Woven Strands Blog Hop

Welcome to the final stop on Club Scrap's August 2015 blog hop! If hopping along, you got here from Anne Marie's blog. To start at the beginning and see the list of all the blogs in this month's hop, check out the Club Scrap blog.

This month we are featuring the Woven Strands collection. You can check it out here. 

I've been away from blogging for a few months (and papercrafting, too, for that matter), but I have rediscovered my mojo and hope that it sticks around for a while. I find I'm much happier when I'm productively creating, don't you? 

The next few months are going to be quite busy for me. We have our daughter's wedding in October (and all the busyness that surrounds such events) plus my wonderful husband and I will celebrate 30 years of marriage in November. We just might be taking a trip abroad! I'm determined to send out Christmas cards this year, so I'm trying to get a head start before things kind of get crazy. I decided to use Woven Strands to try out an idea to make some simple layered cards with a bit of texture.

The papers are from Woven Strands, and the Merry Christmas stamp is from the Silent Night collection (2010). Here are the elements I used to create this card and two others (see final pic to see all three cards).

Cuttlebug embossing folder called Christmas Wreath

Impression Obsession die (could also use a circle die and hand-cut an ornament top)

Woven Strands collection stamps

Spellbinders circle die

(Excuse the glare on the blue ornament!)

Materials
Woven Strands cardstock--white, dark green, burgundy, blue
adhesive, fiber

Supplies
Embossing folder
Circle dies (optional ornament die) 
Unmounted stamps: Silent Night, Woven Strands collection 
Club Scrap inks--sapphire, fuchsia, leaf, white

Hope you like my Christmas creations with Woven Strands. I plan to make some more and stock up for mailing in December. 

Well, that does it, hoppers! To revisit any of the blogs, go to the Club Scrap blog for the master list, and join us next month when we feature the September collection, Transformations.

Until next time!

Lisa Kay

Cinema Blog Hop!

Welcome to my stop on Club Scrap's Cinema blog hop! If you got here from Tiare's blog, you are right on track. If you stumbled across my blog and want to go back to the beginning and/or see the listing of blogs in this hop, head over to Club Scrap Creates.

This month we are featuring projects made with the classy and "full of memories" Cinema collection. How many of us remember "The End" (or "That's All Folks!") at the end of cartoons and movies or remember what "filmstrips" looked like? I love big and little screen creations, so this kit is one of my favorites!! The memories I have from just looking at the prints in this picture make me smile.

Creativity has been hard to find lately. You know, when you have a lot on your mind it's hard to relax and let creative juices flow. In the meantime, my papercrafting supplies are sitting in the studio wondering when I'm going to break out of this rut and play!!!

I missed the hop last month because of this crazy rut I'm in. I mean, for me to miss an opportunity to play with a floral kit--now THAT'S crazy!! I was not going to let it happen this month, though, and here we are on the day before the blog hop. Nothing like a deadline to force the creativity to flow. 

I'm a scrapbooker at heart, but cardmaking just screams "doable!" to me when I have little creative mojo. So, I grabbed some ink, the Cinema Greetings to Go pack, and some basic scrapbooking tools. And here is what I came up with. Just three cards for now, but they were fun and got my creative juices flowing. (Let's just hope they keep going!)

This first one uses one of the great cutaparts included in the pack. I didn't do anything special to this except mat it on a piece of Wine cardstock and punch out the circles with a 1 1/4-inch circle punch. On the Metallic Grey panel, I stamped a row of movie reels from the Art Nouveau stamp sheet. A simple card, but it got me going. :-)

I've mentioned before that I receive a set of dies each month from Paper Wishes. This month's die set is a Christmas theme, and I was excited to see how I could use these dies with Cinema cards.

Source: Paper Wishes

This card is the largest in the GTG pack. It's essentially three panels with the largest one (Aqua) folded over onto the others and then secured with brads. I die cut three wreathes and two bows for this one. The wreath looks great cut from Wine cardstock. I added glitter glue on the berries and popped the bows with a little foam tape. 

This card is smaller and perfect for OWH. The light colored panel looks almost white in the picture, but it's really Cinema's Aqua cardstock. I repeated the wreath, bow, and glitter glue on this one and offset the panels. 

Well, th-th-that's all folks! I hope you enjoyed my little stop on the Cinema blog hop. Your next stop is Marya's blog. I can't wait to see what she's created this month!

Until next time,

Lisa Kay 

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.

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!

It's Blog Hop Time!

Welcome, Hoppers! If you have just left Tiare's blog at iClassyGirl.com, then you are at the right place. If not, then hop on over to Club Scrap Creates to start at the beginning of this month's hop, so you don't miss any of the fun and creativity!

The featured kit this month is Lock & Key, and I challenged myself to come up with a Christmas card for this kit. The name doesn't really cry out "Christmas," does it? I knew I really had to put my thinking cap on! (To see the Christmas card I made with last month's Take Wing kit, go here.)

So, I was looking at the UM rubber, and the large words caught my eye. As a Christian, I believe that Jesus is the embodiment of these words: Hope, Faith, Love, and Joy. I realized that I had my connection between Lock & Key and Christmas!

 

I paired the words with the holy family and a snowflake from the Silent Night (December 2010) unmounted stamp sheet. Such unique artwork, don't you think?

Here's one of my final cards. Below you find the basic steps I used to create this unique card and four others.

However, if you are ready to hop on, your next stop is Marya's blog at A Notebook Novel.

I chose to work with five cards in the Lock & Key Greetings to Go pack. It's so handy to have cards that are precut and scored, with panels that fit so well! The pack even includes envelopes; I told you it was handy! Each month the Greetings to Go pack has 15 card/panel/envelope combinations (in three sizes) with cutaparts and fibers. One of my favorite Club Scrap products! (It's hard to tell, but those tan-colored panels are actually metallic--too cool!)
 

 

To start the cards, I stamped each of the ivory panels with the words using Club Scrap's Sandstone ink. An acrylic block with lines on it comes in real handy for keeping words straight.

 

On the words, I used CS Earth ink to stamp the holy family, then added snowflakes at half strength. Some folks call that "second generation" stamping. You just ink up the stamp, then stamp once onto scrap paper and then onto your project. You get half the amount of ink. I like the way Joseph, Mary, and the manger really stand out darker than the other elements. I stamped five similar ivory panels.  

When using metallic paper, I love to emboss it--there's something about the way the light hits the raised areas on metallics. Anyway, I used a Fiskars embossing plate for four of the panels and a Cuttlebug folder for the fifth. Since this Cuttlebug folder doesn't have an all-over design, I wasn't sure how I was going to use it, but I came up with a way. Below are the embossed panels. The fourth one is the Cuttlebug one.

And here, again, is my favorite of the five cards. I just layered the stamped and embossed panels on the card base and added some torn handmade paper and brads (the paper was from a 2003 (?) CS kit called Evergreen. I like the addition of the green for Christmas, but a deep red or burgundy would look nice.

Below are the other four cards. You can see the way I used the Cuttlebug embossed metallic on the top card--just cut along the image with a craft knife to create a frame.

I hope you enjoyed a little early Christmas cheer using Lock & Key in an unexpected way. Next month's kit is Fire & Ice. Oh, dear!!

Thanks for making it to the end of my post. Your next stop on the hop is Marya over at A Notebook Novel. I'm looking forward to her Lock & Key creation!