on each blog you visit.

To see what Terry Lynn Bright made this week, click the Previous button. To jump to Sue Prather’s blog, click Next.

Karen Ksenzakovic: https://wp.me/paaNf4-wU
Karen Finkle: https://karenscardkorner.blogspot.com/2019/04/stampin-up-tropical-chic-for-amys-inkin.html
Akiko Sudano: https://stampininthemeadows.com/2019/04/09/beautiful-bouquet-mothers-day-for-the-inkin-krew-blog-hop/
Mary Deatherage: https://wp.me/p5snyt-7OG
Jaimie Babarczy: https://wp.me/p79UhD-2E8
Shirley Gentry: https://stampinwithshirleyg.com/?p=4726
Julie Johnston: https://wp.me/p8SzmQ-2db
Terry Lynn Bright: http://tlsbrightspot.com/2019/04/09/country-floral-embossing-folder/
Connie Troyer: https://constantlycreating.me/2019/04/09/feminine-blog-hop-for-amy-ks-krew-if-friends-were-flowers
Sue Prather: https://wp.me/p5yitZ-17P
Leslie Larkin: http://leslielarkin.com/wonderful-romance-with-amys-inkin-krew-team-blog-hop/
Amy Koenders: https://wp.me/p2SFwf-evn

Product List

Mossy Meadow 8-1/2″ X 11″ Cardstock

[133676]

Rich Razzleberry 8-1/2″ X 11″ Card Stock

[115316]

Rich Razzleberry Classic Stampin’ Pad

[147091]

Share What You Love Specialty Designer Series Paper

[146926]

Stitched Labels Framelits Dies

[146828]

Stained Glass Thinlits Dies

[146347]

Pearlized Doilies

[146936]

Heart Epoxy Droplets

[148583]

Celebrate Spring with New Babies! (“Perfectly Paired” for Amy’s Inkin’ Krew Blog Hop)

Welcome to another blog post for Stamp with Amy K’s Inkin’ Krew Blog Hop! We have a very talented lineup for you this week. Thanks for stopping by to see what I created. 🙂

Our theme this month is “Celebrate Spring,” in whatever way we want to interpret that. Because I’m also making cards for my local gift shop, I chose to go with the “new birth/baby” idea. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on Stampin’ Up’s “Perfectly Paired” cling stamp set when it came out—it’s all about babies and features a Noah’s Ark image, one of my favorite themes for little ones. This stamp set (so far as we know) is only available for a couple more months since it’s in the current Occasions catalog.

Since I knew this would be a nice card and likely given with a gift, I started off by grabbing a lovely, thick envelope from my stash and then made the card base a 5×7 size to match it, using SU’s Shimmery White cardstock. I chose Shimmery White because I wanted to color the image.

Well, as usual, although I was aiming for simple, I evidently have to complicate things. And I made plenty of mistakes to cover up. My “MO,” I’m starting to think.

It occurred to me that there were waves under the ark in the stamp but I thought it might look a bit “adrift” all by itself on a flat card base. So I got some of my new Ice Blue Matt Mirror Luxury Cardstock (Crafter’s Companion) and cut it down, leaving about a 3/8″ border of white on the base for the “shimmery” part of the “Shimmery White” to show. Then I embossed some waves onto the mirror card with my Cuttlebug (“Musical Flourish” embossing folder).

My piece of mirror card was slightly longer than the embossing folder, so I embossed both ends and then attempted to hide the faint line the edge of the folder left with some retired 1/2″ SU Pacific Point ribbon. I wrapped the ribbon around the edges to give it a neater, more finished look. I believe I used my 1/4″ Scor-Tape down the middle of the back of the ribbon.

I didn’t actually cover the line left by embossing because the ribbon wasn’t wide enough, but hopefully I distracted anyone from looking too closely. I tried to keep the embossed design from overlapping when I ran it through the Cuttlebug, and the embossed line really isn’t that bad, but it’s mirror card so everything shows…. 🤷‍♀️ Whether I needed the ribbon or not, it was an attempt to make the card look better, and I built the rest of the design from there.

After fiddling with the layout, I decided to also mat the mirror card with Pacific Point cardstock to bring more of the ribbon color in for balance. I left 1/8″ of the mat showing, glued the mirror card to the mat, and then glued the combo onto the card base. I used my ATG tape gun for these. Then I set aside the card so I could concentrate on the image. And here’s where things got interesting.

I wasn’t sure whether to use my Stampin’ Blends alcohol markers to color it or my usual: watercolor pencils with either an Aqua Painter or a Blender Pen. I figured I’d do one of each type of coloring and leave the extra in my “card parts” bin for faster cardmaking later. Because those mediums require different inks to control the color, I stamped the ark image from “Perfectly Paired” once in Memento Tuxedo Black (for the alcohol markers) and once in SU’s Archival Basic Black (for the watercoloring). I labeled the backs with a pencil so I’d know which went with what…and then promptly started coloring the wrong image with the wrong medium because I was “doing,” not “thinking.” 🙄🤦‍♀️

Surprisingly, the Archival Basic Black didn’t smear too badly with the alcohol Blends, but I had been careful about not coloring over the lines, just because I was carefully coloring. It wasn’t until I smeared the lions’ whiskers a little that I even realized I’d switched the pieces. (Live and learn?) But smearing lines is why we are supposed to use Memento ink with alcohol markers. Lesson learned.

And then I discovered that I don’t yet have enough Blends to finish coloring this particular image. 🤦‍♀️🤪 I’ve been building my collection a little at a time, and although the Smoky Slate and Basic Black Combos have each made it to my purchasing list at least once, I ended up dropping them for things I wanted more. (Sacrifices!) Therefore, I have to stop coloring the image until I can get those and finish. For the record, though, this was as far as I got, and I really like this medium. (If you look closely, you can spot my whiskers accident.)

So I had to put all that away and regroup. I couldn’t remember whether Memento would smear if I got it wet (since it is a water-based ink), but I just wanted to get something going that I could use. I mentally crossed my fingers and dove in. I could always stamp another one if I had to.

Fortunately, it worked just fine—no smearing that I can tell. My coloring isn’t perfect, but at least the lines didn’t move. I went with the Aqua Painter to smooth out the watercolor pencil lines too…though in hindsight, I should have tried the Blender Pen, for better control in small places. Or just chucked it all and gone straight for my stash of Stampin’ Write markers. (I hope you’re learning from my mistakes! This veteran scrapbooker is still learning so much about cards!)

I will admit to a little cheating as well. I knew I had a Pacific Point chalk in my arsenal. As my retired SU watercolor pencils are unlabeled, I went for the chalk to color the water (with my Aqua Painter) so I could be all matchy-matchy instead of throwing off the shades by introducing some other blue. 😊 Also, I lightly colored the background a sky blue so that it wasn’t stark white paper. If I was coloring waves, I had to color sky too, right? But it’s hard to see in the picture.

So this is where I ended up with it (including doctoring the zebras with white Smooch paint and a Memento pen in desperation after watercoloring and black got the better of me). Coloring was the longest part and why it may be better to use some sort of marker next time. 🤷‍♀️ Another lesson learned!

Once the image was done and dried, I covered a good portion of the back of it with my 1/2″ Terrifically Tacky Tape (TTT), which is just like SU’s Sticky Strip. I did this to combat the curvature of the paper that happens once water goes onto it. Then I peeled off the tape backing and centered it in the section above the ribbon on the card front.

I had found some black, glittered chipboard faux photo corners when I was debating about the layout, so I glued those overtop the corners of the image with my Art Glitter liquid adhesive. And then I pulled a metal bar sentiment (“celebrating your arrival”) out of the heap of baby ephemera in front of me on my desk, and I adhered it to the top of the ribbon with more 1/4″ Scor-Tape. The front was done. Finally. And I’m even happy with it. 😂 I especially love how the foil look of the matt mirror cardstock shines and changes depth and color in the light. I so love using specialty materials to make cards pop.

(Oops! You can see that faint embossed line in this pic! Well, it’s not that noticeable in person. 😊)

For the inside of the card, I used the “Two by two we welcome you” sentiment from “Perfectly Paired,” stamping it with VersaMark on Shimmery White cardstock before heat embossing it with “Blue Tinsel” embossing powder from my stash. (No idea who made that; I’ve had it for years.) It was the closest embossing powder I could find to the Pacific Point color I’d been using, and it does actually look glittery, like tinsel, and has some texture to it once embossed. I then backed the white sentiment piece with a die-cut Pacific Point cardstock tag from a Spellbinders die (“Fancy Tags Two,” I believe. #neverstopmaking). I think it turned out quite lovely.

To finish off the card, I took a strip of dotted blue (SU Pool Party) cardstock from the retired Tutti-Frutti Cards and Envelopes pack and attached it to the bottom of the inside. I also cut off a small strip of matt mirror cardstock to top it. And then I found two goofy pink flamingo stickers in my stash from Sandylion and stuck them to the bottom right corner just for fun, to carry through the theme. I was looking for my smaller Noah’s Ark stamp for the corner, but I have to keep looking. 🤔🤷‍♀️

I haven’t decorated the envelope yet, but I’m thinking of stamping a row of various animals across the horizontal bottom (under the address section) as a sneak peek to the theme.

Below the list of hop participants are the current products I used in my card (or similar ones) that you can purchase through my online Stampin’ Up store if you wish to own any. (Please use host code 6WPHJ2MC when you check out.) Don’t forget that we have until March 31 to get free gifts from Stampin’ Up through Sale-a-Bration with orders of $50 or more before tax and shipping! There are some awesome reward products available! I also give free gifts to those who order through me. 😉

Thanks again for visiting today. I hope my mistakes keep you from making your own! Feel free to post questions or comments. 🙂

To continue with our hop and visit Jaimie Babarczy’s blog offering, click Next or her name in the list below. To view what Karen Ksenzakovic created, click Previous or her name. Thanks for hopping along with us!