Artist's Eclipse Card

Hello, Crafters.

I hope you've had a great weekend. Yesterday was hubby's birthday, and as he was working, we weren't able to celebrate, so we'll be going out for dinner this evening. In the UK, on 5th. November,  it's Guy Fawkes Day, or Bonfire Night, when everyone lights bonfires, and let off fireworks. This is in memory of the man who was arrested in 1605, when he was caught guarding a pile of explosives that had been placed under the House of Lords! So every year it sounds like everybody's celebrating hubby's birthday!LOL!

Today's card is a 7"x5" eclipse card I made for Othman, and this was the only way I could get all six letters on! As I used an artist's theme, messy fitted the bill nicely! I chose three main colours plus neutrals. They are Peekaboo Peach, Dapper Denim, Emerald Envy, Smokey Slate Crumb Cake and Basic Black.

I started with the pot of brushes from the Crafting Forever Stamp Set, and the easel and sentiment from the Painter's Palette Stamp Set - two stamp sets I think really complement each other beautifully! I used the same three colours for the paint brushes as I used for the writing on the easel.  At this point it looked too clean, so I set about remedying this, and started by stamping scissors from the Crafting Forever Stamp Set, randomly around the two main images.

I wanted more colour, so I made a mask for the scissors using a Post It Note and stamped paint splashes in the same three main colours randomly over the background. As often happens when stamping over masks, I had a lot of white areas where the stamp hadn't been pressed down quite hard enough, and other areas where I'd pressed too hard and managed to catch the edge of the stamp. For the first time ever, I wasn't concerned, because I think it just adds to the general messy look you'd see in an artist's studio!

I die cut the letters and decided to emboss them using the Softly Falling Embossing Folder. I thought with such a busy card, the letters would stand out a bit more if they were embossed. Also, one of my viewers of my eclipse card video asked what my Noel card would look like if it was the letters that were embossed rather than the background - a good question! 

Othman was really pleased with his card, but he did say he almost missed the letter T - he said he thought I'd forgotten it! LOL! Almost-multicoloured and therefore outside my comfort zone, but I'm pleased with the result! 

That's it from me today. I hope you have a great week, and until tomorrow, happy crafting!

JanB.

Painter's Palette Shaker Card

Hello, Crafters. 

Yesterday was day 3 of summer - will today be day 4?  Possibly, but it's amazingly windy. No doubt it'll bring the clouds over!

It's so sad that I count our summer in single-digit days! LOL........or I'll cry!

This morning I uploaded my video which shows how very easy it is to make a shaker card using our fabulous new Adhesive Foam Strips. 

 

If you saw the video I made showing all the goodies I received from the new annual catalogue, during the pre-order, you may recall that I said to let me know if there was anything in particular you'd like to see me do. 

One of the requests I received was for a video showing how to make a shaker card using Painter's Palette. 

Using the new strips makes an amazing difference! 

Previously, we'd cut strips from the edges of Dimensionals sheets and then they were only half the height of the new strips - 1/16" against 1/8" - so we had to double layer them!

I used Flirty Flamingo for the first card I made while preparing for today's video, because part of my idea was to use Washi Tape which isn't something I use often - see photographs 5 and 6.

As I didn't have any Washi Tape in Flirty Flamingo, I decided to use Designer Series Paper strips. 

It worked well but I think it may have looked better had I made the strips more narrow. Overall, I'm happy with the card. 

Then I went on to make the Night of Navy card because I do have suitable Washi Tape. 

I kept to the same design although I changed the sprinkles from stars to hearts and I think this was a mistake.

The shaker cards I made with stars, were really good "shakers" but the hearts kept bunching up! 

If you look at the Flirty Flamingo card, it looks packed with shakers, but it still shakes really well.

I need to test whether this was because I'd used too many or whether the individual size of each heart was too big. I may do this today.

The stars are definitely smaller and all vary in size. 

I used Cucumber Crush for the card I made in the video and stars for the shaker - the result was very satisfying.

To avoid this altogether you could use our sequins instead of punched shapes and get a bit of sparkle as well!

Yesterday, I had my latest Stampin Up! order delivered and it includes the Limited Edition Thoughtless Branches Stamp Set and coordinating dies.

Hopefully, I'll be working with it today, so watch this space! Until tomorrow, happy crafting.

JanB.

Using New Products

Hello, Crafters.

As I said I would, I re-did the last Telford make-n-take I shared with you yesterday.

I was quite disappointed that changing the bottom layer of the Affectionately Yours Specialty Designer Series Paper (DSP) didn't make much difference to the card.

I made a second one but starting with a base of Whisper White thinking that maybe, the design wasn't being helped by the fact there was no other white to tie the embossed piece to but still no improvement.

I have taken a photograph of all three cards together and posted it at the end of today's blog. The
top card is the original and the bottom two are my versions. Never mind, I tried!

I went on to make another card using some of the new products.

I wanted to use a piece of one of the specialty sheets in the NEW Affectionately Yours Specialty DSP. It's a Crumb Cake background with a gold pattern of leaves and flowers - it's really gorgeous!

My plan was a card base of Crumb Cake with a layer of Gold Foil and a top layer of Crumb Cake. Then I was going to use the specialty paper for a frame, as I have done with to today's card.

Unfortunately, when I collected all the pieces together, the gold foil and the gold pattern on the DSP were so different, they just didn't look good together! In fact, the Gold Foil made the gold on the specialty DSP look more like copper.

I decided to keep to my design plan and just change the DSP. The design I chose is on the reverse side of the DSP I chose for the Telford make-n-take.

To make my card I started with a card base of Crumb Cake with a layer of Whisper White and a top layer of Crumb Cake. I used the NEW Layering Squares Framelits Dies to die cut the photograph frame.

I stamped the sentiment, which is from the NEW Painters Palette Stamp Set, in Crumb Cake Ink onto a piece of Whisper White Card Stock and adhered it with Tombow to the back of the frame.

Then I stamped the balloon from the NEW Confetti Celebration Stamp Set in Crumb Cake Ink directly onto the front of the card.

Using the Daffodil Delight, Night of Navy, Watermelon Wonder and Cucumber Crush Marker Pens, I coloured the long flowery stamp from the Bloomin' Love Stamp Set. I
huffed on it before stamping but I didn't get a particularly good image, so I finished colouring them in-situ. Fortunately, it turned out well!

The final stamp was to use my white gel pen to draw three small shadow lines on the balloons.

Just a quick note about this last photograph...................
I keep looking at them trying to decide which one I like best and I'm coming out in favour of the Telford card, but I'm still not happy that the bottom layer of DSP isn't more visible. Back to the drawing board with this one, I think! Any suggestions??

That's about it today. Until tomorrow, happy crafting.

JanB.

PPP Swap

Hello, Crafters.

A little while before I went to Barcelona, I was invited to join a swap within our group either using new products we were able to pre-pre-order because we went the Telford OnStage Local Convention or products that were in the pre-order.

I went for the PPP. Unfortunately I underestimated how busy I'd be in the week running up to my holiday and the week I returned! I've also been working this week, too!

Last night I had to get my swaps done and in the post, first class today. I've just returned from the post box - mission accomplished! Phew!!

What this has meant though, is that I didn't have time to make anything yesterday to share with you today! There's only one logical solution to this so I'm sharing my PPP swap with you!

Please note this is a card front only for the swaps but my card is an actual card. (I'm sorry if any of the other ladies in the PPP team see this post!)

I am planning to start sharing new products with you next week because we'll be just two weeks away from launch day, so sharing this now means I've started three days earlier than originally planned.

I more or less knew what I was going to do for my design but I had to change it around for the quick version! My original plan was to stamp my own background, the heart and fussy cut the easel.

The first few photographs you see here are of my actual card except for the last four, which are the two different designs of DSP I used. The only difference is that for my card, I fussy cut the easel and for the swaps I stamped directly on the Designer Series Paper (DSP) background.

To make my card, I started with a card base of Very Vanilla Card Stock with a layer of the NEW Flirty Flamingo Card Stock and a top layer of a design from the Timeless Elegance DSP. I could only get six layers from a 12" x 12" sheet so I had to change to a different design - please see last two photographs.

I stamped the easel from the NEW Painter's Palette Stamp Set on to the DSP using Soft Suede Ink. The disadvantage of doing it this way, as opposed to stamping onto Very Vanilla Card Stock and fussy cutting it, is you can see some of the design of the DSP through the edge of the easel.

It's not very noticeable with the first design but it is on the second design. You can see this really clearly on the last photograph.

I die cut the Flirty Flamingo square using one of the NEW Layering Squares Framelits which fits into the centre square of the easel perfectly. I embossed the square using the Happy Heart Embossing Folder.

Using the Sweetheart Punch and the NEW Affectionately Yours Specialty DSP, I punched the larger of the two heart. I punched the small heart using the retiring Hearts Border Punch.

If you don't have this punch, you could use the heart that's part of the Owl Builder Punch or one of the hearts from the Confetti Hearts Border Punch. 

I die cut a Very Vanilla square the same size as the Flirty Flamingo square and found it was amazingly easy to stamp the sentiment into the square straight! I used Soft Suede Ink for this. Then I die cut a scalloped Soft Suede square using the same NEW Layering Squares Framelits.

I adhered everything using Tombow as I had to post my swaps to the volunteer organiser, who's going to sort them out and send back to everone. There are fourteen of us in the PPP group and I was able to get mine into a large letter. If everyone one else have added bows and Dimensionals. it'll be a small parcel for posting back!   

I hope you've enjoyed this quick peak at three of the new products that'll be available soon.

Until tomorrow, happy crafting.

JanB.