2-For-1 Edge Stamping Trick

Hi, stampers! Here are two birthday cards I made this week. The stamp set I used is Inkadinkado's Organic Fabric Flourish. I have had it for years and have maybe used it only once. I stamped the black swirly motifs with Memento Tuxedo Black ink because I wanted to spotlight parts with Copic markers. 

The "happy birthday" sentiment is from Altenew's Halftone Happy set. I created a cut file on my Silhouette Cameo to cut out a number of layers from cardstock to pop up the happy.

I accented the cards with heat-set Swarovski Crystals. 

Here is the video I watched where the amazing Jennifer McGuire explains how to quickly stamp two cards at once!

FFC17 - Colour Challenge

The current Festive Friday Challenge is a colour scheme, per:

Those felted acorns are adorable! I used this as an opportunity to try the Bordered Sentiment tutorial at Splitcoaststampers.

Stamps: Waltzingmouse Stamps

This card measures 5.25 X 7 inches. The sentiment was stamped in Versafine Majestic Blue and the snowflakes were stamped in StazOn Metallic Silver. I'll also enter this in the WMS Christmas Card Challenge for October which is rumoured to be a one-layer card. That's all she wrote!

Chalk One Up For 2013!

Happy New Year! Here is my first card for 2013. Hope many more will follow!

This was my first try at creating a faux chalkboard effect. Lots of fun. It is a technique that is forgiving of stray embossing powder, crooked lines, and smudges. Perfect for me!

I want to try again now that all the tools and supplies are out all over my desk. A great tutorial for making this type of card is on Betsy Veldman's blog. Give it a whirl!

New Beginnings

It's the monthly Waltzingmouse Stamps Blog Party, and the theme is New Beginnings. How lovely for April, don't you agree? I decided to make a wedding card.

Rhinestones are clear and sparkly in real life!

I started with this pair of cameos from the Cameo To Go set, stamped in Mango Madness Versamagic Chalk Ink on blue matte coated cardstock. I surrounded them with a label border from the Rescue Remedies set. (I cut away the sentiment from the inside of the stamp to leave the border. That's one of the nice things about excellent quality photopolymer stamps like those from Waltzingmouse - you can cut them apart and not worry about them tearing.) I cut this couple out with a Spellbinders Nestabilities Labels Four die, and created a mango mat (cream cardstock rubbed with the same chalk ink) with the next size up.

Finished card 5.5 X 7 inches.

The background for this card was made by pouncing the mango chalk ink over the flat (unraised) side of an embossing folder, then running cream cardstock through my Cuttlebug. This impressed the ink on the lower level of the cardstock and left the relief (raised) areas free of ink. There is probably some clever name for this technique, but I can't think of it right now!

Besides the gratuitous bling of the rhinestone flourish, the other feature of this card is the "reverse rosette" placed in an oval window in the lower half of the background. I got this brainwave in the middle of the night and took time off work this morning just so I could try and execute it!

I glued three of the smallest strips from Tim Holtz's Mini Rosettes die set into one huge Slinky-like oval. Using the tip I shared in this post, I corralled the Slinky in a Creative Memories oval cutting template (thick acrylic) to arrange it to my liking.

Inside oval template.

Here's an angle shot of the reverse rosette peeking out around the edge of the oval background. I added a slim melon oval (cardstock coloured with the same ink) to set it off.

Compact Sentiments set, embossed mango ink.

This reverse rosette made the bottom of the card quite thick, so to balance the depth of the upper portion of the card, I stacked two layers of foam tape and affixed to the underside, which matched the rosette depth perfectly. This card will not be mailed so I won't be getting dirty looks from the postmistress!

Just a parting shot of the lower half of the card featuring a greeting from the Compact Sentiments set. Sure, I might have got a similar effect using ruffled lace instead of pleated paper for the frame, but I enjoyed the challenge of trying this out and seeing if I could make it work! Thanks for sticking with me this long. Now head over to the blog party and see what other New Beginnings are being celebrated!

Framed reverse rosette.

Rosette Tip and Christmas Cards

I have created a few cards for the March 2012 Christmas Card Challenge in the Waltzingmouse Stamps Forum, which is to use the colours blue and brown on our cards. In the process, I stumbled upon a clever way to help in the assembly of paper rosettes (near end of post).


My first attempt with this colour combination was only so-so. It's a card for Santa to leave behind on Christmas Eve. I adore the vintage border stamp that I used to create the background "wallpaper" with Vintage Sepia Versafine ink.

Not sure if you noticed, but the "tree" set is actually Santa's shoe! Here's the heel:

I tried again, using the current Waltzingmouse Sketch Challenge sketch for my layout. (See the two snowflakes in the background?)

You might notice this is a tad grungy. I am currently taking the Tim Holtz Creative Chemistry 101 online class, exploring techniques using a number of his products. When I made this card I was messing around with Distress Inks, so went a little crazy with the Vintage Photo and Walnut Inks! I used a new stamp that looks like striped ticking on the right hand side of the stamped background. Love that new stamp!

For my third and final Blue and Brown Card for Christmas I had the itch to make a rosette.

I happened to use a Tim Holtz die to make mine, but you can make these easy enough by accordion-folding a long strip of paper. For this card, I used two strips to create a large rosette. In doing so, I discovered a neat trick.

After I joined the ends of the long strip together, I needed to press down on the center of the vertical standing rosette to make it lie somewhat flat, and then attach an anchoring base such as a disk of paper to stabilize the rosette and maintain its circular shape. I tend to be all thumbs with this maneuver.

Inspiration struck! I spied a spool of tape on my table and realized the large circular opening would nicely corral my rosette, freeing up both hands to glue the base down. (I realize if you have not made a paper rosette, this won't make any sense. But for those of you who have, you'll get the "Aha!" moment I had.)

Spool of tape.

Creative Memories circle making tool.

The spool of tape worked well, but was a little large for my rosette, so I tried an acrylic Creative Memories Circle Template tool with a slightly smaller hole and it worked perfectly. 
Then I started looking around for other items, and this small roll of tape with a standard size hole was perfect for smaller rosettes. The circular shape holds the rosette snugly, and gives me the option of distributing my accordion folds evenly before glueing down the base piece (seen below in the upper right corner).

Hope this tip is helpful to you! Thanks for stopping by and scrolling all the way down here to the end!

Dollar Decor & Ribbon Trick

What can you get for a buck these days? Or what could you make for a buck these days?

Quite awhile ago I was at the Great Canadian Dollar Store and came across some Making Memories hanging photo frame kits. They were one dollar each.

Each kit contained three cream metal embossed frames and a length of pink ribbon. The ribbon alone was a steal at this price! I took them home and stored them for a year or two, and finally got inspired. I needed something new for a wall in my loo.

I started by pouncing Ranger Alcohol Inks (Stream, Lettuce and Denim) over the metal.

I lightly sanded the high points of the embossing to expose the shiny aluminum surface.

I stamped and heat-embossed some nautical images (Crafty Secrets) in brown onto some aqua cardstock to mount in the apertures. I had some Martha Stewart printed ribbon in pale aqua/brown floral print that seemed to coordinate. (More on the ribbon bows in a sec.) Here is the completed wall hanging.

Perhaps the BEST part of this project (which was completed in less than half an hour!) was the clever way the ribbon bows are formed. The photos on the back of the box explain it better than I could (below) and I can see using this method again on cards and boxes and such.

Hope this inspires you to consider upcycling a bargain!

Perfect Die Cuts Every Time

A first for me - a photo tutorial!

If you own Spellbinders dies, you may have noticed that all are not created equal; some have more flat border around the cutting ridge, or the ridge is not centered on the flat border. This makes knowing exactly where the cutting is going to occur a little tricky - which matters if you are trying to die cut a stamped image or even a specific section of a patterned paper.

I thought I would share this little trick I use all the time that I learned from my local stamp store owner (Steve Thomson, Stampers). It is actually really easy - don't let the long-winded explanation scare you off.

This tip works for all Spellbinders dies - or similar thin dies. I have not tried it with the thicker steel rule dies, but it probably would work with them, too. For this tip, let's assume you want to stamp one of the amazing Vintage Ornaments from Waltzingmouse Stamps and then use the corresponding 2010 Heirloom Ornaments Spellbinders die to cut it out so that it is nicely centered with equal amounts of border around it.

"Special" supplies needed: plain light weight paper, removable tape.

1)Take a piece of plain text weight, printer or loose leaf paper that is about an inch bigger all around than the ornament die you want to use, and lay the die in the center of the paper (ridge side down).

2) Affix one or two pieces of removable tape to the edge of the die cut at the top OR on one side. (In photo above, tape is on the left hand side.) Put the tape on the metal and the outside paper; don't have any tape laying over the inside aperture of the die. Run through your die cutting machine of choice. (I use a Cuttlebug.)

3) Leave the die in place on the paper, but pop out the die cut, so the die is now sitting in the paper with the ornament-shaped hole in the center. Set aside.

4) Now stamp your ornament image on your card stock or other substrate.

5) Pick up your newly created paper and die "frame" and lift the metal die out of the way using the "hinge" of tape you created. Keep the die attached to the paper - just flip it back so that you can see the paper frame underneath. Lay that frame down on top of your stamped image and line up the image to center it inside the paper frame. You will be able to see exactly where the stamped image will sit inside the cut lines.

6) Once you have things aligned nicely, carefully flip the die back in place over top of the paper frame and the stamped image. It will "seat" into the paper frame over your image. If you look closely at the photo below (click on it to enlarge) it might appear that the die is not lined up accurately. This is because the flat border on either side of the ridge is not even. However, we are not eyeballing the placement; we are assured it is correct because we aligned our image to the cut frame template instead of relying on the appearance of the die's flat border.

7) At this point, you can place the unit of die, paper and substrate into your machine and cut. (Or, if you want to be extra secure in placement, you can add a piece of removable tape to connect the outer edge of the paper frame to the substrate underneath. I don't bother.)

8) Voila! A perfectly aligned cut image will emerge from your die cutting machine!

I have embossed these with the paper still in place and as long as you use thin paper to make your frame template (as opposed to cardstock) it works well. Click on the image below to see the embossed edge.

I save the paper frames and store them with my dies. I even store some of the smaller ones still attached to their dies so I don't have to re-tape next time I use them! I'm just lazy that way. 

I hope you will try this - and if you do - let me know how it goes. I am sure you will be pleased with this exact placement instead of the old eyeball method that seems to work 80 percent of the time - but never when you really need it to!

Snow Day!

Yesterday we had a freak little mini blizzard that shut down the roads for a bit - so I called a snow day and told my staff to stay home. This meant I got a bonus day to play with some stamps!

I made this Side Step Card. I got the directions here from Julie Davison. The cupcakes are gold peel off outline stickers and I laid them on double-sided tape, then sprinkled clear glitter over all. I coloured the glitter with Bic Permanent Markers. The flourish is a Tim Holtz die and the flowers are Cuttlebug dies. I gave the stem and flowers the same glitter treatment. I gold embossed the Stampin' Up! sentiment.

I had a few extra cupcakes so I got out the Waltzingmouse Frame It set of stamps and put together these two bonus cards.

The snow day could not be stretched to two, alas, but I was pleased to have something to show for my day off! I have entered this in Meredith's week-long Blog Birthday Challenge.

Swinging Z-fold Valentine

Happy Valentine's Day, Mom!

I created a Swinging Z-fold Valentine card using Spellbinders dies and Tim Holtz papers and Distress Inks. The Stampin Up Hodge Podge Hardware in silver provided a frame for a small sentiment. I covered the words with Glossy Accents.

I got the directions to make this type of card from here: Splitcoaststampers Tutorial. I actually foolishly used my Cuttlebug to cut the hearts. The front ends up being three layers and the paper and cardstock I used were too thick for  my machine to handle. Next time I would just cut each layer separately and then glue them together, instead of trying to run all three layers through at once. This was an expensive lesson, but I really like the card even so!