Holly and trees

In my Aug. 14 blog post I shared how I made my own stamps using Big Shot dies and some extra rubber from my clear-mount stamp sets. Fun, right? Well, today I'm going to show you two cards I made with those stamps.

Supplies (all Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted):
Stamps: Made from Stocking Accents die
Paper: Very Vanilla, textured Real Red card stock; Wild Wasabi Long Notes card base
Ink: Wild Wasabi, Crumb Cake
Accessories: Itty Bitty Accents punch pack, Dotted Scallop Ribbon Border punch, chevron twill ribbon, silver baker's twine, silver chrome Pearl Pen (Viva Decor)

I discovered that the best thing about using these stamps is that you can tell exactly where you are putting the image. Because the stamps were cut from a die, the entire piece of rubber is what you stamp; there is no rubber border around the images. That made it very quick and easy to line up the trees on this.

I started this card by stamping the Crumb Cake tree. I eyeballed the placement about one-quarter of the way in from the left side of the Very Vanilla card stock. Then I stamped the Wild Wasabi trees, one on the left and two on the right of the Crumb Cake tree. To embellish the trees I glued a punched red heart to the Crumb Cake tree and used a Pearl Pen to add silver dots on the green trees. I adhered the Very Vanilla panel to the Wild Wasabi card base and covered the right edge of the panel with a piece of chevron twill ribbon (the reverse side of the ribbon is plain twill), a bit of a scalloped red border and a piece of silver baker's twine.

Supplies (all Stampin' Up!):
Stamps: Tags 4 You, holly stamps made from Stocking Accents die
Paper: Very Vanilla, Real Red card stock
Ink: Real Red, Old Olive (ink pads and markers)
Accessories: Corner rounder, Old Olive grosgrain ribbon, Large Polka Dot embossing folder, Dimensionals

To make the background for this card, I stamped groups of two or three Real Red circles on the Very Vanilla card stock for the berries and then stamped the Old Olive leaves. The images needed more detail, so I used the coordinating markers to add faux stitching on all of the leaves and berries. I rounded the corners of the panel, embossed it with the Large Polka Dot embossing folder and wrapped it with a piece of Old Olive ribbon. I adhered the panel to a Real Red card base and added the tag and ribbon tails. (There is a punch that coordinates with the tag image, but I don't have it, so I cut this one out by hand.) This card is a little busier than most of my Christmas cards, but it's definitely festive.

Have you made any of your own stamps yet? Give it a try and then see what you can create with them. Thanks for stopping by!

Masculine vintage simplicity

This week I'm organizing a friend's stamping and scrapbooking supplies. I know that doesn't sound fun to a lot of people, but I enjoy it. It's like a big warm fuzzy for my left brain. I've got a ways to go, though, so today I have just a quick blog post featuring a clean and simple masculine card.

Supplies (all Stampin' Up!):
Stamps: Feeling Sentimental, Lovely Little Labels
Paper: Crumb Cake, Basic Black card stock
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Crumb Cake
Accessories: Linen thread, Vintage Trinkets, Jewelry Tag punch, sponge, Dimensionals

I kept the supplies for this card to a minimum: two neutral colors, a few stamps and a couple of embellishments. My first step was to sponge Crumb Cake ink around the edges of the layer of Crumb Cake card stock to create an aged look. I stamped the bicycle image in Crumb Cake ink and then stamped the "Celebrate" sentiment in black so it partially overlapped the bicycle. For the top part of the card I wrapped a piece of linen thread twice around the Crumb Cake card stock and tied it in a knot. I put two small tags -- one with a stamped key image and sponged edges -- on a safety pin and pushed the pin through the knot in the thread. To add another metallic element I placed a mini button brad in the center of each wheel. Using Dimensionals I adhered the entire panel to a Basic Black card base.

Thanks for stopping by!

Cupcakes, stitches and dots

I've found that when I buy a coordinating punch and stamp set, I often end up punching the shapes out of plain card stock or patterned paper rather than punching out the stamped images. So I gave myself a little challenge to use the Cupcake Builder punch with the coordinating (retired) Create a Cupcake stamp set.

Supplies (all Stampin' Up!):
Stamps: Create a Cupcake
Paper: Whisper White, Chocolate Chip, Coastal Cabana, Calypso Coral card stock
Ink: Chocolate Chip, Coastal Cabana, Calypso Coral, Crisp Cantaloupe; white gel pen
Accessories: Cupcake Builder punch, corner rounder, Note Tag punch, Large Polka Dot embossing folder, Subtles Candy Dots, Coastal Cabana ruffle trim, Mono Multi liquid glue, Dimensionals

I started by stamping, punching and gluing together a whole bunch of cupcakes in various combinations of Calypso Coral, Crisp Cantaloupe, Chocolate Chip, Coastal Cabana and Soft Sky, but I ended up using just three of them, which was perfect since the card was for a three-year-old's birthday. I used Dimensionals to mount each cupcake on a card stock tag created with the Note Tag punch, and with a white gel pen, I created a border of faux stitches around the tags. For the center tag I also adhered a piece of Coastal Cabana ruffle trim around the back of the tag.

To make the card base I embossed the front of the card with the Large Polka Dot embossing folder. I then rounded the bottom corners and added a faux stitched border. Using Dimensionals I adhered the tags to the card. For a little embellishment I added three Calypso Coral Candy Dots.

Thanks for stopping by!

Extra stamps!

I hate putting exclamation points in my post titles -- it's the editor in me -- but I was so excited about my latest discovery that I couldn't help it. Let me back up a bit. Normally I buy stamps in wood-mount style rather than clear-mount because I prefer to have them permanently mounted on wood blocks. But when it comes to Christmas stamps, I've been buying more clear-mount stamps because A) I only use them for a limited time each year, B) they're cheaper, and C) they take up less space.

So this afternoon I was going to use my new Bright & Beautiful and Nature's Peace stamp sets (from the soon-to-be-released 2014 Holiday Catalog from Stampin' Up!) for the first time. As I was pulling the die-cut stamps out of the piece of rubber, I realized that there was a lot of extra rubber with these sets, and several places that would be big enough for another stamp. Light bulb!

I looked through my Big Shot dies for ones that had smaller shapes, and two of them -- Autumn Accents and the retired Stocking Accents -- were perfect. I cut apart some of the bigger pieces of extra rubber, placed them over the die on the shape I wanted to cut and ran them through my Big Shot as usual.

And just like that I have a few "new" stamps. And because the rubber was from a clear-mount set, I can just peel off the paper, stick them on a clear block and stamp away. This also would work with the extra rubber from wood-mount sets, but you would need to either have extra wood blocks on which to mount the stamps or add the cling foam so they could be used with clear blocks.

I know this isn't a huge discovery, but I was excited to find a way to use something I otherwise would have thrown out -- and to get a few extra stamps, too. (Note: To see a couple of cards I made using some of these stamps, check out the "Holly and trees" blog post dated Aug. 30, 2014.) Thanks for stopping by!

Ombre silhouettes

For awhile now I've been admiring hand-made cards that feature ombre techniques, which are shaded or graduated tones of a single color. Last week I finally tried the technique myself, creating this masculine birthday card:

Supplies (all Stampin' Up!):
Stamps: Pocket Silhouettes, It's Your Birthday
Paper: Chocolate Chip, Pear Pizzazz, Wild Wasabi, Garden Green card stock
Ink: Chocolate Chip
Accessories: Chocolate Chip taffeta ribbon, Houndstooth embossing folder, Stamp-a-ma-jig, Dimensionals

For my focal layer I chose three shades of green card stock: Pear Pizzazz, Wild Wasabi and Garden Green. I cut a 1-1/2" x 3-1/4" piece of each color and taped them together on the back so they wouldn't move while I was stamping. I used two of the images from the Pocket Silhouettes set and stamped them several times across the top half of the green card stock. To hide the bottom edge of the stamped images, I wrapped a piece of ribbon around the card stock, and then I stamped the sentiment along the bottom of the focal piece. I matted the piece with Chocolate Chip card stock and then used Dimensionals to adhere everything to an embossed Chocolate Chip card base.

This card could be used for any occasion by simply changing the sentiment. You could even make a set of cards with this design and use different colors for the ombre technique. Thanks for stopping by!