March Stamping Class Projects

My stamping group met on Friday night for a fun-filled evening of card making and some wonderful treats from Marilyn and Michelle!

Our first card was a new technique for the group–a skirt fold or other tutorials refer to it as a drapery fold.

I had been seeing this technique used on a few cards on Pinterest and thought it was delightful! I consulted a tutorial on Splitcoast Stampers as well as one on by Song of My Heart Stampers and used their info to produce the card in my blog post, Fancy Fold Botanicals For Stampin' Royalty. For stamping class, I needed to modify the technique so that we could use paper from a 6 x 6" paper stack.

We started with a piece of 3 x 6" paper from the Love Blossoms DSP. It was scored at 2, 2.25, 3.25, 3.5, 4.5 and 4.75." A pencil mark was placed at 1.25" from the top right corner and another mark was placed at the bottom at the first 2" score line.

A trimmer was used to trim diagonally from the 2" score line to the 1.25" mark. The paper was then folded, accordion-style, starting with a valley fold at the 2" score line. This produced the "skirt" pleats. It was necessary to trim off .25" from the right end for the folded piece to fit exactly on a 4.25 x 5.5" matte.

Because there wasn't as long a piece of paper to work with as in the tutorials I referred to for this technique, the amount of patterned paper showing from the opposite side was not a lot, but the technique was still effective.

We applied liquid glue to the back of the pleats and then used a sponge and Early Espresso to add detail to the top of the pleat folds. The top pleats were then glued in place.

Using the MISTI, the sentiment from the Help Me Grow Stamp Set was stamped with Rose Red ink onto the bottom right corner of a 4.25 x 5.5" Blushing Bride matte, after finding the correct position with the pleated panel.

The top 3.5" of the matte was then embossed using the Decorative Dots Embossing Folder. A sponge was used to apply Blushing Bride ink to the raised dots. The matte was then adhered to the Blushing Bride card base using Fast Fuse Adhesive.

A .75" strip of Dazzling Diamonds Glimmer Paper was adhered to the top of the pleated panel using Fast Fuse Adhesive, offsetting it about 1/8" above the panel. Dimensionals were then used to adhere the pleated panel to the matte.

The Big Shot and Magnetic Platform were used with the Botanical Builders Framelits to die cut the flower, leaves and fern from Garden Green and Rose Red card stock. Early Espresso was sponged on the edges of each and then the McGill Paper Blossom Tool Kit was used to shape the die cuts.

Placement on top of the Dazzling Diamonds strip was determined and then the leaves and fern were glued in place using both Fast Fuse and the Fine Tip Glue Pen.

A "thread nest" was made with Linen Thread and adhered with Glue Dots and then the flower was adhered with a Dimensional. An Iced Rhinestone was added to the flower centre to complete the card.

Our second card was a sympathy card created with the Rose Garden Thinlits Die.

The design for this card has appeared several times on pinterest in several color variations. It makes for a very striking card. However, nowhere could I find a tutorial as to how this card was made! Looking at the photos, it just was not immediately evident to me how the card was made. Because of this, I decided that I was going to work with the die to figure out how the card was made so we could make it in class! Hopefully, this will help someone else who is trying to make this card.

We started by using a 3.5 x 4.75" Sahara Sand matte and positioned the die on the matte so it hung off both the top and the bottom right by a little bit. We used a dryer sheet under the card stock to make it easy to separate the die cut from the pieces and we saved the right side of the matte from which the rose was cut.

Using a 3.5 x 4.75" matte of Blackberry Bliss, the retained piece of Sahara Sand was glued in place using liquid glue. The Fine Tip Glue Pen was used to apply glue to the die cut rose and then it was carefully laid in place on the Blackberry Bliss matte, placing the two largest petals of the rose die cut in place first. By doing this, the other edges of the die cut fall into place naturally, making it very easy to get the rose into place next to the Sahara Sand card stock piece. A piece of scrap paper was placed over the die cut allowing the die cut to be smoothed over with a hand to ensure it was properly adhered.

The sentiment was stamped on a scrap of Sahara Sand using Blackberry Bliss and then die cut. The edges were inked with a sponge and then the sentiment was adhered to the card front using Dimensionals.

The edges of a 4 x 5.25" matte from the now retired Painted Blooms DSP was inked with Blackberry Bliss and adhered to a Sahara Sand card base using Fast Fuse Adhesive. The matte with the die cut rose was adhered to the DSP matte using Dimensionals.

The second sentiment was stamped inside the card using Blackberry Bliss to complete the card.

I'm pleased with both these cards from class! Using the Stampin' Up dies can so quickly produce a stunning card!

Have A Cuppa Valentine

This morning I drew inspiration from the colors in the Inkspire_Me Challenge. The colors were lovely and coincided nicely with the Love Blossoms Designer Series Paper Stack. Of course they were also awesome colors for a valentine!

For this challenge, I knew I wanted to use the Cups & Kettle Framelits to create a card that represented a couple. To do this I wanted to use two cups facing each other with the steam wafting up to a heart above the cups.

The biggest challenge in creating this card was deciding on the patterned papers! Of course, all the papers in the Love Blossoms Designer Series Paper Stack coordinated but designing with patterns can be tricky. You have to choose colors and patterns wisely so that they don't overpower each other or look too busy. I finally decided on a Crumb Cake pattern for a strip at the bottom of the card and two Rose Red patterns for the cups.

I planned to divide the bottom and top by using a Blushing Bride ribbon from the Love Blossoms Embellishment Kit. This kit has all kinds of goodness in it! Satin ribbon, pearl trim, metallic doilies, sequins, glittered enamel dots as well as beautiful Rose Red bow clips!

For the upper part of the card, I needed to stamp on it so I would have chosen Whisper White but somehow all that bare whiteness was too much! That's when I got the idea to do a color wash on the background using Blushing Bride. This would give a lovely rest from the patterned paper while still providing some lovely texture.

I initially tried using the Watercolor Wash background stamp but it wasn't quite right. In the end, I decided to do a freehand wash so that I could control the amount of color I put onto the watercolor paper.

Using a flat paintbrush, I stroked on plain water to wet the watercolor paper. I then mixed clean water with some Blushing Bride reinker to create a very soft color and brushed it onto the paper. I used my heat tool to dry it and reshape it to its former flat state.

I used my heat tool to thoroughly dry the paper and then adhered a strip of Crumb Cake patterned paper to the bottom of it. I adhered a length of the ribbon over the top part of the patterned paper–it was starting to look really nice!

I used a cup die from the Cups & Kettle Framelits to die cut two cups, flipping one so that I had two cups that faced each other. I then also die cut some self-adhesive fun foam and adhered this to the back of each cup because I wanted added thickness for the cups. I used a sponge dauber and Early Espresso to ink all the edges to provide dimension and cover the white edges.

Using a Crumb Cake Stampin' Write Marker, I colored the modern heart from the A Nice Cuppa Stamp Set and stamped it at the top of the watercolor panel. I used the marker rather than the stamp pad because I wanted a looser looking, imperfect heart–one that could have been formed from steam perhaps?

At this point, I used foam tape to adhere the panel to a Crumb Cake card base. I chose the foam tape because I feel it works better with painted watercolor paper to keep it flat but popped up.

I cut a length of Metallic Gold Baker's Twine and unravelled it to get the gold thread. I placed a few glue dots on the spots that would be covered by the cups and then cut little pieces of the thread and stuck them down. Using Dimensionals, I adhered the cups and then played with the threads until they sort of stuck up like steam.

Using the banner die from the Large Numbers Framelits I cut a piece of watercolor paper. I gave it a Blushing Bride wash and dried it thoroughly. I then used Rose Red ink to stamp the sentiment. Because the sentiment stamp also contained a heart, I masked that with tape before inking and then removed it to stamp the sentiment itself. I inked the edges of the banner with Early Espresso and then adhered it across the two cups using Dimensionals.

I used the Confetti Hearts Border Punch to punch out hearts from both Crumb Cake and Rose Red card stock. I used glue to adhere them to the watercolor paper. My final task was to add little glimmer to the hearts by using my Clear Wink of Stella Glitter Brush.

I'm pleased with how this card turned out and it gave me a chance to use up a lot of patterned paper!