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

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!

Challenge for Pages of Pictures

Erin, the blogger of Pages of Pictures, has a tutorial challenge going on. She has challenged her readers to pull out an unused/ unloved tool and create something with it. I chose my Wizard Embosser by Spellbinders, as it is one that I have recently fallen back in love with. Since buying it a few years ago at a Stamping Expo, I've used a number of things to run through the machine with Club Scrap cardstock, but I'd gotten tired of those things and hadn't used it in a long time. Then, when doing a Little Fat Book swap this winter with the Club Scrap Chat forum, I received a lot of 4x4 cards using a unique embossing template, which I later learned was called Cuttlebug (this is by Provocraft). Now, I'm not going to go out and buy another embossing machine since I already have the Wizard, so I did some research and found out that I can use the Cuttlebug embossing folders with my Wizard! I ordered a few of the folders, and when they arrived the other day, I pulled out the Wizard, dusted it off, grabbed some luscious Club Scrap cardstock, and embossed away! I was so impressed with the result! I've made two projects with my old tool (the Wizard) and my new toys (the Cuttlebug embossing folders).

The first project is a little booklet to keep my Wizard Recipes handy. This info is from the Spellbinders website, and it gives lots of ideas on how to use the Wizard to cut and emboss items, and how to stack the plates, cardstock, and embossable items to run the "sandwich" through the machine.

My second project is for the spring Little Fat Book swap at the Club Scrap Chat forum. I ran the blue base paper through the machine with another floral Cuttlebug embossing folder. The pic shows the decorated side and then the back of another 4x4 page. I like the way the embossing dressed up the foundation page.

So, now I've gotten my old tool back out and I'm glad I did. Now I have to order more Cuttlebug embossing folders to play with! It's much better than the Wizard sitting around gathering dust.