Graffiti Greetings to Go

Hello, blog hoppers! Thanks for stopping by as you hop along the Graffiti Blog Hop. I'm sure you are enjoying the fun and creativity of the various bloggers. You may have arrived here from Tiare's blog (iClassygirl). If not, go to the beginning (and see the entire list of bloggers) at Club Scrap Creates. 

I'm a scrapbooker at heart, but for the past year I've really been enjoying cardmaking. I'm not sure if it's the smaller size, the fact that I can complete a card in less time than a page, or the amount of cards I can create in one crafting session, but I really like making cards. 

For this blog hop, I pulled out my Graffiti Greetings to Go pack. Every month, the G2G pack includes enough materials to create 15 cards in three different sizes. First, I made this trio of cards. With Valentine's Day quickly approaching, the love theme is quite appropriate.

In my attempt to use more of my older supplies this year, I pulled out some Zig Writer pens to color in the stamped Love image from the Graffiti Greeting Unmounted stamp sheet.

The heart and string image, also from the Greeting UM sheet, makes a fun and whimsical background on the white panels. For one card, I stamped the hearts in Club Scrap Fuchsia ink, coloring with three Zig writer pens. A second card was stamped using CS Onyx ink (no coloring to allow the "Love" to pop). The third card background was created from the paint splatter stamp on the Graffiti Art Nouveau stamp sheet.

Here is another card I created from the Graffiti Greetings to Go pack. The preprinted panel (love those!) had "Congratulations" printed on it. I actually have plenty congratulations cards in my greeting card boxes, so I stamped "Life is beautiful." onto a piece of white cardstock and trimmed it down. (That stamp is also on the Art Nouveau sheet.) I wanted to matte it with the same black as the large matte. Black papers come in so many shades that sometimes it's hard to get a perfect match. Using the exact paper fixed that problem, and I remembered a trick that Julie (Cape Cod Scrapper) showed us in a Club Scrap Creates post last summer. You can read her post HERE.

I adhered the stamped panel to the center of the black matte. Then, I used a craft knife and cutting mat to cut out the black piece--allowing plenty of space around the stamped panel.

After trimming the black matte with a paper trimmer, I mounted it to the center with black foam adhesive. You can see the dimension in the photo below. Layering the orange panel onto the black, then onto the white card, no one will ever know that I took a piece from the center of the black panel. (Sneaky, but smart!)

And there you have four of the cards I've made using the Graffiti Greetings to Go pack. 

Thanks so much for stopping by. Please hop along to Marya's blog: A Notebook Novel to see even more Graffiti creations!

Have a crafty day!

Lisa :-)

Stripes and Hearts

I haven't been participating in many challenges lately, but I recently acquired some new supplies and wanted to play with them. The January OWH* challenge hosted by Our Daily Bread Designs is to use stripes, so I pulled out my new 6x6 pattern papers from Gina K. Designs (newly acquired item #1) and cut 1" strips to create the striped backgrounds.(*Operation Write Home)

The other new item in my papercrafting studio is the Love & 5 Hearts die set from Hot off the Press. You can see the dies in their online store HERE. I thought it was a great purchase since we are nearing Valentine's Day. And they combine very well with my new Love Letters pattern papers. :-)

The cards are simple, yet intricate, with the layered die cuts. That's my favorite thing about cutting shapes with my die cutting machine--the intricacy. And the way these hearts fit on and in the other hearts really adds some interest and complexity to the designs. The die cuts were all cut from Club Scrap cardstock--my very favorite paper!







I'll be sending these cards in my February package to OWH. I've challenged myself to send 12 cards a month in 2014. While the Valentine card deadline has passed, since these don't say "Happy Valentine's Day," they are acceptable. After all, love is in style year-round!

Until next time, blog readers!  ~~Lisa Kay

Aspen Blog Hop

Welcome to the Aspen blog hop! If you are following along, you got here from Tiare's BLOG.  If you have stumbled upon my blog or got here from Facebook, you can start back at the beginning to see ALL the amazing creativity from the bloggers this month HERE at Club Scrap Creates.

With this being Christmas week when the creative juices sometimes flow more slowly, I opted for a simple project this month. (This is mainly because I created this project the day after Christmas, when my energy level was low from all the festivities! I'm a natural procrastinator, though I've been trying to change that for years. I'm afraid it's too late.)

Here's the card I created with my Aspen kit. I call the technique "layering with ink" because there are no paper layers. In fact, the only paper used is a 5.5x8.5 piece of Almond paper.

Ink Layer 1 uses the 5.5x8.5 Almond paper folded in half, Club Scrap Hybrid Ink (Moss), and the leaf border stamp from the Aspen Borders and Backgrounds UM sheet.

For Ink Layer 2, tear off 3/4 inch from the front of the card and ink with Club Scrap Hybrid ink (Earth).

3rd Ink Layering Technique uses the group of trees stamp (also on the Aspen Borders & Backgrounds sheet), the same Moss ink, and a brown marker. I stamped once, then again (without reinking the stamp) a little higher and to the right to create more trees in the distance. I wanted more trees behind those on the left, so I inked the stamp again and stamped onto a scrap paper, then stamped some background trees on the left side of the first image.

For the greeting, I used a 4th ink layering technique with Moss and Earth CS inks, Post-It notes, an ink applicator, and the Happy Birthday stamp from the Aspen Greeting unmounted sheet.

For this technique, I ripped a little bit off the sticky ends off two Post-It notes, covered the area where I stamped the greeting, and lightly sponged ink over the tree trunks. Repositioning the Post-It notes, I inked under the greeting.

And that is how I used inks to create layering on my Aspen card. I have to admit that I was very tempted to add ribbon or other embellishing, but I held back and let inks take center stage.

Bonus project: For Christmas, my oldest daughter gave me a framed picture of her and her fiance from their engagement photo shoot. I'll have to ask her for another picture for the frame, because I just had to create a page! The papers, green ribbon, and buttons are from Aspen, while the words and alpha stickers are from Bridges (February 2006). Leaves are from my stash.

Thank you for visiting my blog. I hope you have been inspired to create something with your Aspen kit. If you don't have a kit, you can get one HERE. 

The next stop on the hop is Marya's blog. Click HERE.

Gnome Blog Hop (sans gnomes)

Greetings, hoppers! Welcome to the special Club Scrap Gnome for the Holidays blog hop. If you found me from Julie's blog, you are in the right place. If you've stumbled upon my blog and want to start at the beginning of the hop, go HERE.

This hop features this year's fun Christmas stamps, Gnome for the Holidays. I purchased the unmounted (UM) stamps (below), and I fell in love with the holly stamps. (My first born daughter's name is Holly. She wasn't born at Christmas--named after her maternal grandmother's family, Hollingsworth.) I just smile every time I see Holly, I mean holly--well, I guess both of them!

This is the project I made. It features the holly stamps (bottom right and center left of the picture), and it looks so pretty sitting on my piano. I might have a hard time putting it away after Christmas!

Here are the items I used to create my home decor project:

• 6x6-inch canvas
• 5.75x5.75-inch Red cardstock from Comics (February 2011)
• 5.5x5.5-inch Green translucent from Ornamental (December 2009)
• 5x5-inch White cardstock from Comics (February 2011)
• UM stamps from Gnome for the Holidays (2013) 
• UM stamps from WOW Holiday (2012)
• Stencil from Gnome for the Holidays (2013)
• Club Scrap inks--Moss, Ruby, India Black
• Ink applicators
• Position It board (actually just the acrylic plate and small L)
• Acrylic mounting blocks
• Clear ruler
• Pencil
• Eraser 
• Die cut machine
• Scalloped circle dies
• Black photo corners
• Pop dots
• Heavy duty adhesive (I used 1-inch red-line tape)

I used the small "holiday wishes" greeting in the center.

The inspiration for my project came from a video I remembered from three years ago called Pinpoint Rotation. You can see it HERE. Tricia used a stamp from the All That Jazz Jr (Lite) (November 2010) collection, and as soon as I saw the large holly stamp, I knew it could be used for that technique. If you want to recreate my project, I highly suggest you check out Tricia's step-by-step video.

I only stamped the image four times, so I only needed to draw two very light lines with my pencil forming an "x" on the 5x5-inch white cardstock.

Using India black ink, I stamped the holly onto the acrylic, then I placed the acrylic onto the white cardstock where I wanted the stamped image.

Keeping the acrylic in place, I positioned the black L tightly against it, then replaced the acrylic with the inked stamp (below).

The key is to hold everything in place to ensure the stamping is where you want it.

Repeating the process: Placed the stamped acrylic where I wanted the stamped image, nested the L against the acrylic, then replaced the acrylic with the inked stamp (on its acrylic block).

Repeated the process two more times. This is how it looks with the four images stamped. I knew I was going to cover the center with my sentiment, so I wasn't really nit-picky about the way the center turned out. Of course, if I wasn't going to cover it, I would have been more exact with my stamping.

 

The next step was to color the leaves and berries. The stencil that comes with the UM stamps is an overlay stencil--what a fun way to combine stamping and stenciling!

My completed image. I set it aside for a few minutes to ensure that the ink was dry, then I erased the pencil lines. Not an easy task, so I was careful as I could possibly be.

To dress up the white canvas, I inked the edges, creating a green frame. I then inked the small holly border stamp and stamped three times on each side of the canvas. I really like the way that turned out.

I then layered my inked image onto the green and red papers, adding black photo corners. I also lightly inked the edges of the white cardstock with black ink. Stamping the sentiment onto white cardstock, I die cut it using a scalloped circle die--also die cut a red scalloped circle. The circles were added to the center using pop dots for dimension.

To ensure the cardstock adheres to the canvas well, I used very sticky red liner tape around the perimeter and in the center.

 

Here's a side shot of the project. I like how the holly border mimics the stamped images on the front. What a fun pair of stamps!

Thanks so much for making it to the end, my friends. The next stop on the blog hop is Annette's blog. Click HERE to continue hopping along.

Card Box Using Versailles

Last week, Club Scrap featured a quick project on their blog--a case to hold a set of eight greeting cards. It's a great gift idea! You can see the pics, instructions, and video tutorial here.

I haven't made the cards to go in mine, yet, but here is the card case. It's made from the kit called Versailles. 

I only used two sheets of 12x12 paper--cream and blue with a silver print. The envelope wrap and stamp pocket on the inside were stamped with some of the Versailles unmounted stamps. (The ribbon closure is from an older kit called Ivory Elegance.)

This really was a fun and quick project. I'm going to make some cards to put in the pocket, and I'll be making some of these using other kits, too!

Fire & Ice Blog Hop!!

Welcome to Club Scrap's Fire & Ice Blog Hop! If you are following along, you may have come here from Janet's blog. If not, or if you need to start at the beginning, check out Club Scrap Creates.

The November 2013 kit from Club Scrap is an interesting mixture of warm and cool colors and hot and cold designs, hence the name: Fire & Ice. Don't these colors just scream "burning hot!" and "freezing cold!"? Lovin' it!

When thinking about this blog hop, I was trying to come up with a Christmas card like I did last month with Lock & Key. You can see that card here. I could have used the red and gold, but there is a really cool "ice" stamp on the Borders & Backgrounds stamp sheet. 

See it in the top right hand corner? Very unique! And although it's quite rare to have icy Christmas weather here in Georgia, this stamp did make me think of snowmen, and I love a "white Christmas" as much as the next girl.

Here are the supplies I used for my icy blue Christmas card (though I did change out the white StazOn ink for my much better Club Scrap white pigment ink pad). 

• Black StazOn Ink
• Faded Jeans Ranger Distress Ink
• CS White Pigment Ink
• Two shades of Blue and the White Glossy Cardstock from Fire & Ice
• Icy Background Stamp (Fire & Ice)
• Snowman Stamp from CS 2005 Christmas Collection
• Post-It Note
• Small Snowflake Stamp from CS 2010 Happy Holidays
• Snowflake Brads
• 3/4 inch Blue Ribbon from CS 2009 Birds of a Feather
• Greeting Stamp from CS 2009 Joyful

First, I stamped the cute snowman on the Post-It note with black StazOn ink and trimmed out the lower part to create a mask (the sticky part is at the bottom of the snowman's body). Then I stamped the same cute little guy on the white cardstock. This StazOn cleaner is great for cleaning the stamp (I love clean stamps!).

I used the stamped Post-It note as a mask and covered the stamped image on the white cardstock. Then, I covered the lower part of the cardstock with the ice stamp inked with the distress ink. Peeled off the mask and voila! the snowman is standing on the ice!

To prepare the blue panel, I stamped it with small snowflakes using the CS white pigment ink (I stamped first onto scrap paper to make a lighter image). Adding three snowflake brads adds dimension to the background.

I "fussy cut" the snowman. No Copics in my studio since I'm not much of a color-er, so I pulled out my old Sakura micron pens to add a bit of color to my little guy. And to add more dimension, I added foam squares to the back of the white piece. On the front, I added a strip of ribbon and a fun sentiment to go with the fun snowman.

And here is my completed card. I love the effect that the masking does--the snowman looks like he's sitting on an icy hill, and he's as pleased as he can be!

If you've made it this far--thank you! I hope you like my fun Christmas card using papers and a stamp from the Fire & Ice collection. 

Your next stop on the hop is Marya's blog, so click here. Happy hopping!