You - Are Simply The Best

Rooted in Nature Stampin' Up! New Tree set with dies

Playing with ink is one of my favourite parts of my crafting.  It always fascinates me to watch what the ink does and where it goes depending upon what you've done with it.  My stampin' re-inkers come into their own on days like this.

First of all I stamped and heat embossed white leaves on a piece of water colour paper to create a resist effect over the paper.  To add the colour I  painted small parts with water to give the ink that I then added somewhere to 'run'.  As the colour ran I moved about the paper adding new patches of water and different colours so that as they ran they would blend into each other.  You can use any colours that blend, but be careful not to go too mad or you can end up with brown or worse.

Also remember to paint the reverse of the card with a thin layer of water as this helps to stop the paper from bending and curling.

Once this had dried completely I used a die which is for embossing only to add some more texture in the form of veins to the leaves.  I didn't have the embossing mats at the time I made the card so just put the die face down onto the paper and ran through the big shot.  It left enough of an indentation to give the effect I wanted and allowed me to line up the die better with the stamped leaves, although this isn't always a perfect fit as I didn't want to tape the die in place as it risked tearing the water colour paper when I removed the tape.

I also cut two leaves from whisper white card and used the die to emboss them also.  I wrapped silver thread around the stems to add a mini detail and some rhinestones.  The sentiment is a combo of products but the black lettering makes it pop and the black matting layer helps project the colour.

Have some fun with your ink and also take a look at the embossed leaves I created in my White on White Christmas Card.

Thanks for stopping by.

Zoe x

Amazing Friend - Happy Birthday

Amazing You + Lovely Inside and Out + Cake Soiree = Stampin' Up!

Earlier this week I shared a couple of cards that I made using the fabulous Cake Soiree stamp set from the Stampin Up spring catalogue.  I also shared a video tutorial of how I created the 'smoosh' effect on the flowers of the cards.  I had several flowers left over and like many of you I'm sure I didn't want them to go to waste so I created this card which was for a dear friend of mine on her birthday.

To begin with I flicked ink from a calypso coral and berry burst marker pens by simply putting the end of the pen nib just into the lid and flicking it out of the lid over the card stock.  You can see it creates a very gentle and subtle spatter effect.  I stamped 'friend' from Stampin Up set Lovely Words in fresh fig ink and also 'for a great' onto a spare piece of whisper white which was then punched out with the classic label punch. This is adhered with stampin dimensionals also.   I added the remaining flowers from my earlier project using glue dots and stampin dimensionals.  My amazing die cut is also one I had spare from a stampin up party I held and was die cut with the double sided adhesive sheets as described in my you tube video here.

You can just see my addition of a little fresh fig card stock at the bottom of my design which was created using the ticket tear border punch.  This is a particularly good punch for mens cards.  The design layer of the card had a bow of white baker's twine added around it prior to being stuck on with stampin dimensionals.   The card is a DL size the base is cut at 21cm x 21cm and scored at 10.5cm and fits in a DL envelope.

As crafters we tend to keep every little scrap and off cut, but sometimes it's actually a good thing to use them and find a use for them rather than overloading your craft room.

Thanks for checking in and I hope you like my short and sweet video with some helpful smooshing, heat embossing and delicate die cut tips.

Hugs
Zoe x